Thousand Sons Rhino

So I had taken these few pictures before the games Friday but haven't had a chance to talk about them.  You might have seen that I did manage to paint one of the rhinos which took some time because it was basically a big 'test' model.  Most of it came out well, and I have since repainted a bit of the yellow on the hull.

On thing I'm pretty happy with was this was my first attempt at freehand.  I've seen some really amazing work on hulls, in particularly chaos hulls, and I wanted to give it a shot.  Of course I have no good idea what the hell I'm doing so I knew I needed to keep this simple.  I also needed to keep this simple as I have to duplicate this procedure on 2 more rhinos.

For as much my good as anyone elses here is what I did:

The first color I used is Tausept Ochre foundation paint.  I took a 25 mm base and used a pencil to make a very light trace.  I was concerned I wouldn't be able to make this look circular, and that seemed to help a lot.  I made a few strokes to make the dragons head.

I had to thicken the head up a little, and now I basically made 'spines' down the back.  I tried to keep them evenly spaced and curved, but that was a little tricky.  Thankfully later steps would help mask my inability to do this the way I envisioned! :)

The next thing I did was try to fill in a bit more of the spines.  This added a little depth to the main circles and helped round out some of the hard corners the spines had created.

I then basically repeated the same two steps for the other side.  I thought I might try to make an equal number, but with less room I fudged a little on the bottom.  I think it works though and the eye doesn't really notice the one missing 'spine' on the inside.

Now I used some Golden Yellow to outline most of the outer bits of the dragon.  This again added a little thickness and helps the dragon have depth.  I added the blue dab for the eye.

Here is the finished freehand, now with Sunburst yellow to just pull some highlights out and give more depths.  I'm not sure why this picture turned out not so well.  But it still gives you and idea of the final result.  I tried to add some depth to the eye as well, and in person with the whole vehicle done I think it looks pretty good.  Certainly better than just leaving the top hatch blue!

Now I just have to do it two more times!

This is where I currently am on the other two.  Each dragon is a little bit different, but I think taken as a whole they have come out pretty well.

Hopefully I'll wrap them up tomorrow, then I can move to the predators!

3.25 Friday Game 3

So I'm off to what is effectively round 3 and getting to play Jason's eldar.  I know I've got a few problems right off the bat because A) Runes or Warding make me cry and B) Eldar Skimmers make me cry.

Jason's running the same list from two weeks ago, and we just happen to pull the 'All In' mission again which is the center objective one.  /sigh

I ended up going first again.  I set up on my long table edge, and Jason decided to put his rangers in deep corner cover.

My turn on and I advance.  His turn 1 and he tries to shoot at the DP and manages to wound him once.

My turn 2 and I advance some more, and now pop smoke.  Oh and my lesser daemons came down and one terminator squad came down.  I tried to move them into some LOS/Cover positions during the run.

You can just barely see the DP win in the bottom right.

Jason's turn 2 and he got everything but one Serp with DA and one walker squad.  He managed to immobilize my dread way out of positions, and his warp spiders killed 8 of my lesser daemons.  He cast mind war on my DP and did another two wounds, but he survived a hail of bullets otherwise.  His fire dragons managed to down two of the termies but I held tight.

My turn 3 and the terminators don't come down.  I decide to risk warptime and it manages to go off without killin him and he moves up to charge the bikes.  I also move my termie up hoping he could take care of a few fire dragons.

I do manage to shoot two war walkers dead and I think the Dreadnought manages to MM one warpsider.  In CC my Warptime prince whiffs on his Farseer (well he made his saves I think), but he manages to survive the returning attacks.  Sadly my terminator failed a couple 2+ saves and died before getting to whack some Fire Dragons.

His turn 3 and I think his war walkers come out.  He does more shooting, but I don't think much died except maybe one rhino.  In combat my prince doesn't warptime but take 1 W off the farseer.  Amazingly he sticks around in combat.

My turn 4 and I think his warpsiders had not had a great withdrawl move, so I hope out with a squad of sons and mow some of them down.  My prince finally kills his farseer, but also falls to gaurdian strikes.

