That is a really well-done recreation of the model! It'll look great on the table!

Nevelon wrote:Nice work. Once you paint it up you’d be unable to tell it didn’t start life as a monoposed HQ. Hits all the notes of the source.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:That is a really well-done recreation of the model! It'll look great on the table!

Thanks guys, comments are very much appreciated. Now that I'm looking at it, I'm starting to get ideas about adding tiny wires for the smaller cables (like those to the light, mace head and wrapped around the servo-skull cable). That might be asking for trouble though...

Additional tiny details like that I think beg the question, once painted will they be obvious and will they add to the overall model or detract from it?

@Archer: That is a good point my friend. Very likely I'd hit a point of diminishing returns pretty quickly.


So... yesterday was interesting. Did a bunch of counting of infantry models, specifically for my orks and AdMech. I was trying to sort things into units and see what I was missing, especially with the AdMech as the optimal unit size seems to have changed with the new codex.

In the process I repaired a bunch of figures, re-purposed a few, rebased several including two of my skitarii transgenic arcubusses which for some inexplicable reason I'd put on 25mm bases when they should be on the oval bases. I also noted that I have a lot of orks that need repainting. (sigh)

Thus I did a lot of work yesterday but don't really have much to show for it. I was happy to find that I'm pretty set on skitarii vanguard (2 squads of 20) and was able to re-jigger my rangers into two (legal) squads of 5. Another 10 rangers are probably in the cards but that's not a priority. I am, for the first time... considering getting a flyer or two, but again that's not a priority. I have no interest whatsoever in the toaster tanks regardless of their utility.

My orks are another matter however. There are a LOT of painted boys that I got second-hand that don't really match anything and stand out (negatively) as a result. Also my basing changed radically since I started collecting them so I have a large number that don't really match anything else in the army. So I'm looking at re-doing the bases of probably 40-50 orks and conducting a major re-paint of a dozen or two. Uugh.

On the positive side... in the next few months I'll be getting a massive influx of models (both AdMech and Ork) that Nerdfest09 has been painting for me. That will, in essence complete my AdMech (unless I buy more) and take a major chunk out of my unpainted ork horde. I'll finally have storm boys, 3 fully painted battle wagons, an extra trukk and a variety of characters that I've been needing.

I guess we'll see how the new ork codex changes things. I realized yesterday that I might not have a single new ork model in my entire army (new being anything created in the last few years). I think my dakka jets and plastic dreads & kans are the most recently produced things I have. Nearly all my boys are AoBR or converted from AoBR. While I'm not too cranked up about the new beastie boys (they aren't very Bad Moon-like), I do like the new dragster-based vehicles. Might look into adding some of those if I make enough progress on the rest.

I really like your kitbash on the last page. It makes me want to try. Good luck with all that re-basing and re-painting

Thanks Syro!

Well, I put together a 2000 point army of new AdMech (Mars) and my eldest and I gave it a run against his Necrons. (pic below) I'm trying to make learning these complicated rules a bit easier, so I limited myself to just skitarii units (as opposed to the cult mechanicus units) and took as many "core" units as I had (2 vanguard, 2 rangers, 3 iron striders) with 3 dune crawlers, some cavalry and a group of infiltrators in support. I still love the armigers as they're good at shooting, assault, are fast and pretty "hard". Had 4 commanders which was unusual for me... not sure about them as I pretty much completely forgot to use their special abilities.



Game was over by T2 as I'd wiped out most of his best units by then and would have easily carried enough VPs for the win. Frankly that's been our experience... whomever goes first nearly always wins, usually by the end of T2 or T3 at best.

The Icarus Array dune crawlers got a lot better as they no longer suffer a -1 to shoot at ground targets, though they only get a bonus to shoot at aircraft rather than at all flyers (who cares?). The Iron Striders are better mainly because they have the "core" keyword and the las cannon damage is now much more consistent (d3+3). Vanguard are great in big blobs though you can still get you arse handed to you by blast weapons. I still prefer rangers in small squads of 5 to sit on rearward objectives and plink away at distant targets or harass enemy characters with an arquebus.

Sounds good, but frustrating that it's still the coin flip.

Love the DOW terrain. Would like to see the whole table set up.

Do you go out to select "competitive" armies? My regular gaming companions and I are VERY casual when it comes to playing and we hardly ever have results like this.

Admittedly we are still playing with 8th edition rules and it will take time if we ever shift editions again.

@SL: It's not very exciting... just a bunch of green buildings scattered about. I need to do a lot of work on them to make them look like anything.

@Archer: Not really. Were constantly changing up our builds and experimenting so I don't think that's the issue.

I have heard the new admech are very good. Would be interesting to see how the game would go if you both set up the same but let the Necrons go first.

Well, we cut back on the points a bit to make things a bit easier to keep track of and we'll start clogging up the mid-field with terrain to see if that helps. We always use a lot of terrain but it tends to be pretty scattered.. if we start making obscuring terrain clusters it might help out the coin flip issue.

Yeah, the new dex is really good. I'm sure some things will get modified as a result... but I'm OK with that. I do like that fact that I can play just about anything in the faction now. Dakkabots took a hit but they were on top of the pile since the beginning, so I suppose it's time for them to take a back seat for a while.

I also got lucky... I've been attracted to Mars and skitarii since I started the army which at the moment is a very powerful combination. It also means that there's almost nothing else I need to buy to field a good list. Yeah, there's stuff I could have... but I don't need it.

 Archer wrote:
Do you go out to select "competitive" armies? My regular gaming companions and I are VERY casual when it comes to playing and we hardly ever have results like this.

Admittedly we are still playing with 8th edition rules and it will take time if we ever shift editions again.

Keep in mind his area is ULTRA competitive, so casual for him and casual for you may not mean the same thing. Not that they are minmaxing or whatever the meta is these days, but still going to be more optimized than something you might see nerdfest playing. Not that there is anything wrong with how anyone is playing, just different environments.

Good lord. 20 Vanguard with support from a character, a canticle, a doctrina and a very broken strat just wiped out a 20-man necron warrior squad by doing 48 wounds in one shooting phase... Won't be using that strat on that unit again outside of a competitive tournament. I had to try it... but now that I see what it can do I'm leaving it alone.

A full Mars skitarii list where you can freely combine both doctrinas and canticles across the whole army is just insane. My cult mechanicus stuff (with the exception of an HQ or two) might be relegated to "fluff" lists from now on.

A few pics of the scenery for Solar_lion...

The always questionable dudes over at Goonhammer keep a running track of the meta, and even with recent tweaks, going first is still a 55% win-chance. Which may seem small, but it shouldn't be anywhere other than 50%. First turn advantage is a THING in 9th edition.

--B.

@Brian: Interesting, I would have thought it would be more... but if they're keeping track things must not be as bad as we thought. We have started to really gum-up the midboard with LOS terrain. That has helped for certain.


Yesterday, I had the opportunity to pick up a whole city-scape from an acquaintance who used to run lots of Apoc games. Rather than do a photo dump of everything... I thought I'd post them as I finish them. Among other things, have about 8 really large, modern MDF buildings. Simple, but should look great painted and with something for windows in place. Have some large trees, MDF billboards (nice ones too), a couple of crates and a bunch of smaller crates, pallets and large drums that will make great scatter terrain. Also got some awesome space age cars that were produced in Russia. I remember when these came out... have always wanted a set. OH, and a nice, plain concrete gaming mat (mottled grey).

So, for today...

The awesome cars. They came painted.


The pallets. Just a light spray with brown and a lighter, uneven spray of grey to make some of them look a bit worn.


The crates. Sprayed brown and distressed with 80 grit sandpaper.



A little follow-up on learning my AdMech. Yesterday, Thing 1 and I played a 1500 point game and I decided to use a strictly Cult Mechanicus list rather than the Skitarii I've been using. Thus the entire list was made of tech priests, kataphrons, kastellan robots (dakkabots) and electropriests. Even took Cawl to help make up some points. By-and-large I'm not impressed. Many of the HQ bonuses don't translate and the units themselves are kinda meh with 4+ BS and fewer ways to enhance it. The fulgrite priests were decent and are Core, so they get bonuses from the HQs. However... I'm still learning and barely using any stratagems, so there could be all kinds of synergy I'm not seeing. But the first impression isn't very exciting. Luckily for me the vast majority of my models are skitarii... so I should be set for this edition.

Cars are indeed fab. And nice job churning out the scatter!

Those cars are great models, I'm jealous! And the scatter looks profesh!

Thank you both very much. Here are the drums which actually took a little bit of painting skill. If I can find some good chemical warning symbols I'll print them out and slap them on in order to give them a bit of pizazz.

Cars look ace! Scatter terrain should come in handy keeping those nasty skittari from shooting everything off the board.

Thanks my friend!

Finished up the techno-crates. I realized I have nothing blue except a couple of space marine librarians in my whole collection... and I have seen big, blue, plastic storage crates before. So... viola!


Thus in 48 hours I went from no scatter terrain to this!


I have 3 larger crates and the bases of some trees to work on. That'll be today's project.

Not too exciting... did a couple of "brand new, fresh-off-the-line" shipping containers. Hey... they've all got to be new at least once!

Thanks for the updated pics.

Always good to have more scatter terrain

Snazzy. Very lovely fades.

I think the choice of blue crates is a really good idea. Adds an element of interest and diversity. I think most of my scatter terrain is green which can get very boring and blend into the background.

Thanks guys!


You know, I wonder how much of this can be attributed to accidental list building miss-matches. We're both still doing a lot of experimenting with new units, strategems, combinations, etc. Yet in many cases even though we're going out of our way not to maximize our lists... we still end up in a lot of very lop-sided games (i.e. over by T2 or the first half of T3).

My current 1500 point list is about as innocuous as I can make it...

HQ: tech priest manipulous, Daedelosus, skitarii marshal, TP engineseer (no FOC slot)
EL: 5 infiltrators, 5 rust stalkers, 10 fulgrite priests
TP: 2x 5 rangers, 2x 10 vanguard, 3 kataphron destroyers (grav cannons)
FA: 3 Ironstriders (las cannons), 9 raiders
Hvy: 1 Icarus dune crawler

I'm not pretending this is a weak army... but there's nothing remotely overpowering or spammy here.

I guess with any development of a new rule set, at least with something like 40k with so many possible interactions, it is possible to stumble upon unforeseen interactions that drag something that appears average and turns it into a powerhouse combination.

Time will even things out as people learn what combinations to watch out for and how to mitigate it. I always liked the strategem from 8th edition that let you blow up a Scarab swarm to do mortal wounds, wasn't game winning, but if you could get that charge on a solo character could be a game changer.

Indeed Archer. Good observation.


A few shots from my current game with Thing 1. I apologize for the unpainted buildings and partially painted models. We're working on things as fast as we can.

The table (beginning if T2) with the very large city buildings I picked up in the last purchase. They're huge, but pretty cool... and these aren't even the tallest/biggest footprint ones! I plan on getting the things I need to finish these after work today, then we'll see how good my scheme works.


Here's how we're using the buildings. We treat the top of each building as if it were the first floor. That way we don't lose the gaming space. The walls are breachable but if you can find a door to go through it doesn't cost you any extra movement. Being inside counts as soft cover from the outside.



In the center, the factory building will ultimately have removable roof panels. All the buildings will have windows (blackened) with the exception of their first floors which will be "clear" glass (plastic sheet). Here the bikes and cavalry square off over an objective.


My right flank, the wraiths took some heavy damage from shooting and the fulgrites, but the darn things kept popping back up!



A suite of destroyers moves in on my left...


The greatly feared praetorians closing in on my right...


The tomb stalker... haven't seen this bad boy on the table in years.


We're tied 3/3 at the moment (playing a non-standard mission).


On a minor hobby note, I converted the last Dragoon into a proper twin-las Ballistarius. I have 3 that can be equipped as either, though the Balistarii seem to be the better choice at the moment. I've been staring at my skitarii marshal who is waiting patiently to be painted. I'm finding lots of excuses not to do so.

