Preparations for Bay Area Open

So no posts lately because I've been spending my time trying to wrap up things needed for the Bay Area Open.

I completed the additional Manz.

I also wrapped up a 3rd warbuggie.

At this point I think I'm going to skip on the grotz for the BWs as they are minor enough and I've got more to do.

What more you ask?  Well this last weekend I was introduced to someone looking to play in the double's event.  I figured hey why not, I can take the day off and get it in and hopefully have fun.

My team mate seems really nice, and he is pretty new (about 15 games) into 40k with a CSM army.   He is pretty much wrapping up some painting to get it to 1000 points.   With limited models I wasn't sure what we could do to make it 'super wonderful' so in the end I decided to take CSM as well and we are going about a Chaos Undecided Army.

After playing with several variants for me I've decided I needed to make one purchase:

My first purchase of finecast.  Overall the model looks good, a few bubbles but nothing bad.  I don't really know if I would say the lines are crisper than metal.  I already broke one of the spikes while painting, so it does need to be handled a bit more delicately.  Luckily it glued back very easily.

I am also borrowing:

I am working on getting Abaddon painted now.

I'm hoping to have the time to touch up the Noise Marines to get the paint a little closer to the level of my 1ksons.  The key word there is closer!  There is a lot of work to be done on them, and I'm not sure there is going to be enough time Thurs late night/Fri Am.  Abaddon is the bigger priority.

If I don't wrap that all up I do have fall back 1000 points lists that consist of more of my Tzeentch flavor army.  It is just less cool since we wont have all the marked troop choices, and I'll end up running squads of 8 1ksons vs 9.  The fluffer bunny in me cries a little.

As if that isn't enough I'm also trying to wrap up this quick addition to my display board.  This should hopefully pull the two armies together in a 'Chaos-y' fashion.

Seeing as we are playing and have never met (let alone played a game together), are using a old (arguably bad) book, and are playing some silly units (ie not all lash princes, plague marines, and oblits) I'm just going to have fun with the games and roll some dice.  Winning a few games would be nice, but really mostly to gloat more than anything else.  Not unlike anytime I win with my Thousand Sons!

Then Sat and Sun I will be there with my orks.  The level of competition at this event is going to be ridiculously stiff and I know there are some other great ork Warbosses going.  I hope I can eek out a 4-3, but I doubt I'll have the best run of the orks.   It almost makes me want to bounce to something else to try to nab a prize, but the Templar pods are pretty doomed I think and there are likely to be a dozen other Blood Angel players as well.  As tempting as taking the 1ksons would be since they look great I don't think I want a 2-5 weekend either.  Everything else I have is out mostly do to lack of completion.  So orks it will be for sure!

It should be a good time and I'm really looking forward to the weekend!

1750 Orks for Bay Area Open, Just a few options...

So there we have my 1750 ork list as I had laid out a few weeks ago.  I've basically cut the killa kans, which after Dundracons showing of them doing near nothing I'm pretty comfortable with doing.

Ghaz
Mek w/ KFF
9 Lootas
9 Lootas
3 Manz, 2 Combis in BW, Deffrolla, BS, Armor
18 Ard Boyz, Nob BP/PK
29 Sluggas w/ 3 Rokkits, Nob BP/PK
19 Shootas w/ 2 BS, Nob BP/PK
Buggie TL Rokkits
Buggie TL Rokkits
Kopta, TL Rokkits, Buzzsaw
BW, Deffrolla, BS, Armor

However there are still 100 pts I'm questioning if I really want them spent as such.

The whole reason I painted the Deffkopta was for this event, and I could return my 3 rokkits to my large boyz squad that I had cut from last weeks 1850.   The rokkits can be usefull, though I don't think they've ever been game changing.

However the Deffkopta I'm less sure about after the 3 games I've used it.  To review how those games went:
Game 1: I had turn 1, scouted forward, turn 1 stollen, survived small arms fire, shot/charged looted wagon, failed to do anything, died.
Game 2:  Dawn of War so outflanked, came in turn 4 (a little late for my taste), popped rhino, died.
Game 3:  I had turn 2 so outflanked, came in turn 3 on the 'wrong' side, spent all game moving across table to the action.

