Quick Holiday Update

A little more progress on the hobby yesterday.The two preds are magnetized for weapon swaps which is always nice. I was going to put another animal head on the autocannon but it didn't look quite right and I was not about to cut down the barrel to try it out. So I'm going to leave it alone... but the look is growing on me.

That's a Belakor model I received for Xmas. He'll be my solo prince for now. The model is beautiful, but I'm again reminded how much I prefer working with plastic. He's not attached to the base yet as I again want to paint them both seperately first but that base will work well for him so I've set it aside.

Tomorrow afternoon is more 40k with the boys. I'm still not entirely sure what to do. Tau are probably my best bet. Orks are an option but I haven't got my head around a strong list with what I have on hand. I have a feeling the only chance orks have now with new gaurd involve more lootas and more Battlewagons. Joy.

Holiday Update

So thought I'd do a quick update on my holiday 40k process.

I have painted the 8 bases for the next 8 1ksons.
I have cut and trimmed up all my vehicles.

So I still need to assemble the vehicles and I still need to do some painting on the 1ksons to get them on the bases and 'playable'. We'll see if I can get that done in the remaining time.

I've also gotten a handful of games in the last two days.

Yesterday I met Liam over at the LGS and played his sisters. It was nice to practice on the heavy terrain boards. Unfortunately my Templar did horribly, or Liam was on fire, but either way it didn't go well. 2 hard heavy losses. Not even close, not even a little.

Today I played Templar against Collins chaos with a new BT list. Still totally destroyed. I just don't know if it is me, my lists, or the luck, but I'm ready to shelf the zealots. I don't know if I've just built the army for higher points and I can't scale it back or what.

So I busted out Tau for a second game. Collins crept up for a tie but it at least felt like I had a chance.

So now I'm seriously considering Tau. Orks may be an option also, but again I don't know that my 1850 list really scales well down 600 points.

So we'll see about the tournament but I'm not feeling like anything I take is going to do very well.

I also tried out Space Hulk today. As we played we cut all the guys out and got the peices in order. The premise of the game is simple, but there are still lots of little rules. Not quite like 40k but still fun even as we were learning. I can see us bringing this out from time to time, but it requires a pretty big area to set up most of the missions (like literally the 6x4 game table).

Things to do in Dec

So I was out in Australia for 9 days for work so obviously no 40k for me. I was sad to miss the tournament (that makes two in a row due to work travel), but such is life.

The good news when I got back in the office I was greeted with this for me:So that's exciting. Even though this is my 4th army almost every other army was bought mostly second hand with a small spattering of new stuff. This is the first time I've ever had that much new stuff sitting on my workbench.

Of course the downside is that is a lot of work. Plus I have 1ksons on the bench that still need painting. I'm taking the better part of two weeks off at the end of the year so I should be able to get some work done. Of course I could end up playing some (fingers crossed) and there are multiple family holiday events so who knows how much time I really get to spend building up the army.

In a perfect world I would like to have my 1ksons 'fieldable' without proxies. In order to do that i would like to get done:
1) Paint 7 bases
2) Paint 8 1ksons
3) Build 3 Rhinos
4) Build 2 Predators

That's a lot since the 1ksons take forever to paint. At the very least I'd like to get the 1ksons painted (base coats and all the blue highlights) and then mounted on the painted bases. Then I'd like to get the hulls of the vehicles, cut, deflashed and assembled. Getting all the magnet work done will take more time which I'll work on in Jan.

If I can get all that done I could actually put a whole army on a table without having to pull out proxies which would be nice (though I'm still borrowing that one squad from Liam). Then I can finish up painting the 8 sons in Jan, do the magnet work, and start painting up the tanks.

We'll see how it goes, but either way I'm excited to get it going again!

Thanksgiving Weekend Update

So I'm pretty pleased with the holiday weekend as far as taking care of my 40k 'ToDo' list.

First of all I did order my 3 Rhinos and 2 Predators, so those are on the way to me now. With those and the models I'm borrowing I have an 1850 army, and can now just pick up some other models (Daemon Prince, Dreadnought, Terminators) at my leisure or maybe ask for them as gifts. Either way I've got plenty to put together and paint before I finally pick up that 3rd squad of Tsons and can return Liam's squad to him to be shelved indefinitely. :)

Next I did complete my two aspiring sorcerers.
I'm pretty happy with most of the paint job. I'm feeling like I'm getting the blue and gold down well and hopefully that will speed up my next set of sons. The force weapon I'm also ok with how it turned out. I'd like a little more glow but I think I'll leave it like this for now. The only thing I'm not really thrilled with is the white robe. I was going to do yellow since I like how my yellows have been coming out for the sons and I always hate white anyway. But in the end the sorcerers traditionally have white so I went for it. The under coat and first layer of white went great. Then I thought 'hey, how about I use a blue wash' and man, I just never felt like I recovered from that. I think I would have been better off just tinting the white with blue and painting layers up from there. It is kind of hard to see the end result because of the flash, and even this next picture with the flash off is hard to see.
Lastly I did get two games in with Anthony when he came over. We spent some time painting his new board and played the games as we waited for layers to dry. We played 2000 pts and he tried a new twist on his marines.

Vulcan
Librarian on bike, Force Dome and Null Zone
10 TH/SS Termies
8 Vangaurd Vetrans with 2x Lightning Claws, 2x TH, and 2x PW
10 Tactical marines Melta/MultiMelta Rhino
10 Tactical marines Melta/MultiMelta Rhino
5 Scouts w/ HB + Telion
Predator Autcannon w/ LasCannon Sponsoons
Predator Autcannon w/ LasCannon Sponsoons

So Vulcan was a new add but I think Anthony just wanted to try him out. Lysander would have been much more of a problem. He was also vehicle light for 2k points which helped me, but his 10 terminators which are normally a problem would be even more of a challenge than normal (yay Ap3 bolters don't help!). The Vanguard were also a new thing to try out, but between them and the Librarian on the bike I could see the game plan. Force dome the Vets for the 5+ save, charge the sons, make them reroll invul saves since there were a lot of power weapons and move on to the next unit.