Nice! New new terrain and armies are looking great. Cant wait to see how it turns out.

I just can't wait to get those buildings finished... they'll look SO much better that way.

The boy is whomping on me pretty good. Lots of casualties for both of us, but he's killing me in VPs.

Thanks for the Battle Report Gitsplitta It's really enjoyable to see a Tomb Stalker, I've been tempted to try to scratch build one for years. No worries about unpainted builds, I have found that they stand out in photos but in person during the game they are not even noticeable. It's great and more important that you are getting games in, than everything being picture perfect IMO.

Looking excellent, love the shot through the building!

 Gitsplitta wrote:
I just can't wait to get those buildings finished... they'll look SO much better that way.

The boy is whomping on me pretty good. Lots of casualties for both of us, but he's killing me in VPs.

Do you think the game is better with more building blocking LOS? Only asking because last time you played it was over by turn 2.

Yes. I'd call it absolutely necessary.

Update on the battle...

The Necrons came on strong in turns 2 and 3 as their list is primarily an assault list. There were a LOT of casualties on both sides, but the Necrons have taken ground and are in a commanding lead VP-wise... something like 17-6. I've got two turns to try and catch up. I think it's unlikely, but not impossible.

This is what's left on my right flank. The praetorians with help from the wraiths have killed nearly everything. My plan here is to take the 3 remaining rangers and put them on the objective, then move my vanguard across to the Necron side of the table (advancing) and try to shoot the last Necron stragglers off of an objective over there (eventually claiming it for myself). There's no practical way I can do enough damage to the praetorians to stop them from crushing everything they touch, but perhaps I can delay them long enough to score points elsewhere. Unfortunately with the Necrons going second and our non-standard game that's scored at the end of each round, the Necrons have always been able to counterpunch to the objectives, which has helped them tremendously.


Center-rear: All my HQs are wiped out so no more doctrinas or auras. Daddy-skorpec is the only Necron here. I'm hoping to move the vanguard squad on the right back to near the Skorpec in order to grab the objective behind him and shoot the crap out of him. I'd like to save the las cannons on the ironstriders for other targets if possible.


Center-front: The cav and tomb stalker have been doing a lot of belly bouncing. My plan here is to fall back to the objective on the left which is worth 2 points to me. I think they can survive whatever the stalker can throw at them.



Far Left: Two skorpecs are brining the wood to my dune crawler. However my plan is to fall back and either make them follow me off of the objective they're standing on or sit on it and get shot at.


The wild card in all of this are the three ironstriders with twin las cannons. They can shoot at everything on the table with the possible exception of the tombstalker. Papa and baby skorpecs HAVE to die this turn... but I'd love to turn those las cannons on the praetorians and whittle them down a bit. I guess we'll see how the other shooting goes.

Great report. Looks like a lot of fun and good to see it stretching beyond turn two.

Love seeing the armies both including all manner of unusual units.

Thanks Archer!


This seems like an appropriate shot to end on. We called it at the end of T4. Neither of us had a lot left, but the Necrons were down to only a few models, HOWEVER they had a commanding point lead and there would be no way for me to catch up in the last turn. Well played Thing1! The new Destroyer types are a bit soft, but OMG are they killy! Praetorians are still the best in my opinion. I'd start with three units of 10 and laugh as my opponent tried to stop them.

Love that photo Gitz! Thanks for sharing the report sounds like it was fun even it was a bit lopsided at the end. How are the praetorians kitted out?

Yorkright wrote:
Love that photo Gitz! Thanks for sharing the report sounds like it was fun even it was a bit lopsided at the end. How are the praetorians kitted out?

25 points each, FA slot:
10" move (fly)
WS3, BS3, S5, T5, W2, A3, Ld10, 3+ save
Living metal: (heals 1 wound each round)
Reanimation

Rod of the Covenant:
Shooting: 12" range, assault 1, S5, AP-3, D2
Melee: S5, AP-3, D2


They can get good buffs of course. A squad of these guys can kill almost any unit in the game in 1 turn (combining shooting and melee). They can get to almost any unit in the game with their 10" fly move and they aren't huge models, so getting them into position while finding cover isn't very difficult. They're just devastating... and very difficult to get rid of with living metal and reanimation. Yes, they are expensive... but from what I've experienced... totally worth it.

T5 and 2 Wounds, with great armor saves, living metal, and reanimation protocols! Good lord! Doesn't matter that their range is terrible, they're Necron Ticks.

Yet another brilliant table set-up by Thing1.

Table for tonight's game. The dark green areas represent LOS-blocking forests (unless you're in them).


Also finished the bases on the new trees from that last terrain get. I think they look nice on the table!


I'm frantically trying to get enough paint on the new squad of infiltrators to make them playable. This is my progress so far.

We believe in you! looks good looking forward to the war!

Thanks graven!

Made some more progress on the infiltrators... they need details and cleaning up, but they're good enough for the table.


Here's our deployment. We both took the most assaulty armies we could think of. Pretty cool actually. His is much scarier than mine.

New Infiltrators are finished! Not a fancy paint job but they're consistent with my other models and look good on the table.




This gives me two units of 5 infiltrators (outfitted differently) and one unit of 5 rust stalkers. I'm happy enough with how they've all performed on the table that I'd like to add 2 to each unit. Unfortunately they come in boxes of 5 (sigh). Will need to see if I can snag a single off the internet somewhere.

The downside of going to 7 is that it means they'll be susceptible to Blast now! Worth keeping in mind.

@Gwyn: Point well taken!


A bit of fun coming up. The local game stores are back in the swing of things and the closest one is starting a Crusade campaign since they have a lot of new folks or people that didn't get much gaming in over Covid. This is all new to me... power level?? What the heck is that?? In any case I decided to run my EC as at the very small PLs they're using (25 & 50) I can actually have some choices in what I field out of my few Emperor's Children units. I'm not really expecting to win any games, certainly not against any new codecii... but it'll be nice to see them out on the table. Snagged a bunch of decently painted cultists (to which I will give a minor touch up) to give me a cheaper troop option and I should be ready to go... if I can actually find my EC that is. With the exception of the dreadnaughts, the rest of the army has completely disappeared. Back into the warp I guess!

Assuming I find them, I'll post a pic of the 50 PL list. There's not much to it.

Power Levels, and the flexibility of choices on the models, is what 40K *should* be.

 Gitsplitta wrote:
With the exception of the dreadnaughts, the rest of the army has completely disappeared. Back into the warp I guess!

You know that means they will turn up in 20 years time when you least expect it and invade a small outer rim planet...

Being Emperors Children, make sure you knock and announce yourself before opening the drawer/closet/Box you are about to look in to find them. They may be pre-occupied and need a moment before you just throw back the curtain .

That sounds like fun Gitz some of my favorite games have been narrative. As for the EC check under the bed that’s where most “naughty “ things end up.

Happy Birthday Brother..

Hope you took some time off to celebrate.

No rest for the wicked I'm afraid. You have a birthday too if I recall correctly. Same back at 'cha!


Got two large boxes of beautifully painted models from Nerdfest09 last week. Rather than taking a shot of everything where you can't see the wonderful details, I'll do them unit by unit as I finish the bases. First, the pteraxii sterylizors.



In other news I've been having a lot of fun with our local gaming group's Crusade/slow grow campaign. I'm 2-0-1 (25PL/~500pt games) at the moment with enough extra RP to be comfortable. This week I have games vs. Dark Angles and DKoK. Haven't played either of those armies in 9th so it should be interesting. I'm running a very non-meta AdMech list so it's been fun for me and I think surprising for my opponents.

If any of you are interested here's the basics of what I'm running at 50 PL (roughly 1k points). It's supposed to be a scouting/recon force, thus everything either moves fast (8" or more) or has deployment shenanigans (with the exceptions of the HQs). The dragoons/balistarii (chicken walkers) would certainly fit the theme, but I wanted to avoid using them, the vanguard and large squads of rangers as they are all so abused right now. Besides... this army is one heck of a lot of fun!

HQ:
Tech Priest Manipulus
Marshal

TP:
3x 5 rangers w/ arquebus

EL:
5x Infiltrators w/ swords
5x Infiltrators w/ tazers
5x Rust Stalkers w/ blades

FA:
6x Raiders
6x Raiders
5x Pteraxii Sterylizors

HV:
2x Icarus Dune Crawlers

Those are some beautiful birdies! I like your list its got a little bit of everything and fits the theme. Let us know how it plays out, maybe even a few pics.

So far I've been doing really well. The funny part is that this list is so off-meta that the recent nerfs don't even touch it. I have 3 wins and one tie... but that's not saying a whole lot as no one is trying to slaughter each other with our list building. The point is having fun and building an over-all story. I built this to be fluffy, but it's turning out to be quite scary.

Speaking of scary... I've been continuing to work on basing all of the beautiful models Nerdfest09 painted for me. Next up... skitarii hoplites from Forge World. I think these are quite possibly my favorite models in the entire range. Nerdy did a perfect job painting them too. They are... quite good if very short ranged. They should be devastating when placed in their assigned transports (termite drills).


These guys too. A datasmith and a couple of assigned scribes!

Lovely to see those classic scribe figs!

Awesome work! Love those scribes, I was thinking about picking up some hoplites as well. Really cool minis.

I strongly encourage you to do so Olthannon. They look great and are very good as well. You might consider a termite while you're at it.

I love this cyborg army. Nice classic scribes.

Are you still playing in the crusade campaign ?

What is you take on the Crusade rules? Do they work?

Our local Crusade finished. Unfortunately our vacation took Thing1 and myself out of the two biggest (last) battles. However I may jump into the crusade being held at the store down in Madison... I just won't be able to get there with much regularity so I'll probably just be showing up (when I can) with a basic PL force.

Yes, the Crusade rules work fine. They're just poorly written (as per the GW norm).

Gave a thought to upcoming projects and I have a plan...


I can happily announce that I have all the gretchin I'll ever need... and they're all painted. Too bad they suck, and have sucked for 2 editions now.
No pressure to get the bases done though, so there's an up-side! Just bought the foam tray I needed to get all the little buggers stored safely for $10, so all good.

Project #1: Paint bad moon decorations & decal storm boyz & ork characters and vehicles that I just got back.
Project #2: Build and paint 10 AdMech infiltrators to fill out my two squads and effectively finish my AdMech army.
Project #3: Build and paint 2 Armiger Moirax, completing my knight 2k build. I do have 2 Helvorins and one "spare" knight chassy that I'll eventually use to add either a third Moirax or Helvorin.
Project #4: Order 40mm bases for my 10 old-school wraith guard and get them re-based and painted... officially beginning the Iyanden project.

Hope you like the plan. I'm pretty darn happy with it.

Are you aware you now have a {YouTube} block at the start of pg1?

Fixed. Thanks graven.

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Gave a thought to upcoming projects and I have a plan...

Project #1: Paint bad moon decorations & decal storm boyz & ork characters and vehicles that I just got back.
Project #2: Build and paint 10 AdMech infiltrators to fill out my two squads and effectively finish my AdMech army.
Project #3: Build and paint 2 Armiger Moirax, completing my knight 2k build. I do have 2 Helvorins and one "spare" knight chassy that I'll eventually use to add either a third Moirax or Helvorin.
Project #4: Order 40mm bases for my 10 old-school wraith guard and get them re-based and painted... officially beginning the Iyanden project.

#4.. Looking forward to this.. bout time!

Thanks SL. Yeah... project #4 has been a long time coming.

Slightly Amended:

1. Decorations on ork infantry only.
2. Build 10 skitarii rangers and a few remaining old, metal, really cool orks & send to Damo for painting.
3. Build and paint 10 skitarii infiltrators.
4. Re-base & paint 10 wraithguard.

The Moirax project is unfortunately on hold until I can get the weapons I want for them. Time will tell (or I can just magnetize, but I'm dropping this from the list for now).

The idea is to finish one project per week (on average). So in the next month I hope to have all of this completed.

