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A very decent effort for 2017 there, and that huge KoW game looks spectacular - as does the completed dwarven throng!

Nice work so far on the Necrons. Sounds like the Monolith suffers from it's vintage. Leman Russ tanks were always awful to assemble as well, with huge gaps and problems getting them to go together. Hopefully an updated kit is in the works when their codex comes out...

Hi all, I have been quiet on the forum, but have been busy behind the scenes on the hobby front, both painting and gaming. So strap in and come with me on a ride down the rabbit hole. Be warned this is going to be a long post.....

To start off with the Monolith that I have been slowly plugging away at. It is a massive model with lots of flat areas. I had finally managed to get all of the silver added and washed with black.


It follows the scheme of the Necron army apart from the more advanced "stone" pattern on the brown areas.


It may be a pretty simple scheme, but with the sheer scale of the model I think the stone work and metal works together quite well.


Stay tuned for more Monolith later, but I am taking a quick stop at a 8th edition 40k game with my Iron Hands taking on a Tyranid swarm......


We were playing a maelstrom of war mission (three objectives in hand each turn). YET AGAIN I stuffed myself from the get go in deployment. What did I do confronted with a vast horde of Tyranids? Set up a big block smack bang in the middle of the table....what did that allow them to do? Sweep into me from three sides all at once. Why oh why can I not learn? But all in all it was a good game with some very cool moments.


As you can see a lot of bugs arrayed against my thin line of marines. It doesn't show up well, but the tyranids are painted in a beautiful natural scheme that lends them a very insect appearance and is vastly different from my own cartoony swarm.


I think I allowed the need to get to objectives cloud my judgement on deployment. I probably should have surrendered half the board to limit how much of the swarm could get at me in one go.


This was my main bastion, it would have been perfect had it been anchored on one flank by a table edge.


Got to love the Dreadnoughts, they really performed amazingly well and gave far more than they got, even though the poor guys didn't survive the battle.


So. Many. Bugs. I was also a little overwhelmed by how fast these guys can move, but with little shooting there was no reason not to add an advance roll as well. I think turn two and we were embroiled in multiple combats.


Not only was there a teeming horde of small bugs there were enough of the big boys to really concern me. Carnifex's and a Hive Tyrant all on one flank. Fortunately I was able to meet them head on with a pair of dreadnoughts to blunt the advance.


This is what happened in my turn two. The Hive Tyrant got a tiny bit ahead of the rest of the Swarm and I took my chance to let the Dreadnoughts loose. It was a gamble as I knew the Carnifex's were hot on his heels, but the target was too juicey even with its Tyrant Guard escort.


The tactical squads that were behind the Dreadnoughts were lost for a number of turns as the swirling big beastie melee blocked them from shooting and they really weren't equipped to help their ancient brethren out. I should have moved them as quickly as possible to the left flank to help out against the Raveners, Hormagaunts and Warriors that were rolling that flank.


The cavalry began to roll in to try and save the Hive Tyrant........


A quick stop to rant about my Maelstrom of War objectives. As you can see I got two involving capture Objective 5......one being that great bonus if your Warlord is the one to achieve it. So it looks great I could potentially grab a lot of victory points in one fell swoop. Just a small problem.......


Firstly, here is my Warlord, with his outrageously large conversion beamer in prime spot to lay down some serious covering fire, he is not the most mobile of Warlords and I hadn't intended him to be moving much.


Secondly, you see the red circle? Well that is Objective 5, on the other side of the table, a long, long way away for my Warlord to even consider going for.


And the final nail in the coffin, thats 30 odd Hormagaunts camping out in the building that Objective 5 is located in. I gave up any thought of capturing it and ignored those objectives. Even spent 2 command points to trade a card in it annoyed me so much.


On the far left, one of the Venerable Dreadnoughts was making quite a nuisance of himself. It attracted a brood of Termagants. They were little threat to him, but it would eventually stop him blowing holes in the bigger bugs for a good chunk of the game.


Back to the centre, things got a little tight and the order of combats were pretty important. But a couple of bad dice rolls from the Tyranids and some great Venerable Dreadnought saves kept the dread on the right in it long enough to land the deathblow on the Hive Tyrant, netting me not only first blood, but also slay the warlord.


But eventually weight of numbers was telling and both the Venerable and regular dread succumbed, oh how I wish I hadn't left the Ironclad on the side lines ( it was only a 1500 point game and he didn't make the cut). With there demise the Carnifex's would soon advance on me once more. Although the combat squad about to meet a grisly end had captured the objective long enough to gain me another victory point.


The regular Dread survived the longest as the Carnifex's concentrated on his Venerable ally first. But between the two of them they saw the end of a Hive Tyrant, Tyrant Guard, a unit of Warriors that tried to lend a hand as well as seriously hurting both carnifex's which allowed me to kill them off later.


