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Zambro wrote:
That vet looks great. The tabard is perfect.

Why build more stuff for the to-prime box, when you're already overloaded with to-paint stuff?

Thanks.

A few reasons:

I like building more then painting, for the most part. It’s not that I dislike painting, I love all parts of the hobby. But if I had to put things in order it would be playing > modeling > painting.

I’m a WYSWYG guy. I don’t include it in my army list unless I have it built, painted, and equipped properly. So you'll notice I suggest to other people things like “include a combi-weapon on your sarge to match the squad’s special” but never do that in my own lists. That’s because I have painted exactly one c-melta on a sternguard, one c-flamer for my Cassius, and now a c-grav from my bike sarge. With the influx of bits from the sternguard kit, I can now open up a lot of tactical options that were previously closed to me. Same with the razorback. I don’t have one built, and didn’t own one until I bought the strikeforce. Right now I’m rolling with two rhinos and 2 drop pods (plus my LR) as transport options. For some lists, that’s not enough.

I work slow, so need to plan ahead. Priming is weather dependent. I want to make sure that if I have a clear day I can get a load out and sprayed. Right now the only thing in the box is my drop pod. I’d like to have a few more things in there for when I get the chance. While I have enough primed and ready to cover me for February, I need to start lining stuff up for March.

I just ordered a land speeder storm from my FLGS. In an effort to keep the piles of sprues under control, for every kit that comes into the house, I want to build and paint another. While the painting has been going along at it’s intermittent pace, I don’t think I’ve built anything since the vanguard in early November. So I need to cut and glue some things together!

If I want to be a good friend, I should do some of the stuff my SoB/IG buddy asked me to paint for him whenever I got a chance. In my clean and assemble pile is a sly marbo and the koranova sisters (or however they spell their name, the raging hero commissar chicks) There is no huge rush, he gets games in about as often as I do, but I would like to get them moving just to break up the marines.

Hmm, I’ve recently done a rough survey of what I have painted, and then what I have primed. I should probably check and see what I have left to build.

Zambro wrote:
That vet looks great. The tabard is perfect.

Why build more stuff for the to-prime box, when you're already overloaded with to-paint stuff?

Because the to build pile can only commence if the built pile moves to the, to prime pile. The to paint pile only goes down when a tournament or blog forces you. It's the circle of plastic life. From shiny box syndrome to urgh I've gotta paint syndrome to aah that looks good I wish I'd painted them sooner syndrome.

We are sane underneath all this plastic soldier madness though........aren't we???

 McManiak wrote:

We are sane underneath all this plastic soldier madness though........aren't we???

I hope so

 McManiak wrote:

Zambro wrote:
That vet looks great. The tabard is perfect.

Why build more stuff for the to-prime box, when you're already overloaded with to-paint stuff?

Because the to build pile can only commence if the built pile moves to the, to prime pile. The to paint pile only goes down when a tournament or blog forces you. It's the circle of plastic life. From shiny box syndrome to urgh I've gotta paint syndrome to aah that looks good I wish I'd painted them sooner syndrome.

We are sane underneath all this plastic soldier madness though........aren't we???

"Only the insane have the strength to prosper; only those who prosper can truly judge what is sane”

This is grimdark 40k, peddle your “sane” somewhere else…

OK, I just did a quick survey of what’s still on the sprues for the marines:

Razorback
Land Speeder
5 sniper scouts
2x command squads
Multi-part captain
19 new tac marines
Ven dread
1 sternguard
4 assault marines

Things can be mixed and matched. For example, I have two sternguard torsos, but only one pair of legs. Also worth noteing that the command squads have 6 legs, which are the thing holding me back. So that’s an extra two marines.

What I don’t need is more tactical squads, so it is unlikely that those 19 guys are going to hit the table as bolter boys. So they are going to be used for a variety of projects.

You could do the assault marines coming through a window........hang on......that rings a bell, haha

Do the dread, they are always a welcome break from marines. Then do marines, vehicle, marines, vehicle. Etc

 McManiak wrote:
You could do the assault marines coming through a window........hang on......that rings a bell, haha

Do the dread, they are always a welcome break from marines. Then do marines, vehicle, marines, vehicle. Etc

I’m not crazy enough to pull something like that off for the assault marines. The dread is very high on the list of things I want to build. This is balanced by the fact that I already have 3 dreds on the shelf, so don’t need a 4th on the table. But it’s a sweet looking kit; I was inspired to pick one up by seeing what Sir Samuel Buca did with his.