Ahriman
Prince, MoT, Warptime, Wind of Chaos
Dread, Multimelta
9 Sons, Wind of Chaos, Rhino w/ Combi Plas
9 Sons, Wind of Chaos, Rhino w/ Combi Plas
9 Sons, Wind of Chaos, Rhino w/ Combi Plas
Predator Autcannon w/ LasCannon Sponsoons
Predator Autcannon w/ LasCannon Sponsoons
3 Obliterators

I wanted to try out the expensive prince and Ahriman as well as the crazed Dread of doom.

First game was multiple objective and long table edge. The game ended on turn 5 as a loss for me, but I played the odds that the game would have gone on gave up on what could have been a tie and am pretty sure I would have won should the game have continued.
The second game was single objectives and dawn of war. This game I ended up winning as Anthony called it on turn 5.

The games are kind of a blur now but I can recall a few things from the games.

The Librarian was not much of a problem as I would have thought. I know the DP picked him out one game, it might have been both, but either way I only failed one psy test both games I think.

The 205 pt DP was ok, fulfilling his 'Please shoot me, ouch ouch ok I'm dead' but I'm not so sure all the powers and the 4++ was worth it. Warptime was nice the once each game I used it but would 130 pt prince have been nearly as effective and still dead come turn 2? Probably.

Ahriman was exactly what everybody said he would be: the same thing as a 185 pt sorcerer. Yes he shot a few fairly useless str 8 shots but that it. I think most games I'll be leaving him at home unless I just want to be friendly or burn that last 65 points. The chance of getting a Spawn off in a 'non gift of chaos list' is probably pretty rare.

The dread was actually a surprise to me. Sure game one he was popped I think turn 1 (maybe I should have smoked instead of run). But game 2 he was the man. He finished of the last of a termie combat squad (after the TH guys had been shot off by failed inv saves), moved on to fry a rhino, charge and see off its cargo tact squad, then charge and route the scout squad. Sure he was immobilized next to the opposing objective but that was fine. All day no crazed rolls. It makes me want to use him more, but as Anthony points out that game was probably the highest a chaos dread will ever achieve and from here out I'm probably set for disappointment.

The thousands sons themselves also did well enough. They sure do eliminate marines with no saves, and even with cover saves they still fall down. Wind of Chaos was simply awesome though, and that certainly was decimating whole squads at a time. Also while they aren't really efficient in CC they do stick around. That can be a positive and a negative... I guess I just need to know how to use that to my advantage.

Two things I did learn the hard way:
1) Two squad of sons rapid firing and double wind of chaos is not enough to kill 5 Terminators. with 3 shields (oh and Vulcan was hanging out with his 3++ save too). Yes you might think it is, but it is not. Better to shoot at 24" range with other units and pick them off one at a time, them maybe clean them up in rapid fire/wind of chaos range. Lesson learned.
2) Don't ever charge with the sons. You think you can kill those last two marines/terminators with your aspiring sroc? You're wrong. You go last and your just not getting out of combat any time soon. You are better getting charged and at least swinging at the same time as marines. Either way it's still better to avoid it if you can, but that's not always going to be the case if you run an army where you want to use WoC.

The oblits did their part for sure, popping vehicles and plasma fun for termies. Sure they got killed by charging vangaurd vets game two but I'd rather have lost them than a squad of sons.

The preds also did ok. Seeing as we both had two preds they mostly shot at each other. Nothing horribly spectacular nor horrible on either side of our table.

In the end Ahriman is probably going to be get cut down to a sorc, the prince down to a bare bones prince, and I'm still not sure on the dread. With the cuts from the HQ if I cut the dread I can run a nice 5 man termie squad and they could have potentially done everything and more that the dread did game two (and not have been popped turn 1 game 1). The problem is what do you cut to get to 1850...

I felt like I had enough anti tank but again he was a little light on armor. A real test will be Liams sisters with the what now, 6-8 FA 11 and 3 FA 13? That will be a much tougher nut to crack.

But for now I can say they were fun to play. Armor will be tough, hordes may be a problem, and who knows what I'll do against Eldar, but still I think all those games will be a blast to play.

Thanksgiving ToDo list

So Thanksgiving weekend is upon us and I'm hoping to knock out some 40k stuff over the long weekend.

-Paint two Aspiring sorcerers- I've slacked off on painting and need to get back to it. If I can knock out both sorc models that would be nice. Then I can focus on getting the second squad of dustbuckets done in Dec.

-Purchase tanks- I'm pretty sure on Friday I'll ring up the WarStore and pick up 3 rhinos and 2 predators. Usually they have an extra 5% off so that will save a little coin. I'm debating whether or not to order Be'lakor as a Daemon Prince or just keep waiting for the model announced OVER A YEAR AGO... way to go GW.

-Practice 1ksons- Anthony is coming up Friday and we're going to work on painting up his new sectional GW table, but in between coats were going to run some practice games to see how the 1ksons do. Does the DP work? Is Ahriman just a point sink? Will the dread be totally useless? Hopefully we'll get some answers there.

Hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend!

Black Templar Dreadnought

So I finished up Dragon Age Saturday morning. It was very enjoyable, and the story was good with only a few 'huh?!?' moments along the way. I've gone through most of the rest of the origins bits now and debating whether to play through it again. I think I'll sit on that and maybe come back to it in a few weeks and see how I feel about it.

I decided I should do some painting this weekend. I felt like I needed something besides 1ksons so I decided to knock out a Templar Dreadnought. I had a really destroyed Dread that had come in and ebay lot that a few months ago I patched up and primered. So he was ready to go and came out looking pretty good.
In 1850 I can basically decide if I want to use this guy, the PotMS vindi, or the GKGM.

Liam came over late Sat night and we got two practice games. Liam is practicing for the tournament Dec 5th which I am bummed to miss.

First game was multiple objectives (5) and DoW. This was a fun game despite the fact I realized starting turn 3 I did not place my 2 5 man shooty squads. I had totally blanked! This obviously was noob mistake and likely would have changed the game a bit, but oh well. At the end of 5 we called it as there was no way I was going to overcome his Sister's wall of rhinos.