Remember that unit of Hormagants hiding in that building earlier? Well they didn't stay there for long and along with a Ravener brood they ended up in a huge combat with my centre firebase. Warriors ended up joining in too with a Warrior Prime being a nuisance as well. But I had a secret weapon in there. A unit of Servitors and Tech Marine with a servo harness valiantly and really quite effectively met the charge and blunted its effectiveness. The armour of the Techmarine and his myriad of attacks was a serious thorn and it took a lot of attention from both Raveners and Warriors to finally lay him and his servitors low. You can see him on the left of the fight still swinging his axe.


Taken moments before the Techmarine (lower right) is swept away and the firebase is completely overrun.


The Termagants ended up in combat with the other Venerable, slowly he began stomping on them, but it achieved the primary goal of stopping him shooting which was disappointing, again, deployment really messed him up.

It was unfortunately getting late and I had a long drive home, so with the game going badly against me I conceded the game. Victory points obviously didn't really matter since I conceded, but we added it up and I achieved 3 VP to my opponents I think 6 or 7. He managed to snag a couple of easy VP's from cards on his advance towards me and I was really hamstrung by poor card draws and a poorer deployment.

What did I learn? Tyranids are fast and win by attrition, even the big bugs struggled with my Dreads and with a little better support they could have won me the game. I suffered from a lack of speed. Next time I will definitely include a rhino or two, drop pods or the Bike squad to allow me to be a nuisance by redeploying. I was hamstrung by not being able to reach out and threaten objectives.

Plus, deployment, deployment, deployment. It seems to be the part of the game I really struggle with. How am I supposed to improve that?

But enough of me complaining, my opponent played a tight game with a single mindedness that the Hive Mind would be proud of. Once his swarm has finished digesting my poor Iron Hands we may go for a rematch. But its time to go back to the painting......

I always like to have a small side project floating around on my painting stable to distract me while I wait for paint to dry. So I finished this little piece of scatter terrain off.



It is a collection of barrels and jerry cans as well as just offcuts and odds and sods. Add a bit of paint and flock/sand and in no time i have a little piece to add interest to a part of the board, plus a little cover in this edition where cover is actually pretty hard to gain.

But the highlight of this post is the Monolith, I told you we would return to it and it is in fact now finished. I am very happy with how it came together, from an annoying beginning of a poorly fitting kit, I think I have managed to hide most of the joins and am very happy with the colour scheme.


When I added in the green plastic parts it really lifted the model to another level. I think it contrasts very well with the stone of the majority of the model.


I took the opportunity to add some bright green to some areas to try and hint that the green power is coursing through the whole monolith, on this side you can see it in the small squares at the top of the pillars.


I used the green paint again running up from the green disc. I am very happy with how it has worked as it adds an extra layer of interest while keeping with the overall scheme.


I have learnt a fair bit from doing this one so I will now hopefully be able to get the second one together and finished a lot faster. Will definitely be making more sub assemblies next time.


The plate above the portal, the stairs below it and the four guns are all able to be moved still, but I doubt I will do that often as the risk of damage to the paint work is just not worth being able to have a closed down monolith.


I had the pylons on the left and right attached the whole way through and they will definitely be left off on the second one until its finished.


I have a couple of left over Necron Warriors, I am considering gluing one behind the portal to see if it would be visible from the outside. The other idea is to chop it up and have it coming out of the portal.......


I am really happy with how much the green plastic parts make the model pop. I am surprised GW hasn't got more kits that use them and the fact they phased them out of the Immortal kits. Its a pity.


A couple of the unfinished Warriors escorting the monolith forward, it really is a huge model. I have it mounted on a flying stand, which can be easily removed if I ever needed to just have the monolith on the table.

So there you have it, I should get better at regular small updates rather than these monster posts, but I struggle to get the time to add updates. I hope you all enjoyed the progress and I managed to get to a shop to refresh my paints and hopefully will get some more progress to show soon.

Thanks for reading.

Batrep is excellent, really enjoyed that, nice looking armies as well.

But that Monolith is truly magnificent, really brilliant work, love the colours, came out superb. That is really a piece to be proud of.

Thanks Camkierhi, really appreciate you stopping by. I think it has turned out well, shouldn't be too different to the rest of the force that it looks odd, but is different enough to be a real focal point.

Great batrep, nids are one of my favorite looking armies. That battle certainly had it´s feel of "starship troopers", the shot of the firebase being overrun is great

Hi all,

Well it has been a fairly long hiatus for me and the hobby, which ended last week which was nice. But there has been an enormous amount going on for me and the family recently which has obviously taken precedent over relaxing past times.

I would like to begin with the surgery I had mentioned my son needing has now come and gone. Time for a long held breath to be exhaled. He was 5 and a half months at the time of the surgery and he has come through it like I guess only a baby can. Our bright and bubbly little man returned to himself far quicker than we thought and he now only has a considerable scar running straight down the middle of his head so they could get in and bone saw his prematurely fused skull open. He has a pair of springs holding it all together and we will return to hospital in 3-6 months to have them removed. Then he should be done with it all never needing any more treatment (fingers crossed).