His turn 4 and now things become a blur and we're rushing to try to really finish the game before the clock ticks down.  I think his DA come in and pop another rhino.  His bikes blast up with his Gaurdian wave serpant by his outflanked walkers.  Maybe all my rhinos are dead.

My turn 5 and I think I shoot off all his jetbikes, and I pop his gaurdians WS I think, so they are haning out on my right flank.

His turn 5 and he blasts his DA to be sitting on my middle rhino, so we're contestint the center, and another empty FD WS is behind my troops to also contest.

We've got 10 minutes to go.  We're contesting the center, and the secondary are table quarters.  We've both got one and contesting two so we decide to do a quick turn.

My turn 6 and it takes two preds to down his empty WS.  His other WS takes Lascannons from the oblits but live.  I think I managed to do that backward.  I probably should have shot more shots at the WS that went flat out with his troops, as if I glanced/Immobilized it it would have removed that central scroing unit.  Oh well.

On his turn he empties out his DA and has enough to clear off the center and claim it for the win, with just a few minutes on the clock, but nothing else really mattered.

So in our rush their are two things I totally boned.  The aforementioned 'should have killed the DA WS', and after failing to bring in my second termie squad turn 2, 3, and 4 I totally forgot about them in turn 5 and 6.  I'm not saying it would have changed the game to a win, but that is a serious "WAY TO GO STUPID."

So despite those pointy ears kicking one of my armies a Loss again I felt the army did hold up pretty well when I though pregame it would totally fall apart.  I definitely am going to swap the MM for a Missile Launcher and try that out on the dread, and I'm debating going back to one terminator squad for comp reasons but that probably is a horrible idea.  I am also debating changing one combi melta to a comi plas per squad to make them uniquely equiped.  This would up survivability and in games where I don't have vehicles (Daemons, Nids) the plasma could be handy.  The problem is they become less 'single focussed' so that could be bad.

All the same, I went 2-1 for the night, and if the sons did that well at Kubla I'd be pretty damned pleased!

3.25 Friday Game 2

So off to Jason's where 4 of us were set to try 2 timed 2 hours games.

First up I got Han's DE.  His list looked very loosely like this:

HQ

Baron Sathonynx
3 Haemonculi
[1 webway portal, 1 hexrifle, 1 crucible (3 liquefier guns, 2 venom blades)]

FA
10 Scourges w/ 4 heatlances

ELITE
4 Trueborn w/ blasters
in Venom

TROOPS
6 Wracks w/liquefier gun
(x3) 7 Warriors w/Blaster
in Raider with Flickerfield

(x2) Ravager w/ nightshield, flickerfield
Razorwing Jetfighter w/ nightshield, flickerfield, and cannon upgrade  

We're doing the card deck again for these games. Deployment was the corner to corner line with a 24" no mans land.  The mission was 3 objectives, each objective worth 3 points, and pick 5 killpoints in the enemy army for 1 kill point each.  I think there may have been night fighting but whatever the 'extra' rule was it didn't matter for our game if I recall.

I picked his 4 raiders and his venom.

He picked my 3 rhinos, the DP, and the Dread.

I won the roll off and chose to go second.  He puts everything in reserve, counting on a big alpha strike on turn 2.  I don't have such options so I set up with everything as such.  I've got my dread way out in the flank (he's the only red thing on the board).

His turn 1 nothing happens.

Turn 1 I hustle everything forward and pop smoke.  The Dread runs.  The oblits have area terrain cover and the DP is behind a rhino for a cover save.

His turn 2 and he comes on with 6 out of 8 things in reserve, with the Baron/Scourages and one troop and Raider hanging out this turn.  I take a hail of fire.  It is truly an impressive amount between the transports the troops and the razorwing.  However my saves/smoke are equally impressive.  All told I lost 1 obliterator, the DP took one wound, two rhinos were shaken, 1 rhino lost its bolter, and one pred lost its autocannon.  It is hard to argue with save like that.

