Getting to discard a card at the end of your turn is part of the core mechanics of it I'm pretty sure, we play it that way as well at any rate.
I totally understand how you feel about the UM crap getting thrown about, they are the posterboy for the SM faction as a whole and so it's easy for people to pick on them specifically too when they want to discredit the entire SM faction. I got really invested in what people said here on this site about lore/rules and a lot of it got under my skin (especially if it was any post by Traditio), heck sometimes it still does when I'm caught off guard but I always try to ground myself in my local group. We have great players who are a lot of fun not only as gamers but as people, we all love the fluff and can have meaningful, intelligent discussions about the rules even if we disagree with each other.
I feel your pain a bit here too as an Eldar player, the Eldar hate is insanely strong on the internet. First it was wave serpent spam then the 7th dex dropped and people lost their minds. Trying to explain to people that the dex is really well written except for the WK and scatbike spam (honourable mention goes to the aspect host formation but really lots of factions have at least one formation that stands out as stupidly broken) seems to always fall on deaf ears. Most people on the net don't seem to want to understand that an Eldar CAD made up of a huge swathe of the dex can be both fun to play and fun to fight without being insanely overpowered. It does parallel with RL a lot too in my opinion, people hate Eldar as a whole faction because of two standout poorly written units and refuse to play against them and spout hate towards any Eldar player they see much like people treat the Muslims of the world today. One very tiny percentage of extremists have become the face of the religion as a whole to the uninformed and now we got insensate rage and bans/violence against Muslims of all walks. It's disgusting to see this side of the human psyche.
It must press doubly hard on you Nev as you do play Eldar and UM as well. Just know you're not alone, the wise people don't shout like the chaff do, so you don't hear us as often or as loudly but they're out there and they understand you. I support you buddy and for one am excited to see what love your chosen faction gets.
I have never seen that bait pic before, that is awesome lol. Yeah I don't normally bring up real world topics here but I'm gunna use the excuse that Nevelon started it
This guy is done for now. Well, except for those spots the close up showed me I need to tidy up. Once I finish his buddies, and the paint has time to fully dry/cure, I’ll do the stripes. But he’s painted and playble, so gets to sit on the done shelf for now. Even did a little edge highlighting on the pilot. The new bikes paint up darn fast. Old ones had some exposed wire/gribbles that needed attention, but these are all sealed up and smooth. I’d like to see if I can paint two of his friends before I move, but the sensible side of me is yelling that I need to get packing. I move in a week.
Speaking of RL stuff, things are looking up. I’ve got all my ducks mostly lined up to move. Just need to schedule movers to lug the furniture down there and get a certified bank check. I do need to get some larger boxes to pack, hopefully run out and pick those up this afternoon. I had a job interview yesterday that went well. Hopefully get a call back for that. And got a job offer as well. Which is both good and bad. puts me in a bit of a moral quandary. It’s not the best job. Minimum wage, accounts receivable cubicle troll stuff. But it’s a paycheck with benies. I’d rather have the job I just interviewed for. It pays more, is 20 minutes closer, and is copier/printer support, which is closer to my field. That job is also a 1 year contract, with the possibility of full hire/extension. Not sure what the benefits look like. Right now my tentative plan is to hold open the option for the AR job as long as I can while waiting for news from the copier support. Part of me is yelling that I should just take the long term full hire job, but I don’t really want to work there long term anyway.
CREEEEEEEEED wrote: Congrats on the job prospects. The bike looks nice and smooth, but I'm left with one question. Why do you have a bunch of ducks?
To get them in a row of course!
Is that just an american idiom? “To get one’s ducks in a row” is to have everything lined up and sorted out. If you’ve ever seen a mother duck leading her ducklings, you would understand it’s roots. Neat and orderly, ready to go.
On that note, I got most everything done today. Movers scheduled, bank check acquired, boxes purchased. The one issue outstanding is the one that will impact you guys a lot more then me. I called to get cable/internet set up, but found out that the previous tenants hadn’t canceled their service. So I couldn’t get it set up in my name. Of course, if it’s still on, I might be able to just plug in and go!. We’ll see.
I’ve started boxing up my hobby stuff. Nothing active at the moment, but all my random sprues went into a banker’s box. More of them then I thought. Did some consolidating and trimming as well. All the tiles/card/dice for BaC and BoP went into one box, all my transfers and banners went into a ziplock. I’m keeping one copy of all the instructions I’ve acquired for models, but tossed any duplicates. Getting rid of some old boxes. Make my inner packrat unhappy, but a lot of it is junk.
Going to leave the paint station until last minute, as well as the YTD shelf. Packed up all my KR full of minis. Still have 50+ random marines and eldar looking at me from the shelf. Plus all my WHFB stuff. Need to get some plastic trays and loose foam and improv some transports for them. Or stash them somewhere that’s not going to be moved out from under them and make a second trip once I empty my cases. Most everything should be done by the movers the 15th, but I have until the 19th officially. Longer if The Wife is willing to bend a little.
I think I will try to get those bikers done. Some paint therapy will help, and nothing else is going into those slots in the foam.
Edit: Funny thing about that biker. I woke up this morning, and my sleep-addled mind had a little panic attack. I had finished painting the rider black, but completely forgot to paint his arm silver! He’s not done at all! Sometimes changing gears between armies is bad for you. #Deathwatchproblems.
Need a few more coats of red for coverage, and probably at least a touch-up on the black. Then the grey edge highlighting on the pilots. These guys really zoom along. Funny that... Probably another two trips to the bench and they will be done.
I should probably give some thought to how I pack up my workbench. Make it easier to organize later. I already put all my basing stuff in one bin. But I think I’m rapidly approaching the “just chuck it in a box” stage of moving.
Hope everyone enjoys their weekend.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And done.
And all 3 together.
And the YTD pic:
Which will probably be the last one from my current place. Time to start boxing stuff up.
Eldar bikes, like the Eldar tanks, just paint up fast. Don’t know what it is about them. Imperial bikes/tanks are a slog to get done. Red ones go faster I guess.
brushcommando wrote:Nice. At this rate, that table should look nice and full come december.
My pace is unsustainable. At this rate (16 minis in 6 weeks) I’ll hit 138 done for the year. With is almost exactly twice last year’s production. I would also run out of models. I’ve got around 45ish guys primed. The Stormhawk and a few RTB01s built and waiting to be primed. The bulk of the BoP box still needs to be built, so that’s another 40 guys. Maybe another 8 marine bodies could be built, but past that there isn’t a whole lot of stuff to be put together. Some more RTB01s being stipped. But probably not enough plastic in the pile to reach that. I could go deep into the old lead and paint that, but let’s not go crazy here.
If I do keep up this rate, I’ll have to get a major supply drop over the summer, so I have time to build and prime it. We’ll see what the finances look like. If all goes well, I’ll loose a lot of time, but gain an income to offset it. So I’d end up painting less stuff, but more of the new shinies.
So I close on my new place tomorrow. Packing like a mad fiend right now. But I do need to pause periodically; I’m not as young as I used to be. So I thought I’d post a quick update while my back recovers a little.
I’ve got 7 KRU worth of foam, an old GW case, and my silver one. They are all full. Here is what I couldn’t pack and is waiting for the second trip:
I might have a hordeing problem.
I also packed up all my tools, paints, and pile of shame.
When not smeared out over a bunch or workspaces, it makes a pretty hefty pile.
Anyway, That’s life packed up and ready to go. In other news, it looks like I didn’t get the xerox job I was hoping for, so I’m going to start filling out the paperwork for the AR job. On the bright side, that won’t start until March, so will give me some time to settle in.
Happy Valentines Day everyone. Hug you loved ones, and tell them how special they are to you. Don’t take them for granted, and listen to them. You don’t want to end up like me.
Stay safe everyone. I might be offline for a bit while I get internet sorted out at the new place. Although I’ll be making enough trips back up here that I can probably sneak online. Or see if I can leach wifi off my new neighbors.
Your stuff is always a great pleasure to see, and your commentary is even better (from the perspective of this young'un). Can't wait to see new stuff after you move in!
Thanks guys. Move is going reasonably smoothly. Still no internet at the new place. I stopped by the old house to pick up another load of stuff and contact the cable people. And check Dakka!
Migration, phase 1:
Sorry for the blurry phone pic, just snapped it on the way out the door. I’m going to have to re-jigger the shelves. Eldar are going to get booted to the glass fronted bookcase, and the Ultras will take over all the china cabinet space.
Inevitable_Faith wrote: China cabinets: Excellent display cases for your Hobby collection because really who has fine china anymore?
And even if you do have it, how often do you use it? So if you are just going to display something nice looking, might as well be a few thousand points of minis.
Inevitable_Faith wrote: China cabinets: Excellent display cases for your Hobby collection because really who has fine china anymore?
And even if you do have it, how often do you use it? So if you are just going to display something nice looking, might as well be a few thousand points pounds of minis.
Fixed that for you.
That picture of what is left after having full KRU foam is insane. Truely.
Hopefully the move is going smoothly, and nothing goes walk-abouts. How's the new place on space? You were spread out quite nicely in your basement. I assume there is going to be a fair amount of condensing into smaller space. Will everything fit?
Inevitable_Faith wrote: China cabinets: Excellent display cases for your Hobby collection because really who has fine china anymore?
And even if you do have it, how often do you use it? So if you are just going to display something nice looking, might as well be a few thousand points pounds of minis.
Fixed that for you.
That picture of what is left after having full KRU foam is insane. Truely.
Hopefully the move is going smoothly, and nothing goes walk-abouts. How's the new place on space? You were spread out quite nicely in your basement. I assume there is going to be a fair amount of condensing into smaller space. Will everything fit?
ThIngs are going to be tighter, no lie. The big loss of space is the actual painting table. I’m going to have to split time between painting and building on the workbench. Might be rough finding a spot for the crummy white shelf that I use for overflow storage and the top of which is the place I store the YTD stuff. Still moving stuff and unboxing. On the bright side, I’ve not stashed much into the closets yet, and there are a chunk of those. It will be a while while I settle in.
For those curious, this is my new space: The 12x11 bedroom is going to be my office/workspace, but the main displays of my minis are going to be in the main living room. I’ll try to get some pics when I’m settled in with a hobby enough theme to host here on Dakka.
One reason it’s taking a number of trips to get all the mini is that I never had enough trays for basic troops. I mean, I have a lot, and can probably move a few hundred at a time, but the large bulk of my foam is custom trays for vehicles and the like. So things like the stormraven get a whole box for themselves, which is not that useful from moving the other stuff. All the WHFB cavalry also takes multiple trips. Some can fit into bike slots, but a chunk of the guys with lances pointing up need to ride in the silver case, which can take about 20 at a time IIRC. Just finished loaded up the second batch of stuff pictured on my paintbench, almost got it all. Just some of the more oddly shaped things left.
I’m kinda curious how much all my minis would weight, now that you mention it. The plastic adds up, some some of it is legitimately lead, not any of those new-fangled “safe” alloys.
Hope everyone has a relaxing weekend.
Edit: As I was loading the car, I found I has space for the rest of my minis. Loose packed in boxes with scraps of foam, but packed. Might be a few old grenedear D&D boxes, but nothing particularly relevant. Need to make a bunch more trips to get randoms stuff anyway. But I won’t have to bring my cases back and forth.
Why fine China when you could have the not-so fine Chinese 40k ripoffs? Answer: So many reasons. All sounds good so far, by far more hobby space than the tiny desk in my room!
By the Emperor! Is that natural light? No more shall I lurk in the basement like a troglodyte.
Starting to slowly unbox. Mostly so I can free up the boxes for another load. But also so I can settle in and get some normality going on. Still no internet. Kinda torqued at TWC. It should not be this hard. Oh well. At least Fallout 4 doesn’t need an internet connection.
Sneaking back into the house to post an update for you guys. And grab more stuff. And it’s not really sneaking, as The Wife knows I’m here. But anyway...
The unpacking continues. Most of the minis are out of boxes and on shelves. Still need to shuffle some around, but mostly the older stuff, some of which might return to boxes.
Got a game in yesterday at the FLGS. Team game. The Tzeench guy I played against a few weeks back (with a similar list) vs. Necrons. 2x2k lists vs. 4k of robots.
I put a list together based on the age of the minis. So it was a little odd. I thought I took a pack pic, but it’s stlll on my camera. I’ll upload and append it once I get internet at my new place (grumble). Lib conclave (2 power armor, on TDA) 1st co TF (assault teminators, 2xtacTDA, one with AsC and one chainfist, the other with HF 2xCFist)
CAD Chapter master TDA Chaplain TDA 2x10 man ML/F tac squads in rhinos 5 man naked tac Ven Dread AsC fist/SB MM/HF speeder
Game went long (shock) but we made it to the end of turn 4, so a good length. I’m not sure what the final score was on maelstrom points, but it was a victory for the ultras/tzeench side. And we all had a blast, which was fun. The Necron guy was happy to get some of his stuff to the table he doesn’t normally get a chance to.
OK, gota run. Need to load the car and make tracks before The Wife/Son get back from seeing a movie.
Hope everyone enjoyed their weekends.
--Nev
Edit: Forgot to add, going down to the shop again tonight with 2k worth of Death for AoS. Will post an update/pics when I can.
Not yet. It’s on the eventual to-do list though. He has shown an interest. But the last time I tried to teach him a slightly more complex then Risk board game, I had to constantly repeat myself and some things still didn’t sink in. So I think he likes the theoretical of more complicated games (probably to be more like me) but the practical is a little outside his grasp. When I have him for every other weekend, I plan on teaching him more games. But ramping up from simpler stuff first.
When I was partially moved out, I had cleared off the top of the 4x8, but not moved out all my terrain and such. I heard that The Boy gleefully borrowed all of it for his Lego battles. As I’m leaving the table behind (no space) that corner of the basement is now his to use. Should make The Wife happy not to have legos smeared all over the primary living spaces in the house. It’s not that She is anti-lego, but considers the volume we have excessive.
Victory over the Internet! After a seemingly endless string of barriers and issues, I’m online at my new place. Everyone I talked to was very helpful, just a lot of hoops needed to be jumped through to get online.
(edited pack pic of retro army upthread)
Actually got in two games of AoS yesterday. Although one was a demo game to re-learn the ropes. In theory it was filmed, so might sow up online. I’ll actually need to check with the guy and find out where his blog is. Edit: He just posted a link here on Dakka.
Then we played a 4 way game. Free play, with two heroes and 3 units double the base size. I think I was a little light on points, and decided to pull the crazy aggressive thing and get first grab on the objective. Held it for a little bit, then the pain started. Still a fun game.
When I was putting a list together (2k was suggested to me) I found I was actually a little light on skeletons. In AoS there are some serious benifits to bringing a large squad, and the battalion thing I was thinking of using needed 3 squads. So if I wanted to do a block of 30 spearmen and 2x20 blocks of hand weapon guys, I needed a few extra. So I packed 5 primed guys from the back of the bench. Didn’t need to use them, due to the mission we played, but they might get some paint quick. Shouldn’t take long to bang out.
While I was down there I finally broke down and picked up a new LR; the Deathwatch kit with all the options. Unfortunately, when I opened it up to check the parts it was missing one. Both of the shrouds for the TLLCs were broken off the sprues, and only one was found loose in the box. So I need to call GW and ask for a replacement. Been a while since I interacted with GW’s customer support, but I have high hopes it will work out.
GW's Customer Support is good, and normally a painless process. They'll get you the pieces you need. I even managed to blag a bunch of 32mm bases because I was "disappointed that they couldn't just swap the 25s in the command squad set to be consistant with the rest of the SM line". (How hard can it really be?).
I was suppose to have an AoS test game last night. I ended up heading home early and missing it for a couple of reasons. But it's on my to-do list.
Bless, the wifi has returned! Sounds like a good time down at the FLGS, need to pick up some AoS minis for myself! GW customer support has always seemed to have gotten high praise from most people, and with the new form the company has taken, this should all work out.
I'm liking the pics of your new digs, Nev! I myself need to get my stuff more organized. It's on my to-do list! As for the natural light, it really does help compared to flourescent light. Painted minis look better in natural sunlight, IMO.
It's also great that in the middle of all that hectic moving stuff you're able to still get a couple of games in. Helps ease the stress of it all, huh?
So replacement parts should be in the mail. For all the issues that GW does have, customer support has never been an problem. From the cover falling off my 3rd ed rulebook, dragons with 2 left wings, bubbles in the finecast fire dragons, to lascannon sprues missing bits, they are there for me.
With no internet, my options were to go to the FLGS to game, or go insane. There is a finite amount of time I can spent working on moving/unpacking before my back tells me it’s time to curl up and die. While I’ve been getting a bit of reading in, getting out and socializing is important. Plus it’s only a little under half an hour to get there, rather then the ~45min it was before. Much more likely to pop over for a game.
So I did some unpacking. Workbench is now fully armed and operational.
And now, I Paint!
OK, it’s just putting the base white down on some skeletons, but I got to start somewhere. They shouldn’t take that long to do. And have been lurking at the back of the pile since time immemorial. Might as well harness the drive of AoS and the game last Tuesday to get them done. I think there are a few more lurking about, I’ll see if they want to get done next.
Zambro wrote:Those skellies probably started as Empire swordsmen. It's just taken so long to get around to them they've decomposed
Nice to see a change from the Ultras. Of all the blogs I watch on dakka, I feel like I'm the only one who isn't painting 40k regularly.
You still paint 40k. Your ‘Fists are coming along nicely. Plenty of non-40k stuff out there, although it does make up the bulk of Dakka. Somewhere in the depths of my pile of shame is a handful of empire troops. Handgunners and spearmen from the 6th edition starter. I think I painted a few gunners, probably some more primed. Spears are still on the sprue.
JustaerinAtTheWall wrote:Nice to see some AoS minis here, an excellent change of pace from the bulky SM.
From a bulky POV, it’s hard to get skinnier then a skeleton!
One thing you have to give to skeletons. You might want to field them in 30+ man blocks, but they do paint up fast.
Just need to finish baseing them. I had some shields already done I can just glue on. They probably fell off some other, older, skeletons. But this is an eco-friendly undead army. Reduce, reuse, reanimate. Not everyone in the horde needs a shield anyway, just enough to get the point across. Plus the one guy is missing his lower arm.
And done. Really simple scheme. Base white, Silver/bronze/brown on what needs it, nulan oil the whole guy. Dab of red wash in the eye sockets. Probably more steps in the base.
The base is not the same scheme that the old ones are. The flock is the same, but those are entirely goblin green. I black rimmed these. I think it looks better. I’ll probably go back and do my undead army at some point if I’m going to be playing them. It’s not hard to do, just a tad tedious.
You may have noticed that another guy lost his arm. It’s a flaw in the kit. Probably something about where the plastic gets injected, but it’s a very common break point. I also need to either find a better long term place to set up the light booth, or I’m going to take less formal pictures. Well, I’ll probably take the same amount, but will stockpile the guys a bit and batch photo them.
I was getting ready to do the next batch of skeletons, and found there was only one left. Looking back at picts of my old bench, there were only 6 there. Oh well, last guy is started. I thought I had 8 of them. Checked the bits box, I have the parts to make one more. Plus some random arms/legs/heads, but only one torso.
Whenever I see a 40k base without a black rim I hurt inside. With fantasy models on square bases (not the newer AoS models) I think goblin green all over + flock is...
fitting.
All painted up they remind me of the Ray HarryHausen skeletons from the old Jason and the Argonauts movie. Very Cool. And the black rim does look pretty nice with the flock.
Whenever I see a 40k base without a black rim I hurt inside. With fantasy models on square bases (not the newer AoS models) I think goblin green all over + flock is...
fitting.
It’s not that I mind the all-green bases I did before. And they look good on a green table. But by keeping the rim black, it helps distance them a little from when they are fighting on a different battlefield. It’s the fact that kept me from basing my minis for years; why is there grass/snow on an ash/urban table? So by keeping them simply black, they fit everywhere. Didn’t necessarily match, but didn’t clash either. Since then I have been converted to the “not done until based” school of mini painting, so they need something.
brushcommando wrote:All painted up they remind me of the Ray HarryHausen skeletons from the old Jason and the Argonauts movie. Very Cool. And the black rim does look pretty nice with the flock.
They do have a bit of that look about them.
So it’s Friday. I like to post a status report at the end of the week, and it’s been a busy one. Plus a lot of musings on what next.
Got my workbench up and running. None of my clothes are folded, or even in the dresser, and the only things on shelves are my gaming books and minis, but the workbench is running. Says something about my priorities. OK, that’s a slight lie. I’ve got the stemware set and the kitchen mostly sorted out. Food, booze, and minis, what more does a guy need? That said, the unpacking slowly progresses. I have internet, but still need to sort that out a bit. Need a jack on the other side of the apartment made live. That would let me get my gaming rig back online. Not that I mind playing Fallout 4 and Civ V, but there are other games out there. Still some paperwork I need to get around to as part of the divorce/move, change of address etc. Nothing too critical, but stuff that needs to be sorted out. I’d like to get most of the apartment sorted out by mid next week. My folks are coming up for the weekend, I have The Boy, and start my new job on the 6th.
From a hobby POV, things should be looking up. I’m closer to the FLGS, so getting down there will be easier. On the downside, my job is in the opposite direction. Might make weeknights rough. In theory, I’ll be working a 8-4:30 shift, so even if it’s an hour drive, I could still make it down to the store at a reasonable hour. And getting home would be quicker. We’ll see how that pans out.
Having an income mean I’ll be able to spend money on new models. Some of this was going to happen anyway. I’ve got half a house worth of equity sitting in my bank account right now. Now that I don’t need to worry about how long that could keep a roof over my head, I can think about what I want to buy that would make me happy. The DW land raider was the first thing on my wish list I picked up, more things will follow. The big thing next month will be the Primarch. As I get settled in and get a better grasp of my income/expenses, more will follow. Still a number of things out there to account for.