I did toy with the idea of posting a picture of his stitched up head, but it is somewhat gruesome and unnecessarily graphic. But if anyone is interested he had a spring cranioplasty. If there is anyone else out there that's child has craniosynotosis then I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

But with our little man out of the woods and my wife and I able to resume normal life I grabbed the chance to get some hobby stuff moving. I did take a little time off work, which as it turned out wasn't entirely necessary as two days after getting him home from the hospital he was pretty much back to normal. I can't say my wife or I were, but at least he was.

So to start with the reawakening of the hobby spirits I thought I would share with you where my hobby space is up to.......


Here is a lovely set of shelves with terrain and D&D books visible. More terrain, can you really ever have enough?


This is my terrain and D&D section.


The long shot, you will need to excuse the stupidly messy desk, I cleaned it off completely the day after the photo.


I made these clear shelves at work, the boss even ended up footing the material bill, but I do work a lot of hours for him.


So I have one and a half walls with these shelves, I think they look pretty damn good and being clear they will allow the light to get to the models so they always look their best.


Some models have already started migrating to the shelves. It will never be enough, but its a start.


Looks like on average armies will take up about 1.5 to 2 shelves each. They are only 90mm deep so I won't be able to fit big models on them, but that's OK. The next step is having poly-carbonate sheet that will act as doors to protect the models from little hands and dust.

And now I have a nice safe place to store my addiction I have been able to get into the Necron and have knocked off those poor warriors that have patiently been waiting for their time in the sun.


Similar to the monolith in having a bone/stone with metal parts.


With the green rods I think they really spring to life.


I batch painted all 40 of them (nothing new there) and I marvel at how it feels like you are making absolutely zero progress and then all of a sudden you look up and they are one paint stroke from completion.


I kept the basing pretty basic, as I feel Necron are all about their dead worlds, plus they are very similar to the Ork and Iron Hand bases so the armies will look nice if they ever take to the field against each other.


All of these guys are rescue models from eBay, some were in pretty poor condition. But enmasse its hard to tell the weird ones from the good ones.


All 40 warriors, you know without template weapons I am super interested to deploy them like this in a game. It just looks intimidating.


I also snuck this guy in, he is my Overlord based on the lord form the Catacomb Command Barge with a couple of pieces from the Praetorian kit to replace missing pieces. I thought a simple hyperphase sword would be interesting compared to the usual warscythe.


He has a couple of colours that don't appear on the rest of the army, so hopefully will stand out.


Took me a while to figure out what to do with the cloak, I am happy with where he ended up.


The Necron army as it currently stands. Have a few more models I need to get and now with 8th edition I am sorely tempted to change the list a bit and get an additional HQ, a Cryptek is very attractive.......

So hopefully there are a few of you still out there interested in reading and I am glad to be back posting. Here is to good health and a year of much more normal activity.

Thanks for reading.

First and most importantly, great news about the wee man.

Second Necrons are looking fantastic. Lord is an imposing figure.

Lastly jealous as hell of your brilliant work space.

I am pretty happy with it all at the moment. Family is healthy. Hobby space is almost sorted. Paintingnis backnup and running. Assembled the 10 Lychguard last night.

The other side of the right hand wall of the hobby space is my workshop where I have all my trade tools and machines (lathe, mill, drill press etc. etc. etc) so I may see about doing something interesting with resins again now I have somewhere clean that I can dirty up without causing a marriage breakdown.....

Quick question to all out there. After many, many years of use and abuse, my faithful MDF painting tray/station is at the end of its life, it has started to split and recently exposure to water has caused it to start going furry as unprotected MDF does when exposed to water.

So, does anyone have a recommendation of a painting tray/station that is not huge and is mobile? I have been very happy with my current one (I have had it for more than 10 years). I have a photo of it below so you can see what I would prefer to replace (I am very tempted to make my own, but inspiration of other trays would be welcome too).

So I have managed a little more progress, bear with me as this may have a few photos. Firstly I am organizing a game of 40k with a mate and we are looking at his Imperial Fists (beautifully painted army) vs my Alpha Legion. He has kindly lent me his Chaos Space Marine codex so I won't be using the Index and have all the tasty toys the codex has in it. TO that end I sat down and looked through how my army shapes up from 7th to 8th edition, pretty well actually. The only thing I needed to add to "officially" bring it in line (not that that worries me) is that Terminators now start at 5 models, not the 3 in 7th, so, I dug through my bits box and low and behold I managed to put a 5th terminator together, this guy has a Heavy Flamer and chainfist.


Its the guy on the far right.


I am pretty happy I had a heavy weapon as the rest of the squad all had combi weapons so it bulks up the close range power of the squad.