What I might do is make some Legion of the Damned. I’ve got a bits box full of skeletons, so might go for a more traditional build. My other thought was to make some more high-tech marines as a counts-as. This would require getting some bits together that I don’t have.

Grey knight interceptor backpacks (for teleporting power armor)
Storm shields for everyone (3++ saves all around)(I only have a few)
Assorted guns. I have a very old plasma cannon I could use, but might like a more modern one.

In an ideal world, I’d pick up the FW breaching squad but I’m unlikely to make a FW order. But that’s the image I’m going for. An elite squad of marines specialized in teleporting into tight spots and engaging in close range firefights.

But fun modeling projects aside, the razorback has a strong lead on the practicality standpoint.

Well, me being the practical sort, the razorback won out for what to build next, and is almost done. Just need to do the weapons. Which is the fun part from a modeling perspective. The TLLC and TLHB options are easy, being the ones included in the kit. The LC/TLPG and TLAsC are the tough ones. The goal is to have all options available and swappable. The spare assault cannons I have from the DA ravenwing sprues were a little small to put in the main turret, so I improvised:

I put a 3mm magnet in the hatch under the AsC mount, and will fit a 2mm in the gun mount. I just need to mix up some greenstuff to fill it in (It’s hollow) Right now it’s held on with sticky tac. The turret might just be fine with being push-fit. I figure if I make a TLPG similar to the AsC mount, I can just put a single LC in the turret for the LC/TLPG configuration. I should probably work up something to fill the space left by removing the extra lascannon. The other option is to build a TLPG mount that fits that space. Not sure which direction I’ll go; we’ll see what the bits box holds in the way of options. No plans ATM to make a TLHF option. I do have some spares from when putting together immolators for my friend, but they are his, not mine, and I’d feel bad poaching them. Painting them up so he can swap them is on the to-do list (just really low) Plus it would take some reworking of the vehicle rules for me to even consider fielding them on a razor as an option.

And just to show I’m still painting:

Two assault marines, ready for duty. Jump packs are magnetized, although I don’t have standard backpacks for them yet. If I wanted to run them in a pod, I’d just go packless at the moment. I left them with their squad, you can get a preview of what’s on the horizon there.

Interesting TLAC variant. The more I look at it, the more I like it
Are you really going to both with the TLHF option? I dont see any scenario where it would be chosen...

Keep going with the assault marines. I doesn't look like the back row (the 3 on the left, particularly) are primed. Is that a camera / lighting problem, or are the just not primed?

Zambro wrote:
Interesting TLAC variant. The more I look at it, the more I like it
Are you really going to both with the TLHF option? I dont see any scenario where it would be chosen...

Keep going with the assault marines. I doesn't look like the back row (the 3 on the left, particularly) are primed. Is that a camera / lighting problem, or are the just not primed?

Hum, I did say all the options in the first bit. I meant most. I did go into details about the TLHF below the picture in the wall-o-text. I keep forgetting that the flamers are an option when thinking about razorbacks; they are utterly useless. You can get a TLAsC turret with the LRC box, or even buy that sprue separately. But if you used the DA battleforce to add bikes to your list as I did, it comes with 3 of the ravenwing sprues. The guns are supposed to go under the master of the ravenwing’s landspeeder, but I just fliped the whole assembly upside down and put it on a hatch. Easy as pie. The same bits could probably be used to slim down the massive chin turret on the stormtalon, but I had assembled mine before I got the bikes.

Good eye! The vanguard in the back are a little lightly primed. My can was pumping out it’s last breath when I was doing them. In an ideal world I’d wait until spring and give them another light coat. In a more realistic world, I’ll probably just paint them as-is.

Minor supply drop today:


Land Speeder Storm
Stronghold Assault
Northern Wastes Basing kit
100 2mm magnets

Yes, I’m going to start basing my army. Shocking, I know. I’ve done a little research, but want to do a few trials before getting started in ernest. Probably use some of my Warriors of Chaos army as guinea pigs

On the painting side I’ve started putting base coats on two more assault marines. Nothing fancy, but progress.

Nice little supply drop there. How is that basing kit? I was woefully disappointed with the one I got a few years back and havn't picked up any since.