Apparently over the years... I've managed to collect a lot of blue orks. Not sure how or why... it just happened. Recently, an old friend of mine gave me his ork army, also blue... along with some scattered eldar. I thought then, that I'd show them off by way of saying thanks to Ryan for his generosity.

I'm calling these my "Blue Moons" indicating their membership in the Bad Moon clan. The models with the light blue checkers and white bases are from Ryan. Others I've bought or painted myself to fit a theme.

I have the following...

4x 10 boyz w/ PK nobs (20 of which have red skulls painted on their faces so are occasionally used as kommandos)
1 battle wagon
1 trukk
2 deff dreads
2x 5 bikes w/ PK nob
8 nob bikers
8 lootas
warboss on bike
big mek w/ SAG
wierdboy

I'll probably run the nob bikers as just regular bikers for the time being. I'll re-base the white based models so they fit in with the rest. Sorry for the low-quality pic... just wanted to give you an idea of what I had.




Also a quick shot of a couple of classic orks that I'll be sending to Nerdy for special treatment!


Have a Crusade game tonight that I'm really looking forward to. Made a really odd but fun AdMech list that I'm looking forward to trotting out. Different crusade from the last one so no special abilities for anyone yet.

That's a surprisingly big waaagh by accident. Love the classic orks!

That's a really nice looking waaagh there. Those classic orks were always ones I wanted to own, but never got around to before they vanished. I am Jealous!

Made some good progress on getting the details painted on the ork models Nerdfest09 painted for me. Black triangles, copper, horns/bone, etc. Of course there's no end to how much detail I *could* paint... but I'll keep it to a dull roar. Just wanted to make them look a little less generic. Have a few more details to pick out and basing. Might put a few small spots of red here-or-there just for contrast... but just a touch.

Nice to see the Orks back in rotation.

Nice looking force Gitz, dont think I have ever seen that nob/boss bike before. Is it a conversion?

Thanks Yorkright. Nope. Forge World.

Finally getting some things done. Let's start with the pain boy and a few meks. I must admit to being pretty pleased with the mek builds. They're all basically the same but with some different heads and fiddling around with the gun positions I managed to give each a bit of unique character (not even mentioning Nerdfest's brilliant paint jobs), and it was nice adding a few painting touches/details on my own. Just gives me a bit of ownership, you know?

There's an impressive, subtle variety there. They look top notch.

Orks, orks, orks, orks! Orks, orks, orks, orks! Beautiful orkses! They all look beautiful.

Look like they need a Morkanaut to me! Or you could ask Nerdy if he still has the motor pool I sent him years ago.

Thanks!


You know how things sometimes backfire?? Well my latest little project kind of backfired. I had some plastic ork nobs lying around that I got in a bulk purchase years ago. Probably only used them a few times and that was a looooong time ago. So I thought I might sell them. They were decently painted, but very simply and very darkly... so none of the details of the model stood out and they were pretty unremarkable. So I figured I'd just add a few simple details to make them pop and hopefully get a better price for them.

Now that I'm done... I'm not sure I want to let them go! However, if I was going to keep them I'd have to yellow up their armor. The biggest draw-back is that I really don't like the dark green ork skin. It just hides too much detail (and I refuse to do an entire skin re-paint)... which is probably what will be the deciding factor in the end.

I mean, the dark green will give better contrast with the yellow, and it also sort of fits the idea of them being older and 'greener' than non-nobs.

Nice Gitsplitta.

Cheers,

CB

Thanks guys! Here's something a little higher quality. Some stormboyz painted by Nerdfest09, then "decorated" by me! This is all one squad. The distortion from the camera (obvious on the right side of the photos) is pretty wild.

Old Skool one is looking a bit weedy amongst his newer brethren. All looking good though.

@Arakasi: Perhaps, but he has mountains of charm!


Next batch of models. All done by Nerdy. Kept my grubby hands off of them except for the basing.

Today's painting update. Finally finished with the nob-on-warbike from Forgeworld. Another spectacular paint job by Nerdfest with a very few touches/details by me. Mainly the black triangular Bad Moon markings & basing. I did some effects in the big engine exhaust at the back, but nothing worth a special photograph. Thanks Nerdy! Fantastic job!

love that bike thin king of getting one as in stock again

You make painting with yellow look easy. Still one of the best threads on the net.

@MeatShield: Well, keep in mind it was Nerdfest09 who actually did the real work, I just added a few details over the top. But yeah... I can paint yellow... as can Nerdy!

Lovely looking yellows and overall dingyness, they look very orky. I like the green cloak on the inquisitor it looks like nerdy used dots of paint to build up the highlights.

I've seen that technique used before by another professional painter... also on a green cloak. Very effective.

Of all the awesome that I just saw (didn't dig too far back), what caught my attention was the dirt on the floor at the wall edge.



Honestly at first I thought I was looking at a 1:1 scale Ork and then duhhhh realized it was 28mm (32? GW Heroic?) but then even more amazed at the weathering. I know, terrain guy, I can't help it. Did you use weathering powders? Very high quality results regardless of technique.

And the Ork is ok I guess.

Nice job on the new additions. Ready to get Stuck in.

 Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:
Of all the awesome that I just saw (didn't dig too far back), what caught my attention was the dirt on the floor at the wall edge.



Honestly at first I thought I was looking at a 1:1 scale Ork and then duhhhh realized it was 28mm (32? GW Heroic?) but then even more amazed at the weathering. I know, terrain guy, I can't help it. Did you use weathering powders? Very high quality results regardless of technique.

And the Ork is ok I guess.

That's.... dirt... Skalk. Actual dust. I used my finger to wipe the dust off the terrain piece and must have missed the edges along the walls. I'm glad you like it though!

You were just using RealTime (tm) weathering techniques with all natural weathering powders.

All the stuff is looking great.

That's.... dirt... Skalk. Actual dust.

I genuinely laughed out loud at that response. I love it.

@Skalk: Glad I could bring a smile to you face. You did the same for me when you first posted.

Been playing a lot of Crusade games at the local shop. We have lots of new folks and old folks building new armies so there's a lot of bare plastic on the table (not mine of course), so not much in the way of photos for battle reports I'm afraid. Still... having fun. Getting new folks involved in the game. Also playing some 7-Days-2-Die with a group of old college friends. I'm not used to the group on-line gaming thing... pretty fun!

I really need to be painting, but I'm giving myself a break.

Hobby time is good regardless, sounds like you are having a great time and thanks for letting us share vicariously. I can't wait to get stuck in and you always get me enthusiastic.

21 days. breaks over ...

Yeah. Sorry. Fall is a (mundanely) busy time for me. Guess it's time to get back to the grind.

So hows that grind going?

Proposed list of projects? Something to look forward to?

Sorry guys, been sick for nearly 2 weeks (2 different things, neither Covid). Have been asleep far more than I've been awake.

Stay well brother.

Oh no worries man, was just busting your chops. But truly, for the example I set... I have no business asking other hobby people what they are doing. hahaha


edit- oh yeah. Feel better soon.

Being sick sucks, feel better.

Take care and hope you feel better soon. Hopefully you will get this out of the way and be good the rest of the winter.

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Sorry guys, been sick for nearly 2 weeks (2 different things, neither Covid). Have been asleep far more than I've been awake.

So what you are working on next is Nurgle related . Perhaps you did a bit too much research into the arcane knowledge of the jolly papa.

Rest up, heal up and looking forward to seeing your fever dreams realized .

Take care of yourself Gitz. We will see you when your feeling better.

Thanks guys. I'm slowly getting better. There's something non-Covid but really nasty going around in these parts... have talked to several local folks who had similar symptoms and we all got taken out for a week or so. I'm better, but still not 100%. Did manage to have a nice 25th anniversary dinner with my better half last night though.

She asked if I would bring out the Halloween army this year. I'd love to, but I don't think it's in any way, shape or form legal... though I suppose I could look through one of the older chaos codexes (that hasn't been updated yet) and see if I can put something together.

I thought you ran this as a Demon army.. either way the CSM and Demon codex's haven't been updated that I know of so there is a good chance you can put something together. Now competitive to your meta is another issue.

Nah, I just want to play it. Outcomes are not required.

I'm glad it's not Covid. I hope you make a full recovery soon.

Thanks for the good wishes everyone! I'm fine now. Just way too busy getting ready for winter, enjoying the fall & screaming around in the new (used) car to get any hobbying done. Halloween ya know.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Happy thanksgiving colonial traitors!

 inmygravenimage wrote:
Happy thanksgiving colonial traitors!

I think the official term is *splitters*

Thanks SL, same to you and yours as well. Thing 1 is coming home for the holiday so I'm really looking forward to seeing him. Also might get to meet Thing 2's latest GF (it's a revolving door with him). LOL!

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Sigur asked about my buildings for Bushido. Rather than sending him on a wild goose chase through my gallery, I'm re-posting them here. Haven't done any gaming for months but I'm still alive. Best to you all!

Here you go my friend... no idea which company made what. I do not vouch for the authenticity of any of these paint jobs. I just made them up.

They're so lovely. Beautiful builds.

Very, very pretty. Some of them I recognize as being by Sarissa (I got that rice storage on stilts as well). Thanks for the pictures!

I saw pics before reading and thought they were fancy bird houses. Are you running any events with them at Adepticon?

Merry Christmas everyone!

To you as well.

Merry Christmas.

Hey gang. I'm sorry for the long silence. My step-mom passed away after a long hospitalization, during which I found myself caregiver to my 95-year old, Alzheimer's affected father. This hasn't left much time for gaming related activities... or sleep. But I'm still hereish. Hope you are all well.

Sorry to hear that Gits.

If you're ever silent for too long though, we just go back to page 1 and restart your blog, that seems to fill the time.

Oof. Sorry to hear that. Hope you are doing well. Do what you need to do, when you can do it. We can wait.

Sorry to hear old son. Take care of yourself, dakka isn't going anywhere.

Take care of family, they've taken care of you more than you will know in your life. We will be here when you are back in the swing or just want to drop in and let loose of pent up emotions. Dakka really is a great place.

After having endured a very tough year myself I can wholeheartedly sympathise. But as others have said, look after yourself and your own and the community will patiently await your return.

Best wishes to you and your family.

Signs of life!

A good friend of mine invited me to join him at a 40k tournament down in Madison. My wife kindly agreed to take charge of my dad so I could go play. This is only the second time I played 40k in the last 4 months!

I have a great time. 3 games, 2k each. Used my AdMech of course as it's the only army I have a current codex for. (I guess I do have an ork dex, but I've never opened it.) Mainly, I enjoyed the ride back and fourth with my buddy and then hanging around with friends, old and new, during the tournament.

I have a few pictures and thought I'd give you a little synopsis of the action... just to prove I'm not making it all up.

My army (in a nutshell), is pretty much as far off the meta as you can get. It's fun and easy to run... and causes problems for both my opponent and myself. Describing it would be boring... but you can see a good bit of it from the photos. The army is totally designed to ignore the command radius/giving orders meta... yet it still works pretty well.


Game 1 vs. Steve's Ultra Marines:
My opponent (Steve) was a nice young guy with his sons hanging out with him. He was playing Ultramarines. Though he was fairly new to the game he had decent paint on all of them. It was his first tournament too. We only got through two turns, but we both had a great time. Amazingly we tied in our final score (which was thankfully low as neither of us wanted to end up playing the ubermench Tau players at the top of the list.

Steve's army (in game... some units were scattered but I think this is most of it.


We deployed in opposite quarters with 5 objectives arraged in a plus-sign pattern.


Several shots of my army at deployment. Keep in mind this doesn't include my deep-striking units which suck up nearly 900 points of the 2000.





We pounded on each other for those two turns. Steve took out two of my dune crawlers and I responded by removing his two dreadnoughts. My "beta strike" on turn 2 started to turn the tide though, however this didn't result in any significant point swing so we ended up in a draw, which made us both very happy!


