Some Painting, Some Modeling, Some Repair

So now I've got some time to just play with what ever I'd like.  There isn't a lot on the upcoming schedule in so far as tournaments and if I do find myself a free Sat to go game I've got several 'done' 1850 armies to chose from now; Ork, 1ksons, DoA BA.  My Imperial Fists need some work to get past 1500, my Templar could be used but I've got some work to change them up a bit, my Tau are... retired for now, and the Bike army hasn't even been started!

Of course there's still my Trollbloods too!  What I don't have is a 'done' 25 point list yet.  I'd really like to get a 35 pt Borka list done.

Borka

-EBDT

-Slag

-Pyre

Min KSB

-Elder

Max Fenns

-UA

Fell Caller

Chronicler

So first I needed to finish Borka!



And of course the keg carrier too!

So in order to finish up that list I'd need to paint the Pyre Troll, 4 more Fenns, the UA, the Fell Caller, and the Chonicolor.  Not too bad really, the Fenns and the UA will be the borring part.

Alternatively I could swap out the Pyre for my Impaler since it is 'done' if I needed to make a tournament, so that might be done last.  I'm certainly going to do the solos next.

But that doesn't mean I've abandoned 40k projects either!  At the BaO I really liked the idea of the Marshal on a bike.  He does get expensive, but with all the options he can take he can really be that cruise missile I think a hybrid Templar army can use. 

Of course I haven't played him so I left some magnetized arms to try different weapons, and I'll need some games to figure out what upgrades are really needed.  But for now this is what I think I'll try: Marshal, Bike, Hammer, Shield, Adamantine Mantle, Artificer Amor.  That gives him T5, 2+, 3++ and Eternal Warrior.  I think that should help him get there.  I think the hammer is the best weapon option, but again I could change that up if I find it is not. 

He does clock in at 210 pts with that build, but I'd say it's better than most special characters!

I used an old Ork truckk wheel in the back, and chopped and exteded the front wheel out a bit. I tried to do a little greenstuff action for the storm shield mounted on the bike.  I thought it looked pretty smooth when I had it all put together.

But now that I've primered him I can see all the imperfections.

Still I think the model looks interesting and hopefull with paint on him and a slightly more angled position on the base he'll look nice.

Lastly just a bit of repair work on my BA Vangaurd Vets.  I played a game awhile ago and the magnet arms were just falling off constantly.  I used little micro magnets and clearly they are just not enough for arms.  So I'm currently digging those all out (which is a pain on the metal bodies) and replacing them with the bigger magnets that hold the arms much better.

At some point I'd actually like to go over this whole army and do touch ups and details to bring the paint up to a higher level, but it is certainly table top playable right now.

Tonight I'm headed out for some warmahordes so it will be nice to get a refresher on that game since I don't think I've played at all this year!

Bay Area Open part 2

Sorry it has taken awhile to get to the rest of this.  I had hoped to do it on the weekend but I misplaced my camera which I only found today.

Now some 10 days later I'm not going to remember much details, but I've picked out a few pictures that can basically highlight some bits from each game.

I took my orks as planned.  They looked good but at a tourny of this size there were plenty of good looking armies.  The best painted ended up being a fantastic ork army as well, so sadly my boys just didn't stand out much.

Game 1 was against Blood Angels.   This list had Sanguinor and Meph which is just a bear!  I think one character I could deal with, but two proved too much.   His strike range put him on my boyz fast without me being able to dwindle down many marines thanks to FNP.  In the end Ghaz chundered on Meph, while the manz and boyz did the rest of the lifting on Sang and his Assault marines.   Sadly then Meph just took out most of the rest of my army.   Had Ghaz properly dealt with Meph I think I was still looking at a tie as he had me on kill points badly!  0-2 Victory condition loss for me to start!

Game 2 was against a vanilla marine list.  He stole the initiative on me and that took a lot of wind out of my sails.  1 BW went down fast, and that meant I really could never get across the board on him.   I made a few bad call this game about where to assault and, if I recall, the game was tied up until turn 7 when I finally lost, 0-2 VC.  That was a tougher loss to swallow than game 1!

Game 3 was against orks, and we were both drinking from his bottle of scotch this game.  I think this picture is hilarious.

That's my anti snikrot deployment.  In the end snikrot didn't come in until late and by then I had moved off the back line because we were in a scrum in the middle.  He had lots of trucks and small squads, but Ghaz and the Manz shined this game and I was finally able to get a win with 3-0 VC.


Game 4 was against Eldar, and I was really worried about this game because of all those damn skimmers.  However this game my shooting was excellent and his were not, with me also having some clutch saves.   I basically twice had battlewaggons survive fire dragon melta fire and then claimed the resulting two killpoints left right in front of me.

I can't remember how this one ended up for me exactly except that it was a win and I think it might have been 2-0 VC.

I also ended up wining the round 4 door prize which consisted of a bunch of glue/adhesive products and a couple of gaming aids!

So I left Day 1 feeling a little beat up from my two losses.  I felt I had earned both loses and was kicking myself for a few bad calls.  I was hoping day 2 would lead to more promising results.

Game 5 was against Dark Eldar, and even though he could seize on a 4+ he was not able to do so.  However you can probably see right off at deployment my problem.

