The Preferred Enemy

Still a little shocked.

2012-01-29T21:05:00.000-08:00

So tournament was a ton of fun this weekend. I played 5 people I've never played and 5 different dexes as well. I only managed to go 2-3 which was actually what I was thinking would be pretty great for my 1ksons.

But there were some other great looking armies there also, so I was thinking it was going to be a toss up in the end.

Then the result were read out and I was stunned.

** New picture see my notes below.

Like... what? I mean when I didn't get paint (or 2nd best) I was wondering if maybe I got some other booby prize for 'fluffiest army' or something ridiculous like that.

But there you have it, paint, sports, and the player choice 'Fav Army' pulled my sorry ass to the overall top. It was called out and all I could think was 'really' and I started clapping. Then I realized I look like an idiot clapping and tried to graciously accept my gift card.

So there you go. These guys should probably just retire now until a new book comes down the pipe. Dundracon is coming up and I think I'll just take the same 1850 ork list from last year.

But for the Bay Area open I'm really torn now. I'd like to try to win games, but it also has a decent painting compoenent. So this is now the front of my gaming mind currently.

I've grabbed a few pictures and will post some short synopsis of the games throughout the week.

** So it turns out the 5-0 bug player was 300 pt over. Oops. I played him round 2, didn't even think to question his list. I know he was planning on bringing another army and it was all last minute list writing minutes before the tournament. A bit of a bummer on the day, but obviously still fun games. I've put the 'official' result up now rather than my cell picture.

Last Painting Bits

2012-01-27T17:10:00.000-08:00

So I wrapped up a few projects last night. First I finished up Anthony's Libby Dread.

He came out pretty well and there is nice magnet option if we want to change weapons or pull of the sarcophogus to make him a Furioso. Of course that part I did not get to yet.

I also wrapped up the Spawn and cleaned up the display board.

So I'm as ready as I will be now I suppose. Unfortunately I'm sure I'll get murdered most games, worse than ever with the loss of warptime. Oh well, here is hoping I get a great painting score! :)

Just waiting for some games tonight for a last practice game, and also to pull my BT out to look ahead to future events I'm working to get on the calendar.

Bumpy Week, Productive Weekend

2012-01-22T22:16:00.000-08:00

So it has been a bit of a bumpy week. A few challenges at work, plus I've been under the weather and heading to bed by 9 most nights. This hasn't left much room for hobby stuff.

I've also given more thought to the upcoming tournament and I've decided to just play my 1ksons. They will lose horribly more often than not but they look great and I'll hope to score well in painting/win that catagory.

I did have some time this weekend to get a few things under way.

Since settling on my 1ksons I've had a few loose end to tie up on them. For one I picked up some Micro Sol which I've heard really helps with decals. I've gone through the army and added decal to shoulder pads where I can. It looks... meh ok I guess. I'm not 100% sure decals were the right call.

In addition I decided to take those painted cogs I had for the display board and glue them together. Now they look a bit more dynamic and I can use them as objective markers as well!

It is a bit hard to tell in this picture but i'm slowly getting the boxes done. They already had the astro grey, now I'm just hitting them with white. It is a surprisingly slow process.

Anthony also needs a little help to get wrapped up for the tournament. So this weekend I assembled and magnetized his Libby Dread and hit it with primer. My hope is to get him painted up Mon & Tues, apply the dip Wed, then hit him with the sealer and base him on Friday. Certainly pushing it but... well it is what it is.

I also knocked out a real quick and easy display board. I was thinking of looking for some bits to add but I didn't really know how his army would fit so I kept it plain as can be really.

While I was out in the garage I figured I'd just knock out a couple of terrain bits as well. I had gotten both of these with a gift card after xmas.

First we have a pack of craters. This is an easy job of just hitting them with some grey primer and than washing the dip over them. I'll hit them with some clear coat in a few days.

I had also picked up this ruin set as well. I was wondering if I could use it as terrain as well as get it to be part of the display board for the Imperial Fists. I have some time now to figure out how I'd make that work. I had managed to get this assembled during the week. Today I hit it with some rough coat and then primer. I've never used the rough coat before so that will be interesting to see the final result. I want to spend some time painting this before applying dip, so this well be shelved for a bit now.

Last and certainly not least I decided to paint some spawn. With Warptime being kicked in the balls I figure I might as well just have fun and see if I can Gift of Chaos some dudes on the table. That meant needing a few Spawn to have just in case I manage to actually get that off at all. This is not the greatest shot becaue the guys are drying to the bases. I'll grab some better shots (maybe with the lightbox) later in the week after I hit these guys up with some clear coat.

So there you go. I bit of hobbying done this weekend. I've got a bit of work to try to get that dread and the display board finished. I'm not sure if I'll manage a game on Friday, but honestly I'm not sure what good that will do either. Besides I might want the time for any last painting preparations!

Games, Faqs, & Updates

2012-01-16T06:02:00.000-08:00

So even thought I was traveling for work most of last week I've been plodding away at 40k. Two Fridays ago I got some games in with my Imperial Fists. They once again lost to Anthony's BA and I managed a tie in the game pictured above with Dave's bugs thanks to it being just single objective mission.

This last week I decided to bring out my 1ksons and played against Anthony's BA and was just smashed. We even played the missions that are going to be used (Adepticon) but it was no matter. I just can not get that army to perform very well.

Now there are more Faqs put up over the weekend and there is some great stuff in some of those. Sadly for Chaos it is just really more kicking in the balls. Hooray the dread can only fire in 45 degree arc, but warptime now has to roll ALL dice, not just picking and choosing. Lash also has to roll to hit. I guess they were worried that the meta was JUST CRAZY POWERFUL for this horrible chaos codex. I can only imagine. So now warptime is just positively horrible. I'm not sure what to do for my dust buckets now. Maybe try the Spawn power on the Aspiring Sorcerers but no power on the DP. Sigh, who knows, but they are definitely off the table for the tourny at the end of the month.

On the other hand my BA got un Fuq'd if you will. They clarified the whole 'combat squad/reserve' thing which makes DoA good/better again. Also don't need to roll to hit with Blood Lance which makes my libby a little more potent as well.

But the army still isn't doing it for me. The paint job isn't that great, and I guess I could spend a few days trying to clean it up but... meh. Maybe because I know Anthony will bring out his BA I'm just wanting to bring a different army.

So that brings me back to my Imperial fists. I spent last week finsihing up the Speeders.

And now I could pretty much call the army done, though granted I'd like to do some touchups, paint up the rivets on the vehicles, and do the display board.

The only problem is it can't win a game to save it's life.

So I got to talking about it with the boys and I think I'm light on troops and I really need them to 'do something.' Otherwise it's near 400 pts that isn't really helping at all. So I'm now thinking of making a little modification.

First we need to take this out of the army.

It is basically taking away one terminator and one 5 man squad and razorback.

In return I beef out my two remaining squads to 10, give them each a missile, melta, and combi melta. The plan would be to pretty much combat those squads all the time. I lose a razrorback, but I gain two missiles a turn, a little more scoring potential, and some melta for when armor closes in on me.

As an added bonus I had 15 spare points, so I gave the libby a storm shield. Hopefully that will help keep him alive and make that squad that is now one termie less just as survivable.

So late yesterday I started hacking some bits together. The one thing I don't have is combi meltas. After rummaging through the bit box I came up with this.

Not horrible, it kinda has that wonky look that some of these oop models have since it is an OOP bolter and pistol together. The pistol made me think of the infernus pistols on the BA so I figured 'why not?'

I hated to cut the arms of the done sergeants but now the arms are magnetized so I can swap weapons. The paint is a little heavy on these unfortunately but when finished it should look fine.

If I hated to cut the arm off the sarg it was killing me to drill a hole in the libby's arm for a Storm Shield. His arm is so small that the magnet unfortunately protrudes a bit. So when he goes no shield he will have a big blue magnet on his bracer!

I had a number of Storm Shields to choose from but in the end I went with the same OOP shields I used on the termies because it was the smallest. With the arm extended I thought it would be best if I didn't look like I had just added a ton of weight to his arm.

So there you go. I went from 'nearly done' to 'a bit more painting.' I'm hoping to get the 6 guys and the new gear painted this week. That will leave me next week to do the display board and if I have the time paint the rivets.

And if not there are the BA ready and waiting (if not a bit ugly).

Quick Painting Update

2012-01-02T19:23:00.000-08:00

So today was the last day of my time off work for the holiday and I tried to make the most of it.

I had worked on the Predators on Friday night and had those ready for dipping.

The Dreadnoughts I knocked out today and did them in the same dip session.

I also took out my terminators and Libby to get a little more dip on them since they had turned out pretty light since I didn't shake the can so well.

On the other side of the desk I have my new picture frame which will become the Display Board. With it are the rest of the models for the 1500 pt list.

So not bad, just the two speeders left to go! Now just about everything could use some touching up. I'd like to add some yellow highlights on the troops and some mithril silver rivets to the vehicles. I think that would add quite a bit to the overall appearance.

Fist things first for now I'm just going to try to work on those speeders. If I can get those done this weekend that puts me in great shape. Even with me traveling a bit next week I should have plenty of time to knock out the display board, and go through and get some details on the whole army.

Maybe even a few practice games between then and now too!

Terminator LIbrarian Progress

2011-12-29T22:18:00.000-08:00

I wasn't really planning on putting up a post today, but I had some time to put around with a new little light box kit I got for Christmas.

This is my Terminator Librarian that needs to get a little more of the dip. It didn't shade him nearly as much as the other troops, so he and the termies will get another coat when I hit some more vehicles this weekend.

As for the lightbox itself it needs a good clip of room to set up properly, but even doinking around for 10 minutes and I'd say the results I'm getting here are a lot better than past pictures.

Razorbacks and Thoughts

2011-12-28T23:06:00.000-08:00

So I've been working on my Imperial Fists over the holiday. I've pretty much wrapped up the terminators but I'm not happy with the dip (I didn't shake it well enough so it is light) so I'm going to work on those again before I post pictures.

I also knocked out my Razorbacks. Here's some work in progress pictures.

Just the primer color with the silve base.

Certainly the tracks are the most time consuming part of these vehicles. Just trying to get somewhat a complete cover of the wheels and treads is quite a challenge.

A bit further along with some base colors. The white is based with Astronomicon Grey and is later built up with watered down layers (about 7) of white.

Finished basing, and I've added one of the Imperial Fists bits from the many drop pod kits I have.

Another poorly lit shot of the base coat.

And now with the dipping brushed on, dried, and dullcoated.

Another shot. You can see how poorly constructed some of these old models were, but what can you do.

Once I was done with these I saw how light the terminatros were. Over all I'm pretty happy. I may go back later if I ahve time and and some Mithril Silver to highlight and do those rivets.

I also managed three games today! The first two games were with my Imperial Fists, and both were losses. The first game was against a BA list in dawn of war and single objectives. I think I just played it wrong from the begining (chose to go second, deploying poorly).

The second game was against bugs and was 5 objectives and corner deployment. Again I think I deployed poorly (too far forward) and in the end could not kill enough troops and also had the swarmlord on me. I probably should have stayed farther back and tackled those guys first, rather than being up closer and trying to kill the Hive Gaurd.

Then I switched to my BA just to give them a whirl against the same bug list. We decided to play kill points and long objective. I thought I would get creamed this game, and when only 2 of 5 squads came down (and no priests) I fell into my bad habit of vocally saying as much. I should know better. In the end my Godsquad (Sang Gaurd, Libby, Dante, Priest) just started clearing off a good clip of his army, while his Swarmlord didn't end up being as effective this game.

So what does this mean for the tourny? Honestly I don't know. It seems like the BA are indeed better. They are certainly more flexible, and while some hordes may cause issues at 1500 I'm probably not bad off with them. The paint job is just a rush job, but I'm looking at them again and wondering if I can do some highlights and details to get more out of them. But their display base is kinda boring though it is magnetized which is cool. I'm not sure what I can do to spruce it up a bit other than filling in 'objective' type bases for the blank spots.

The Imperial Fists certainly made a poor showing today, but it was my first real time out with them. I think I can learn from these mistakes and get better with them over the next few weeks, but over all it is a pretty straight forward game plan. As has been pointed out they are just an army that stands and shoots, and most people end up building lists thinking 'how do I A) kill marines and B) blow up tanks.' I'm certainly still motivated to knock out the rest of the painting, so I guess we'll see how they look and how a few more games go with them.

Then there's alway my beautiful but uncompetitive 1ksons. I am just not convinced a two day tournament is going to be something I'm going to enjoy going into day 2 after probalby getting mopped up in day 1. They may be better off waiting for the next one day tournament... but they are still an option.

More Troops, First Terminator

2011-12-14T22:44:00.000-08:00

So of course I've been staying busy these last few nights. I've got the base coats on the remaining 14 Marines, dipped them and now they are drying.

I also took my 1st guy and did some basing.

Overall not bad. I see some places I need to touch up, and I think I need another dullcoate to take some shine off.

I think 10 minutes of highlighting might really make the yellow and silver 'pop' but I'm worried about how much time that will add on overall.

My goal is to get the marines wrapped up this week, get the terminators and the libby done before xmas madness, then get the 3 razorbacks done by the new year. I'll have time off so that could be possible, it just depends on how much family time will occur (my guess a lot) and how late I'm willing to stay up some nights (also guessing a few of those).

That would leave first week of Jan for the Dreads, 2nd week for the Speeders, and 3rd week for the Predators. Last week leading up to the event I'll try to get a display board done.

If I can get ahead of schedule at any time that then I'll maybe hop back and hit the marines/termies with I quick highlight coat as well.

Speaking of termies I also sat down to base coat the first trial guy.

I was really tempted to do the 'braces' on the back of the legs in black but again I'm just concerned how much time that will take. I remember doing those on all my 1kson Termies and Oblits and it being a pain in the ass.

The black on the shield certainly took the most amount of patience and time. The black is tricky to get in the gaps, and behind the shield next to the arm without dumping paint all over the body.

I ran this guy out for a dip as well.

With a little luck I'll find time to get the marines based up, and maybe I can pound out the Terminators on the weekend. That would give me next week to get the libby done, and maybe a spare night to get those highlights done across the infantry!

First Trial Imperial Fist

2011-12-13T21:30:00.000-08:00

So this is the first Imperial Fist painted in stages. Not a huge update. Some blurry phone pics I just wanted to snap while not losing steam painting.

This is going to be a very 'rinse and repeat' army. All of these models are Out of Print, and they are all the same pose. So I want a process that is easy to repeat and can be done relatively quickly.

This is the base coat. I found doing the decal I was hoping impossible so I'm giving freehand a go.

This is the dip, I'm using the 'soft' this time instead of the darker tone I used on the Blood Angels.

This is the dullcoatte.

Since doing this guy I've decided to add splash of color to the left knee pad and a freehand arrow on the other shoulder.

I've been busy cranking out the rest of the troops, hoping to get them done this week.

It's pretty simple. It looks... eh, ok I guess. Not sure what I'm really hoping for of course. Maybe when I get the troops based it will look a bit better.

I think I'm going to try a broken concrete type of 'ruined city' base this time. With this thought I'll go for a kind of display base that is more city/hive warzone which should be a new challenge for me.

More pics to come soon.

Of Tournies & Motivation

2011-12-12T21:04:00.000-08:00

So another few weeks of not much going on at all. I haven't been able to get a game in, but it doesn't help that I just spent 8 days out of the country as well. I've tried to squeeze in some painting, but I just can't get motivated to finish Borka.

Here he is pretty much base coated. I really should finish him. I should. I just need to push through it. Yet I can't seem to get him done.

When I don't get games in I just don't feel like painting. For one I'm busy, and it also takes more effort than, say, watching DVR'd stuff or playing a video game.

In fact is seems like, when looking over these last few years, the thing that really drives me to getting painting done is tournaments. They end up giving me a goal and pushing me to really time table out plans and get things done.

Of course with no tournaments these last few months motivation has been low.

So I'm glad to see the LGS has a two day tournament coming up at the end of Jan. Normally two day events are hard to do with the family, but I've been so busy with family functions (and will continue to be for the holidays of course) that I've lobbied a bit with the wife to get this on the calender. Hooray!

Now this is a 1500 pt tournament which is not my favorite point level, but what can you do I suppose. There will be a best general, a sportsman award, a best painting, and a 'overall' best score. So this is really exciting to me as I feel like while I have a shot at any one of these categories on a good day, I can usually muster a nice overall score as well. There is a nice painting score sheet so you can kinda guess where you'll end up, but thing like display base are things that are not the normal for the LGS!

Of course the real question is what army do I take?

I don't think I'll go xenos. My Tau are still feeling very underwhelming, and my orks are really built out for 1850. I could maybe scale them back but... I just think the list I have works at 1850 and cutting anything out really makes the whole thing horrible.

So that means marine options!

Blood Angels Jumpers

Blood Angels Jumpers at 1500 is certainly a viable option. I've basically cut out my 5 man assault squad and trimmed my Vanguard Vets to 5 guys that are fairly well equipped. I think it keeps the feel of the army from 1850, though I got to say looking at that picture is a little underwhelming.