Game 2 vs. Tyler's Grey Knights:
Tyler is the friend who brought me to the event in the first place. It is typical that we drove together to the tournament and ended up fighting each other (the TO tried to avoid this but apparently it just couldn't be helped). Last time Tyler and I played he handed me my keister. His Grey Knights consist of about 4 or 5 small units of regularish marines,, 4 dread knights, one of whom is a commander, and another squad or two that can also deep strike. If he deep strikes everything, he must have 3/4 of his points in reserve. I'm nervous enough having so much of my army in reserve... I can't imaging having that much off the table. Apparently it works well for him though, and I certainly wasn't looking forward to having to deal with those deep striking, teleporting mechanical horrors. Two are usually enough to totally ruin any battle plan I have so 4 would be a complete nightmare.

I won the roll to go first. I moved forward aggressively with the armiger warglaives, one dune crawler and a war chicken. I plinked away at the marine squads and managed to take one of them out, but didn't do any significant damage to the others. The GK shuffled around a bit but didn't have very good targets for there anti-personnel shots or psychics so just did their best to obtain positions in cover near the objectives.

It was at this point (beginning of T2) that it dawned on me that I might be able to use my T2 "beta strike" and the fast movement of most of my vehicles to deny large tracts of the table to deep striking... hopefully giving me at least some chance of limiting the initial damage the dread knights would cause. So, starting at my end of the table (this battle was played long-ways), I started moving and measuring. By the time I got to his end, had brought in my termites, deployed the troops from them and then brought down my two squads of pteraxii skystalkers... there was only enough uncovered space on the table to bring in a single dreadknight or 5-man squad! During my shooting and assault phases I managed to wipe out his remaining troops.

Thus the picture below... an empty table save for my units. The one spot was just past the half-way mark on the right table edge (about where the black tape measure is in the photo). Ty of course... had no desire to bring in a single DK, watch it get shot off the table by my entire army, and then watch me adjust my placement to seal off the one spot. He gracefully acknowledged defeat. It was a sucky way to lose (he barely lost... and again our point total was really low), but I've probably never played a more tactical game.



Game 3 vs, Josh's Necrons:
I'd seen Josh around but we hadn't ever talked. He had a new Necron army... built in a similar way to what my son Carl has been running lately. Lots of destroyers of varying types, flayed ones, silent king. He was also running a 20-strong unit of warriors. A lot of Josh's models were the original metal Necrons which was just too cool. Anyway... I went first again and moved forward cautiously. I plinked away at a few things... killing a variety of destroyers and wraiths but the units all remained in-tact. Josh then woogied the mass of warriors forward and just blew the crap out of me. I lost two dune crawlers and an armiger along with some infantry I had sitting on an objective.

Turn two my repost was pretty good. I brought on the two termites but left the flappy boyz in reserve (there really wasn't a lot of room for them as Josh had done a great job of blocking me out of his backfield even thought he had many units threatening my half of the board). This was a normal, long-ways deployment scenario. I plinked away a the huge unit of warriors before my rust stalkers hit it in assault... killing something like 13 models with only a few coming back. I wiped out the wraiths and depleted two of the destroyer squads to the point that they were reduced significantly in effectiveness.



Josh's turn two was brutal as he used a trick to deposit 20 flayed ones in the middle of my lines. They killed everything they touched (I just pulled units) and the remaining destroyers proved they were still a force to be reckoned with. Of course the Silent King just sat in the back buffing units while his menhirs just blew the heck out of my big stuff. Once again on turn 2 the game ended as we ran out of time. Josh was actually ahead of me by 5 points, but because my army was painted and his was not I got 10 extra bonus points giving me the win. (thanks Nerdfest!) I really wish this game could have gone on as my next turn would have seen the arrival of the flamers to eliminate the flayed ones and I still had enough big guns left over that Josh was worried about getting tabled (well, I probably would never have gotten to the Silent King... but everything else might have been toast).

So, I had three delightful games with three fantastic opponents. I tied one and won two... but my point totals were always low so I stayed comfortably at the bottom of the leaderboard (where I like to be). Clearly that was a good fit as all my games were very close (hard to say about the second game I guess as it really didn't happen). Funny that none of the games went beyond T2, but then we were all far more interested in having a good and relaxing time than we were maxxing out our scoring.

I have no idea where I finished. I'm assuming somewhere near the bottom. The army took second in the paining competition netting me a very nice terrain set for Necromunda. (thanks again Nerdy!)

Thanks for reading. I hope I haven't bored you too much.

Great to see you out and about and I enjoyed the write up. If more of my tournament experiences had been like that one I may have more interest in playing in them. Sound like you had a really good time.

Glad you had fun, buddy. Hope you and the family doing well.

Sounds like much fun was had. Excellent rep.

Sounds like some fun games. Inspired move in the second one

Always good to get out and get a game in. Glad you were able to push some minis around and have some fun.

Thanks guys, I did enjoy myself. My eldest and I plan a little 750 point fracas either tonight or tomorrow. Last time we played I tried an all Cult Mechanicus force and my God did it suck! No wonder I play strictly skitarii.

I don't mind GW nerfing the army if it has elements that are too powerful, but if they're going to do that, they should at least buff the elements that are terrible at the same time.

Glad to hear you were able to find some downtime and get some games in. Don't forget to take of yourself as well.

My eldest and I played a game the other day that was called on account of bad luck. (it's no fun for anyone if the dice destroy a game singlehandedly) I did manage to snag a few pics on a very scenic table he put together though. This isn't one of my mini battle reports... just a few pics from the last turn.

The Necrons advance across the forrests and bottom-lands...







Draconus Forge fortifies the ruins...










The Draconus kastellan robots move into the center, defying the Necrons to come closer.




A vanguard squad faces a giant mechanical insect across a relic of the Imperium. They must prevail!



The Necrons advance across the center of the tactical grid...



Skitarii Raiders charge ahead on the left flank, continually advancing and falling back from the Necron assaults, delaying the Necron advance.




Servitors hold a rear objective, awaiting the onslaught.




Locust Destroyers outflank the kastellans.



Why does everything large and scary have to look like a spider??




Thanks for looking!

Pics look ace. Shame the dice gods played sport with their private parts.

I'm large and scary, but no-one ever said I look like a spider!

Love all the pics and commentary. Nice seeing your models out nd àbout.

Thanks for sharing. I greatly enjoyed the breakdown and the pictures. It's good to see you getting some games in.

Very nice battle pictures Gitsplitta.

Cheers,

CB

Thanks guys!

Played a little Bushido tonight. 40k tournament on Saturday.

Nice reading the bat reps. Always a pleasure.

Thank you Cam.


Just a single pick from last night's foray. I'd forgotten how much dang fun this game is!




Really looking forward to Adepticon next week. I'm sure the Brits will bring along the latest Covid variant for us to try out!!

Looks excellent, those Oni are mahoosive!

Thanks graven. I need to work on their highlights... bring them up a couple of shades so they pop a little more.

Looking forward to some Adepticon reports. I've been stalled on my GCT stuff for a bit as they are always out of one or two items when I am ready to place an order.

Glad you got to get out for a bit to unwind, hope all is going well for your family.

;Theo, send me a PM of what you're having trouble finding in stock and I'll see if I can pick it up for you at Adepticon.

Hey all. I've done very little hobbying of any sort for many months. Just Adepticon and two local (small) tournaments... but every once in a while I do get something else in.

Did a kickstarter a while back for TinkerTurf terrain. The photos are of 2 "tanker and crate container" sets minus one tanker (there would be 2 if you built the whole thing). I love these and the crates are super-easy to put together. The crate containers lend themselves to making ad-hoc defensive fortifications or just more interesting industrial settings.

Ooh those are very nice indeed. Good for all sorts of games.

Indeed. There's nothing 40k specific about them at all.

Hello all,

Just wanted to let you know that I'm still alive. I haven't done any building or panting, but I have gotten a few games in here and there and with the help of a visiting Thing 1, have made a bit of progress cleaning up my studio which had gotten to the unusable stage (it's still there, but at least I can see the floor in places thanks mainly to Thing 1's efforts). I traded a bunch of stuff to Solar_Lion that I was never going to use for some models and painting that will support converting my 30k EC into a 40k army. I have half of a large bin full of models to get rid of and we re-organized and threw out a ton of empty boxes and garbage.

I'm happy to see that a new chaos demon codex is coming out at some point. I might be able to bring out the old Halloween army as a result.

I have been sorting models so I can build a functional knight list. I'm close... just need to build a couple of Moirax and maybe one more warglaive.

Going to be sending the last of my AdMech to Nerdfest09 for painting, which should close the book on that army unless they come out with something new and spectacular. It'll be good to have that one done.

Good to see you post. Life can be a mess sometimes, you just need to make what progress you can.

Hang in there and best wishes.

Thanks Nev, I appreciate the support.


On another positive note. I took the bin of things to be sold over to our now local mega-gaming store (Noble Knight Games) and got $750 in credit for a bunch of old D&D minis I was never going to look at again (nor hadn't in 30 years or more). That should keep me for a while as I've got something like 1k credit over there. I did splurge and picked up Belakor (sp?) for use with whatever chaos army is appropriate. Jeez I can't believe the price of GW miniatures now-a-days. It's insane.

Nice!

Having a large lump of guilt-free store credit at the FLGS is a wonderful feeling. I had that when I got out of M:tG and started my blog. Just the ability to say “Sure, I want that!” And walk home with the new shiny, and not have to worry about budgeting or justifying it. So nice.

I should check if I could thin out the Pile of Shame locally. A new place opened up not far away, and I think they do second hand mini sales. So much stuff collecting dust, but not worth the time to catalog, list, pack and ship.

That's my issue Nev. I'm sure I could make more money if I sold everything myself... but who's got the time for all of that? I wasn't using it anyway and Noble Knight has been really supportive of both 40k and Bushido... so why shouldn't they make some money on it? They have the infrastructure to handle this stuff without breaking a sweat!

Besides, this gives me enough lee-way to pick up some major pieces in the future as you say... guilt free. I'm all over that!

Thanks for the update Art. Thinking of you and yours. It's such a conundrum with your own kids, I'm already dreading mine reaching that stage. And, looking forward to more purple princelings!

Good to hear from you, good shout on the models, trading stuff that you will struggle to get to is the best way of supporting this hobby. At least someone will likely get the good of it..

Thanks graven. The CSM army should really look nice if I can actually get my studio cleaned to the point where I can paint again!

My Studio is storage now.. I had to move some stuff just to get to my desk. I have aboot 2'x2' square space left. just enough for a desk and a chair.I can barely access my bits or older paints

I cant wait for the new CSM codex. You planing on a CSM army?

Yes!! I'm going to resurrect my 30k Emperor's Children as 40k CSM with a healthy amount of "dark mechanicum" (to explain the beasts and a few other substitutions).

Also planning on a chaos demon army as well (which should be fully painted assuming the future codex can be brought into compliance).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I did something!

These are 30k Mechanicum Ursurax. They'll be doing duty as 40k Warp Talons for my CSM army as one of the Dark Mechanicum elements.

Have always fancied doing a crazy themed demonic army, ever since your Halloween one. No doubt this will look amazing once you are done.

Got a game in with @Solar_lion on Wed! A few shots for you. SL had an interesting army with a lot of dreads that I'd never seen before. Unfortunately for them I had a lot of long range heavy firepower. In all fairness, this is my tournament army (though AdMech is a shadow of what it used to be). I've been tweaking my list in order to compensate for all the latest rule changes. I like this list at 2k better than 1750 (which is what our next tournament is at).

SL's fantabulous Necron terrain formed the back-drop of our contest.


There's nothing subtle about my list... It's a high damage gun-line. Come and get it. This is after my movement in T1. The only assault element in the entire army are the 3 warglaives, and they fit very nicely into the gun-line aspect as well. My idea was to hide the vulnerable infantry until they were either needed as speed bump or short-range fire power. Since we weren't playing with objectives, I didn't need them for anything else.


SL's deployment/ pre-move on T1. Man that's a lot of big dreads.