My turn 2 and both my terminator squads come down.  I'm not forward enough as I'd like to get them in meltas with the icons, plus a rules question comes up (which we iron out later) so for giggles I just drop them without the icons.  One unit lands close to where I want, but the other scatters back out of range of using their meltas.  I think my Dreadnought rages this turn and runs forward.  The two shaken rhinos move up to block/camp objectives, with the DP lurking behind one of them.  My combi melta blow the razorwing to bits, but the oblits and preds only manage a few shaken/stun results.  I run my other termies behind some cover for a better save.  I also shuffle my weaponless rhino back to sit right on the 3rd objective.

His turn 3 and both his remaining units stay out.  A few units of his shuffle, but then it is another hail of fire, though slightly diminished from the last turn.  However with no smoke there is only so much you can hope for now.  He pops my central rhino and the explosion kill one guy.  He wrecks one pred, and the other is stunned.  He manages to kill off two terminators and the last guy fails his LD 10 check.  Way to go loser!

My turn 3 and I have no picture for this turn so this is from my bad memory.  My horrors come down and I drop them off my guys that have been popped out of the transport.  My dread goes fire frenzy crazy and shoots my rhino.  Oddly the double tapped Melta roll two 1s to hit, but the flamerx2 glances twice and manages to immobilize and destroy the weapon.  Comedy gold.  I think what little shooting I have stuns a few of his vehicles.

His turn 4 and the Baron still does not appear, but his wracks in their ride show up finally.  I can't remember exactly what happens, I think the wracks got out so they could get closer to shoot and maybe killed a terminator?  I think he must have charged them also.  He stunned my rear most rhino, killed a few horrors, and started inching up his raiders along the flank to be able to move upon an objective.

My turn 4 and the Warptime prince flies up to kill a raider.  My dread charges into the wracks.  More not so great firing from the oblits (plus his vehicles have that damn 5+ invul save).  My horrors charge his venom hoping to get some glances but I don't think they do much.  I munch more wracks but I think I'm down to just one terminator.

His turn 5 and the Baron/Scourages auto enter, and blast the DP to bits.  Actually I think he 'just' killed me, though I think I actually rolled incredibly well for that result. :p  He wrecked my other forward rhino and the guys bailed out of it.  I think he immobilized my last rhino, and my last predator was shaken.  He is finally able to kill off both remaining obliterators.

My turn 5 and I hop out of my last rhino in case the turn goes on in order to try to 'block' the objective.  I also decide to pull my last predator back in another blocking move.  I spread my other troops about a bit in a blocking maneuver.  My horrors again have no great assault options so go after the venom.  I might have actually shake it this time.  His wracks finally lose combat and their LD check, getting away a bit.  I follow with the termie to keep them running and my dread backs up trying to get some cover.

We roll for a turn 6 and the game continues, and we know due to time this is the last turn no matter what so we focus on what matters.  The baron seperates from the scourages trying to get as far up as he can with the hope of making assault with my sons on the objective, but he's short an inch or two.  His scourages blast the dread to hell.  His venom blasts up to the center objective, but the trueborn hop and out and they are a bit outside the 3" to contest.  Lots of units open fire, but one lone thousand son is claiming the objective.  However I lost the sorcerer so I know he's dead in the assault phase (if not just tying up the guys and contesting).  However Han rolls a 1 and a 2 to fail the 3" assault.  Meanwhile his other raiders blast forward and some guys hop out of one, while the other is certainly contesting.  He manages to pop the rhino and kill off two sons.

At this point it is my turn 6 but we tally up where we are at now.  Thanks to his two short charges I've got two objectives, and we are contesting one.  He's managed to kill all 5 of my kill points, and I've managed a meager one.

Dan has 3+3+1 for 7.
Han has 1+1+1+1+1 for 5.

Had either of those charges made it I likely would have lost.  Sure I might have been able to pick up another kill point or two but I really needed the objectives to win, and I doubt I could have cleared out the rear objective.

It was a great game and even though I couldn't really kill a lot the resilience of the 1ksons (and good smoke saves) helped me turn this into a win.