Need to paint: Nothing! The army is ready to go!
Display Board: Well it exists... it is nothing special. I have some missing holes that I could fill in with maybe some plant life on bases to make it more interesting... but even then it is not so speical.
Overall Army Look: Honestly I think this is my least favorite painted army. Sure I did it fast and as a whole they look ok. I'm actually amazed how well the dipping came out on them, especially the Sang Gaurd. Still this is definately not my best foot forward on painting!
Competitiveness: Well I think it is pretty good, but I think it has just horrible matches also. Armies like Grey Knights might just own these guys, and I'm not sure how other new books like DE and Necrons would do.

So basically not a lot of work, probably pretty good army to play, though my least favorite looking of the bunch.

Black Templar Mech

So moving away from my pod list (which I think jumpers BA can do... well, better) would be looking at a mechanized Templar force. I haven't really played these guys in a mech style since the updated faq. Some things hurt now (can't cheat the Righteous Zeal, using new smoke) but some things are now pretty rocking (Assault Termies got even better, Land Speeder Tornados are ridiculously cheap).

The above list looks something like:
Champ, AACNMTO
Marshal with Claws x3, 4+ invul, Term Honors
5 Assault Termies (2 TH/SS)
7 Marines/2 Scouts, melta, fist, Rhino w/ Smoke & EA
7 Marines/2 Scouts, melta, fist, Rhino w/ Smoke & EA
5 Marines/1 Scout, Lascannon, Plasma Gun
LS Tornado
LS Tornado
LRC, Smoke, Blessed Hull

Need to paint: 1 Speeder, and the Missiles for the 2nd Speeder
Display Board: Again a display board exists. I think I could spruce it up with some ruins and craters.
Overall Army Look: I'm always a little torn on my Templar. I think they look nice, but they are in some ways sloppy (a lot of the marines are repaint jobs). Also a lot of people think painting the black and white is easy. I think they look better than my BA, but I'm afraid that is just really a matter of opinion.
Competitiveness: Honestly I have no idea. I'm guessing probably not so much. I think it lacks enough ranged threat and I'm counting on my marines in the two rhinos to do an awfully lot. I seem to recall they always end up dying and there goes my scoring potential. I think I've got a thing for wanting to use a LRC with Blessed Hull just to annoy some DE players, but probably that is 25 pts mispent. Hell the whole list is probably a total disaster, and it would only take a practice game or two to realize it.

So probably a list that is probably only to win 1/2 the games out there, looks ok, and not a ton of work to get ready.

Thousand Sons

Ah my 1ksons. The army I made to score as best I could on painting scores. If the new dexes really come I'm praying to my Tzeentch alter that these guys can be made competitive so they can really kick ass. I haven't played in a tourny yet with them, and I think it would be nice to do so before 6th/new dex. If only to see my paint score and how badly they do!

From my 1850 I basically dropped one rhino and one squad, but maxed out the two remaining, and dumped the two preds. I think I'd run the 3 oblits solo and just go for crazy deep strikes off of icons.

Need to paint: Nothing!
Display Board: Certainly my best display board. I still need to actually paint the checkerboard white (it is currently grey) and I could do a few tricks to really kick this up to prime time.
Overall Army Look: Like I mentioned this is my best shot to taking painting. There are conversions, there's freehand, and there's just a level of detail way beyond my other armies. Of course all it takes for one master painting to come in and knock me off the top.
Competitiveness: Total. Utter. Rubish. It is a bad list and a bad dex. Every game would be a struggle to win. Hell I didn't even try to make as good of a list at 1500 as I could. Chaos Dread? Ya it is all about having a great looking list, so if I won even 2 games it would probably be a miracle.

So I guess this comes down to wanting to show off my painting skill, playing for fun, and knowing that I'm not going to win a damn thing unless everyone shows up with armies not as well painted as mine.

But there was a point to this post beyond me rambling about armies. It was about tournaments and motivation.

Over the last few months I've continued collecting OOP models to fill in YET ANOTHER ARMY. yes I have a sickness, I can't help myself. It has just been on the back burner, but I've got it all collected now, and it is assembled and primered. If I kick it into gear and use the tournament as motivation I could possibly bring...

Imperial Fists Thunderbubble

Hooray for silly internet names for lists. This is the 1850 army I've assembled. Essentially I could trim the three troop squads to the absolute min, and drop a few termies. I've played the proxy version of this list once a few months ago at 1850 and it did put out an amazing amount of fire power, and a big mob of TH/SS termies are still no joke either.

Need to paint: Everything! I'm on crack!
Display Board: Nope! I need to build that too!
Overall Army Look: Who knows! My plan is to dip these guys but I've learned quite a bit from doing the BA. I think I could make them look good, better than the BA, maybe even better than the Templar. Still nothing dipped will looks as sweet as the 1ksons.
Competitiveness: Well I'm not to sure really. I think it has a lot of merit still. It's a lot of chasis on the table for the point level (9) and has a good clip of ranged fire power. Enough TH/SS termies to be a threat to almost anything that wants to close. It is just really really like in the troop department.

Could I paint all that in 7 weeks? Well I could try? And a display board? Eh... who knows! But even if I don't I could always move to the other armies. I figure about two weeks before hand I can make that call and see if I press on, or if I jump to one of the other 3 and get them into shape.

All I know is I'm excited about undertaking a new project, I can't wait to get going, and am looking forward to doing a tournament!

Now if only I could score some 1500 pt practice...

Wow long post...

Earthborn Dire Troll Painted

2011-11-20T18:07:00.001-08:00

I know I have not been posting much, but as always this time of year is hectic. Never mind having small children and having to travel more than normal for work, now we can add the holidays in to just make sure that I wont get much gaming done anytime soon.

I have however been trying to get painting done even though my motivation has been fairly low. That and video games are still really compelling when I'm exhausted at the end of the day.

Either way here is one more Dire Troll complete. I think the Bomber turned out better truth be told. He was much smoother in the blending, and despite my efforts to try to work more brown/grey into the skin I think the Earthborn looks.. chunkier.

Not that chunky looks bad from a ways away. I'm sure if you just look at these pictures the contrast of colors in the skin and on the rocks really stand out on the model. But when you look closely (or make these pictures bigger) you can really see that the blending of the skin did not come out smooth enough, and the rocks is... well let's just say it wasn't quite the way I imagined it would turn out when I started.

So this is another model I'm calling done, but maybe later I'll come back and smooth him out a little. Of course I say that but then again I think I know I'd rather work on newer models.

So I think it's on to Borka next. Maybe I can get him and his keg carrier done by the end of November. Then I could bounce to Grim to have that 3rd 15 pt option. Then I'll move on to getting both casters up to 25 points.

And how knows, maybe I'll get a game in sometime before the end of the year!

Stone Scribe Elder, New Plans

2011-11-06T17:43:00.000-08:00

So I finished up the Stone Scribe Chorincolor over the weekend.

I'd say he's ok. There are a few bit I'm not happy with but I just wasn't feeling this model really. I think it shows a bit. I got a little lazy on the scrolls, which could maybe be made to look like various worn leathers to add some character and depth. I, however, was lazy and just went with metallics. From the front it looks fine. From the back I think he looks boring.

Even still this guy ended up taking two weeks to paint. Again part of that was me not being horribly motivated, but the other part was some Batman: Arkham City action. What can I say, I still like playing video games more than painting!

This does complete my Gunny 25 pt list, but I'm a little behind my whole plan of getting Gunny's 35 point list done by the end of the year.

Of course now I've totally thrown that plan out the window.

After the number of games I played the other weekend I have decided that rather than pushing for 35 points I'll just build up a few other 15 pt lists first. For one I found we did a lot of small point games, and I think we'll probably end up doing more small ones going forward. Next I just don't see tournaments in my near future (both for lack of them being held as well as my busy schedule). And lastly because once I knock out these other 2 15 point lists going to 25 for either is pretty much near done as well.

Borka
Impaler
Earthborn Dire Troll
Fennblades Min
15 pts

Grim Angus
Slag Troll
Earthborn Dire Troll
Impaler
15 pts

This basically means I need to get the two casters painted and the EBDT. I know Gunny at 15 pts isn't thrilling, so that might be two decent lists to toy around with once they are done.

From there I can go back to getting the Fellcaller, the Chronicolor and the Fenn's UA and have 3 good 25 pt lists I think. I'll probably have to do some tweaking, but it would be nice to have that wrapped up by the new year.

Stone Scribes Painted

2011-10-26T17:43:00.000-07:00

So life has been quite busy as of late. I've spent almost two weeks on the road so that has left very little time for... well anything.

I did manage to finish up my Stone Scribes before leaving for my work trip last week.

They fit in nicely with the Krielstone Bearer, and now I just need to finish up the Stone Scribe Elder hopefully this week. That should pretty much keep me on pace for finishing 35 points by year end.

Last weekend I got a ton of games in for Warmachine/Hordes as we had basically 2 days of 'they boys' all hanging out to play games. We played 3 40 k games, but I probably got about 10 games with my Trolls.

I think I only played 1 25 point game with Gunny, and probably 3-4 35 point games with Gunny also. The rest were 15 point games which I just decided to run Borka.

I likey Borka.

Of course this kind of makes me question my painting progress. I'd like to get this 35 points done, but at the same time that pretty much leaves Borka off the painting table until the new year. I'm now questioning if I instead wrap up the Chronicoler since that would be 25 pts for Gunny, then move on to a Borka based list.

Not that it matters for much as there is nothing I'm shooting to really be done by or for, which is kind of depressing in and of itself.

Oh well, I'll just keep painting and see what shakes.

Kreilstone Bearer Painted, What's Left?

2011-10-02T16:23:00.000-07:00

So another week and I've got one guy to show for it. I decided to do the Kreilstone Bearer since I had still had him in pieces since I figured it would be easier to paint with the stone off the trollblood.

More crappy photography.

I was a little lazy with the green glow on the the stones but with so many runes I wanted to do something quick. In the end it isn't bad, not as great as blending but, meh, I wasn't going to blend every rune.

So what do I have left now? Well to get my Gunnbjoun list to 35 I have exactly 13 guys left. Oddly there are exactly 13 weeks of the year left. So in a very low benchmark I should be aiming for a guy a week. Now the wrench is I travel for 3 of those weeks, but maybe I can make it up with some holiday time or by getting a couple grunts done in one week.

First up I need to get through the rest of the Krielstone squad. That's my first task.

The I'll probably move on to the Stone Scribe Eldar as that puts my 25 point list to bed. Once done with that I'll have two solos left to get to 35 (the Chronicolor and the Fell Caller) but I might save these to mix in with...

The remaining Fellblades and the UA. This I'm really not looking forward to as I've already knocked 6 down and another 4 don't sound fun. At least by mixing in the UA and the other solos hopefully getting the last 13 guys done to get to 35 by the New Year will be a manageable feat.

2011-09-20T08:15:00.000-07:00

So I've returned home from another long week of travel and I did manage to finish up the min Fennblades over the weekend.

It has been slow going on these guys but the results are pretty nice and it isn't like I'm in a huge rush to get them done I suppose. I'm not sure when I'll feel ready to pull these out at a tournament type event.

It does feel like forever since I've made a tournament of any sort. It is just life right now be crazy, but hopefully soon I'll be able to get out a bit and get some gaming done.

I also picked up the Space Marine game that launched right as I left for my trip. It was a fun play though it was a bit short (8 hours) for my taste. I think they captured the world of 40k and many of the intricacies very well. The story was nice if not a bit predictable. I will say hacking apart hordes or orks was both satisfying and eventually tiring, but I think that also oddly fits well with the feeling that an ork invasion would be like! Like I said it was a fun play (despite having to be an Ultramarine) and I hope they can put out some more of these games now that the mechanics of it are in place. It would be great to play as other chapters and have some great stories played out in this format!

2011-09-06T07:14:00.000-07:00

Sorry that picture is a bit fuzzy, I snapped these on the way out the door this morning.

A good clip of work done on the min Fennblades unit. I knew I wanted to at least get all the washes done this weekend, but I actually got into some of the highlighting and blending as well.

I need to do some more work highlighting the armor, working on the gold, highlight the leathers, attempt to add some highlights to the tartan stripes, and get details like teeth, claws and rope.

I might get some time tonight, but I doubt I'll finish before leaving again for travel for work.

Slow going on the hobby front

2011-08-30T08:01:00.000-07:00

I know it has been awhile since I've posted and as you can see I haven't made much progress on my painting. I'd like to get more time in but it just hasn't been lately. I was down in Brazil for 5 days last week, and I'll be traveling again shortly so... this may be awhile.

I did manage two games last Sat with the trolls. I took a new 35 pt gunny list.

Captain Gunnbjorn

* Slag Troll

* Troll Impaler

* Dire Troll Bomber

Krielstone Bearer and 3 Stone Scribes

* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder

Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts)

* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer

Fell Caller Hero

Stone Scribe Chronicler

I played against a 'you can't shoot me' everblitght lilith list and against khador. The Everblight game was long and drawn out, and a lucky scatter from the Bomber was able to get the last few wounds on Lilith. If that had failed I think my attrition rate was about to catch up with me. The Khador game was much quicker, I think the top of my turn 3 I was able to pounce on his exposed caster. This was my first 'mission' game where we played killbox, and that factored in to his need to advance into my striking range.

In both games the actually ground the Fennblades can cover made huge differences. I expect that I'm not going to catch players more than one time with their incredible striking distance! But they certainly add a lot to the list, and for the 10 points of the big 12 man squad I can see why many trollblood players like them. Even going min squad with the UA is still a great unit.

That's not to say they aren't without their issues. It is easy to get into traffic jams with that many medium sized bases. They also get that one turn of running like mad and hitting like a truck, but after that you'll find they just fall apart pretty easily. So knowing when to push with them is I think the key.

Anyway I'm hoping to get more painting done and more games. My wife starts bowling again on Fridays next month so that will mean some time for hobby be it playing or painting!

Slag Troll Complete

2011-08-14T14:55:00.000-07:00

Wrapping up my first 15 points is my slag troll. I decided to do him in the more traditional blue, but use the rust effects on the skin around the metal slags.

Not much to say other than I'm happy with him. Some of the muscle tone turned out excellent, and I'm really happy with the rust effect and how that helped pull the model together well.

I did have a bit of an issue during the dullcoating in that the model got hit with sprinklers while drying. I was freaking out when I first saw him with a white filmy coat! It turned out another hit of dullcoate took care of the bulk of the issues, plus some black paint on the base. The 'grass' is a bit darker because of it all but overall the model is no worse for wear thankfully.

I'm now moving on to the units. I've decided to tackle the min Fennbaldes unit next. I've just spend 5 hours on these guys and I'm not even done with basecoats. Granted what's left is basically metal... but this is clearly going to take a ton more time than the single models action of the first 15 points.

Space Wolves vs Marines 1850

2011-08-11T22:12:00.000-07:00

So a few weekends ago I also brought my 40k along in case people wanted to play 40k. I don't have anything to really 'practice' for and I thought people might want to run an 'Ard Boyz practice.

So rather than playing one of my armies I figured it was a good time to bust out just a very generic marine army. I have plenty of stand in proxies if you can deal with armless dreads and terminators, rhinos as razorbacks, and mismatched paint jobs.

As it turned out I got my 3 Trollblood games, but my buddy Dave had his 1850 Space Wolves. So busted out this vanilla marine force for him to square up against.

Libby- Null Zone, Gate

10 TH/SS Termies

Dread- 2x TL Autocannons

10 Tac Marines, Melta, Missile, Las/Plas Razorback

Typhoon Speeder

Auto/HB Pred

I don't recall Dave's list well so I wont even try. I also am not going to do great on details here but I do have a few pics to help out the general way this battle unfolded.

We rolled up long table edge and kill points. As I planned to combat squad all my tac squads I certainly had more to lose that Dave. He won the roll off and setup and went first.

Here's the deployment. He's tucked in his corner, I'm tucked in mine. I've got the Termies as 'forward' as I wish while providing some bubble from his drop pod with terminators that will come down turn one.

Dave's turn one and he puts his termies down a bit off to the right and it scatters a little. He hides the termies behind the pod. I've managed to put some good distance between most of his long fangs, but with Logan the get relentless and can move a bit so most fire. He manages to immobilize one razorback and one dread. Not bad for me.

My turn and the shooting unloads. Man it is a lot of shots, seeing it go to town we were both pretty impressed with the volume of fire the list outputs. I beleive at the end of my turn I had exploded one razorback, exploded his drop pod, wrecked a rhino, immobilized and stunned a vindicator, and killed a few marines from the razorback.

The one 'what was I thinking' move was running terminators into cover. YAY please give me that cover save on my 3++ termies. Dur.

Dave's turn 2 was spectacularly bad. He basically had to focus fire on the advancing termies, and I made every save thrown at me. It wasn't a huge volume of fire, but enough 3++ saves that I should have certainly failed one or two.