Big, scary dreadnought...


A pair of Retributors pushing towards the flank.


Marines take the center of the table... forcing me to bring my vanguard out of hiding (really... they were cowering behind a building) and cut them down.

Surprise!! I actually did some hobbying!

So... I saw an EC list by some guy on the web that seems to know what he's talking about. Luckily for me, there was really on 2 models that I needed to buy in order to make it, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Nothing strange in it really. At least it's a place to start. The primer went on pretty gritty... but I think I can clean them up enough prior to painting to make it workable.

I've had this idea for a long while to include a Laer in the army. That's the indigenous, Slaanesh worshiping reptile race on the planet Laerin that Horace was corrupted on. I found a remarkably close model already made by GW and made some minor modifications to make him fit the stat sheet. I'm very pleased at the final result. The Laer will serve as my Master of Possession (psycher).


I needed two blastmasters for my noise marine squads. Luckily I had some heavy sonic weapons in my 30k stocks.


Couple of examples of the phoenix terminators and the group of 10. The combi-bolters are made from the original plastic bolt guns.




Lastly, the whole batch for a size comparison.


On a side note... I played a game vs. the local 40k bully the other day. He conceded on T3.

Nice looking group of guys waiting for paint. Snake should be a fun project.

Grats on the win.

Sweet sculpts. Nice . Look forward to seeing them.

Nice conversion work on the snake, he fits right in. And fancy terminators are always fun.

The batrep up the page is inspiring stuff, a beautiful board and impressive armies!

I absolutely love the snakey boy, I'm a big fan of serpentmen of any variety. Also, kudos for crushing the bully

That Laer is awesome! I may steal that idea, I made them up so I feel like I should have one in Syl's warband.

Thank you all! I really appreciate your taking the time to stop by and comment. I'm really looking forward to getting the laer done. It's been 15 months since I've painted anything besides terrain. Thus I'm a bit nervous... but I'll jump on that horse soon enough.

In the meantime, I built a dozen rangers for my AdMech which will get sent to Nerdfest09 (along with a number of other models) for painting. And that will complete my AdMech collection! Really excited about that!



Solar_lion is helping me get my CSM army painted up (and he's donating to it as well). He's starting me off with a hellbrute and Dark Apostle! Need to get the basing finished on these so they can join their finished brothers! Thank you Solar_lion!




He's also painting up the "Dark Mechanicum" bits of the army. Have a few pics to share... venom crawler and Ursurax (will count as possessed or warp talons).

These are looking immense and gribbly. I really like the notion of doing the big Sylvaneth thing (with the naked chick and sticky hives) as Slaaneshi / EC, think it would suit your aesthetic.

I'll be honest graven... I don't know anything about Sylvaneth... I am intrigued though. What gaming system is it from?

AoS - Wood elves:

I mean granted flies are very papa but these are sticky bees and could be all gold and purple plus they can be left off. There's also wormy things she comes with. I leave up to you if you think they could be ... sexy worms.

Wow, that's a very cool model. I see your point.

Progress is progress.

All looking very cool. I think that the Sylvaneth could be repurposed for a Slaanesh theme quite nicely. I mean elves from GW have always had a bit of an excess bent anyway.....

She needs nipples. I don't mean that in a pervy sense... but as a biologist... there's no point to breasts without nipples. Just sayin'.

You know, I had never noticed that fact. But it goes with GW's "censored" models these days. I still remember the Diaz Daemonettes or the Dark Elf Harpies.

Gitsplitta wrote:She needs nipples. I don't mean that in a pervy sense... but as a biologist... there's no point to breasts without nipples. Just sayin'.

Well, see more reason to paint get her and paint her

I managed to put together a 1750pt EC army with what I've got painted already. I can do a bit more if I tossed everything in.. probably 2500 points... but this level gives me enough space to actually build a functional army without just cramming together random units.

Here's what I came up with... I won't go into all the details, just giving you a general idea.

HQ:
Demon Prince (wings)
Dark Apostle
TP:
5 noise marines (blastmaster)
5 noise marines (blastmaster)
5 legionaries
EL:
Leviathan
Hellbrute
Master of Executions
FA:
4 bikes
5 warp talons
HV:
Predator Annihilator (2 las cannons)
Sicaran (2 las cannons)

Not a bad little list. Certainly not a powerhouse... but good enough to play casually and gives me a chance to explore a good chunk of the codex.


As you know, I'm trying to find ways of getting my old Halloween list back into action. Have high hopes on the new demon codex, but parts are going to make appearances in the CMS list. Current ideas as follows...

Warp Talons... which is what the bodies are anyway. Need to make the claws more obvious like the one guy.


No idea... the wings screw him up for use as a character. Might become the defacto leader of the warp talons. If I replaced the wings he could be a Master of Executions.


Master of Executions... though I really do like the new figure for this so he may find another role in the chaos demon army.


Contemptor Dread... obviously!


Chaos Spawn... which is what they were designed to be in the first place. Kind of a low profile for the model but I suppose they'd be fine in casual games (or if we just play them as the height they should be).

Some new work, all small stuff as I slowly get up the nerve to start actually painting again.

Got the basing done on the models Solar_lion painted for me. Nothing special but at least they match.




Got the claws done on a small unit of Warp Talons.



To do my part in finishing up my AdMech, I've been adding just a little bit of detail (forward melta barrels and engine details) to the Termites that Nerdfest09 painted for me. I'm trying to add their secondary guns, but I've only found one set and that set is missing one of the gun mounts... so I'm trying to come up with something using pins or magnets. It won't look fantastic but at least it'll be better than the empty compartments that are there now.




That's about all. Played my AdMech for probably the last time (for a while) before I switch over to EC in a local tournament. Played 3 CSM lists. Lost the first game but it was rather frustrating for both of us. He came forward, I retreated and shot him. Lost clearly on points as I gave up table control. Game 2 vs Night Lords... should have been an easy win but I had the worst dice rolling that I can remember and he just walked over me. Game 3 vs Black Legion was a win, but my opponent had a very non-optimized list (we were bottom table) and the deployment and scenario finally helped me a bit. I do hate Nephalim. Being strangled for CP just sucks, especially for AdMech. I'd rather they got rid of them altogether and just play the game straight.

All looking spicy. Sorry the game isn't giving you what you want. Hopefully it perks up.

I hope so too. Maybe it was just a bad day.

OK, got one of the termites "finished". At least it has some small details and the heavy flamers now. No insignia, but given what these guys do, I don't think they'd stay on very long anyway.

Next project. Quick re-paint of some EC cultists.

Love the moley thingy. Agree, no hope of paint staying on that thing.

Looking forward to repaint, not that I think they need it!

Actually Cam, that IS the re-paint!

Quick battle report between myself and Solar_lion. Lots of pics.

Prologue: A rag-tag group of 30k Emperor's Children & Dark Mechanicum allies were being transported in the light cruiser "Siren's Song" along with the rest of Fulgrim's fleet to Istvaan V when the fleet was hit by a massive warp storm. (see "Fulgrim" book) The ship was wrenched into the warp and spat out again 10,000 years later into Imperial space, essentially unaltered. Only a few of the EC on board had received Fabius Bile's mutation drug, thus most are still unaltered astartes. Isolated, 10,000 years out of place... with no allies and no primarch... they do what they must to survive. The Dark Mech elements have been folded into the EC's command structure and a Laer priest of Slaanesh serves as the contingent's Master of Possession. More raiders than a legion at the moment, they are reduced to scavenging and pillaging until they either reunite with their brothers or are destroyed in the process.

Today, they are scavenging on a bio-rich planet... far from Imperial eyes.


1500 points of my Emperor's Children (EC) using the new CSM dex and as many different units as I can.


1500 points of fluffy Tyranids, focusing on lots of stuff for me to practice learning my army on. Love this color scheme, beautifully painted by Solar_lion.


Deployment SL's custom table. Everything is resplendent in green and purple. I really hate corner deployment. Table edges are at the edges of the terrain so TINY table!


My corner... ready to scramble for objectives.


MI backed up by characters and a hellbrute on the right flank.


SL's army barely fits in his quarter.


View from my left flank. It's not any better from this direction!


The game as chosen by the old card set. I feel that "Blackout" isn't really a problem since the table is barely wider than 18" anyway.


Nids win the roll off and move out!



Lots of psychics & shooting later... my demon prince is at half wounds, down a psychic power & my warp talons are all but wiped out (1 guy with 1 wound remaining).

Shooting lanes kinda sucked , so I just push hard left. The bikes challenge the hormigaunts while the sicaran brings the hammer to the warriors on the hill, as well as firing the las cannons at the hive tyrant.


The demon prince and warp talon... both on half wounds... jump into the center to try and take out the winged tyrant. They do, but in her death throws she kills them both!


Cultists doing what they should be doing... standing pat on an objective.


The unit of noise marines goes-a-wandering looking for an objective to snag. Unfortunately there are none in this table quarter so they spend the entire game wandering around aimlessly... never firing a shot or swinging a weapon.


Bikes hit the gaunts and eventually clear them off the objective.


A small unit of legionaries smash into a small unit of termigants in the center of the battle grid... they hold their ground here against several units of gribbleys over the course of the game.


The surviving warriors ignore morale (like all Nids... neat trick) and plow into my bikes. They will kill two, wound the sergeant and take a wound of their own.


This is where things sit at the end of T1. SL had 1 point for holding more objectives and I have 1 point for killing more units.


SL's T2, the big bugs come out to play, but the gribbleys are thinning a bit.


I take damage across a variety of units... especially the sicaran (which goes down to only 4 wounds) and legionaries, however both are still functional.

The hellbrute, master of executions and dark apostle move up to support the center.


The surviving biker falls back... leaving the Nid warriors "naked and afraid".


Here's the situation in the center before the shooting and charging phases.


Shooting ensues, and on the left... the last warrior is finished off in CC by the leviathan, who then consolidates towards the far left objective being held by a unit of gribbleys.


I'd forgotten that I'd done a half-decent job painting the sicaran. Those were the days...


Concentrated fire takes the gunfex off the obelisk and the Nids world gets just a wee bit smaller.


Several, scary EC melee units hit the gribbly blobs in the center and clear them out (for the most part).


The clueless noise marines continue to wander around aimlessly.


End of T2 and the Nids decide to get outta Dodge while they still have significant assets in-tact. There's just not enough left to reliably deal with 3 vehicles (two of which are CC threats) two CC characters & two marine squads. Plus there would still be objectives to gain and hold as well.



My thanks to Solar_lion for feeding me his nids for an afternoon and keeping good humor throughout. At least I have some idea how to run this army now. His army and terrain are beautiful and were an absolute delight to play against/on!! Next time he'll load-up for me and I'm sure I'll get my butt kicked!

Fantastic rep mate. I love the aimless noise marines especially, very Spinal Tap

Thanks graven. It was an interesting first outing with the EC and I got to play a lot of different units, strategems, etc. I did figure out how to add a single spawn to the list as well so I've taken the "one of everything" one step farther! It was a very friendly match-up on the tyranids part. SL went out of his way to take lots of squishy bits that I could experiment on.

More models done! These were painted by the afore-mentioned Solar_lion and are the first of the Dark Mechanicum elements of my CSM army. There will be many more!

Venom Crawler:


Ursurax (Possessed):


Needless to say I absolutely LOVE the job SL did painting these guys. He nailed it!

Awesome batrep, interesting to see the capabilities of your army. Nice work SL on the DM stuff. That arachnid thing is one of my favourite at the mo.

Had a chance to play my new Emperor's Children army in a local tournament last weekend. 2000 pts, narrative, no named characters... some interesting scenario rules tossed in for giggles. Nearly everything I have painted is used for the list with the exception of a hand full of figures (couple of 30k dreads and my spawn (a-la "The Thing"). I may put the spawn back in for the next experiment.