I thought I would throw this cheeky shot in of the one and only instigator of the Heresy Logar Aurelian, Lord of the Word Bearers. He is probably the least ostentatious and "basic" of the Primarchs I have painted so far. Which I think is very fitting as he is not a warrior but a scholar. So basic arms and armour and that sort of hesitancy in his stature that betrays someone that doesn't know where he fits.

But I was working on Leman Russ the keen eyed readers cry? Well I could only be showing the next Primarch for one reason........

Presenting, Leman Russ, Great Wolf of the Rout and Executioner of the Emperor of Mankind

I wanted to keep his armour fairly dark to rally highlight the Legion badge and his face and hair.


And also kept the weapons bright and hopefully icy.


He is one of the more dynamic Primarchs and I like that he is completely festooned with weapons of all types.


It wasn't really intentional, but the base has ended up very similar to the armour. It initially bugged me and I thought about trying to change it. But came to the conclusion it reflected the fact Leman Russ is a warrior and slayer of men and he doesn't care about standing out from the crowd like Fulgrim. So I kind of have begun liking the fact he is sort of camouflaged.


I will need to try and remember how I did it when it comes to doing Magnus......


I am very happy with how he has come out. The face and hair stand out fantastically against the armour and really stand out.


So much hidden detail.


I really like the layout of the model, the many small weapons, the slung buckler, he looks utterly dedicated to the task of killing.


To contrast against the wolf pelt that Horus wears I tried to keep this one a little bluer. Not sure I achieved it.


I think it is probably the best face I have done to date and the Legion symbol really pops.


And a final scale shot of a few hapless Terminators caught in the path of a mortal god.

So there you have it. I have knocked up a new Chaos Terminator to round out the squad and have finally knocked off Leman Russ who has been sitting on my painting table for far too long. Hopefully I can get Lorgar done in time for my Brothers Birthday and I can give him both together.

I am now into the Lychguard for my Necron and have most of the Deathguard Plague Marines assembled for my mates commission. I just need him to let me know a couple of weapon loadout questions I have.

I am however thinking of lopping off the Power Axe from my Alpha Legion Lord and giving him a chainsword to represent the Teeth of the Hydra relic......hmmm decisions, decisions.

Thanks for reading and appreciate any feedback.

Wow man great stuff, Love the alpha legion colours, whats the recipe?

Beautiful work on Russ. Awesome.

Hi Guys, thanks for the responses. I really do appreciate you stopping by.

@boundless08 it's a pretty basic recipe I use all GW colours.

Undercoat some sort of white, basecoat in Sotek Green, heavy drybrush of Moot Green. Then wash with Drakenhoff Nightshade.

Then pick out the metal with Ironbreaker and wash with Nuln Oil.

Weapons are painted black haven't bothered to highlight them at all.

Any bone is Ushabti bone washed with Agrax Earthshade

Red for eye lenses or anything to do with melts or flamers is painted Mephiston Red and washed with reikland flesh shade.

Orange details are Troll Slayer Orange washed with Fuegan Orange.

There are other colours on different models. But that is the basis of most of them.

Cheers, they look great! I've been doing mine blue then washing with biel tan green but not 100% happy with that, I might try the other way around like you do them

This is an amazing blog, archer! I really like the colour scheme for your Alpha Legion, and that Kings of War battle on the last page looks spectacular!

Lots of eye candy throughout, keep up the good work!

Thanks for stopping by guys. Appreciate the time it takes to post.

I have been a little productive but nothing worth pointing a camera at. Have been discussing the build for the Deathguard with the mate who they are for. Looks to be like he wants two fairly basic squad and then one really tooled up one.

Hi all, its been a hell of a last week.

Unfortunately my son has been back in hospital with an unexpected complication from the previous surgery. We had him at Westmead children's emergency two Saturdays ago as we noticed a lump developing on the back of his head, then a CT scan last Wednesday and then he was admitted via emergency on the Wednesday evening at about 11pm when the lump on his head erupted and possibly the most revolting amount of pus that resembled peanut butter went everywhere. He had surgery early on the Thursday morning. They drained a lot more of the goo, reopened the scar, scrapped out the wound, removed the springs they put in the previous surgery and peroxided (yes peroxide) the wound, saline washed it and then stitched him back up with a drain in place.

He then had a few days in hospital while the cultures were developed to see what nasty it was. The amazing thing is he never had any of the symptoms of an infection, no fever, no discomfort and he never stopped eating. So we got very lucky with the infection staying "external" as if it had burst and gone into his system he would have faced a toxic shock situation.

So the wash up is a tough week for the parents, a baby that was happy and bubbly even in the hospital, no lasting damage (they even checked neurologically) and the bonus they are happy with what the springs have achieved so it looks like they may not have to go in!

Tough week, but a pretty good result considering.