He out gunned me and out ranged me and had cover for his whole army of skimmers behind one building.  I barely made it to his line with Ghaz and the manz, plus a solo ard boyz nob.  Though I did manage to down a few skimmers he had shot up more KP and he zoomed to contest objectives on turn 5 with plenty more skimmers, and the game ended.  0-2 VC loss for me.


Game 6 and I finally got a Grey Knight opponent!  I was hoping to get a good assault in and drown him with numbers, but he SEIZED THE INITIATIVE.  I hate that damn rule!  So instead he assaulted me on turn one and it kind of spiraled from there.

I think I still made him work for it but I think by 5 we realized there was no way I was coming back.  Another 0-2 VC loss for me.

Game 7 was against another vanilla marine army that featured 10 TH/SS termies infiltrating with Skrike and Pedro.   That deathstar just mowed through my army, but Ghaz kept them tied up three rounds while enough of my army was able to avoid it and land on objectives.  For once the game ended on my favor otherwise this probably also would have been a tie or loss.  Instead it was a 2-0 VC for me.

All of my games were fun and the guys I played were nice.  But even still looking back I am disappointed with how I did.   I don't know how one can better 'plan'  for sieze the initiative but the fact that 2 of the 3 games I was going first was seized just sucked.

I also really missed Snikrot some of these games.  The fact that the mission always had an objective to secure in the rear was something I should have considered.  I saw plenty of marine armies with one or two pods just to disrupt the backfield.  A couple of those games Snikrot could have been really huge for me, but at 1750 I'm not sure what I could rotate out for his 150-200 point squad.

Still I had a great time though it was long, and I realized I just have not gotten as much practice with my orks as I probably should have.  Part of my problem is the constant rotation of armies I play, but also I end up playing the same one or two friends for practice.  I doubt that will change really, but hopefully as I look down the line to other 'big' tournaments I will get some varied practice opponents with the army I'm going to run.

Of course it is looking like Kublacon has no 40k tournament currently which would have been the next thing I would be planning.  Every other 'big' local thing is in the fall, which means post 6th edition.  So who knows what changes that will bring to my armies.

So for right now hobby-wise that means:
1)  Just play in local events, these don't require a ton of painting or practice, just going for fun!
2)  Finish up some projects.  I've got my 1850 Imperial Fists to wrap up, and some Templar changes I've got on the table.
3)  Get some Trollbloods painted and playing!  I have not played since Nov I think!  So going to get some games in soon and if Kubla 40k looks like a bust maybe I can be motivated to paint more Trollbloods as well.

BoA Done, Some Painted Chaos

So I'm just about recovered from the Bay Area Open this weekend.  It was long, it was fun, and I was beaten badly more than I'd like!

Today I'll just cover the team tournament and the painting that led up to it.

So we realized we were going to go up a creek due to Rich's models available, so team Chaos Undecided was hatched.   The only thing we were missing was noise marines so I asked to borrow my buddies Dave's and touch them up a bit.

These I think were Dave's first 40k Minis that he painted.  I didn't want to totally redo the color scheme.  I just wanted to add some depth and clean them up a bit.

Basically I just cleaned up areas that were not crisp, added details that had not been painted, and added some washes and highlights.  It took about an hour per guy.

So I wrapped up 7 of them for the event which is what I needed.  I really could have taken a few less and would have preferred a rhino, but I wasn't going to be getting that done in time (nor use a Thousand Sons rhino for Noise Marines, the heresy!).

I also finished up beatstick Abaddon.

My kingdom for some white balance, sorry about that.

The Army:

vs IG & BA- Loss- We gave it a good try, but with 3 vendettas and 2 storm ravens we could not down them all and they were able to contest key objectives by the end.

vs Draigowing & Mech BA- Loss- We were just pounded this game.  We could not get through the Paladins and the BA Razorbacks just picked us apart.

vs Spacewolves & GK- Loss- Another game we just couldn't get things going.

Overall the list did horrible (gasp), the Landraider was almost always killed before it moved, Abaddon only did ok on game 1 though he did roll a 1 to kill himself.  Overall not to surprising, though I was hopeful to maybe sneak A win in there.

All of our opponents were really nice and I chatted with several of them over the next few days.  There were no hard feeling on our end about getting pounded, though I did feel bad in some ways that our army didn't even put up much of a fight most games.

But the army itself looked great.  Rich had conversions going on that were sweet and is a good painter, and the half I brought didn't look bad either.  I had done up a piece a fluff, got us some team shirts, and done up the display board to match both our bases.

This earned us the 'Best Painted/Fluff' for the event which was a $100 Store Credit for us to split.

My team mate, Rich, has a little more details and pictures on his site:  http://greenstuffindustries.blogspot.com/2012/03/bay-area-open-fat-lady-sings.html

I'm wrapping up the last 3 noise marines to return to Dave now, dreaming up what to spend my $50 on next, and debating on if I just ebay Abaddon since he blows so badly.  Maybe I'll just wait until the new dex though even then I doubt I'll ever use him.  Plus there may be a new and better model by then.

Tomorrow I'll talk about the main 40k Champ event.