Plus I watched the game against orks where he outflanked a squad of two that didn't come in until turn 5.  Yes they routed my lootas when they charged, but by then the game was over.

I keep thinking the solo Deffcopta has some great potential, but I also get the 'cookies are a sometimes food' from Sesame Street feeling (things like this happens when you have a preschool child).  The kopta can sometimes do something cool, but most of the time it wont.   You probably only go first 50% of the time, and in dawn of war there will be no turn 1 charges.  Outflanking can be late and on the wrong side.  And of course there are some armies (like bugs) that getting a turn 1 assault will be meaningless.

So as cool as the kopta looks and it's possible potential I think it has to go.

So assuming I were to cut that and the rokkits off the boyz what else could I do?

I could add 2 Manz and Grotriggers to the wagons.  I keep going back to that loss to GK and think how much these guys would have helped.   Most of my games are won or lost on Ghaz and Co.  So beefing that squad a bit could add some extra crunch (and troops) to the unit. 

Or it could be overkill.  I've also had games where the squad wipes one marine squad and is now horribly out of position.  Having 500 pts that is slow once the BW is gone is not great, but maybe if I'm sitting on an objective they will keep people wary of charging.  Usually the manz die regardless so I'm not sure more of them will help.

I'd need to buy one more manz and paint him and (time allowing) the two grot riggers.

Another option would be changing out one of those manz for another rokkit buggie.   This would give just a touch more pop to the Ghaz squad without going for broke.   As the buggie is less pts I could splurge on red paint for the wagons.

With 3 buggies I begin to think if a squadron would be better, or treat them like MSU.  It isn't any more killpoints than my original list with the Kopta after all.

The out of game upside is I won this all, I just need to paint it.

Well if I'm considering more buggies how about two, and leave the rokkits in the squad?  This does cut a kill point since I'm running the buggies 2x2, and leaves some Str 8 shots in the army which do feel lacking compared to my normal 1850.

Just need to paint up the two buggies.

I've also considered adding another 10 Shoota boyz to max out that squad to 30, and add a 3rd buggie.  That makes the foot print bigger and maybe opens some options for them...

But the problem is since I use them as a rear objective holder if I'm REALLY in trouble back there 10 more guys usually isn't going to help.  By that point the game is usually a loss.  It feels like I should spend the points on either more 'in your face' stuff or things that will pop vehicles at range.

Plus look at all those boyz!  Do I really want to paint that in a week?  Answer: no!

 

Well if I"m going to talk about really killing more vehicles Lootas are probably still the best bet.  I could add in 6 guys and have spare points for the riggers.  I could either bump the squads of 9 to 12, or just run a small 6 man unit.

I do love Lootas, and they do put a lot of preasure on the opponents.  The downsides are this squad is pretty easy to route, DoW always hurts these units, and it is more Str 7 when I could probably use some Str 8 shots (as bad as they might be I suppose).

There are other options I could do as well, but they usually involve shaving a few boyz off my large mob.  Like adding two buggies and one Manz and cutting two Slugga boyz.  2 should not make a big difference... but you never know when it could!

So I'm definitely torn at the moment.  I'm not sure if I'm just over analyzing things, and that really the pros/cons of each of these selection are going to be just as random as who I play.

I've got think about this and make a decision as there isn't going to be a ton of paint time between now and next Sat!

Dundracon 2012 Games

I took a number of pictures but most are pretty useless, and game 2 was tough so really not many there.  I figure I'll give a quick mini update on these games.

The only thing that all 3 games had in common that was different than normal was that turn 7 only happened on a roll of 6.

Game 1 vs Scott's Orks

Mega Armored Warboss, Cybork, Boss Pole, Attack Squig
8 Nobz Various upgrades, BW with more upgrades than I take!
24 Ard boyz, 2 Big Shootas, Nob BP/PK
24 Shoota Boyz, 2x Big Shootas, Nob BP/PK
11 Boyz, Nob BP/PK, Trukk Ram, Riggers
11 Boyz, Nob BP/PK, Trukk Ram, Riggers
12 Gretchin, 1 Runtherd
3x Warbuggies, 1 TL Rokkit, 1 Wartrakk
3x Koptas, 2 x TL Rokkits
Looted Wagon- Boom Gun, Big Shoota, ard case, Ram

Mission- 3 Objectives in a line down the cetner, the one 'close' to you is worth 1, the middle is worth 2, and the farthest away is worth 3 points.

