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Man those armies look sweet!

That they do..

That they do..

Thanks WM, I'm going to do a little research on potential replacements & check my cash flow. I'll get back to you if needed. I've been kind of toying with the idea of replacing that monitor anyway... this just kind of forces my hand in the matter.

Thanks everyone else too! You're support really helps keep me motivated.




All right... need an early sanity break, so here's the next portion... The battle takes place in an abandoned ork Mek Works (my spiffy terrain from Senji Studios).


Deployment: Mantis Warriors (center left on the gaming table)
The Mantis Warriors recon team were the first to arrive & had already secured their objective... but had to wait for reinforcements to arrive along with the extraction team. They knew there was ork activity in the area, so they holed up in a nearby building with the two scout squads on lookout on the roof, and the techmarine performing damage checks and maintenance on the dreadnought in the bay below. The Rifleman variant was an unusual choice for the mission, but it would have been more than adequate for dealing with the ork light armor intel had pinpointed in the local Bad Moons Clan arsenal. Luckily, no such support was required as no resistance had been encountered.


The SM objective is on the other side of the building, several inches away (but close).

Deployment: Bad Moon Orks (rear right on the gaming table)
A bellowed order from "da Big Boss" Gitsplitta sent several dozen orks scrambling to make a trek out the old Stompa fac'try to retrieve the warbosses pet squig, Spot... after the umpteenth attempt by the mob to leave the viscious little creature behind. There were rumors that "Bugboys" had been seen in the area, so the nob running "da show" pulled together a few extra boys... just to be safe.


The ork objective is marked with the blue arrow.

Deployment: Eldar (near right on the gaming table)
Farseer "he who shall be named later when I have time to start thinking about my Eldar again" awoke with a start... in his meditations on things past, present and future he was revealed a terrible image. An Eldar exarch, captured in battle, beaten into unconsciousness... and chained to a crude alter to appease the dark ork gods. While it was a blessing that they had not simply killed him outright... releasing his soul to be devoured by Slennesh, he must not be allowed to perish! The Farseer immediately pulled together a strike force. Luckily, there was a long unused web way gate not too distant from where the exarch was being held (isn't there always? ). There were "complicating factors"... but those would be dealt with as needs be.


The eldar objective is marked with the blue arrow.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

For some stupid reason, I did not take a photo of the table each turn like usual, so I've fiddled with the arrows I use to show movement for the missing turns. Hope it's not too annoying.

Turn 1:

Here's the opening shot of the table on turn 1. Our relative positions are shown as well as the objective markers (blue arrows), who goes in what order and our first moves. Ignore the "2+" on the MW building... that is erroneous.

Eldar: The Eldar decide to protect their Farseer by joining him to the guardian squad, which is also the only squad apparently not hell-bent on suicide. They move to rescue the exarch, while the dire avengers advance towards the orks (and the center objective). Thing 1 also announces that his wraithlord is going to wipe out the entire Mantis Warrior force by himself, and advances it appropriately.

Mantis Warriors: Bemused by the audacity of the Eldar plan, the rifleman and tech marine move out from their protective shelter and the entire Mantis Warrior army opens up on the WL. They're actually pretty well set up to deal with it as everything in the scout units can wound on a set number, eliminating the advantage of the WL's toughness, and the autocannons are S7. Unfortunately while they hit and wound respectably... the WL makes a half-a-dozen saves or more... and emerges unscathed.

Orks: Advance uncontrollably towards everything (very orky). Trukk boyz go for the squig while the koptas and infantry advance towards the eldar & central objective marker. One deffkopta turbo boosts towards the center of the table (it's behind the smelter just behind the marine objective).




... that's all for now, unfortunately I left my narrative for the battle at home, so the rest will have to wait until tomorrow. However, I will also have a nice shot of the finished Calgar figure for you by then. So you get a bit of a bonus!

GS

First time I've looked at that ork board of yours! Looks great, I think particularly because it's not at all anything like the boards I play on (cityfight and mars terrain)

Hello, I'm 31 and have been playing since early second edition (I calculate not long afte Rogue Trader). Life moves on and so I've taken several breaks away from the hobby. I've only recently dug out my Blood Angels and started to re-work/amend my army. I'm having a great time just modelling and painting, though its slow going with time constraints that I didn't have as a kid.

I just want to say that this Blog is awesome. It's fantastic to see the development of two young hobbiests and the valuable input they are getting from the old man. I just stumbled across this blog yesterday and have felt compelled to read through all 16 pages.