From a painting perspective, I’ve got the last skeleton on the bench. He’s waiting for his wash now. Next month’s painting challenge is “Space Marine”. I think I’ll do the 30k apothecary. There is a reasonable 30k scene starting up at the new FLGS, I should get on board. Need to figure out what I need to make a decent army. Right now I just have a lot of 40k crossover stuff. I should look into what 30k shinies I could use. Saw a guy plunk down a 5 knight list, and another guy is working up robots. So it’s not just marines I need to deal with. I should probably get some paint on the RTB01s I stripped and primed. Maybe I’ll do a couple of them next. The MLs would be a good start, so I can field a heavy support squad. Might want to put together some of the last BaC guys with the spare launchers as well. A squad of them with the Master of Signals might be a fun combo.
As always, thoughts and opinions are welcome.
--Nev
Automatically Appended Next Post: I’m guessing this will auto-append.
Finished the last skeleton. Here is the new YTD shelf. Same as the old one, just in a new place.
GW CustServ wins again. I fired off the first e-mail with my problem on the afternoon of the 22nd. Just came back from lunch right now to find a package at my mailbox. Replacement sprue, in good shape. No muss, no fuss.
I’ll start putting it together shortly. But first, some destroyers. Started cutting bits this morning.
Off hand bolt pistols are going to be a minor problem. I’ve got 5 laid out. But that’s the extent of my supply. Should be enough though. The sarge will probably get a power sword, at least one guy will get the ML (depending if I go full 10 men, in which case I’ll need a second ML) One can can toss a grenade. So if I do a 9 man squad, that leaves 2 guys with chainswords and a holstered second pistol. Should make for a decent mix. Getting enough pistol arms pointing forward might be rough, I’ll have to dig around. The legs are also set up nicely that I think I’m going to mod them to be a bit more running. A ball of greenstuff at the hip join and minimal sculpting should make for a more aggressive advance. Basically just swinging the leg back at a bit of an angle.
Backpacks will be magnetized for eventual swap for JPs. Which I’ll eventually purchase from a 3rd party. Anvil Industry looks to have some nice ones.
CREEEEEEEEED wrote: Looking forwards to the destroyers. I feel your pain in trying to find left hand pistols.
From the selection I have, it looks like the Vanguard Vet box is a good source of them. I also have a number of old just plain pistols that I’d need to find hands with grips for. Probably cut some hands/arms off of plasma pistols.
A chunk of arms are not going to be era appropriate. One problem with magnetizing options is that it eats up your spare arms, particularly outstretched sword/pistol arms, at a ravenous rate. And I have a very slim selection of Mk. III/IV arms to start with.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
First two built. Although I tweaked the angle of the right guy’s arm up a little after I took the pic. And just noticed that he needs his grenades.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
A 5 man destroyer squad. One with a ML, sarge w/ power sword, and probably some phospex bombs strapped across his chest. Do not hug.
Still need to do sink magnets and do backpacks. And then the back half of the squad. One problem is that if I do another ML, I need to figure out a pose for it. This guy is reloading, or at least inspecting a missile, so the gun can be down and not clip with anything on his back. The normal pose sorta excludes most jump packs.
Pretty productive day at the bench. Been a while since I put something together. Was fun. These guys have been on my wish list to build for a while.
Looking good. I did some arm swaps on mkiii Marines, the wrist plate is actually pretty easy to get off a spare arm with a knife, drill and round hobby file. A little trimming of the elbow guard and they fit over the arm piece nicely.
Zambro wrote:Back the truck up... When did you get destroyers?!
The dual pistol action looks amazing.
These are just the guys from the burning of prospero box. With the ML from BaC, and the lion's share of the bolt pistols and extended arms remaining in my bits box. It was my intention from when I picked up the BoP box to do either 15 or 20 of them as breachers, and then 5-10 of them as destroyers. As I’ve not found any shields I’m happy with, I thought I could at least get the gunslingers done. Mk. III has that brutal face-first look appropriate for both squads.
JamesY wrote:Looking good. I did some arm swaps on mkiii Marines, the wrist plate is actually pretty easy to get off a spare arm with a knife, drill and round hobby file. A little trimming of the elbow guard and they fit over the arm piece nicely.
I did cut the hand off of one Mk III arm (to hold a grenade) but overall I’m not bothered with some non era appropriate arms. While there might be some rivet counters who get bent out of shape over those things, that’s not me. I do try to keep the bulk of my 30k stuff on track, but it’s not going to be 100%.
And the back half of the squad is done:
Looking at what they call a rad missile launcher on FW’s site, I feel no qualms about my kitbash. It’s basically the HB from BoP cut down to slot into the deathwind launcher from a drop pod.
I have a set of the Imperial fist ones, and they seem really nice. I'm very tempted by the round ones too!
I’ve seen them, still on the fence. I gathered my thoughts over in this thread where I did a bunch of research on different shields. The shapeways ones look nice and are the right size. They are also reported to have a grainy texture, and are a bit pricy. As I’m not in a huge rush to get them done, I’m hoping some better options show up. Or I start drawing a paycheck and blow it all on hookers and blowFW resin.
JamesY wrote:That's fair enough, I only did mine as wanted them to be very early great crusade. That rocket launcher looks fantastic
I have a lot of respect for people who want to get things exact. But I’m not that dedicated. And the guys are like 95% era appropriate. And the key aspects that define the visual are there. I do have to say, I felt very heretical today. One of the left handed bolt pistols had an aquila on it. I had to shave it off. I kept saying to myself “I’m not a traitor, I’m not falling to chaos” Knowing that very few models can bear that symbol in 30k and carving it off are two different things. But it was physically (if not spiritually) easy to trim, so I did make that effort to keep things kosher.
brushcommando wrote: Nice looking conversions. I really like the massive drop-pod missile launcher being man-portable.
In 30k they actually still use suspensers for some of the heavy weapons, including this one. So there is a little more wiggle room on what’s “man portable.” Finished the backpacks last night, so more minis for the to-prime box:
I’m also pretty happy how they turned out. Now I just need to wait for a day to prime. Saturday was actually 70 degrees here, but windy. And Sunday it snowed. I’d make some crack about global warming, or Mother Nature being drunk, but that’s not too far out of the ordinary here Upstate. A little odd, but not that far from the bell curve of normalcy.
Got a new TV yesterday. Going to have to shuffle furniture around. The glass fronted bookcase is going to have to move across the room. And it’s already full of minis. Sigh. Oh well, should be a one time problem.
Need to figure out what kind of list I want to bring down the the FLGS tonight. One problem with having a large collection is decision paralysis. With so much to choose from what do I pick?
Did a catch-up, and it's all lookin' pretty good! The Deathwind ML acting as a rad-ML is very clever and convenient for a jump-pack squad of destroyers.
So I decided to go dread heavy. And by heavy, I mean all of them.
Opponent was the green menace. Been a while since I’ve faced orks. Was a lot of fun.
He had a superheavy that shot 6d6 times a round with some nobs in it, some flash gits in a battlewagon, 3 squads of truck boys, 2 tractor cannons, a dakka jet, and some grots. 2 CADs, not sure what all his HQs were. Oh, and 2 of those auto-fire battlecannon fortifications.
Kill points.
He goes first, moves up, does some shooting, kills some bikes and some light damage to some vehicles, nothing major. My turn drop two dreads down in pods, one off to the side to deal with a truck full of boys that came over to harass my pred, the other behind the battlewagon. Neither does as well as I’d like. My duo of ven dreads with assault cannons net their first catch of the day, a squad of truck boys that moved up. Turn two he Waaaggghs. I seriously thing I’m going to loose the game right here. Both dreads I just dropped die, as well as the pred, vindi and my speeder. Contemptor as well. But this is the watershed. I weather the onslaught bloodied, but unbowed. My pod full of grav tacs lands. They evaporate the mega nobs. The bikes pull a lateral shift and kill the boss that just ripped open the vindi. The dynamic duo butcher a truck worth of boys and then consolidate towards the superheavy. He’s lost a lot of his teeth at this point. The rest of the bikes die (the tech had split off, and is sniping things with his c-beamer) He strips some HPs off the dreads, but nothing major Blows up a pod I think. My turn 3 sees my raven show up. Shoots down his dakka jet. I think this is the turn the pair of dreads punches out his superheavy.
The rest is mostly a mop up operation. Turns 4-5 are mostly my stormraven and dreads killing everything he has left. He’s not tabled, but doesn’t have a lot left when the game ends. IIRC it was 14-10 on kill points. I had all the secondary objectives, don’t think he had any. Solid victory for the Ultramarines!
Opponent was a great guy with an amazing army. Awesome conversions, some neat 3rd party stuff, and a decent chunk of RT lead in there as well. He has a blog, I’ll see if he posts something and see how it meshes with my spotty memory. Bit tired atm, so I might be mixing things up. If I can find it, I’ll drop a link in here. I know he took a bunch of pics.
My MVP of the game was the pair of AsC/Fist(sb) ven. dreads. They went through his army like crap through a goose. I think they killed 20 truck boys, a truck, the superheavy, the flash gits, and probably something else I’m forgetting. A pair of walking wrecking machines in a buddy comedy film. They waded into the last fight with one HP left each and one missing his AsC. Killed every last orc in those ruins. If I’m not mistaken, this is my 12345th post on Dakka. I’ve mostly stopped keeping track, but that’s a fun number.
Both my opponent and I were a little surprised. You don’t see them talked about that often in competitive circles, as the common wisdom is "they suck.” But the last codex gave them chapter tactics and +2A. Which helps them out a lot. One of the squads of truck boys they ate was intended as a tarpit to keep their powerfists away from his superheavy. 8 WS5 powerfist attacks is going to cut it way out in no time. I think between the overwatch and that I killed the unit on one turn (might have been a little understrength to start)
BS5 and UM chapter tactics means they get to hit almost all the time with their guns. In hindsight, I never made him re-roll damage, totally forgot. I just took the ven upgrade for the skill boosts.
In the post game chat, he said that’s how a lot of ork games go. On the turn they Waggghhh, they cause a huge amount of damage. But they have no durability, no staying power. So even though 2/3rds of my army was dead by my second turn, most of his army was spent at that point. It was still a little dicy for a bit, and a fun game.
Fun battle report! Seeing five dreads take to the field together is quite a sight. I may have missed it during the report, what point level were you playing?
Hopefully I’ll still be able to get down there on Mondays for games. I start work next Mon, and it’s going to be a bit of a haul to get there. But if I pack and army and leave in my car, should be doable. Probably miss the next one or two weeks as I get settled in though.
Edit:
I mentioned last week that the demo/intro game I played for AoS was filmed to make a tutorial. Here's a link Short little clip that gets the basics across. Mostly voiced over, so I don’t need to listen to myself, which is a nice bonus.
Sounds to me like a fun time was had! It's always nice to see an Ork battle every once and a while, always interesting. I don't know why people are so anti-dread right now, i'm using the previous edition codex, but they seem to work pretty well for me as anti MC & tank.
JustaerinAtTheWall wrote: Sounds to me like a fun time was had! It's always nice to see an Ork battle every once and a while, always interesting. I don't know why people are so anti-dread right now, i'm using the previous edition codex, but they seem to work pretty well for me as anti MC & tank.
There are a few reasons, some more valid then others.
There is a lot of S6-7 spam out there. It’s not that hard to glance AV12 3HP to death. And that’s just the front. Two of my dreads were killed by rear shots, and a few HPs from the AsC brothers were also from that angle. And they are still vulnerable to normal AV stuff (melta, haywire, LCs, etc.). The AV13 dreads are a little more sturdy from a distance, but are just as vulnerable to rear shots. Which they are probably going to expose themselves to if played aggressively.
Durability these days of often layered buffs. Stacking armor, invulns, FNP, re-rolls, etc. One of the problems with vehicles (not just dreads) is that they are mostly excluded from these.
A lot of the MCs we’d like to see them go toe-to-toe with can just open them up like a can of tuna. They are still good at punching tanks, But how many tanks need a dreadnought powerfist to crack open?
Their shooting, while nice, is not all that. You only get one decent gun unless you swap out the fist. So it’s 100+ points for a single heavy weapon? There are better options out there to get dakka to the table.
They are very flexible. Some shooting, some CC. Kinda tough, but not over the top. Jack-of-all-trades. 40k tends to promote specialists. Choose a job, and own it. For a dread to get it’s money’s worth, it needs to shoot up some stuff, power fist a few more things, and shug off small arms. All while traipsing across the table. Because you are paying for all those features. Now, in my game, the assault cannon twins did all that. Which is why they were my MVPs. The other dreads were not able to deliver that performance. Mostly because one of their flaws was able to be exploited by my foe.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the walking coffins. I think their flexibility is a major asset in a TAC list. They work great as a troubleshooter unit, able to shore up part of your plan once it starts unraveling due to contact with the enemy. But a lot of the competitive lists take a shenanigan/trick/combo, turn it up to 11, and ram it down your gullet. Make you react to them. If you can force someone to play your game, on your terms, it’s a lot easier to win. But I’m not a fan of that play style, so I’ll just stick to TAC lists. Where dreads do just fine.
I forgot my fresh paint report. I don’t think anything was new. The closest I had was the techmarine on bike. I think this was the first time with the c-beamer. Kinda fun. I’m normally not a big fan of small blasts, but that’s when shooting troop-like things. BS5 and centering the blast on a big tank/artillery piece makes it pretty accurate. Although I did vaporize a little cluster of orcs who took refuge in some ruins. And if you don’t have a spot in your list and just need to tack a HQ on, he works. Just flit about the back table edge and lob death blasts downrange.
Thanks for Linking to the AoS tutorial. My Dwarfs probably need dusting off, they haven't been fielded since 2015. I'm sure they'd appreciate some time on the tabletop.
CREEEEEEEEED wrote: Thanks for Linking to the AoS tutorial. My Dwarfs probably need dusting off, they haven't been fielded since 2015. I'm sure they'd appreciate some time on the tabletop.
I know the feeling. The last time I seriously put down an army was only once or twice early in 6th. That released in 2000. Most of my play was in 5th, so '96-2k. So that’s a decade and a half of dust on everything.
My WHFB forces saw more action this millennium as foes for the battlemat in RPGs like D&D. It helps that one of our GMs is very fond of using undead as bad guys. Them and demons. Good thing my armies were chaos and undead.
I think a lot of the action in AoS is in the list building stage. There are a lot of buffs and synergy between units that are subtle at first glance. On the table you need to figure out where to use them for max effect, and how to take out the lynch pins of your opponent’s plans. Game seems a lot more complicated then the simple rules imply.
I've started looking around and they've squatted so much. So much Nevlon. So much. All the cool Dwarf characters are gone. The Egyptian skeletons are gone. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm even sad that they got rid of the French.
CREEEEEEEEED wrote: I've started looking around and they've squatted so much. So much Nevlon. So much. All the cool Dwarf characters are gone. The Egyptian skeletons are gone. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm even sad that they got rid of the French.
Some of the rules are still there, lurking in the corners. Check out the (free) app, or download the PDFs if they are still there. When They hit the giant reset button, they did publish legacy rules for a lot of things.
I wonder if I have enough bretonians to put together a decent list. Friend of mine gave me his before he moved back to Texas. Would be a fun “out of left field” hit for the guys in the FLGS.
It's good for us to see these updates from you, Nev. Life goes on and such. I think I speak for us all when I say we're happy to see you back up and running.
Things are turning up and settling down. Although my folks are showing up for a visit tonight, with should shake things up a little in the short turn. But they are going to help me get set in the new apartment, so more long term stability. I should probably be getting ready, and should have done that yesterdays as well. But I went down to the FLGS and got in a game of AoS.
So 3 2k armies. I felt I could have probably done OK against the chaos forces, but am unsure if there was anything I could have done vs. the sigmarines. Even after the teleported behind the chaos player, and burned through his army like it was paper, I still couldn’t touch him. He was hitting/wounding on 2/3s, spamming mortal wounds like it was going out of style, and had some sort of armor re-rolling thing, so it was neigh impossible to get a wound in. I was chatting with the chaos guy after the sigmar player left, and we figured he was doing a few things wrong, but not enough to slow down the juggernought. And in the Sigmar guy’s defense, he is a very competitive player, but this was his first time with the army. So I’m OK with a nasty lists with a few play errors not being his fault; no malice and he was a cool guy.
Still nasty in spades.
Chatted with the guys about what I could do to try to make my army better. The problem is that Death is sorta in a bad spot right now. At least what I have. If I wanted to get a bunch of the ghouls side, I hear they are better. But in games with points, summoning is pretty nerfed. It lets you choose units on the fly, at the cost of your wizards time and ability to get the spell off.
One thing I noticed is that my anvils are not that tough, and my hammers not that strong. I’m used to my wights being and unbreakable block of iron that whole armies smash themselves upon. And my vampire a walking blender. But both of those jobs can be done better by the rank and file sigmarines. There are some buffs and synergies to be had, but nothing on the level of the other armies. And almost no mortal wounds, which seems to be where the action is. Next time I might risk bringing my dragon down and perching a vampire on it. Spirit Hosts look like they might make decent anvils. 3W with a 4+ armor save that’s immune to rend. 6 attacks, even if they are only 5+/4+ can do some damage, mortal wounds on 6s is a nice perk as well.
While most of my hobby budget is going to be focused on 40k, I might grab a box or two of fantasy if it would help. The start collecting box with the big mortach might give me a centerpiece model that can actually get things done. Not that I need more black knights/skeletons.
brushcommando wrote: Blech. Nothing to leave a bad taste in your mouth like a bad matchup. Hope your next game goes better.
I think next time I’m going to request a 2 sided game. If there are extra people who want a game, we can split points. I’m just not getting a good feel for the game with the multiplayer. Not that I’m not having fun, but you take any game and make it 3/4 sided, the interplayer metadynamics tend to dominate the actual gameplay.
Folks were here Wed and all weekend. I did my taxes Thursday (hint: if you are married, even just technically, file jointly), had The Boy all weekend, and just started my first day at the new job. Phew! Also did things like hang my TV on the wall, built some furniture, Sorted out the kitchen, put pictures up, etc. etc. I’m kinda wiped out, but the apartment looks a lot better.
And I found a scrap of time to get some paint in.
Not much, but forward progress. Just blocked out the parts I’m going to do in blue. Not getting sloppy here, as I want to keep the white prime clean. I know touch-ups are going to be a bear, but trying to minimize the trauma.
As a housewarming gift (and to help make Daddy’s place more appealing to kids) my folks got me an x-box one as a housewarming gift. Right now I’ve got minecraft and assassins creed syndicate. Anyone have any good suggestions for games to keep an eye out for in the used bin? I’m unlikely to pay full price, with what they are going for these days.
Nice apothecary! Is that forgeworld stuff or just the bits from the command squad on a calth marine? Also, if you want relatively kid-friendly games that are also fun for adults, see if you can pick up a cheap copy of star-wars battlefront. There's not necessarily a ton of content, but it's a pretty shooter that's gore and swearing free.
brushcommando wrote: Nice apothecary! Is that forgeworld stuff or just the bits from the command squad on a calth marine? Also, if you want relatively kid-friendly games that are also fun for adults, see if you can pick up a cheap copy of star-wars battlefront. There's not necessarily a ton of content, but it's a pretty shooter that's gore and swearing free.
Yup. Just the command squad bits and a BaC Mk. IV. Might be a spare bit from the box glued on somewhere, but nothing fancy.
I’ll keep an eye out for that. I’m up for a good shooter, and The Boy is a big Star Wars fan.
Looks really good so far! You're braver than me, i'm gonna avoid as much white as I can for my UM guy. As for Xbox games, if you've got any 360 titles, those work on the One now. The Halo series is naturally good, except 4 i hear. Forza is a good racing franchise, and I find Final Fantasy to be an excellent choice in RPGs if that's your thing. XV just came out about 4-5 months ago, and it's really good.
Good to hear things are going well Nev. I love apothecaries and I'm excited to see how yours turns out.
I wouldn't call it kid friendly but if you like challenging games with a great sense of accomplishment (and a surprising amount of depth) I'd look for Dark Souls 3, it's a third person fantasy action game. Any of the lego games (lego star wars is a great example) are also a great amount of fun. If you like MOBAs then SMITE is downloadable for free and is a great game as well. If you have xbox live always check out whats on the "games with gold" part of the store, I think they swap around every month but if you see one you like it's free and you get to keep it even after it swaps to the next free game.
Do not get SMITE Nev. Just don't. Get dota 2. Also congrats on getting all that done and finding time to get some paint on a model. The lego games are fun though.
Can you get Dota 2 on xbox creeeeed? I thought it was a PC exclusive title. I suggested smite cause I know it's on xbox and I find it much more casual than dota 2 or LoL.
I’ve got plenty of things to distract me from painting, one more is not going to tip the balance. Right now I’m doing something I’ve suggested to others, but not had to do for a long time myself. One layer a night, every night. Eventually you get a mini done! Not there yet, but seeing some progress.
I noticed on my old medic, I did part of the fist blue. Not sure if I should do that to the new guy. He’s got a few diferent details going on. I think I’m going to do the helixes in red, rather then gold, as he’s already got that on his shoulders.
Just a little progress, but finished up the base coats and started the washes. Brown down on the bronzes/golds/wires.
I think I’m going to try a little something. Give him a solid bath in nulan oil, and then clean up the white on all the flat places. See how it works. Worst case, I just go back over him with a thin white to clean him up. His fellow is a bit weathered anyway, so it’s not like he’ll be too different.
While I was painting him, I realized that context means a lot for this scheme. He’s an Ultramarine apothecary, not a World Eater.
Not anymore! Just put the wash on. All gritty and grimdark now. I’ll do my best to get him a little cleaner. This is one of those techniques that I’ve been meaning to try for a while. Normally the wash is the last step I do. But I’m going to go over all the major panels with another layer of white to try to bring him back, but leave the depths in the creases.
We’ll see how he turns out. Worst case, I just go heavy on the BftBG.
I was going to suggest getting a very sharp pointed brush and lining it out. From experiance (see White Scar army), a full wash is tough to come back from. It'd be much easier to just touch up the slight slips if you deliberably put the wash only in the creases. A full wash means your working back up to white from essentially a dark grey base. Expect a patchy first layer. I think it might even be worth doing it a bright grey. Won't even notice the difference on the TT (double-y so if you're going to weather) it and you'll save your sanity getting an even layer.
Yup. You were right. I’ll probably need another coat. At arm’s length thought it looks pretty good.
