Some painting, modeling, and a vacation

So the lack of posts aren't just because I've been incredibly lazy.  It's also because I was on an 8 day vacation which I just returned from yesterday (and where I was also incredibly lazy).

However before I left I did get a handful of things done on the hobby side of things.

My 2nd squad of sons is pretty much ready to be touched up, and of course the bolters need to be done and added.

I also have a bucket-o-lootas clipped and flashed and ready to be put together.  I'm not sure if/when I'll run more than 18 but at least they are on the wings ready to go.

I also completed a few more Sauri so I can run two blocks of 20.

In addition I built another 2 Temple Gaurd so as to run a block of 18.

I also put together my 2 salamanders and bitz together some extra handlers.

I'm not sure exactly if I'll get any games in the next week, but I'll probably try to get a little painting done on the sons at least.

Templar Drop Pod Thoughts and Game

So I've mucking about with my Templar and thought I would try to tweak my 1850 to see if I could make it feel more like a lean mean killing machine.

The main goal I wanted to do was to try to get out more, though be it smaller, troop squads.  I also wanted to add a more choppy choppy HQ over the Chaplain I had been running.

Of course this requires points.  So I had to look at where to cut.

-Land Speeders: Some times they do ok, they always die, and they are easy kill points.  I feel like I need them as they give me my only mobility and lord know the MM/HF are also desperately needed.

-Adamantite Mantle- Sometimes it comes up in games, most times it doesn't.  I'd say about 1/3 of the games it has a use.  But at 35 points if I'm going dual Marshal I figure cut it.

-Deathwinds- Probably 1 out of 10 games they have been awesome at destroying hordes in the open.  The rest of the games are either non-hordes and they are far less useful or horde in cover.  When you're talking about 7-8 pods that's a lot of points that can go to nothing.  So I thought I'd cut these and see how it goes.

That let me put together the following 1850 BT Pod list.

Emperor's Champ, AACNMTO
Marshal, Terminator, TH/SSMarshal, Terminator Honors, Twin Claws, Melta Bomb, Iron Halo

Venerable Dread, MM/HF, Smoke in Drop Pod
Dread, MM/HF, Smoke in Drop Pod

5 crusaders, Fist/Melta, 1 Neophyte in Drop Pod
5 crusaders, Fist/Melta, 1 Neophyte in Drop Pod
5 crusaders, Fist/Melta, 1 Neophyte in Drop Pod
6 crusaders, Fist/Melta, 1 Neophyte in Drop Pod
6 crusaders, Fist/Melta, 1 Neophyte in Drop Pod
6 crusaders (Bolters), Fist/plasma, 1 Neophyte in Drop Pod

Speeder MM/HF
Speeder MM/HF

1850

I would have liked to get Terminator armor on the other Marshal but I thought giving up the 4+ Invul was kind of a wash for the 2+ save.

So last night I got a game against Dave's bugs.  I was actually glad to play bugs as I could see how my list which had just cut a bunch of Deathwinds would do.

His list looked something like:
Tyranid Prime
3 Hive Gaurd
9 Genestealers with Broodlord
10 Gants
10 Gants
Tervigon
Tervigon
2 Zoes in Pod
Tyranofex
Tryanofex

All kinds of the upgrades that I can never remember.

We rolled for the 4 objective mission and corner deployment.  All of the objectives were mostly tucked into one quarter.  Dave won the roll off and debated what to do.  Normally you would decided to make me go first.  However with all the objectives in one deployment he could basically camp on them and make me fight him off them.  He decided to make me go first and use his first turn to start advancing on the objectives.

Of course on my turn 2 I had 7 of my 10 drops come down and pretty much built a wall of pods to get through.  He eventually did but the game ended on turn 5 in a draw, with both of us having troops on and objective and one being contested by troops in combat.

I really took a beating though if we looked at kill points or Victory points.  Granted I played aggressive knowing those were NOT the objectives.  I made a few errors that I will make sure I don't forget in upcoming games (like deepstriking pods need to be hit on 6s in CC the turn they land).

Of course while it was great to see the list did pretty well I can look back and say:

-I really missed having the deathwinds. There were plenty of times they could have done great, but of course they could have also totally failed.  The Storm Bolters on the pods did pick off a few bugs, and the 24" range is nice but BS 2 is tehsux.  Still I'd like to keep them out and play more games to see how I really feel.

-Adamantite Mantle would have saved my Termie Marshal.  He and his squad owned the Hive Gaurd, but he was killed by upgrades from the Tyranid Prime that cause intant death.  That would have been really nice to have kept.

-My non Termie Marshal was brought down by Gaunts in the first round of combat.  2+ save would have been great.

-A few more guys in each squad would have kept combat going just a bit longer, which would have been huge for me.  Granted I had a few rounds of really horrible saves...

-Venerable was added 'cause I had the 10 points.  The Zoes dropped, shot rear armor thru the pod, landed one pen, failed cover, he rolled a 6, then rerolled a 5.  That was silly. :)

So did it work?  Well more or less, but I think I might make some changes.  I think I might scoot to 5 troops and add a few more bodies to each squad.  I also think I'm going to muck around with that 2nd Marshal, or maybe even drop in a GK GM.