This is easily one of the more interesting and satisfying blog reads I've found lately I think what you guys are doing is really something special. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to following you guys as long as you are willing to post.

Man, I love how you add stories to your battles. I'm really excited at how this game will turn out.

Yes the new terrain looks good! I think now you need to start adding elements of elevation to your board!

@IHEART & Choc: Thanks!

@CK: Thanks! Won't be able to do anything like it again... but considering the money and hours I've spent on rule books, figures and modeling supplies... money spent on really nice terrain is well worth it (and it makes the games a lot more fun).

@BeeLow: Sounds like you have a history similar to mine. Welcome back to the hobby. I'm really glad you've enjoyed the blog thus far. I hope to keep it up as long as I can. It's kind of neat that the blog has been inactive for quite a while & now that I have a few things to report on there are entirely new readers checking it out. Please chime in if you have anything to add or have any questions. Don't worry about the slow going... my 40k life is at a snails pace now... just is that way when you hit adulthood I guess.

@Much: Thanks! Some times I have them figured out before we do the battle (mostly), but they always get better after the battle is over and I can work them over in my head (and have the gaming action to think about as well).

@SLion: That is entirely possible. I've thought about a series of cascading steps making one end of the table rise up... or a couple of very shallow layers with a river cut out between them. Wouldn't take all that long to do, but then I'd have to figure out where to store it all...


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Well, here's the photo I promised... chapter master of the Doom Eagles... the KING of BLING, a walking rummage sale on miscellaneous Imperial propaganda so ridiculously festooned that only a complete and utter DESK JOCKEY would ever deign to walk around like this. Do you know why his arms are in that position?? It's the only way he can get his massive, draped carcass moving forward! The displacement of his heavy power fists throws his chest forward and with effort he can maintain forward momentum. Don't ask how he stops.... you don't want to know.

Oh sorry... meet "Prince Gillian" Chapter Master of the Doom Eagles.

Boy this figure just stinks to high heaven. Silly design, poorly molded, stupid looking head. Thank God for Chapterhouses' skull helmet and the fact that the doom eagles believe that they're already dead for giving me a viable excuse to use it. Thing 1 worked for hours on it, but it's filled with so much crap that I had to work for hours to try and save it... all the while the paint got deeper and deeper and deeper. I was just about to strip it and sell it on e-bay when I thought of the skull head. Still had to do a terrifying amount of grinding to get it to fit (after cutting it down) but the end result is at least unique... and that skull head is simply awesome.

So for now at least, he has a chapter master. We have both resolved to build a new chapter master from scratch... at which point Busta Rhymes here can go into the "for sale" bin.

I actually think that that Prince Gillian is not half bad. very nice eye for details and I love his helmet. Well done

Weird thing is he's not in focus... same camera set-up I always use but it's like he's still defying me even now... Might be "hammer time" when we get a new one built.

For some reason, I find that chapter master hilarious.

In a good way, not mocking you at all

I do actually quite like the chapter master, though it does look like he has buck teeth

So im guessing its not your favourite model?


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Does he have a painted posse?

He's a chapter master! He's a Chaplain! He is the Chapel-master!

I read the foot banner as "Gilligan", and wanted to call him 'little buddy'.

My amusement aside, it looks like thing 1 did a better-than average job on a below-average mini.

LOL! Might have to do a truscale marine to be the "Skipper". But then.... the upside would be that I'd get to model MaryAnn and Ginger! Busty blond cannoness and her flamethrower wielding aide perhaps? Hmmm... I wonder if anyone has ever rendered the cast of Gilligan's Island as 40k characters before?

Like I said, he had a LOT of help from me, I freely admit it. He was working really hard on it, and getting very frustrated as it was one step forward and two steps back. He did all the base painting, washing, highlighting, pads and such. I came in over the top and did the clean up, bling and the head.

Yes, it is a chaplain's head... but as I mentioned before, the skull motif works with the Doom Eagle fluff... and this is actually the third head that I tried with this figure, and it's the only one that even came close to looking good. Luckily at table-top distance the figure looks good. The skull really stands out against the recess which makes him look pretty neat. I to chuckled at the teeth... but... it's iconography... you gotta cut it some slack.

Speaking of iconography, I keep trying to convince Thing 1 that the Doom Eagle symbol should be a stylized eagle lying on it's back with it's feet sticking straight up in the air and a little "x" across it's eye. Can't get him to go for that yet.... but I'll keep trying!

What happened to the hodded head? I havent had a go at Calgar yet, and now I'm a bit worried.