Second game we brought out the orks for his Sisters to try to overcome. This was a killpoint long table edge game. I had a killer turn two (killed all 3 exorcists and immobilized/weapon destroyed on a number of other rhinos) which put me up on the KP fast. However Liam was able to catch up over the next few turns. Ghaz and the manz managed a double one assault for a sqaud 2" away that hurt but that's really the only other memorable event of the game. In the end the game went to turn 7 and it really came down to the fact that the difference in KP in our armies (Sisters I think had 17 vs orks 12) was too great for Liam to close the gap even though he still had more alive on the board at the end of the day.

We both had fun and hopefully we'll see some more practice games before these guys head of to the tournament.

Thoughts from Sat gaming

So it's been a busy few days and I haven't been able to give a quick update from Saturday.

I was lucky enough to get 5 games in Sat night so that was cool. Unfortunately 3 of the games were all single objective missions and I lost every one of those missions. I just don't see how Tau are supposed to be able to knock off an entire army off their objective. They don't have the assault punch or to really jam a unit in there and hope to survive unless you try for a turn 5 miracle. The firepower is nice but against armies like IG that just have stacks and stacks of troops in Chimeras you can't really hope to knock them all of the ONE objective.

I really dislike that mission in general. The multiple objectives means there is some movement and strategy on both sides, and killpoints are probably the start of a good idea, but it's not the worst as it is right now.

I think the 'single' objective mission works better when you do corner deployment and the objective is placed in the center of the 'opposite' quarters. Now you don't have such a static game and real startegy needs to be applied.

I know we have a handful of missions from different tournaments we have played. I think I might get them together and maybe we'll have 11 or so missions we could roll 2d6 for and have some more variety with some fun missions.

As for the Tau they were a little disappointing. My shooting was horrible. Well not so much my shooting, but I could just not kill vehicles. I seemed incapable of rolling above a 3 on the vehicle damage dice so that was frustrating. I certainly need to figure out how to use the piranha better, going up a flank or what not. They pretty much absorbed lots of firepower, but most games were obliterated at the end of turn 1 if not 2.

I think I'm going to dump out the second Devilfish and FWs for Kroot and hounds. That will free up enough points to drop in two more suits with missile pods (also means making the 2nd HQ a normal suit). That would give me a little more long range firepower with the flexibility of the Kroot which did ok I would say. I'll try that out next time and see if I regret not having the second fish for more mechanized troop options.

Who knows when we'll play again of course. It could very well not be until the holiday break. :(

Tau for Sat 11/14

So it looks like at long last we are going to get a solid 40k night in this Saturday. There should eventually be 4 if not more players involved so I'm hopefully to get 3 games in at least at 1850 points.

I'm thinking I'll bring out my Tau. I'd love to practice the 1ksons but there is just so much that needs proxy and I never like doing that. I could bring out Templar or Orks but I think Tau have been played the least in my last few nights out so... out they come!

I've come to realize that the biggest problem with Tau these days is simply objective holding. At first I thought it was kill points but really most units are fairly survivable. Tau are still plenty killy and can also be good at picking off 'easy' KP off a lot of other armies (ie rhinos, drop pods, etc).

But the objectives... man what a pain! Tau aren't durable enough to just plop down and hold them. You basically need to kill everything in the area very dead, or try to blast onto objectives to contest at the last minute. Of course I'd say that only works for me about half the time so... time to tweak the list.

There are 3 things I'd like to try out in my next Tau games. I'm cutting out loads of FWs, and going back to one Pathfinder squad. So what do I possibly do with those newly freed up points?

-More kroot: A second squad of Kroot (10 Kroot 7 Hounds) would be nice as they are a scoring unit, and they have a good clip of flexibility. The problem is they aren't very killy at the end of the day, and again I'm thinking I might just give up the idea of squatting on objectives or hoping for a good outflank against just the right opponent. Still they have their place in my army, but I might hold off on that second squad until we get to 2000 points.

-More Crisis: I could easily add two more Fireknives, or I could put in two deathrains and tweak the HQs and still add some more kroot in the list. I like the idea of more long range firepower for sure. They are survivable as long as you keep them out of site, but a few games I've really wished they could survive contesting objectives a little better.

-More Piranha: So I've been enjoying running two in a squad. Yes they are two kill points but it is more armor, and they aren't as easy to kill as people think at the start of the game. It gives me more steel to move around and block off lanes, plus they do actually make good last minute objective contests. Sadly one more to make a squad of 3 is probably not very game changing, but another squad of two could be a big help.

Of course I'm missing handfuls of models for any of these ideas. I have a good ebay win for my last Kroot hounds on the way but it wont be here by then. I only have one fooked up suit but really need two more new suits to pull of my middle plan. Or I need at least one more piranha if I want to run 4.

I really feel guilty plunking cash down for Tau when A) they are hopefully moving toward a new codec in the next two years and I already have a good clip of semi retired units on the shelf (hello stealth suits, gun drones and firewarriors!) B) any of these plans probably don't really make the army THAT much better over the other (or possibly over my earlier lists) and C) I've still got a significant shopping list for my 1ksons.

So... thinking hat is on now!

****************
Update- went down at lunch to pick up my Ahriman and bought a Piranha.
I'm so weak willed. ;)

Tzeentch Marine HQ Options

So a little continuation on my last post: figuring out the HQ option for my 1ksons.

Really there are 4 main choices and some can have a little variant (like combi meltas, termie armor, etc).

Option 1: Sorcerer- Mark of Tzeentch, Warptime, Wind of Chaos, Melta Bombs- 190 pts

This is the tooled out tzeentch sorcerer. The great part about the combo is casting Warptime, getting in close, frying a bunch of enemy with WoC (with Rerolls to wound!) then charging in and wading through your enemy with the force weapon.

The downside is CC is still not your best friend because while he is tied to the 1ksons any charge will be at Init 1 thanks to S&P. So really you're still getting close and frying, and only charging if you are certain you are going to be safe and clean up the dregs.

The other downside is that a anti psy list (librarians, bugs and worst of all eldar) can quickly take your uber sorcer and make him be really ineffective. Now in a Chaos Undivided army you could maybe take this risk, but in a 1ksons army you already have a bunch of points tied up your 1W Aspring Sorcerers. How many points do you want to risk getting flushed down the drain?