Deployment- Pitched Battle

I won deployment and set up as in a spread along my deployment line preparing to rush objectives.  Scott then tucked into one corner figuring to go for the flank.  I scouted up my kopta, then he turned around and seized the initiative.

This is after his turn 1.  He didnt manage but a wound on the kopta.  I would later go to try and pop his looted wagon but was not able to and then shot down by the shootas.

This is after his turn 2.  He's got some good blocking going on with the buggies to protect his boys.  His warboss and the nobz have just torn through my kans which were screening the lootas.

On my turn I called the waagh and with this was able to bring all the assaults I needed down on the opposition.

Ghaz and manz vs warboss and nobz (and BW).  I think this combat took two turns but in the end I only lost one Manz becasue I was able to keep most of the fists he had on Ghaz during my Waagh.

I also pulled a double assault here with my ard boyz and my sluggas vs one trukk squad and his ard boyz (who I had shot up a few of already with Lootas).  I think this combat also lasted two turns and ended in my favor.

This is a couple of turns later.  At this point the game is pretty much mine.  I think we played through 5 and I killed off his trukk boyz and my few ard boyz assaulted his shootas and that didn't work out well.

His deffkoptas finally came out on 5 and killed off my second squad of lootas.  We didn't bother rolling for more turns because he esentially had shoota boyz that were winning against my ard boyz  I think and the koptas free to move.  At best he would be hoping to assault pull me off an objective, but his shootas were out of position to get around to doing much against my two mobs once they freed up.

Scott and I had a great time this game laughing and playing like orks.  It was interesting that we both had a 'fast and slow' take on orks and many choices were just a bit different.  In the end Ghaz's 6" waagh was the real deal breaker in this game as it let me get over a ton of terrain that would normally have kept me out of assault range.

So this win puts me (by random draw) up on table 1 for game 2.

Game 2 vs Jeff's Grey Knights

Libby w/ Warding Staff, 3 Servo Skulls
10 Purifiers w/ Psybolt Ammo, all halbreds
Vene Dread w/ MM and HF
10 Strikes w/ 2 Psycannons, Psy Ammo, DemonHammer
10 Strikes w/ 2 Psycannons, Psy Ammo, DemonHammer
5 Terminators, 2 halbreds, 1 Hammer, 1 Psycannon
Stormraven
5 Purgators, 4 Psycannons in Rhino

Mission- Moidified Killpoints, +1 Kp for Independent Characters, +1 for HQs, +1 for Monstorous Creatures, +1 for Tanks

Deployment- Dawn of War

Interestingly I was talking to the TO about the mission earlier and he had 'borrowed' this from Adepticaon I believe and he made the comment 'You know so GK don't auto win KP missions.'  Then I pull Jeff's list and it is probably the one GK list that isn't as badly tweaked by this modification.

Anyway I got to go first and lined up a sting of guys to push him back into the 6" zone.  Then I spend the first two turns pulling those guys back and sending the BWs forward.   The deffkopta that outflanked came in on turn 4 which was later than I wanted but it managed to kill a rhino before being shot down.  My lootas were able to down the Storm rave I think on turn 2 which was helpful in pinning him back.

Again I was able to pull off the early assaults with Ghaz and the Ardboyz from the wagons.

About this time were probably on to turn 4 or so.  Ghaz the Manz and the Ardboyz have basically killed his two Strike squads and the termies, but soon only Ghaz will be left standing in the open.    His Purgators are routing nearby.

Basically by about turn 5 he's got his libby, purifiers, and ven clumped behind the LOS terrain in the middle.  This is where my brain checks out and I do two incredibly stupid things.

1) The lootas finally mange to do something other than shake his dread and pop a weapon, and I choose the DCCW and heavy flamer.  
2) I get greedy and think I want to go for his Libby & Purifiers because the libby is 3 pts!