But it has actually helped my hobbying progress as believe me there is not a lot to do in a hospital with a baby doped up in the cot next to you. So, making the best of a bad situation, I have a little progress to share.


Here are my squad of Lychguard. Hopefully they will put a little bit of punch into the close combat phase. Their stats seem to indicate they will be durable and pack a punch. I hope.....


I have gone with the colours off the Lord to try and tie them in to being of elite status and the bodyguard to the lord.


I kind of forgot the formula I used for the bone compared to the warriors so the bone looks a little washed out. Since they are only ten and the elite of the army I am not too concerned they look a little different. With the bright green war scythes and head dresses I figure people are looking at other things.


Here is a close up of the Lord standing in front of his Lychguard. I like how he is a little understated compared to his Guards, sort of like he is a rough and tumble leader rather than the ineffective peacock of other armies.

The final bit of painting I did was a modification to the Alpha Legion Chaos Lord. I bit the bullet and decided that he really did need to be armed with the Alpha Legion specific weapon the Blade of the Hydra. In the description it talks about an overly large chainsword, so I cut two up and made the blade twice the length of a standard one, which I am happy that it doesn't look insanely huge. It also talks about it having multiple blades that the wielder can will into reality or remain incorporeal, so I have attempted to imitate a ghostly appearance to additional blades. I am actually pretty happy with how he has turned out so I hope with his shiny new sword will do him proud when he carves into some opponents soon.



So there you have it. I have had a busy week of parental angst, but it has turned out pretty well.

Thanks for reading.

I have asked this sort of question before, but I think it a good time to ask again with me about to start the commission on the Deathguard.

I need to get some new brushes as far too many of them are a little too worn or dog eared to give the consistency I am after.

So, are their any suggestions on brushes I should look into? Keep in mind that I have only ever used Games Workshop brushes and I have absolutely no qualms over them and would be happy to continue using, however, since the bub came along I am getting price conscious and I know GW can be up there.

Taps microphone hesitantly and peers out past the stage lights.......Anyone out there?

No thoughts on paint brushes? That's a pity, I guess I will role around to the GW close to work and pic up some new ones.

Anyway, enough about painting equipment and time for a little more progress.


I have been slowly assembly the second of my Monoliths and it is as painful as the first one, although I have learnt from my mistakes and hopefully I will find painting it less painful. Trying to replicate the paint scheme from the first one will be difficult, really should have written the process down......I have also decided to touch up the "bone" bits on the Lychguard as I am annoyed how different it is to the rest of the army. Too different for me not to redo.

I have been procrastinating on whether to spray undercoat and basecoat the Deathguard, but have decided it will save me a lot of time and get a nice smooth coat across the lot of them, so I am just waiting on a fine, stable day to crack out the rattle cans.

I have also started looking at assembling the Immortals for the army (I have 20 in the army) but I currently only have 10, so anyone out there with some spare immortals I would be interested. Or if you had any Tomb Blades that would also be most welcome.

But, the main reason for this post is this guy................


I present Lorgar of the Word Bearers. He is probably the most static of the Primarchs, but he has a fair bit of detail. I promise the photos will get better, a bit.


I diverged from the Forgeworld scheme the most of any Primarch thus far on Lorgar, I have kind of gone for a hybrid between the Legion colours of the Word Bearers (steel grey) and the Traitor colours of a deep red. I took the opportunity to try a bit of a tortoise shell to add a little more detail.


To make the red cloak a little different to that of the other Primarchs I used blood for the blood god in a couple of extremely thinned layers to give a glossy look to the cloak. I am pretty happy with it and could be a very quick way to add depth and lighting to cloak in the future.


Of all the Primarchs Lorgar has the fewest weapons as he really isn't a fighter, so I tried to make the pistol stand out as its a bit of a focus.


For the base I learnt a little from Leman Russ and tried to make it contrast rather than compliment Lorgar, but it was very plain, So I added some stripes of colour that could either be some natural seam in the stone or has been inlaid by whoever made the carvings on the ring Lorgar stands on.


I don't normally make my skulls white, but they contrasted against the stone so much better. I wet blended the flames, I have done it better in the past, but it worked well enough.


Here he is on the full base. Although he is very simple I am actually pretty happy with him. I wasn't all that enthused with him to start, but got more into it as I painted him.


He contrasts well against the base and It helps him to pop.


The backpack is very Word Bearer Legion compared to his armour. But I kind of feel (with the whole ritual circle and the like) this is sort fo a snap shot as the Legion fully rebels and is in the process of repainting their armour.


I am not super happy with the book on his shoulder. But its only a small complaint.


So there you have my take on Lorgar of the Word Bearers. It is my Brothers birthday in a week but he is up in Queensland for a wedding so I gave them to him today. He was pretty happy to receive the two Primarchs I have completed. So not sure which I will do next but I have now completed 8 of the 18 Primarchs, so plenty of choices left.


