Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

They're looking great Blackhand. They buyer is going to have his work cut out for him keeping up with your standards...

Gitsplitta wrote:They're looking great Blackhand. They buyer is going to have his work cut out for him keeping up with your standards...

Seconded, the buyer is a lucky man/woman, they look excellent

I like your DK! Looks kinda retro sci-fi 50's era robot. Are you going to give him that giant sword for his left hand? I think your dred looks good too. I like the termi head crammed in there. Not sure on the color though, I know what you mean about the white.

Thanks for the comments guys, I am hoping the buyer is happy with them when he can see them in Real life!

And yes Moltar he will have the will have the giant sword, just need finish the GS work on it.

No actual update today just a short message to say I am halfway through a local tournament ( we have 4 games on saturday, break for the local churchies to have a service on sunday morning then have two games on sunday arvo) and I am currently coming 7th!!! two draws, a minor victory and and a crushing victory has made me pretty happy, may be a bit tougher today as I head up the table due to the fact that 3 of the top 5 ranked players in the country are here but we will just have to see how it goes. I am hoping to get respectable scores in the painting and sportsmanship and would love to finish in the top 5... the Blackhands have really fronted up for me this time!

Cheers

BLACKHAND

Congrats on your results so far BLACKHAND!
Bat reps please when you are finished of cors
Im so jealous of the buyer getting your models i could cry, they are so lucky!
*going off to gnaw my liver for a while*

Thanks Reiko, will do my best to give a summary of the games, I am usually concentrating too hard to take pics and notes.

Game 1 - Vs Vostroyans

Mission - Get your secret messenger into the opponent’s deployment zone for a win.

This was my most enjoyable game, Phil was a nice guy and his all metal vostroyans were a joy to look at. He really had it in for my Riflemen but the MotF really did the job and kept them shooting till the end. I managed to get my messenger into his zone but the game went to 7 turns and he ended up getting shredded, luckily his messenger was bogged down in the middle of the board too so no points.

Result - A draw with 3 bonus points.

Best Part - Phil charged a 10 man squad of Rough Riders across the length of the entire board to get into the fight, through massed stormbolter and Autocannon fire, we just couldn’t help humming Ride of the Valkyries every time they moved.

Game 2 - Vs Chaos Marines

Mission - From turn 2 through 4, 8 inch pie plate objectives come from the sky, scattering 6 d6 from the centre of the board and doing str 10 ap 2 hits. hold the objectives at the end of the game to win.

Really scary game as at any time we could lose units, from the beginning I just tried to scatter and take out some trouble troops (I hate Obliterators, even Oblits converted from fantasy Minotaurs!) The Objectives didn't end up killing anything on the board and after a lot of tussling and denying (and another 7 turn game!)we again ended up with a draw.

Result - Draw and 3 bonus points.

Best Part - Drawing his defiler & two squads of berserkers into the far side of the table when I sent my termies after his oblits. I ended up taking out the oblits, losing my termies and watching Luke's face fall when I used Gate of Infinity to 'port my libby out of trouble.

Game 3 - Vs Chaos Marines

Mission - 3 objectives 18 inches apart along the centre of the board, from turn two any unit out of cover takes 1d6 str 4 ap - hits.

Somehow the draw put me up against our youngest player Scott, we had a bunch of cover but he avoided it like the plague and took a lot of hits from the random rain of fire. I was getting tired by the end of the game but Scott said it was most enjoyable game of the day so far so that made it worth it. Scott has copped a bit of flak for not knowing all the rules in the past and has worked hard over the last year to get better and it showed in a nice fast game.

Result - Minor victory with 2 bonus points

Best part - Drawing 2 squads of berserkers out of cover with a tac squad and walking them backwards into my termies.

Game 4 - Vs Eldar

Mission - Annihilation with 1 VP for troops, 2 for Elites, Heavies and Fast, 3 for HQs.

Dave is our oldest player and brought an ancient Eldar force which was fun to see and was also my first time playing Eldar. I was really mystified by how fragile they are as it doesn’t seem to go with their decent weapons. In the end I castled in a corner and tore open his tanks with the riflemen, weight of fire ended up beating their shields. Most of his army ended up clustered on hill in the middle of the board and I was able to keep them huddled there until a couple of tac squads could get into hand to hand. A lot of guys wondered why I wasn’t bringing walk my termies in but I really didn’t want to give him 2 VPs and it paid off as I took out several of his Elites and 1 HQ without losing more than 2 troops.