So the question is do I want my 1ksons to be even more killy at short range. Well yes I do, but they are already fairly good in rapid fire range, so am I putting too much into one basket, or am I helping their CC abilities out to make it worth it?

Option 2- Ahriman- 250 pts

So for 60 points more you get named uber leader Ahriman. He has the same stats as the sorcerer, but those extra points are going to 2 key factors: 3 spells a turn and more spells.

This means you now you have a little more flexibility. If you are forced to stay at range you can use Bolt of Change (Str 8 Ap1 Assualt 1). If you have a annoying character and you just happen to be in the right place you can try to pull of and upset with Gift of Chaos to create a Spawn (which certainly is worth the points to see those faces sag). The three spells is nice because like the sorc above you can Warptime, WoC, then actually use that Force weapon all in one turn.

But damn, that is a lot of points. There are good chances he never does much more than the normal sorcerer, and he suffers some of the same problems the sorcerer has as well (especially since he is once again accompanying the 1ksons). For fluff reasons I think he'd be fun, but nearly every board I have read says save your points.

Option 3- Chaos Lord- Mark of Tzeentch, Death Screamer, Melta Bombs- 150

Now no chaos guys really like lords. They are actually really good, its just compared to the other HQ choices he isn't quite as sexy.

The positive when it comes to the 1ksons Lord is his weapon can be used to shoot 24" St4 AP3 Assault d6 shots and still be used as a Daemon Weapon in CC. So this gives the option for some ranged anti Meq fire (which goes along with the 1ksons) and some nice CC ability.

Another solid upside is here is a guy who can still be just as effective when those anti psy armies take the field. It would be nice to have one guy who is still working at 100% potential.

Plus he is relatively cheap.

Downsides are he still ends up at Init 1 on the charge when tagging along with 1ksons and he really isn't nearly as killy as the other options. Plus while Deathscreamer is nice do I really need more Anti Meq shots with 27 1ksons on the field? And I'm not sure how fluffy he is... shouldn't he be dust now anyway...?

Option 4- Daemon Prince- Wings, Mark of Tzeentch, Warptime, Wind of Chaos- 205

The dreaded Daemon Prince. He has more killing power than any other HQ, and mobility to boot. He doesn't suffer from having to tag along with the 1ksons and getting their shit S&P charge. His psy powers are great, but if he gets shut down there he is still a DP after all and can wreck havoc out there. He even has more anti tank ability when he closes in range which of course the 1ksons are missing.

So we all know DP draw a lot of attention and firepower. This is both good and bad. It is good in the sense that is lets other things that would normally take high Str shots/low AP shots in the first rounds because usually he is the biggest threat. The 3+/4++ is nice, but at T5 he can still be brought down with enough bolter shots.

Of course if lines of marines are standing out pouring bolter shot into a DP, my 1ksons will have a field day on my next turn.

He is still a lot of points. He will likely always die, my question is just how long can I keep him alive?

I guess there is another sub option as well...
Option 4.5- Daemon Prince- Wings- 130
Hmm... you never see it because you can add lash for 25 points, but that isn't very fluffy for me.
However at 130 pts you have a huge target who is still horribly threatening and will still probably take up a bunch of firepower. He's certainly not as killy but... hey if he never makes it to combat you just saved 75 points. It's something worth considering I suppose.

So those are my options. The 'core' of my army is about 1350, and I usually stick to designing around 1850. So I have 500 pts to use. I am an HQ addict, using 3 in my Templar 1850. It's hard to not see using two as most of my choices of what else I could spend points on aren't horribly appealing.

Termies- yes they are good and they can be cheap but I'm not sure I want to rely on walking or deepstriking
Dread- Fluffy yes, Anti tank yes, reliable... eh, I'm guessing no, frustrating very likely
Raptors- Well I could, they are a different cult and like the oblits they could just be tagging along but... they are expensive for what they do
Chosen, Possesed, Normal CSM, Bikes- all not so fluffy for 'pure' 1ksons
Greater Daemon- I'm not dying to lose my Aspiring Sorcerers
Lesser Daemons- Actually I'm on the fence about them. Yes there save is horrible and they will never kill much, but they are a troop and they may have tactical use

So that's where I'm at. Likely I'll just shove Ahriman and the Uber DP in there and see what they do and figure out what is missing, but there are certainly some options for my to play test as well.

Painting may be a bit slow now...

So Dragon Age has probably totally killed my 'painting schedule' for the next few weeks. Oh well, I guess it was time for a break anyway.

I'm still thinking a lot about the pure 1ksons and how to build out the army. They will be fun overall but it is easy to see why they aren't super competitive.

-AP3 bolters sound good, but nearly everyone will just stick to cover (and are mechanized as well)
-4++ saves sound good until you realize, well, everyone can just stick to cover
-No grenades, no BP&CC weapons, and with S&P when the charge they are at Initiative 1
-No special weapons in the squad, so meltas and fists are lacking throughout the troop section

So yes, they can be a devastating short range army against squads walking up on them. They aren't the worst army in CC (hello Tau!) but really avoiding combat is probably for the best. Yes they may be able to survive for serveral rounds thanks to fearless and the 3+/4++, but winning combat is probably not so likely against any squad that is really after you for CC engagement.

They have a hell of a time with Mechanized, so really almost everything else in the army probably needs to be built around Anti-Tank.

So I'm pretty sold on the 3 1kson squad in rhinos as troops. I'm pretty sure my first attempts at filling the heavy slots will be with 3 oblits, and then 2 Preds with side las.

The HQs are the real question, and I'm still figuring out what to do there.

Things are light

Not doing much playing, just painting and day dreaming. I finished up another 3 1ksons, so now I'm going to move on to the two aspiring sorcerers for my two squads. I figure if I can knock them out and move on to that second squad I'd be ready to play (with some BT vehicle proxies). That should only take, eh, the rest of the year.

Aside from that I've done some poking around on ebay but am trying to stave off the 'I can just buy this crappily painted item and redo it' since the whole point of this army was supposed to be about making it look as good as I can. I'm just feeling like I want to play it and get a feel for the army.

Of course for better or worse there just hasn't been the time, and with the holiday's coming it remains to be seen how much gaming we really get in until after Christmas.