Game 1 vs. Black Legion:

Everyone is so into symmetric terrain around here. I get it... but it's boring. Lot's of elements from my army were also in his, as well as some things I'm going to add later... so it was a good learning experience. We only got a turn-and-a-half in (we quickly "projected" my half of turn 2 so we could at least score points for two turns. Narrow victory for my opponent, though that's misleading as he would have easily tabled me T3.

My army laid out. Nice to see the Possessed and Venomcrawler that Solar_lion painted for me on the table.


My gargoyle Warp Talons backing up a unit of Noise Marines. I'm a bit unsure about the WTs... might be better off with a second squad of Possessed, thought the jump packs are handy for mobility.


Chaos Bikers are on the right flank. These are 30k bikes but I just run them as bikers with chainswords... so ignore the extra gear, that's a hold-over from HH.


Left flank is anchored by the Sicaran and Leviathan with a Warp Smith in support. Did some converting of an old Tech Marine which I enjoyed. Will share that later when the painting is done.


Lots of scary stuff in the BL lines. The Oblits would prove to be amazing.



Opening move, the Hell Drake sweeps around to harass my infantry squads. The repost would come from the Sicaran in my half (bottom) of the turn when it would send the winged demon to it's namesake with barrages of autocannon and lascannon fire.


My DP smashes into the Black Legion Venomcrawler. Damage was done on both sides, but the DP would be victorious.


My VC smashes into some Obliterators... and is obliterated.


End of T1.5 and the Black Legion is all over me. I would not have survived.



Game 2 vs. Thousand Sons:

Game 2 also faced an army with some of the same elements that I play (or want to play) though it is from a different dex (including a 10-man terminator brick). Again, nicely painted and a joy to play against. We got a *solid* 2 turns in. Apparently it wasn't just me... I heard people commenting all day about how few turns they got in. This was a fun, close game and ended in a draw! Kind of a strange board... giant LOS lines down the center but if you advanced along the building rows you had good cover. Very realistic actually.



Here's my center...


View from my right flank... I do have a tendency to put my "cavalry" on the right... just like a proper ancient/medieval general.


My Master of Executions spent most of the day hanging out in the back preventing deep striking troops from showing up somewhere I didn't want them. Not sure if that was the best use for him, but at least he served a purpose in every game.


Here are the oncoming TSons.


I have no idea what this thing was... but it was very appropriate feeling for a TSons army. Sorry for the blurry pic.


Pretty marines on a rock!


Unfortunately I didn't take a pic of the "big moment" of the game where my entire army attacked the 10-man unit of terminators in both shooting and assault... just barely finishing it off completely! The game ended then, but it would have been interesting to see how the TSons followed up when all of my best units were center-table and exposed. I think I had 5 units assaulting the termies, including the leviathan, demon prince, warp talons and the possessed.


Game 3 vs. Space Wolves:

Played my friend Tom... the TO & ringer on the bottom table as we'd lost a player by this point and I was low score. Not much in the way of photos I'm afraid, just a couple of deployment shots. I won by a relatively small margin after a whopping 3 turns! Wow... never thought I'd see that. I was definitely playing faster as the day went on & I got more and more comfortable with the army.

What I saw coming down the table at me...



These aren't fancy paint jobs... but Tom works hard on them, turns out a ton of figures in a very short period of time and on the table... they look great! Really enhances my experience to play fully painted armies (I'm usually playing against bare plastic in my local group.)

Thanks for looking!

Had an enjoyable game with Solar_lion this week. Definitely more competitive than last time. He brought out his old, first-born Lamenters who were pretending to be some other loyalist chapter that no one gives a darn about (but their rules are better). Man I love his Lamenters.

So, quite a few pics and a little report to go with them. We were using the old cards. 3 objectives set up in no-man's land (triangular deployment). One (determined randomly) would be worth and extra point if held.



My forces arrayed for battle...



Lamenters bring it!


Some awesome vehicles await their commander's wishes.





Turn 1:

I move out, especially on the right flank. The boosted Sicaran totally wiffs, but I do manage to take out a dev squad of lascannons by shooting the rest of my army at it. SL moves up to meet me as the battle line becomes very defined.


On my right, multiple elements close in on my DP and take him out.


Also on my right... the Sternguard loaded with meltas drop pod down and take out my Sicaran. So my 2 best units are gone in T1.


I'm up in points 3:1.

Turn 2:

I think this is the pic from T2. I continue to push forward and manage to take out both flyers with a combination of shooting and flying assault. My right flank is slowly failing but the left is doing well. The bikes tag a couple of razorbacks and my possessed make contact with a tactical squad near the center of the board. SL's repost clears out my Venomcrawler, objective sitting cultists and the hellbrute.




There used to be a razorback where the melee is taking place. It got taken out by shooting, leaving the marines inside to face the possessed.


The sternguard continue to maraud around my right flank.


A tac squad from one of the razorbacks goes-a-hunting for an objective to secure.


I think the score is something like 4:2, still my favor.


Turn 3:

On my right, the warpsmith and badly wounded leviathan move up to deal with the bikes and sternguard with help from distant heavy weapon fire from 2 squads of noise marines.


On my left, the body of my remaining infantry units keep pushing into the Lamenter lines. The surviving biker champion falls back onto an objective.


The surviving possessed move up to deal with the Sicaran, which has had way too much impact on the battle already.


The Master of Executions eyeballs the razorback for destruction.


Charges made!


Leviathan and warpsmith do their bit for god and chaos. Even injured they're more than a match for the bikers.



It's a bad day to be a space marine...



... and... we ran out of time. The store closes ridiculously early. Still... a much better game than the last time. SL did a LOT of damage to me coming in (nearly 2 full shooting phases) but I just had too many nasty assault units still kicking when I finally hit in T3. Not bad for a bunch of firstborn. Next game he'll bring out his A-list Necrons and see if he can't turn the tide.

Thanks for reading!

Always love you your batreps (and this one is particularly bat-y)

Thanks graven!

Great to see the taxi cabs out àgain. Great batrep, as always. Thanks for sharing, look forward to the next.

Love to see two beautifully painted armies face up against each other!

Thanks guys! Unfortunately the next trip up will be gameless. But maybe I'll get something else in over the next few weeks. Going to be building for certain!

Played (sort of) in another local tournament. Played the first game vs. my buddy Tyler, then he had to go and I didn't want to push someone else into the bye slot (there was no extra bye player available). Between Ty and I... I think we had over 200 infantry on the table. I had 74 and he had wayyyy more than that. (I'd killed about 60-70 infantry in the first two turns and he had plenty left.) I only took a few pics though as we barely got through T2.

Awesome!! I've always loved seeing infantry heavy games, even if they do tend to take longer visually they are always so impressive!

Amazingly.. I painted a bit tonight!

The original tech marine was painted by weety. I modified him a bit by adding a couple of snakey-cable clamps (CLAMPS!!), the plasma pistol arm and the axe (stolen from a spare tech priest dominus kit). Did my best to match weet's style but I did add a bit of color to make it a little more table worthy (weety's color variations are so subtle it's hard to see them at arm's length). I think he makes a passible un-corrupted Warpsmith. He's certainly been valuable in games supporting the Sicaran and the Leviathan.



Next up... Belakor!

Shocking great to see you back at the brush buddy.

Finally... a substantial update. Been working on this bloodthirster for over 6 years now. Guess I needed to finish him off before I started the next huge demon (Be'lakor). This model really intimidated me for a long time as nothing I tried with either the skin or wings looked right. Finally I settled on a couple of techniques I don't use often & am pleased with the results. There's a lot left undone, but that seems to be the way of things now-a-days with me. Hope you like him!

That's a whole lot of leathery goodness (well, you know what I mean). Flames and general fieriness of skin is awesome. LOVING the pumpkins too

These battle shots are great! Awesome just caught up with your blog

@graven: The skin held me up for a looong time as I just didn't like anything I'd tried. In the end though... stippling a kind of burning skin was the most satisfying answer.

@Stevefamine: Thanks Steve! I'll try and keep up the battle reports as well as having much more regular painting updates.

I think you should be very pleased with it. Very tough model as there are very large regions with only the muscle definition to break the areas up so can be hard to get something that works.

Thanks Archer! I appreciate the support and generous comments!


So... Demons. This codex will revitalize the old Halloween army that my wife challenged me to build years ago. After getting home from work today I did a roll call of sorts to see what kind of units I have. Not sure how many of these are still viable... will have to check the codex for that. I know the furies are gone, so my bat swarms will get sold off.

I have...

Bloodthirster (demon)
Great Unclean One (Cthulhu)
The Changeling (Death/Reaper)
Karnak (werewolf)
Daemon Prince (demon)
Fluxmaster (witch on broomstick)
Skull Master (The Headless Horseman)

3x 10 plague bearers (zombies and mummies)
8 pink horrors (scarecrows), I had 10 but apparently 2 have gone walk-about... which makes me sad.
6 flamers of tzeench (ghosts)
10 nurglings (goblins)
15 flesh hounds (wolves/mutated wolves)
3 screamers (giant bats)

Things to be done...
Somewhere I have 10 of the old, metal bloodletters because the damn plastic ones kept breaking on me.
Be'lakor (just got)
2 Feculent Gnarlmaws (haunted trees... these are incoming)
Somewhere I have one of the giant Khornate axe-wielding humanoid behemoth things. (giant)

I think the witch was originally a herald of slaanesh, but it seems sill to add a 4th god for only one minor figure. So now she's tzeench.

Not sure if it made the cut, but didn't you have a Helldrake proxy?

Great to see you painting properly, so beautiful. That Demon is stunning.

Even if you didn’t have a helldrake proxy you should add one….;-)

Camkierhi wrote:Not sure if it made the cut, but didn't you have a Helldrake proxy?

Great to see you painting properly, so beautiful. That Demon is stunning.

I do indeed have a lovely, custom made helldrake proxy! Made by... oh I can't remember... some guy.

Archer wrote:Even if you didn’t have a helldrake proxy you should add one….;-)

I'll get one of those too... part of my trade with Solar_lion will be taking one of those off of his hands.

I'll be working on the Laer next (for my CSM) and Be'lakor (for CD). Not to mention some frantic re-basing and sprucing-up of some of the old demon counts-as Halloween figures. Over the next few weeks, SL should be finishing up a second venom crawler, a maulerfield and a disco lord. They should boost my CSM roster considerably.

Have a thousand-point tourney coming up. Going to go back to the AdMech for it I think. Tried my CSM at 1k and the pickings are just too slim at this point to put together something viable. The AdMech list should be fun though. It's a bit different than what I usually run. Several of us have volunteered to run Highlander-style lists (no unit duplication, save that we can run two units of identical troops if we want, which is often necessary depending on the codex). Should make the day more fun for us. The try-hards will be there of course with their unpainted internet lists as always... but in a day of gaming we should all get at least one or two games in with like-minded opponents.

Good luck in the tourney. Sure you will at least have fun.

Well, I practiced with it yesterday and got my butt handed to me. My friend Tyler brought a 10-man terminator block to a 1000 point game! I didn't think he had anything that "meta" in him. Game was over by T2. I still think I had a good AdMech army, but it can't deal with 10 terminators that can buff their own saving throw to a +3 (giving them an effective 2+ vs anything -3 or less).

So now I've re-built the Halloween army for the occasion. It'll solve some problems... create others. Hopefully I'll get a practice in before I have to use it.

It is very fluffy from a Halloween aspect... a demon, the headless horseman, 5 ghosts, 9 wolves, 10 zombies and three groups (bases) of goblins.

That's a sweet massive big nasty red demon my man!! he looks fantastic! I await the battle report to see how he fares

Thank you Nerdy!!


Newest project! This haunted tree with stand-in as a Feculent Gnarlmaw in my Chaos Demon Halloween army. Tree is commercially produced for little Halloween Town displays & flashes many colors. I gave it a quick re-paint, added extra pumpkins, skulls and foliage to beef it up a bit. Can access switch and battery from below (just cut a hole in the base). Very fun project!