And what do you make of Stronghold Assault?

Zambro wrote:
Nice little supply drop there. How is that basing kit? I was woefully disappointed with the one I got a few years back and havn't picked up any since.

And what do you make of Stronghold Assault?

It probably wasn’t worth the price, but has stuff I can use. I was hoping for more sparkle on the snow, but it’s more of a powder. Rocks are rocks. The little stick-on tufts of grass should be nice. I wanted a way to do those without trying to get static grass to work. The icicles might get used when I eventually get around to making my display board. There is also a small square of frosted plastic that can be cut to make sheets of ice. Might be fun to play with.

Stronghold assault is like building rules 2.0. It changes and clarifies a lot of that section of the rulebook. Some of the new fortifications look fun, and the optional upgrades have some promise. I’ll need to mull them over and see if I’ll end up building/buying any of them. Last I checked my FLGS has OK’d the book for our local tournaments, with the exception of the void shield building and the massive fortifications. But it’s nice to have prices and rules for more stuff to put on the table. And it might be fun to scratch build some of it.

Experiment 1. GW snow flock mixed with Elmer’s (PVA) glue into a thick paste, and then smeared onto the base. While still wet I swished him through loose flock and then shook off the extra. This is straight over the black base I finish my minis with, with no color added to the glue.

GW snow is short fibers, which while nice for texture, is not very snow like. Also, very flat (a little sparkle would be nice) By itself, makes for a dull base. Next step will be to add some rocks/grass.

The paste method helps cover the slotta base, which I never filled in with greenstuff or anything else. It is also opaque enough that I don’t feel the need to re-paint the base with a white undercoat. Score two points for laziness. In an ideal world I’d go back and touch up the black rim, giving it a new coat of paint and removing any snow that slopped over the edge.

For reference, I found this link very helpful when thinking about different techniques.

In other happenings, The LSS is slowly coming together, Lots of finicky bits on that thing, quite the change from the razorback. Painting has taken a back seat to building this week, but I hope to get the assault marines done.

Edit:
I found another good comparison pic for snow bases. Dropping it here so I can find it later

Have you tried the baking soda route? My experiance with it is limited but I have seen some nice example of it around here.

Dont get me started on LSSs... I hated building mine I lost tiny pieces, glued pieces on the wrong way and broke a few other pieces (Now that I say that out loud, it sounds like a 'me' problem ).

Zambro wrote:
Have you tried the baking soda route? My experiance with it is limited but I have seen some nice example of it around here.

Dont get me started on LSSs... I hated building mine I lost tiny pieces, glued pieces on the wrong way and broke a few other pieces (Now that I say that out loud, it sounds like a 'me' problem ).

Considering I have the GW stuff, I might as well use it. I almost picked up some woodland scenecs today, but it was a box “winter kit” with stuff I didn’t need and I couldn’t look at the flock itself to see if it had the sparkle I wanted. For $12 I almost just grabbed it anyway, but I try to save money where I can.

Some of the speeder’s problem were my fault. Glueing the front top on without the dashboard in place was a big woops. Luckily I caught my mistake before the glue set and was able to pry it up and get things straightened out.

Other problems were the kit. The little door trim for the cargo bay didn’t even make it off the sprue intact. I had just put a new blade on my hobby knife at the start of the kit, so it’s not like I was just bludgeoning it off with a dull one. Those are just going to be left off. All the handgrips are next on the to-do list. I don’t think they have indents or anything helping you align them. Just stick them on the hull and hope they are straight. Those might get left off as well. I’m going to fly empty, so all the scouts in the back get left behind. I might take the benches out as well (haven’t glued them down yet)

The hand grips aren't too bad to put on. On mine, I broke one, then left the other one off on the other side for symmetry I also glued the air vent (on the top at the back) on backwards. Realised too late, pried it off and fixed it. But now I have a line of melted plastic where the vent was I lost the wind shield too lol.

That post count sneaks up on you when you aren’t looking. While it’s just another number, 3,000 posts is a rather large one, so I thought I’d actually do something a little interesting.

Over in RandyMcStab’s blog I was commenting on his old RTB01 Ultras, and saying that I needed to post pictures of my own. Now seems like a good time.
Here’s the group shot:


Ultramarines, 3rd company, 1st squad:

On every battlefield, in every edition of the rules, the brave marines of the first squad take the fight to the foes of mankind. When I say one of the core tactical squads I include in all my armies is a ML/F squad in a rhino these are the guys I’m talking about. The sarge got his binoculars from the old plastic space orc box.

