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 Zambro wrote:

Doing my bikes was terrible... I'd prime and base white. Then I'd paint the engine block black, then silver. That black then silver step used to kill me! So tedious

But you had to paint a zillion of the things, and white is not very forgiving.

So yesterday was Wednesday, and I actually made it up to the FLGS for a game. A real game this time. No offense to Matt, they new guy with his khorne army, that’s just getting into the hobby, and my victim opponent for the last few games. But this last fight was vs. one of the more experienced regulars running a necron decruion formation. Hammer/anvil Purge

2x small tesla immortal squads
2x 20 man warrior squads
2x ghost arcs
spider
some scarabs
tomb blades (3 man)
Wraiths (6 man)
lord



To stop this robot menace is the front half of my shelf. Two separate thoughts formed this army. One was in a thread about low model count armies, which was more about packing. I suggested an army there that was primarily footslogging marines, as they pack well. The other thought was if/when a warhost style formation comes to the SM, what it might be. I’m thinking a demi-company might be that format. Which brings us to this 1,500 point madness:


Tactical squads 1,3, and 5. 7th assault squad and 9th dev. Totally unintentional that I picked the odd numbered squads. Also the command squad, my venerable metal captain, the chaplain, and a 10 man sniper scout squad. Full 10 man squads, because Codex. I would have combat squadded everyone, but we were playing Purge.

My deployment:


So a wave of necrons and a counter wave of the boys in blue crash against a ruined cityscape. I think my opponent was a little shocked to be outnumbered by marines. And my total lack of vehicles. I go first, move most everything up a bit, and spatter shots downrange. Which is mostly ignored. I can see why people gripe about necrons and their formation. I think it put a wound on a wraith and killed a warrior or two. The warriors were just rebuilt by the arc though. His turn the warriors shamble forward, and the bikes and wraiths move up to support. He shoots at me a bit, but I’m rolling hot on my armor saves, so don’t think I loose anyone (a tac marine might have bought it, but that would be it).

At the top of two, I realize that shooting is not going to get anything done today. But I give it a shot, and prepare for melee. I pop the tactical doctrine, and rush forward. Most of my heavy weapons focus on the ghost arcs, but fail to do anything real. Over the whole game, I think I put one glancing hit on one of them. Snipers try to get some wounds on the wraiths, land one. But the real meat of the turn is the assault phase. It’s a long shot, but I put my faith in the Emperor and try to get 9”. I get 10. Now it’s still not guaranteed, 20 warriors get a lot of overwatch. If he kills the lead guy, I might not make it. I think he gets 3 wounds, but I save them all. Time for the carnage of a full assault squad accompanied by a chaplain. They might be tough little buggers, and take a lot of killing. But I’ve got death to spare, win combat by a sizable margin, and rout the squad. Who says assault is dead? Vengeance is not far off, and on his turn the wraiths plow in. This starts the midfield brawl that will linger for the remainder of the game. He kills a few marines, I put some wounds on the wraiths, we’re both fearless, combat grinds on. His shooting is OK. Some tactical squad casualties, first squad is forced to fall back and regroup.

Top of three has 3rd and 5th squads moving forward. I think they kill the tomb blades this round. The command squad, who had take a forward position in a crater, rush over to assist the assault marines. And by “rush” I mean roll snake eyes on the difficult terrain test. But that’s OK, I’d popped the assault doctrine this turn, so they can re-roll the distance in the assault phase. It’s not that far, 6”, plus the 2 for assaulting through terrain. I fall short, twice. Grumble. No worries, the assault is still grinding on. Bottom of 3 is more of the same. Grinding CC fight, and a few more marines falling to scattered shots.