Painting Thousand Sons

So I'm not the worlds greatest painter, but I do enjoy painting my miniatures and take some pride in the end result. I know I'm not going to win any golden demons, but the end force I put on the table usually gets the 'hey great looking army' comments and that is always nice.

So after painting my first two thousand sons I decided I would try to actually document how I'm painting them. This is as much for me to study as anybody else to learn from I suppose. :)

So I guess some basic things first. I'm using almost exclusively now the Raphael brushes. Yes they are good and yes they are worth it. I do use a airbrush for my first basecoat and a home made wet palette for mixing paints.

The paints I used for these guys are almost all GW paints: Foundation Paints Dheneb Stone, Solar Orange, Orkhide Shade, Mechrite Red and Tausept Ochre; Colour Paints Golden Yellow, Sunburst Yellow, Regal Blue, Enchanted Blue, Ice Blue, Goblin Green, Scorpion Green, Boltgun Metal, Mithril Silver, Burnished Gold, Shining Gold; Plus Black ink, the Asurmen Blue, Gryphonne Sepia and Badab Black washes.

The only non GW paint I use is a big tube of generic white I use for a little lightening and a Brown Ink from P3. At the very end I'll use Testor's Dullcoate.

So with that here is my 'Tutorial'!

I'm adding the bases later (which I've already painted) and keeping the guns off to make it easier to paint. In the future I think I may also leave the heads off of 1ksons, but more on that later.

-Airbrush the entire model with a thinned out Regal Blue.
-Cover the parts that are staying blue with a liberal amount of Asurmen Blue wash.
-Pick out all the trim with Burnished Gold

-Tausept Ochre the loin cloths and the stripes.
-I give a light highlight of Golden Yellow over the loin cloths. This help give a little definition before I apply a wash (and why I don't bother yet with the stripes).-I now take the Gryphone Sepia and wash the gold and yellow, aiming to darken up crevasses and ridges.
-Now again go over yellow with Golden Yellow including the stripes.
-And one more layer with the Sunburst Yellow for ridges and to make the stripes pop.
-Now take Shining Gold and pull up the highlights for the gold.
Now we get to work on the blue (and in reality I think I'll move this step up to earlier, perhaps before the Gryphone Wash step).
-First I go over the with Regal Blue
-Then a 50/50 Regal Blue/Enchanted Blue mix
-Then a 20/80 Regal Blue/Enchanted Blue mix

The guys in the pic below are laid out in the above steps, but oddly with the flash I think the guy in the middle looks 'lighter', but in reality the layers are very subtle but the right most guy is actually the brightest at this point.
-I then start mixing Enchanted blue and Ice Blue in the wet palette and pull up the blue highlights.

You can see the blue in the helmet strips is a bit of a mess, and trust me the back is worse. This is probably the bane of all 1ksons painting. I'm going to try to leave some heads off of models and see if this helps. For now I just move on and then touch up the model all at the end during the 'clean up' phase.
Time to work on the eyes.
-Apply Orhide Shade to eyes
-Apply Goblin Green to eyes
-Apply Scorpian Green to eyes

That takes care of the eyes, but I've also been playing with the 'glow' from the ghostly green eyes.
-Mix goblin green in with the early mix of Enchanted blue/Ice blue that is still on the wet pallets (you might need to add some more Enchanted blue). It is a little tricky to get the mix looking right and to apply just enough to get the glow out on the eyes.
-Now add in Scorpion green to that mix and do just a thin amount around the eye.

The goal should be to have it fading into the blue but also to keep that dark ring around the eye for definition. I had to do a little touch up with black ink in a few spots.
-Next is finally getting to our Boltgun metal which I use for the guns as well as the 'ribbing' between joints and some of the other 'metal' piping bits.
-Now go over all of that Boltgun with a healthy amount of Badab black wash.
-This is barely a step but you can see the guy on the right I've used the Stone on his rope on his loin cloth.
Now we're into what I call the 'details' phase. This consists of a number of small bits that require a little bit of mixing or dabbling but that all gets done pretty quickly.
-Apply Solar Orange to Gemstones (I use it on the 'Eyes' of the Tzeentch icons)
-Apply some of the Brown ink to the rope, and to the Gold 'pipes/vents' that are mostly on backpack
-Mix some of the Brown ink with Orange to shade the gems
-Take Mithril Silver to highlight all the Boltgun areas, as well as dab our 'bolts' around the model
-Mix some white with the Orange to create the highlight for the gems
-Mechrite Red for the few Wires you might have about
-Black Ink the lines in the helmet, specifically where blue or yellow have spilled in the lines

This completes the 'details' phase.
At this point I assembled the model, gluing the gun on and the guy to the bases I've already prepared.
Now we just clean up the model and give it a Dullcoate. The Dullcoate is great, I'm always surprised how much it helps soften up the highlighting.


Argh, I can see a few spots I've missed that I need to go back now and fix. I can see a few places where Mithril Silver dabs that need cleaning, and some more detail work needed on the damn helmets of doom. So maybe I'll replace that pic after a few more touch-ups. It seems I usually have a few nights of touching up as I look at the model and find the few blips that have accumulated.

But at the end of the day they look nice and go along with the two guys I've painted earlier.So that's it for now, five guys done, 22 more to go. :p

Not much in the way of 40k

So more traveling last week. It did give me a chance to finish Ravenor at least. It did take awhile to get behind the book, but I'd say about midway through the second story I was hooked, and by the third book I was racing through to get to the end.A quick pic of the painting desk. I did manage to paint one more 1kson guy over the weekend. I think I'm almost figured out the plan of attack to paint these guys. I think the last big change I need to make is to paint the gold base coast before attaching the guy to the base, then I can move on with my blue blending. I'll probably start that on a lot of 3 guys and see how it goes. If I stick to only painting 1 guy a week it will take me 1/2 a year to get done. Not that I'm in a rush or anything...

We didn't make game night Friday, but maybe we'll get something going this Fri. I'm certainly hungry to play.

A little painting, a quick game

So I did get a little 40k at long last over the weekend.