We had decided that winners would now play, and that meant me up against Jason's Eldar.  I groaned a bit (damn runes of warding and lots of skimmers again!) but figured I might as well see how bad it could get! :)

3.25 Friday Game 1

So Friday I had a couple of games scheduled up so I thought it would be a good chance to give the 1ksons some play with my new list.  This list is not really a 'hey I think this will suddenly make them great' but more of a 'hey I think I might get this painted in two months' kind of deal.

Daemon Prince, Wings, Warptime
3x Terminators, 3x Combi Meltas, 1x Chainfist
3x Terminators, 3x Combi Meltas, 1x Powerfist
Dreadnought, Multimelta, Heavy Flamer, Extra Armor
9 Lesser Daemons
5 Thousand Sons, Icon, 1 Aspiring Sorcerer, Warptime, Melta Bombs
- Rhino
5 Thousand Sons, Icon, 1 Aspiring Sorcerer, Warptime, Melta Bombs
- Rhino
5 Thousand Sons, Icon, 1 Aspiring Sorcerer, Warptime, Melta Bombs
- Rhino
3 Obliterators
Predator, Autcannon, Lascannon Sponsoons
Predator, Autcannon, Lascannon Sponsoons

It is not a lot of boots on the ground.  I don't think it can handle 'spam' lists of any type very well.  But it doesn't do horrible at holding objectives, and I think for an event like Kublacon it will do well on the soft scores (paint and comp).  I will probably get dinged for some redundancy in the elite and heavy, and I might try to play some games with the terminators in one 5 man squad with MoT.

Anthony tried out a test GK army, mostly using things he had (and a proxied Dreadknight).

Grand Master, Warding Staff, Psychotroke Grenades
5 Grey Knight Terminators, 1 Warding Staff, 4 halbreds, Banner
10 Grey Knight Strike Squad, 2 Psy Cannons, 2 Thunderhammers, 6 Halbreds- Rhino
10 Grey Knight Strike Squad, 2 Psy Cannons, 2 Thunderhammers, 6 Halbreds- Rhino
10 Grey Knight Strike Squad, 2 Psy Cannons, 2 Thunderhammers, 6 Halbreds- Rhino
Dreadknight w/ Greatsword & Incenerator
Stormraven

So oddly we've got just about the same amount of bodies to field.  We get the multiple objective game (I think we only had 3 objectives) and DoW deployment.

I've now forgotten the details of the game, and I didn't take pictures so I can't even give a decent recap.

I can give a few highlight/impressions from the game.

-Psycannons are neat, but they aren't the worlds most reliable anti vehicle weapons shockingly.  Also the loss of denying invul saves stinks.

-My Thousand sons could actually out CC his Strike squads.  Since it currently looks like they only have 1 attack, and since getting anti psy is expensive, my warptime sorcerers were able to choppy chopy, while I was able to shrug off 50% of the wounds.  Now against a non Invul save troop they would be twice as killy, but still they aren't quite as much as you'd remember them.

-The Dreadknight while cheap and killy in CC is still a MC, and suffers the same problems as any single MC list, even with his armor and invul save.  In fact both our MCs this game charged forward, popped a rhino, and proceeded to be shot to death the following round.

-The regular GKT are kinda 'meh', well at least compared to TH/SS termies.  The 2+ invul save guy is cool but with wrapping of wounds it doesn't always work out so well.

Granted it was only one game, but a lot of the things I saw were things I thought might be the case when just flipping through the book.  Lots of cool units and wargear, but not sure that an cohesive army can be built in an all comer environment (or at least as an all GK list).  It oddly reminds me very much of the chaos codec and its problems.  Yes oblits and daemon princes are nice, but can you deal with MSU or horde units at all?

In the end I managed a win by holding one objective, contesting a 2nd, and having shot him off the 3rd.  I did get lucky in that the 3rd objective had Grey Knights on it that failed a LD test in round 4, they ran far, and they could not hustle back fast enough through terrain in order to take the objective in turn 5.  I think the game ended on 5 and turn 6 might have been anybodies game.

With that I packed up and left Anthony's place to head out to Jason's place for 2 more games.