My turn 2 and the shooting continues, with very little movement aside from my advancing termintors. I figured this time putting the front guys in terrain in case he charged with his Lone Wolves. My shooting was a little less spectacular. I think I shook his immobilized vindi, cleared off his small marine unit, and killed a few of his termies.

Dave's turn 3 and this time his shooting is able to put some more rapid fire and combi plasma into the terminators, killing a 4 of them. He also gets one long shot off to pop one of my predators.

My turn 3 and I decide to change strategies. I move my termies off to deal with his remaining terminatros. I can't make the assault so I just run toward them. Much of my other shooting was floppish.

Dave's turn 4 and his terminators turn tail and run away from me. His Lone Wolves advance. I've moved up my speeders to try to get shots and he shakes one of them.

My turn 4 and I change my mind again. I charge my termies into his Lone wolf and we each kill one thing and push. I think I maybe stun a vehicle or two of his. I think I also redirected some lascannon fire onto his termies killing one.

Dave's turn 5 and he pops one of my speeders. Combat also goes better for him killing two of my termies to his one wolf, and my termies flee away from him. Not much else this turn.

My turn 5 and my termies are far enough away to regroup. I shoot his last terminator dead. Maybe I shake his hiding razorback. I think I must have popped his vindi finally also.

We roll for turn 6 and it goes on. Dave shoots and charges my termies and somehow manages to kill them off finally. His long fangs also get a nice advance and with Logan's relentless the manage to explode both a razorback and a dread.

I think my last shooting was pretty ineffective but the game ends regardless.

Dave has killed a speeder, my termies, one pred, one dread, and one razorback for 5 kp.

I've killed a drop pod, a rhino, a razorback, one tact squad and a vindi for 5 kp. The game winner for me are his two loan wolves, who are still alive and ergo give me the winning two killpoints.

It was a fun game that started strong for me but kind of puttered off in the end. The list itself is relatively boring to play as it's mostly a sit and shoot and target priority kind of list. I think it has merit in bringing out every once in awhile as bench mark for other people to run up against.

For me I have a few old 2nd edition vehicles, and all the old marines and terminators to actually make this a real army. I'd need a few more vehicles and some bits to really put this army on the table. I'm very tempted to craft it up as a heresy style army. It couldn't really be preheresy since all he marines are eagle emblemmed, unless I decided to go Emperor's Children. But 'heresy era' might work since I believe they broke out the eagle emblem armor during the siege of terra to distinguish the loyalist from the traitors...

Something to think about and to poke around ebay for cheap bits and vehicles from back in the day.

But Trollbloods are certainly still my main focus currently.

Gunnbjorn Painted

2011-08-07T16:32:00.000-07:00

So I finally spent some time this weekend to finish up Captain Gunnbjorn.

Looking at him now and I don't think I've got his skin quite as bright as I do on the other two trolls. I think this is largely because I didn't have a really bright section like the belly which ends up getting quite a bright blue to my pallete that I end up picking some other spots of the brow and arms.

So I might go back later and drop a few more highlights later.

But for now I'll call him done. I was prety happy with the way the green uniform came out with the tan trim. I was concerned but it came out well, as did my concern the gun would look two boring with only silver and gold. Enough washes and highlights make it interesting enough without it looking like to much is going on over there.

So moving along a bit, I've got reinforcements I think arriving tomorrow, and have quite a bit to paint in the meantime!

3 More Trollblood Games

2011-08-01T22:23:00.000-07:00

So Saturday a few of the guys got together for some gaming. I took down some 40k and my trollbloods as different folks had different bits to play. I did get one 40k game in which I have some pictures and will do up a little report later this week.

I also got three trollblood games. I didn't take pictures as I was pretty absorbed in trying to learn the game. There are plenty of things we've/I've done wrong so any kind of report is really not so helpful.

The first game was 15 points against Anthony's Protectorate army.

Gunnbjorn
Impaler
Slag
Bomber

The next two games were against Jason's 25 pt Retribution and then his 25 pt Blindwater.

So for those I added:
Whelps
10 Bushwackers

Now for those of you who don't play yet or don't know the armies let me point a few things out for you.

My army is a shooting army. That's how I've built it, and it (on paper) looks like it has some decent output.

The Menoth Army casts a 'you can't target me with your guns' spell.

The Retribution Army is basically all stealthed, meaning you can't shoot it from more than 5" away (more or less).

And the Blindwater has abilities that can pretty much also always make them 'untargetable' by guns.

So as you can imagine I was wooped pretty badly all three games. Sure I still learned the rules better and am 'thinking' more about how armies are put together.

But overall I was disapointed. Not really because I lost, but because it was my first real taste that the game system isn't necessarily nirvana. The idea of 'just play the models you want' sounds great but if you do you'll certainly find plenty of bad matchups. Am I shocked necessarily, well no, I guess not.

I can now see obvious flaws in both my current list, and truth be told I think with the warlock I've chosen. The problem my caster has is he really works well when you can get those 3 or 4 shooty beasts in there to take advantage of his synergies.

However at small point games that doesn't leave a lot for other things, and if you think taking an all ranged army is going to work it just isn't. There appear to be plenty of things to keep multiple armies from being shot, pretty much at all.

So what does this mean for me exactly? Well I'm trying to figure that out still. On the one hand I am really happy with the models I've painted, and I like what I've got in hand, but my motivation for painting is currently low. I think going to 35 points I can add in some tarpit unit, or a melee beatstick, or some much needed support.

I think taking a look at my 25 point list I need to cut the bushwackers, and maybe the whelps, and also add some of the above.

I think gunnbjorn at 15 pts is pretty much a big fat waste unless maybe your doing Tooth and Claw or another scenario type maybe.

So even before this I had been thinking of picking up another caster. I was thinking Angus for awhile, but I think he might be my 3rd guy as he kind of blends shooty with CC. I think instead I'll just go Borka and build out a CC list. By the time I have that filled out picking up Grim will probably mean I've got plenty of options already in the toolbox.

So some things I was thinking about for my gunnbjorn lists as options were as follows: Earthborn Dire Troll, Fennblades w/ UA, and the Kriel Stone Bearer with the Stone Scribe Elder. This will give me some options to 35, and quite honestly could take me up to 50 also. We're talking about a $100 investment, not so bad.

So now taking a look at what I would have in the box I thought I'd take a look at what it would take to make a list for pimp daddy Borka.

I mean the guy has a fur collar and a keg carrier...

First 25 points:

Borka
Slag
EBDT

Min Fennblades w/ UA
KSB + Stone Scribe
Fell Caller Hero

So wow, we're talking one $12 guy I'd need beyond Borka himself and my addons for the Gunny list. Sure, I could see how an Axer might fit better than the slag but I think this is still pretty workable.

So what do I add to go to 35 points?

Pyre Troll
Make the min Fennblades Max
Stone Scribe Chronicler

So I beleive the Fennblades come in the box maxed, so we're talking another $12 for the Chronicler.

So basically for about $50 I can make my toolbox now be a CC oriented army, assuming I was willing to spend that nex $100 to bump the list anyway to go to 35-50.

I know you'll be shocked to learn I'm adding to cart...

No Tabletop Gaming Happening

2011-07-25T20:57:00.000-07:00

Yep, for the first time in a long time where I havne't had much table top aciton going on really. No big games to plan for, no big projects I'm pressed to finish. Hell, it feel like I haven't even really played a 40k tournament in who knows how long.

Ard boyz is approaching but I might not be able to swing it with the family. I've got some time this Sat and have reached out to folks for games of 40k or warmahordes. I have put a few dabs of paint on my warcaster but progress is slow.

And this is (mostly) what is to blame:

It's a few months old now and I remember it was riddled with technical problems at launch. I thought I would give it a chance a week ago and I've been pretty hooked. It did take some work to get my system happy with the game, but I've easily sunk plenty of hours into so far. I think I'm close to finishing, but I think this game has a massive replay value as two entire acts of the game sound like they unfold completely differently.

So things may be quite around these parts for a bit to come...

Painted Dire Troll Bomber

2011-07-17T22:02:00.000-07:00

So a keen observer might have noted I did have my Dire Troll Bomber well underway in the painting process for last weekends games. It was just a base coat, but this weekend I found the time to finish him.

I'm pretty happy with him. I think the skin tones didn't get blended as nicley as they did on the Impaler but taken as a whole he looks fine.

The fire came out ok, I can't recall if I've ever tried to paint fire for a long long time. I actually hopped around the net to see how people went at it and used some tips for my own home brew. I was tempted to try to go for some glow effect but I don't think I've got quite the tallent and I don't really want to screw him up now that he is 'done.'

So with that I should probably jump to the warcaster next I suppose!

First Three Trollblood Games

2011-07-15T23:32:00.000-07:00

So I got some games in last weekend with the Trollbloods at long last. I had a great time, but Monday morning I was basically off to LA for the week so I hadn't been able to do any updates.

At this point I've pretty much forgotten all my games details, but I have some pictures I might as well put up for view.

First I played pats Khador. This was a great fun game that basically seemed to come down to me trying to shoot him down before he could close in with me.

Things went pretty well for me and I was able to get a little assassination run in to kill his caster once I took the Jack out of the way he was hiding behind.

Next I played Eric's Everblight and as it worked out we ended up on the same table and same side for me so these pictures look awfully similar.

His whole army was more or less stealthed and had a longer range than I did. This meant I was chasing him around the board trying to hit him with my blast templates while he plinked off my trolls.

As it turns out it was fairly close. I think this picture is the end of my turn where I just missed badly to try to get his caster, but I was also running out of fury with no more beasts.

Eric's next turn one of his beasts went crazy, but the two shots he could take just took me to 0 on the spot. Had I been able to keep gunny up I just might have been able to take him down, but maybe not. It was still a great game.

I did get one more game but I have no pictures. It was late, I was tired, and I really got spanked hard. It was kind of one of those games we expected to get eventually. "Oh I didn't know you could do that. Oh I didn't know you had that. Oh I see why that was an incredibly bad idea on my part." So ya, there were certainly plenty of lessons learned but the game was very brief by the standards of the other two games.

So I'm looking forward to other games, and am busy plotting the next acquisitions and building bigger and alternative lists.

Dire Troll Bomber Underway

2011-07-05T22:21:00.000-07:00

I hope evryone had a great holiday weekend. I was quite busy between home improvement projects, BBQs, the fair, and family time. So much so that very little of any hobby type activity took place.

I had a brief hour to start with some painting on the Dire Troll Bomber, and I just spent another hour or so getting some more paint on the model.

Basically all I've really managed is to get all the basecoat down with the exception of the skin. Of course the skin takes up a majority of this model. I think the skin basecoat will go on quick, and then I can work up the colors for that. Then I'll bounce back to these other details with the washes and blending to finish him up over the next week.

The downside is I was really looking forward to getting some games this week but life seems to have other plans. So that is quite the bummer, and I'm struggling to even find time to play a one off game. I know this particular time of crazy busy work and balancing the new baby and toddler (and wife really) needs should be temporary. Work will ebb and flow on the busy/slower side, and the kids will require a bit less of the constant hand holding from the wife and I. Of course you can't help but wonder if this is just how life is going to be from now on regardless.

Hopefully over the next month or two some balance of family/work/personal time will rise to the surface but for now the later of those seems to be completely out the window. I don't mind being busy with these things as they are all obviously important, but it is wearing when you find no time to sit down and unplug yourself.

First Trollbloods Painted

2011-06-29T21:26:00.001-07:00

So Sunday I decided to sit down and start on the Trollbloods as my next painting project. I've satiated my 40k painting for awhile, and fantasy seems to have stalled, so they seem like the best project to pick up next even though I've yet to play a game with Trollbloods and have no idea when I'll find the time.

I had done a bit of research on painting trollbloods online, and even picked up the the P3 Trollblood paint set. Still I wasn't sure I wanted to jump straight into on of the larger beasts, so to start with I picked out a small troll whelp to test some colors.

This guys is a little smaller than a GW goblin. I mostly wanted to experiment with the skin tones.

Between the experimentation and the scale of the model I find he looks a little blotchy. The main problem I had was I found the Trollblood Base color is nowhere near as blue as many of the Trollblood minis look in the books.

So with some experimentation done, and feeling like I had a pretty good grasp on how I was going to tackle the blending and color scheme I decided to start on the Troll Impaler.

So here you can see the blending of the skin tones came out much better with a little more practiced hand and certainly it helps working on a larger model.

One other thing I tried to work out was that there was a lot of leather/cloth on this model. I wanted to not look like he was just wearing one color, which is something I feel like my orks suffer from a bit. So I went for three different shades- a dark brown leather for the 'kilt', a more red leather for the spear holder and straps, and a lighter cloth for the arm/foot/spear wrappings. The dark brown and the red are the only thing I'm not so sure about in that they seem still to be really close on the color wheel. I kinda feel like they should stand out/apart more but... I'm not going back now!

This is the first time I've combined my two most common metal techniques. Either I usually use my dirty wash (the 'Smoke' from Vallejo) or I use a normal black wash. This time I used them both, and with a little trial and error I think the result came out pretty well. I still used my normal Mithril Silver to highlight the armor.

Also this is the best shot to see the purple to red blending of the... uh, is that hair? I'm not sure. Anyway I liked this coloring that I've seen on some of the other Trolls so I decided to go with it on the Impaler rather than the darker blue PP shows.

Chickens amuse me. Though I'm not sure if they really are chickens for scale purposes. Really large turkeys maybe? Anyway it is still amusing.

I decided to go with the same basing that I've used on my orks. It is simple and efficient and I think the end result looks great.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the Troll Impaler. There is always room for improvement but I think once I get a few more done it will be a nice looking force to put on the table. Of course I still need to find that mythical time to get them on the table for a game.

In the meantime I just need to decide if I want to go into the larger Troll Bomber model next, or jump straight into my warcaster Gunnbjorn!

Sat 6.18 Game 3

2011-06-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

So this is now a week old news. I've got the pictures, but I'm sure my memory is going to be spotty at best so apologies now for any gaping holes or inaccuracies.

Andy brought a new twist on his Blood Angels. I don't think I ever looked over his list so this is sketchy at best but it was something like this:

Death Company Tycho
Chaplain
Sang Priest
Sang Priest on bike
8 Death Company w/ assorted gear
10 Tact marines in Razorback
10 Tact marines in Razorback
7 Bikes + 1 Attack Bike
Land Raider Redeemer

I remember the mission was dawn of war, I think the game was a kill point variant maybe. There were some other special rules I think but none really came into play that I now recall.

I deployed my 30 man squad central and spread, but enough to try to push his deployment back a bit. He deployed two combat squad of guys with missile launchers.

My turn one and I roll on the table. What little shooting I have is still enough to down a few marines.

Andy's turn one and he rolls on the board. His shooting downs a few orks and a buggie explodes.

My turn 2 and there is some advancing going on and some more shooting. I think I immoblized his razorback, and maybe stunned it also. I think on the far left flank I was plinking at that razorback and combat squad as well. Not a hugely impressive turn.

If you thought my turn 2 was unimpressive Andy's followed suit. Bikes advanced, and shooting commenced. More of my big ork mob died but they were still holding tight.

My turn 3 and some real connection at last. My shooting put a pretty good hurt on the bikes, but I also charged him with the ard boyz and sluggas. The net result was my actually winning combat and the last two bikes routing. I kept the 'ard boys close enough to keep the bikes routing and tried to keep Ghaz's wagon protected from being hit with the LRR and Death Company doom.

I'm missing a picture of Andy's turn 3. In a nut shell Tycho and friends munched on the remains of the Ard boyz after the LRR flamed a good clip of boyz. That sums up his turn nicely.

My turn 4 and Ghaz's battlewagon makes the LRR explode. I also shot his badly immobilized land raider to death. Ghaz and manz engage Tycho and put a lot of hurt on, and I think I lost a Manz (I had called the waagh). I think my sluggas also charged and killed a combat squad.

Andy's turn 4 and there isn't much doing. He's got one Razorback that I think has no gun. He's got a dude with a missile launcher who runs up like a crazy man trying to hit a BW in CC to no avail. His last combat squad engages my sluggas. They actaully kill a pretty good number, but are reduced to just one guy after i swing. The death company squad are able to pop of the last manz with fists, but the manz go down swinging with Ghaz's encouragement to wipe out his death company squad.

At this point we call it a game. This just ended in a big fat route. I lost my manz, Ard boyz, and a buggie. He had two marines and a razroback. The deployment didn't help him as I certainly had more range threat with the lootas, and in this build I actually could choose most of my CC as well.

Still we had a good time and it was the end to a long evening of hanging out with the guys.

Sat 6.18 Game 2.5

2011-06-23T22:15:00.000-07:00

So Dave and I lined up for another game and pulled some new cards from the mission deck. I think this one worked out to be split forces (put 1/2 your army in one 1/6 square and 1/2 in another) and single objectives in each deployment zone and one in the center. If I recall it was actually a killpoint game but the objectives were worth 2 kp each.