After doing my 'test' I figured it was time to get started on a real 1kson. Here is a 'done' guy on the base with still no gun. I'll do the gun next to finish him.
This is really the first time I've done a lot more wet blending and it is taking some adjustment. There are things that I don't like... some of the blending still looks too 'hard' to me. The glowing eyes are only ok imho.

Still I think it is a good start. Now that I've got one guy done I can refine the process now to speed things up. There are a few steps I think I can now safely skip, and some things I've realized I can do in a better order. So I'll probably do another solo guy to get that process down and then start on guys 2 or 3 at a time.

Also it worked out I was able to have Liam come up for a game Sat. I wont post a report since he one over at his blog (linked to the right). I figured I'd just run Templar since they are easy and I had an 1850 ready to go. He brought Chaos and it was a fun game. I think we were both a little rusty from not playing but it was good to get reminded in a friendly game of the do's and dont's.

The nuts and bolts of it were I was a little to eager with my LRC and he popped it and fried all the termies/GKGM with lash and oblits. I don't think the hood has worked once for me, I wonder if I'm kidding myself about it's worth in my list. Either way losing a 600 pt squad is always bad and once that nut was cracked I was on full defense and with the game moving into 6 there was little I could do in an objective based game.

I'm not sure if I should keep the two small 5 man squads. I had been thinking the hood would help against lash and that maybe they would survive but it has yet to work. I might trim the grandmaster to a brother captain and toss one of the 5 man squads for something else, maybe a las/missile dread.

We'll see if they see the light of day any time soon of course... not many games in the future that I can see.

My Camera work is horrible

Ok, I don't know why I can't take a decent photo to save my life. Yes I have Macro turned on, it doesn't matter, I suck and I can't get the lighting right.

Anyway, tonight I thought I would do some test painting for my 1ksons.
Here is my test bit. I thought I could use this helmet to practice some yellow, and would have enough blue area and gold trim.
Here he is with the basics done. The picture is horrible. There is actually highlighting going on here though it is near impossible to tell.

Anyway since it was a test I thought I would go all out.
So I did some practicing with the glowing eyes. This is actually the result of too much. I actually had something I was really happy with but then pushed it too far, and this was as good as I could go back. So I'm going to have to go really slow on this step. I also used some wash with the yellow, I think I'm going to use that for the loin cloths but we'll see.

A quick hit with the dullcoat helped smooth it out, though it is hard to tell.
I am looking forward to actually trying out a 1kson now. I think I need some help with my paints though. My Enchanted blue and Ice blue are too dried out so I'll try watering them down. My two golds are also dry but water doesn't seem to help as much, so either I'll need to get new ones or maybe one of the special dilluter thingies they have at the store.

Where has the time gone...

Doh! Nearly three weeks since the last post. I couldn't help it, work has been crazy. I was out to FL, then out to Amsterdam. I'd like to say I'm back to 'normal' but this is unlikely to be true and I'm going to probably be a bit sporadic on posting.

Sadly I missed the 1k tournament due to my trip to FL running late. Unfortunate, but at least Anthony was able to pull off a best overall victory.

After all that crazyness, and of course a million other family obligations, I finally had most of today to dedicate to being a dork.

Last month I had gotten two things done for the 1ksons. I had gotten the two boxes of 1ksons I got from Collins trimmed and flashed. I also ordered bases for the planned 1850 army.

While I was out the bases arrived. Here's a look at the 25mm ones after they've been cleaned up a bit.

I thought the clockwork would be kind of cool for Tzeentch, and it is a hell of a lot different than anything I've seen before on the table. Since this is my 'showcase' army I figured I'd give them a go.

So it took a few hours, but here's what they look like painted.

The pictures don't really do them justice, but in person they looks really cool to me at least. They take a lot longer than 'normal' bases, but obviously the detail is really outstanding.

I look forward to seeing them with the models done on them!

So I also had enough time to get the bits for the 1ksons out and get assembling. A shot of the desk while in progress.

You can see I'm doing most of this via assembly line action!
Here are 8 of them ready for primer!
And then outside for primer, then base coats. First the guys...
then the guns! I figured I'd like to paint them separate and put them together later.
Now I have 18 guys ready for real painting.
However before I get going on this I think I'm going to do some tests first. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do (they are 1ksons after all) but there are some techniques I want to try out before I start on the precious metal models. So I'll probably toss a few extra chaos bits together, and the next hobby day/night I get will probably be spent practicing a few new tricks.

Stay tuned!

Possible Ork Revision

So I've been missing my lootas and am trying to see how to squeeze them in the list. Now I am doubting I'll have to deal with the Avatar, but certainly MCs and Tanks are going to be abundant.

HQ: Mek KFF
Elite: 12 Lootas
Troop: 29 boys, 3 rokktis, Nob Klaw/Bosspole
Troop: 29 boys, 3 rokkits, Nob Klaw/Bosspole
Fast: Buggie, Rokkits
Fast: Buggie, Rokkits
Heavy: Kan, KMB
Heavy: Kan, KMB
Heavy: Kan, KMB
1000 pts

This drops me down 1kp to 9 total. The lootas are still really fragile. I could drop the rokkits off the boys and pick up a cheap secondary HQ to sit with them but it may be a waste. I'm down to only two troop scoring units but I have had issues with 'seizing' more than one objective anyway.

I'm lacking the mobility of the Trukk and the BW, but on the small board I may be able to slog orks along if I need to do so. More importantly the BW drew a lot of fire, which gave my kans some length of life. Pulling out that magnet might be unwise...

I wish I could get in another practice game, but work is not going to allow for that to happen this week. :(

Taking a beating

So I've managed to get three different play sessions in the past week with my 1k orks. I've played IG 3 times, Marines once, Eldar once, Nids once, and Chaos once. I'd say they've been competitive in all but the IG games which they all lost, but I've made some modifications since those first few games. They've basically gone 1-1-5 which is not a big confidence builder. Usually my practice lists have a few solid wins in tough practice games prior to the tournaments, so this is a bit troubling.

Of course the flip side to that is for the last 1k tournament I had 1k Tau list that had been doing awesome. It must have won all 4-5 practice games, but I still went 1-2 in the tournament.