Well of course any reasonably sane person can guess what happens next.  The boyz get creamed by cleansing flame and don't do enough in retaliation.  The dreadnought is now free (I didn't even reach him in assault) and a MM shot takes of Ghaz's last wound.  Not only does that give him 3 Kps for Ghaz (1 normal + 1 for IC + 1 for HQ) and the 1 for the squad of boyz that charged, but now his routing Purgators recover  without Ghaz to escort them off denying me this killpoint.  So this error was alone a 5 point swing against me.  Granted it may have ended up in that realm anyway with another turn (it went to 6) but I'm still kicking myself days later.

In the end of turn 6 he had 7 models left on the table.  His Dread, libby, 4 Purifiers, and 2 Purgators.  I had killed his Strikes (2 kp), Termies (1 kp), StormRaven (1 kp), and Rhino (2 kp) for 6 total.  His dread took 43 shots from the lootas on the last turn and lived.

He had killed Ghaz (3 kp), Manz (1 kp), Boyz (1kp), Ard Boyz (1 kp), Deffcopta (1 kp), and a Battlewagon (2 kp).  So 9.  6-9 doesn't sound as close as it was, but my boneheaded moves cost me this game and I deserved the loss.  All I can do now is lick my wounds and think about how to avoid rookie moves like this in two weeks.

Still it was a fun game and even though we were both playing hard to get this game as a win Jeff was a great guy to play.

Game 3 vs Ken's Deathwing

Unfortunately I don't seem to have taken Ken's list, so this is really from memory so some upgrades might be wrong.

Belial
Command Squad, Apoth, 4 Storm Shields and Hammers, 1 dual Claw, 1 Cyclone
5 Termies, 4 TH/SS, 1 Dual Claw, 1 Cyclone
5 Termies, 4 TH/SS, 1 Dual Claw, 1 Cyclone
5 Termies, 4 TH/SS, 1 Dual Claw, 1 Cyclone
10 Marines, Flamer, Missile, PW, Rhino
10 Marines, Flamer, Missile, PW, Rhino
Typhoon Speeder
Typhoon Speeder
Auto/HB Pred

Mission:  There were 3 conditions to try to win this game.   1) Earn 1/2 your oppoents KPs 2) having and HQ within 6" of the center by game end and 3) having any unit wholly in your opponets deployment zone.

Deployment: Spearhead

Ken got the first turn and lined up.  I tried to protect my vehicles with some LOS and of course the KFF.  The kopta would attempt to outflank.

Here is after my turn one movement with some scooting on my part.  My plan was to hold back and shoot as much as possible and call the assault on my terms.

We'd get to that about turn 3.

Quite the scrum.  I didn't realize his command squad had an apothecary, which really hurt my ard boyz assault.  So lesson learned there!

And this is by the end of turn 5.  My kans never made combat, and my kopta that came late to the game is basically esscorting his tacticals off the board.  All he has left is a few tacticals and 5 termies, but I'm also pretty depleted on boyz as well.

The game ends at the end of 5.  We've both got the first objective of killing over 1/2 the kps of the army.  However I also have my KFF Mek just hanging in a BW in the center, and my Kopta and buggies in his deployment zone.  So I take this win 3-1.

Ken was a great guy to play and we knew this games was just for fun anyway since we were 1-1.  I knew that soft scores weren't going to be a big factor for results so I was happy to have a list like this to practice against.

So that's how the games went.  I'm now thinking about 1750 for BAO and have a few thoughts running that I'll post up later about how a few units performed and options I'm looking to explore.

Dundracon Complete

So wrapped up Dundracon today and had a great time.  Three different armies and three great opponents I've never played before so that was cool.

I ended up taking the ork list I planned  and got ready this last two weeks.

Ghaz
Mek w/ KFF
9 Lootas
9 Lootas
3 Manz, CombiScorch, Combi Rokkit, BW w Deffrolla, Amor, BS, Grot Riggers
19 Shoota Boyz w/ 2 BS, Nob PK/Bosspole
18 Ard Boyz, Nob PK/Bosspole
29 Boyz, Nob PK/Bosspole
Buggie TL Rokkits
Buggie TL Rokkits
Kopta, TL Rokkits, PK
3 x Kans BSs
BW w Deffrolla, Armor BS, Grot Riggers

I'll put up some post going into the games later in the week, but here is the synopsis.

vs Orks- Win
vs GK- Loss
vs Deathwing- Win

Interestingly for this tournament there was very little in softscores this time.  There was basically a vote for best army, and you rated your opponents 3, 2, 1 for some extra points on sportsman.