I won roll off and started with again all my sloggers on the far right quadrant. Dave put his princes, defilers, and dread in the far left quadrant. I put my mech in the left quadrant (you had to be 18" away), and he put the rest in the right quadrant.

My turn 1 and I advanced a bit of my slgoggers. I swung my buggies and wagons to the right center, as there was little point to duking it out on the left hand side of the board. My Kans do go after one defiler and it explodes. I think my buggies stunned his Dreadnought. I think my lootas shot at his rhinos and they wiffed + cover for not much action.

Dave's turn 1 and his winged Dp jumped behind a dread and his slogging one ran to get some cover behind a white pillar. His defiler advanced and popped one kan. Something also popped a missile off of a buggy.

On the right hand side one unit of noise marines hopped out advanced, and shot up my shoota boyz to bits basically. I think thy charged them to finish them off and lost three guys for the effort. Their rhino advanced up with them (it must have been shaken). His other rhino navigates around to stay near his objective and his termies and oblits advance up a bit.

My turn 2 I continue to shuffle my wagons up, but also try to a bit of blocking to keep the princes off my lootas. My kans are able to destroy the other defiler (their 3rd defiler kill in two games). One lootas sqaud made is rhino full of noise marines explode. The other lootas and sluggas took the noise marines down to being just the champ. My rokkits from the sluggas squad shook his other empty rhino.

Dave's turn 2 and his greater daemon comes down. Rather than put him in the backfield he replaces his lone champ who is unfortunately still out of assault range. His oblits still can't get through the BWs, his termies and noise marines advance. He also moes up a rhino to do some blocking/work closer to my objective. His dread makes my functioning buggie explode.

In CC both princes advance on the Ard Boyz/KFF wagon and it explodes taking a few boys down with it.

My turn 3 and I'm feeling the heat. I decide to have my KFF jump into a squad of lootas, which was actaully a bad call but oh well. He should have jumped anywhere else. Ghaz blasts up to assault his backfield. I pull back my sloggers to be out of range of the GD.

I dump all my loota fire and rokkits and BS into the GD and I think I managed to knock a few wounds off of him. My kans fire at one DP and whiff. The Ard boyz dumped fire into one prince and I think scored one wound. Ghaz calls the waagh to help him get into position to charge the way I want.

Ghaz charges the oblits, and the Manz charge the noise marines. The way he has to consolidate the manz can't be hit by the oblits, not that it horribly mattered I think in the long run. Ghaz killed two oblits and took now wounds, and the Manz killed all the noise marines and I think took one wound.

My Ard boyz choose to only assault only the winged prince. I score another wound and lose 3 guys, 2 more to fearless saves.

Dave's turn 3 the dread turns to advance on my kans and manages to blow off a KMB. His termies back up to get into it with Ghaz and the manz. His GD advances on my lootas that I attached my KFF to last turn. DOH!

His other DP charges into the Ard boyz. The two DP kill a good clip, but I do down the winged prince before losing even more guys to fearless saves.

His GD charges my lootas, killing several.

Ghaz kills the oblit, the Manz kill one termie and take some wounds.

My turn 4 and I don't have lots of movement. My sluggas prepare to engage the GD, the kans advance on the dread. I think the lootas just held tight since they didn't have much targets and I didn't want the rhino to explode on my boyz.

In CC my Kans and his Dread traded some wiffs. His DP finally killed off my boys. His GD killed the last lootas but the boyz brought him down. The termies killed of the manz and put two wounds on Ghaz, but I think there was only one termie left standing when Ghaz was done.

Dave's turn 4. His prince moves up lashes my lootas, and creams them (they route/get run down) though they manage another wound (think he had lost one in combat earlier). His Dread dies to the kans and my kans consolodate over a bit. Ghaz kills the termie and moves toward the wagon.

My turn 5 my kans move and run to try to head toward the action. Ghaz hops in the waggon and it blasts down. I move my KFF mek in a 'sorta' block to the DP, and the boyz charge and make the rhino explode killing a few more lads.

At this point Dave is cool with calling it a game as the other games are all wrapping up. His turn 5 and all he has left is the DP. He could pull the boyz off the objective with lash and charge them, but they very easily could bring him down in combat. At best it takes him two rounds of combat and I'm off the objective if the game ends at 5.

So just looking at KPs;
Dave's lost a DP, GD, Termies, Dread, Noise Marines x2, Rhinos x2, Oblits, Defilers x2 for 10 kp.
I've lost the Manz, Lootas x2, Ard boyz, shoota boyz, buggie, BW for 7.

So this game was much closer at the least but I think some early good shooting by me really helped me deal with thinning down the threats early. If Dave had gone first and had some good shooting this game could have ended much different.

The boys all debate a bit about getting in a (real) 3rd game, and we all decide to stick it out for one more.

Up next Andy's Blood Angels!

Sat 6.18 Game 2

2011-06-22T22:17:00.000-07:00

Game 2 and I sat down with my other pal Dave and his Slanesh themed chaos marines.

DP, MoS, Lash, Wings
DP, MoS, Lash
4 Termies, MoS, Various gear
Dreadnought, Autocannon, Missile Launcher
Noise Marines w/ Gear in Rhino
Noise Marines w/ Gear in Rhino
Defiler
Defiler
3 Oblits
Greater Daemon

This game was a version of the 'Accrue Resources' that I had played at Dundracon. Basically there would be 5 resources and troops would 'gain' a point at the end of the opponents turn. The new twist to this was that if the unit died those points were lost. Also one troop could only claim one point per turn, so no '30 boyz on 3 resources' shenanigans. OH and you couldn't be in a vehicle, I guess that makes it hard to harvest a resource!

Other than that I think the board was split corner to corner with a 24" dead man zone. I think there might have been some special 'infantry can outflank' rule but neither of us chose to use it.

I won the roll off and chose to go first. I put my two big troops with a big spread across my zone. All of my mech was on the left flank and I planned on using it to go and disrupt his ability to gather resources.

That picture is actually after my movement, but you get the idea for my deployment more or less.

Dave set up his guys with Defilers blocking DP, oblits in the back, and rhinos ready to move.

So my turn one and obviously I shuffled my sloggers to sit on objectives and advanced up my mech force as well.

I was able to pop his front defiler with my kans. I want to say my lootas also put 3 wounds on his flying prince.

He collects 0 resources.

Dave's turn 1 and he advances forward. He jumps out some noise marins to start collecting resources. His flying prince lashes my closest lootas and pull them out of cover. He puts enough shots in to them to kill 4 but they make their LD check.

I collect 2 resources (one on the shootas and one on the sluggas).

My turn 2 and my wagons advance, ghaz and the manz jump out and I call the wagh. The winged prince is shot to death. His other rhino on the right flank is immobilized.

Ghaz fleets and charges his exposed noise marines, the rhino, and the dread. The noise marines are wiped, the rhino explodes, and I'm left tied up with the dreadnought.

Dave collects 0 resources.

At this point Dave is cool with calling it a game. This mission was not one that only two troops in rhinos were going to win, and definitely not against me having 50 orks in cover endlessly securing two. I still had plenty of fire power and had taken a big chunk out of his list. In some strange universe maybe he can kill the orks off somehow and manage a tie but that is pretty doubtful.

So since that only taken a whopping 15 minutes or so we decided to try another mission out and we ended up having a much more fun and competitive game that I'll post about tomorrow. :)

Sat 6.18 Game 1

2011-06-21T22:26:00.000-07:00

I know there hasn't been much posting as of late. The new baby has been keeping me busy so I haven't had much time in the evening for blogging let along playing games.

However I did make it out to Liam's on Saturday for several games. So I'll try to get these up as quick battle reports over the next few days.

I brought my orks in the standard 1850 I've been running for months.

Ghaz
Mek w/ KFF
9 Lootas
9 Lootas
3 Manz, Kombi Scorcha, Kombi Rokkit
in a BW, Deffrolla, Armor, Big Shoota, Grot Riggers
30 Slugga Boyz, 3 Rokkits, PK/Bosspole Nob
20 Shoota Boyz, 2 Big Shootas, PK/Bosspole Nob
19 Ard Boyz, PK/Bosspole Nob
Buggie, TL Rokkits
Buggie, TL Rokkits
3 Kans w/ KMBs
BW, Deffrolla, Armor, Big Shoota

First up I got a game with Dave's Spacewolves, with basically his army I've seen before with I don't think much in the way of tweaks.

Logan
Termie Rune Priest
Termie Lonewolf, Combi Melta, Lightning Claw, 2 wolves
Termie Lonewolf, Combi Melta, Lightning Claw, 2 wolves
A ton of differently equiped wolf gaurd spread around w/ LR
7 Grey Hunters with Gear in Rhino
7 Grey Hunters with Gear in Rhino
6 Long fangs, 3 Lascanons, 2 Missiles

We decided to try the Kubla missions and rolled off and got the Rouge trader one. Basically it is a kill point game but killing the other guys RT gives 2 kp, or getting yours off the opposite board edge is worth 2. The guys has some really nice stats actually, but he can't use army rules or get in transports which means you are walking across the board.

Dave won roll of and set up tight in a corner, with his Wolf Gaurd all split up like he does, and the RT joined to the Long Fangs also.

I set up spreading across the table, keeping the RT with my 20 shootas figuring they will try to escort across the table.

Dave's turn one and he shuffles his rhinos and pops smoke, and his lone wolves advance up 4 or 5 inches. His shooting immobilizes one Kan thus destroy it, immobilizes and weapon destroys one buggie, and he also pops Ghaz's BW. I think I failed all 6 cover saves turn 1. I deploy Ghaz as forward as I can.

My turn 1 I advance up my BW and the boys jump out so they can try to catch at least one of the lone wolves. Ghaz then hops in their ride to hang with the KFF, I advance with everything else.

In shooting I kill a dog out of each Lone wolf squad, and my lootas pop one rhino. His troops fail LD and are pinned. I run with my shootas to move up the RT to inch him toward the long table edge.

The Ard boyz charge the lone wolf and just make it. He kills a few boyz, I kill the dog and I think the Klaw does one wound to the Lonewolf also.

Dave's turn 2. His Rhino swings around and his LR advances. I think my BW shrugs off serious damage and is only weapon destroyed and shaken. I think he also immobilized my mobile buggy!

He charged his terminatros into our scrum. I think I only managed to kill his lone wolf and he killed more boys but not many so we all hung out together.

My turn 2 and I continued to advance my shootas and sluggas up the board. I deffrollad his Land raider but really only immobilized it. I decided to get out only with my Manz to charge it. I think my lootas may have killed one Missile Launcher Long fang.

My kans assaulted his last Lone wolf and killed him and consolidated forward. My Manz assaulted the LR but basically only shook it. My Ard boyz took more losses to the terminators but still held.

Dave's turn 3 and I'm missing a picture so probably some off memory on this turn. I know he popped my BW and shot one Kan dead. His rhino shuffled to 'block' assaults to his Long Fangs/priest/RT. In combat he killed a lot more boyz, this time I fled and got away with a whole 4 dudes.

My turn 3 and I continue advancing with my swarm of boys. The Mek leaves Ghaz to head over to the boyz and Ghaz joins up with the manz. My lootas pop his last rhino and the guys pile behind it. I think the other lootas killed his Long Fang Sarg.

My last Kan assaults his LR and pops it and out comes Logan and a few termies. Ghaz and the manz assault his termies and cream them, but I get a sad consolidation away of 1 or 2".

Dave's turn 4. He has his priest join his troops and the RT join logan.
His Long Fangs shoot my Kan to death.
Logan's group plasma my manz to death. Somehow I fail my LD with an 11 and run like 8" away. This pulls Ghaz out of assault range.

My turn 4 and I fuck this up a bit.

What I did: Called the waagh, thinking that would make Ghaz and the other fleeing troop 'normal'.
Unfortunately looking now clearly the waagh (even Ghaz's) doesn't work on fleeing units.

What should have happen: I should have continued running with my small squad. Ghaz should have taken a LD test to recover. Chances are I would have passed. Then I would have called the Waagh. Now he can't 'move' but he could fleet and assault. The remaining question is did I have the distance to reach Logan. The picture above looks like a long 12", but I measured that piece of grey terrain and it is 6.5 inches. Still even if it was 10-12 inches I would have needed a good Slow and Purposeful roll (with 3 dice for being an IC) and that also assumes I passed that LD test.

So yes, I screwed up totally.

As it was Ghaz waaghed into Logan and killed him and took two wounds back anyway. Dave creamed my 4 other guys that shouldn't have been in combat, but those attacks could have gone to Ghaz and I could have failed another 2+ save maybe.

Either way my shootas left the RT to fend for himself and waaghed behind the Sluggas. The sluggas made it to combat and left I think 3 wolves left.

I think my lootas may have killed one more Long fang also.

Dave's turn 5 and I think he's out of options. His long fangs are just able to reach out to my RT and put some wounds on him but he hangs on with one wound. His Rune preist gets a good Living Lightening off and that ends up killing him. Darn, only about 5 inches to he got off the board edge!

In combat Ghaz kills the last termies but takes a wound and remains tied up with the RT. My sluggas move over toward his Priest and troops.

My turn 5. The lootas go to town and kill the long fangs to the man. The sluggas also charge into his troops and also manage to kill them and the priest down to the man as well. Ghaz makes up for it by whiffing on the priest entirely and taking a wound but sticking in combat.

We roll for turn 6 but the game ends. All he has left is the Rogue trader.

I had collected: Logan, Priest, Wolf Gaurd, Troops x 2, rhinos x 2, LR, Long Fangs for 9 kp.
Dave had killed: Battlewagons x 2, Kans, Ard boyz, Manz and the Trader for 7 kp.

Hrm I thought I had 10. Maybe you got one KP if your guy died? It was a little confusing as there were KP and VP.

Anyway it was a fun game. I'm sure if Ghaz had not made combat it would have been much worse for me in the end. I guess the question would have been would Logan and his guys dealt with all my troops better, and would Ghaz have ever made combat with him. My last round was pretty great as well.

I like Dave's non typical space wolves and it is always a tough fight!

Next up Dave's Chaos Space Marines!

Trollbloods Assembled

2011-06-11T10:20:00.000-07:00

Eager to dig into the loot last night I knocked out all of the basic assembly of the Trollbloods. I have to say I was nervous to work with metal based of my past experience with GW, but these ended up going together so smoothly.

First off the fit and finish of the models came together really well. There are no giant gaps or ill fitting pieces that I came across. Where pieces fit together are often at skin/armor type positions so the 'crack' is easily forgivable. Only on my Heavy beast do I have some skin/skin lines that I'll need to do some further greenstuff to smooth out a bit.

Also I was worried about the pinning. However I think the metal is a bit softer than GW metal so the pin vice seemed to work a bit easier on these. Also this isn't like pinning some tiny little bits together. These are pinning big arms to big bodies usually. There was only really one small bit I was concerned about (the 'rider' on the back of the Dire Troll Bomber) but even that came out just fine with not much effort.

It also seems like there was far less deflashing to do both on the extra bits or mold lines. And again what was there seemed softer and easily removed so that was certainly nice.

The one thing I have noticed is it seems like the 'tabs' on the feet seem to make the model stick up a touch from the base. So I think that is to make the model actually stand on TOP of the flock. That combined with the rimmed base is pretty cool. However it means until the model is flocked and glued to the base some of them sit a little awkwardly. So for the first time ever I might drop some sand down and glue the model to the base immediately after I get these primered. That will be interesting to see how the painting process goes.

So first of all when I sat down to look at Trollbloods I really decided I wanted to build a list around models and less around l33t units. I may regret this later of course.

There were a few models in the troll range I really enjoyed the look of and figured out how to squeeze two of them into the 15 point list.

First off what I think is the best looking Troll caster:

So ruleswise I get the feeling Gunnbjorn isn't the world's greatest warlock but what a fantastic mini. He's commanding, solid looking, has rokkits strapped to his arm and has a huge gun. What's not to love.

The model came togehter really easily and I don't even think I pinned him as the bits fit so well together.

I also think all the Heavy Dire Trolls look great, but to start with I decided to with this dude:

A dire troll chucking explosive barrels like he was Donkey Kong, and another terrific sculpt. I did use pinning on many of these bits, and I'll still need to do a bit of greenstuff to cover a few gaps, but that should be pretty easy. You can also see his left foot is looking funny because there is not 'tab' there and it is kind of hovering without being glued to the base/flock. Overall though he feels solid and looks good.

Getting to 15 points I just filled in with things that I planned on using at higher point games.

Here we have added the Troll Impaler, and a minimum Pyg Bushwhachers squad. I think this gives me a nice mix with the warlock, a heavy beast, a light beast, and a unit.

Of course I have the updated cards and the plastic covers as well.

Jumping to 25 points doesn't add a whole lot.

Basically we take the min Bushwackers and bump them to the max, add a Slag Troll (light beast), and drop in some troll whelps for 'support' for lack of a better word.