4th squad:

My second RT tactical squad. You will note the scratch-built ML and the modern flamer. My old BA had first pick of the heavy and specials, so these guys got the dregs. I have no idea why the sarge has a 9 on his banner. My reasons are lost in the depths of time. My modern excuse (if anyone asks) is that he performed an extreme act of valor while serving in the 9th squad, earning him his promotion to sergeant. He keeps that number to honor his achievement.

Extra guys:

The bolter boys and the power fist vet are modern paintjobs on old plastic. You can tell by the green eyes. They were actually built sometime in 3rd ed when I was making the push to fill out my battle company. The bolters fill out a dev squad at the moment. The sarge with the fist was for wargear options, I think I made him to fill out a command squad. The standard bearer is an old timer though. On the back of the “How to paint space marines” booklet that came with the SM paint set they had banners you could photocopy and paint. That’s where this one comes from. You will note the roman numeral for “3” in the corner. In this book the Ultra’s are labeled as the 3rd chapter of the first founding. Space Wolves and Blood Angels numbers are the same, but Salamanders are listed as the 8th chapter. Ah, RT-era fluff, how you have changed… That “3”, by the way, is why when it came time to pick which company to build, I chose the 3rd.

And while not RTB01, here are a few old metal RT marines that found their way into the Ultramarines.

The first army I painted was Blood Angels, so most of the RT metals ended up there. A few were still unpainted when I switched armies, so got to be blue. These three are it for now, but I do have a few still kicking around un-painted. The bolter vet does time with the sternguard, the Lt. Commander in the middle you might recognize from my avatar. Sometimes he’s a company champion, other times a captain or vet sarge. His official shelf position is as a champion in the command squad. The plain lead bolter guy fills out a dev squad. He deserves better.

Not included in this little time warp are my RT-era terminators. They got their time in the spotlight a few pages back

Edit: I’ll miss being a Scarred Ultramarine Tyrannic War Veteran. Oh well.
<Spins up the Assault Cannon>

Nostalgia is great.....I first got into Warhammer in 1990-about 1994 then back at the turn of 6th so love looking at old minis

Some nice old minis you got there. They're probably older than me!

And congrats on 3k posts... that's alot o' posting

Another week, another progress report.



Two more assault marines (almost) ready for duty. Their jump packs just need a spot of blue wash on the bottom part and then will be finished. The final guy in their group of 5 has already received his first layer of blue. Once he’s done, I’ll have another 5 man stick of assault marines ready for action. Actually, with my spare sarge, these 4 make for a squad. I should probably assemble the rest of the squad.

On the subject of assembly, the land speeder storm is almost complete. I just need to clean and assemble the HB gunner. Then after doing two vehicles back to back, I need to work on some infantry. Probably the assault marines. But another option is putting together the scouts that should have been in the back of the LSS on foot. As strange as it sounds, I could actually use some more non-sniper scouts. The ones I have are very old metal ones, and a mixed bag at that. 2 bolters, 2 shotguns, and 4 BP/CCW, plus the sarge. While that works for the jump out and charge LSS load, I could use more bolter scouts for the drive-by configuration.

We’ll see what mood takes me once the speeder hits the to-prime box.

Also in the news is the foam I ordered finally came in, should be able to pick it up tonight. This has been a very long road. While the KR folks have a reputation for excellent customer service dealing direct with individuals, it seemingly does not extend to stores trying to order wholesale through the american branch. My FLGS had to call the home office over the pond to prod our local branch into action. As much as I try to support my local store, without whom I’d not need foam to drag my army around, next time I need to buy KR I’m doing it direct, to save Mark the hassle of dealing with them. Once I get my hands on it, I’ll write a review. See if it was worth all the effort.

And speaking of dragging my army to the FLGS, tomorrow is the monthly tournament. The stars are aligned, and barring anything odd arising, I should be able to go. So next on my to-do list is to put together a 1,850 list. I’ll try to cram as much new paint into the list and still keep it competitive.

I've never used KR, so I'd be interested to hear what you say about it. I always found their website rather overwhelming, which seemed off putting for some reason.