Fantasy Assembly and Painting Plans

So you'll note I've played some games, but haven't put much up on the 'what I've been working on' lately.  Honestly it hasn't been much.  Mostly the collection and assembly of Fantasy filling in both armies.

Here you can see my assembled Bestigor with a Brown base coat.  I think that will work well as I want to do their armor as brass, so the brown will work for fur, and a good base for flesh and brass.

Here's a shot of the Beastmen army.

So I've picked up bits to fill out some more minotaurs.  It doesn't look like much, but that's basically 2500 points.
In addition I picked up bits to make more ungors.  I'm just sort heads.  Well I have some heads but I don't like them, so I'm trying to pick some up on ebay.

I also had to pick up 7 more sauri to make my Lizards go to 3k for Ard boyz.  I know I'm a fool for going, especially when I'm basically giving up a 40k 4 game tournament earlier in them month.  At least there I would have a chance to win a few games.  Ard boyz I'll just get stomped, but I want to learn the game and play other armies so I'll go and hope I don't get purple sunned to death every game. :p

So as for Fantasy painting here's my plan:

I'm going to paint these three guys.

Then I'm going to paint these 3 guys.

That will give me a good idea of what I want the armies to look like and work out some assembly line painting plans to get through these guys.  I'm definately dipping, but I'm going to have to do more detail on these than I did the BA so I know they'll both take longer.  Plus I don't have the winter break that I had in Dec so that means late night.

BUT, and a big BUT at that... I really want to push through my 1ksons.  Kublacon is two months away.  I think I'm going to make a serious push to get 1850 painted.  It might not be my first choice of lists, but hey... it isn't like I think they would kick ass anyway.

So I've got a game plan and I'll do some practice games.  I'm guessing by the time Kubla comes around I'll be pretty close, but might have decided my practice games gave me enough of a drubbing to have some sense to take my orks.  Time will tell.

Blood Angels Pictures

So in keeping with the 'Pictures of the Army' I figured I get up the pictures of the Descent of Angels army.  This was a semi-impromptu army that basically consisted of getting my brother in laws BA army and adding to it, and painting the whole thing.  Considering I did this all in 5 weeks I think it came out well.  This was all done using the 'dip' with Army Painter and colored primer for the red blood angels.

And with that, here's my 1850 army.

Dante

I think we've learned that Dante is not great, and that his 'you can land here' is good but not totally necessary.  Making Sanguinary Gaurd troops his cool, but as they are my hammer unit they are really never alive to claim objectives anyway.  It makes for a fun army but really he could easily be dropped and another 10 Assault Marines would probably be better.

Librarian

Where as Dante is an expensive point sink the Librarian is a cost efficient HQ choice.  While Blood Lance has never really worked out great for me, it has been great AGAINST me so I know it has potential.  The big thing is the shield of sanguinous as picking up that cover save is really great for a DoA army.

Sanguinary Gaurd

Terrific models that with a decent paint job just look fantastic.  I like these guys and probably don't have them optimized the best but they are great fun to play.

Sanguinary Priests

I've been running them cheap with just a combi melta and that has worked out pretty well.  I understand why it is appealing to put power weapons but generally I'm trying to avoid combat to keep these guys alive.  I'd love to squeeze a 3rd priest in here, maybe if I cut Dante I could do that.

Assault Marines

Here is just one random Assault marine.  You can see that I've tried to keep the paint job relatively simple.  The funny thing is a few details really make the model look like it had a lot more time put into.  The chainsword striping certainly did take the most amount of time to do but does add some real character.  The lightning on the knee is free hand, and with the yellow drop decal on the left shoulder it makes these guys look less of 'just red' and catches the eye.

My 5 man 'suicide' squad.  All of the sergeants you see have Infernous pistols which are actually from Sanguinary Garud kits.

One of my ten man units.

A few close up shots of the sergeant for that squad.

My other 10 man assault squad.

Vanguard Veterans

I've been running them as a 10 man and combat squad them into sets of 5 like this break out more often than not.

The other 5 guys.