Top of 4, I use the dev docrine, not that it helps much. Melta squad takes some shots at an arc, outside of melta range but I might get lucky. I don’t. More ineffective fire from downrange. The snipers might have put another wound on the spider, I don’t recall. Big news is that the command squad finally gets into combat! Wraiths are stupidly tough, but I put some more wounds on them. The assault squad is down to the chaplain and sarge at this point. The SS/flamer vet in the command squad does his job tanking wounds, including the rending ones. I had to be reminded about the FnP from the apothecary; he made a big difference. Bottom of 4 the scarabs and spider plow into the mess. In hindsight, my opponent thinks it was a mistake to charge in the spider, as his death hurts the wraith’s survivability. In his defense, I had started targeting it with my Devs, so it wasn’t really safe out in the open either. CC sees two members of the command squad fall (SS guy and the banner bearer) and the AM sarge. I kill the spider, and some scarabs, possibly a wraith.

Turn 5 the melta tacs forgo shooting their bolters and MM, figuring they’d have better luck in CC with krack grenades. They are wrong and accomplish nothing. Not a whole lot else relevant happens in my shooting phase. I’d rolled up one flank, so didn’t have good range vs. anything there, and been shot back on the other, so more of the same. His warriors on that side have been tangled up in difficult terrain most of the game, so have been restricted to long range harassment fire. CC grinds on in the middle. Chaplain finally goes down, some robots get smashed, still locked together in a dance of death. Which continues on the bottom of 5. His shooting blows chunks out of a number of tactical marines, and finishes off one. Roll for game: Over.


I’ve got first blood, both warlords are alive, and nobody has linebreaker. He’d killed my chaplain, assault marines, and one tac squad. 3VP. At the time, he said I killed two of his units, and I agreed, but on the drive home, I was reviewing the battle, and I killed three. Tomb blades, warrior squad, and the spider. Plus first blood should have me winning 4-3, unless there is an odd necron rule about scoring/unit composition I’m missing. Oh well, we both had fun.

Post game thoughts: Necrons are tough. T4, 4+ armor, and 4+ FnP is a tough nut to crack. Wraiths are stupidly tough. I should really consider packing more powerfists and the like. High T things are more common then they should be, and take a lot of work to kill. I should also consider makeing some power mauls for the guys. S4 is just not what it used to be, and while AP3 swords are good for MEQ, most nasty things out there have alternate saves, so might as well pile on the wounds and hope they roll ones.

Fresh paint report:
This was the first outing for 3rd squad. LC/Pg, c-plas. The core of the bolter boys are the Battle of Macragge pushfits, sarge was new, and the heavy/special were assigned from the spare shelf. They did OK. LC did some ineffective pot-shotting, but he had good company for that. The plasma gunner and the Combi on the sarge blew the last two tomb blades apart, so worked well. They lived to the end, so bonus points.
The Dev squad had it’s first outing at it’s shelf deployment. They put a lot of rounds dowrange, and did very little with them. I blame the necrons toughness for that, as well as my mediocre rolling for them. Sarge did nothing. Nobody got in range for him to click off his combi, and I totally forgot to hand out his BS5. Duh.
Command Squad. Mixed bag. Apothocary was very nice. Banner was useless, as I was winning combat vs. fearless troops. Champion was part of the dice pool trying to do something to the wraiths, and was much better when the scarabs came over. He was carving them up well. The vet with the axe had S5 vs. the wraiths, but the AP2 (or I1 for that mater) didn’t really come up. He did the best he could. The SS/flamer guy never got to shoot, but was tanking wounds for a few rounds before he went down. His presence helped mitigate the rending hits from the wraiths. Him and the medic were the only members of the command squad to do more then just try to get lucky wounding the wraiths.

Also in the news I used up the last of my store credit. I finally got the price on some dice I let a friend pick up on my tab, and that plus two pots of paint (a fresh macregge blue and the base white). Bikes should be in Friday, and I’ll be paying for hobby stuff with cash money once more. I’ll post a breakdown of where it all went shortly, but I’ve been hammering away at the keyboard for long enough at this point, and need to do some errands.