So two folks went 3-0, a person went 2-0-1, and a bunch of folks like myself went 2-1.  I still managed a few ok softscores to tie for 3rd overall.  I can't be unhappy with that at all!

As an added bonus I tied for the 'Awesomness' which was sportsman, which was decided by the battle points.  So I actually walked away with a little award!

But really most importantly the games were great fun and good practice I think for the Bay Area open.  I remembered most of the tricks of the trade, but there were a few good reminders of how things work, in particular getting that GK game was surely something that I'll see again in two weeks.

Fun times, and thanks to the organizers and my opponents for a great time!

Suicide Buzzsaw Kopta Complete

Just a quick update to say I've finished up this guy.  Nothing horribly fancy or special.  I had built him sometime in the last few years, and I think last year I even got the base coats done.  So all I needed to do was get the washes and highlights done really.  I just never finished him up because I've never been sold on the value of the suicide Kopta!

So with that I'm ready as I'll be for Dundracon tomorrow.   We'll see how this guy does with absolutely no practice!

Ork Objectives Complete

Well again almost complete, I just need to hit these with Dullcoate.  It was a fast job but I think they are pretty cool all the same.  They are certainly better than using plain bases or glass beads!

This is the normal configuration of bases I would use normally, 5 x 40mm bases.

These two bases are the most elaborate and are actually fixed to the bases.

However these other 3 have magnets on them to hold them in place.

Which means I can swap in 3 25 mm bases.

As so.

And now I have my bases for the Bay Area Open, which require 3x25 mm bases and 2x40mm bases.

Jobs a good'un!

Ork Walls Complete

Well almost complete.  I need to hit them with Dullcoate but I'll do that toward the end of the week when I've wrapped up these last projects before the event.

I wanted to find a way to be able to use the walls as terrain later.  So I decided I'd just use magnets to 'affix' them to the display board.  This turned out harder than I thought.  For one when I drilled down into the foam and applied the magnet with super glue the glue ate through the whole foam board.  Glad I only did one to test magnet!

So in the end I ended up filling the indents with greenstuff and a magnet.  This seems to be holding well.

The second problem was these Walls really don't like to be drilled into at all!  I'm not sure why these bits are so tough, are they super resin?  After drilling and getting only one magnet mostly indented I gave up on it.  So now they sit fine on the display board, but not on a regular table.  So if I ever DO indeed want to use them as terrain I'll have to pop the magnets off and subsequently probably get the power drill to see if I can bore holes in these.

But that's for another day!

Small Local Tournament

So it turns out on Thursday my wife told me she was going to a bowling tournament on Sat, and the kids were going to the grandparents.  So this left me free to hit a semi local torunament up in Concord.  I've made it up there only a few times last year, and it always pretty fun and casual.

I wasn't too sure what to bring.  I'm going to be playing a lot of orks soon so I thought I'd try something else.   Since I just played the 1ksons I figured I'd do either the Templar or the Angels.

I figured the Angels are just better at this point.  I think the Pod Templar could be made more effective by adding even more Assault termies and another drop pod (and going smaller troops and cutting a dread/speeder).

The games were all fun and casual.  Only 6 of us so it was small and friendly.  I get an 'F' for picture taking.

Game 1 was against IG.  Long table edge, two objecitves, I won rolloff to go second.  I combat squaded everything.

He set up to do some turtling and shuffled around the first two turns.

I got all but two squad in on my turn 2.   My landings were all pretty solid.  Shooting ensued.

And that's the end of the pictures.   We played through top of 5, but by the end he was pretty well done.  His last troop was routing, most vehcles were killed, one vendetta was still alive with one gun but immobilized in a bad position.  I was pretty smashed up pretty good also, but I still had three troop choices around to grab objectives for the game.

Game 2 was against eldar, a pretty fluff but fun list.  It was kill points so I only combated the vets.  He won roll off and made me go first, then put everything in reserve so DoW was pointless. :)

My turn two everything but one 10 man squad came down and I did some running.