Result - Crushing Victory with 3 bonus points

Best part - Finally trashing his WraithLord walker-thing after six turns and more Autocannon fire than I want to count.

Game 5 - Vs Ultramarines

Mission - 3 objectives worth 0 VPs 18 inches apart down the centre of the board. Every unit that dies adds a VP to the closest objective.

This mission was so fun, against a more tactical player I think it could have been even better but I still liked it. I managed to castle my termies in a piece of 3+ terrain within 18 inches of two of the objectives and sat my Riflemen in the corner to cover them both as well. My opponent walked two five man squad to with in 4 inches of one objective then went to ground ( why?) and despite a crusader full of termies, cronus and sicarius, a nasty vindicator, a predator and a late reserved rhino full of marines he never actually contested any of the objectives. I ended up taking the 2 objectives worth 6 and 4 VPs respectively.

Result - Crushing Victory with 2 bonus points.

Best part - Watching my opponent spend all game trying to knock out my three riflemen and ignoring my 4 tac squads as they took the objectives.. despite my Autocannons not being able to take out his vehicles anyway!

Game 6 - Vs Chaos Demons

Mission - One objective in the centre of the board, every troop within 9 inches of the objective at the end of the game gets a VP.

Kurt is so suited to Demons its scary, he always goes for annihilation no matter what the mission. I used the MotF to bolster a hill in the corner of the board that would let me cover the centre of the board with my termies and Riflemen but never ended up getting them onto it as kurt really wanted that 3+ cover save and we fought over and around it the whole game. He only had two troops of bloodletters and a deepstrike mishap saw one squad of 20 fly off the board so he was screwed from the beginning, Despite two Soulgrinders, a DP and some huge named Demon Prince he just couldn’t beat the tac squads and I ended up with 3 troops in the objective zone.
Result - Crushing Victory with 3 bonus points

Best Part - His named Demon popping a rhino and the tac squad inside rapid firing and melting him to death in the next turn, go Bolters!!!

So in the end I got really lucky with my match ups and did far better than I ever thought I would. My final scores were....

Generalship - 3rd....really cant believe that one.

Painting - 7th, I fully understand this. Despite all the resin and converting the Blackhands have, they are still painted in a very muted and quick fashion so I can understand the score plus there were some beautiful armies, one of the club members, Andre, that took away Best Sportsman and Best Painted has some of the cleanest freehand I have ever seen and fully deserved the wins.

Sportsmanship - 15th. A bit disappointed with that as I felt I had a lot of fun with most of my games and I thought my opponents did too. I can only assume that everyone that played in the tournament was having as much fun or was perhaps more helpful with rules.

Overall score - 5th!! Fricken 5th!!!

Am totally stoked with my score, especially with the amount of top ranked players that came, and will keep working on the Blackhands paintjob to see if I can up the score next year.


Cheers

BLACKHAND

Gratz on the 5th placing mate!

Well done!
Sounds,like you had fun AND did well, you cant do better than that
Sportsmanship sounds like chipmunking to me(not accusing anyone), but then i wasnt there so i cant really say either way.
Thanks for the Bat reps, brief or not i always enjoy seeing how other people do.
What was your list btw?

Heres the list

HQ
Librarian Reza Malin in terminator armor w/ Force Weapon & Stormbolter
Phaedon, Master of the Forge w/ Servo Harness
TROOPS
Combat squad "Wrath"
Marine sergeant w/ Powerfist & Bolt Pistol
Tactical marine x 9 w/ Meltagun & Heavy Bolter
Rhino
Tactical squad "Fury"
Marine sergeant w/ Chainsword & Bolt Pistol
Tactical marine x 9 w/ Meltagun & Multi-Melta
Rhino
Tactical squad “Rage”
Marine sergeant w/ Powerfist & Bolt Pistol
Tactical marine x 9 w/ Meltagun & Heavy Bolter
Rhino
Tactical squad "Malice"
Marine sergeant w/ Chainsword & Bolt Pistol
Tactical marine x 9 w/ Meltagun & Multi-Melta
Rhino
ELITE
Terminator Squad "Rancor"
Terminator Sergeant w/Power Axe and Stormbolter
Terminators x 7 w/ Chainfist & Assault Cannon
HEAVY
Dreadnaught w/ T/L Autocannon x 2
Dreadnaught w/ T/L Autocannon x 2
Dreadnaught w/ T/L Autocannon x 2

Pretty simple list, lots of troops, not a lot of long range Anti armour with punch but it didn't bother me in too many situations.