It would've worked fine but the paint got too thick on it and we lost the detail. I believe it would've looked perfectly decent when finished as the hood matched the cloak, giving you the sense of a continuous garment. I had just pried it out and was about to toss it in simple green when I had the idea of using the skull head.

One of the things that made this figure so difficult for us to deal with is the metal base color of the doom eagles... I think it would have painted up much better if you had a base color that was non-metallic so that all the bling was a contrast to the solid base color rather than just "more" metallics.

I must admit to being pretty disappointed in the quality of GWs metal castings, at least the one's we've been getting lately. They are poorly formed, don't fit together well making assembly a nightmare, detail is often substandard... they're just a pain in the you-know-what to work with. Their plastics are far superior from my experience, on top of being much easier to modify (and that's coming from an old metal-worker... so I'm used to working with metals).

Retrieved from the vault of dusty mini's ( complete with real dust). Thank the Emperor that my painting has improved.
This conversion was my chaptermaster, at least the metal figure was decent.


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PS. my first posted pic!

How retro, now you just need to make a blog!

PS. my first posted pic!

I with you on the metal coplor scheme. Difficult to make good contrast...

Did you upload it to dakka? Thats the easiest/fastest loading way to do images.

Of corse the one time I actually want an auto append SL gets between my posts!

whalemusic360 wrote:How retro, now you just need to make a blog!

I have no time to paint; barely time to post and read.

( the chao's gods are telling me to mow my grass)... arggggg!!

Its raining in Ohio, you cant mow..........
Now get to paintin! Also quick thread highjack question, do you play necrons very often?

@Solar_Lion: I always loved your original marines... clean, crisp, striking... everything you could want in an army paint job. Thing 1 likes them so much that he's going to take the unit you gave him and leave them as-is rather than re-paint them. I kept one back myself & he sits on my desk in a place of honor. I guess it's my first actual "swap", though I haven't given you anything in return yet.

If you haven't already... upload your images to dakka as WM suggests. It's easy, and you can use those images anywhere on the web... not just on dakka. Nice really. I empathize with your no time to paint problem. This marine trade has me stressing as everyone else is piling in & being so productive, and I know 4 people are working on things for me and I've JUST gotten to the point where I'm starting to paint my first trade... meanwhile none of my armies are getting painted... oh, and the housework is piling up too.

I need about... two clones, and I'd even give them the fun stuff to do & I'd do the work... but at least I'd know I was making some progress.

Lol, I hear ya. The swap is taking like 70% of my painting time, just enough to make small updates on my actuall armies. Ive got a massive pile of half painted guys just asking to be finished, but using them for swaps seems like cheating. And now that I made a table, I have to make terrain too! Ugh x5.

Those Eldar look really good.
are you letting him branch out into other armies?

also, why not try sanding down the medals and stuff, and maybe using one of the hooded DA heads?

@pie: Actually he is branching out. He'd collecting Necrons as we speak, but he needs to finish painting (the main part) of his marine force before he can start working on the crons. As to your second suggestion... I did that, that's what Whalemusic and I were referring to in the previous set of posts... but the paint got too thick on the hooded head and as I was taking it off for stripping I had the idea of using the skull head, which my son and I both like better.

whalemusic360 wrote:Its raining in Ohio, you cant mow..........
Now get to paintin! Also quick thread highjack question, do you play necrons very often?

I live in WI. we'll mow in the snow...

Are you directing the Necron question to me?


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actually I'm really close to finishing yours ( WM ) and gits figure.


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actually I'm really close to finishing yours ( WM ) and gits figure.


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Still waiting on the rest of the battle report. As much as I am interested in the painting and artistic part, I also like to see if he is developing is sense of strategy’s and tactics, sportsmanship and confidence. After all I will be playing against him hopefully some day soon.

I'm happy to report that I've just purchased a replacement for my computer monitor... my new monitor is now 32" across!! (OK, so it'll serve as the all-purpose monitor for the electronics in the "man cave"... not just my computer).

So... when I'm eye-ballin all-yalls paintin', I'll be able to spy out every last mistake 'cause they'll all be like... 4" big on my screen! OK, it's a cheap TV so I probably won't be able to see anything clearly... but I can PRETEND that I can see your mistakes so you better be nice to me!

So there...

Update tonight from home, I keep forgetting to bring the darn narrative in to work with me.


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Oh good Lord.... all my painting mistakes in 32" widescreen.... Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea after all...

Oh geeze, who gave git the credit card?

And yes SL, the cron question was for you. I guess I better get to paintin, hes only assembeled at this point!