Need to re-do the eyes, they got a bit lost in all the washes and touchups. Plus a little gloss on them and the lenses, maybe the sword. And then some blood splatter.
Clean. hehehe. Mwahahahahaa. clean... chuckle... BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!!!
He’s not actually taking up Khorn worship, he just cut a catachan swamp leech of off a careless scout. Honest. Not a World Eater. Nope. 100% Ultramarine.
Almost done with him now. I realized I forgot to black rim his base, and I want to splatter a little more blood on the snow once it dries. And give him a little bit of a dusting, lots of loose flock still clinging to him. The rock was a little loose on his base, so I didn’t shake him off as vigorously as I normally do.
The white is a white generic primer (Rustolium) and ceremite white. Then the nulan oil wash, and more ceremite white. Nothing fancy. Probably about 2 thin coats both before and after the wash.
Glad to see the warning on the wash technique... sounds like there really is no good way to do it. I'm tempted to try a really thin Nuln Oil wash, maybe with some flow aid... but no, it sounds like the road invariably leads to a gray Marine. Hand-lining it is.
All done with the medic. Need to set up the picture booth, so might be a bit for final shots.
Hit the FLGS last night. It’s a bit of a haul after work (about an hour) but after the game it’s only 20min home. And I get out at 4:30, so even an hour on the road gets me there at a reasonable time. Game vs. Flesh Tearers. I went for an odd-ball null deployment list.
Melta tacs, grav tacs in pods.
HG in a pod, with Calgar, Cassius, and Sicarius. The primarch is coming back, so it’s a last chance for these guys to go out and party without Dad looking. I don’t normally field death stars, this was a tad unusual for me.
5 CC scouts in a LSS TacTDA squad with a HF.
Raven and Talon.
His list was a pair of Baals, Dante and a golden host (2 squads of guard IIRC), some AM on foot/pack, two tac squads in rhinos, and a furioso. Librarian and a priest.
Maelstrom mission where you draw up to 3 at the start of your turn and keep them secret.
Contact!
My goal here was to blow up a tank and try to snipe the librarian out with some flank shots from the HG. I did blow up one of the preds, but he was rocking his FNP save, so the libi lived. His counter attack works pretty well. One of the sang. guard squad plows into the HG, but the other one, with dante, scatters 6” in the wrong direction, putting him out of charge range. I loose some HG, and some wounds get handed out to my characters from assorted sources. Calgar bangs feebly on the AV13 of the dread (rolled for crap) Most of the melta squad’s halves get mangled, part falling back.
On my turn, all my reserves show up. +1 to my rolls from Sicarius made a big difference. I did mishap the terminators, as I was going for a more aggressive drop to support the HG, rather then a safer shot in the 6” beacon bubble from my remaining pod. They’ll be back next turn. With everything on the table, I proceed to blow the holy living stuffing out of him. My rave pops the rhino that’s been over on the side offscreen scoring objectives, The grav squad and talon (with a little support) kill Dante and his bodyguard. Other squads get shot up. Blood everywhere. Except the squads safely locked in CC. I think my deathstar finishes off the SG they were locked into, and slaps at the dread a little bit more.
A note on TacObj: I think at this point I’ve scored one, and he’s piled up 4-5 points. I was way behind on points. My mindset at this time was “table or loose”
I think this is the bottom of turn 3. My assault marines and talon are working over the dismounted tac squad (one survived their wrath) He lib/priest/AM blob is crashing upon the rocks of an irate scout squad who’s ride was blown up. Seriously funny dice there. I was rolling hot, he was sucking out. 5 scouts who should have died on the initial charge ended up laster 3 exchanges and took half a squad of flesh tearer assault marines down with them. My HQs split up to clean up the backfield and score some objectives.
The end game is a mad dash to mop up. Most of the fights in the midfield have devolved into slap fights. But there are 3 of them going on (plus the lone tac marine who gets chased down my my flyers) The terminators move in to help clean up, as the HQs rush from the backfield. On the bottom of turn 5, I need a few things to go my way, but I plan a little backup (the termis can multicharge if needed). As it turns out, I made the 8” charge with Cassus to finish his fight, the terminaotrs crump out another one, and that’s a wrap. I did manage to score a number of VPs last minute, but some of those were for wiping out 3 units in the last turn. If I had not done that, and the game had ended, he would have won. But I had 10 to his 9 points (plus linebreaker, FB, and warlord) and had tabled him. But a close game, and fun for all.
This may have been the first time I fielded Sicarius, not sure. He did OK on a personal combat front, and the reserves thing was nice. This was the first time I felt that the TH champ actually pulled his weight. He put that hammer down on a lot of things to good effect.
Hard to pick out a MVP. Everyone functioned well as part of a balanced army. I think the locator beacon on the melta tac’s pod might be it though. With such a reserve heavy army, it was key to bringing everyone down together. Special mention to the scouts for batting well above their pay grade, and tarpitting that unit for long enough for the terminators to port in and clean up.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Edit: Also, started the LR. The top back plate is just on loose for now, so I can get to the inside to paint.
Old one is supervising the construction of his new friend.
Zambro wrote: Sounds like a bloody battle. GJ on the win! I always found it tough to come back from being down on points in the maelstrom missions.
You're painting inside?!
In a few of my maelstrom games I scored a lot of points in the last couple of turns. If you are winning on the table, it can be easier to line up and score more cards. I’m also learning when to ignore the cards, and focus on the game. One of my starting cards was a seize objective one, off to the side. I could have dropped a tac squad on it, he had a tac squad in a rhino parked on it, would not have been a complete waste. But I had bigger fish to fry. So I didn’t score any of my opening hand. In some of my earlier games I’d squander units just to score points. I think there is a fine line between sticking with the battle plan and preserving your forces and scoring. Makes for a fun game.
The weather is a bit nasty to paint outside; we just got 2-3 feet of snow. So I’m stuck painting inside. Or did you mean the LR? I’d not going to go for a highly detailed job (if I was, I would have left it in more parts) but it’s going to get some basic work done on the interior.
A brutal display of force, showing yet again no chapter is fitting for combat against the full might of the Ultramarines! It's always funny to hear about a squad of scouts who go out and stand up to the might of marines, and win. They'll be Battle Brothers before they know it!
You toss those easy straight lines, I’m making the joke Z. No offense.
My scouts always impress me. I’m not sure if it’s because I start with low expectations (they’re just scouts). So when they do anything above average I take extra notice, but when they fail, I just let it slide. But they really did go above and beyond this game. Their LSS blew up, and then they were immediately caught in CC. Now they were part of a multi-charge, and the AM that were also there bore the brunt of the first turn, but not all of it. But their first round of swings was just shy of everyone hits and wounds. He makes some armor saves, but I pare a chunk of the squad.
That’s impressive by itself, But what comes next can be more put at the feet of his dice then my scouts. Although their second round of swings is also pretty effective. But there is a priest with a lightning claw, a librarian with a staff and a sarge with a powerfist in that squad. Not to mention the normal guys with BP/CCW. I should be calling the recruiters back on Macgragge and telling them to gather up a new batch of candidates; these guys are bloody chunks. But I think all that fury kills the two guys with shotguns. I might have killed the sarge before he could swing, don’t recall. I know he was dead before the terminators came to the rescue. At which point, they went down.
But they should have been a speed bump. They turned into a tarpit. Keeping that squad locked down until the terminators could come over and hammer them. And quite frankly, they were really just in the list to zip around and cap objectives. Anything else is gravy.
Prime white
Runfang Steel as the basecoat.
Nulan Oil wash.
The green soulstone paint over that.
The fact that all the different layers covered differently made for a decent variation is the shades on the blade. The overall effect makes for a nice flickering powerfield effect. I do enjoy the way it turned out.
Nice Apothecary I was wondering what you were going to do to that white layering,gotta say it looks well good like he literally just extracted some gene seed and became caked in gore,also cool dull glowy sword effect,definitely a fan of your ultramarine's voted on a load of them while i was checking them out,That is one sweet army you have there,intrested in how you expand it in the future you seem to have nearly everything the ultras field.
JustaerinAtTheWall wrote:Very nice! The Apothecary is suitably bloody, though I hope it's his enemies blood...
I generally find it’s not wise to ask too many questions to those covered in gore. Let’s just assume it’s either the enemies, or required for his duties.
u971 wrote:Nice Apothecary I was wondering what you were going to do to that white layering,gotta say it looks well good like he literally just extracted some gene seed and became caked in gore,also cool dull glowy sword effect,definitely a fan of your ultramarine's voted on a load of them while i was checking them out,That is one sweet army you have there,intrested in how you expand it in the future you seem to have nearly everything the ultras field.
Thanks. As for what to get, that’s easy:
On a more serious note, I’m going to splurge a bit more then just that.. I got my first paycheck in over a decade this weekend, and should be getting my tax return later this week. The question, as it frequently is, is should I blow it all now, or wait for more cool shinies to release later this year? I’m seriously considering placing a FW order, and not a small one. But up to the free shipping level.
The question is what?
Lot of pondering to do, input is always appreciated.
Lot of pondering to do, input is always appreciated.
That's a hard one, GW went crazy with releases. So many good kits for 30k and 40k, plus the Mastodon, the classic Thunderhawk. All those knights, and heck GW proper has that nice Deathworld Forest.
I feel like I'm in the same boat as you concerning that. (Also love that Psword effect.)
Ultimately, Nev, I'm excited to see what you get... Suprise us! But remember, new rules are rumored to be a few months out... Might be worth holding some cash back for those + any cool releases that come with it.
Stormwall wrote:That's a hard one, GW went crazy with releases. So many good kits for 30k and 40k, plus the Mastodon, the classic Thunderhawk. All those knights, and heck GW proper has that nice Deathworld Forest.
I feel like I'm in the same boat as you concerning that. (Also love that Psword effect.)
One problem with the big things is that I’d like to actually get some use out of it. And I’d rather get a few small/med things then one large.
Zambro wrote:Ultimately, Nev, I'm excited to see what you get... Suprise us! But remember, new rules are rumored to be a few months out... Might be worth holding some cash back for those + any cool releases that come with it.
Yah, I hear you there. Saving some cash for rules and other support items (like a second case and some more foam) is on my radar. And if GW continues their habit of releasing a HH box near my birthday, I’ll probably continue my pattern of buying it.
At the top of my FW wish list is the Sicaran tank. It’s a perfect mix of cool looking model with good rules.
I’m torn on the next step. Getting a Spartan seems a popular choice for 30k armies. Pack it full of deathstar, and roll over and kill something. But what if I could fit my deathstar into a normal LR? The Invictus Suzarian are awesome looking minis, and look like they fight like assault terminators without being bulky.
Then there are the accessories. Pick up a pack of lascannons to make a heavy support squad? Volkite chargers on a support squad with extra CC weapons looks like a fun aggressive little unit, and not badly priced. Do I just suck it up and get FW boarding shields? I could use more medics, and they and some of the other HQs look cool. Raipers?
So many toys, and even if I’m going a little crazy, I do need to keep it vaguely under control.
(and in the back of my mind, there is a filthy xenos whispering “superheavy grav tanksssssss”)
Speaking of superheavies, I do find (and I know this is heresy and I apologise to all my babeblades used in plans of tactical genius) that the fellblades are the coolest superheavies.
CREEEEEEEEED wrote: Speaking of superheavies, I do find (and I know this is heresy and I apologise to all my babeblades used in plans of tactical genius) that the fellblades are the coolest superheavies.
Not going to lie, they are pretty sweet looking tanks. Faced one a bit ago, and they seem to do pretty well on the table. But I think if I was going to just get a big box with some large guns, I might just settle for a baneblade (or variant thereof). Ease of access, price, and availability in plastic go a long way to raise their appeal.
All the DoW memes don’t hurt either...
Edit:
In tangentially related news, there should be a new unit winging it’s way to me in the mail. Nothing too fancy, and I’ll let it be a surprise. But I needed to get a new credit card, and Amazon’s looked like a decent deal. For signing up, they give you a $50 gift card. While the selection of 40k stuff available on amazon is a bit limited, there are a few places that offer some stock.
So one thing that was holding me back was figuring out how I wanted to magnetize the LR. Figured out something that should work. Now back to cleaning mold lines. Unfortunately, it looks like they are going to have to be primed/painted in a lot of parts, something I try to avoid when I can.
Spent a chunk of the morning cleaning mold lines, need to stop for now. But got most of build clipped and sorted. (still need to do the hatches) Due to the missing part and resulting extra sprue, I built the hurricane bolters on the spare TLLC mount. Needed to trim the center post a tad, but not much. Cut the odd spare LC armored shroud to use on the flamestorm cannon, so I don’t need to bother with swapping the armored plate to cover the guns from the hurricane bolters. A little small, but should work.
Sponsons are done, bits for the hatches are clipped. Next is cleanup and assembly of those bits.
Also, the mailman brought me a treat today. Box was a little damaged, so I opened it up to check the bits; they seem fine.
My to-build pile is starting to back up a bit. I’ve still got a primarch to do in there!
Rainy miserable day out, and I’m bone tired, so punted on heading down to the FLGS. Plus it’s the week after Adepticon, so I was expecting a low turn out anyway.
Personal news:
Spoiler:
While I’ve not received independent verification from my own attorney, according to The Ex, my divorce has been finalized. The long dark nightmare of marriage is over, and I once again join the ranks of the single. So hide your daughters, and warn your sisters, I’m available again! Or more appropriate to the demographics of Dakka, is your mom hot? Do you want a step-dad who understands your hobby? Send pics! I’ve know this was imminent for a while now, but it is a bit of a kick in the head to get the final news. Oh well. Clears things for moving forward. 2017: nowhere to go but up!
Lookin' good Nev! Lotsa building ahead, I see. Depending on the customization options for the model, can be my favorite part of a build. Hopefully that FLGS of yours will fill up soon, post con weeks can be pretty slow I hear.
I've been away from Space Marines for too long... I had to click onto the pic and zoom in to figure out what those sprues were! Lookng forward to seeing the Cents. Also looking forward to the LR. GL brush painting it Hope you have large brushes!
And on your personal note, at least it's all done and overwith. With your new job / place / larger hobby allowance the rest of 2017 will be better! (stay away from my mum - LOL).
There was a combat patrol tournament last weekend, so not sure how turnout is going to be tomorrow at the FLGS. I’ll still probably try to show up, we’ll see how my day goes. It will be my first “real” week at the job. Formal training is over, now for the integration into normal work flow.
Basically finished up the LR. I left the tracks off, as the rhinos I’ve done recently have been a lot easier to paint that way. I should check the actual layout for the LR and see if it maters here as well. But did up some hatches. I should do up some more spares, just to have on hand.
Went with a Mk. III helmet on the gunner. While the rest of the armor is not era appropriate, he’ll pass a casual glance for 30k, which is good enough for me. And works just fine for 40k.
This month’s theme for the challenge is “primal” so some marauders from the back of the bench are going to get some love. Aiming for at least 4 of them.
Stormwall wrote: Hell yeah Nev, good for you. Sorry it had to happen but, your enthusiasm is contagious, lol.
What are those bits there btw? Centurions?
6/10/00 to 3/32/17, not a bad run, and longer then the average by quite a bit. And at my age, I can date two women half my age, and they will both be old enough to drink! Got my official papers, new credit card, and a fitbit all in the mail on the same day. Universe trying to tell me something.
The bits are indeed cents. Going to put the building on hold for a bit though to get some paint down. And once I pick up the clippers again, they are not at the top of the list. Primarch trumps them by quite a bit. Maybe Cypher as well. But they are one of those units that if I want to up my game, I should have in my toolbox. And were bought via giftcards, so no guilt. Need to do some research on how to built them. I know the upper leg plates are probably getting trimmed off. I think some of the crap around the head needs to go as well. They can be made to look good, I just need to remember the good ones I’ve seen.
Now I just need a clear day to prime. And to figure out how to do it. I figure the landlord might be a little irked if I leave white patches of overspray around. Probably carve up a big cardboard box as a backsplash.
Zambro wrote:The marauders definately fit the primal theme very well. 4 seems higher than your usual pace - I hope you can do it! GL
Last year I had two entries that were squads of 4. In theory, it’s a month’s work for me, even at my slower pace. These days I’m closer to 6 minis a month. Of course, I’m still settling into my new space, so we’ll see how doable it is.
Speaking of which, I just put the first layer of skin tone down on 4 of the guys.
So if I want to keep that “good blogger” goal, I need to actually post more. Damn job edging into my hobby time.
So I got a game in Tuesday. AoS, 2k Death v. Chaos.
The core of his army was a 30 man chaos warrior squad he stacked buffs on to make it a massive tarpit that I got most of my army stuck into. I was carving away at it, and due to my guys getting back up, would have eventually won the attrition battle. But his knights and demon prince were making an end run to my backfield objective, with only a 20 man unit of skeletons and a necromancer to hold them off. So when we had to call the game due to time, I admitted defeat.
Some lessons learned:
I need more sniper units. I had my carrion, but kinda flubbed using them. If I was able to take out his standard bearer in the backfield that his blob was chained into range of, I could have stopped some of the buffs. Same with the sorcerers. I think next list I might actually keep some points set aside for summoning. Just so I can pop a unit into his backfield to deal with irritations. Might also try to field my skullchuckers, for some shooting support.
Vampire lords on zombie dragons are mean. Last list I put down felt like it lacked any sort of offensive hammer units. He put the pain down. Getting the dragon to the FLGS is the biggest issue here.
Only being able to cast each spell once makes multiple necromancers redundant. I fielded 3, but should probably diversify my characters more.
I really want to field skeletons in blocks of 30. Mostly for the 10 wound buffer for the 20 man cut off for the extra attacks. While 20 guys in a block get that at full strength, once they start taking wounds, their combat potential drops off fast. Also, the extra range of the spears wasn’t that critical. Once they pile in, the 1” of the swords still lets them fight 2 deep. Probably better off hitting easier with the swords.
Grave guard actually did some damage this time. Last time I fielded them they just got cashed out by some flavor of stormcast uber warriors without doing much. But against chaos warriors they actually put some hits in. The -1 rend is a big deal.
The dire wolves didn’t do much. Mostly they just screen units so I can get the charge. Which is important to the black knights, but not much else. Not sure if they are worth the points just to do that.
One thing my opponent had going for him were stacked buffs and re-rolls. Both of these things are very powerful tools. There is not a whole lot that I can do to replicate that with what I have. Some new purchases might help. I’m thinking Mannfred, Mortarch of Night might fix a number of issues. He’s a pretty nasty hammer unit, can snipe out units with a magic attack, and has a nice buff bubble.
I need to put together some spirit hosts. They should help tank vs. rending units (which just eat skeletons) and the ability to put out mortal wounds will help chew up units with decent re-rolling armor saves. While I like the look of the new hosts, I think I’m going to take the old odds and ends of WHFB minis in my pile of shame and give them a ghosty paint job. Just need to get some bases for them.
Anyway, doing some painting. Just getting base coats down when I can.
Sorry for the crappy pic, I just wanted to snap off something quick to prove I’m actually working. Going to see how much I can get done on these guys this weekend.
Good to see you're still around Nev. Very informative analysis there of your AoS game. I've been thinking of trying out AoS but 40k has kept me so busy I'm not sure when I'll have time to try out a new game.
Nice to see you gettin' games in Nev, I've been meaning to try out AoS myself. I've got some Dryads to compete against your beserkers this time around that i'll run in a game sometime soon. Best of luck to you and your men!
Put a few more layers down. Still a ways to go, but this last week was a bit busy. But progress. And I’m starting to hate these guys. They are starting to be a roadblock; I stay away from the paintbench to avoid them. Going to try to push through getting these 4 done this weekend, and then paint something a little more fun. No idea what though. I should probably pick something out and set it up on-deck to inspire me.
AoS is taking up a lot of my mindspace recently. Trying to figure out how to play the army I want, but be a little more effective. And not have to buy a ton of new stuff. I guess the ghoul kings is where all the action is in Death these days, but they don’t have a lot of appeal to me. I’m a vampire and skeleton kinda guy. The more I think about it, the closer I get to picking up the start collecting skeleton horde box. Just trying to source some feedback before pulling the trigger. But the skeletons would let me get a decent sized 3rd block of them. Right now I can do 2x30 men, and then a 11 man unit (or some other combo of 70 skeletons, more likely 1x30, 2x20) but getting another 10 guys would get me closer to my goal of 3x30 blocks. I could re-gear my bolter skelies to bring them back into the warrior fold. Cobble together a unit filler guy or two, and that should get me there. Not sure I need more black knights, but they do look cool.
One trick I forgot to mention in my last battle report is the importance of taking casualties and placing reinforcements. He was able to keep the bulk of my army tarpitted by interspersing his casualties across his line, so it go thin, but remained in contact. I was able to reach out and ensnare his knights briefly by placing my 1d6 back-to-life skeletons from the unit banner in a chain towards him, and then piling in during the combat phase. It’s a trick I also used in my demo game vs. dwarves. He was shooting me as I shambled across the table. I took the casualties from the back of the unit, and replaced them on the front. Just a handy hint for the aspiring necromancers out there.
I know what you mean about the marauders; I had a similar problem last month with my honour guard. Think I've finally figured out what it was, so they'll be getting an overhaul to fit my original vision as soon as I can order the bits.
The layers look like solid progress to me, so keep trucking and remember another layer or two, washes and the odd highlight can get the men off your work bench.
Almost to the wash stage. Just need to do a cleanup pass.
...Stay on target...
After that it’s just the shields and banner.
I spent a little time this morning procrastinating painting by putting together some AoS cards.
I miss my color printer Oh well, hopefully they will help remind me about what spells I have to cast, and what buffs are on what unit.
On the topic of procrastinating, I need to head out and get some walking done. Spent yesterday playing board games and eating a lot of high quality cheese and drinking a lot of good beer. Those calories are not going to burn themselves. When I get back I’ll put some more work onto the marauders.
I feel you Nev, the Dryads i'm working on are great, but knowing I need to do 16 like that is gonna be a pain. As for those AoS cards, they remind me of old MTG cards from the early days.
JustaerinAtTheWall wrote: I feel you Nev, the Dryads i'm working on are great, but knowing I need to do 16 like that is gonna be a pain. As for those AoS cards, they remind me of old MTG cards from the early days.