I'm thinking of dropping the libby since he didn't do much but run away from assualts in order to save my opponent from getting an easy bonus point.

Will probably make the following changes, points allowing,

Out - Termie Libby

In - 2 more Termies to make a 10 man squad, and add in a cyclone launcher. If I have the points spare I will throw a conversion beamer on the MotF since he hangs out with the Riflemen more often then not.

What do you guys think?

Personally (and i am not an expert by any meaning of the word when it comes to lists) i would opt for MLs over Heavy Bolters, but that may just be my preference.
Otherwise it seems fairly solid, and i bet it looks great!
Cheers for the list too

Well done mate!

@ Reiko - Thanks bud, and yeah looking back I could have definitely had more use out of a couple of MLs than the two heavy bolters so I might make a couple up and see how they perform, cheers

@Perpelxiti - Thanks man, you'll have to wander up here sometime and enter a tourney...I say this having never played outside of Whangarei

Congrats Blackhand! Sounds like a great outing!

Nice job Blackhand, did you have a picture some where of your force? Did I miss that?

@Gitsplitta - Cheers man, I think a most of my luck came from my match ups but it gives me hope that my playing is improving.

@Iceangel - Thanks bud, and I don't think I have done an army pick yet. Trouble is the army getting to be a lot bigger than the list I played with, I also have a drop pod, Land Raider, 7 man scout squad with Telion and a 10 man Assault squad. I'm not sure a pic big enough to show them all with have very good detail but I will look at it next time I have free hobby time.


Ok the big question guys.

I'm planning on switching out the heavy bolters as you know but I found more bits in my bitz box than I thought I had so....

Should I drop in two MLs so I can at least glance AV 14 at a distance and also have a couple of blast templates for pesky infantry?

Or

Add in a Lascannon in each squad so I have a much greater chance punching holes in tanks and monstrous creatures but losing out on the small blast template?

I also found enough termies to round out my squad to 10 and I have a cyclone missile launcher buuuut...

Do I drop the Assault Cannon and add in another Cyclone? Giving me 4 Missiles a turn as suggested by a friend, but losing out on the 4 Assault Cannon shots.

The other thing to think of is that with the 20 points I am potentially spending on the Lascannons I could give my MotF a power weapon and maybe some melta bombs to a Tac Sergeant.... decisions, decisions!

Cheers,

BLACKHAND

Conversion beamers are too cool not to be included

need GW to make one

I had a long think about the conversion beamer but if you arm the MotF with one then you have to take off the Servo Harness... you know the one with a flamer, t/l Plasma pistol and two Powerfist attacks, everything that makes a MotF such a fantastic deal at 100 points.

While I didn't have a lot of ranged anti tank I still managed, I don't think I need it so much that I lose the servo harness especially if I add in a couple of ML or Lascannons

Conversion beamers are terrible. It's like arming your MoTF with a missile launcher *at best*, and in most games you won't even get to shoot at that range for more than 1 turn. I'll take the mobility and servo harness any day.

That kind of confirms my opinion, I have never seen it do well unless the MotF is mounted on a bike so he can move to get the range. Plus with my rolling I prefer more shots than one powerful one.

So what do you think Gits, Missile Launchers or Lascannons?

Of course I have enough parts to build both but its not the point

Well, one of the interesting things to come out of this disaster of a tournament was that I ran a squad of 4 MLs w/ 3 extra guys and no one shot at it until there was practically nothing else left. People weren't the least bit intimidated by them, but because of the variety of ammo, they were busy shooting every turn & I felt had good effect. I'm looking at building 2 las cannons for my sternguard mainly because they're so cheap (compared to what other units pay for them)... I suspect this will however, make them a larger target.

I guess it would depend on the make-up of the rest of your force. If you really need extra armor punching power at range, go with the las cannons. If you think you're covered there (or your tactics don't require it), MLs are versatile, cheap and and likely to be a low priority target.

For really good anti-tank firepower, go with a Autocannon Predator with LC sponsons. It can move and fire all weapons an will generally take most tanks or MC's down...

Thanks for the replies guys,

I will model them both up and try a few games with each to see how they play, I don't worry too much about anti armour as most games I have 6 meltas screaming towards the enemy in the rhinos, this was just a reaction to the realization that they 3 or 4 times I actually used the HBs was to fire into squads of termies and independant characters out the top of a rhino and both ML and Lascannon will do a better job of punching those targets than the HB.