And that's it!  It's a fun themed list.  It has some challenges but is certainly fun to play.  I could add/change things to probably make it leaner and meaner, but with all the other models to paint I'm happy to call this army done.

Thousand Sons Pictures

So I figure to help get me motivated to finish painting this army I'll get some pictures of it as it stands today, and update this page as I get through the models.

Daemon Prince

 Do you play a CSM army?  Then you run at least one Daemon Prince.  So I've got that box checked, and fight the urge to run two.

Ahriman

A cool model, and I bought him thinking I would flip between using him as Ahriman, or sometimes just a regular Sorcerer.  However now I can't fit either in an 1850 list so he's low on my painting priority.

Chaos Terminators

So I've done a bit of work to make these guys feel 'Thousand Sons-ish.'  They have plastic card headdress bits, regular marine heads, and I've used Tomb Kings Kopesh bits for their power weapons.  All the arms are magnetized so that I can decide if I want to run a 5 man squad or a couple 3 man 'termicide' squads.  Melta is usually strongly lacking for 1ksons so they add some pop even if they die every game.

These guys need to get painted and I think they'll look great once they are done.

Lesser Daemons

I'm really proud of these guys.  Everything about them looks great, and they are really great plastic minis.  They just took a LONG time for me to get done.

I have a second squad which I've started the many layers of pink flesh.  Finishing these guys is one reason I've kind of stalled on finishing the army just due to the amount of time it will take to wrap them up completely.

Thousand Sons

That's a few pictures of one squad.

That's a few pictures of a 2nd squad.  I really am proud of these guys as well.  There are some things I wish I could do better, but this pretty much showcases the best that I can paint.

I've also made this clever way of doing icons by having these books magnetized to the backpacks.

So far I've run 3 squads of 9 (borrowing a set from Liam), but lately I've been running 3 of 6.  It keeps the targets up out there and doesn't lose a lot.  It is less fluffy, but at least there are multiples of 3 in there I guess.  If I really want to stick with that I'll need to get another aspiring sorc or get off my butt and just pay liam something for his models. ;)

However I'm also thinking of just running two full squads of 9 and using the points for other things...

Chaos Space Marines

A while ago I got a prize at a tournament and needed to use it on GW goods and didn't have any box sets I really needed.  So I picked up some regular CSM and I've debated adding them to my 1ksons mix to try to make them more competitive (I did mention 1ksons are lacking Melta, right?).

Rhinos

Boy they are exciting aren't they.  :p  They've been hit with a couple layers of airbrush blue hues.  They really just need the details to be done.  Then I can decide if I want to do some other highlights or freehand.  But honestly this is probably the BIGGEST reason I've stalled on the army.  I'm afraid of screwing up the vehicles.  Vehicles are hard for me and I don't want them to look like garbage.  I really just need to sit down with one of theses rhinos and get down to business.  If it sucks hopefully I'll learn something and can then strip it down and try it again.  Right now it is a huge mental mindf&$k for me.

Predators

Same state as the rhinos.  I've been running then Autocannon with Las Sponsoons and they function as light vehicle hunters.  I've been pleased with them so far, but they are magnetized should I want to change up the weapons.

Obliterators

Yes every knows the value that Oblits provide.  If you play Chaos you've got these around somewhere.  I'm limiting their use as I've got plenty of other expensive units, but again you really need that flexibility that they give.  After using the oblit models for a year or so I traded them out for some Terminator lords that I will use as oblits.  I had to do some chopping to get the staff on a thunder hammer arm so that I could model the power fist.  I think they'll look great painted, and with the bases I use they will be able to stand upright rather than all looking like they are in some kind of dance video.

The only other thing I'd really like to add into the mix is a chaos dread.  I think I could make a cool one out of the AoBR dread and it would be cheap.  The Forgeworld one looks great, but is relatively expensive.  I'm not usually one to shy away from expensive, but the fact is Chaos Dreads aren't usually great.  I'd really want it as a fun point filler, but it is hard to justify $80 over $20 for such a function.

I'll get around to posting some list ideas, as I might use Kublacon at the end of May as an excuse to get 1850 fully painted.