Well I am using a program called Magic Set Editor, and the old templates, so not surprising they look that way. There are other formats included, but I like the classics.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wash done. Just a little touch up and accessories left. Still have half the month to go, so looking good.
Stacking buffs is a huge game mechanic in sigmar, some armies do better at it, and some armies rely on it to be even playable (bloodbound). Also, I like hexwraiths a lot, they are quite durable.
gummyofallbears wrote:I like how the sigmar stuff is turning out.
Stacking buffs is a huge game mechanic in sigmar, some armies do better at it, and some armies rely on it to be even playable (bloodbound). Also, I like hexwraiths a lot, they are quite durable.
I need to take a look at the hexwraiths. IIRC they are a duel kit with the black knights. I cashed in some reward points and picked up another amazon gift card. With which I ordered the start collecting deathrattle box. So giant undead dude on monster thing of some flavor, more skellies, and some calvary. I’ll have to read up on the rules to see how to build things. But watch this space!
SmallChanges wrote:Ooh, I didn't realise the shields would carry a spot colour. That's going to change the whole feel of the marauders (in a good way).
I was going to post a few pics of my chaos army to showcase that blue is the primary accent color of my army. But then I realized I didn’t have that many pics in my chaos gallery. I should probably rectify that next time I set up the lightbox. But I used the same pigment rich blue ink I used for the bulk of my Ultras to dye the occasional shoulderpad, shield, or armor plate. If not a force of chaos warriors tends to look like a nondescript blob of browns and dull-steel.
I cut the shields off the sprue and tidied them up with a little silver. Once that dries I might give them a little bit of the wash, or just have a few bright points. Also black rimmed the bases and glued some tufts down. Next step is the flock.
Although now that I think about it, I might BftBG around a bit. Chaos needs some blood splashed around, even for non-Khorne forces.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Fun Fact: I avoid painting while drunk, but will splash some blood around and base things.
Marauders done. Spare shield set aside for when I do the next 3. I’ll grab better pics later, but not this weekend. My folks are visiting and I have The Boy, so not a lot of hobby time.
These guys fill my 4 models done for the month, so I might go back to building a bit. I do have a primarch who needs work, and the weather might get nice any day now to prime!
Who I am I kidding, going to build a primarch. Or maybe a mortarch. SC:Skeleton Hordes showed up this weekend. And while I’d love to build and paint Guiliman, my Ultras can do fine without him. My Death army could really use a powerful centerpiece.
Started building the mortarch. OMG the skulls! Nagash probably invented those things just to troll Khorne. I think just putting together the first page of the body I’ve cleaned more mould lines off skulls then I have in years.
Waiting for the fist part to set solidly before moving on. This strikes me as a kit that needs to be solid before moving on to the next step.
Great marauders... and I appreciated seeing the process. Painting on the sprue... I always intend to do it, and then always ending up needing to clip and glue for a quick game before I get around to it. Well done!
MacPhail wrote: Great marauders... and I appreciated seeing the process. Painting on the sprue... I always intend to do it, and then always ending up needing to clip and glue for a quick game before I get around to it. Well done!
It’s something I do very little of actually. Normally only for small bits that are going to block a lot of the model. One of the big reasons I don’t do it is that I use a lot of washes/glazes. And no mater how careful you are, the connecting point for the sprue is going to effect the flow. So it’s going to need some touch up work. Cleaning mold lines is also a little odd. Easy to find them, harder to get a tool in. Most people clip and glue to sticks if they want to sub-paint things. I normally just hold things in my hand and paint them carefully; not a good practice.
Thinking back I’ve done shields, shoulderpads, and I think a few guns. Oh, and some imperial guardsmen from when I was young and stupid.
OK, taking form a little more. Not a fan of the wispy support. Could use some better slot/peg format to get things lined up. Still dislike the kit. Not glued to the base atm, I want to see how the whole things takes up space before glueing it down. But able to precariously stand on it’s own.
The wispy bits are going to be interesting when it comes time to prime and paint, that’s for sure.
Little progress today, and not just building the kit stock!
Each of the 3 mortarchs has a distinct head for the the monster. Nefrita’s is very Egyptian themed, not really interesting to me. Manfreds, who is going to be my primary build, has rotting bat ears on an otherwise pure-bone monster. That leaves the lich guys. Which has a bit in it’s mouth to go with some reins. So out comes the knife.
Still a little more cleanup to do, but I got the bulk of it done, One reason to make this post is to take advantage of the camera who loves to show me the spots I miss. But this time, I’m taking the pic before I’d done painting! Looks like a little spot on the left needs to be smoothed out, plus the mold lines and sprue joins I didn’t bother with yet.
I should have grabbed a pic while I had the camera out, but forgot. But the Monster is almost done being built. Just need to glue his head on and stick him on the base. I wanted to wait until the vampire is done so they are looking at the same thing. Speaking of which, started assembling Manfred.
In other news, this month’s painting theme is “Boom!” So here is some heavy firepower.
I’ll be painting them up this month. Probably once I finish building the Mortarch.
So got a game in yesterday. 4.5 way game. We all had 1,000 point lists on the corners, and one guy had a flying dwarf boat with some troops in the middle. He had half our points, but holding the center tower let you do d3 mortal wounds to everything on the table. Other players were two chaos (one trying the game, he’s an old WHFB player with armies older then mine) and a skaven player. For a multiplayer game it actually went very well. People split up, sending some forces to harass their neighbors on the short edge, and some towards the middle. Where they fought with the guy down the long edge from them. And the dwarves.
Multiplayer games are rough on Death. You have a lot more combat to endure before your banners top off your units. Still, I managed a win here. I was able to make it through the things with rend, and then just tarpit and drown guys in skeletons. The rend part really hurts, but 3x20 man blocks were enough to cary the day. I think this was the first time I had skeletons without characters nearby for the +1 to hit. Slows down their combat potential a lot.
Manfred is almost done. Need to smooth out a bit of his cloak and then glue his arm on. If we played a larger game last night, I would have fielded him, even without paint, just to see how he works.
Stayed up a little late playing, so work is going to be fun today. and it’s been a bit frustrating on it’s own anyway. Not bad, just a little irritating.
Zambro wrote: Congrats on the win. I dont think i've ever seen a 4.5 game played before...
I love the fantasy content. Makes a great contrast to the boys in blue.
One nice thing about my FLGS is that we are very inclusive. If you show up looking to play, we try to make it happen. The guy with the dwarf airboat thing had left most of his stuff at home, but still wanted to play. So we made it happen. He only had half the points, but started in cover on the objective. And dwarves in cover with master crafted armor are tough to pry out.
Which reminds me I need to either get more mortal wounds or rend into my lists. Good saves with re-rolls make for some tough nuts to crack, and there were a few on the table. Massed skeletons can force a ton of rolls, but that has limits.
Not the best pic, but I’m trying to be a better blogger here. Had The Boy last weekend, so not a lot of hobby got done. That and Civ VI was on sale, so my production is pretty much in the crapper at this point.
The week is going to be coldish, damp, and grey, so preobably not going to be able to prime. But I was tidying up the bench, and thought I’d grab a shot. Not obvious in the pic is the 4 RTB01 bolter guys in the box on the left. So yes, it’s a pretty marine centric pile, but there are some eldar bikes in the back, and the big vampire on skullbeast waiting as well. The vamp is going to be seperate for painting, and then I’ll glue him on later. I was debating magnetizing, but decided against. I think my compromise is to attach him with superglue. So if I want to swap him out, I can snap him off and magnetize him later. Just not a huge fan of the other two, even if they get better rules down the line.
Civ 6 was on sale?! Drat! I've been meaning to pick it up myself. Nice AoS battle it sounds like, definitely something to try once I flesh my sylvaneth out. The to-do list looks pretty large, but fun! GL there Nev!
JustaerinAtTheWall wrote: Civ 6 was on sale?! Drat! I've been meaning to pick it up myself. Nice AoS battle it sounds like, definitely something to try once I flesh my sylvaneth out. The to-do list looks pretty large, but fun! GL there Nev!
Not one of their huge sales, but 33% off on steam for a game I’ve been drooling over for a long time was enough for me to pull the trigger. Still time to grab it, sale ends on the 11th. Not sure when and in what time zone, but still a day or so to act.
I do enjoy AoS. It’s not WHFB. I miss the blocks of troops and the slow but steady advance. I remember commenting back in the days of 5th ed WHFB and 2nd/3rd ed 40k: "Fantasy is won in the deployment and movement phases, 40 in the CC and shooting” Obviously a generalization. But Sigmar is more of a skirmish game writ large, like 40k. Not a Historic/set piece battle game. As the guy we were showing the game commented “seems fun, but doesn’t scratch the same itch”
Might have to dig up the rules for 9th age, or go back and play a previous edition. Still have the bright green movement trays.
OK, started slapping some basecoats down. It’s not like these guys should take that long to do. While they are long on nostalgia, they are a little short on detail.
Just need to remember to step away from Civ VI long enough to put another layer down.
I know the struggle of pulling yourself away from video games to paint. I'm just breaking away from that myself trying to get back into the swing of things on my DE. Those models are great nostalgia pieces, they'll look awesome in your collection.
Certainly not the finest molds, but definitely a fun little side project. I've been struggling to ignore Overwatch myself, so paint is in short supply.
Stupid French and your culture victory, I’ll get you next time.
Anyway, more painting progress:
Marines are just about ready for their second blue coat, MLs got their black and silvers done. Need to do the hoses/lenses, then the arms. Plus the supporting arms.
Plugging right along.
Don’t forget to call your Mothers everyone. Enjoy the weekend.
Good progress. I was tempted by that Civ VI sale but looking at the reviews/streams the core issues that made V rubbish for me don't seem to have been addressed (stupid diplomacy, AI's inability to wage any kind of war). I do like some ideas (new governments etc). I don't think Civ IV has been bettered yet, the 'one unit per tile' has yet to be made to work IMHO. How are you finding it?
Zambro wrote:I know how it is to have to drag yourself away from a game to paint. Overwatch is so tempting to play when I have 30 mins free...
My progress is about as speedy as yours, but if you keep going I will too!
I keep plugging away. I was going to try to finish these guys over the weekend, but Civ happened to yesterday. And today I went out to lunch with some friends and need to go grocery shopping, so no idea how much progress I will get done tonight. More likely to get some progress done now that I finished watching Burn Notice on Netflix. Not that there aren’t other shows for me to binge watch to hoover up my time; but the gap should let me get some hobby work done.
RandyMcStab wrote:Good progress. I was tempted by that Civ VI sale but looking at the reviews/streams the core issues that made V rubbish for me don't seem to have been addressed (stupid diplomacy, AI's inability to wage any kind of war). I do like some ideas (new governments etc). I don't think Civ IV has been bettered yet, the 'one unit per tile' has yet to be made to work IMHO. How are you finding it?
I’m only on my second game, so can’t speak to all it’s flaws. I like the fact that cities are subdivided into districts, and not every city can have every one. Makes it less “just build everything, everywhere” and makes you think about how you focus the empire. Diplomacy seems better then previous editions. At least you can figure out why people don’t like you. For example, Brazil likes to collect great people, and will get pissed at you if you have more. China wants to have the most wonders, etc. So when they are denouncing me, I know why. The one unit per tile thing doesn’t bother me. They did let you combine units into corps/fleets/somethings, which lets you have more elite, denser units. Religion seems better implemented as well. I’m having fun with it overall. I’m still playing on one of the easier difficulties, so don’t know if that’s why the AI’s inability to conduct a war comes from in VI. But the few times I’ve gone to war, I handed the computer his head.
Had The Boy this weekend, so not a big progress week. Just put the nosecones on the missiles and the first blue on the arms. I had previously done the 2nd blue on two of the guys, might get the other two tonight.
Speaking of The Boy, he seems interested in 40k, but I’m going to wait until 8th to get him playing. Until then, I broke out the rules and popped the cardsock out of the BaC game. I remember reading the rules and liking how they looked. Fist two scenarios were pretty solid victories for me and my Ultras. The Boy got stuck with my BAs standing in for the WBs. He needs to learn about action economy. I’m trying to teach him the principles, but he still doesn’t quite grock it. We’ll try to continue when next I have him.
Nothing earthshaking, just a few more layers down. Two of the bodies are done.
Now that we have a release date for 8th, I need to check how my schedule lines up. I should have The Boy for that weekend. There will probably be a launch party at the FLGS. Not sure if it will be a midnight thing, or an all day Sat thing. Also not sure what The Boy’s sports schedule is; he plays both soccer and lacrosse. If things line up I’ll take him to the launch party and we can learn the new game together.
Nice work on the Devs, i'll be using the release of 8th edition as an excuse to get someone into the game as well, free rules and dataslates make that job so much easier.
Inevitable_Faith wrote:Shaping up nicely, the white stripe on the helmet is a nice touch. Launch day party sounds like a nice way to spend an afternoon with the kidlet.
Helmet stripes are mandatory on beakies. The one thing getting in the way of the launch party is a possible tournament a 1 for The Boy. Which would sink any possible afternoon plans. Still hoping things work out though.
JustaerinAtTheWall wrote:Nice work on the Devs, i'll be using the release of 8th edition as an excuse to get someone into the game as well, free rules and dataslates make that job so much easier.
I’m a bit wary getting The Boy hooked on 40k. It’s an expensive hobby. And a lot of the fluff is on the hyper violent side, with a dash of slanesh, so I’m a little fuzzy on that as well. He’s leaning towards either Salamanders or Raven Guard from thumbing though my codex. Not sure if one of the other factions would appeal to him more. Might just say “screw it” and toss him an old rulebook to look at the faction/painting sections. If he wants to get into the hobby, he can pester his mother for an allowance.
I pre-ordered the main box set from my FLGS. Still on the fence as to the army books. I know who is in each one, but not what. If these are going to just be hold-you-over books until the actual codexes release, I’m not sure I need to get them. This is on the assumption that the basic datasheets are going to be free online, and the only real meat to the books is the point values and maybe one/two pages of rules. While the price per book is not that bad, I’d not want to pick up 3 of them, just to replace them when the real books came out. I could be wrong about how and what content is going to be available. I’m making some assumptions based on AoS.
End is in sight for these guys. Once the wash dries on the support arms, I could glue 2 of them together now. Need to finish up the last two guys and base the lot.
Should be able to do it this weekend. While I do have some plans (Going to catch the new Aliens movie this afternoon, Dim Sum with friends tomorrow) I’ve got a long weekend and plenty of time. I think I also want to try to get Guiliman built, and hope for a decent day to prime soon. Looks like next month’s challenge is “legendary” and he would fit well for that.
Enjoy your Memorial Day weekends all.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Just put the last blue coat down. Wash, touch ups, base and done.
Also caught a matinee of the new Alien movie. I enjoyed it. I think they had one too many “it’s over now, wait, one more crisis” You can only punch that button so many times before it gets old.
Played a game of Battlestar Galactica last night. Fun game. We ran out of fuel one jump from freedom. Damn cylons. Also darkened the doorway of one of the many breweries in the area. Just up the street from my office. So expect more drunken ramblings. They were blowing out cases of their winter brew for $15. Couldn’t say no to that. Plus picked up a growler of a more seasonal beer. Thursdays are discount refill night, might get in the habit of hitting that periodically.
Weather seems nice out. Going to check out conditions with a careful eye and maybe break out the rattlecan.
Beakies are shaping up very nicely, definitely can see the ligt at the end of the tunnel. Lovin the look of them MLs. You got a brewery not far from you? I'm pretty jealous dude, craft beer is amazing.
Inevitable_Faith wrote: Beakies are shaping up very nicely, definitely can see the ligt at the end of the tunnel. Lovin the look of them MLs. You got a brewery not far from you? I'm pretty jealous dude, craft beer is amazing.
Just put the wash down. Just assembly, touch-ups and basing left.
Broke out the rattlecan, got the LR and Manfred/beast done. Can was starting to get a bit patchy at the end, so decided against trying to get more stuff done.
The local area is thick with breweries. http://adkcraftbev.com/map/ And that’s just some of them. Davidson’s Brothers is the one up the street from me. I literally work underneath a Hobby Lobby and there is craft beer being brewed within walking distance. Some nice perks to my current job.
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Waiting for the glue to dry, then the flock paste. Almost done.
The do have some posture issues, that’s for sure. Thanks for the kind words all.
We’re starting to get more of 8th, with some leaked points and stats, but are still a ways out from the whole thing. Which is of course the most dangerous time of the rumor cycle. Just enough info to jump to conclusions, not enough context of the big picture to give a framework.
I never cut all the MLs out of my list. Couldn’t bring myself to drop such an iconic piece of wargear. But I’d cut way back. What mostly caused that was how bad frag missiles worked on the table. If I’m paying for an AV weapon if I use nothing but kracks, might as well get a MM/LC. But frag missiles going to Heavy d6, S4, AP - D1 might be worth shooting. And the krack can still aim at the big things (yay inherent split fire) with Heavy 1, S8, AP -2, D D6. With the change to the to-wound table and things not being AV anymore, the 1 point edge the LC had in S/AP is not quite as relevant.
But, ironically, these guys will still probably be using 7th edition rules. While I’m sure I’ll plonk them down in a game of 8th, their primary raison d’etre was to be the core of a 30k legion heavy support squad. It’s not like I needed more MLs for 40k. I think these guys bring me up to 14 painted. But now I’ve got 6 in Mk VI armor and one in Mk. IV. And 2 in Mk III, but they are waiting to be painted as destroyers, so not 100% compliant.
OK, so next month’s challenge is “legendary” I’m not going to have Guiliman built in time, especially judging by the weather forecast. So that brings me to this fine gent:
The big question is how to paint him. Here is the studio version:
I like the ebon bone look. I should be able to do that. Black with just a ungodly amount of edge highlighting. Within my skill-set, if tedious as all get out. Just looking at that tail makes me cringe. Not a fan of the orange glowing skulls inside though. I was thinking of doing the skulls with a very pale blue base, and then a turquoise glaze. Similar to how I did the demon head here:
I’m a little worried that the glaze might not pool in the depths as much as I’d like, and might want to use a more modern wash. But IIRC from the demon head, it gets pretty rich, so a simple drybrush to lighten up the high points might be all I need.
So now I play amateur artist and try to balance the piece. We are going to have some strong blacks, and some pale, light blues. The base is going to be mostly goblin green flock, to match the rest of my force. Looking at my friend the color wheel what's next? The shades of green and blue are a little close to be a classic triangle, but could I just use a healthy dollop of red on the cloak/armor and have that work? A chunk of gold could balance out the blue, and a pinkish lavender the green? Cape or unholy fire on the sword?
I’ll probably end up doing the spirits the same as the skulls. If I get really frisky I’ll blend whatever his cape starts as down to the same color as well, like they did at the studio.
I’m not going to start work until the 1st, so plenty of time for input. But it’s a big mini for one month, so I can’t afford to dither too much on painting choices.
Looking for input, don’t be shy, it’s all appreciated. One of the reasons I started this blog is to be a better painter, so I’m willing to be pushed a bit. And as a stand out centerpiece model, he has a bit more leeway in not having to match anything too closely.
if you are worried about your washes not getting deep enough in the recesses, mix a tiny bit of dish-washing liquid into the wash, and it will break up the surface tension to help it run into the cracks better...
it's a simple old trick, that works really well...
good luck!!!
@Jah-Joshua: Dish washing soap in paint? That's a new one with me. Does it affect the finish at all?
GL Nev, that's a big model. Looking forward to seeing you finish it.
Dry brushing is a perfectly good alternative to edge highlighting, and is probably a lot quicker, too. Just make sure the brush is extra dry. Oh, and use a dark grey instead of a black, the finish will look much better.
No it doesn't affect colour or finish, the amount of dish soap used is tiny; you really don't need very much at all. You could also use an acrylic flow improver, but that's basically just the surfactant without the nice smell at several times the cost. Useful for airbrushing, but overkill for hairy stick IMO.
Thanks for the advice guys. Put the first basecoat down on the skulls this weekend. Might wash them tonight, depends how much wine I drink.
So I got in a game of 8th last night. 2x2 game, 1k points each. Not keeping score, just an exercise in the new mechanics. Me and an assorted imperium player (SoS, tempestus, black templar) vs. khrone chaos and nids.
Some take aways:
Tanks need to be screened with infantry. Sure, they can always fall back out of combat, but then they can’t shoot for a turn. You want them to shoot.
Speaking of screens, I think units of scouts who can set up outside of the deployment zone are going to be very nice. Most (all?) deep strike has to be 9” away from the enemy. Good way to push that bubble out. While 9” is rough on a straight 2d6 roll, you only need to get within 1” for CC, and you can use command points for re-rolls. So unless you want to be bum rushed by DSing assault units, set up a perimeter.
CC is alive and well.
Shooting pistols into CC is fun, and gave my tacs a little edge I was not expecting.
Rhinos make good tarpits.
It’s probably not worth building for command points. Just take the good units. The troop/HQ tax is just too high, at least for small games. Might be worth it in 2k lists.
So The Boy is getting into 40k. His uncle (my former brother in law) gave him some old 2nd ed marines and paints he had kicking around. The Ex has also been convinced to start paying out an allowance, with bonuses for lawn mowing. So if he plays his cards right, he might be able to afford a BaC box at the end of the summer. Which is what he’s got his eye on. Let’s see if he has the fiscal discipline to pull that off. I also plan on liquidating some of my old crap to help fund his entry into the hobby. I’ve got a huge pile of shame that I don’t need. So on my to-do list is to photograph and get some ball park prices on stuff.
So that’s the skulls and spooks. I think I might need a touch of a drybrush to hit the peaks, but overall happy with how they turned out. Next step is a lot of black.
Also, a little side project.
Back when I was building guys, I worked up some plasma pistols as well. On the hope that some day they might be worth something. Today is that day! All primed and everything.
The blue looks great man, I agree that one final drybrush should give it the little pop it needs. I hear ya about pistol upgrades too, none of my units have any pistol upgrades as they've always felt too expensive for little use but now I'm seriously considering some blast pistols for my DE.
Gave the blue a light drybrush. Not a huge impact, but a subtle upgrade.