I'm a little uncertain about the skulls in the eyes as they do block a bit of the light... I can easily remove them and place them on another part of the base. Any opinions are welcome.

Perhaps the corner of the mouth rather than the eye sockets?

Agree, skulls for teeth would look better I think. Glowing eyes are a must.

Thanks for the ideas guys, I'll make some changes!
Today was a busy chaos building day...

First, some EC characters and the last of my 30k Ursurax (Possessed).


Next, 6 30k mechanicum guys who will be standing is as my Obliterators. Couldn't find the bases so I had to order some new ones. Bending the tentacles was the best part!


I picked up two scarecrows to replace the two that are missing from my demon army. They aren't exactly the same but they're easily close enough. If I paint them in the same colors... everyone will assume they were part of the original build.


Lastly, I snagged this guy used. In the Halloween list he'll be playing the part of Cerberus... in the army he'll be the flesh hound character Karanak. I'm going to re-paint him in more natural colors so he fits the rest of his pack of wolves.


With a bit of luck I might get some painting in this week!

Cerberus (Karanak) done!

That's a spicy meatball ... Or 3 very cool

Thanks graven. It's a pretty mild paint job compared to what you usually see on him, but I wanted to make him look relatively consistent with the wolves that he's running with.

I love the toned-down Karanak. Honestly, he would still fit in a Khorne army like that!

All caught up!

So much to comment on. The batreps were an enjoying read and it's cool to see you having fun. Most recently, huge results on the Bloodthirster and accompanying friends. The color scheme is excellent and not one I've seen on Daemons before. Its an interesting and very well executed contrast to the classic red / brass / black. This looks more primal, bestial, wild.

Hoping all is well with you and yours.

Nice work on the Cerberus! Really love the pumpkin tree on the previous page as well

Thank you one and all!

Some new entries for the EC army. These were painted by Solar_lion and based by myself. Possessed and Usurax acting as Possessed along with a Maulerfiend!

I picked up 5 more of the actual Possessed, decently painted at a reasonable price. I'm going to tweak the paint jobs so they match SL's a little better, then I'll have a full squad of 10. Grabbed 5 more warp talons so I can fill that squad out as well. On the demon side I found an exalted flamer (ghost) and a fun excuse to use my blobby FW Corbax Utterblight fig (mutated Tetsuo from "Akira"). Unfortunately there aren't 40k rules for Corbax that I can find on Battlescribe... but I can probably use him as a GUO or demon prince.

Had the last game of the summer with Solar_lion. His marines finally got the drop on my Emperor's Children army. 2000 points, we're using the card deck for this game as I'm really done with Nephalim.

Deployment: SL has dread heavy, heavy weapon filled army. I have a mish-mosh of whatever is painted.


Some closeups of marine goodness.




My lines before they get cut to pieces by SL's opening volley.


Looking fierce.



SL puts on his "war face", anticipating the slaughter to come!


I only have a couple of units that survive to contact... one of which is my Master of Executions who manages to kill a couple of marines before being gunned down.


SL's army cleans up what's left pretty handily.

Funny how some games just go like that. An extra lucky opening volley and the mopping up is all she wrote. Nice looking armies though. Beautiful stuff. I àm thinking of going dread heavy with my wolf army, though my son is edging around being interested in a black templar army and might go that route. Last of the summer looked like fun, roll on the Autumn campaign!

WOW! I love the glowing eyes on those Warp Talons. The Gargoyle aesthetic is great!

Camkierhi wrote:Funny how some games just go like that. An extra lucky opening volley and the mopping up is all she wrote. Nice looking armies though. Beautiful stuff. I àm thinking of going dread heavy with my wolf army, though my son is edging around being interested in a black templar army and might go that route. Last of the summer looked like fun, roll on the Autumn campaign!

SL and I have always fancied dreads. Harkens back to our early 40k days when there were no tracked or wheeled vehicles and dreads and terminators ruled the table.

The Red Hobbit wrote:WOW! I love the glowing eyes on those Warp Talons. The Gargoyle aesthetic is great!

\
Well then... let's have some more!


These will be my oblits, now properly based with a bit of cork to get them to an appropriate size. SL gets to paint these... not as EC but as Dark Mechanicum.

Tournament last weekend! 1000 pts... tiny tables... multiple first turn charges possible for anyone who wanted them (not me). I did a lot better than I thought, topping the 1 win, 2 losses group in points. Played my AdMech but a more standard list than I usually do. Turned out to be pretty resilient.

Game 1 vs Night Lords... lost 90 (max) to 60pts, but I still scored a lot. I'm not sure I managed to go first in any of the games.


Cavalry screening to slow opponent's advance.


Skitarii standing up to a champion. You really don't want to charge into the overwatch this group puts out.



Game 2 vs Khorne demons.


I think this is only turn 2... we hit each other pretty hard, but I had the momentum and... the models... he was down to his bloodthirster. Still scared the crap outta me though.


Everything is throwing everything they have at him.


Meat for the beast... and I'm not talking about the bloodthirster!


The skitarii get hit hard, but survive and fall back onto an objective. The rust stalkers charge forward and take the final wound from the demon. Won 83 to 37ish.



Game 3 vs Necrons. Nice balanced army... handed me my *ss. Lost 90 to thirty-something. I took out the elites but the warriors just mowed me down. He got first turn and just crippled me in his first shooting phase.


Thanks for looking!

Well done! I think. At least it sounds like you had fun. Looks like you had some tough opponents.

@Cam: Thanks. Yeah, some good local players around. Good painters too if they bother to do it.


So... I've made some decisions about moving forward with some armies... and have been busy.

#1) Have engaged a young local to paint up the Iyanden army I've always wanted. I'm his first commission & have been helping along with techniques and such. He's been very excited and at the rate he's going I may have something playable very soon.

#2) Have decided to farm out my EC as I just can't paint up to the standard that I set years ago any more & that I think the army deserves. Nerdfest is going to help me out with that... so I've been building like mad over the past couple of days. I'm sending him basically everything... so I have a lot of building in front of me. But, here's what I've got so far.

Characters... 30k and 40k: Some will end up counting as sergeants, other characters or whatever.


Cacaphjoni / Noise Marines: These are just the heavy weapons of which I can only use a couple in 40k. I love the figures though so screw it.


Phoenix Terminators: One of the blessings of the Chaos Space Marine codex is that it doesn't make any difference how your terminators are equipped... they all count as having the same stuff. Love these models and I can use them! I scratch built all the storm bolters out of my stock of the original plastic bolt guns.


Tartaros Pattern Terminators: Always wanted a bunch of termies but never got my act together. I'll probably use these as the free "accursed weapon" and combi-bolter... but there are scattered power fists and chain fists if I want to pay for them.


Right now I'm in the process of building a horde of regular marines from the original 30k boxed set. Then a character, then the bikes... then who knows?

That is a lot of building! Beautiful work. Look forward to Nerdys touch.

Do Chaos termis not get options anymore? Wild.

@whalemusic360: Well, I oversimplified a bit. There are choices in guns and CC weapons (chainfists and powerfists vs. an "accursed weapon")... but frankly on a point-basis... the base (free) combi-bolter and accursed weapon are extremely efficient. The tartaros termies have plenty of chainfists and power fists... so I could actually pay for them and use them if I wanted.

More building...

Enough tacticals to give me 2 full squads of 10. (useable in either 30k or 40k)


Enough meltas to bring my 30k tactical support squad up to full (10).


Couple of flamers and a defiant sergeant.


Praetor in terminator armor.


Two cobbled-together Noise Marines with heavy sonic weapons (the name of which I forget). These are made with really old true-scale marines made by a third party that I picked up years ago. They are big boys! (note the cut-down base on the one)

Praetor is impressive, all looking great.

You HAVE been a busy chap!

The noise marines were a good blend of old and new. Loved it. With a good paint job this should be a striking army. Thanks for the post!

Camkierhi wrote:Praetor is impressive, all looking great.

Thanks Cam. Nothing really creative... but hours and hours of work!

inmygravenimage wrote:You HAVE been a busy chap!

You set the bar my friend... It's far from your output but at least I can hold my head up a little. Actually I've been going kinda banannas just pouring through my Heresy miniatures and building everything I can find... weather I have a use for it or not!

MeatShield wrote:The noise marines were a good blend of old and new. Loved it. With a good paint job this should be a striking army. Thanks for the post!

Thanks MeatShield. I love the way the heads and poses turned out... they look very much like metal rockers to me... singing and banging out chords. They are huge though.

To illustrate the above... here's a pic of the original plastic Heresy marine (left), the ForgeWord noise marine (middle), and my cobbled together guy with the heavy weapon and de-elevated base (right). Note the original (different) head. I switched heads with a style that didn't project height as much as the crest did and am very happy with the result.

Well done conversion. Fits well. Looks the part. Excellent job.

Thanks Cam... they'll do.

First... a little more building from me. 8 standard 30k bolter marines (not pictured) and a fancy EC Contemptor (which was originally a loyalist character I believe).



Next, and far more importantly... my last batch of stuff came back from Nerdfest09! Super excited about it all. He effectively finished off my AdMech force and gave me two, stunningly beautiful characters for my Emperor's Children. Thanks Nerdy, I love them! The photos really don't do the models justice.

Fulgrim:



Abbadon:

Wow. Great nerdy work as ever. Dread looks fun too!

Indeed graven... indeed. Nerdfest is a master!

More grist for the Nerdy mill. A mix of characters and specials. Probably won't be able to field any of them... but I don't care. I want them painted! (they can always be squad champions, etc. I do love the way the FW 30k figures look.

Palatine Blades!

How'd you end up with 3 boarding captains?

No idea... I found them in bags and put them together. They look like actual FW models too... don't know why I don't have the packaging. I will probably pull the 2 extra. I do have 10 boarding marines I could build... but I can't see any possible use for them. Maybe I'll throw one of the captains in with them & see if I can sell the lot.

weren't the boarding captains one of the FW event exclusives a few years back? You'll probably get a reasonable amount for those if sold separately

Good point.

Finally got the Halloween Army out for a couple of runs! First was a 1000 pt skirmish with the Leagues in which I got my butt handed to me (granted, I was just trying to re-learn the army so just doing the bare minimum). Locally... the Leagues have crushed everyone they've faced so far.

However... Solar_lion came over to help me celebrate Halloween and of course I had to play the Halloween army. Granted... it was only the second time I'd tried it so still all very new to me... but I though I had a decent enough grasp on things to give it a go. 2000 points, Tempest of War cards for the missions.

We drew normal deployment and the special rule for the game was that command re-rolls would cost 2CP instead of 1.

I have such luminaries in my list as...

Pazuzu (bloodthirster)
Cthulhu (GUO)
Cerberus (Karanak)
The Headless Horseman (skullmaster)
The Grim Reaper (exalted flamer)
3x3 goblins (nurglings)
2x10 zombies, 1x10 mummies (plague bearers)
2x6 werewolves (flesh hounds)
1x3 giant bats (screamers)
Haunted Tree (feculent gnarlmaw)

Necrons list included the following... I know I don't have this all correct, SL can comment and I'll fix.
Silent King
Nightbringer
Ophidian Destroyer Lord (?) & plasmacyte
several other characters
5 Locust Destroyers
warriors
immortals
deathmarks
5 scarabs


I can't begin to tell you how much of a joy it was to play on a full-sized table and without the stupid Nephalim BS. Can't wait for something else to come along a supersede it. I also like my terrain much better than the stuff I've been playing on at the local store.

Here's the table at deployment. SL deploys mainly to my left and center, with the Nightbringer and a screen of scarabs threatening the right. I do have Pazuzu set up to kill such monstrosities... with an 8 wound cap per phase and the ability to ignore wound caps himself... so I'm a real threat to the bringer of night. I'm scattered from one end to the other. The nurglings ability to infiltrate (though it's called something else) means I start the game with 4 out of 5 objectives. My heavy hitters (Pazuzu and Cthulhu) are in the center hiding behind the tower from SL's massive Necron fire-power with a bunch of zombies as a screen. The haunted tree... a fortification... is in the tower center-table. My right is where my cavalry goes (as any good medieval commander will tell you) and has two wolf packs supported by Cerberus and The Headless Horseman. The Grim Reaper and the ghosts are right center... until the ghosts discovered they had somewhere else to be and jumped ship (I had forgotten to put them in the list!). The little group of screamers are hiding behind a bunker on my far left, acting as my reserves.