Got to play with some points and see what's what.

More 1ksons Painting

Just an update on the painting front.  I've finished up the yellow, and I also knocked out the eyes for the squad.  Both seem more sublte than the first squad and I like it a lot.  Overall most of the minis I think are coming out better and I guess that shouldn't be surprising.  Still it just is taking forever.

I've just got to hit the silver bit with a mithril highlight and a black wash, highlight the few orange and red bits, black ink the lines in the head dress, then clean up all my boo boos.  I'd like to think I can finish these guys (minus the boltgun) by the time I go on holiday. We'll see...

More Painting, A Quick Game

Just a bit of 40k action over the weekend.

First I spent some more time painting and have now completed all the layers of gold on the 2nd 1ksons squad.

And some more crappy picture taking by me. :)

So I'm inching my way along on these guys.  Now I know how Ryan feels about painting Eldar, the level of details and the multiple layers are just time consuming.  While I feel like I'm 'over the hump' on these guys there's just still so much more to do it is almost madening. 

I also got in a quick game with Liam in Orks vs Chaos part 20 bajilion.  For this 1850 game I pretty much took my 2k list from the last tourny and pulled out Snikrot & Co.  Liam tried a few new things like 2x10 lesser daemons.

Of course why would we be surprised when both lesser daemons squads came down turn 2 when they really had nothing to charge except fast moving BWs.  So they got mowed down pretty handly.  Also Liam learned a hard lesson in 'why to alway give one Chaos Termie a chain/power fist' as they were whittled away by Kans in CC after they got tied up chewing down my 'Ard boyz.  The game went to turn 7 but in a multiple objective game he pretty much just had a single PM holding down an objective in a LR and I had boyz on 3 (I think) in the end.

Really this was a game of my list which has pretty much been worked out vs a list Liam was trying several different things (that didn't all work together).  That's not to say I don't like the ork list.  I think it does well, I know how to use it, and it is probably my most competitive army/list at 1850.

Still I keep looking of over at Tau and Templar almost 'wishing' them to show my the list that would make them just as good at 1850.  I feel like they're close... but not close enough.

More bad photography

So I thought I'd take a quick pic of the comparison of the gold with my original 1ksons squad and how I've 'fixed' my screw up.

Of course I can't take decent pictures to save my life so it isn't exactly helpful.

But really in person it looks pretty good, and I think once the two squad are done I'll mix them up and probably not be able to tell the difference between the techniques.

So that's a bit of a save.  Now I just got to keep plugging away at it...

Busy as hell, just not with Warhammer

Almost two weeks with no post is kind of sad, but hey... them's the breaks.

I've been busy largely with work and family, but also trying a new gym routine which means early nights and early mornings.  So this has kind of put a hard stop on prime painting time.

In addition I sat down to take a look at my 2nd squad of 1ksons and realized I did these 8 with a darker base coat on the gold. 

DOH!  Now the color is fine as it matches the Base + Wash, so really now I just need to layer up the old Base as a strong highlight and then continue on with the final two highlights.  It just means more painting to an already long paint process and that has kind of taken some wind out of my sails.

I did place an order for two boxes of Pink Horrors.  I'm going to do some playing around with 2 small squads and one big squad and maybe run a CSM squad in the next game with the sons.

Unfortunately there isn't any 40k on this months calendar.  I skipped the LGS tournament for the month, and I've got a week of vacation at the end of the month.  I was hoping to score a game night with friend sometime but that seems unlikely, so at best maybe I'll squeeze a random weekend game in if the stars line up just right (ie family is busy and friend is free).

I did manage to sneak out for a first try of 8th ed fantasy.  There's lots to like in the rule set, though as total Fantasy neophytes we had lots of rules looking up and confusion that made playing very slow.  I like the way terrain is done, and I like the way the turn progresses.  The winds of magic change seems like it's going in the right place (adding a bit of random to the power of magic) but it pained me to roll snake eyes twice and 6 and 1 once (meaning I got 7 power dice and the opponent gets 6 base dispell dice = not good).  So 1/2 of my magic phase as going to be useless thanks to crap rolls but, again, them's the breaks.

The fact that I'm playing HE w/ Teclis vs Lizardmen also makes it hard to know exactly how my army is working.  Teclis single handedly shuts down my Slann and there goes the whole cornerstone of my army.  Other powerful wizard can do the same, but their is a bit of randomness and is what makes that a 'can' and not just a total given like Teclis brings, in addition to being almost unstoppable in his own casting.  Add in misunderstanding how Vortexs work and suddenly he's killing 1/2 the lizardman army in one turn.

Even without Teclis I don't know how much I can take away from the games for army building purposes.  The slann ends up being horrible, but Stegadons seem to be a bane to them.  In the overall game I suspect the exact opposite is true, and I don't want to run out to buy a bunch of $50 models just to fare 'better' in games where we are learning.  People also rave about skink skirmishers but they don't do crap against blocks of HE.  If he put out a dragon maybe they'd be ok at taking a few wounds off but he doesn't so... meh.   There's only so much I'm going to learn playing the same army against the same army.

But I think the system is fun and I do hope to get some games in at some point just to better learn the rules but who knows.  This may be a great army that's fun to play that I just never get to use.