Will it work well? I have no idea. I don't think it is bad and most of the list is straight forward. Getting the most out of the bushwackers is probably going to be the real trick as they seem like a fragile harrasment unit.

So I'm looking forward to playing some games at some point. I need to do a bit of the greenstuff and decide on a primer color to get these guys on the painting table!

Trollbloods Delivered

2011-06-09T18:26:00.000-07:00

Did I mention my new desire to play Hordes? Things have been crazy, so I don't recall (and am currently too lazy to go back and look).

I think I mentioned I got a practice game in with a borrowed army and enjoyed it. I've read through the rulebook. I bought the trollblood book. Finally after a few weeks of reading online and playing with builds, I figured I'd take the plunge and place an order.

So ya, I've got a new project on my hands. Time to get those pinning skills up to speed!

Baby Has Arrived

2011-06-04T10:42:00.000-07:00

Shockingly no posts these last few days as the new baby finally arrived on Thursday.

Logan Allen May, 9 Lbs, 12 Oz, 21"

That's a big boy!

I know, reading a 40k blog, you might think I picked that name after this guy.

But I did not. I don't even like Space Wolves.

So then maybe this guy?

Well who doesn't love them some Wolverine really! But no he's not named after him either, even though probably 99% of the population will always associate Logan with Wolverine.

Perhaps for the ultra geek they may look at this angle...

But no not at all.

The truth is it was just a name on a 'rack' of name plates at BabiesRUs and was one I liked and the wife did not disagree. The whole name process thing is really a pain in the rear and my wife and I struggled with both kid's names. So when you find one that one person likes and the other person is Ok with we had a winner.

Truth be told the ficticious character who I couldn't shake thinking about when I settled on Logan...

I hope that's not a bad sign!

Life is Still Funny

2011-05-31T06:28:00.000-07:00

So still no baby. I know, surprising right?

We stayed up most of Friday night counting contractions, watching them getting closer together. FInally about 3 am I fell asleep. An hour later my wife woke me up saying time to go to the hospital.

We get to the hospital to find out she's not dialated enough, and her contractions seem to be 'easing up' a bit. They have us walk around. Still not enough, so we go home. We are exhausted and fall asleep around 7 am.

By the time I'm up around noon on Sat the contractions are back down to just a few an hour. Pretty much over the rest of the weekend they stay at about 2-3 per hour.

So basically we never made it to active labor.

Now add in that Saturday I come down with some horrible stomach bug. I don't know if it was a flu like thing (my son had been really sick the first half of the week) or food poisoning (my suspiscion) but it had me doubled over and immobile for about 36 hours this weekend.

So no 40k, no baby yet, and illness. Now I'm back to work until the labor thing kicks in again.

Ah life, you have such a sense of humor.

Life is Funny

2011-05-27T17:09:00.000-07:00

So you know how the joke about having the baby the same day as Kublacon is just hilarious?

Well the wife just called to say she is having regular contractions about 10 minutes apart.

So good luck to all of those going and have fun! I wont pretend that I'm not disappointed but I am horribly excited to have this baby finally! It has been a crazy week at work, and while I was looking forward to losing myself in a day of 40k I'll be pretty pleased to hold a new healthy little boy before this weekend ends.

Wish me luck!

1 Day until Kubla...

2011-05-27T07:51:00.000-07:00

...and no sign of baby arrival. So I may actually get to go to this thing!

Last night I finally finished up the terminators.

I'm happy with how they turned out in the end. There are a few details I'd certainly like to be better but I think there are just some things beyond my skill level. However in the end there are a few things I'm really happy with on these. I think the glowing eyes are probably the best I've done for the 1ksons. In the pictures it looks a little 'too subtle' but in person I think it looks just right. I'm also pleased with the head pieces and the power weapon conversions as I think this makes them look like they fit in with the army without going overboard.

So here is where I'm at now.

The minis are as done as they are going to get. The board itself is mostly done. The thing I need to spend time with is the checkerboard. The squares are actually Astronomicon Grey which is the base coat I use for white. So tonight's job is to try to get some white on those, and clean it up a bit. In the end even if I showed up with this as is I'd be pretty happy.

SO... 1 day to go. Here's hoping everything goes well enough to show up and have a great day of gaming!

Termie Arms Almost Done

2011-05-25T07:08:00.000-07:00

Mostly just a quick update to say no news on the baby front. Meanwhile I'm still working on getting these arms done, here's a quick cell pic. I just have highlights and touch ups to do which hopefully I'll be done with tonight.

There you go, my shortest post ever!

Terminators Under Way

2011-05-22T21:36:00.000-07:00

So lots of work on the terminators. Sorry for the quick crap pictures. The bodies and bases are done. I've just got to finish up the arms now (which are all magnetized) which I've got all the base coat except for the boltgun done.

I was hoping to knock that all out this weekend but alas, not to be it seems. Hopefully Mon and Tues will see me get those done.

That would leave a few nights to try to get that display board presentable. No real work has gone into it at all since that last pictures I've posted of it.

I've actually found it a bit rough to be motivated since both my wife and I think this baby is coming really soon. Her Dr on Friday says shes 75% effaced. This weekend she lost her mucas plug (which yes sounds disgusting). Of course both her Dr and the internet will point out that no two pregnancies are alike and those signs can mean a couple days or a few weeks.

BUT of course we all know how this is going to work. I'm going to be waiting all week for some sign, go to bed Friday thinking I'm actually going to get to go to Kubla, and wake up in the morning to my wife having contractions.

So this makes it a bit of a mental block to get painting done. I know I should get it all done just in case I can go, but every bit of me says 'you're never going to get to go.' Le Sigh.

6 Days until Kublacon, probably the same for baby #2!

Saturday 5.14 Game

2011-05-20T18:47:00.000-07:00

So Saturday I went out for a game night with friends. As I mentioned I had my first Warmahordes games which was fun and I definitely look forward to getting more into that game system.

On the 40k side of things I got a game in with Andy. Of the guys playing 40k his is the only army I haven't now run my army up against.

His army looked something like:

Astro
2 Sang Priests w/ gear and JPs
Death Company Dread
5 Death Company w/ JPs
10 Assault Marines w/ JPs
10 Assault Marines w/ JPs
10 Tactical Marines, Lascannon, Razorback
Stormraven

So it is a list with lots of bodies, but marines so that's good for me. The priests of course add survivability, but with no libby I've got a pass to warptime.

We pulled from the feared 'mission deck' we sometime used. What we got was the deployment with the 24" zone diagonal down the board, and only two objectives in that dead zone. Not too crazy.

I ended up deploying and going first. I set up for most of my units to make the push. I left both predator kind of in a rearguard to just cover one half of his deployment. Termies and Lesser Daemons to deep strike.

He combat squad his tactical and deployed one assault company. His Lascannon 5 guys bunkered in cover, his jump pack guys had terrain, and his razor had cover turn 1. He kept one assault squad in reserve as well as the Stromraven w/ Astro, DC, and the DC dread. Every one of his units got the red thirst.

My turn 1. I don't think I even shot, or it worked in such a way that it didn't matter.

His turn 1 and he advanced with his Assault squad. His shooting from the Lascannon and Razroback was harmless.

My turn 2 and nothing came down for me and my dread was not crazy. I warptimed my prince. My preds were out of range, but my oblits wrecked his razorback. My DP charged into his assault squad. I killed the priest and two other guys, but took one wound back.

Andy's turn 2 and my prince warptimes again. Both of units stay off the board. His 5 man jump into the wreck of the razorback and they all past difficult terrain. His lascannon misses. In combat I kill a few more guys and take one more wound.

My turn 3 and both my terminator squads come in but the horrors stay off the board. I drop them down to each side to thinking I'll use them as a counter charge unit near the objective. I advance my rhinos to take objectives. In shooting I kill 2 of his tactical. In CC my warptimed prince kills the lat marines and consolidates a bit.

Andy's turn 3 and his Stromraven stays on but his Assault guys are still at the bar. He moves it on 12 and deploys. His lascannon makes my forward rhino explode. He then unloads into my 1ksons with the rest of his guns killing 3. His tactical unit charges them (Astro is now out of range) killing another. His Dreadnought is also able to assault my termies easily with fleet and kills two.

My turn 4 and the horrors still don't show, plus my dread goes crazy shooty crazy. I advance my oblits up a bit hoping to rapid fire plasma but I think I'm out of range. I think I shot plasma cannons and managed to only kill one guy and maybe a wound on Astro. I shift around on the right objectve a bit. I leave my rhino side to take the str hits of the dread. My preds shoot at the Stormraven that they've been waiting all game for and fail horribly to do anything more than shake it. In combat my prince lends aide to free up my sorc who is the only survivor. Shockingly my termie makes his two invul saves and sticks in combat.

Andy's turn 4 and his assault guys come down and take some cover. He shifts his Stormraven to be back out of at least one of my preds ranges. His Lascannon explodes another rhino and kills two of my scrubs. He combo assault astro into my prince as well as his death company into my oblits (they have two fists). We pretty much just creams everybody and consolidates back a bit. His DC dread kill my last terminator and takes a big consolodate foward.

My turn 5 and my lesser daemons come down at last. I put them to the rear to stay away from Astro. My dread moves up now not crazy, and my termies start to move in that direction. My feeling out of range of the Stormraven are instead able to make the DC Dread explode. My 1ksons at last kill two more DC guys out of Astro's squad.

Andy's turn 5 and his Stormraven moves flat out to move to the objective I'm holding. He looks like he might just be an inch or two short of contesting. His Assault guys advance preparing to charge my termies, but in shooting they kill one guy. Then I of course fail my LD and route 11 inches away. Astro and co charge my last sons and just cream them also.

At this point it's look like if the game were to end I could have this!
But we roll and of course the game goes on to turn 6. :)

My turn 6 and my termies get to consolidate 3" and only shoot. My only hope is to destroy the empty Raven, but with it moving flat out and ignoring melta shots that just doesn't work. I added in what Predator shots I could but nope, nothing doing.

Meanwhile my horrors moved and ran to take cover in craters to hold an objective.

My Dread charged Astro and killed him and the fists only shook the dread.

Andy's turn 6 and he just shifted his Raven to be on the objective so if it went to turn 7 I wouldn't auto hit. His assault guys moved over shot up a few horrors and charged them and wiped them off. Somehow my dread and his DC killed each other according to the picture below. Honestly I can't even tell you what happened there. Oh and his Lascannon popped my rhino spilling out my last 1ksons squad.

Not surprisingly the game ends there. He's got an assault squad on one objetive, and his Raven is contesting my sons on the other.

Had the game gone on maybe I could have tied, but there was no way to win. In a perfect world my warptime sorcerer + Termie PF could pop the Raven dead. But of course there is no garuntee that happens. There was no way I was going to displace his other Assault squad + Sang Priest.

It was a fun game, as my games with Andy always are. I think I was (sit down for this) way to aggressive. I have got to remember what peoples threat range are when they aren't on the board. I'm very comfortable with looking at guys on the table and knowing that range, but guys yet to walk on ALWAYS seem to catch me of guard. The Stormraven + DC Dread has potentially some whacky 23-27" ish range. There was no reason I really ever needed to cross into that kind of zone this game, but I did anyway and suffered for it.

Another great learning experience, if I can only hope I learned from it!

Tuesday 5.17 Game

2011-05-19T21:25:00.000-07:00

I'm going to skip over Saturday's game to bring you Tuesday nights game with Dave. This was a rematch from yesterday's post, and you will see I once again fell into an over aggressive position. Why am I pointing this out to you? I don't know. Maybe to shame me in to playing better. Or just to say 'damn I suck.'

Anyway, this was a rare opportunity to get a midweek game. My wife was busy and the kid was at the inlaws, and Dave's family is all out of town. So we lined up for a rematch from the drubbing I received on Friday.

Dave made a few changes to the list. Most notably he cut his Mawloc and the Tyranid Prime to add 11 Genestealers and a Pod for his Zoanthropes.

We rolled up spearhead and kill points. I won the roll off and set up to go first. My oblits are in the building. Dave set up choosing to outflank with his Stealers.

My turn one and I had limited shooting options. I advanced just a little and took what shots I could. I figured I would focus fire on his harpies to slow them down, and that resulted in about 7 dead bugs.

Dave's turn 1 and he advances and spreads his guys out nicely. He manages to make my center rhino explode and that kills one guy. He also immobilizes my most 'advanced' rhino.

My turn 2 and my horrors and one of my terminators come down. I drop my termies down to pop shots at the Trygon. I'm a bit torn at what to do with the horrors. I plop them down so I can charge the hormagaunts with my prince. The problem is I'm ready to unload a bunch of AP3 bolters into them, but if I do too much damage he can remove models and I'll miss out on assault. I instead focus on the gargoyles and kill them. I fire 2 combi meltas off the termies at the Trygon (I thought one was out of range, but he wasn't) and do one wound. The preds only manage a 2nd.

In combat I charge into his hormies with the lessers and the daemons. The DP kills 4 with warptime up, but he creams 6 horrors and I lose 2 more to fearless saves. I guess I should have shot them instead, or just less the lessers out of combat. Either way I felt like I played that horribly wrong.

Dave's turn 2 I warptime with my prince and he fails. His pod with Zoes come down and they scatter a bit but not much. His stealers come in but they grab the 'wrong' side and even with a reroll he gets it again. They come in and move into some cover. He advances with everything, most importantly with the Trygon toward my dread.

In shooting he stuns both of my rhinos. His Zoes I think also only managed to stun/shake my Dread.

In combat his Trygon charges to get my dread and rhino. The dread explodes but he whiffs on the rhino. His Termagants also join in on the DP combat. I make every save with the DP and the Lesser Daemon dies. I think only managed an awesome two wounds, and I think he failed his one fearless save per unit.

My turn 3 and I TOTLALLY SCREW UP THE RULES this turn. I'm just laying that out there. I'm an idiot and I apologize. What I screwed up is my termies assaulted out of the deepstrike. D'OH. That's why we practice... right? Right... practice being an idiot apparently...

So anyway ya the termies come down and Melta shot into the Hive Gaurd killing one. My other termies advance toward his stealers as I figure I might as well take the charge away. They and my squad of sons shoot them killing one. :p My preds kill the trygon. My oblits and other sons kill one zoe and one is wounded.

I Screw up royally and multicharge the termies into the Hive gaurd and hormies. My DP had warptimed earlier and got double 1s to wound himself but was warptimed. The end result is (GASP) in my favor as he loses lots of small bugs and the last Hive Garud dies to fearless saves as well. Pretty great for me when I don't use, you know, the rules!

On the other side of the board I use complex unit rules to have one terminator take all the rends and he dies while the other two live. Of course I only manage to kill on bug back in perhaps a karmarific move so we push.

Dave's turn 3 and more advancing where he can. The Zoes shoot my rhino into a wreck. I think the other Hive gaurd shoot my leftmost pred and only blow up a Lascannon.

His HQ unit charges into my termies and creams two of them again due to wound shenagins. I think I made my warptime and kill more small bugs, maybe eliminating one of the units. The genestealers again manage to kill one termie and I also kill one for another push.

My turn 4 and welcome to I forgot to take pictures again. This always seems to happen around here right when we're excitedly in the mix of things.

As I recall I shot one of his Hive Gaurd dead, killed his pod, and killed one Zoe. In combat he killed my terminator, and my DP died but not before I killed the last of his little bugs. His consolidations bring him closer to me.

Dave's turn 4 and more advancement to me. His only real shooting is at my pred which he immobilizes. In combat his HQ squad charges my last rhino which was immobilized and wreck it. His Stealers charge into my 1ksons and just cream them utterly.

My turn 5 and I take what shots I can. We know I'm behind on KPs. I kill his last Zoe, but I can't manage to kill both Hive Gaurd as one still lives. I try to whittle down the stealers but I think 4 are left.

His turn 5 and his shooting does nothing. His stealers assault my Predator but do nothing. His uber HQ unit charge my 1ksons and I manage to keep 4 guys around.

We roll to see if the game goes on to 6 but it ends.

He's killed: My DP, 2x Termies, Lesser Daemons, 2x 1ksons, 3x rhinos for 9 KPs.
I've killed: Hive Gaurd, Zoes, Pod, Termagants, Hormagants, Harpies, Trygon for 7 kp.

If the game had gone on I probably could have killed his stealers and his last hive gaurd. But he would have probably killed my 1ksons in my turn, then charge the pred on his turn to kill it. So all in all a net gain of 0 kps for me.

It sounds close but keep in mind my awesome assault that helped a lot. Actually I'm not sure how big that was. It did kill the HG, but the prince would have still killed both small bugs and his HQ would have still probably charged and wiped the termanators. So meh.

So there it is. In reality I probably should have just stayed back and used what range I had. Stay away from the HQ and let his little bugs either hang back by the slow synaps advance or charge early and deal with them without support from the choppy guys. I'm just so eager to advance to use the DS off the icons, but really I should just let everything hang back and use those units for the counter charge.