Nice report! There's something about seeing 'proper', Company/Codex-based Space Marine lists without bikes or centurions or random SCs everywhere that still has a certain charm to it, and even better to see such a list kicking quite a bit of ass! Well done on the win, even if your opponent miscounted the score (an easy thing to do after two hours out gaming).

Banners in Command Squads are a tricky one; they ultimately aren't that useful, but it somehow feels wrong not to bring them and have something to rally the troops around.

Nice report, well played game. My son runs necrons and they make me crazy.

 Paradigm wrote:
Nice report! There's something about seeing 'proper', Company/Codex-based Space Marine lists without bikes or centurions or random SCs everywhere that still has a certain charm to it, and even better to see such a list kicking quite a bit of ass! Well done on the win, even if your opponent miscounted the score (an easy thing to do after two hours out gaming).

Banners in Command Squads are a tricky one; they ultimately aren't that useful, but it somehow feels wrong not to bring them and have something to rally the troops around.

Part of this list was an experiment in seeing how well my “shelf” deployments actually performed on the tabletop. I spent a lot of time thinking about the generic command squad, so was glad to see it do OK. The last build I had sitting on the shelf was massively outdated. The banner is one of the ones I was worried about. I like the model, and don’t want to replace him, but he’s very lackluster. He is probably the most iconic part of the squad though, even if mechanically he’s the least valuable player. He’s packing a flag and a bolter in a CC squad. His bonus is only really good if I’m loosing, and he’s second in line to die (after the designated meat shield with the SS) At the very least, I should have him use a BP/CCW, but modeling that would be tricky. I suspect if I wanted to bring the command squad out to play in a more serious list, he’d be swapped out for a VV mini so I could have another choppy a/o SS guy in the squad. But I’d feel bad doing it.

I’d say that putting together a new banner bearer is on the to-do list, and it should be, but it’s not. I like the guy, and he has enough time in service that I’m not going to retire him. So when I field him, I’ll just suck up the fact that he’s an inefficient use of points. Then I’ll wrap myself in the warm, fluffy blanket of doing the right thing and smite the heretics under the banner of the 3rd company, Scourge of Xenos! (and tighten up the rest of my list to compensate )


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 Gitsplitta wrote:
Nice report, well played game. My son runs necrons and they make me crazy.

I can totally see it these days. This was the first time I’d tangled with the new Necrons, and they soaked up a huge amount of fire. I’ll admit to not having as much firepower as I normally do in a 1,500 point list, and lacked the mobility to get in optimal range of things I wanted to kill, but still. He just ate what I was throwing at him and laughed it off. Who would have thought that being made of futuristic space metals would make them so tough? OK, it might be a little obvious, but still rough to see across the table.

I just need to field more, bigger guns, and some more CC choppy death units.

Awesome win against the necrons! And even more awesome, you list... You dont see marines rolling out as a company like that, I'm glad they did well for you.

It sucks that your Devastators didn't do much damage, as they were your only source of heavy fire power. I know you have missile launchers in there as your shelf deployment, but maybe running them with 4 Las would be better. It's not pretty, but it'll do the job, and then some. Plus, ML isn't fantastic.

Where did all the money go?

For those of you who’ve been with this blog since the start (or have read from the beginning) you’ll know I started with an influx of store credit from selling my old alpha/beta M:tG cards. That amount was $2,030, US dollars. Last night, I spent the last of it. It has kept me in plastic crack for not quite 2 years. And built up enough of a backlog of grey to keep me running for a bit longer. So the big question, as posted in the title, is what two grand will get you these days? Luckily I kept careful track of where it all went. I’ve broken it up into a few categories

Case: $262.98
Hobby Supplies: $90.34
Gifts: $115.90
Rules: $363.75 <choke>
And now for the actual minis:

Eldar: $442.25

Marines: $756.25
The Eldar force works out to about 2.8 points per dollar, and the marines work out to about 4.0. Averaged together it’s around 3.6. That’s just for the minis.