Started in on the blacks
Limet to how much I can do in one sitting. Lots of ugly places to try to fit a brush into. And I can’t be too sloppy since I did the skulls already.
Also put a layer of black down on the plasma pistols.
But now I’m off to the recliner. Enough being hunched over a workbench. Poor myself a bourbon and get started on my other weekend project: drinking myself blind.
(Drink responsibly to all you young impressionable people out there; I’m being a bad example here.)
More responsibly then I’m planning on. I’m a tad bit melancholy today; it would have been my anniversary. So just a sad day rattling around the apartment alone. I almost never drink with the goal of getting drunk. A nice buzz is just the side effect of a drink or two.
But back to the hobby. Some good and bad news. One of my lamps slipped off it’s clamp and landed on the skull beast, breaking it into a few separate bits. So while this is irritating, at least now it’s a lot easier to paint in parts. I’m trying to look on the bright side. I’ll re-glue it later.
Finished the pistols on the bench, now for the arms and shoulder pads. Once I polish off those, I should probably do up some of the random CC weapons lying around. Not that the price dropped on most of them, I might gear up more guys.
Hope everyone enjoys their weekends.
Automatically Appended Next Post: See Nev. See Nev drunk post. Any questions?
I was noodeling around some ideas to modify my 8th edition 1k lists. Here are some thoughts for what to bring to launch day:
5 man tacTDA, 1 chainfist, i assault cannon, the rest is SBs, PFs, and the swaord on the sarge. 245 points
5 Assault marines. JP, 1 flamer, 1 plasma pistol, fist/plasma sarge 123 points
5 devs, 4 MLs. 165 points, partlialy an excuse to field the newly painted guys
Chaplain, TDAPF/SB 117p
10 man tacMM/M, c-melta, rhino, 265
5 man scout, camo, HB. 80
Should make for a fun, flexible 1k list.
I modified the list I was planning to pack for The Boy. From my experience, better units might be more important then the command points.
Captain, plas pistol, maul 85
10 man tac, ML/F, c-flamer 175
Contempor, AsC
10 man tacHB, Plas, bl/p-sword sarge
5 man CTDA, all 2xLC, GL on sarge
Capt in CTDA, C-fist, LC
The driving force in building this list is that The Boy has his eye on saving his allowance for a BaC box to get into the game. Of my collection, some of his favorite minis are the BaCWB chaplain who I painted as a captain, and the contemptor dread. Plus the newer tac squads. So when working up a list for him, I included them. Originally I had another tac squad and a razor, but figured the CC punch of the terminators might be useful.
OK, see you all tomorrow. I’ve got a bit to sleep off. Night all.
So Monday I hit the FLGS, and played a 2k game vs thousand sons, with some demon support. I basically glued my 2 1k lists together, and he ran this (quoted from our local message board w/ his thoughts)
I'll post up whta I played yesterday: Battalion detachment
Warlord -Ahriman on Disk 166 points
Exalted Sorcerer on disk 137 points
Daemon Prince, wings, Warpbolter, 2 Pairs of Maleific Talons 189 points
9 rubrics, Soul Reaper Cannon, Aspiring Sorcerer, Force Sword 241 points
9 rubrics, Soul Reapoer Cannon Aspiring Sorcerer, Force Staff 243 points
10 Tzaangor, 5 with autopistol/chainsword, 5 with tzaangor weapons, instrument of chaos 70points
Scarab Occult Terminators, Soul Reaper Cannon, hellfire missiles 266 points
Defiler, reaper auto cannon, defiler claws, defiler scourage 246 points
Heldrake, baleflamer 215 points
Patrol Detachment
Herald of Tzeentch, staff of change 83 points
Exalted Flamer 70 points
6 Pink horrors, 2 Blue horrors, 2 Brimstone horrors. 74 points
I am considering cutting the daemons, perhaps for another unit of Tzaangor bubble wrap, add a few flamers to the rubrics, and not sure what else.
I did a very aggressive deep strike with everything that could dropping into his backfield. Counting on some luck and command point re-rolls to get some things locked into cc. Only the captain and the assault marines made it. Captain took out a sorcerer, and the marines put a dent into some rubrics, but I was hoping more more. The tac termies could (and did) put some shots down. On the plus side, the capheracti were tough enough to weather the return fire
We had to call it on time, and it was a tie when the bell rang. I’ll take that. If we played another round, the game was his though.
Some thoughts:
Capheracti terminators with lightning claws are mean. With most people not getting extra attacks, or the attacks from chargeing, you get a lot less swings on average then you are used to. Except these guys. The chaplain with them for the re-rolls helped a lot as well. Between the two of them, they took down the defiler. Wounding on 5s with a re-roll will put down a lot of wounds, even on tough things. Against softer targets, the bits will be everywhere.
Tac squads did OK. They might not be the most efficient thing out there, but they work. I don’t mind if I spend too many points on a unit if it feels like it’s doing it’s job. I’m a filthy casual like that. Loved the split fire.
Contemptor dreads are nasty. Pricy, but nasty. 9” move at start. Zippy.
The budget captain (maul/plas pistol) was still worth it for the buff bubble, and not too shabby otherwise. Glad to see you don’t need to be a tricked out smashbane mo-fo to be worth taking.
MLdevs are still as fragile as always. They were burned down to one man in short order. Might be worth investing in the spare bodies. Less useless now with splitfire.
Rhinos are fun. Soaking overwatch, blocking los. They might be a little pricier, but tougher and with more tricks.
Thousand sons are tough. Very tough. Be warned. And have rend everywhere. Sorry, "AP values”. And the ability to smite into CC makes it hard to keep things safe. I felt the lack of psychic protection.
Anyway, fun was had, lessons learned, etc.
Sorry for the blurry pic, but have some pistols:
Need to put transfers on the assault marines, but done with them.
And the skull beast:
Now in parts thanks to my lamp, but getting paint. The back half already has the second black coat. Need to do the front, then drybrush/highlight. Getting there. And I still need to figure out how I’m going to paint the vampire and the armor plates. I was thinking black/silver brybrush, but then put a red glaze on top of that. Thoughts?
And now back to my martini and Civ VI. I think I’m going for a domination victory. Redcoats and Submarines against the world! Enough of this peace and diplomacy crap.
Fine work on the skull beast Nev, the blue skulls give it a very tron-esque look when combined with the black tail. Looking forward to it's completion!
So big day out today. The Boy and I went to the 8th edition lunch party, and spent the bulk of the afternoon there. Played two games
First was a doubles game on a 4x4, with each player bringing a 1k list. But cramped, but fun. The Boy and I took the two Ultra lists from earlier, vs. a mech BA force and some necrons. Playing kill points.
We ended up winning 8-7, so a close fought game. Lesson learned was that necrons are very tough. Getting back up on a 4+ is a bit much, especially as there is not time limit. Big blocks of them are going to be rough to deal with.
Second game was me vs. The Boy. Again kill points. He won 5/3. Partly due to some bad luck with my dice, but I also think his list was a little meaner. The capheracti terminators were the MVP in both games. They are just walking blenders, and the 2+/4++ makes them quite resilient.
I’ll try to get army pics when I unpack the cases.
I probably spent a little too much money. In addition to the new box set I picked up the imperium 1 codex. I doubt I’ll get my money’s worth out of it before the actual SM codex comes out, but I’m not a huge fan of using scans. I also picked up the last BaC box on the shelf for The Boy. I’m going to parse it out to him over the summer as he earns his allowance. Rather then having him save and hope he can still get it in 3 months. I also got him some paints. and some for me, but I’m trading the new paints for some old ones he got from his uncle. Like a pot of “Blue Wash” that should match my old guys, and pots of shining gold and deadly nightshade. I also won one of the raffles they were doing and got an army painter gamer’s kit. Dice, tape measure, laser pointers and glue in a neat little bag. I’m going to snag the pointers and give the rest to The Boy.
Also in they I spent too much money, there may be a small package of resin heading my was from Poland. Not a huge one, but I may have spent $40ish bucks on Kromlich’s sale. Just some secret stuff.
It’s been a long day, so I’ll grab army pics and edit stuff in later. Happy Father’s Day to all my fellow dads out there.
Getting there. Want a darker red metallic on the armor. Going to nuln oil the whole guy, see what that does. Might put another red wash down after.
The Boy’s fist WIP. The 2nd ed bolter huggers came to him with no cleaning of mold lines, and primed Ultramarine Blue, and a spotty spray prime at that. We’re basically just using them as paint test beds, but remind me to slap my former brother in law next time I see him. Thick wads of flash on some of these guys.
I thought he was irritating to assemble. Repair is not fun. Hopefully he’ll dry solid and stable. In picture-related news I read on the facebooks that today is National Martini Day. I’m totally taking that on faith and not doing any research into the veracity of the claim. Cheers.
I might need another accent color on him. But will wait until I’m done with the cloak to decide. That’s going to be a lot of blue/turquoise.
Speaking of which:
Just the first red layer down. Solid (although might need another coat and definitely some blending in the folds) up top, tapering off towards the middle. Next step is to paint the light blue of the ghost base at the tips and work it back. Diluting it down to a wash consistency where it hits the red. See how that looks. Then the wash. Figuring out where to taper that might be tough. I think then I’ll red wash from the top and bring that down. Might end up wet blending the two washes, although that sounds messy as hell.
Well, I’m done with the painting, and got a selection of formal shots. Then he fell apart again. Going to pin him this time. Need to do my composite for the competition, but here are two pics to hold you over.
Also in the news I went down to the FLGS to swap the DG half of my 8th ed box for a second helping of primaris. While I was down there, got a game of 40k in. Brought a 2k mech list.
Played vs. a nice, but highly competitive Necron player. He has a tournament mindset and has been playtesting 8th a lot harder then I have. For example, I asked if he had anything that deep struck, so should I worry about screening my units for that. He says nope, no deepstike. He does however use the deceiver to shunt a bunch of stuff up into my lines turn one. So while he answered my question, he flagrently took advantage of my lack of knowledge of his army. For an edition that most of us have under a week of actual experience with, that’s kinda a low move. When I showed up he was “teaching” someone who was getting ready to play in his first AoS tournament by savaging him with some vile stonehoof ogre thing. “Because that’s what you should expect to find in tournaments” Nice guy, but I’m going to avoid playing him in the future. But I’ll put the loss down for my records.
Sucks about the game, but I am loving the Mortarch! Plus, seeing you gaming with your kid was cool too, I wish I had someone in my family to just turn around and get games with. Keep up the fantastic hobby work and the great attitude I see so often on this Plog.
Wow, that cloak turned out great! Shame he has fallen to pieces again...
How did the Vindicator do in game? I'm looking at the rules for the Cannon and can't decide if taking my double Vindis out to play is a good idea.
Poor form by your opponent.
I’ve said it before and it still holds true. 40k (and AoS) and fun games when you play with like minded people. Everything he did was technically correct (the best kind of correct) and in a polite and friendly manner. He was just playing a no quarter given game, where I aim for friendly. Better then getting stuck in traffic for an hour, which was my other option.
My vindicator got stuck in close combat first turn (missed it’s overwatch shots) fell back out of it turn 2, while the terminators and a tac squad deployed to try to screen it, and then got shot to death. So not a good test of it. A lot of the 8th rules changes benefit it, and it’s points didn’t go up as much as some other tanks, so it got relatively cheeper. The gun is still a bit all or nothing, the d3/d6 shots is an interesting change from the pie plate of doom. Less reliable for thinning hordes, better at taking down big things.
Haven’t made up my mind yet one it. Doesn’t seem like a bad unit, but not sure if it’s one of the better/more efficient ones.
Mannfred looks great dude, really dig him. Sucks to be thrown to the wolves so to speak with that guy but at least he wasn't a total jerk about everything. I played my first 8th edition game today and I must say I'm loving what I'm seeing from the core rules. Definitely feels like a more reined in game that was surprisingly easy to pick up.
Thanks guys. I’m quite happy with the way Mannfred and the skullbeast came out, and the cloak is my favorite part. If he can just stay together. Not looking forward to transporting him down to the FLGS.
Overall I like what I’ve seen of 8th. Still shifting gears and figuring out what’s going on, both in terms of mechanics, and what units/tactics are good in the new rules.
One thing is I need to screen things all the time. I think flyers are going to be good for that. Not just the supersonic ones, but stuff with the FLY keyword like assault marines and land speeders as well. They can fall back out of CC and still shoot. Normal scouts for extending the 9” bubble outside the deployment zone seem critical as well. Don’t need to gear them up, just warm bodies as speed bumps.
I’ve been a little lax with the updates. Roughly a month ago was the 4 year anniversary of this blog. I think I also missed the Q1 summery. Here’s what I’ve done in the first half though:
32 models in an absoute sense. If I count the bikes/big stuff with weighted numbers, it’s 38. Either way you slice it, looking good for my 1-a-week goal. If I don’t buy anything else, I might also reach my paint more then I buy goal. And that’s counting the 8th starter (which I swapped halves for, netting a double dose of primaris marines)
Next on the agenda is probably some building. Need to get some stuff into the to-prime pile. Of the new-new stuff, a prime LT is going to be the first thing from that box, probably followed by a squad of bolt rifle guys and the plasma squad. But I also need to get Guiliman built. Once my order from Kromlich arrives, I'll have a few other things to do.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
"I know it’s been said before, but what the are they feeding the scouts these days? And I don’t want to hear the words “Scale Creep” out of you, understood?” "We’re a new kind of marine: Primaris. Guiliman gave some Coghead the Emperor’s notes, and he’s been tinkering since the Heresy. Bigger, faster, tougher, the works.” “Improving on the Emperor’s work? That’s a laugh. Next you’ll tell me they reinstated the junior officer ranks again.” “Actually, they did. I’m a lieutenant, one other LT. and I help the Captain run the company” “ Surely we live in the end times. And by “one other” you mean me. You might be twice my size, but I’ve got more time in service then any of you new fangled guys. That gives me seniority. And once you get paint, make sure you get proper rank markings. I don’t care what the new paint guide tells you, we do it old school around here. Got it?” “Yes Sir!”
Helmet. No question. Not only do I hate painting faces, but the one in the kit is fugly as heck. The only question is if I try to add a romanesque crest to it. Might be a little much with the halos and such, I’ll see how I feel once I get closer to that point.
I’m on the fence about the big halo/backpack thing. It’s a bit overwrought. I know that’s the style, but wanted to look into options. There does need to be something back there though. Experimenting with a banner top.
The silly halo is growing on me. I might just prime both that and the banner top and see how they look painted.
He’s done being built now, need a new rattle can and a clear day before I can prime again. I should probably get the first before the second turns up though, decent sized pile awaiting primer at this point.
Need to download the pic of my camera as proof, but got a game in yesterday. 1k Eldar vs. DE. Well, mostly 1k. Sometime late in turn 2 I realized that I had taken my 2nd bike squad out of the case for my YTD picture, and never put it back in. So my 1k list was closer to 900 points. And I’m not good enough with them to give my opponent that kinda edge. So chalk up a loss to the pointy eared gits.
I didn’t have enough AV. It didn’t help that he was running 2 chonoses, a talos, and a raider. So lots of hard targets. I’m begining to think brightlances are overkill. Lots of stuff has invulns, so how much AP do you need? I think I might be better off with more massed shots. Not full scatter lasers, but maybe try out some star cannons.
Also, my rangers spent too much time in a hot car, and now have droopy gun syndrome. Need to straighten them out.
Nevelon wrote: Also, my rangers spent too much time in a hot car, and now have droopy gun syndrome. Need to straighten them out.
Noo!
I'm always conscious about that happening to me. But I guess it never gets hot enough in the UK to need to worry about it. It's inconvenient, but a quick fix, at least.
How are the DE stacking up in 8th? It's the one army in my club that isn't represented...
Nevelon wrote: Also, my rangers spent too much time in a hot car, and now have droopy gun syndrome. Need to straighten them out.
Noo!
I'm always conscious about that happening to me. But I guess it never gets hot enough in the UK to need to worry about it. It's inconvenient, but a quick fix, at least.
How are the DE stacking up in 8th? It's the one army in my club that isn't represented...
One problem with life right now is that if I want to hit the FLGS at a decent hour, I need to bring my army to work and leave it in the trunk of my car all day. Also, I’d left the army in the case for multiple trips, and never shifted them. So while in soft foam, the guns were sticking out over the edges of the cells, and being repeatedly heated/cooled, all while under soft pressure. So I’m not terrible surprised they got bent. Not to try to fix them without screwing up the paint.
Honestly I can’t give a solid report on the DE. My dice were on the cold side, I was playing at a 10% disadvantage, and my list was really living in 7th. The fact that most of his stuff had an 5+ invuln was powerful, and took the sting out the the brightlances that were my primary AV. His bikes were on the +T drug, and soaked a large amount of firepower. I killed them, but it took too long, and the rest of his army was in range when they died. Not as fast as I’d expect, but he was using a trio of monster things.
What did you think of the Talos Nev? I've used mine in 8th now a couple times and honestly I'm very disappointed with it's damage output. It lost some survivability to with no more FnP (+1 with a chronos which isn't a thing either now) and so I'm struggling to justify the points for it anymore versus things like the Razorwing or a Ravager. Did his Talos prove worthwhile in his list?
Sucks that you forgot some models too, hate it when that happens. In my case though I put them in reserve and forget to use them after that. Losses will be inevitable though, hopefully you win your next match. Silver lining though is that no matter who lost this match at least Aeldari won.
I was surprised the heat lances were S6, was expecting S8 like most melta/fusion guns. I was also expecting it to be more blendery as well. When a talos and 2 chronos slam into a squad of guardians, I expected bloody bit everywhere. They killed a lot, but not all of them, and they were already down due to some shooting. They seemed tough, but I was shooting the wrong weapons at them. No idea how point efficient they are, but I wasn’t exactly rocking a tight list myself. Seemed a kinda midling unit. Some shooting, some chop, kinda tough, but not really tanky. Good sort of thing to fill out a list to make it flexible, but not base one on. But that’s just my observation from one casual game from across the table, while playing an army in the new edition for the first time, so I hardly knew what my own stuff did.
LOL! old 1st ed plastics are shorter than the more long lasting Marine plastics, and that Primaris is just,,,,,,,HUGE. Almost Ogryn sized! Good dialogue from the shorter old timer there!
Yup. Size is all over the place in my army. C’est La vie.
So super-secret supply drop arrived today. Well, was picked up from the post office, as it needed a signature and they couldn’t just drop it off in my mailbox. Parts for a few projects here:
1 - Jump packs for the 30k destroyers. That will eat 10/15 of them. 2 - A pair of apothecary bits. One will be mounted on a bike, for 40k use. The other will be magnetized for foot/jump use for 30k. 3 - 10 Salamander pads. I was going to keep it secret, but decided to just tell The Boy. I’m going to build 10 of my Mk. III marines as sternguard for him, and paint them up.
So that leaves 4 jump packs left. I might see if I can stick one on Cypher, for my moritat conversion. Not sure how much of the clutter on his back would interfere. Or how hard it would be to remove. If not, some spare packs for the bits box. Might decide to make some more vanguard some day, or want more HQ options.
Hope everyone is enjoying their weekends. This one is hit-or-miss for me. Just dropped The Boy off for a family reunion for his mom’s side. Bit painful. But I’ll get him back tonight, and plan to hit the FLGS tomorrow for a 2k game with him. Ultras v. Eldar. He made his own list (with some advice) we’ll see how he fairs.
My vindicator got stuck in close combat first turn (missed it’s overwatch shots) .
Interesting that you got stuck in CC first turn. Hope it wasn't from any of the Deceiver's Grand Illusion units, since the rule states "Those units can not charge in the first turn".
My vindicator got stuck in close combat first turn (missed it’s overwatch shots) .
Interesting that you got stuck in CC first turn. Hope it wasn't from any of the Deceiver's Grand Illusion units, since the rule states "Those units can not charge in the first turn".
Yup, looks like he was playing that wrong. Although with a little minor tweaking, he could get a similar effect. He did have a monolith, and a warrior squad did disembark. One of the units he illusioned up was the monolith. And units disembarking from that wouldn’t have the “no first turn charge” problem.
Thanks for the Talos breakdown Nev, your observations on them actually flow pretty in-line with my own. Yeah heat lances have always been S6, they were S6 AP1 with both the lance and melta rule back in 7th edition. Lance will now make them AP-5 I believe this edition with the 8th edition melta rule tacked on. The S6 is more of a liability now (against their preferred targets) since they don`t get 2d6 penetration anymore and -5AP is a bit overkill against most things. They`re still a good choice but a bit pricy in matched points play for most players tastes. Many will go with dark lances and blasters instead to save points.
That aside that supply drop looks good, and that`s mighty nice of ya to start up a salamander force for your boy. Bonus is that since it`s a SM faction it`ll gel nicely with your force and there`s not a completely different set of stats and rules you need to learn to help him play. Will you be updating your work on the salamanders in this thread?
Inevitable_Faith wrote: Thanks for the Talos breakdown Nev, your observations on them actually flow pretty in-line with my own. Yeah heat lances have always been S6, they were S6 AP1 with both the lance and melta rule back in 7th edition. Lance will now make them AP-5 I believe this edition with the 8th edition melta rule tacked on. The S6 is more of a liability now (against their preferred targets) since they don`t get 2d6 penetration anymore and -5AP is a bit overkill against most things. They`re still a good choice but a bit pricy in matched points play for most players tastes. Many will go with dark lances and blasters instead to save points.
That aside that supply drop looks good, and that`s mighty nice of ya to start up a salamander force for your boy. Bonus is that since it`s a SM faction it`ll gel nicely with your force and there`s not a completely different set of stats and rules you need to learn to help him play. Will you be updating your work on the salamanders in this thread?
Yup. I’m a one-blog kinda guy, so everything gets lumped together here. Even started painting them:
Spoiler:
Just kidding. That’s The Boy’s first attempt. I’m keeping that pic as a benchmark. Sure it’s sloppy, but it came to him pre-primed blue, glued together, with no cleanup work done. Plus he’s 11 and it’s his first work. Better then my first minis, and I started later then him.
And his first list. With only minimal advice from me:
Vs. some pointy eared gits:
I know, what kind of monster takes eldar vs. a new player? Me, that’s who!