Is it the list? Is it poor generalship? Is it just dumb luck of the missions and opponents? I want to believe it is the latter, but maybe that's just an easy excuse.

Since the tournament is supposedly having it's own 4 unique missions I don't know that I can really do much anyway. Any change I make is just as likely to hurt me as help me.

So I'll likely just take the list I have and see what I can do taking what few lessons I've picked up on over these last few game.

1) For orks be wary of attacking vehicles with Klaws, and if there are other boys squads around do that assault last. Nearly every game that my opponent had vehicles I ended up exploding them and wiping out tons of my own boys. It is bad enough to lose half your trukk squad, but worse when your 20 boy squad loses half too before they even started THEIR own combat phase. So I REALLY REALLY REALLY need to keep that in mind.

2) Trukk boys squad may not even get out of the trukk. I need to run some more mathhammer for these guys. At least two games I thought the trukk boys could handle weakened assaulty type units and they did not hold up well. I wonder if just skirting the fringe of the board for a last trun blast to objectives would be better. Seems a little like a waste of 162 points though...

3) Stay in the KFF. That thing has saved so many vehicles it is ridiculous. I have been herding around the BW and keeping things alive much longer than they rightfully should. This has made my tank killing better than the first three losses to IG.

So who knows. I definitely have felt heavy on KP. I can't deal with uber units like the Avatar or even DPs horribly well. I'm missing my lootas badly, but don't think I'm ready to trade in the kans. I have not mastered the trukk squad.

Hopefully it will be fun, and hey maybe I'll win a raffle, but this is probably the least confident I've felt since the first tournament appearance.

Noise Marines

Snapped a quick pick (crappy iphone quality) of the Noise Marines I put together for Dave before I walked out the door this morning. I've now been reminded how crappy gluing metal to plastic is. Getting those guns and arms on is a major pain the ass. If you get one arm on right the other arm is to far back/forward. In the end the shoulder pads seem to hide the offsets well enough but man... what a pain!

I took great care to clean up the models and take my time. Only the last guy glued I was impatient with and will need to get some 'glue finger prints' scrapped off of him tonight. Otherwise it was good practice for the abundance of metal/plastic 1ksons I have to put together soon enough.

More Thousand Son's Planning

So I've acquired the two sets of 1ksons from Dave. I also talked to Liam about borrowing his squad of 1ksons and a sorcerer. My game plan is to be able to eventually field the following army.

HQ: Daemon Prince, Wings, MoT, Warptime, WoC
HQ: Ahriman
Troop: 8x Thousand Sons, Aspiring Sorc, Doombolt, Meltabomb, Rhino
Troop: 8x Thousand Sons, Aspiring Sorc, Doombolt, Meltabomb, Rhino, Combi Melta
Troop: 8x Thousand Sons, Aspiring Sorc, Doombolt, Meltabomb, Rhino, Combi Melta
Heavy: 3x Obliterators
Heavy: Predator, Las Sponsoons
Heavy: Predator, Las Sponsoons
1842

So I'm doing good so far on the troops. I could proxy the sorcerer for Ahriman for now.

Obliterators are clearly the next choice and I'll pick them up in Sept. I've got a budget set per month so that will be all I pick up.

The next logical thing would be the Daemon Prince. The problem is I don't really like the current model (and it is wingless), GW is supposed to be releasing a new plastic model, and the rumor is Forgeworld will have a Tzeentch specific DP at some point. So this makes me want to hold off on that purchase. If a game were to go down before I have the DP I could make a more obscure proxy (well Ghaz is roughly the size of a DP) or borrow someones DP they might not be using.

Or just for giggles I might try and run two chaos dreads with EA and Multimeltas. I can proxy them with templar dreads, and they are sure to provide some ammount of comic releif.

The rest of the army (3 rhinos, 2 preds) can all be proxied with Templar vehicles. I'll probably figure out how to pick those up before/after the prince release and just hit them all up with the airbrush in one sitting.

After that I'll pick up the last 1ksons squad and Ahriman so I can return Liam's models and have the army all painted by myself.

Oh and at some point I'll need to figure out some Spawn models. Ahriman may occasionally try to pop someone with Gift of Chaos so it would be nice to have a few models around. Hopefully I can score some cheap on ebay. :)

Practice Games w Orks

So Anthony came over Sunday afternoon for some 40k goodness. First we did a little painting for his IG where we sat down and streamlined a process for him to get his remaining gaurdsmen looking like the guys he already has. I think we were both pretty happy with the results we were able to get with a nicely streamlined process.

Then we sat down for a few practice games. He had concerns about hordes and I had concerns about mech so it was a good matchup to knock out. I used my 'Ard Center list I posted last Wed. He used: HQ squad in Chimera, 2x Vets in Chimeras, Vets in Valk, LRBT.

We rolled multiple objective and placed 3 on the table and Anthony went first. We had joked the game would go quick and basically after his turn of shooting we called it. He had whittled my shoota squad to 8, blew up a buggie which ended up destroying near 1/2 my large mob of boys and further whittled that squad down to 10.

So we sat down and revamped the ork list to something that might be able to handle vehicles a little better.

HQ: Mek KFF
Troops: 17 Shoota boys, 2 Big Shootas, Nob, PK, Bosspole
Troops:18 boys, Nob, PK, Bosspole
Troops: 29 Slugga w/ 3 Rokkits, Nob, PK, Bosspole
Fast: Rokkit Buggie
Fast: Rokkit Buggie
Heavy: 2x Kans w/ Kustom Mega Blasta
Heavy: Kan w/ Rokkits
Heavy: BW, Armor, Ram, Big Shoota

This list certainly faired a little better. We played a few turns before calling it for Anthony again. The overall problem in both games for me was exploding vehicles. Every time a vehicle was destroyed near my boys it would explode, and oddly go out 6" just killing everything. Nothing sucks more than to watch your 30 boys squad pop a vehicle and get reduced to 10 boys. So we started thinking what I really needed was a throw away CC squad that if it did destroy a vehicle and get wiped it would matter less.

Since the shoota squad had been fairly useless we decided maybe running a trukk squad would be a good fit. So here is what the list looks like now after a few games and discussion.