A comparison of Leman Russ and Lorgar. Now that my brother is back living in Sydney I will try to get around to his place and take a group shot of the 8 of them together.

Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave a comment.

So very little activity on the painting front, although I have sorted out the brush situation and am now awaiting a clear day to spray some Deathguard. Has anyone used the GW sprays as a basecoat (rather than black or white) or should I go white first and then the colour?

I did manage to get me General's hat on and have a game of 8th edition 40k. I finally managed to get the Alpha Legion onto the field. In 8th edition the army weighs in at about 2080 points. We played 1,500 points so I had to prune some of the fat and the Terminators, Raptors and half the cultists didn't see action this time around.

We played the ambush scenario with the Alpha Legion playing the ambushers (very in character) and the Imperial Fists to be their victims. Overall I had a fantastic time, I felt the Imperial Fists had it stacked against them in this scenario and I feel I was in control the whole way through. We learnt some valuable lessons along the way (who knew you can pile in to other units in the combat phase and lock them down!). So if we did it again I think it would be a more even affair as I have to admit desperate for my first win against my regular opponent in 40k I did a lot of planning.......

But on to some happy snaps of the action.


So I "deployed" my forces concealed as little paper squares (you can see a few I hadn't fully removed from the board), then the Imperial Fists deployed as far forward in a tight armoured wedge to press the issue. He pushed the Scouts out with their infiltrating ability to act as a screen which I though looked very cool. But I had confidence that with the darkness of turn one and my Alpha Legion trait I would be hard to cause major damage at range.


My two units of Havocs were the rock solid base around which the rest of the army performd well, here one of the units allows the armoured column to pass by before opening fire.


The second unit of Havocs deployed deep allowing them plenty of time to shoot the Imperial Fists as they tried to flee the trap.


I had a unit of Chaos Space Marines on both flanks ready to close the trap and hopefully stop the Imperial Fists making a flat out run for freedom. I had the Chaos Lord on one flank and the Dark Apostle on the other, it worked very, very well.


A smattering of Cultists were around to act as meat shields and extra bodies, these brave souls did a stellar job of attracting the attention of a combat squad of Assault Marines.......


I made aggressive use of the Alpha Legion Stratagem that allowed me to set up units in "concealment" so I chose to position both units of Chosen in prime position to cause some serious damage early on. I had resolved myself that they were expendable, especially after witnessing that tight pack of tanks and bodies, but if they could hold the advance up for a turn or two they would have done their job.


I think if we played this again my opponent would have deployed in such a way to stop me having the Chosen come in behind his lines, the whirlwind didn't actually make a shot the entire game and it could have proved extremely annoying if it has setup deep in its deployment zone as a sacrificial fire support unit, fortunately it didn't.


At the start of the movement phase of turn 1 I decided I needed to be brave and trust the power armour of my forces and moved to close the trap and hopefully sweep the Scouts our of the way.


In the centre the Chosen sprang forward and the Havocs opened fire, my first turn shooting was appalling, I think I did 5 wounds on the Rhino with the dice on the top, killed one Assault Marine and cleared 6 of the 13 scouts out front, I thought the dice gods had abandoned me......


The Havocs though picked their game up and between the Autocannons and Missile Launchers proved invaluable. Especially those missile launchers. I regularly was getting 4 or 5 shots with each frag missile and unfortunately the armour of the Imperial Fists seemed faulty.


My Chosen are setup fairly generic, with 2 Power Swords and 2 Plasma Guns, keeps the cost down, but they proved to be capable of putting the hurt on throughout the game. Although I realised about halfway through the game that I had been forgetting the "Death to the False Emperor" Rule so had potentially costs myself a few extra attacks along the way!


The rearmost Chosen squad engaged the Rhino that I had shot at and in combat reduced it to 1 wound, it would take a couple more turns before I managed to wreck it as the tactical squad inside jumped out and tried to defend their ride. THis combat dragged on for quite a while. I didn't mind too much as I was tying up valuable units that couldn't get off the board and even inf the Imperial Fists managed to kill the Chosen off I had the Havocs and Cultists watching on.......


The Chosen in the centre quickly finished off the Combat Squad of Assault Marines and the Imperial Fist tanks took off in an attempt to escape the trap, the brave Captain and Lieutenant hung around though to try and slow them down.


Back at the head of the escape route the Havocs continued to rain fire on the approaching Imperial Fists, the Lord, Chaos Marines a Unit of cultists moved forward to slow the Vindicator that led the charge. Between the Missile Launchers, 2 melta guns and 2 combi-meltas the Vindicator took a beating, but still survived to take a revenge shot at the havocs, but due to the cover they were in and the Alpha Legion traits it didn't claim a single kill.


Out of spite the lead cultists doused the Vindicator with his Flamer, someone must have forgotten to close all the hatches as it suffered a wound. The Chaos Lord may have been using his cultists as a human shield as he advanced towards the combat.