Will I have learned this lesson? Maybe. Who knows if I'll get a game in before Kublacon as I've still got quite a bit of work to get done.

One more Battle Report from Saturday's game with Andy's BA I'll do up tomorrow night.

5.14 Friday Night Game 2

2011-05-18T21:21:00.000-07:00

Game 2 for last Friday was against Dave's bugs. Dave's been trying out different things in the list and is trying to get them WYSWYG for Kublacon.

For this he was trying:

Swarmlord
2 Tyrant Gaurd
Tyranid Prime
3x Hive Gaurd
3x Hive Gaurd
3x Zoanthropes
Tervigon
15 Termagants
15 Hormagants
15 Gargoyles
Trygon Prime
Mawloc

We rolled a 3 objective game and Dawn of War. I can't remember who won the roll off but I ended going up first.

I placed one rhino and my DP up midfield. Dave put out his Hormies off 18" and his Tryrant Gaurd directly in front of my units.

My turn 1 and I roll up the board. I decide to advance my rhino and prince, which ends up being a huge mistake.

Dave's turn 1 and he walks on the board. His Hormies get a huge fleet roll, but his guns don't manage to get through my rhino smoke. However due to his movment with his HQs he is able to join them up and all assault my rhino and his Hormies assault the rhino and the DP. The end result is him killing my DP (I think I failed a fearless for the last wound) and my 1ksons can only get two guys out of the rhino due to being surrounded. So I stick out my sorcerer and my guy carrying an icon.

My turn 2 and one terminator squad and my oblits come down. I decide to try to help out my near dead sons. The oblits come down to triple flame the hormies killing a good clip, and other shoots meltas at his HQ unit doing a wound. My 1ksons shoot at the hormies also kill one or two. I've got some other shooting around the board but nothing significant. I figure I'll assault his hormies with my two guys but I was hoping for two much and they die, giving him a small consolidation.

Dave's turn 2 and his Mawloc comes on the board but scatters away from my vehicle. His Tervigon spawns more bugs but I think craps out also. His shooting goes pretty well considering his zoes I think insta killed 2 oblits, and he also popped my dread. In combat I think his Hormies finished the last oblit. His HQs charged my termies and due to going through cover they assaulted last, and with wound allocation shenanagins he only killed one. I think that combat was a push.

My turn 3 and I'm missing a picture. My other termies come down to unload meltas in to the mawloc doing two wounds. I think my preds were shooting at hive gaurd and not doing well. I was hoping my two hatch shots form the rhinos would dispatch his hormies but I only killed two. In combat his HQ unit creamed my termies and got a decent consolidate.

Dave's turn 3 and his Trygon showd up on my far left flank. He advanced up. His shooting popped my far left rhino and stunned my far left pred. His Mawloc assaulted one rhino and it exploded. His HQ unit assaulted my pred but only managed to stun it.

My turn 4 and I think I risk a warptime on my 1ksons by his Trygon. That's pretty much spells doom on that side. My horrors come in and the assault the termagants over there. We both kill each other down to leave not many guys. My 1ksons midfield rapid fire and do another wound or two to the Mawloc, and My termies Mulitcharge the Mawloc and hormagants. They somehow kill both without taking losses. My other sons by his Trygon maybe manage a wound shooting and charge with the sorcerer managing another wound or so.

His turn 4 and I warptime my sorc in combat with the Trygon rolling doubles and dying to perils. So much for any hope there! This turn is the nail in the coffin. His Trygon kills that troop unit off easily now. He makes my far left pred explode, and I think he immobilized and stunned the other. His HQ unit charges and creams my termies. My horrors are down to 1 vs two gaunts by the end of that combat.

At this point we survey the board. I've got one horror that is sure to die. I've got a stunned and immobilized pred. I have a full 1ksons unit in the middle of nowhere. Dave's army is really in relatively good shape, but most importantly he's got troops on an objecitve I'll never be able to displace. My 1ksons aren't likely to make it any objective. They're most likely never going to avoid the HQ death squad. He's still got a Tervigon that can like cruise over to another objective if the game goes past turn 5. We call it a game asmore than likely he just tables me turn 5 if not turn 6.

What can I say. It was a fun game but I definitely played poorly. My opening moves were not good decisions. I should have stayed back and just tried to trade shots. You think I would know this by now. You would be wrong. And as you'll see from more battle reports I'll choose to continue to make this mistake.

Maybe after digesting all of these battle reports will pay off, but then again the army is still what it is so who knows if it will have any bearing on my tournament play.

5.14 Friday Night Game 1

2011-05-16T22:26:00.000-07:00

So Friday I got a few games in after work. The first game was with Ryan's Eldar who I haven't played in quite some time. Of course playing them with 1ksons is always going to be tough.

His list looked something like:
Eldrad
5 Fire Dragons (in Falcon)
5 Wraithgaurd and 1 Warlock in Wave Serpant
5 Pathfinders
Dire Avengers in Wave Serpant
Dire Avengers in Wave Serpant
Falcon
Fire Prism
Fire Prism

I'm not really too sure about squad numbers or upgrades. It didn't really matter since pretty much not many people ever needed to get out of the skimmer. :p

We got the single objective game and spearhead deployment. Ryan was going first. Here is the deployment. Our objectives are both in far corners.

Ryan's turn 1 and he shot and scooted about the board a bit. His rangers wounded one Oblit, immobilized one rhino, stunned another, and shook one predator.

My turn 1 I moved with a non crazy dread. I may have shaken one of his flyers or two, and I smoked my forward rhino.

Ryan's turn 2 and more shuffling and shooting. He outright killed one whole oblit, destroyed my autocannon off my shaken pred and shook it, killed the autocannon and immobilized my other pred and destroyed my dreadnought.

My turn 2 and one squad of termies come into play. I realize not much of mine is going to be able to slog accross this table and my icons are too far back to make things worth while. I go for a brave deepstrike behind his tanks and just barely scatter off the board with an 11. A 10 would have left me in great position. Alas the are now placed by Ryan, who puts them in a far corner and into terrain. Of course one dies due to terrain.

I still persevere and advance what I can. My mobile predator starts to fall back toward my objective and smokes. My oblits do manage to immobilize and stun his fire dragon's ride.

Ryan's turn 3 and some more shuffling about the board. I think the fire dragons leave the ride to start hustling around. The wraithgaurd deploy and shots pour into my Prince for a few wounds and smoke helps deflect off any major vehicle damage.

Here is what Ryan's corner looks like at this point.

My turn 3 and the other termies and lesser daemons arrive. I play it aggressive because my options are limited. The termies manage to down the Wraithgaurd's ride. The oblits shoot at the wraithgaurd with plasma cannons and manage to kill two. The other termies and movable rhinos advance. The prince still holds his 'shoot me' sign. My guys back in the immobilized rhino to begin to hoof it over. I know they are slow, but I figure 3 turns with run is enough time to get them over there about 24 inches away.

My lesser daemons charge his wraithgaurd just to tie them up for a turn or two and a few die.

Ryan's turn 4 and he knows he's got to start the flying circus to secure some objective. His DA's serp blast toward my objective. His other skimmers move away form his objective so they can blast back on it in turn 5. He shoots two terminators and one oblit dead. My slogging 1ksons make all their saves.

My turn 4 and everything I can send over to his objective I do, using rhinos to try to wall off his wraithgaurd. My oblit and predator try to kill his DA serp and fail. My guys move toward the objective an absolutely pathetic amount. I'm now concerned I will not reach it in time. I think my Prince manages to down one of the fire prisms.

Ryan's turn 5 and his DA unit is able to scoot within 3 of the objective. His other skimmer jams over to his objective. He kills my pred over by my objecitve, but his wraithgaurd whiff on my rhino. He kills my last oblit, and 3 of my slogging 1ksons die to fire as well.

My turn 5 and my rhinos head over to land on his objecitve. I put everything I can into killing his vehicle but I can't, and even if I could he's got troops inside. My 1ksons squad makes a pretty sad movement and I think I'm out of range of my objective.

We roll for turn 6 but the game ends.

As it turns out the 1ksons were less than 1/4" in range of my objective. The net result was a tie game.

Had the game gone on longer I certainly would be struggling to maintain a tie. My 1ksons were probably going to die on my objective. I'd need to clear off his serp and DA of his objective with whatever might have survivedthe next turn.

Where I really went wrong this game was not putting my objective in the right place. I should have put it smack in the middle of the long board near my table edge. With such a fast army like Eldar I needed that to be with more of my force, as even putting it deep wasn't going to save my bacon this game.

It was good to have Ryan back to play some games. The early 1/2 of the game was just a pounding, even though Ryan couldn't put the final blow on my vehicles they were often crippled. I was able to do a bit of damage is later than game but by then it was too late.

After this game I played Dave's bug, which I'll type up tomorrow night.

Quick Weekend Update

2011-05-15T21:53:00.000-07:00

A quick update from the weekends stuff. I didn't get nearly as much time as I was hoping to get on moving the 1ksons along. I thought for sure on Sunday I'd have a few hours when the kiddo took a nap and the wife was out but the child of course decided to forgo staying in bed. Too much fun with daddy!

But I did squeeze some time into it and the board is coming together a bit.

Looks pretty good for how little time I've put in to the thing, but you can see my patience for doing the checkerboard ran out after working on the thing for an couple hours. It is more apparant when I pull all the 'stuff' off the board.

Sure you can see the two giant cogs and the 'hill' area on the top right corner. That leaves three big blank spots I need to fill in still with checkerboard.

AND that's only the Astronomican Grey, that's not even with the white coat I'll need to apply!

So I went out and found some more cogs that are looking pretty flat. I'm hoping I can drop those on some of those bulks spaces to reduce more squares I'll need to paint.

Also while mucking around I think I am going to change up the postion of the tank/termies/oblits.

I think I like that better but of course I can just decide that If I don't put down giant cogs on the board.

Beyond that I did manage 3 games which I'll put up battle reports later this week.

I also sat down for a my first Warmachine/Hordes game. It was just simple 15 pt game to continue to learn the rules and get a feel for the game. I've read the hordes rule book so I had a pretty good idea, but obviously it is something else to just sit down and move models and roll dice (and read cards and move counters as in this case). I'll say I did have a good time, and I can see the appeal and where the hickups learning the game will probably lie. I certainly enjoyed myself well enough to want to play it again and see more of the workings of the game.

I'll probably hold off on a purchase of anything until after Kublacon. I've already told myslef I'll be doing that for video games as well, as I can't imagine getting the Terminators and the Display board done with temptations in the way.

13 days until Kublacon and 23 days until Baby #2 is due.

Finished 3rd Aspiring Sorcerer

2011-05-11T07:40:00.000-07:00

So I wrapped up the 3rd aspiring sorcerer. I had almost forgotten what a pain in the butt these are to paint.

He's certainly not perfect, I can now see a few spots I need to touch up a little.

The big challenge was that I painted the last two over a year ago. Also they had been airbrushed blue, where this guy I just started off the white primer. That means the I had to find all the little hard to reach white gaps that normally the airbrush nicely fills. But on the other hand getting the bottom white 'dress' was much easier to do this time, where on the other two it was layers upon layers of trying to make it look right (and I was never really 100% happy with the result).

Lastly over the course of the last year I've changed the process of how I've done the gold. Partly because it is a bit easier, partly because the original gold color was more bronze and it's pretty much a dead pot now. However this is the first time I've tried to match models and you can certainly see a difference.

Here's the 3 aspiring sorcerers together.

Of course my bad photography will cover up a lot. If you look closely you can see the white on the center guy is a lot more smooth, but the gold bits don't have as much contrast. This is most obviously on the 'heads' on the backpacks.

However I, of course, am going to notice these things. Once they are on the table and leading their squads of dust buckets they'll look fine.

I hope.

My wife is having Braxton Hicks contractions, which is just a reminder that this baby is really coming I suppose. She went to the doctor yesterday and everything is fine, but she is to take it easy this week so she can make it to 37 weeks so the baby is full term. Of course that doesn't mean the baby will come that early, but certainly we're entering the 'oh this could happen any time now' phase.

17 days until Kublacon and a VERY theoretical 27 days until Baby #2 is due.

Thousand Sons Dreadnought Complete

2011-05-08T20:11:00.000-07:00

Well he's done. He's not great but he'll do.

I think it's funny because I don't think he looks 1ksons enough, but I'm not sure what else to do. Grab a bunch of tomb kings bits I suppose, but for now I'm moving on with more painting and modeling.

I went outside to cut a few peices of foam today and try to settle on the display board.

What you see there are 3 foam cogs, and a foam 'hill' for the horrors. I've realized this frame is a little to small but I'll make this work for now. I need to go grab a few more things for this before I glue everything down and hit it with primer. This will be the last thing I actually get to painting if I have the time.

I also have started the 3rd aspiring sorcerer. I've got his basecoat done and hopefull it will only take another night to get him complete. Then I plan on painting his base, my 3 objective bases, and my 6 terminator bases. If I get all that done I'll start on the terminators.

Otherwise I'll have two weeks to get the terminators done plus finish the display board.

20 days until Kublacon and roughly 30 days until Baby #2 is due.

4.29 Friday Night Game 2

2011-05-04T22:08:00.000-07:00

On to game 2 where I've got a rematch with Jason's Eldar. You may recall I played and lost this same match up recently, and of course I've lost to it a few times with my Blood Angels right before that. So I know the list is ded 'ard.

So use the feared and loved mission deck for the game. He pull up the 'split the table diagonally, 24" no mans land' for deployment. Aside from that it was a 5 objective mission where one had to be in the center.

I won the roll off and chose to go first. I set up along my line. Jason only set up his rangers in cover.

My turn one, I advance with a non crazy dread. I take some shots at his rangers but do no damage.

His turn 1, his rangers shoot at my prince I believe but I make my saves.

My turn 2 and I advance again, probably a bit recklessly as I should remember those damn Fire Dragons are a pain...

The dread goes crazy and shoots my rhino a bunch with str 4 shots to do nothing.

Regardless my lesser daemons came in as well and I ran them back to camp my rear objective. I dropped any shooting I could on the rangers and managed to kill two of them. As a bonus they failed their LD and fled off the board!

Now his turn 2 and time to roll for reserves. He gets his Dire Avengers, his Storm Gaurdians, one war walker squad, and his warp spiders. That means his dreaded fire dragons, his jet bikes, and the other war walker squad are off the board still. This is just huge for me!

His Dire avengers deploy by my prince, his warpiders drop behind my preds by my lesser daemons. His War Walkers have to come in on the 'far' side. His Storm Gaurdian units stay in his rear deployment to shoot and be near some objectives.

In shooting his Dire Avengers and their vehicle can not get through my Daemon Princes Armor save. His Warp Spiders make one of my Predators explode and I lose one lesser daemon in the explosion. His war walkers and other Serp fire at my rhino and manage to stun and immobilize it. All in all not bad for me all things considering.

NOW if you look at that picture you'll notice another thing that helped me greatly. The Warp Spiders didn't take their assault move. We didn't realize it until the end of my movement phase, and Jason wanted to play it straight like a tournament game so I didn't argue.

My turn 3 and I warptimed my prince. Both my terminators come down. One lands spot on to be near his Storm Gaurdian's wave serp, and the other squad scatters back from his warwalkers and lands in terrain. Of course one guy rolls a 1 to die. My two mobile rhinos advance. I decide I need to pivot my pred to deal with these warp spiders.

In shooting my oblits plasma cannon the warpsiders, and I kill a few. Of course one also scatters on to my lesser daemons and I lose two more guys (down to 6). My predator opens up on them and brings them down to two guys. They now route and start booking away from me. One terminator squad wrecks the storm guardian wave serpents. The two man terminators fire one melta (I thought I was out of range with the second) and the 'immobilize' turns one unit in the squad of war walkers into a wreck. My dread misses his shot at the war walkers.

The prince charges the Dire Avengers. He kills 4 and takes no wounds. Further more they fail combat and I run them down. I wish I could have stayed locked in combat but who knew they would fail LD so badly. I take a short consolidation.

Jason's turn 3 and his fire dragons and other warwalkers come on the table, but his jetbikes remain off again! The war walkers come on again on the 'far' side and he gets the fire dragons out over there as well.

In shooting his wave serp by my prince makes my last predator explode. His fire dragons melta my terminators to death. Their wave serp makes my rhino explode. His new war walkers kill two 1ksons from that group. His other 2 war walkers manage one wound on the oblits. His fleeing warp spiders land a wound on my prince.

My turn 4 and I warptime the prince and the dread is not crazy. I send up my last mobile rhino over terrain and deploy my squad (which might have been foolish) to shoot his gaurdians. The slogging squad moves around as well to be on a forward objective. My rhino shifts to a firing lane, and my terminators can't roll out of cover so move to be almost out and take some shots.

In shooting my dread and terminator fail to do anything. So do my oblits due to some good saves on his war walkers. My 1ksons kill enough gaurdians in cover for a LD save... but I've gotten too lucky so far and they make their save to not run off the board.