I brought a case from Feldherr - a german company. I like it. Decent sized (fits my 2k points in, minus the DP, with a good ammount of extra space). Also it's fabric opposed to a hard case, which (in my mind) is a little more fashionable.

What will you be heading to the FLGS with? 1850 is a good size, you have some room to include a fair bit. Will the AMs make the cut? Or the bikes? Or both?

I don't envy you having to do your AMs at all.

Not a fen of KR personally. I use Battlefoam for my guys. Mix of custom and pluck in a few different bags.

Looking forward to seeing your list.

No assault marines yet. This should be the first time the whole bike gang has been out, plus the basic sternguard sgt, and the TFC.


+++ Feb 22 (1850pts) +++

Chapter Tactics: Ultramarines

Captain (165pts)
Artificer Armor, Bike, Teeth of Terra

10 Man Sternguard Veteran Squad (275pts)
Heavy Flamer
* Drop Pod
Storm Bolter

5 Man Scout Squad (82pts)
Camo Cloaks, 4x Sniper Rifles, Heavy Bolter w/Hellfire Shells

10 Man Tactical Squad (195pts)
Flamer, Missile Launcher, Rhino

10 man Tactical Squad (215pts)
Meltagun, Multi-Melta, Vet Sergeant w/C-melta
* Drop Pod
Storm Bolter

Bike Squad 4+1 (169pts)
Combi Grav, Grav-gun, Plasma Gun, HB Attack Bike

Bike Squad 4+1(159pts)
2x Meltagun, MM Attack Bike

Land Speeder Squadron (150pts)
2x Land Speeder w/ TML/HB

Stormtalon Gunship w/ Skyhammer Missile Launcher (125pts)

Auto/Las Predator (115pts)

Thunderfire Cannon (100pts)

ADL w/ quad-gun (100)

Here is 1850 points of Ultramarines, arrayed and ready for battle. Before today, they would be riding to the FLGS in the bags on the left, but I picked up my new KR case yesterday. Overall size is about the same, but the KR is one bag rather then two cases. The extra box on top has spare foam to swap out if I don’t need everything. The case holds 3 more that size.


I can’t tell you how happy the box on the left makes me. Before now when I wanted to bring the pods and talon anywhere I needed to laboriously hand-pack them into the silver case with scraps of foam. It’s one thing to securely pack the box-like marine tanks, quite another to secure the odd shaped things for transit. KR does make a tray to hold an ADL, but I figured I could just stash it in spaces I wasn’t using for other things. It’s bigger then I thought, but it fit in my extra 4 rhino tray (which is coincidentally the same size as the dedicated ADL tray.) You will notice my rhino nosing up out of his slot. These cases are designed with stock builds in mind; his dozer blade pushes him a little outside normal. But one of the advantages of soft foam is that it’s OK to think outside the box. There is enough give in the walls, base, and cover sheet to accommodate these anomalies.




That flex is being shown again with some off the odd infantry and the bikes. The attack bikes are not the best fit in the 1/2 deep bike slots. If I was running a bike army, I’d probably pick up a tray of the foam designed for IG heavy weapon teams for them. Or one of the deeper bike trays. The speeders need to be on removable bases to fit in the tray. I’m going to have to re-jigger them a little to make them work long term. I’m in the process of experimenting now for something fun, but suspect I’ll end up going with a more basic solution. The pred slot had cut outs that I removed to make space for the sponsons. It just took a minute with a hobby knife to cut the connecting bits holding them in. It looks like the extra optional bits are secure enough that they won’t come out on their own. Which is very nice.

Speaking of foam extras.

We’ve secretly replaced half this army with foam proxies, let’s see if he can tell the difference. If I ever want to field more drop pods then I own, I’m totally just going to plop down those foam ones.

So far, everything is good. I fit everything in a little over 2 KRUs, so it’s a good thing I went for the Kaiser 3, because I needed the space. Different armies pack differently, so if I wanted to tweak a list with packing space in mind, getting it down to 2 would not be hard. If I was making recommendations to a new player, I would add “Think of how it will pack in the case” to the list of things to keep in mind.