Hordes of Necrons:

The Halloween right flank:

Haunted Tree in a haunted castle:

The big dogs: Cthulhu needs a much bigger base.

Giant Bats lying in wait:

Defiant goblins objective sitting and calling insults to the Nightbringer wayyyyy.... over there!


For the first couple of turns, the Necrons were content to sit back and gun down their adversaries... a strategy that had worked for the Silent King many times before. Unfortunately, the Nurgle hosts turned out to be very difficult to dislodge and the demons stubbornly kept to their defensive positions or even out-of-site completely rather than charging forward with reckless abandon. They were not inactive however... just cagy.

The Necrons move forward cautiously.


The wolves pressed forward on the right flank in order to take advantage of the cover offered by the large, ruined laboratory. This also allowed a few different secondary objectives to be attained.


Cthulhu and the zombies moved near or into the central tower. The Necrons made short work of anything that entered the tower... but not before several secondaries were scored by those units.



With the two greater demons hanging out behind the tower, only minor damage was taken from shooting.


Bad breath from the werewolves took a couple of wounds off some scarabs.


The Nightbringer with escort move forward to wipe out the goblins on the objective to my right.


To be fair to SL, I was drawing very good cards during this period (though I was spending CP on throwing out cards I didn't think I could achieve right away) and I was making a lot of demon saves, especially those on my bloodthirster. By the end of T2 I had a considerable lead in points.

I drew my cards for T3 and all 3 objectives were pretty easily obtainable, but I had to expose myself to return fire to do it. I decided one way or the other I was eventually going to get shot up, so there was no better incentive than grabbing 3 more secondaries.

I really only have one shot of T3 as I was otherwise occupied. In short... I pushed hard on the right flank. The wolves charged forward and wiped out the scarabs while Pazuzu moved in to take out the Nightbringer. The Reaper moved up to sit on the objective after the goblins had been wiped out the turn before. Cthulhu and the surviving zombie unit stayed pat as did the (thinning) mummy pack and screamers on the left.

Of course SL's repost was painful. His army moved forward en masse, Pazuzu took a pounding as did the werewolf packs. I lost one of the mid-field objectives and had to drift back from (yet still controlled) another with my remining mummies.


Turns 4 and 5

On my left, the destroyer lord approaches driving the depleted mummies to fall back, before being destroyed altogether.




However, Cthulhu, some zombies and the giant bats respond... wiping out the destroyer and forging ahead (no pic) into a warrior blob deep in Necron territory.


On my right, the Headless Horseman and Cerberus slam into a couple of locust destroyers before being taken out by heavy fire. Most importantly... the Silent King catches up with a 3-wound Pazuzu... and well... you can guess how that went.


In the final analysis... the forces of Halloween had nearly been wiped out, Cthulhu and company excepted. They had however, controlled most of the board for much of the game and scored so many secondaries that they nearly ran through the deck (including all the discards). Though they had paid a high price... they had won the day!


Thanks for reading, and thanks SL for a really fun game. Same time next year??

Brilliant batrep, clearly much spooky fun was had!!

Thanks graven, it was fun!

Most excellent batrep. Hardy bunch that Halloween army. Sullied forth and held the field. Awesome.

 Camkierhi wrote:
Most excellent batrep. Hardy bunch that Halloween army. Sullied forth and held the field. Awesome.

"Sullied forth" LOL! Great pun!




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More building!



This is a Grim Skull miniatures model.

That is a funky biker!

Are the 6 other guys like "Damn, Jerry really going hard this week"?

LOL! Something like that...

Grimskull reminds me of those old doom rider memes and comics...

LOL! Good one Wyfox... nice to have you back!



For those old Warders of the Maelstrom still around... Wyfox's new plog is here: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/807807.page#11461853

I'm sure you're all wondering... "What is it like to play a 40k team tournament in Baraboo, Wisconsin?" If so, then today is your lucky day.

First... you play a couple of nice guys with unpainted plastic... and only get two turns in (losing in the process because your army needs more than two turns to work properly).



THEN you play a couple of guys with nicely painted armies... but one of whom has never played 40k before, so you only get two turns in (losing in the process because your army needs more than two turns to work properly).




FINALLY you play a couple of nice guys with unpainted plastic AND one of whom has never played before... so in spite of doing your best to play really fast and helping them play faster, you only get two turns in (losing in the process because your army needs more than two turns to work properly).




BONUS: Coming in dead-last results in not having to pay an entry fee for the next tournament. Could be worse...

I get that there need to be time restrictions, but they always bugged me when I went to the little tournaments at my FLGS. Not that anyone was ever intentionally sandbagging but a lot of games got cut short. With the inevitable “If we were able to finish, it would have changed the results”

Still a good way to guaranty 3 (albeit often partial) games in a day. And the hanging out and chatting with fellow geeks that accompanies that.

Haha...yeah I tend to play slow and had to play a different smaller model count army (not nids) and do a ton of practice in prep for Adepticon so that we could get more than a couple rounds in back in 2014.


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Nice to see SL necrons

Out of curiosity, what about your army needed more than two turns to work?

You should be a pro at playing unpainted armies and new players by the time I get to be one of them you have to deal with

Nevelon wrote:I get that there need to be time restrictions, but they always bugged me when I went to the little tournaments at my FLGS. Not that anyone was ever intentionally sandbagging but a lot of games got cut short. With the inevitable “If we were able to finish, it would have changed the results”

Still a good way to guaranty 3 (albeit often partial) games in a day. And the hanging out and chatting with fellow geeks that accompanies that.

True. I'm used to it... but SL wasn't as was looking forward to seeing how our army plan performed... and we never really got to see that. I like bringing in new players... bringing them to a tournament if they've never played before is disrespectful to the rest of the players who've paid money to play... not stand around and listen to you explain the game.

wyomingfox wrote:Haha...yeah I tend to play slow and had to play a different smaller model count army (not nids) and do a ton of practice in prep for Adepticon so that we could get more than a couple rounds in back in 2014. Nice to see SL necrons

No one was slow-playing to gain tactical advantage... they were just playing slow because one of the teammates had never played before.

Archer wrote:Out of curiosity, what about your army needed more than two turns to work?

You're joking, right?

whalemusic360 wrote:You should be a pro at playing unpainted armies and new players by the time I get to be one of them you have to deal with

I'm used to it. Locally people field mostly unpainted armies. Lot of young kids cranked up about buying the latest and greatest. There ARE some very good painters amongst them... and most are trying. They're just buying a lot faster than they're painting and at this store in particular there's no compunction about playing unpainted figures. Some of these guys transitioned over from a big WarMachine group where they rarely if ever painted anything. Most are doing their level best though.

 Gitsplitta wrote:

wyomingfox wrote:Haha...yeah I tend to play slow and had to play a different smaller model count army (not nids) and do a ton of practice in prep for Adepticon so that we could get more than a couple rounds in back in 2014. Nice to see SL necrons

No one was slow-playing to gain tactical advantage... they were just playing slow because one of the teammates had never played before.

Oh, you misunderstood. I had to practice a lot and use a smaller model count army in order to not slow play ! My native mental state is very slow and ponderous ...it has nothing to do with trying to gain a tactical advantage.

Got it!


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Hobby Update:
I suppose it's been a while... I should update. I have been working on models. Gave a young man locally a chance for his first commission painting. Had him build and paint up the Iyanden wraith army I've been hording for a decade or so. Basic paint job, but they're very playable and it gives me the opportunity to go back at my leisure as spruce them up a bit as I like. Been working on the basing. Been making good progress, but it's slow going when you're doing an entire army in one go. I'll post a pic when the basing is done.

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Got it!


Automatically Appended Next Post:


Hobby Update:
I suppose it's been a while... I should update. I have been working on models. Gave a young man locally a chance for his first commission painting. Had him build and paint up the Iyanden wraith army I've been hording for a decade or so. Basic paint job, but they're very playable and it gives me the opportunity to go back at my leisure as spruce them up a bit as I like. Been working on the basing. Been making good progress, but it's slow going when you're doing an entire army in one go. I'll post a pic when the basing is done.

Is the gentleman Brian Kerr? He did some commissions for me a while back in regards to my Krootdar army.

Merry Christmas bud

@WyFox: No. Brian is a seasoned commission painter. This is a young guy still in H.S. Aaron. He's very prolific.

@Cam: Merry Christmas my friend. Hope you and yours have a great holiday!




Merry Christmas everyone! Thanks for continuing to support me all these years. I greatly appreciate it!

Merry Xmas me old fruit

Merry Christmas Gits!!

Hey all! Been a long while. Things here are fine.

Got one of the young bucks to build and paint my Iyanden wraith army, some of which has been sitting around in a bin for 20 years or so. He did a great job, but the paint was minimal (as I instructed)... so now that I have it and am playing it... I'm embarking on a re-paint of some of the models. I know it sounds strange, but if it wouldn't have been for his work... these models would still be in a bin. So his simple paint work inspired me to jump back in and pick them up a bit.

So... finished the normal wraithguard. Not that there isn't more that could be done, but I'm satisfied with these for now. The guys in back I did a year or two ago... the guys in front I just finished. Next will be 10 wraith blades.

I think you should play Thriller in the background whenever you start deploying your army .

Looking good!

Quite a beautiful army, very pretty. The youngun did well.

Thanks guys. Actually Cam, those are all my doing.

Tournament this Saturday and I've decided to play a genuine wraith host (no fleshy bits). So for my HQ I ordered an Avatar of Khaine. I could never stand the old one (either the GW model or the FW model), but I like a couple of different variants of the new GW model. Need to get it built and painted (decently) by Saturday. It shipped from a relatively local supplier on Saturday, so I hope it arrives by Tuesday. Thus, I'm clearing my hobby schedule. With this army, I've kind of abandoned the idea of trying to win games... I'm just letting my Rogue Trader self run wild and stomp around the battlefield killing things with reckless abandon. It's is tremendously fun and this army has turned out to be tremendously killy to boot! By the end of the games, my opponent's and I are both nearly wiped out... which makes me happy... though they usually have *at least* twice my victory points. I... frankly... don't care. I'm having a wonderful time! Thank God for Arks of Omen. Wouldn't have been able to legally field this army without the new rules.


In other news:
Decided to assemble the last two EC figures for shipment to Mr. Nerdfest. Everything is boxed up so it's just a matter of getting off of my *$$ and getting over to the post office.



OH, and to show you a bit of the young man's work... here is my wraithseer taking on some GK. Keep in mind... all I asked for was the build and a simple paint job. I'll probably re-visit the entire army eventually... but I can't begin to tell you how much fun it's been to just jump in and start playing. Well worth the money I payed to have everything built and painted to playable standards.

Yes blood for the blood god!...err wait??

Yeah... probably not a bad call on your part.

That's a lot of robots. Looking good.

I can't believe you, taking credit for your younguns excellent work!

Joking aside, excellent quality work from all concerned. Must be nice to actually be playing!

Warboss_Waaazag wrote:That's a lot of robots. Looking good.

Not ROBOTS... WRAITH CONSTRUCTS... big difference!

Camkierhi wrote:I can't believe you, taking credit for your younguns excellent work! Joking aside, excellent quality work from all concerned. Must be nice to actually be playing!

It is. Really motivating.


Avatar came in yesterday so work has begun. This is my build. Picked the bits because the best match the rest of my wraith army.


Step 2... skin and flames are done. It's not going to get a real fancy paint job as it needs to be ready by Saturday. However, I hope to do a decent job on all the basics. Please note that I'm not going to attempt any internal glow at this point... that'll come after the tournament on Saturday.