You can see a swirling melee on the other side of the gorge where my other Chaos Marines and the Dark Apostle were slowly working their way through , Scouts and a Devastator squad.


Leaving his brave cultists to handle the Vindicator the Lord charged into the Devastators, wanting to see what the TTeeth of the Hydra could do, and it was good. He really was a monster in combat and I got lucky and regularly threw out 6 and 7 attacks, and I remembered Death to the False Emperor so he and the Dark Apostle quickly put an end to the boys in yellow.


While all of this glorious combat was going on the Imperial Fists did stick to the plan and led by the Whirlwind the other tanks made a break for the safety of the table edge. The remaining Assault Marines made a charge at the Cultists up on the hilltop.


The scenario required a third of the Imperial Fists to escape to count as a victory and I think between the Rhino and its cargo, the Whirlwind and Assault marines they almost had enough points. It was going to be a desperate charge.


This was slightly earlier in the battle. I held the Lord and Chaos Marines back a turn to see what the Imperial Fists would do, I figure the cover and Alpha Legion trait would see them through any shooting they copped.


I really enjoyed the image of the desperate tank charge as they realized their forces were being overrun. The Assault Marines couldn't help themselves though and charged the Cultists. The heavy stubber barked a staccato and I cheered when one of the Assault marines toppled over. First blood to the Cultists.


THis is heading to late game and the Imperial Fists just haven't managed to advance. I think they may have been hampered by such a tight deployment and my ultra aggressive start to the game. The Assault Marines had terrible luck and it took them at least a couple of turns (three maybe?) to finally stop the Cultists, losing another of their number as he was dragged down by bayonets and rifle butts.


Assault Marines are so cool, that Thunder Hammer is also very awesome, even when it was squishing my poor cultists.


I think the crowning achievement of the Imperial Fists though was the valiant Captain. He stayed behind to slow the Alpha Legionnaires, hopefully buying time for his troops to make good their escape. He stoop shoulder to shoulder with his Lieutenant (well slightly behind so I had to shoot him first) and weathered a lot of fire power before being charged by the four remaining Chosen from the centre squad. I was confident, with the charge on my side, 2 power swords and 4 backup attacks and only needing to take two more wounds, what could go wrong?

Well this Captain was a hero and he killed all four of his attackers and turned to rejoin his beleaguered troops........


Unfortunately for him, there was still a squad of Havocs that had not had much to do except watch the Chosen get cut down. So when he turned to advance, they pulled the trigger.......


Although they were beaten to the punch by the Cultists flanking them who stole the honour of the kill. You can also see the Assault Marines in the distance who just as they thought they were going to make it off the board the back up Havocs opened fire and blew them out of the sky. Thus ensuring a win to the Alpha Legion.

So all in all, a scenario that really suited my army, it has so much infantry that picking a target is very hard, it also has a lot of redundancy so if a unit goes down there is another to cover the loss. You know, just like a Hydra........

My opponent played well in a bad situation, when the favor is returned and my army is ambushed I definitely think a sacrificial fire base is necessary to put the hurt on the enemy early on.

Next time we are heading to Kings of War and I just need to see how my Dwarf Artillery train will translate to this game system. Until then hope to have some painting up to show next time.

Thanks for reading.

Man, that is an amazing table!

Yeah I am pretty lucky to have my regular gaming buddy as his setup is damn nice. I am hoping that now I have the shed sorted and the family has settled down to have some time to start putting my own table together.

If you do terrain like you paint minis, it should be something to behold! :-)

Really cool battle. Nice to see a "realistic" scenario like an ambush in a mountain pass played out with beautiful 40k armies.

Wonderful catch up on your blog, great batrep and stunning models to look at brilliant bud.

Thanks all, its really nice to see the effort on the painting table make it into a game. Managed a game of Kings of War with my Brethren (Bretonnians) taking on The Herd (Beastmen) I will get some photos of the conflict up soon. Was a good game with a nice contrast between my overly colourful knights and the very natural scheme of my opponents Beastmen.

So I have finally been able to pull the proverbial finger out as everything at home has settled down nicely and I have managed to ignore my own painting and have tried to get a start on the Deathguard commission I promised to do. So, I have assembled, undercoated and base coated all of the Plague Marines (3 squads, 1 of 8 and 2 of 7). Before charging ahead though as it is for someone else I have done a trial of the scheme I would like to do. I plan to take some much better photos either tonight or on the weekend to send to him for approval before I begin.

But as a sneak peek here is my trial Plague Marine.......





I am pretty happy with how he has turned out. I am reasonably confidant of being able to reproduce it over 2,500 points of models and it has room to scale up in detail for the centrepiece models.

Thoughts are welcomed and encouraged and I will get some higher quality ones soon that I will send to the hopefully happy future owner.

Thanks for reading.