Now for the one big downside that came up; the extras:

The Kaiser 3 has 5 pockets, mostly useless. Here is the picture of it loaded for battle:

Those nice looking pockets on the side? Too narrow to hold a full sized book. Or the apocalypse templates (although with some work, they might fit; I didn’t push the issue) Normal templates do fit, and the pocket rulebook fits in nice. (Assuming the new DV small rulebook is the same size as the 4th ed I tried) While I could slide my iPad into one of those pockets, it was tight, so not something I’m likely to do. There is a nice pocket on the side I dumped all the small extras into, but not the books. Behind those odd shaped pockets on the front are two more big pockets, one on the inside of the bag, one on the outside. You can see the rulebook distending the front on the bag from the outside one; my codex and stronghold assault books are on the inside. Because they share the front of the bag, both of these nice, big, pockets are hard to utilize completely. I had trouble zippering the bag closed. If I didn’t have to drag the massive tome that is the 6th ed big rulebook, things would fit a lot better. I could move the codexes to the outside big pocket, and then use the inside one for big, thin, things like the apoc templates. Now there is a mesh pocket on the outside I could use, but I dislike have stuff exposed like that.

I’m reminded of the days before I got my iPad. When going to my weekly D&D session I had to drag 3-6 hardcover books with me. My gaming bag was cram packed and heavy. Then I got some digital copies of some books, was able to access other via the web, and my load evaporated. The bulkiest thing I needed to deal with was my dicebag. While I much prefer hard copies of books over digital, the connivence of having them all in one slim package is tempting. While I can’t fault KR for not accommodating the 40k core book (that thing is massive) I was annoyed that I couldn’t fit my codex at least into one of the small pockets. If instead of two equal sized ones, they had a 3/4 and a 1/4 side one, books could go into one side and templates the other. Right now those two nice looking pouches are empty.

I know your pain nev.

As mentioned earlier I use battlefoam and mainly custom cut. The problem kicks in as soon as you alter your list.

I only have the small DV rule book so us easy to transport with in my case a large pocket, for brb, codex and templates.
Tape in the side, Dice in a pocket (not in a cube though) and objective markers and psyker cards in another.

It may be worth downloading the rb and codex to your iPad. I have a link to my shared PDF file. If you would like it just pm me mate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Looks great though all snug...

I know how you feel - that massive hardback rulebook is a bitch to fit in any case. I have a mini-one I got off eBay, and I also use my iPad, both of which fit in my KR Backpack nicely with codexes and a little fishing box of tokens and dice...

Wow, I can see the big rule book shaped bludge in the bag I told myself a few weeks before I started heading to the FLGS that I would NEED the smaller one

McManiak wrote:I know your pain nev.

As mentioned earlier I use battlefoam and mainly custom cut. The problem kicks in as soon as you alter your list.

I only have the small DV rule book so us easy to transport with in my case a large pocket, for brb, codex and templates.
Tape in the side, Dice in a pocket (not in a cube though) and objective markers and psyker cards in another.

It may be worth downloading the rb and codex to your iPad. I have a link to my shared PDF file. If you would like it just pm me mate.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Looks great though all snug...

ArbitorIan wrote:I know how you feel - that massive hardback rulebook is a bitch to fit in any case. I have a mini-one I got off eBay, and I also use my iPad, both of which fit in my KR Backpack nicely with codexes and a little fishing box of tokens and dice...

Zambro wrote:Wow, I can see the big rule book shaped bludge in the bag I told myself a few weeks before I started heading to the FLGS that I would NEED the smaller one

We’ll see how the rumors of a new rulebook this summer pan out. I’ll look to pick up either the next small rulebook they make, or just a DV one if those don’t come true. One problem with digital rulebooks for reference is that they are had to bookmark and flip though. So even if I had a digital copy, I’d still want a hard copy at the table.

When I bought my foam, I made sure there was room to grow. Not shown in the pics is space for my LR, some dreads, another pod, 3 rhinos, and a TON of various sized infantry. If I need overflow space, there is still my old silver case where I can custom pack anything. So while I can’t fit everything I own, I can get must of it in. But if I wanted to bring more then one or two speeders/dreads on the road, they’ll have to sneak into a rhino slot.

A better organization system for the extras is probably in order. I like keeping the dice brick, but it’s an odd size to put in a pocket. But I know at the end of the day if it is full, I have all my dice.

Well yesterday was long (as normal) but fun. Not a huge turnout, I think it was 6-8 people. Some people showed up late, other dropped and were replaced so it was hard to keep track. The format was 3 games, each with a primary and secondary mission (one of which was always kill points) and then the normal secondary objectives as tertiary ones. I won 1, lost 2, but had fun, so it’s all good.