HQ: Mek KFF
Troops: 11 Slugga boys, Nob, PK, Bosspole, Trukk w/ EA, Ram
Troops:18 Slugga boys, Nob, PK, Bosspole
Troops: 29 Slugga boys w/ 3 Rokkits, Nob, PK, Bosspole
Fast: Rokkit Buggie
Fast: Rokkit Buggie
Heavy: 2x Kans w/ Kustom Mega Blasta
Heavy: Kan w/ Kustom Mega Blasta
Heavy: BW, Armor, Ram, Big Shoota

The upside is I have a lot more things to deal with vehicles. The downside is I've gained a KP from my first list and am up to 10 not so hard to kill things. 3 of my vehicles are FA 10 and open topped. Still looking across at 7 pieces of armor that should hopefully all be obscured or out of LOS on turn 1 may overwhelm some people.

The next best part of this list is it is 100% painted already, hehe.

Aside from the afternoon of 40k Dave C basically gave/loaned me indefinitely the two 1000 Sons boxes he had so that is really cool. I ordered the resin bases for the army so that is all under way now. I figure I'll put the army together slowly over the next few month prioritizing on things that can't be an easy proxy from my templar (ie oblits, DP). My goal is to have the army done by Kublacon next year, even if I don't run them... but hey that might just be the case too.

Other 1000 pt options

So I looked at some other possibilities for 1000 point lists for the Sept 5th Tournament.

Black Templar
HQ: Emperors Champ, AACNMTO 140
HQ: Marshal, Iron Halo, Pair Lightning Claws 135
Troop: 6 Initiates, PF, Melta, 2 Neophytes, Rhino, EA 199
Troop: 6 Initiates, PF, Melta, 2 Neophytes, Rhino, EA 199
Troop: 5 Initiates, Lascannon, Plasma 101
Troop: 5 Initiates, MultiMelta, Plasma 96
Fast: Speeder, MultiMelta 65
Fast: Speeder, MultiMelta 65

So you get some static troops to lay down some fire, decent mobility, anti tank, and a little CC pop. It doesn't look bad, it probably just comes down to hoping you don't play against another beastly list.

Tau
HQ: Shas'El, Plamsa, Missile, TA, HWMT 97
Elite: 2x Crisis Plasma, Missile, HWMT 124
Elite: 2x Crisis Plasma, Missile, HWMT 124
Troop: 6x Firewarriors, Devilfish, DP, TA, HWMT, SMS, Flechette, 192
Troop: 12x Kroot, 8x Kroot hounds 132
Heavy: Hammerhead, Railgun, DP, BC, MT 165
Heavy: Hammerhead, Railgun, DP, BC, MT, BSF 168

I'm less happy with this list. The HQ could join up one of the crisis teams but since there is no markerlight support he could just go hopping off on his own. The FWs are mandatory and will basically just make the Warfish a scoring unit. Kroot do what kroot do. Ditto for Hammerheads as my main anti tank and anti horde.

Looking over the list I think my preference right now is still orks, then Templar, then Tau. Since Templar have played the last two tournaments and Tau the 1k trournament just before those. Orks are still looking like the army of choice.

So a day and a half and the water effect is still getting clear, but now I think it may actually clear up entirely in a few more days.

Ice Board terrain work

So my wife was gone last night so it became "Geeky Craft Night" out in my garage.

I started out looking at my Deffkoptas and realized it would be a hell of lot easier to start with a metallic base coat from the airbrush. I had already magnetized the bitz and made the Buzzsaws, so this means I'll just need to paint over the metal on the orks, but that should be ok.


Since that was going to need a few turns with the airbrush after the sides dried I figured I'd bust out my new foam cutter and see how it worked.
Not so bad it turns out! The foam is not the 'good' foam but I figured for this small test project we could see how it would do. I'm wondering if I should have actually hit is with some paint at this step. It may have been easier, but in the end I'll probably flocking the whole thing with snow so maybe it wont matter.This is a very thin piece of plasticard that is to be attached under the foam.

I built up a pipe section for the terrain.


Here are the three pieces all put together. Once they dried I was ready to add in the Vallejo Water mix.
Uh, so, it was not what I was expecting. First off it was thick and second it was white. I imagined just pooring it in and getting a clear flat glossy like water. Instead this doesn't really go on smooth, so it is going to be really textured.

Here is a look at it this morning. The texture remains (it didn't flatten out like I kinda had hoped) but the 'thin' parts are now transparent. I think after a day or so maybe the whole thing will be transparent. I'll have to see what it looks like with the water mix and the paint. Still it is a good experiment.

Speaking of experiments I figured while I had the airbrush out I would hit up one of my sample pieces from Zuzzy to see how well my tundra board would work out.
First I hit the whole thing with a really light grey. Then I used a ultramarine blue on the 'patch' of ground that I'll try to make look like an iced over section. The piece next to it is my other sample piece for reference.
Then I hit the whole thing with a white/light blue mix. It did not come out very blue. I think I might have to mix in ice to get the overall effect I want. I will probably only use it sparingly on the big mat just to help break it up and give the texture some depth.
After the two coats with the airbrush I just dabbed some white on, I think they call that effect Stippling. It helped to also break up the ground a bit by highlighting a few areas. Overall looking at it next to my other sample piece at least I know the white can go on well enough on that black texture.This morning I did a little more work on the details. I used some more ice blue and white/ice blue is to get that patch looking a little more like I invisioned. I hit the log up with khemeri brown and a brown wash and am happy with that. The rocks I wasn't sure what to do. I had originally thought I wanted them to be Blue like the gems on the Tau bases but I'm not so sure. I might just reserve the gem pieces for the terrain bits I make and just make the rocks, uh, rocks. So I tried a few other colors, Granite, Brown, and grey.
Here's the piece with a Crisis suit. The Blue stone on the mat isn't that convincing. Plus it may ending up looking too much like the water. I think the grey rock is how I'll end up going. You can see in the snow of the Tau base how the ice blue comes through a little, and I want to still get that on the mat. So I'm hoping adding in a little ice blue before the stippling step will help.

I'm not sure when I'll get back to this project, but I now know I'm not trying to do the impossible. I just need to do a little more testing and hopefully it will all look good in the end.