Mission was the relic. We line up on the edges. He puts his scouts in the same central ruin the relic is in, I put my rangers in my own line to block a gap he could DS into.
He goes first. Drops the terminators + CTDA captain onto the relic turn one. Moves up aggressively with the bikes and rhinos, shooting takes a big chunk out of the falcon with the dragons, but doesn’t kill it. My turn the dragons disembark before something terminal happens to their ride, and get up close to the bikes. Hunter flits over to the LR. Hawks land to spam wounds onto the CTDA captain. All my assorted firepower does a whopping 3 wounds to the LR. All the bikers but the sarge evaporate. I peel a bunch of wounds off the captain (3?) My nightspinner wins the artillery duel with the TFC (He shot my falcon with it)
Turn 2. He deathwatch get out, as do the assault marines (they were in the LR) He finishes killing the first falcon, deletes the dragons, and the bike captain and sarge go and finish off one of my bike squads. His terminators just hunker down on the relic. While wasting their CC prowess, I don’t have a huge amount of infantry in my list, so as long as he can keep a boot on the relic, he can win. Most of the hawks get show down. I disembark the DAs, doom the deathwatch (The Boy has a newfound hate for that power) and then light them up. Takes most of my firepower, but they die. I also blow a chunk off the LR this turn. I charge the DAs into the AMs, just to avoid being out in the open. Some of each squad die, but we remain in combat.
Turn 3. His tac squad gets out, shoots at my serpent (shaves a few wounds off) then assaults the DA (who dies, barely). LR blows half the CH’s wounds off. TFC gunner patches up the LR a bit. Bike captain and sarge try to mug the autarch, He stabs the captain back a few times. Lots of blood, no deaths. I fall back out of combat, the last of the bikers get shot to death. I start pouring fire into the terminators. Going is slow (only psychic power I got off was to smite the bike captain) LR gets blown up. Bikes on the side take the CTDA captain down to his last wound. Guardians deploy to help with weight of fire.
Turn 4. CDTA captain has had enough of the bike’s harassment, breaks cover, heads over and blenders them. Tac squad moves to help shore up the relic, kills some guardians, wounds some tanks. Rhinos are putting around spraying things with paired stormbolters, like they’ve been doing all game. They caused a chunk of damage overall, just nothing noticeable. And I never dedicated the firepower to deal with them. Remaining assault marines charge the guardians. Kills some (they loose 1 to morale, but the squad remains) I kill all but the last terminator on near the objective, 7/10th of the tac squad in shooting. Crimson Hunter kills the final captain. AM are reduced to just the sarge. I charge his last terminator on the objective with my WS to pin him in place. I charge the last 3 tac marines with my autach. The plan was make them (especially the ML guy holding the relic) consolidate away from the terminator. Instead I kill them all. Woops. TDA still has his boot on the relic.
Turn 5. His assault sarge falls out of CC to head to the objective. TFG gunner who had been heading to the front gets close enough to pop the last of the hawks. He shoots up the guardians with what he has left, I tank the wounds with the brightlance platform, which takes a hit, but lives along with 3 guardians. Those 3 guy are all I have left who can take the relic. My WS falls back, opening up his last terminator to fire. In an impressive act of marksmanship (and abysmal saves) my rangers clear his (doomed) scouts off their perks on one volley. 5 kills from 4 shots, quite impressive! (they do an additional mortal wound on a to-wound roll of 6, he failed the 3 normal 2+ saves, and then had to eat the 2 mortals from me rolling 6’s). He continues to roll 1’s and the last terminator drops. The techmarine soon joins them. My guardians are now in control of the objective, screened by my remaining units to keep the rhinos off. It’s getting late, so we forgo rolling for another turn. Victory for the Eldar. But a close game.
Thoughts: I put scatters on the falcons. They didn’t do a whole lot. Not impressed with them. Night weaver spammed wounds like a boss. And with the rending on a 6, can cause some real harm. Worth including, did better the the fire prism. Farseers are mean. Guide/doom is a sweet little combo. Autarch re-roll 1’s within 6” was money in the bank. Stabbing things with the laser lance was just gravy. DAs did OK. Dragons did fine, Hawks were OKish. Overall the aspects pulled their weight. Guardians are cheep bodies. Sometimes you need to get a little muddy to grab the prize. They hid in the WS so they didn’t get shot up early, but in the open they have a low life expectancy. Crimson Hunter packs a nice punch. The -1 to hit it kept it in the sky. Pricy, but got the job done.
The LR put out a chunk of firepower. Tough, lots of wounds, but not invulnerable. Deathwatch were total glass hammers. He probably should have split their fire to get the most of the one turn they got to live. Because under no circumstances could I allow them to survive. Bikes died to mass melta fire. But at lest they ate it, not the LR. Sarges with powerswords are nice, but low volume of attacks limits how good they can be. CTDA can soak a load of firepower. Gunned up ones would have been better for what he was using them for, but they held until the last turn. The TFC never got a real good showing. Can’t hold it against him though. The gunner got to shine a little.
Sounds like a really solid game! I honestly love the tone of your battle reports Nev, they keep it interesting enough to want to keep reading, yet concise enough to not be too wordy.
His first model is much better than my first model too, he's off to a good start. He's also got you to help guide him along so he'll be improving at an exponential rate compared to those of us who had to be self-taught the whole way through.
Battle looked like it was a fun one, some decent back and forth and he got to try out a good smattering of different units.
AUGmaniac wrote:Sounds like a really solid game! I honestly love the tone of your battle reports Nev, they keep it interesting enough to want to keep reading, yet concise enough to not be too wordy.
Thanks. I keep meaning to take more pictures of my games, but I don’t want to slow things down to break out my phone/camera. The hard part of these reports is remembering what turn what happened. For example, I had to backtrack to figure out exactly when my guardians and his tac squad got out of their respective transports, and who died when. Not that it’s a huge deal, but I try to keep things accurate. If I can’t recall the exact timing of something, it probably wasn’t critical.
Inevitable_Faith wrote:His first model is much better than my first model too, he's off to a good start. He's also got you to help guide him along so he'll be improving at an exponential rate compared to those of us who had to be self-taught the whole way through.
Battle looked like it was a fun one, some decent back and forth and he got to try out a good smattering of different units.
My main worry with him painting is that he picks up my bad habits. That and his general reluctance to push his comfort zone. He’d rather do the simple thing that’s kinda “meh” then experiment and try to do something neat. Not that I’m the best at that myself, but I want him to be better then I am; that’s what parenting is all about.
The game actually felt close the whole time. Which is impressive. Normally once one side starts to fold, it cascades from there. We were both causing some harm and erasing units. I like that the relic could only be claimed by infantry. We had roughly equal amounts in out lists, but he had more, and tougher ones. I had more firepower. It was a constant worry every time a pair of boots was shot off the table. Would I have enough to claim the objective at the end? Eldar in the open have some serious issues living.
His list building was a fun exercise. As I was fielding Eldar, he had full range of what to pick.
I suggested he work off a batalion, just to give him a framework.
First he picked troops. Sniper scouts and 2 full tac squads in rhinos.
He then wanted the CTDA captain and blender squad, based on how well they’ve done in the games he’s seen.
For a second HQ, he picked my bike captain (he likes the model) and decided he wanted a relic blade. I gave him the stock spiel I give over in the army list section about choosing a role for your HQs, make sure they are geared for it, and have a place to be. He took the melta bike squad to hang out with the captain.
TFC, I think because of the slamander nature of it, was another of his early picks.
He wants the LR. OK, not a problem. What to put in it? Deathwatch. He likes the look/lore of them. Not going to fit in the points remaining. But all the troops don’t have to be ultras, so we drop a tac squad (re-jiggering gear slightly) I suggest that the LR might be better served with an assault unit. Points are kinda tight, so he sticks an assault squad in there.
And that’s 2k points.
As I was typing that up, I had some thoughts on list building in 8th. Why not deathwatch in a LR? Assault transports used to be a rare and precious thing, not to be squandered. Now, every transport can do that. The lack of fire ports is a non-issue, as they are basically gone from the marine motor pool. Is there a downside of putting an expensive shooty unit in a tough transport? It’s a bit all-your-eggs kinda thing, but LRs are tough. They can take the hit.
It was kinda good to have the AMs with JPs in there. He geared them with flamers, and if they had deepstuck and been out in the open, I would have snuffed them before they got to light me on fire. And they has an impressive charge out of the box.
OK, that’s enough rambling for now. Enjoy your 4th if I don’t post again before the holiday is over. One nice thing about not grilling this year is that I don’t need so subject myself to crappy mainstream American beer.
Why is American beer like sex in a canoe?
Spoiler:
It’s fking close to water
(apologies to all the numerous great small breweries, I’m just poking fun at the big mass-market ones)
There's definitely some major changes to list building in 8th and I find for the most part it's quite freeing and fun. At 11 years old making a 2000 point list is no small feat, none the less playing a full game with it. I've got adult friends who struggled with the game at only making a 500 point list.
Hope you have an awesome fun 4th of July, Canadia day was pretty fun here, I quite enjoyed myself. Do not suffer through bad beer, it's so not worth it. I'm very lucky we have some decent independent breweries close enough to home that I'm able to enjoy the good stuff more often than not.
Yup. While I don’t make it down to the FLGS as often as I like, I am getting a decent number of games in.
Lovely day out here. Went for a walk, enjoyed the great outdoors. Well, the loop around my neighborhood. Then hit Home Despot for a rattle can. Because the only thing better then a gentle summer breeze is one tinged with paint fumes. It’s not like the whole country isn’t going to smell like gunpowder residue tomorrow anyway.
So that’s the last of the built pile. I should actually sort out the primed stuff; lots of it is still jumbled in the boxes I moved in. Next to build will be the primaris marines and the Salamander sternguard.
And some paint. This month’s challenge is “fun and games” where part of the concept is play aids, including things like terrain. So out comes the old crashed lander.
And some early basecoats:
I’ll probably put some snow scattered on it a little, but the thought was to have it be a fresh crash, so mostly churned and burned earth.
So far the 4th has been a nice lazy day. My plans for the evening involve beer, bratwurst, and a Captain America marathon. Stay safe everyone, remember you need those fingers for painting, try not to blow them off with fireworks!
OK, here is the main primed pile. There might be some odds and ends in boxes. In fact I know there are, but this is the bulk of what’s on-deck.
Box 1:
Stromhawk
10x 30k Destroyers
Stalker/hunter/command tank
Land Speeder
Guiliman
3x old metal assault marines
2x old metal veterans
1x old metal captain
3x LotD counts-as
5 scouts
Techmarine
Primaris LT
12x RTB01 bolter brothers
Box 2:
6x bikes
bike warlock/seer
8x Eldar guardians
1 weapon platform
Warp Spider
Homaguant
3x marauders
2 D&D minis
1 Sister of Sigmar
chaos familer
Asst. battlefield debris
Asst. spare weapons/vehicle parts
Asst. spare marine arms
Box 3:
LR/LRR/LRC with all the fixins.
The warp spider was a recent gift. I was chatting with one of the guys at the FLGS about how he was liking the new Eldar, and admiring his old school army. I asked if he had any spares he would be willing to trade, as I’m a guy short on a few squads. He just gave me a spare spider he had in his case, as he had more then he needed for his squads. I’ve got 3 painted on the shelf, and an exarch that needs to be primed, but with that spider I’m good to field a squad of them. I need to drag some stuff down to offer him next time I see him, or just pay it forward to someone at the shop.
I also need to find where I packed up my friends minis I was painting for him. After sitting out the last edition, he’s making noises about getting back in, and even picked up the rules. So a few random SoB or guard might show up again in the blog.
Zambro wrote: Oh, crap! That's a huge primed pile! Enough to keep you going for a long while.
Cant wait to see the finished terrain
As I spray prime, I do like to keep a decent stock of stuff on hand. Helps keep be busy in the cold a/o rainy months. I want to add at least one or two major prime loads before fall hits. Hopefully at least one side’s worth of marines from the 8th box, the SG I’m building for The Boy, and anything else I pick up. The pile of shame is getting pretty deep, and I’d like to get the bulk of it at least built. I’ve still got the centurions I picked up NOS. and no idea how to build them under the current edition. Handful of other things like that.
So some (slow) WIP on the lander:
The little wing fragment should be just about done. Not sure if I’m going to add snow effects or not. That will probably be a last minute decision. Sloppy basecoats on the other two sections. Some more detail on these guys, so they will take longer.
So I got to steal The Boy for part of the weekend. Got a game in. He wanted to do Ultra Vs. Ultra, so that’s what we did. 2k lists. I gave him first dibs on the shelf. Here is what he took: All my CC terminators, 2x tac squads, asst. honor guard, apothecary, captain. some snipers. And all my rhino-hulled transports.
You want all the rhinos? Time to try the drop pods out!
As I put this list together and thought about it, I felt increasingly dirty. Not that I think it’s overpowered, but a bit tighter then what The Boy built, and has the mobility to capitalize on his mistakes. Oh well, he can learn from them.
We roll randomly for deployment zones, and get the long edge with the peaked middle. Mission is big guns. The only HS on the table is his LR.
Top of turn 1. I finished deployment first, but he seized with the help of a CP.
I’m basically tucked away in one corner, he’s smeared all over his deployment zone. We had perviously had a conversation about bubble wrapping, but I think he took it too far. The CTDAs were basically deployed as an advanced spoiler to keep me from DSing on that flank. His tac squad also disembarked early to keep me off that side. His shooting is mostly out of range, but the LR does blow a big chunk out of the LSS. Not much else happens.
I decide just to cede the objective near the capheracts. They are slow enough he’s not going to impact the rest of the game with them, and I figure I can roll up the other flank. Which I start doing. I drop the melta tacs and the sternguard on that back objective, with the tacs hiding from the LR behind the bastion. The SR zooms across the table right near to the LR. Speeders move up, but can’t get too close. My fire is pretty solid, killing the exposed tac squad, and blowing their rhino and the LR down to about half wounds each.
Turn 2
His rhino and razor rush over to help, but the distance they have to go is pretty long. CTDAs shamble towards the objective. Assault termies disembark. His shooting shaves a few wounds off the SR, not much else. I get lucky and pop a terminator on overwatch, they pile in and kill 3 marines. I got a bit lucky there.
SR dumps it’s cargo, turns right and move just past the rhino/razor. Sternguard move towards the center. Speeders move up. I keep the last (grav) pod in reserve for now. No good spot to land. Shooting finished off the LR/rhino from last round, blows half the wounds off the razor. I charge the VVs, chaplain, and captain into the terminators. When the smoke clears, a vanguard is dead but the TH/SS sarge from the TDA squad stands defiant. Ironclad is out of position, as the LR he wanted to tear into died to shooting.
Turn 3
His Razor full of goodness deploys behind the bastion, next to the dread. His tacs push out around the other side towards the middle. CTDA consolidate around their objective. His shooting shaves a few more wounds off the SR, dropping it down a wound class. The chapter champion drops the ironclad like a punk with his TH. Ouch.
I drop the last pod and deploy the grav to hose down his command element. VVs, Chap move up to engage, as do both speeders. Sternguard clear the angle around the bastion and draw a bead on his tacs. SR swings over to the CTDAs. Shooting takes out the apothecary and champion, drops a few wounds into the captain and one off an HG. Sternguard blow 7/10 of the tacs away. I’m in the process of erasing the terminators when I remember I’m down BS from wounds on the SR. I re-do the shooting, and end up only killing one, rather then the 4 I had before. CC sees the captain finished off, at the price of one VV. Sternguard remove the last of the tacs in assault.
Turn 4
We call it at this point. He’s got his scouts on the central bunker, a wounded HG and Ancient, and a massively out of place terminator squad. It’s pretty obvious I’m going to mop up the remnants and win on VPs.
Victory Ultras! Not that there was any doubt; one of the perks of playing against your own army.
Thoughts:
OK, I was primed for pods to just suck. Sure, they are pricy, but they still get you close. While my melta wasn’t in range for the bonus, they still got wounds in on the rhino on the drop. Sternguard are fine at 9”, as is grav. Being able to call in the exact time was nice. On turn 2, his wounded rhino was still projecting a large no-drop bubble on that flank. Once it was out of the way, I had a clear LZ. Just in time to turn the chapter champion into a little wadded up ball with massed grav fire.
SR is worth the price of admission. Not that it happened, but it’s no more dangerous to ride one into the ground as any other transport, so I’m more OK with loading it up. And it starts on the table, and can get almost anywhere in a round. Then you can pop out for a turn two assault. The loads of guns and hard to hit are nothing to snear at either. Sure, it’s pricy, but I think worth it. Need to paint up it’s hurricane bolters. 8 points for how much dakka? Yes please!
I was pissed about the changes to sternguard special ammo. But I think I’m going to be OK with the new bolters. Extra range is nice (would be better if I remembered to use it ) and AP-2 is amazing. Heavy flamers are probably only going to come out if I’m riding on the ground. Not that they are crazy expensive, but can’t be used on the drop. Sad, I liked the burning.
I was going to try to fit a TML/HB speeder into my list, but couldn’t work out the points. 150 for them, ouch. The classic tornado MM/HF did OK. The -1 with the MM is a little painful, but OK I guess. I think running a 2xHF, or maybe a HF/AsC might be better. Still need to try the typhoon, but they are not as economical as they used to be.
The drive-bye scouts were kinda “meh” partly due to bad rolling. Not going to write them off yet.
The Boy picked up a pot of paint while we were there, and I got him the new “welcome to the game” booklet/free marine. $8 for the basic rules, army overviews, what looked like a copy of the new paint WD (which I already owned, but is a very nice thing for newbies) and a free primaris marine. When I was dropping him back home I sat down and helped him assemble a razorback. He had done one on his own, but had trouble aligning the hull. Got this one good and solid for him. Quality time.
Sounds like an amazing day. You obviously have an advantage over The Boy, but after a while, when his skill level raises, you'll have a harder time. Then you'll come back here and read these battle reports and think "...If only I could have an easy game...".
Zambro wrote: Sounds like an amazing day. You obviously have an advantage over The Boy, but after a while, when his skill level raises, you'll have a harder time. Then you'll come back here and read these battle reports and think "...If only I could have an easy game...".
Once he starts to get a bit better, I’ll stop teaching him tricks and secrets. I do post battle Q&As with him now, asking what he thought of each unit, what could have done better with it, what the high points were, why things happened they way the did, etc. With wargaming, you are going to lose, and lose a lot at the start. But if you learn from your mistakes (and your opponent’s mistakes and tricks) then you can improve.
Right now he also has a bad case of shiny model syndrome. I’m trying to gently focus him on actually finish building and painting the stuff he has before amassing his own pile of shame.
Sounds like you had a blast in that game. How old is the Boy? I know you probably said earlier, but I didn't want to search through pages and pages to find it. It's very cool that you're passing on our hobby to the next generation!
ZergSmasher wrote: Sounds like you had a blast in that game. How old is the Boy? I know you probably said earlier, but I didn't want to search through pages and pages to find it. It's very cool that you're passing on our hobby to the next generation!
He turned 11 last March.
I had fun in the game, and am glad he seemed to enjoy it. I suspected I was going to win as we were packing up our armies. When I saw how he deployed, I knew I had it. There were things he could have done to help, like castle up for mutual support, but he didn’t. I’d feel worse, but literally the night before, after pulling his army from the shelf, I demonstrated how to use a pair of flanking rhinos and a forward deployed scout squad to keep deep strikers away from LRs you don’t want locked in CC and softer high-value targets like razors full of command units. An example bubble wrap deployment with the units he was taking. With the additional note that if he was really worried, he could combat squad the tacs and use a 5 man bolter squad as another outlying screen.
So it’s not like I just introduced him to the wonders of drop pods by evaporating half his army with no warning.
MacPhail wrote: That's a serious pile o' primed work to tackle... I salute your ambition!
It’s getting a little big, but my primed pile tends to swell over the summer to prepare for the cold winter months. Actually working a job is cutting into my productivity as well, so it’s not getting chipped away as much either. Still need to do a lot of building, I might pick a more manageable painting goal for Aug. and get some more plastic built.
Speaking of painting:
I’m done with 3/5s of the lander. And put the sloppy base grey down on one of the remaining bits. Not sure if I’m going to finish it by month’s end. After lunch I’m hitting the road and going to be AFK for a week on the beach. And month’s end will be here before we know it. But I can enter what I have.
I might check in over the week, we’ll see what the internet situation is. If not, take care all. When I get back, it should be with the new codex. Looking forward to that.
Those pesky jobs getting in the way of our painting!! *shakes fist in air*
The crashed lander looks good, tbh. Looks like it's been out in the weather for a while. The glass on the main hull part looks good, it catches the eye well.
Enjoy the beach (and martinis that will more than likely accompany it)
Zambro wrote: Those pesky jobs getting in the way of our painting!! *shakes fist in air*
The crashed lander looks good, tbh. Looks like it's been out in the weather for a while. The glass on the main hull part looks good, it catches the eye well.
Enjoy the beach (and martinis that will more than likely accompany it)
I’m back, and only mildly sunburned. (and yes, I did enjoy a few martinis, but more scotch and bourbon.) Trying to finish up the lander today, as the end of the month is rapidly approaching.
The tail section still needs the scratches done, but will then be ready for its wash. The other little fragment still needs a chunk of work. If I can’t get them done today, I might just take pictures of the parts I’ve done for the month’s competition. Next month is going to be “Brutal” I’m leaning towards painting up some of the 30k destroyers I’ve got sitting around. Would be nice to get a 5 man stick done, but we’ll see. Alternatively I could do the last of the chaos marauders or the lone homogaunt. August is going to be another short month, as I’ll be heading down to KY for a week near the end. I also need to dedicate more time to building, so it might be worth picking a easy project.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Quick phone pic. Need to charge up the camera’s battery and get formal shots.
ZergSmasher wrote: Those scenery pieces are the reason why I occasionally look through eBay listings looking for a Battle for Macragge set. You really did well on them!
Thanks. Like most vehicle size things, I run out of enthusiasm about halfway through. Nice of the competition to give me a time frame I needed to make.
Next month is “Brutal” and I’m going with the 30k destroyers. Although I almost changed my mind to do some of the old RT lead assault guys I stripped a bit ago.