Ok, so this year has taken quite the hit with the hobby front. Seems I should never have entered into the agreement to paint Nurgle models as Papa Nurgle himself has visited upon me more plagues than I care to admit. With our sons health sorted out I really thought that I was on track to really get back into things. As it turns out I was wrong, very wrong.

I first became became unwell (flu) around May, which isn't anything unusual as I often seem to get sick just before my birthday. The thing is though, I haven't gotten any better since. I have managed to keep working (just) but not much of a husband or father when I have gotten home. Eventually I was persuaded that it wasn't normal or going to get better without intervention and I trundled along to the doctor. Long story short, bacterial pneumonia had taken hold and both lungs were fully affected. Now a great deal of strong antibiotics have been administered for quite a long time and I am FINALLY starting to feel half well again. I have more tests to get done as they want to make sure that it is all gone, but are hesitant for anymore drugs unless absolutely necessary.

BUT, I have managed to pick up a paint brush a little and have managed some decent progress. And, since this is a blog about painting and modelling not my health worries without further adieu some progress and proof of life! It has been far too long since I last posted, hopefully there are still a few die hards out there following my progress......

So my Necron list has gone through a couple of changes due to wanting to make it playable in 8th (I needed a second HQ) but keep it in line as close as I could for 7th edition as that is what the lists are primarily based on. I decided to add a Cryptek and after some looking and searching I decided I didn't really like the available models (although the new one from that boxed game isn't bad) nor could I find one at a discounted price. So I tipped out my bits box and this I am happy to say is my new Cryptek to join my Necron Legion.


The cryptek is a lot of different bits, but I think I managed a nice "old man hunchback" look to him. Including him in the army allowed points for some Scarabs, I have always liked them and was disappointed I didn't have them in the original list. I have now rectified that.


They were obviously pretty easy to paint, but in bulk look pretty good. Here is the Cryptek and a few Scarabs hanging around.


The Cryptek will be getting the same basic treatment as the rest of the army, but I can't figure out how to paint the "halo" thingy over his head.


To get myself motivated again I decided to smash out a little bit of scatter terrain/objectives as they were cluttering up my painting station for ages. These are from the GW Shipping Containers box, a kit I am super impressed with and will definitely pick up some more. When I do I plan to lay out the crates and drums so they can be combined into huge piles for the battlefield.


I love quick scatter terrain that really will add a point of interest on the board.


Here we have some objective markers, also from the GW objective marker box, I have two left to paint (but they are close to done) but I am again very happy with how they have come out. Very quick and they look really good for the effort spent.


I painted the Genestealer in the tank with my own Tyranid scheme, one of my regular opponents pointed out I should have used his scheme instead, what a great idea that would have been. Oh well, no going back now.


So enough of my own stuff, I have also managed a little progress on the Death Guard commission, first up is the Plague Crawler, I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as the Plague Marines, I just felt they could have gone more to town on it than they did in the sculpt. It's a little plain to me.




I stuck to the scheme I used on the plague marines and I am happy with the result, just thought it needed more tentacles, filth and toothy mouths.

The main success with the Deathguard though is I have finished off the Plague Marines, three squads (two of 7, one of 8) to be precise all with different weapons and they were a riot to paint, SO, MUCH, DETAIL!
Squad 1: Lots of close combat weapons and will be a real nightmare up close. These guys will be running around in the armies Rhino for sure.


Close up of Champion, Icon Bearer and Plague Spewer.


Squad 2: The traditional Plague Marine build, three plasma guns. They will obviously hunker down in some cover and be a massive pain to get rid of.


The Marine on the right was my test model and I think I managed to replicate him quite nicely across the rest of them.


Squad 3: A bit of a wild card, the squad has two Plague Belchers, I really don't know what they do, so I am not sure what use they will be..........


I have to admit they painted really easily as I very much enjoyed the sculpts and aesthetics of these models, a lot more than I have a lot of models recently. So they have been a bit of a good way of getting back to the painting.


All the Plague Marines together.


So there you have it. Not much considering I haven't posted since June, but considering how bad my health got I am taking it as a win. I have four Deathguard character models (Lord of Contagion, Plague Caster, Tallyman and something else I can't remember) undercoated and basecoated on the table at the moment; as well as the Cryptek and I have started on the second Monolith, so I am really hoping to have some more progress shortly.

Thanks for looking and hope to hear from you all soon. It's good to be back.

The Death Guard guys look ace. Just a shame it's not for your own use!

Hi all, thought I would stop in to my very neglected blog and say I am still pottering around. It's been a hell of a year with our little man now 15 months old and has put all of his health issues from birth behind him.

Unfortunately his dad has been battling this year and after many tests and find all sorts of things out about my health I am hopefully on the road to recovery.

I have been still painting and gaming, just the posting has been letting me down, I do hope to have some photos of what I have been up to up soon and get back in the groove of posting.

I am currently working furiously on a surprise gift for one of my good mates for Christmas which is a nice break from the Deathguard and Necron......