I charge my prince into his other serp and kill it.

His turn 4 and his jetbikes finally come in, and I decided not to bother warp timing though I think I should have as I think it would have happened before his runes fella ended up on the board. I just figured he's shoot my prince dead anyway. As it turns out he did two wounds to the prince shooting, but killed him in CC. I think I killed one back, and warptime would have helped immensely.

In other shooting he shot my rhino shaken, and whittled my 1ksons squad of 6 down to one dust bucket.

My turn 5 and I figure I best hustle if the game comes to a close now. Thankfully my dread goes crazy and fleets off toward his war walkers rather than contributing to going toward objectives. :P My lesser daemons are sitting on one objective, and I deploy my last full sons squad out of the immobilized rhino to sit on the middle objective. My single sloggin 1kson jumps in a rhino that squats on one objective. My 4 man 1ksons advance on his gaurdians. My terminators advance for his full war walker squad.

In shooting I think I try to take a few oblit shots at his bikes and maybe kill 1 but not enough for a LD check. I think my advancing sons kill one guardian. My terminators kill one war walker with the chain fist. My thousand sons charge into his guardians and I think we both kill two each.

His turn 5. His bikes zoom up to sit on one objective and contest my horrors objective. His fire dragon's serp blast up to contest my rhino/1 guy on that objective.

In shooting he manages to take 2 1ksons down off my center objective unit. The fire dragons advance but only one can reach my rhino and he misses.

In combat my sorcerer lives but loses his last dust bucket, and the chainfist makes another war walker explode and oddly that kills my chainfist guy (and I think a fire dragon).

Of course since we're deep in the game I forgot a picture at the end of this turn. In the end he is contesting two objectives, his storm gaurdians tied up in combat are just out of reach of his 'rear' objective, he's got his bikes on one objective and I've got one squad of sons on one. So it would be a tie.

But we roll and the game goes onward.

My turn 6 and my dread is not crazy. He moves forward. The oblits move toward his bikes. The sons on the center objective move up a little to shoot the bikes as well. His bikes have a cover save but they lose one guy and take a wound. My Dread can't hit his wave serpant contesting the one objective.

In combat my sorcerer finally dies, and my chainfist whiffs on his last war walker.

Again no picture. :(

His turn 6 and his bikes and war walkers focus on shooting my center troop. Amazingly my sorcerer lives. His fire dragons advanced and shot my rhino and wreck it. In combat my last terminator fails a 2+ and dies.

I think at this point we measured to see if his bikes were contesting still with the horrors but I think he was out now since he pulled from the front and my daemons ran to block him out of there. So basically still a tie game.

We roll and it is on to turn 7.

My turn 7 the oblits move up and rapid fire plasma his bikes. All but one troop and his IC die. My dread can't pop his serp contesting the last 1kson dudefella behind his wrecked rhino.

His turn 7 he takes some shots and kills my last aspiring sorcerer and we know that gives him the game.

The beginning of the game was really great for me, but his army is good and his tactics sound so he was able to claw into the tie by turn 5. The mobility and firepower all helped late in the game, and alas turn 7 I just didn't have enough gas to keep this out of a loss.

Still it was a great and fun game considering that Eldar are probably the last army I want to draw. Them and hordes, but it's going to be what it's going to be I suppose.

Painting Update

2011-05-03T21:22:00.000-07:00

So I've got guests in town so I'm getting home late, and while I intended to do the second bat rep I am wiped out. So instead here are a few quick updates on the painting.

First we've got my new obliterators.

These are done, they just need to be hit with some gloss/dull coats to be 100% finished.

Next up I've been working on the Dread. There are various details and cleaning up to be picked out but this gives a general idea of what the end product will look like.

I feel chalanged at this point for a few reasons. One thing is I've tried to match the airbrushing I've done on the other 5 vehicle chasis (which I did all in one sitting) and was unable to match it prefectly, even with a second attempt. So I've t hen also applied the methods I used on tthe troops to the dread and that hasn't been right either. So I've got a concoction of painting styles that I'm not very happy with currently.

The second thing is he is just too blue. The predators felt like they had enough color to break up all that blue (and since I'm not doing weathering effects which also help break up the model that doesn't help). Yes there will be some silver bolts to pick it out but the lower half just looks boring. I think I'm going to need to do those 'leg plates' above the feet in yellow. That would help break the model up a bit visually, but am of course worried I'll just make his bad paint job worse.

I also picked up a frame and some other bits to actually try to knock out a display board in the last few days before Kubla.

In this picture you can see how the Dreadnought certainly looks close but not 100% right. I think I might just have to live with it. In the end he probably comes out of future lists anyway for more lesser daemons (which just take too long to paint in the time I have) so OHSWELL.

It is coming together slowly, and of course this could all be for nothing as my wife looks ready to pop and it is hard to see her making it to June for this baby.

But officially:
25 days until Kublacon and roughly 35 days until Baby #2 is due.

4.29 Friday Night Game 1

2011-05-02T21:16:00.000-07:00

A few more games for me and the 1ksons last Friday.

I used the same list I've been running up against Liam's 'Chaoszilla' list.

Prince, Nurgle, Wings, Warptime
Prince, Nurgle, Wings, Warptime
Greater Daemon
Dreadnought, DCCW x2
Dreadnought, DCCW x2
4 CSM, Melta, Champ w/ Combit Melta, Rhino
4 CSM, Melta, Champ w/ Combit Melta, Rhino
4 CSM, Melta, Champ w/ Combit Melta, Rhino
4 CSM, Melta, Champ w/ Combit Melta, Rhino
2 Bikes, 2 Melta, Champ w/ PF
2 Bikes, 2 Melta, Champ w/ PF
Defiler
Defiler

So it's got lots of big targets. And I'll say I really should have read his list better. I went in assuming everything was nurgly (PMs or marks) and really nothing is but the princes. So in retroscpect I should have been dealing my priorities differently...

NONE THE LESS the game we rolled was single objective and spearhead. Liam won roll off to go first and this is our deployment.

Liam's turn one consists of advancing a wall of rhinos and blowing off one of my rhinos bolters. He smokes his rhinos.

My turn 1. Dread goes crazy. My shooting manages to immobilize the 'top' defiler and put a wound or two on one prince. The dread makes it to a rhino and destroys a weapon.

Liam's turn 2. Wall of rhinos advance. His shooting does nothing past my smoke. Both his daemons charge my dread and and it explodes.

My turn 2 and I warptime my prince and one terminator unit comes down. I blow up one of his dreads and immobilize his other defiler. I think I only manage one more wound on his 'wounded' prince. My prince charges his rhino but only manages to stun it.

Liam's turn 3. I think his bikes destroy a pred. His greater daemon comes out and charges and destroys my other pred. He manages to make my 'bottom' rhino explode. His wounded prince charge my terminators and kills all but one (but the fist died). His unwounded prince charges my prince and he throws in his bikes as well. I kill two bikes and I lose two wounds.

My turn 3 and my lesser daemons come down. I decide I'll run them into cover and sit on the objective but my run roll of two is total fail. My squad of sons out of the rhino kill off his bikes in shooting. I think I managed a couple of wounds on the GD from the oblits. In combat he kills of my last terminator, and I kill of his last biker before my own prince dies.

Liam's turn 4 and I think his dread rolls fire frenzy. Of course in shooting he managed to make my rhino next to it explode killing two guys. Then managed to shoot one more dead with the dread. His GD charges my rhino and immobilizes it and stuns it. One DP manages a charge on my lesser daemons thanks to my failed run roll, but he only kills 1. His other DP charges my lower 1ksons and kills 4.

My turn 4 and my terminators come down. They shoot his dread which explodes and manages to kill a terminator! My thousand sons in their immobilize rhino get out to shoot the GD and put another wound on before charging and taking heavy losses. My other charge his DP to help the lesser daemons out. I lose two before the sorcerer kills the prince. My sorcerer makes it to the objective and the lesser deamons are screening. His other prince kills my last two guys and consolidates toward me.

Liam's turn 5 and rhinos shift around. One goes back to sit on his objective. The rest move forward. My terminators survive on onslaught of shooting. His prince charges my lesser daemons and kills some, and his GD keeps working down my 1ksons.

My turn 5 my terminators make a last dash to get to his objective but take cover when they get a good run roll. My wandering sorcerer charges into to help the lesser daemons out a bit. Of course this time he kills all my lesser daemons off but my sorcerer kills the DP. My fail consolidate roll leaves me off the objective. His GD has my other squad down to the sorcerer as well.

We roll and the game goes to turn 6, which I'm only thankful of because of my poor consolidation roll.

Liam's turn 6 and one rhino moves forward to shoot my aspiring sorcerer dead. Two rhinos go back and a barage of fire goes to my terminators. However one lives and makes his LD. His GD kills my last sorcerer.

My turn 6 and I think I shot his GD with the oblits and did a few more wounds. My last terminator assaults his rhino and whiffs.

At this point my terminator is contesting and the other objective has not troops so it would be a tie.

But we roll and the game goes on to turn 7. He easily kills of my last terminator but isn't able to kill my oblits off my objective. Either way it is a victory for him.

So I think the funny thing about this game is the defilers and how we both thought about them. I looked at them as a big threat since they are fast and they can tear through my lines, but Liam thought of them as a gun platform. In the end they sucked up shots (and did get immobilized pretty early), but really as a gun platform they just didn't do much. Even if I were normal marines there was plenty of cover from rhinos to the battle cannons.

Either way I probably should have concentrated on the rhinos early in the game. If I could have stalled them back farther I could have slowed his advance a lot and used some of my range. So I'm chalking this up to bad target prioritization on my part, but I gave it a solid go to the end to try (but fail) to scrape together a tie.

But still a challenging and fun game!

Next up Jason's Eldar (again)!

4.22 Friday Night Game 2

2011-04-28T22:19:00.000-07:00

So I'm very behind on this battle report, but my free time in the evenings has been trying to get these obliterators done. They are taking forever.

Anyway, on to game 2. Spearhead and 5 objectives. I won the roll off and decided I would go first.

I decided to put my dread a bit more forward/in the line this time. Oblits are over in the building. Patrick is walking the oblits on this time.

My turn 1 and the Dread is not crazy. I advance cautiously and pop smoke. My shooting isn't so bad. I pop one rhino, and shake another. Certainly I'll take that over the last game and not getting through the smoke.

Patrick's turn one and he advances as he can. His shooting can't get trough my smoke. Karma-riffic.

My turn 2 and everything comes down. I decide to split up my terminators to try to remove both forward rhinos. I put my lesser daemons in the backfield to conga line across two objectives.

My shooting is actually not great. Despite doing everything I could to his rhinos I only managed to immobilize the two advancing units (which is still good because they were not 'on' objectives). I also had to charge my DP into his 3rd rhino to make it explode, and of course managed to lose a wound from that!

Sadly I'm missing a picture from Patrick's turn 2 so this going from memory. His lesser daemons came down near my prince. He got his guys out of both immobilized rhinos. His prince hopped over to my dread. His other PM unit backed up away from my prince.

In shooting that same unit took a wound or two off my prince. His oblits shot one pred and immobilized it. One PM made my rhino explode and of course I lost two guys and one terminator. The other PM units fired on the other Terminator squad and I lost 2 but both terminator units passed LD.

In CC his Prince killed my dreadnought in an explosion but got almost no consolidation. Also his lesser daemons were able to kill my DP though they had a few losses.

My turn 3. My heavy support focus the fire to kill off his DP. My walking 1ksons shoot at some PM and I think kill two. My terminators shuffle around and just basically get in the way. My other two rhinos shuffle around an objective and pick off a few lesser daemons.

Patrick's turn 3. His terminators come down behind my rhino. Both PM units back up a bit.

In shooting my rhinos amazingly survive shots from both his PM and his terminators, but I believe it was weapon destroyed and immobilized. My solo terminator is shot dead by another PM unit. His last PM unit shoots at my 1ksons, as does his oblits, but he only kills two and the sorcerer manages to live.

In combat his lesser daemons charge both rhinos, and glance the immobilized one to death. The other is unharmed.

My turn 4 and I warptime on all three sorcerers. My last mounted squad unmounts to move toward the lesser daemons. I move up my last rhino to sit on another objective, thinking I'll either go bunker there or maybe it will contest later. My smaller squad of sons and last terminators advance on the nearby PM squad.

In shooting I am able to trim that PM squad a bit. I also am able to lighten up the lesser daemons between my other two 1ksons. My oblits manage to plasma cannon two of his terminators down. I put one predator on to kill the last guy but he fails. I decide to shoot at his oblits with the other and manage a Autcannon wound.

In combat my terminators and small sons squad kill the PM but I lose the 1kson, leaving the sorcerer on his own. I kill many lesser daemons and I don't think I take losses, but after fearless save I'm still tied up with I think just one or two models.

Patrick's turn 4 and again my picture is missing. I think he shoots my termies with his oblits and I make amazing invul saves. The aspiring sorcer is killed by his PM unit. He also manages to explode my last rhino with that last damn terminator.

In CC I kill his lesser daemons.

My turn 5. I warptime both aspiring sorcerers but one rolls an 11. I shoot my plasma cannons and 1ksons at them and kill several. I shoot one pred at that last terminator but he makes cover saves. The other predator kills an oblit dead.

In combat my non warptime unit makes combat but the warptimed unit does not. We push in combat. My termies assault his other PM unit and I take one loss and inflict nothing but make my LD.

Patrick's turn 5 and I warptime my sorcerer in combat. His terminator shoots my lesser daemons and kills one. I think his oblits fire at my 1ksons not in combat and kills one or two.

In combat my terminator manages to live, and our other battle we each kill one and push.

At this point that combat is contesting one objective, but my lesser daemons are conga lined for two.

We roll for turn 6 and the game continues. I shoot his terminator dead and kill one more Obliterator. I had warptimed both aspiring sorcerers and they kill off his PM unit and consolidate on the objective. My last terminator dies to his last troop unit.

We look at the board and we know this game is pretty much done. With one oblit and a handful of PMs he at very best can hope to kill the remains of my two 1ksons squad and take one objective. The lesser daemons are not really going to get shifted off the two objectives.

So another fun game, this time getting to get that first turn of shooting certainly helped. Also I was able to use some range advantage. Of course this is one of the few match ups that I actually manage a range advantage.

So more painting and more practice await! I don't think I'll be changing anything in the list now as I've just got too much to do and at least I know how it works.

29 days until Kublacon and roughly 39 days until Baby #2 is due.

4.22 Friday Night Game 1

2011-04-25T20:39:00.000-07:00

So my friend Pat came over to play a few games last Friday. We both brought our 1850 list from practicing for Kublacon and that makes it a CSM grudge match of Nurgle vs Tzeentch!

Pat's list:
DP, Mark of Nurgle, Wings
3 Terminators, CombiMelta/PF, CombiMelta/ChainFist, Reaper Autocannon
7 Plague Marines, Icon, 2 Melta, Champ w/ PF, Rhino
7 Plague Marines, Icon, 2 Melta, Champ w/ PF, Rhino
7 Plague Marines, Icon, 2 Plasma, Champ w/ PF, Rhino
7 Plague Marines, Icon, 2 Plasma, Champ w/ PF, Rhino
20 Lesser Daemons
3 Obliterators

My list:
DP, Warptime, Wings
3 Terminators, 3 CombiMelta, 1 PF
3 Terminators, 3 CombiMelta, 1 Chainfist
Dread, Missile, HF, EA
6 Thousand Sons, Icon, Warptime, Melta Bomb, Rhino
6 Thousand Sons, Icon, Warptime, Melta Bomb, Rhino
6 Thousand Sons, Icon, Warptime, Melta Bomb, Rhino
9 Lesser Daemons
3 Obliterators
Predator, Autocannon/Las Sponsoons
Predator, Autocannon/Las Sponsoons

He's got me on bodies, but I've got a bit more range going for me. I think we're pretty evenly matched and it really will come down to the missions.

First battle we pull is long table edge and kill points.

Here's the table.

Pat wins the roll off to go first. He's got his 4 rhinos pretty central with the DP behind one. He's deepstriking the Oblits and termies and obviously the Lesser Daemons.

I spread my line a little. I too tuck my DP behind a rhino, flank the rhinos with the preds, and have the Dread on the far flank next to the oblits. I think going forward I'm just going to man up and put him right in the middle of the army as on the flank he ends up being out of range (though the missile launcher range does help).

Pat's turn 1 and rhinos advance and pop smoke. DP is hiding.

Dan's turn 1 and Crazy dreadnought rages running forward. Or course this meant running into some trees. :p My rhinos also advance up and pop smoke with the DP following behind them. I however reach out with my predators and oblits. Hits are made across different rhinos, but I think Pat makes all 5 smoke saves. Damn you smoke!

Pat's turn 2 and he gets his oblits to come down and his lesser daemons. The oblits shoot at the predator on my left flank and pop the autocannon and Stun it. His rhinos advance 6 so everyone can shoot. I fail EVERY smoke save. DAMN YOU SMOKE. Two of my rhinos explode. My left most rhino I manage to lose two 1ksons in the blast and I think one in the right explosion but also takes out a handful of lesser daemons as well. I think one of his bolters on the rhino picks of another in the left squad.