Got a game in yesterday. 50 PL, supposedly fun lists for the new GW campaign.
I’m playing a fluffy little fun marine list, he’s packing a pair of FW dreads and loaded dev squad with Cpt/Lt. re-roll buffs. To be fair, I also have a captain and a LT, but not doing the stacked gunline thing. This is the same guy playing necrons a few weeks ago. I either need to bring multiple lists, or politely decline playing him. I was tabled, but at least took down the leviathan dread. He also seized the initiative and my dice were cold, so lots of bad luck.
Wow, I guess your opponent doesn't realise "brutal" is for the painting challenge only...
I got almost tabled last night too. The re-roll buffs are frustrating (but at least its not formation-level rules BS).
How does the Campaign stuff work? Not looked into it.
Zambro wrote: Wow, I guess your opponent doesn't realise "brutal" is for the painting challenge only...
I got almost tabled last night too. The re-roll buffs are frustrating (but at least its not formation-level rules BS).
How does the Campaign stuff work? Not looked into it.
I know there is a new scenario each week, and they favor certain elements. I know our local store us waving entry fees if you buy an appropriate kit for the week, not sure if that is normal. I got a free card of punch out objectives/wound counters and a stratagem card for the week. As I was playing for free at least the first week due to picking up the 8th box on launch day, I figured I’d show up and give it a shot. Not sure if my schedule will let me play in the other weeks.
Got some paint down this week.
Finished up the hurricane bolters for the raven. At their price, it seems criminal to fly without them these days. Also put the first basecoats down on a test destroyer. I think I’m going to drybrush the armor grey, and nulan oil him. Should fit the gritty nature of 30k and his unit. Golds and blues will get the same treatment as the rest of my 30k marines.
I’m not sure if I’m going to put the nulan wash on this guy, kinda like him with just the drybrush. Although I think the grenades could use it. And I need to freehand the squad symbol on the shoulder, that should be fun. Plus the normal basing stuff. And then bang out the rest of the squad, or at least 4 more guys for the month’s comp.
Thoughts?
Also in fun news, with the new codex in hand (or more accurately battlescribe) I did my 8th edition points tally. Counting everything on the marine shelf (which includes things like the Deathwatch and my ADL, not just my Ultras) and adding in the stuff from the YTD shelf, I’m just shy of 13,000 points. 12,975 is what the tally actually is, but there are weapon swaps and more upgrades I could take to boost it to the nice round number, so I’m going with 13k.
I should probably do a new tally on the Eldar, and the primed pile. That can be tomorrow’s project over coffee.
Hope everyone is enjoying their weekends.
Edit: Also in the news, I just gave a soapy bath and rinse to the Kromlech bits I ordered. Fall is looming, need to build.
Not bad. Probably easier to do a white circle first, then carve out the divots. I tried freehanding it as is, then did a (large) cleanup in blue to make the curves smooth. Also freehanded an U on the other shoulder, and felt that he needed a helmet stripe, so I gave him one.
Between coats I clipped out the sternguard I’m going to build for The Boy while listening to Ratius’s albums
Hey Nev its been awhile since I checked on your blog, too bad about having to face that "guy" in a fun campaign game. There is always going to be those players even on fun nights seems they just can't tone it down.
Adding the hurricane bolters to the ravens is a great upgrade, they really do the work on infantry especially those with poorer armor saves. I would not take more than one though for fun games, recently I played a friend running orks and the raven pretty much did him in. Having Dante close by for re rolls to hits allowed me to cut apart his 30 man ork mobs.
Your destroyer is really coming along, and the added stripe on his helm helps. Your freehand is definitely better than mine, keep up the good work.
Yorkright wrote: Hey Nev its been awhile since I checked on your blog, too bad about having to face that "guy" in a fun campaign game. There is always going to be those players even on fun nights seems they just can't tone it down.
Adding the hurricane bolters to the ravens is a great upgrade, they really do the work on infantry especially those with poorer armor saves. I would not take more than one though for fun games, recently I played a friend running orks and the raven pretty much did him in. Having Dante close by for re rolls to hits allowed me to cut apart his 30 man ork mobs.
Your destroyer is really coming along, and the added stripe on his helm helps. Your freehand is definitely better than mine, keep up the good work.
I only own one raven, so can’t spam them. Not that I would. There is actually very little I can spam. Tac squads I guess. Potentially dev squads if I empty out the swap shelf, but with the exception of MLs and HBs, I don’t have more then 4 of any other heavy weapon. If dread spam ever becomes a thing, I guess I’m poised to do that. But given the choice between a second of something, or a shiny new model, I’ll always go for the new thing. Busy morning puttering around. Almost done with the first 3 destroyers, need to base them (and finish backpacks) Also started cleaning mold lines off the sternguard. I’d say I keep forgetting how tedious that job is, but I don’t forget; just dread. Anyway, working through them.
And playing Civ and running laundry through the machines. Lazy and productive Sunday.
Making progress. Almost done with the first 5. Just need to finish off the ML, then base.
Slowly cleaning the Mk III sternguard. Once I finish those, I think I’ll reward myself by building some of the new primaris stuff. Really want to try those guys out, but need to get them painted first. I also want to put together another LT. Probably with a JP. The hard part will be making him fancier then a sarge, but not a captain. Fine line to tread.
AUGmaniac wrote:To make mine stand out, I kitbashed a sort of Vox-Array on his backpack. It worked pretty well. That is one idea
Not a bad idea. Might be a little odd if I do a jump pack. On the other hand, none of my JP guys have much like that, so it would help him stand out.
TheCustomLime wrote:Those are some nice destroyers there. I really like seeing space marine with alternate legion color schemes.
It was fun to paint them up. I remembered reading somewhere that destroyer squads were done in either black or grey, dug a little deeper and found that UM ones were black. Then the trick is to tie them into the rest of the army, so they don’t looks like some deathwatch or something fighting along side. So the shoulderpads got my normal treatment, particularly the gold to tie in with the 30k guys, and the sarge got the red crest of his peers. Basing is also a huge deal for making them look coherent.
Freehand was irritating, but probably good for making me a better painter. At some point I’ll need to do it again for the second half of the squad. Here is their final shot:
So that’s another half year down for the monthly challenge.
Overall quite happy with my work. 4/6th of them were squad level entries (counting the lander, as it’s 5 parts). So for 6 months, I’ve done 20 guys. And one of those was a vampire on a giant skullbeast. I think my quality is also on the rise, particularly on the single entries. Quite proud of the medic and Manfred. Considering everything that’s been going on this year, things are progressing smoothly.
Now I need to get back to cleaning mold lines. Enjoy your weekends all.
Unlike cleaning mold lines, which is tedious at best. The new primaris aren’t bad though. Gota love new kits with fresh molds. Here is my weekend progress:
Minor kitbash on the Primaris sarge. He can take a power sword, so I gave him one. From the RW accessory sprue; the larger size works well here. A close up shot.
I love the attiture rolling off him. “You want a piece of this you xenos?!” Part of his body language tells me he’s swearing.
I need to figure out how I want to make auxiliary grenade launchers. For 1 point they seem a no brainer. I also need to figure out how I’m going to build my JP LT. And what gear to give him. Right now leaning towards bare-bones, but I’ll probably end up magnetizing him anyway.
Went to the FLGS this afternoon to give some random bits to a fellow working on a undead project. While I was there got in a game of the AvP board game. Fun game, lots of flashbacks to Space Hulk, with some interesting mechanics. Nice looking minis as well. Shame it’s made by Prodos games, of which I’ve heard nothing good.
Looking good. Looks like we've similar ideas (again) on Lts. I was thinking of doing a shooty buffing one with just the MC bolter and a PW (prob Axe) and a JP variant to buff a DS attack group with either a SB or PP and a PW (axe still). These loadouts keep em cheap but effective I think. I still won't use any Primaris though, I think they won't be in my force (though no judgements on you/others for doing so).
Yeah, I'm just not sold on them, though the Intercessors are great models the rest of the range I find a bit embarrassing (Aggressors? Termiitubbuies 2). Nice to have Lts back and for them to be cheap and useful.
youwashock wrote:Nice work. It's cool to see the collected shots. Cataloging progress is a good thing. I may try it, if I ever make any progress.
(sorry I missed replying to this earlier. Phone browsing sucks, and is not good for quotes/lengthily replies)
I find keeping a YTD shelf and periodically doing retrospectives helps keep me focused. It’s easy to get lost in the pile of shame, or the backlog of stuff giving you disapproving glares from the back of the bench. Sometimes you just need to take a step back and look at how far you’ve actually come. Also don’t get intimidated by others. We all paint at our own pace and skill level. Find your zone and work from there. I originally had “accept it” but decided that that’s not the right answer. We should always strive to improve. But be sure to keep goals reasonable. Do a little better every year, and take the long term view. But don’t think you can bang out a 2k point army in a month, or win a Golden Demon next time if you are like me and are lucky to get a table-top mini done a week. In life in general I think we hold ourself to unreasonable goals far to often, and it’s stressful. Be happy where you are, but always strive for improvement. But the journey of a 1,000 miles begins with but a single step. Sit down and pick up the brush, and progress will flow.
(I feel the need for a Zen ork emoticon.)
RandyMcStab wrote:Yeah, I'm just not sold on them, though the Intercessors are great models the rest of the range I find a bit embarrassing (Aggressors? Termiitubbuies 2). Nice to have Lts back and for them to be cheap and useful.
I think the farther the primaris stray from classic marines the worse they get. The basic guys are fine. Intercessors, Hellblasters, LTs, Ancient. All great minis. But basically just upscaled marines. I’m a little hit or miss on the other basic armored HQs. Chaplain is cool, Lib is OK, medic is kinda meh. PA captains are decent. All overpriced, but that’s nothing new.
But the alternate armor guys are just bad. Gravis captain looks a bit tubby. JP guys are just a bit off; they look like slow and purposeful assault troops. The heavy guys are like diet centurions. Nothing is truly horrible, just getting a solid 80’s Saturday morning cartoon vibe from them. Which is not where I want my marines to be. The dread doubles down on that.
The reivers I’m torn on. They are somewhere in between. The Repulsor would be there too, due to being massively overgunned (with random, non-traditional guns for the most part) but it still has the overall aesthetics of a marine tank, and rubs up nicely against my soft spot for grav tanks. (Stupid FLGS was sold out of them yesterday. Grumble)
The other thing that really toques me off is the stupid rules/options. This no model=no rules thing needs to stop. I assembled my CC Primaris LT this evening. Basic guy with a power sword/bolt pistol. Would be stupidly easy to give him some weapon swaps, mix it up a bit. Maybe give him a TH and a Salamander paint job? Plasma Pistol? Nope. Build the kit as-is if you want to field him on the table. The gutting of all the legacy options out of the index when they printed the codex also left a very sour taste in my mouth. Sure, it’s legal to use the index now, but how long will there be rules for some of that stuff? And I’m not talking about odd esoteric builds that were on the fringe of legality, but core things like any bike HQ not a captain.
While I think the rules, communication, and company in general are making great strides forward, I think the hobby side is in the weird, twisted place. We are getting some fantastic kits. But the rules are basically just build that unit out of that box, with only the choices within. Some of the rules just make no sense from a fluff POV. Only when you look at it from a business sense do the reasons become clear. And there is a unhealthy dose of “turn it up to 11” which I think was unnecessary.
<deep breath>
Sorry about venting. GW has gotten a lot better.
As I mentioned, I put together the CC LT from the DI box. Next up will probably be the ancient. He’s all clipped, just needs cleaning and glue. Then I should probably get back to those sternguard. Probably the Hellblasters after that, but maybe a squad of the jump guys. We’ll see. Only a half week of hobby. Thursday I fly down to KY to visit my folks, watch the sun die, and drink top shelf booze. Be there for a week.
Anyone heading to GenCon, I’m jealous and enjoy yourself. Fond (but tired) memories of the few times I went.
I agree on most of your primaris points and too am finding the minis inspirational but the rules (and fluff in my case) the opposite. Since I'm not building a whole force, I'm just trying to make some sort of legal combo with each fig even if it doesn't line up exactly as intended by GW. I'm looking forward to seeing what else you do with your' s.
OK, back from vacation. Always nice to go home and visit the folks. Got to go watch the flaming sky-orb get what it deserved, if only for a couple of minutes. Too long has its burning reign of terror run unchecked. I’ll have to crawl back into the shadows and wait until 2024 now.
Anyway, some new stuff built. Some done before the trip, but now with a pic:
Sarge for the Salamander SG squad. Gave him a powerfist. Rough build of a new JP LT for me. Just tacked together at this point. Going with grav pistol/sword as his stock load, but will magnetize both. In the background are the primaris ancient and CC LT. Built stock.
Weather is mild but breezy, if it calms down I’ll prime. Pile is big enough.
Also in the news, I hit a new reward level at my work’s fitness rewards program, and got a chunk of bonus points, which I can spend for Amazon gift cards. So sometime between now and early September a Repulsor tank and bottles of micro sol/set should be making their guilt-free way to my door.
With the tank on the way, I need to bump the hellblasters up the build queue. And decide if I want to upgrade one of the other primaris HQs to a captain, or just build the gravis armor one first.
That went quickly. Now to check the weather for priming (and get some exercise in)
And a lovely day out. The pile of shame gets a little smaller as things get built, and the primed pile grows. The inercessors and hellblasters will probably drift to the top of the paint queue as I’d like to field them. I think I’ll build a trio of the jump guys, and finish the last 4 of the sternguard and then get back to painting. Nice to get some building in.
2 new guys (well, as new as old metal models get) and the 3 old ones. Going back and touching up the old guys to make them fit in a little better with the army. And you know, clean up my crappy 20+ year old paint job. I probably should have stripped them, but that would have taken some foresight.
Anyway, just wanted to post a quick update that’s something besides just building stock models out of the box.
I am doing the same thing with my Eldar. Nice painting all metal figs, brings back memories of earlier editions. Although I think my Warp Spiders might be the last squad I repaint as they are not likely to see the field anytime soon.
Mail call!. I guess the micro sol is shipping from another location. But got the tank Need to clean those spiders off of the bench before I can start building, should light a fire under me.
Captain Brown wrote:I am doing the same thing with my Eldar. Nice painting all metal figs, brings back memories of earlier editions. Although I think my Warp Spiders might be the last squad I repaint as they are not likely to see the field anytime soon.
Good luck,
CB
While their time to shine might have been last edition, I think spiders can still be viable in 8th. Just not crazy broken. I’m just glad to have a full matching squad. Unlike the 4 metal wraithguard collecting dust.
Inevitable_Faith wrote:Excited to see how these come out Nev. You painting them the cannon aspect shrine colours or doin your own scheme?
Like my old swooping hawks, I have no idea where the paint scheme came from. The fun part is reproducing it. The red bits are actually terracotta, which is a little browner then the khorne red I use for the rest of my army. RT paint pot still has some life, so that’s easy. Black is black. The silver is probably boltgun metal, and leadbelcher is a bit lighter then that (put a layer down on the two new guys last night). Do I try to wash it down to match, or re-paint the old guys? Drybrush a lighter silver on top of both to even them out? The random details I’ll probably end up re-doing anyway, but the guns are kinda noticeable.
The Boy and I hit the model train store for supplies. Glue is for me, the gravel is for his Salamanders, and the rod is for the next project.
When he was putting together his LR, he got glue on the door hinge accidentally, and got it stuck. While attempting to fix it, his mother snapped the door off. Being the awesome dad that I am, I fixed it.
What might not be apparent is that I fixed it so the cam still works, and the door opens normally. Even after drilling out glued in fragments, and scratch building the new post with the flat side to slot in to the mechanism. Only took me 3 tries, but I did it.
In other hobby progress, I cleaned some more mold lines on the sternguard I’m building. Almost done.
And got a game in. Steadfast Ultras vs. Filthy Xenos.
Except the Ultras were actually Salamanders, and the Xenos were reasonably clean. Well, for Eldar.
Game vs. The Boy. The 6th week Konor mission. Wherein the defender (me) must keep more models then his opponent around 3 objectives, or the attacker destroys them. (pic from the mid-top of 2) I spread the objectives across the back of my line, figuring that I should have more speed if I need to redeploy to cover more, but it would be harder for him. Which was accurate. I don’t have an army particuarly suited for camping, but spread out to cover the objectives the best I can.
His first turn involves some shuffling/consolidating his forces, and shooting some wounds off of the CH and a falcon. I respond by blowing all but the last wound off the raven, redeploying my bikes to the center, and running the FDs up to pop the pred. My thought is to stall him in mid-field, while my long range backline pours in fire.
His turn he unloads the raven and razorback. The sternguard/chaplain kill the dragons, while the assault marines and captain kill 2 bikes and take the seer down to his last wound. He ignored the avatar, and moved his contempor and SR to deal with my rangers. Which he did (mostly the dread’s work). He pops the first objective. So proud of him keeping an eye on the victory conditions, rather then just piling in for the big fights. That choice was not without consequences though. My avatar wanders over shoots some wounds off the razor, and carves open a rhino. My bikes fall back to the corner with the night spinner, and Jain Zar and the DA get out of their falcon to help that side. I finish off the raven, kill the sternguard, and lock Jain into CC with the chaplain.
Turn 3 we have a tactical discussion. At this point I can only hope for a minor victory. Does he split his forces and gamble on a major victory, or settle for a minor one himself by focusing everything on one objective. He chooses the latter, but doesn’t totally forgo the near side of the table. His jump units hop over to help with the avatar, while the wounded razor, a full rhino and the dread move towards my lone WS sitting on the far objective. His bikes move up to help his chaplain. This is the turn that the Emperor protects. The chaplain shrugs off all the hits coming in his way, any of which would have killed him. The avatar stabs the captain 4 times, but he makes all his iron halo checks. Statistically they both should have been dead, but this was the turn to be rocking out those 4++s. Avatar goes down to a thunder hammer upside the head, Jain continues to dance. I think the bikes (but not the techmarine who failed the charge) are in the CC at this point. I shuffle some of my tanks around to get better shots across the table, and deploy the guardians to try to slow down the dread. Blow some wounds off the contemptor, some other light shooting, but not much. Jain and the chaplain/bikes continue their duel. I charge the guardians into the dread to try to remove it’s last wound, come close, but he makes all his saves.
Turn 4 the tech plows into the fight and the rest of his army goes over to mug the WS/guardians. Which they do. The dread disengages to allow his forces to shoot the guardians (which they never get around to, needing the firepower to kill the WS, which they do) but the tac squad charges the guardians, and while not killing them, get more bodies within 3” of the prize then I had, destroying it. Jain Zar finally dies. I forget if she killed the tech in CC before doing so, or if the shooting afterwords on my turn did. On my turn I shoot all the bikes to death. The chaplain has one wound left, standing defiant on that side of the table. I’ve got 2 flacons left (one wounded) a wounded CH circling around, a seer on his last wound and a shurcannnon bike, the night spinner, and the DA squad.
Turn 5 he charges the chaplain into the DA and kills a couple, shrugs off all the return hits. His jump troops race across the table and manage to put some wounds onto a falcon. His tacs are still tied up with the guardians, but his free forces on that side of the table slowly start to redeploy. Tired of his chaplain, my farseer smites him, ending his reign of terror. I shoot all his jump units off the table, but guardians finally die in CC.
I might be a turn off somewhere, I think we played one more turn, but the end result was the same. I still stood on one objective, all his mobile elements and long range fire were dead, and what he had left was turns away from getting to me. But he had seized a minor victory from the Eldar menace.
Some post game thoughts: T3 is squishy. So very, very squishy. I know this, but it strikes me after every game with my Eldar. Tanks are rugged, bikes do OK, but infantry just die in the open. Or even in cover, and in CC. Pretty much everywhere. If I need to keep boots on an objective, I really need to get some wraithguard and another WS. Or see how well a giant blob of guardians does. Avatar was kinda mean, but not as tough as I’d have liked. Jain Zar was a pretty tough little blender, but could have used some backup. But still, the -1 to hit her and the disarm made her a handy little tarpit. But I felt the lack of buffs. One farseer was not enough to boost all my units. Beatsticks are nice, but buffs win games.
Salamander tactics are good. There were a few spots where UM tactics could have been used, but the Saly re-rolls were always money in the bank. Don’t forget to shoot your bolt pistols. Lots of wounds including some critical ones (the last from the WS) were from people snapping off a random pistol shot. Same with stray stormbolters from assorted vehicles. They add up.
Hope everyone had a good weekend, and continue to do so for those of us with long weekends this week.
Hah! Just because I’m not doing much doesn’t mean I can’t blog about it.
Overall slow hobby week. Rainy and grey, and work has been stressful. But I try to be a good blogger, so here are some updates.
Finished building the last of the Salamander sternguard:
Nothing fancy, but they are done.
Started painting the LR for this month’s challenge.
Just a basic black for the interior. I’ll give it a quick and dirty silver drybrush and pick out a few details. Not going into a lot of effort for the inside, but if you glance it I want to not to be bare plastic/primer.
Here is an update pic of the spiders:
Not much painting progress since I last talked about them, but a picture to illustrate my dilemma. Vastly different silver on the guns. To get something even vaguely the same, I think I’m going to have to repaint. Not the end of the world, but at this point I’m thinking I should have just stripped them. I guess I can just do the patch job for now, and if it looks too lame I can just nuke them later. But I need to expand the Eldar. The Boy seems to like 2k games, and I just don’t have a lot of options to play at that level.
Speaking of which, I have him for part of the weekend (The Ex is doing a girls night in, and asked for me to watch him for part of her weekend) and we are planning to hit the FLGS and get a game in this afternoon. He’s building 5 BaC marines into a Dev squad as I type this. We should probably build lists and pack them before the day gets to late. And maybe eat some breakfast. I guess I should be a little responsible and keep him fed.
Got a game in yesterdays with The Boy. We tried a different way of building armies; unit draft. We each took turns selecting units from the shelf until we had 2k lists. Here is what we ended up with:
My army:
His:
Interesting way to select. Some units were in short supply, so grabbing it early made sense. I think my first 3 pics were the razor, a rhino, and the pred. His were a sternguard squad, a drop pod, and a librarian on a bike (which he didn’t end up using). I ended up with a gunline, and his army was a very aggressive. Interesting balance.