Minis were about 60% of the budget
Rules made up 18%
Hobby support (including the case) made up another 18%
Gifts took up the last 6%

It’s worth noting that these numbers are not necessarily a gauge of how much the hobby costs. I only bought 4 pots of paint and a can of primer, and the only tool I picked up was a pin vice, no brushes. Someone getting into painting would have a much higher buy in. That said, there are a number of “luxury” items that are unnecessary that I bought. Not just things like the KR, which is pricy, but the apocalypse rulebook is not something everyone needs, and working on two armies did boost the amount of rules I needed to pick up. Of course, with the amount of allying going on these days, is building from a single codex something that still happens?

I need to gather all the things listed here into one big pile and take a pic. That might take some time to do.
Edit:
And pic!

That's quite an accounting Nev. Impressive.

 Gitsplitta wrote:
That's quite an accounting Nev. Impressive.

To be honest, I think the guy who runs my FLGS stopped keeping track himself of what I had spent, and trusted me to keep up. I did run my numbers by him about halfway though, and everything matched. I have it all in an excel spreadsheet, so getting the tallies wasn’t hard. Just a little massaging of the numbers.

Goodness that's a looot of store credit

That is kinda neat that you were able to keep track of the numbers on what and where you spent the store credit.

Just thinking about my first FW order/purchase....

I never bothered doing this myself, but now I am too afraid to try.

As someone who also has Eldar, alongside my beloved IG and Salamanders, I'd say its the best army imo to have as a second army.

Allows a chance to take a break from your main army, and if need be, let your inner cheesemonger come out.

$2030 store credit!! Thats loads! And from M:TG cards? Holy gak, how many did you have?

I was shocked by just how much you have spent on rules. I mean, $360 is about £250. And that's a hell of a lot! The two Eldar Codices dont really help that, and the impending SM codex probably wont do you any favours. I think the Apocalypse stuff isn't really necessary for most people. But still, thats a lot!

I was supprised to see that you haven't spent any money on paint brushes... How have you not needed to replace brushes after 2 years?

On the face of it, 2000 dollars is quite a lot. But spread over 2 years, it averages to about $85 dollars a month, which really isn't a lot. Since the start of the year, I have been keeping track of everything I spend, and I'm up to about 650 pound, with an average of 130 a month (I have a self imposed 150 hobby budget / month). But then, I have more money than sense and no real financial responsibilities... And I'm going to be away (and not buying hobby stuff) for the next 4 months, so I'm a little less worried about the monthly average.

It was fun reading about another hobbyist's spending habbits Thanks for sharing.

GrimDork wrote:Goodness that's a looot of store credit

The last of my Magic card that I had been holding on to were the most valuable. Alpha Black Lotus, two Beta Gauntlets of Might, a number of other big cards, and a small stack (200-ish) of assorted alpha/beta cards. While played, they were all in reasonable condition, and all ~20 years old, some never reprinted. When even the commons are worth a few bucks just due to age and the big cards are going for $80+ (I think the lotus was around $400) it adds up to a hefty chunk.

aw_man wrote:That is kinda neat that you were able to keep track of the numbers on what and where you spent the store credit.

Just thinking about my first FW order/purchase....

I never bothered doing this myself, but now I am too afraid to try.

As someone who also has Eldar, alongside my beloved IG and Salamanders, I'd say its the best army imo to have as a second army.

Allows a chance to take a break from your main army, and if need be, let your inner cheesemonger come out.

Eldar make a nice alternate to marines. They are the ultimate specialists, as opposed to the generalist marines. Marines are clunkly and blocky, eldar are sleek and graceful.

Zambro wrote:$2030 store credit!! Thats loads! And from M:TG cards? Holy gak, how many did you have?

I was shocked by just how much you have spent on rules. I mean, $360 is about £250. And that's a hell of a lot! The two Eldar Codices dont really help that, and the impending SM codex probably wont do you any favours. I think the Apocalypse stuff isn't really necessary for most people. But still, thats a lot!