First game was vs. orks w/ tau (farsight) allies. 3 battlewagons, some grots and loota behind an ADL. Riptide, drone squad, crisis suits and commander. We each had an objective to defend. My dice were not in the best mood, particularly with reserves. TFC did a great job blowing chunks of orcs from behind the ADL. Sternguard failed to kill the riptide, a job that was almost accomplished by one of the bike squads in melee. I went over the ADL and multi-charged a markerlight drones, grots and the riptide. I was killing enought every turn to force leadership checks, but the riptide held. I put together a good fight in the middle, but things went south at the end.

Second game was pure demons. Big Guns. Lots of plaugeberers, GUO, soulgrinder, some bloodleters, and 2 units of drones. This one went poorly for him. Sternguard took out his GUO first round, TFC was just erasing units. Grav bikers ended up tarpitting drones, and eventually killed them. Melta bikes with the captain carved their way through to reach the soulgrinder, botched their first attempt to kill it, endured a round of CC, fell back and then shot it to death. The only reason I didn’t table him was that I forgot/didn’t notice a unit siting in a ruined building until late in the game. Even so, he has one guy left on the table.

Third game was vs. chaos demons/marine ally. Mostly on the wing, 3 flappy demon things, 2 helldrakes, 4 obliterators, some cultists, and flamers. He said that around 1,500 of his 1,850 list was flying. Oof. Primary kill point, secondary relic. TFC wasn’t as useful, as he was spacing well and didn’t have a lot of ground targets to kill. Sternguard dropped into his backfield and killed all his troops over the course of the game (and survived) HF earned his points, but some of my rolling for these guys was lame. Stormtalon did well, downing a drake and putting some wounds on a demon before getting magiced out of the sky. The other drake was killed by the melta bike squad using the Dev doctrine to re-roll snapfires. 3 melta guns, w/re-rolls can get the job done. The game felt a lot closer then it ended as. I was holding the relic until the very last turn, had brought most of the demons (and oblits) down to their last wound, but was unable to put the final wound on any of them, and died at the end. Was fun though.

So in the fresh paint re-cap:
TFC is worth the hype. Strong in the first game, deadly in the second. Only in the third did it not fare well.
Bikes: Tougher then they look. Particuarly in the 3rd game they took a HUGE amount of fire. The captain was able to tank baleflamer hits, they were jinking off volleys of fire from obliterators, rock solid. Even basic bikers with no CC upgrades were able to hold their own vs. backfield units and were tough enough to tarpit some stuff. Grav guns were pretty useless vs the foes I faced. I think I fired them once all day (into the side of a battlewagon)
Remember when I first fielded my bike captain vs. demons, and I said I needed some melta bombs or something to deal with hard melee targets? Obviously I didn’t. I like the concept of the Teeth of Terra, but it just didn’t bring the pain. I think I’m going to have to get the good captain a new toy.
The fact that they were troops didn’t impact any of the games in the end, but they did free up FA slots.
The new sternguard sergeant looked cool, and didn’t waste points. The only time they were in CC was vs. cultists, so there wasn’t a while lot of time where the old ‘fist one would have been better.

I did feel the need for a CC element. It might have just been my matchups, but I missed my assault marines. There were a lot of combats where I was making one attack per marine, and things just dragged.

If I added another HQ, I could field the bikes as counts-as White Scars allies. But at least once, being ultramarines made the difference (snap firing the drake down) I may try the allies in the future, but am happy with their performance as-is.

It's all bout having fun mate and sounds like you had a great day.

I like the idea of you having Blue Scars too

 McManiak wrote:
It's all bout having fun mate and sounds like you had a great day.

I like the idea of you having Blue Scars too

Most of me had fun. My feet and calves are currently telling me that I’m a bit too old to spend ~nine hours standing up.

And hanging out with you White Scars is really starting to affect my thinking. The bikes are just supposed to be an accent force to my normal list. I’ve never neglected the fast attack side of the marines, but they are taking more of my mindshare these days. I might have to make my next list a dread filled gunline to compensate.

For the Khan and the Emperor!

Wait, For Guilliman and the Emperor!

Errg. Still not right.

Courage and Honour! We march for Macragge!

Much better.