Unfortunately I am too enamoured of having 4 tac squads to drop anything in order to add a Pred of any kind, plus vehicles are so easy pop, if they want to try and knock out my Meltas and other heavy wepons they will have to chew through an entire tac squad at the moment

BLACKHAND wrote:
@Perpelxiti - Thanks man, you'll have to wander up here sometime and enter a tourney...I say this having never played outside of Whangarei

I may just have to do that one day, you guys have many tourneys up there?

We have a singles tournament around this tim every year and a doubles at the end of october.

A good mate and I are planning to clean up at the doubles this year, he is building an assault orientated chaos marine list to compliment my shooty Blackhands, I personally enjoy the Doubles more than the normal tourney as you can shore up each other's weakness. For instance I am terrible at deploying but always know what my boys need to do, Bayonet sets up well but often gets frustrated and charges all out to his plans detriment

Sounds like a plan BLACKHAND! Complimentary armies do work really well together, i would advise having something assaulty to back him up though, same as for him to have something shooty, that way you are both involved in everything that happens rather than one take over on each bit if that makes sense?

Bayonet runs a couple of defilers so he has a couple of pie plates to crop and I am currently running 10 termies so we have a bit of redundancy I spose...might be worth taking up with him though

BLACKHAND wrote:Bayonet runs a couple of defilers so he has a couple of pie plates to crop and I am currently running 10 termies so we have a bit of redundancy I spose...might be worth taking up with him though

Ahh thats cool then. I played a 4-way battle once (it ended up 2v2 after about..... oooo 20 seconds ), and the biggest problem we had was lack of synergy between lists and tactics (which you seem to have covered), but the next one was we couldnt support each other properly (me having sod all CC units after Mephy and his 'Honour Guard' -readeath Company- bit it, and him having nothing in the way of range). Then again, it was AGES ago and we were all still learning then so YMMV.

Hey people, sorry for the long silence, I have been hammered by a 1-2, combo of never ending social commitments and a baby who likes to wake up around 3 and say hello to mum and dad.... honestly, great to have a bright, alert baby but why at 3 in the morning

So I have been bashing away at a problem behind the scenes and have come to a well, satisfactory, solution.

Basically the idea of GSing script on the DreadKnight blade, while cool, was far too small for my clumsy fingers and myopic eyes ( -14 for those who know about these things, basically blind ) I came up with a plan to cast the script and got a local company to cut a rubber stamp of the script to use as a master... unfortunately something in the rubber they use stopped my silicone from curing so it was a no go.

I then got them to cut me a negative version of the script into a different rubber, which they did, and when it arrived they had cut the finest, thinnest script into the rubber I have ever seen... uh oh.

So I cast it in resin anyway and apart from a tiny part of an "S" it came out pretty well,... just not what I was originally hoping for.

Anyway enough blathering, I gave the MK2 sword a thin coat of white and a wash to bring out the text and took some pics





So now all I have to do is add a few more GS details to the hilt and crossbar, paint everything but the blade which will just an enchanted blue basecoat and its time to ship the DreadKnight and Dreadnaught to their new owner!

And don't worry I haven't been sitting around waiting for rubber stamps! I received a bunch of Infinity models and while the bulk of them have been just been glued to their bases I did have a play around with the fella who needs the most work, the Mercenary Ninja, Saito Togan!

So in his original form he looks kinda silly... but the rules for him are so sweet I really needed him (apparently Smoke Grenades are the s&%t in Infinity)




I decided I couldn't handle the high kicking leg so I cut him in half, carved down the legs and together with some GS and a couple of pins I came up with this.....





And here he is with a bit of paint on him....







I really can't say how nice it is to work on a model with actual human proportions, it may be hell to pin and assemble but they look so nice and already I can feel the fun returning to my hobby time as I think about all the neat conversion possibilities

C&C welcome as always, especially the new owner of my GK, would love to know if you like the sword, there is still time for me to make up a new one if you like

Cheers

BLACKHAND

Wow,

The infinity model looks pretty awesome, even better once you got him on the ground more (I agree the high kicking version was a little OTT)

I do like the inscription done in resin, I think that if it was any bigger you might lose the scale somewhat. Was there only one font choice?

Also I can't imagine the constant disruptions of sleep at 3am with a wide awake child! The closest I had was disruptive sleep while in deployment every 4 hours there was an "attack" one guy firing blanks forcing us to get up and go find him. and he had already gone back to bed....