I was supprised to see that you haven't spent any money on paint brushes... How have you not needed to replace brushes after 2 years?

On the face of it, 2000 dollars is quite a lot. But spread over 2 years, it averages to about $85 dollars a month, which really isn't a lot. Since the start of the year, I have been keeping track of everything I spend, and I'm up to about 650 pound, with an average of 130 a month (I have a self imposed 150 hobby budget / month). But then, I have more money than sense and no real financial responsibilities... And I'm going to be away (and not buying hobby stuff) for the next 4 months, so I'm a little less worried about the monthly average.

It was fun reading about another hobbyist's spending habbits Thanks for sharing.

There have been a number of hobby expenses not in store credit. I picked up some fresh brushes at a local art supply store (was about $25). There was another batch of magnets I got from ThinkGeek, I forget how much they were. Another $25 for assorted tools earlier this year. The $120 for the additional KR cases. Primer from the hardware store (2 cans). Glues. X-acto blades. For the most part it’s small stuff, but it does add up. Barring the KR, it might be another $100 over the two years. But as it was small purchases from assorted places (often as part of another larger purchase for non-hobby stuff) I didn’t track it as well.

Off all the money I spent, the amount on rules bugs me the most. Part of that is the sheer volume. With 6th only being two years, and the Eldar codex the same, we are spending more money on books with shorter lifespans. And unlike the miniatures which can be used forever (for the most part) books just go and collect dust once they are done. The cost of rules keeps me from buying minis. Not only because they compete for the same hobby dollar, but they set a high bar of entry. I’ve got a chunk of BA and IG on the shelf. I’d love to be able to field them again. But not only would I need to get some new units to get them up to fighting trim, but I’d have to buy their codexes. And if I wanted to keep playing them, I’d need to commit to picking up a new codex for them when they came out. That was daunting with a 4+ year cycle, but madness at 2. I know it’s not going to happen, but if GW gave their rules away for free, they’d actually get more money from me. I’d be more likely to impulse buy units to ally in to my force. And we all know how ally forces are just a gateway into a full army.

So made it up to the FLGS yesterday. We ended up doing a doubles game, with everyone bringing 1,500. Conveniently, that’s what I packed. Doubles because there was a new player (DA) and it’s a good way to get into the game.

I brought out a mechanized list to contrast with last week’s footsloggers:

My partner was a Ravenguard list with some skitari backup. Opposed was the DA, plus last week’s necrons.


We rolled forward very aggressively, and clashed in the middle. My LR was immobilized in shooting, then his terminators wrecked it. I countercharged with my termis, plus the bikes, and a long CC resulted until the end of the game (the wraiths piled in halfway through). All the terminators eventually died, leaving his librarian and a handfull of mangled wraiths slugging it out with my HQs and half an attack bike. If I had rememberd the heroic intervention rule earlier, or was able to roll worth anything, I might have been able to end it before the game ended. As it was my chaplain and his librarian spent a lot of time slapping each other ineffectually.

Overall lots of carnage everywhere, but they killed more then we did, and so won the purge. Fun was had.

A few interesting supply drops. One was the new bikes I had ordered. I looked at them a little while I was waiting for the game to start. One thing I noticed is that the bikes are not identical. There are subtle differences in the gems on the bikes and riders. It’s not just the same sprue x3. Which was a bit of a surprise. The other, bigger, surprise was a new chaplain. One of the guys has been converting special characters for people, working out special rules, and giving them out. So here is Chaplain Severus:

He’s a little extra nutso about purging the xenos, to the point that he patches his armor with trophies. He’ll be getting paint as soon as I get the next lot ready to prime. But I want to make sure the new bikes are ready for that, so have some more assembly work in store first.

Chappy looks great, as does your mechanized list!

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Chappy looks great, as does your mechanized list!