Mission was big guns never tire, corner deployment zones.
I castle up and bubble wrap, he takes first turn and comes at me.
First turn he swings the raven over and drops the sternguard to try to clear my scout squad strung out over that flank. Due to some decent luck on my part, one guy survives. I blow the 2CP to have him auto-pass, maintaining the 9” no drop bubble around him and denying first blood. And when I say I spent the command points, that’s a lie, as I made both my checks with the UM warlord trait for the instant rebate.
My turn sees me pour every ounce of firepower into the raven, eventually killing it with the last of my guns, the snipers plinking the last wound off.
Here is the top of turn 2
His drop pod/sternguard and the cargo from the raven are on one flank, while his rhino and bikes rush down the center. I’ve got the razor and a 5 man tac squad deployed to hold him off, while my sternguard remain embarked waiting to strike.
He crashes into my forces holding the woods, killing the tacs and taking a chunk out of the razor in CC. The last scout is gunned down by the expert marksmen of the 1st company.
I swing the talon back into my deployment zone to help, planning on hovering next turn. The razor falls back, opening him up for shooting , while the sternguard deploy to engage the bikes. The dread dies after a brutal amount of fire gets laid into him, The bikes are reduced to just the sarge, and both vet squads take a few losses. It’s getting kinda bloody out there.
His turn 3 he finally brings in his last pod. I think he was a little too focused on clearing the “optimal” LZ in my backfield, instead of just settling for the acceptable one that was opened up when my talon moved out. So his Grav/MMdev squad, Honor guard, and apothecary finally join the fight to the left of my core firebase. He lines up his captain and the lone survivor of the vanguard vets, the sarge with the thunder hammer, to jump up and swat the Stormtalon from the sky. In a clear example of their inter-company rivalry, the sternguard shoot it down with their combi meltas before the assault phase. Resigned, the jump packs charge the razor, taking it down to it’s last wound. The biker flees combat with my sternguard and goes to set on the open objective. His rhino charges to tie up my vets before they can cause more trouble. His newly arrived squads don’t accomplish much unfortunately, due to some poor rolling. The pred looses a few wounds and a sniper or two die, but that’s it.
My turn 3 pretty much ends the game. My sternguard fall out of CC with the rhino, and thanks to the UM CT, still get to shoot. So they kill the last bikers with their HFs and the last VV with their bolters. I kill his dev squad, and one of his HG. My terminators and chaplain landed in the backfield, but didn’t manage to get any wounds in.
So he’s got a apothecary, a honor guard, an wounded captain and the remnants of his sternguard (plus his 5 man tac squad holding is home objective). It’s getting pretty late in the day, and his odds of victory are quite low, so we call it there. If we had gone another turn, he might have been able to make it into CC with my firebase, but didn’t have the volume of attacks to kill me left. I was in position to secure 3 of the 4 objectives, and had first blood already.
Victory Ultramarines!
And now it’s time for another cup of coffee and to make waffles. Enjoy your Sunday all.
So another week down. Rough week at work (darn hurricane) but I made it. Even got some progress in.
A few more little tweaks on the spiders moving them forward, and the base blue down on the LR hull. And a solid start on some of the accessories. Hopefully I can get some good progress in this weekend.
Not being able to get to sleep is a hellava thing for hobby progress.
Spiders are done, just need to base them. LR hull is basically done, I even did a little light edge highlighting. Need to do some cleanup on the bottom of the hull, and then finish up the doors/sponsons/MM gunner.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I might be too drunk to paint, but not to base.
Done with the spiders. I’m going to count all 5 for my YTD math, even though 3 were already finished. I think I touched up everything on them, so at that point, it’s basically painting the whole thing over. And with them done, I’m checking off another goal. This is my second Eldar squad done this year, and I have been able to field a 2k army. So these guys give me a bit more wiggle room at that level. Well, as much flex as a 122 point squad gives. So I’m good for "Get my Eldar army to a larger level, 2 more full squads minimum, aiming to be more comfortable at 1,850, possibly 2k”
LR is plugging away. The door part of the sponsons is done, and I put the first black layer on the MM. A solid stint at the bench should be close to finishing it, I feel good about making it by month’s end.
Also in the news, I hit the FLGS with The Boy this afternoon. Just a quick shopping trip (I only had him for lunch). He picked up a box of Vanguard Vets, I got a new UM sprue (the old PA one, not the new Primaris one). I also swapped him some GK parts to make a librarian for some choice VV bits to make my LT. I need to get back to him, but now I’ve got some spiffy bits to make him cool. I also need to get that repulsor built.
Looking good, even the filthy Xenos. Now that I've pretty much finished my 'Raven I think I will start my Raider which I think I got in about 2005ish so seems about time. Have you fielded the flamey Raider before? Always been a bit dubious about a 8'' range main armament (admittedly better in this Ed than ever before).
It's really nice to read about you playing games with your son, mine is 4 so whilst 8th Ed is probably simple enough for him, he won't have the patience for it yet.
I've not fielded the LRR before, but I have high hopes for it. 8th fixed pretty much all of its problems. It can go full speed and still burn things, both guns can actually hit the same unit now that arcs are gone, and the cannons are pretty mean.
I have a full set of sponsons, so it might see the table as any of the core 3 LRs. But when I needed to pick which one to do first, I already have some godhammers, and think the LRR brings more to he table then the LRF.
Plus The Boy, who is working up his salamanders, will probably want to take it out for a spin and light things on fire.
shasolenzabi wrote: Warp spiders as allies, and all those Marine units to finish! Keep up the good work!
Ally? With Xenos? Madness! Truth be told I have occasionally entertained the though of putting both my Eldar and Ultras on the table at the same time. But never gone through with it. But the spiders are a welcome addition to the pointy eared menace. Who are in all honestly getting a bit big for their shelf.
A little hobby progress last night. Put some light heat weathering on the MM and flamestorm cannons, and the base coats down on the doors. I think I’m done with the guns, just need to paint the gunner and the sponson mount/targeter on the cannons.
Hope everyone enjoys Talk Like a Pirate Day. One of the holy days of the Pastafarians. I plan on having a feast in his image and drinking a lot of rum. Praise the FSM, may you be touched by his noodly appendage. Ramen.
So that’s done. Like most tanks, it dragged at the end. Glad to see it move to the YTD shelf (where it takes up a huge amount of room). At some point I’ll paint up the LRC bits and the extra godhammers. Not a huge rush to get those done. I should figure out what the next paint project is going to be though. Although building is at the top of the queue.
I have The Boy this weekend, so hopefully will get a game in. Not sure what I’d want to play. I have both the spiders and the LRR that need to be baptized on the table. I had another interesting thought on how to split up my collection for army building if both of us want to play marines: I’d only use stuff from before he was born, he could only use stuff younger then him. He’s 11, so that’s mid 4th edition IIRC. As the bulk of my army expansions were in 3rd and 5th+, that makes an interesting breakpoint.
Anyway, if I don’t post again before the end of the week, enjoy your weekends all.
So had a good weekend with The Boy. Spent some time building models together. I sold him the F sprue from the DI box, so he now has 5 intercessors, 2 prime LTs, and a prime ancient. Built most of them Sat. Also helped him put together a chaplain. I think he’s putting the cart before the horse with so many HQs, but honestly, they are the most fun to build.
The captains and librarian he did on his own over the week.
And he’s getting some paint down:
We went over things he could do to improve, but he’s getting better.
My time at the bench yielded this:
I was expecting more trouble getting everything lined up. Not that it was easy, but it’s been a while since I rubberbanded hulls together.
And a game.
Our faithful Ultramarines:
And the dreaded Salamanders:
Due to the army construction rules (me-old stuff, him=new) he got first run with the LRR.
Hammer and anvil, recovery (the 4 objective mission)
He gets the first turn. Vindi blows my speeder out of the air, netting first blood. He shaves a chunk of wounds off the TLLC/ML dread. His bikes advance and hide in the middle, and his AM drop down to help hold the center. My scouts get mugged, but hold. Not much else.
My LR falls back to keep the range open with the Vindi. My Lib buffs the ven dread with the fist, while my techmarine moves over to patch up the shooty dread. Shooting sees chunks blown off the vindi and the LRR. I maul the snipers (the sarge lives) and I pick off a few AM. I think I deployed one of the Tac squads this turn into the center. Both would be fed into that meat grinder eventually, but I’m a little fuzzy on the whens.
Turn two sees his scout flee out of CC. A large chunk of his army pours fire into it, and the bikes/VV finish it off in CC. He shoots my other dread up a bit, but the tech is fixing it faster then the wounds are coming in. He deploys his tacs, the 5 man squad forward near my scouts, the 10 man farther back in the cover of the near building. My scouts get wiped out, and I start to worry.
In response, I finish killing the vindi, take the LRR down to it’s last wound, and deploy a tac squad to shoot up some of the CC troops. Librarian is doing well, casting buffs and popping mortal wounds into things (two into his bike libi this turn) I shoot his 5 man tac squad to death mostly with the scout bikes, then charge them after a rhino into the LRR in a failed attempt to take the last wound.
Turn 3 the LRR falls back. My scout bikers get shot off the table. In the center the killing continues. At some point the assault marines die, are replaced with the vanguard, and push me out of the middle. I think turn 3 was the bikes and his HQs mulching one tac squad, while the VV plow into the other.
I take stock of the objectives. My LR was keeping the range open with the Vindi, and is now horribly out of position. Not terrible though. I check the range, and if I make a bee line and don’t get slowed down, I can make it to the objective on the back hill by turn 5. The terminators get out and start legging it to the objective behind the far building. I figure I can hold those two, but the other two are going to be rough. And The Boy got first blood, so I want to avoid ties. As my LR rolls forward, it blows half the bike squad apart as it advances. My dread finishes off the LRR and puts some hurt on the razor. My Librarian earns his pay, putting the magic hurt on the opposing bike libi, killing him, and zapping the last of the VV.
The Boy also has his eye on the prize. He uses the stratagem to split his full tac squad (and I thought that was a waste of space in the codex) but he needs boots in two different places, and is running short. So 5 move towards the center, while the other half hoofs it to where my scouts died. He zips the bikes over and finally finishes off my last dread. The only forces I have left in the center are a rhino and my librarian. He charges my librarian with both his captain and jump librarian. I’m using the armor indomonus, and pop the 3++. I weather his attacks, and then put a force axe through the skull of his librarian.
My turn 4 is looking pretty decent. My librarian runs back to swap with the assault terminators. The LR mangles the razor and my rhino moves to the middle objective and wounds some of his tac marines. No longer needed to babysit the dread (which was a worthwhile use of time) my techmarine advances to take on the bikes. And promptly gets gunned down in overwatch due to some abysmal armor saves. Sigh. My terminators fare better, making the charge and pulping his captain. My rhino charges his surviving tacs in the middle, hoping to pin them down away from the objective.
Turn 5 sees vengeance for his captain, as his bikes swing around and blast my librarian off the battlefield. His tacs fall out of combat, and he wounds the rhino with his razor. He stretches out his tac squad on the forward objective to also claim line breaker. Lots of dead bodies everywhere, and the game could still swing.
My turn 5 sees my rhino continue to dance with the 2 remaining tacs in the middle. When I charge them, the plasma gunner kills himself, but the HB trooper survives. My terminators kill his bikes, and the LR puts some more wounds on the razor.
At this point I have 2 objectives, he has one. Roll for game? One more turn. If the cards fall right, he can plat for a draw, so we go on.
The HB falls out of combat again, moving around the rhino to within 3” of the objective. The razor gets lucky, and despite it’s mangled state blows up the rhino. If the game was to end here, it would be a salamander victory. But I still have one more round.
My terminators consolidate on the back objective, the LR sits on his. Two objectives each. But then the LR opens up with the Godhammers, and the lone HB marine with his boot on the center objective disappears in a few zillion megajoules of coherent light.
Victory to the Ultramarines, 8-6. We both had warlord and linebreaker, he had first blood, I held 2 objectives to his one.
So while my LR and it’s cargo were out of position for most of the game, they survived unscathed to the end. Which is saying a lot. He had IIRC one or two wounds worth of razorback and 5 tactical marines left on the table at the end. Lots of carnage. And could have gone either way at a couple of points. He solidly commanded the middle, but when my reserves hit, he really didn’t have anything to take them. Which is good, because that’s all I had left.
Fresh paint report on the LRR. While I was not the one driving it, I’ll give it a rundown. It’s tougher then the other LRs. While the stats are the same I realized one thing. It’s guns don’t need to roll to hit, so while it degrades at the same rate as it’s brothers, it doesn’t care. Sure, the TLAsC and the MM up top miss more, but the flamestorms just keep on burning. And you want to charge it to make the shooting stop? Feel the love. (although amusingly when my rhino charged it to take the overwatch, it was the MM up top that did the 6 wounds it took)
I think this was the first time I fielded my librarians in 8th. I’m a big fan. Mortal wounds are very nice, and can help take down irritating things. Worth the price. Funny, with the Eldar, I did more buffing with my psychers, but the SMs were blasting. Not that I didn’t hand out the odd buff with my lib.
Scout bikes were a lot of fun. Zippy and put out a lot of dakka. Plus a bit of chop. I need more.
Dreads did just fine. Venerable was worth the price. Nice that they don’t degrade.
OK, that’s enough typing for now. Hope everyone has a good week.
Great BatRep, I look forward to being able to play a game with my The Boy. I hope after each win you laugh in his face and point out his tactical errors whilst crowing about your superior acumen, for about an hour. I know I would.
RandyMcStab wrote: Great BatRep, I look forward to being able to play a game with my The Boy. I hope after each win you laugh in his face and point out his tactical errors whilst crowing about your superior acumen, for about an hour. I know I would.
We do have a post game discussion about what happened, and what could be improved upon. I’m trying not to crush him too hard at the beginning but I’m not fully softballing easy armies at him. Not bringing my “A” game, but not a scrub list either.
As for trash talking, I’m refraining from it. Tempting though it is, good sportsmanship needs to start somewhere. And eventually he will learn everything he needs to from me and then strike me down in the Sith fashion, so I want to garner some good will while I can. There might be a kernel of mercy left if I plant it now.
On the hobby from some good built progress. The hull of the repulsor is almost done. I’m going to leave the grav plates off for painting which will be irritating, but I don’t see a decent option. The armored cowls around the back jets will also need to stay off. I magnetized the hull guns. Stuck a magnet in the center of the mounting, and then glued both barrels of the HB/LCs to a small rectangle of plasticard with a magnet in the center. That way I have a lot less parts kicking around, which I would have if I sunk magnets individually into each gun. Next thing to do is the turret. Which looks to be a fairly simple magnet job. I think I’m just going to glue the krackstom AA missile on the back and the SBs on the side. Well, glue the turrets solid and then set them in. Although I might just glue them down. They won’t pivot, but then they won’t fall out and get lost. We’ll see. I’d like to finish the build this weekend. Weather and time permitting, I’d like to build something spooky for next month’s challenge.
I hit the art store yesterday and got a new size 1 Richeson 7777. While my 0 and 00 are still good, the 1 that was my go-to brush is getting kinda dead. Needed a replacement. $10 for a kolinsky sable is not a bad deal. Not W&N, but a lot cheeper. Helps that every time I go in there they are still on a perpetual 40% off sale.
I really liked the bat rep Nevelon, and glad you have your tactical corner afterwards with The Boy. It is important to teach new players about tactics, whenever I play anyone we usually talk about the things afterward.
His painting skills look good for just starting out and will only get better as time goes by ( he has a very good teacher ). Looking forward to seeing the repulsor when it is finished.
Yorkright wrote: I really liked the bat rep Nevelon, and glad you have your tactical corner afterwards with The Boy. It is important to teach new players about tactics, whenever I play anyone we usually talk about the things afterward.
His painting skills look good for just starting out and will only get better as time goes by ( he has a very good teacher ). Looking forward to seeing the repulsor when it is finished.
He sent me a pic of a painted primaris marine, but it was badly out of focus. Got his mini done for the week though.
Did some more building on the repulor last night. Magnetized the main gun. I was debating cutting off the magnet-sized nubs on the side of the guns and replacing them with actual magnets, but then common sense kicked in. I still cut them off, so the gun could fit, but just sunk a magnet into the back of the gun and put one into the turret to match. Much simpler.
The only major step left is to build the hatch gunner, and glue on all the accessories. Plus build and clean all the grav plates. The practical part of me is trying to figure out if adding all the antennas will make it hard to transport. I think I’ll do some dry fits with the KR to check. The turret comes off for transport anyway
So pretty much done bar the grav plates. Not going to glue all the kit to the back hull. I think the clean lines look better. As it sits there I like the look of it buttoned up. Right now the hatch bits are just sitting there, I’ll glue them open. Actually, I can probably do them now, I don’t think they will interfere with putting the gunner in post-paint. While I might be able to glue the arms on and snap fit the gun into the grips, I’m just going to paint them separately.
It might change with the plates on, but I think it should fit into the same sized foam as a LR. By using the shorter of the two antenna options it’s hight is less then a 1/2 deep tray, which will make it easy to stash in a spare slot.
So a lazy day of Civ VI and mold lines got me almost done. Just need to finish the front plates.
For October, I’m going to try to build and paint the hexwraiths and the skeletons, to finish out my SC Undead box. I know I can only enter 5 into the monthly comp, but I want to see how much I can get from sprue to table. If life and weather don’t cooperate, my fallback is Tippy, the loneliest homogaunt, who is already primed.
Inevitable_Faith wrote: Oh man the old-school hormagaunts! I used to have two of those guys, they were amazing. Whats your plan for painting Tippy?
If I do end up painting her, I’m going to go with a very dark blue/black. Not sure if I’d start black and blue ink, or start blue with black inks. Or both, who knows.
But some more hobby progress for the day:
Finished up the repulsor. Test fit in the KR:
Slightly longer, but with the soft foam, a good fit. The grav plates are a little tight on the side, but if I cut out the other sponson chunks would fit nicely. Resting on top of the stand it came on, and still not too tall. Turret fits in a dread slot. I was thinking of cutting out the other chunks of foam anyway, as the LRR’s sponsons positioned differently then my old LR’s. Next KR order is going to see me get another LR tray anyway (probably the 2xLR, no sponson one)
First 2 riders built. I’m going to try to cut all the censors off of the scythes. Not a fan of the look. So far so good, but I’m not sure how easy it will be for the next 3 (honestly haven’t looked)
One thing I forgot to mention about the repulsor; it’s like they knew you were going to have to prime/paint it in parts. The different grav plates were different numbered parts, with the ones on the right/left/center being different. But recessed into the spot you glue them onto the tank are Ls Rs and Cs so you can make sure you get the right ones to fit where needed after priming. Little detail, but well done. Kudos to whoever added that little gem into the kit.
Cool batrep! It must make you proud to be able to play games with your son and see him grow both as a player and as a hobbyist.
I'm curious as to how much magnetization you did on your Repulsor. I saw that you did the main turret gun and the front hull weapons, but what about the smaller weapons (specifically the storm bolter/fragstorm launchers)? I'm figuring on magnetizing everything myself, but the one smaller weapon I did I lined the magnets up poorly.
ZergSmasher wrote: Cool batrep! It must make you proud to be able to play games with your son and see him grow both as a player and as a hobbyist.
I'm curious as to how much magnetization you did on your Repulsor. I saw that you did the main turret gun and the front hull weapons, but what about the smaller weapons (specifically the storm bolter/fragstorm launchers)? I'm figuring on magnetizing everything myself, but the one smaller weapon I did I lined the magnets up poorly.
It is nice to be able to game with The Boy. I hope he keeps his interest up; there are a lot of ways to fall out of the hobby.
The main gun and the hull mount are the only things I bothered with. It might come back to bite me later, but a lot of the other weapons were so close I didn’t think it was worth it.
I didn’t bother glueing on or magnetizing the coax stubber. From a fluff POV, marines have never used them, and from mechanics standpoint it wasn’t worth rolling dice for yet another gun type.
In a similar vein, the gun on the top hatch was either nothing or the gatling. As my primary build is going to be a dakka boat, this was an easy call.
I glued the boxes shut for the turret launchers. So I could counts-as them as either fragstorm or defensive launchers. But frankly there are so many guns on this thing you are never going to want to waste a turn of fire with the defensive launcher.
The side guns I chose the SBs. I generally prefer to reduce randomness when I can, so the variable shots from the frags irks me. Plus they are roughly equivalent, depending on the range band. They are almost equal under a foot. 3.5 shots on average vs. the 4 the SB gets. Mid range the d6 gets getter then the SB's 2 shots, and the SB takes over again at long range, with an extra 6” of coverage. The fact that the SB costs less points and looks better IMHO really seals the deal. But I didn’t feel like spending the time and effort magnetizing lateral shifts.
The tail gun I almost bothered with. Although, as it turns out, I didn’t need to. The icarus stubber was another non-starter for two reasons. One was the fact that it’s a stubber and has no place on a marine vehicle. The other was what’s it job? It’s not big enough to shoot flying vehicles. I get that in 8th it technically can, but it’s not really going to do much. So shooting jump infantry? Do I need a specialized gun for that? If that was a worry, I’d just toss another SB back there. Which both reduces the amount of different guns on the tank, and gets the job done. Plus requires no magnetization, as they give you all the parts to make another little turret in addition to the AA mount. (I might build this someday, right now the parts are just loos in the bitzbox)
The icarus rocket pod seemed the obvious winner here. AA is always nice to have, and it’s got the stats to actually get some work done. Points are reasonable, and it looks cool. If it turns out I’m wrong, I’ll just build the last SB and stick it back there.
That's a really nice apothecary.
And today I went out to lunch with some friends and need to go grocery shopping, so no idea how much progress I will get done tonight. More likely to get some progress done now that I finished watching Burn Notice on Netflix. Not that there aren’t other shows for me to binge watch to hoover up my time; but the gap should let me get some hobby work done.
I really like the physlcal to spirit fade on the cloak. 
are they feeding the scouts these days? And I don’t want to hear the words “Scale Creep” out of you, understood?”
Need to clean those spiders off of the bench before I can start building, should light a fire under me.