AAAaand that's the end of the pictures.  This game there were two game changing things that occured in my favor.  One was he left his two jetbike squads too close to my Sang Gaurd squad.  That charge just mowed through them, and the rest of my army was on his vehicles.   (He got vengence by having his Firedragons cream most of the squad next turn, followed by Dante smashing them up afterward... etc etc).

The second factor was that his farseer/ Dire Avengers/ Wave Serp didn't make it to the board until turn 5.  Crazy.  So losing that pyschic support hurt, in addition to just the extra shots.

I think we called it at the end of the top of 5, with me having collected 8 kill points to his 5.  Plus I had the bottom of the turn to jump his Dire Avengers in the open, and my VangVets I think only had 1 walker left to deal with in CC.  So another win but a fun game where I had to make the best of not going first.

Game 3 was against a Wolf list nothing horribly surprising here though he did have a handful of Typhoons.  Three objective game and corner deployement.  He won rolloff and wasn't sure what to do.  I talked through the thoughts I would have, and he did make me go first (a good call I think).  Then he put his 3 Long fang squads out and kept the rest in reserve.  I wasn't sure about this, and I think that might not be the best call normally, but it ended up working out well for him.

My deployment I only managed 4 combat squads.  My vets were able to tie up one long fang squad, and a melta squad was able to break one long fang squad.

And that's the end of those pictures!  This game also played out... oddly.  He didn't get his 3 main troop squads in rhinos the first 3 turns.  This made me really bamboozled for where to drop my guys.  One troop came in turn 4, and the last two came in turn 5.

This was the only game I think I made some tactical errors.  I placed my Sang squad way out on the board edge hoping to do some awesome Blood Lance on his speeders.  In the end I only killed the one I ended up melta-ing anyway.  This kept them largely out of the game which was a huge waste (and only blanced by his troops all being out of the game also).

So basically this was a game I was really dealing his piecemeal reserve rolling well, but then I was badly out of position by turn 5.  I had some real critical bad rolls also which of course just re-emphasized this.  Low run rolls, one last melta marine on an objective dying when a vehicles exploded, things like that.

At the end of 5 the game was his but went on to 6. In the end of turn 6 the game was tied.  The tournament was effectively over, and we rolled to see if the game would even go on to turn 7 and it would.  However we both have wives texting us about when we would be home, and everyone but the TO had left already since we were basically playing for the top spot.

The TO said we could play it out, or just split the prize top spot prize.  The prize was a $35 GW box set and a $25 store card.  My opponent said 'hey let's just split it' and he offered to do the gift card since he wanted to pick up some warmachine stuff.

I happily obliged.  I knew I was going to be fighting to hold the tie really anyway, there was no way I was going to manage to win that thing.  Getting to walk away with something and making it home at a reasonable time to the family is all win in my book.

So I thought about grabbing an eighth drop pod but I'm just not sure how much I'll be playing that list really since DoA is just... well better.  So I asked if I could pony up some more cash to get a slightly better box set.

I'm not really sure why I got them.  When I was list building earlier I had though about dropping in 2x5 assault termies in pods (of course short a pod for that list also).  I figure I'll use them at some point, I just don't know when!  Maybe if Templar can ever make Termies troop choices...

Though if I had not felt the rush to get home I probably should have just grabbed some terrain (though I'm not sure there are any $35 box sets).

Either way it was a fun day of games.  Next weekend is Dundracon which I plan to take my orks.  I have a colleague coming in from overseas this week, and I offered to hang out with him on Sat before his flight but he says he's just going to do some shopping.  Yawn.  So at this point I should make it as it is cleared with the wife!

But I will have some dinners going on this week with that colleague, plus Valentines day of course, so paining will be limited.  I'm hoping to finish up the stuff for the Display board tomorrow but that might not happen.   I'm very doubtful I'll get the kopta done but I'll certainly live with the list I took last year anyway.  We'll see what I manage to complete!

Display Board Repairs and some Airbrushing

 So not a lot of action this weekend, but I did want to knock out a few things that either fall into the 'messy' or 'prep time' categorizes.  Basically anything I'd reather do in the garage rather than my desk.

I wanted to get my ork display board patched up a bit.  The first thing that is wrong is the sides get all knocked up and the blue foam becomes exposed.