Thanks. You can’t see a lot of it from the angle of the picture, but he’s got a lot of odd alien bits on him. A few Tau, Ork, and other odds and ends. Going to make painting him interesting. I think I might experiment with more weathering then I normally do.

The list was fun, and did OK. The tactical marines ate a ton of fire from necron warriors and banner-boosted DA tacs. I didn’t get a lot done on my end, but held solid for most of the game. My ally pushed forward a lot better, but he was playing an assault heavy list vs. necrons, so was in a good place.

I forgot the fresh paint report:
The LR was sporting the new hatch I painted. It did not help at all. Wrecked on the bottom of turn one.

Wearing Xenos bits as trophies? Smells a bit like heresy to me!

Looks awesome, though, and in the words of the Emperor, 'thou shalt not question that which is awesome...'

 Paradigm wrote:
Wearing Xenos bits as trophies? Smells a bit like heresy to me!

Looks awesome, though, and in the words of the Emperor, 'thou shalt not question that which is awesome...'

If the chaplain is doing it, it’s gota be OK, right?

I’m not one to look a gift chaplain in the crozius. A friend put him together for me, so I’m going to paint him to the best of my ability and go cleanse the filth out of my FLGS. Are we not the Ultramarine’s 3rd company, Scourge of Xenos here? It’s kinda what I do. He will also serve a a dedicated foot chaplain, leaving my magnetized one free to use his jump pack. Assuming the rules/codex doesn’t change between now and when I paint him, I’ll have 4 chaplains, one in each way to field him (foot, TDA, JP, bike). That will fit nicely in a pair of CADs, for maximal zealous, rage-filled fury. I don’t normally like to use more then one detachment, but for chaplain’s day out, I will.

And just to keep this whole mess vaguely on-topic for the P&M section, I got a little paint down on the jet autarch. Reds and black on the bike and rider, and a grey basecoat for the autach. I’m going to try to work up with washes, to try to get some depths in an otherwise bland black armor. I’ll snap a pic next time I think of it.

That chaplain does look especially extreme, looking forward to it

 GrimDork wrote:
That chaplain does look especially extreme, looking forward to it

Hopefully I can do him justice. Lots of details in patterns that I normally don’t work with.

Some progress on the workbench:



I was debating a number of things when it came to magnets. One was if I should leave the little tabs on the guns for the bikes. It would make for better alignment, but would have made it harder to use the bits elsewhere. For the Viper, I wasn’t sure if I should cut the targeter thing off from under the nose, or just flatten the bottom a bit and hang the gun off it. Seems to work this way. I think for simplicities sake, I’m going to rig the nose gun on the Wave Serpent to take these as well. And I might go back and retro-fit the Falcons, but that’s a little less important, as nose guns seem overkill for them.

I might greenstuff around the magnet in the bike, but it should be hidden. The viper could probably use some work where the old gun should be mounted, but I think it actually looks OK with just the open space and connecting peg, so might just leave it alone. I still need to mount the magnet for the flight base, but that’s just going to be done the same way as I did it for the jetseer. All the thinking part s done, now I just need to finish building stuff, and get it ready to prime.

Nice work on the bikes there Nev.
It doesn't look quite 'right' from this angle with the vyper. But it's a small price to pay if you want the guns able to fit other vehicles/bikes. I dont think people will notice from a top-down view anyway.
It's nice to see that the new jetbike kit has the guns just stuck on the bottom. I seem to recall having to do considerable chopping on the old bikes to fit the cannon on them.

I like the chaplain, too! Looks super busy. Lots of trophies.

 Zambro wrote:
Nice work on the bikes there Nev.
It doesn't look quite 'right' from this angle with the vyper. But it's a small price to pay if you want the guns able to fit other vehicles/bikes. I dont think people will notice from a top-down view anyway.
It's nice to see that the new jetbike kit has the guns just stuck on the bottom. I seem to recall having to do considerable chopping on the old bikes to fit the cannon on them.

I like the chaplain, too! Looks super busy. Lots of trophies.

It’s not the most flattering picture of the viper, but shows the work best. I agree that the gun is both too low and far forward. I took the easy way out. I could have done a lot of cutting, and tried to move things back/up, but every time I cut, there is a chance to screw up. And due to the massive front cowl on the viper, you can hardly see the gun mount anyway from any reasonable angle. Once it is more built I’ll grab a more representative table-side view of it.

The new bike kits are a lot of fun. Lots of tiny bits, some which need to be lined up in fiddly ways. But I’ll forgive that for looking cool. Cleaning the mold lines of small parts is never fun though. If these kits last as long as the last bikes, they are going to be a bear to work with once the molds start wearing out.

Viper is ready to prime. The guns are both magnetized. The chin we saw in the last post, and the gunner’s was done by drilling a hole in the side of the mount and slipping a 2mm magnet in there. Fully compatible with the ones I’ve done for my WS. Probably the Flacon as well, but I’d need to doublecheck if they fit (as they are just nail heads glued in, might be a little thick). The windrider is almost done. I still need to get a magnet in there for his base, but since that requires greenstuff, I’m going to wait for all the bikes to be built before I do that. Speaking of which, I stuck an extra magnet inside the viper for strenght, as It’s a larger model and I was worried about it wobbling around. So it has a 2mm stuck in the mounting hole, with a 3mm stacked on top of that. I use a 3mm on the flight stem. Seems to be holding up well.

Paint:

Slow progress. I really need to buckle down and work more.

Stick to it Nev, you'll get there!

Definately a bitter angle for looking at the chin gun on the Vyper!

When I was magnetizing my latest batch of enforcers, I also noticed stacking in an extra magnet (if you've got the depth) does add to the amount of pull you get. Really helps when you're using ball bearings on the other side, or if you're using smaller magnets for larger parts (with small connection points etc..).

Gitsplitta wrote:Stick to it Nev, you'll get there!

Plugging away! Autarch is mostly basecoated at this point. Need to hit him with silver and gold, then he’s up for phase 2. I also am chipping away at the VV and dread bits on the bench. Slow but steady, like a turtle with ADD.

Zambro wrote:Definately a bitter angle for looking at the chin gun on the Vyper!

A lot of times when building things, you see all those rough spots and imperfections that you will never notice to the table. Plus the camera is a harsh, harsh mistress who loves to show us our flaws.

GrimDork wrote:When I was magnetizing my latest batch of enforcers, I also noticed stacking in an extra magnet (if you've got the depth) does add to the amount of pull you get. Really helps when you're using ball bearings on the other side, or if you're using smaller magnets for larger parts (with small connection points etc..).

The vyper had space, and seemed it might benefit from it, so I just chucked one in. At some point I need to re-do my land speeders, and would like to get magnets on the flight stems on the Falcons/WS. With the tanks, They are wide enough I’m not sure just magnetic force will keep them up, so I need to work out a physical peg as well to keep them stable. This is complicated by the fact that the falcons are already glued together. I can still access the space in back though, so can potentially work something out. I also need to work on some good system for keeping their turrets on the tanks for games, but separate for transport.

It’s Thursday. Week is almost done, and a long weekend looms. Also, I got a game in yesterday. 2x2 1k lists. I paired down the 1,500 points I brought. Not very happy with it, but it was sorta OK. Here is what I packed:

This is the flip side to the list I brought two weeks ago. It’s the even numbered squads, plus a little support. Less footslogging, more balance. That is until I chop the SR, dread, and a tac squad (the 4th, they’ve been getting the most table time lately). My partner was experimenting with an endless horde ‘nid list, we were up against a skitari list and a more balanced nid list. We were playing dawn of war/Emperor’s will. Game called for time at the end of 3, they won on secondaries. Both objectives were contested. If we had gone another round, we might have been able to secure theirs, and probably still contested ours. But that’s iffy; we’d have a tac squad and a blob of gaunts that would need to endure the fire from the giant plasma bug and a trio of dunestalkers. We were rolling through anything resembling a troop, but the big things were doing ugly things to us.