So to try to fix this I got some plaster cloth.  This is used all the time for model railroads so I figured I'd give this a go.

It certainly was messy, but it was pretty easy to apply.

The upside is now the sides and lower corners are really solid.  I don't feel like I'm going to run into this 'denting' problem any more.

There are a few things that are not as good as I hoped.  You can still clearly see the layers of the foam board.  I probably could have done something like applied some caulking to fill that in a bit first.

The other is that in some places the actual cloth shows through a bit.  Not much and I was hoping the paint would cover that up a little.

And the paint helped most of it, but there are some places it shows.  Meh I say.  I could have spent more time on this but like all things there is just more to get to so it is going to have to do.

I then spent time repairing the rest of the board.  Plaster dripped a few places and I needed to reapply flock in other spots as well.

The other garage project was busting out the airbrush.  I wanted to hit the ork walls and the bits for the objectives with Boltgun metal.

Pre Boltgun!

So the plan this week is to try to get the walls done and the objective complete.  I'm hoping because these are small bits I'll make a good clip of progress each nite without having to dedicate hours of time.  If I can wrap that up this week(end) then I'll just need to do up the Deffcopta and I'll be ready for Dundracon!

Upcoming Events and To Do List

So currently there are a few local tournaments that are on my radar.

Dundracon is a one day 1850 event in about two weeks.

The Bay Area Open is a two day event, 1750, in exactly one month.

Dundracon I went to last time for the first time with my orks, went 2-1 but soft scored my way to best overall.

Bay Area Open I've never made, so that might be the biggest tournament I've yet to go and play.

So this is about the time that I begin to fret over what army I'm going to take to these.

Except this time around it feels like I'm just going to take orks and have fun.  They look ok and usually get a pretty nice paint score but are by no means perfect.   I haven't run them since our 'weekend bash' a few months ago but I'll get a few practice games in here before heading to Dundracon.  Seeing it is about the same thing I've been running for about 4 years I know how it basically works.

Plus if they get completely crushed at Dundracon I can always fall back to another list for BAO.  Hell maybe I'll be crazy enough to bring out the 1ksons again.  (Not likely.)

 So I've got a few projects to work on in the next two weeks.

-Ork Display Board-

So I have this massive 2'x2' foam board and it has been functional.  It is just so big, and the foam on the sides looks bad and it is getting beat up a lot in transport.

So I thought 'hey I'll get a slightly smaller board to do up, and then I can add one hill, and some other cool bits!'

So I bought a slightly smaller board and put the orks on them.

Then I said 'wow that is not a lot of room.'  So back to the old board.

Hey look everything fits.  I picked up the ork walls with some of my gift card so I need to get those painted.  Plus I need to do a bit of repair work on the board itself to not look like it has been beat to hell and back.

-Objective Markers-

While I was tooling around the LGS thinking about what to spend my gift card on I thought I would get some bits to make some ork objective markers. 

I settled on some pretty cheap boxes and barrels, then rumaged through my bitz box for some extra weapons and orky goodness.

I made sure I had enough of what I wanted, now these are primered out in the garage with those ork walls.  I kept them unglued as I think it will be easier to paint the bits and then glue them together.

-List Changes-

There is only one change I'm really considering to the 1850 list.  I've been wanting to try out a suicide Kopta (rokkits & Klaw) for a long while now.  I can fit this into the list if I cut the 3 rokkits out of my 30 Boy mob, and take the KMB off the Kans for just Big Shootas.

I don't really like getting rid of any anti tank from units but quite honestly those two upgrades do very little most games.   Most of the time they are out of range or running.  It is only the very occasional 'hey I'm standing here and I can shoot' that comes up, and even then that usually means one hit, breaking armor occasionally, cover saves shutting that down half the time, and then managing a 'pop' very very rarely.

So I guess when you say it like that I'm not losing much!

So this means I need to paint the Kopta I've had built for quite awhile, and just paint up some Big Shootas for the Kans (which I had also modeled and magnetized awhile ago).

So this week and weekend I'm going to try to get the objectives and the board patched up.  Then I can work on getting walls done next week.  The following week I'll finish up to Kopta and BS.

If I fall behind and can't get the last bits done than it is just easy to take the same ork list I had last year.