Some high points of the game:
6th squad, those lovable 2nd ed marines, hopped out of their rhino and erased a blob of gaunts. They were clusted up tight, so the flamer did a lot of the heavy lifting, but TL’d bolters do bad things to hosts of gribbles. Next turn they geeked 2 zoenthropes. Fun tactic for ML/F squads: First turn when you disembark, the flamer goes forward, while the ML deploys mid/back. Second turn, the bolter marines surge forward to try to get into doubletap range, but the flamer, who’s not going to be able to make it, falls back to keep unit coherency with the ML, so he can stand still and fire a krack missile. It only is worth it when after the 6” move, the target is going to be within 12", but outside of template range. For being old and crappy models, they were probably my MVPs of the game.
Plasma cannons in the dev squad? Both killed themselves, one on the first turn, the other on the second. The squad’s only redeeming moment was the last bolter marine rallying after failing a panic check, strolling up to the the flyrant (well, an inch away) on our objective, and giving him the finger while contesting. I think they collectively put two wounds on the giant plasma bug, but that didn’t really mater.
Assault marines with the captain got blown off the table by the dunecrawlers. One round. They could have been safe in CC with the skitari camping their objective, but they were in cover, with a mysterious grave wave objective. So even with the fleet doctrine, I failed to make the charge. Sigh.

On to painting progress:

Marine bits are just about ready for the second blue coat and wash. Autarch is all based, I’m going to see what multiple black washes do for him. If not, he might get his armor painted black, rather then grey as a base. Bike still needs a lot of work. I need to get a smooth red down for the canopy, then try to freehand a little something. Nothing spectacular, but rather then just the black slash/chevron, I was thinking of doing a black slash with an angular snake head.

In unrelated news, in case I don’t post again here before I get caught up in weekend plans, I hope everyone enjoys their memorial day/spring bank holiday. It’s come to my attention that I’ll be making a big batch of my Grandfather’s potato salad for the third weekend in a row. I thought I’d share the recipe with all you guys out there. This is for educational purposes only. YMMV, and I take no responsibility for any short or long term health effects. But you know anything that has you cooking up a pound of bacon, and not draining it is going to be good. (just not good for you)

Bikes are built, on stands, with magnetized weapons. Starting to feel a bit Saim-Hann around here. And there is enough stuff in the to-prime pile to warrant taking out and spraying. I’d do it today, but I’d rather avoid paint patches on the lawn before I have people over for a cookout. Plus I still need to mow my front yard. And get rest and recuperate. Pro-Tip: Avoid strep thought. Unless you enjoy feeling like you’ve been gargling chainswords. But anti-biotics are wonderful little things; I feel mostly fine now and shouldn’t be contagious.

My motivation to paint is pretty low. But I need to finish my entry for this month. Sigh. I’ll try to slap some more paint down tonight. If I do a little each day, I should be fine. Just need to actually pick the brush up.

Enjoy your weekends all!

I don't know much about Eldar but the jetbikes are looking good.

Sorry to hear you are ill, hope you get well soon.

 Adamski Alders wrote:
I don't know much about Eldar but the jetbikes are looking good.

Sorry to hear you are ill, hope you get well soon.

Thanks. Here is some non-Eldar progress:




Dread arms. The TLLC slots into the same arm as the PC, but the MM arm is all one piece. Did the same weathering on the MM, turned out OK.

Finished up on the the sets of arms/JP for the vanguard:

Got the fist layer of blue down on some of his partner’s bits, but the SS snapped off at the wrist, so needed to take a trip back to the workbench.

And some Eldar progress:


I’ve done a little more work since I took this pic. I’m feeling a lot better about him now that the black wash is down. Plugging right along.