My only salvation is that his DP fails his assault in cover, but his lesser daemons are able to assault my other squad and the immobilized rhino. I do manage to chop 4 down, he gets one glance on the rhino to immobilize it, and he puts enough wounds on me where I have to wrap around. He kills 2 more 1ksons and of course the blasted sorcerer.

My turn 2 and I get two warptimes off on the the prince and the Sorcerer left in the crater. My 3 reserved units all fail to come in to play. My dreadnought is not as crazy this turn and moves forward, as do my 1ksons out of their crater.

In shooting my Dread misses but the oblits manage to explode one of his rhinos. The predator that can shoot shakes another rhino. My 1ksons slogging toward his prince shoot at it and manage 1 wound.

They charge him and he lands 3 wounds so I have to put one on each guy and DOH the sorcerer dies before he can strike. Amazingly my 1ksons pass their 4++ and do land a wound as well to tie combat. My DP charges into the lesser daemons and he kills off 4 and I think my 1ksons manage one as well. The lesser daemons whiff on the prince but I fail my saves on my 1ksons. He takes a few more fearless deaths and the lesser squad is looking small enough for my DP to manage.

Pat's turn 3 and his terminators come down and I warptime my prince. His olbits advance on my pred, and one rhino comes up I think with the hope of providing cover for his DP if he gets out of combat. His shaken rhino blasts up and dumps guys out and his other squad of PM get out of the crater to advance. His last rhino moves towards his termies.

In shooting there is good/bad news. His oblits only shake my predator, and his terminators also only shake my dreadnought. On the other hand his two PM squads manage to explode my last rhino and take out 3 1ksons.

In combat his DP and my 1ksons fail to wound/make saves so another push! My DP kills more lesser daemons and takes no wounds so more fearless deaths for them.

My turn 3 and I warptime my prince and my last sorcerer. All of my reserves come in to play and I push them all on to the left flank. My shaken predator moves off to the corner, my last 1ksons move out of the crater and the dreadnought advances as well.

In shooting my 2 Terminator squads kill off his oblits and I even saved one Combi melta for later. My 1ksons bolters manages to kill 2 PMs. My predator blows in rhino that had been shaken and that manages to kill another PM from the same squad. The oblits Plasma Cannon his terminators and one overheat wounds a guy, and I manage to kill two termies and leave the Reaper Autocannon alive.

In combat my lesser daemon shake his rhino but whiff on his prince, and he kills one 1ksons. My warptime sorcerer charges into his 4 man PM squad and I lose one guy but cleave down 2 more. My prince manages to kill 4 more lesser daemons and the last die off too fearless saves. He consolidates backward.

Note his Rhino by his hand isn't there, that's the one that just exploded yet to be removed from the table.

Pat's turn 4 his shaken rhino moves up a bit and deploys the PMs. His unit from the crater advance forward. His other rhino moves around the backfield and his terminator moves a bit as well.

In shooting his two PM squads open up on each terminator squad. Due to some not so great shooting and wound allocation I only lose 1 in each squad, though I did lose my chainfist which is unfortunate. His terminator is not able to break the armor of my dreadnought.

In combat my warptime sorcerer fails to wound the PMs sadly, and the powerfist kills off my two guys who fail their 4++ saves. The consolidate into some cover. His DP kills my last sons and I lose a lesser Daemon to fearless saves.

My turn 4 and I warptime my prince and my dread is not crazy. My dread advances to his terminator and my prince flies up toward his 'center' unit. My termiantors advance toward the closest PM unit.

In shooting my predator and both units of terminators shoot at the PMs in front of them and I think kill 3. My other predator manages to stun his rhino approaching my dread. My Oblits land two Plasma Cannons on his 'center' unit of PMs killing 4 of them (they had cover).

In combat my terminators charge his PM squad killing two more and I lose one guy in return. His DP kills a few more lesser daemons. My DP kills off the remainder of the 'center' PM squad and gets a 1" consolidate to go nowhere really. My dread can't manage to hit his terminator but he can't hurt me in return.

At this point we decided to tally up the kill points just so we knew where things lied at the top of 5.
He's killed all 3 1ksons squads and their 3 rhinos for 6 kps.
I've killed his lesser Daemons, 2 rhinos, 1 PM squad, and his oblits for 5 kps.
So the game is close...

Pat's turn 5 and there isn't much to move. He backs up his rhino behind the ruins for some cover. His 2 man unit of PM advance toward the dread.

There is no shooting.

In combat my termies kill one more PM and the last one kills no terminators. His DP kills a few more lesser daemons. His other two PMs charge my dread and while my dread kills his terminator his PF Champ wrecks my dread.

That means Pat has 7 kp to my 6 kp.

My turn 5 and I need to make the most of it. My prince warptime and moves off to his unit of PM that killed the dread.

In shooting my pred shoots his rhino but only manage to stun it. My oblits shoot at his other rhino but he covers saves the hits away.

In combat my terminators kill off his last PM and I consolidate them away from each other and his DP. His DP finally takes down the last horrors. My DP kills off his PM on the right flank.

That brings us both to 8 kps.

We roll for turn 6 and the game ends!

This game was great fun and while it was slow for me to start (ie damn you smoke!) I think I got some good fortune in the later turns. Had the game gone on it still could have been anybodies game as we both had a few 'easy' kill points that could be picked up but I did have some ranged guns that could have helped.

Either way it was a blast and we decided to play it back with a Seize ground Spearhead game I'll write up tomorrow.

Predators Complete, Dreadnought Base Coated

2011-04-24T21:22:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter!

I did get a couple games Friday that I'll do some battle reports later this week. I just wanted to put up a quick update on the painting table. First and foremost I finished up the Predators. These aren't the best pictures but then again none of mine ever are.

The airbrushed blue is subtle and it shows only so well, both in pictures with flash and in real life. Someday when I have some time I might try to make the highlight more pronounced but for now, like the rhinos, these will do.

Of course I can now compare that to the base coat on the dreadnought that I airbrushed this weekend.

I tried to do him in coats like I did my other 5 vehicles, however it seems I just didn't get light enough. I'm not sure if the picture can really convey it but in person even the subtle highlights look pronounced compared to the dreadnought.

This means I'll have to bust out the airbrush next weekend to get a lighter dusting/highlight on him. I can't really manage that during the week as the air compressor is horribly loud and I only get an hour or so late at night.

So that means I'll just have to jump to the Obliterators this week to keep things moving along.

33 days until Kublacon and roughly 43 days until Baby #2 is due.

Back to Painting (Again)

2011-04-19T20:27:00.000-07:00

So I've returned from a long week away and I know I've got to get back on track with painting. This weekend was awfully busy though it was great to be with the family after being away.

So I've got to work on getting these Predators done this week.

I've got the treads and the silver metal done. The last big time consuming color I need to do is the yellow, then I can work on the details (Gold, Red, Green) but that will be quick. Oh and of course all the silver bolts/dots too.

Of course on top of that I still need to do the turrets and the sponsoons, so that's a few more hours of work as well. I think I can wrap that up this week but we'll see.

Once that is done I can get to work on the dreadnought. His resin base came in while I was out which I am quite happy though this picture is a bit crap.

He sits on it quite nicely and I think it will be cool to get the clock painted up to add to that 'clockwork' feel the bases all have.

Hopefully I will squeeze the time in this week to hit those bits with primer and drag out the airbrush to get a nice blue base coat and highlights on the dreadnought as I'd like to have him done before the end of April.

38 days until Kublacon and roughly 48 days until Baby #2 is due.

Quick 1ksons Update

2011-04-08T23:56:00.000-07:00

I know, crazy to post twice in one night but I'm leaving early for a week away so I just wanted to shoot these up before leaving.

This is esentially the 1ksons army I would play at Kublacon if I can get it painted and the baby doesn't show up early. I'm working on the predators now.

As you can see I did some work on the Ironclad to make him my 1ksons Dreadnought. Like the vehicles I've decided to keep it mostly 'non spikey' and will go for a nice clean look. It isn't perfect but I think with paint it will look nice. Most of this conversion idea I will say I pretty much stole from someone else who made a much better and much more elaborate 1ksons dreadnought. I am not a great modler or greenstuff artist, so I'm going to hope paint will make him look great.

Just a quick pic of the missile conversion. This is the arm for the Ironclad Stormbolters, which I've mounted a Havoc launcher bit. I think it works pretty well and is, again, simple.

The right hand is just the ironclad hand, now with magnetted flamer.

And of course the nice part of this kit is that if I decide I do not want the missile launcher I can use the other CC arm (though I need to still magnet on a botler of some sort).

I figure I'll finish the predators and then get to this guy and then I'll be done with vehicles. Then it's just oblits, termies, and one more sorcerer. If I have a little time I'll probably highlight the vehicles more. I might decide to add a banner to the dreadnought. Of course if I've got a whole weekend I'd definately like to tackle a display board.

Of course losing next week to travel means no painting, so I'll be pressed to get this done in time.

49 days until Kublacon and roughly 59 days until Baby #2 is due.

4/2 1500 Game 4: Sisters of Battle

2011-04-08T18:58:00.000-07:00

An to wrap up a long day for Game 4 I played a Sister's of Battle army with a gents who's name I've regrettably now forgotten. The pictures certainly help me pull together the play by play but I've certainly forgotten things like when he used faith points and those kinds of details.

His list looked like this:

Canoness, IP, Book, Blessed Weapon
5 Celestians Retinue, 1 metlagun, 1 HF- Immolater TL HF

5 Celestians- 2x Metlaguns- Immolater TL HF
5 Celestians- 2x Metlaguns- Immolater TL HF
5 Celestians- 2x Metlaguns- Immolater TL HF

10 Sisters- 1 Meltagun, 1 HF- Rhino
10 Sisters- 1 Meltagun, 1 HF- Rhino
10 Sisters- 1 Meltagun, 1 HF- Rhino

7 Seraphim, 2 hand flamers sarg had a Plasma Pistol

At this point the LGS had a new shift so a new guy came to give us the mission. He declared Annihilation with long table edge battle. Later we had to ask about massacre/major/minor and we eventually settled on <6 kp for massacres, <4 for majors, <2 for minors.

Looking at our armies and at least we both have 16 KP possible.

I think I won roll off for deployment and opted to go second.

Here is his turn 1 deployment.

And here it is after two turns of movement. I'm shocked to learn he doesn't have smoke, my mortal enemy against drop pods, and eagerly/maniacly start wringing my hands evilly as I prepare to roll for my first drop.

And of course all I get down is one Troop choice and one Dread. I put my dread down to go after a troop squad (only one normal melta) and another troop down next to him to block off another avenue. My hop is I can create a traffic jam for him and he can't get all his fire power on my quickly.

My troops melta wreck one rhino but my Dread's melta only manages a stun.

We are already on to his turn 3. He drives on immolater directly on to the wreck of his other and that plus his other disembarked unit kill a few guys. His HQ immolater drives up a hill (12") and get out so they can melta my Dread. They manage to stun him and blow of his CC arm. I have extra armor so I can still charge on my turn.

On my turn 3 I get my Marshal squad, terminators and one speeder. Not great but I'll take it. I send my speeder off to the far left mostly as a distraction unit. I put my terminators to the right to again hope to not take much shooting. My Speeder on the left misses a long range melta shot, but my marshals melta make the HQs immolater explode. I charge my dreadnought into combat with his stunned rhino but I think I whiff since I'm only Str 6. My troops charge his unit of girls and the fast immolater with my fist. I fail to hit the immolater but kill some girls with minor losses and we consolidate with them.

His turn 4 and he is able to bring two troop units and one immolater to bear on my Marshal squad. The focused fire leaves only the Marshal (who is wonded) with his melta gun pal. His cannoness and gals wreck my dreadnought. Another troop in a rhino pops my marshals drop pod. I think he had a unit of celestian disembark from the immolater that helped fry my marshal to double melta my speeder not seen on the left. In combat I finished killing his girls on the 'top' and make a decent consolidation toward the action, while my marshal move up toward the cannoness with Zeal.

My turn 4 and I get my last units in now and am set for a turn to make break the game open for me. My EC squad comes down to the left and deploy basically starting in the crater left by my speeder. My other troops come down behind his empty immolater. My last speeder comes down just south of my termies.

My EC squad shoot his celestian squad that had downed my speeder and managed to kill 3. My newly arrived troop unit meltas their immolater to death into and explosion. I also send off my loan melta to make another rhino explode, and both of those explosions take a few girls down with them. My troops up 'top' move and wreck the other immolater knocking out the celestians from there. My speeder only manages to stun a rhino.

In combat that same unit rolls an amazing 6 to catch the celestians and wipes them out (I think I only lost a melta for dangerous terrain, but I did lose a few lads also). They consolidate to try to make it out of LoS of his Seraphim but I can't quite make it that far with them all. My termies crash into his cannoness and thanks to invul save faith she lives and one girl does and I think I lost a TH/SS guy. My marshal also assault a unit of girls and smacks a few dead and lives another day.

His turn 5 and the pressure is on him now. His left most troop jumps in the rhino and hits the reverse. His two last Celestians try to run away from the ECs squad. His other troop in their crater shoot my lone melta guy dead. His Seraphim unload shots on my troop squad and they kill me down to one man. In combat my terminators wrap up killing his HQ and retinue, though I do lose a Claw guy. My Marshal pops a few more girls off as well.

My turn 5 and my speeder only manages to immobilize his rhino. My EC squad kill his two Celestians in combat and consolidate toward his rhino. My Marshal also finishes off the last of the girls he's in CC with. My termies charge into list last troop unit but I'm not able to kill the squad off.

Since this didn't have a 'game ends on turn 6' like the last ones we roll to see if there is a turn 6. There is not.

I've killed his Cannoness, her retinue, their immolater, all 3 celestian squads, all 3 of their immolaters, 2 of the sister squads and one of their rhinos. 12 kp I think. 11 if the retinue doesn't count as one but I thought those do now. /shrug

He's killed my dread, one troop, one pod, one speeder. 4 kp.

Either way you slice it a Massacre win for me. Even with my odd 'only two' drops on turn 2 I was able to neutralize taking heavy fire on following turns for the most part (the exception being my Marshal's squad). I also finally had a game where my Melta's managed to hit where as most of the day they seemed fond of ones and twos.

So with that the day comes to an end. It turns out a SW army had massacred 4 armies, so gets a 1600. Then we're told two players tied for second and that was that. I wasn't shocked as I lost one came and drew another, but was wondering if maybe I had slid into third.

Then 2 minutes later as were cleaning up the tables the guy comes in and say 'oops miscount, Templar got second, they tied for third.

As it turns out the scoring went like this:
Massacres 400 pts
Major Victories 350 pts
Minor Victories 300 pts
Draws 250 pts
Minor Loss 200 pts
Major Loss 150 pts
Massacred 100 pts

So the guys who 'had' been announced as tied had gone 1 Massacre, 1 Major Vicotory, 1 Minor Loss, 1 Massacred for 1150. My 2x Massacre, Draw, Minor loss actually netted me 1250.

So a little shocked I graciously took my $40 gift card, and with a few extra bucks bought my prize.

Which I figured would be a nice basis for my Batcrap-Crazy Chaos Dreadnought.

It was a fun day with four great and challenging games, even if the LGS seemed a little under prepared.

Now I'm just need to focus on getting the 1ksons ready for Kubla at the end of May. I doubt I'll get a tourney in before then as I'm 'using' my one free day for Kubla.

Of course that is also assuming baby #2 doesn't show up a week early! :D

4/2 1500 Game 3: Tau

2011-04-07T20:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I've been sick so the battle reports have been slow coming.

Game 3 and I'm up against Gus's Tau. I've played Gus many moons ago, I'd guess over two years probably.

Here's the current version of his Tau Empire:

Shas'o- Plasma/MP/ Flamer + HWMT+ 2 Shield Drones, SI
+1 Shas'Vre Bodygaurd, Plasma/MP, TA, HWMT, BSF
+1 Shas'Vre Bodygaurd, Plasma/MP, TA, HWMT

Shas'o- Plasma/MP + MT+ 2 Shield Drones
+1 Shas'Vre Bodygaurd, Plasma/MP, TA, HWMT, BSF
+1 Shas'Vre Bodygaurd, Plasma/MP, TA, HWMT

6 Firewarriors + Devilfish w/ Disruption Pod
6 Firewarriors

4 Pathfinders + Devilfish w/ Disruption Pod

Hamerhead, Railgun, Disruption Pod, MT
Hamerhead, Railgun, Disruption Pod, MT
2 Broadsides. 1 Team Leader, Target Lock, ASS, 2 Shield Drones

Gus, much like I've been thinking, has gone for firepower over scoring units. Unlike my Tau choice he's gone with 2 3 man teams (5 when you add shield drones) that have loads of upgrades but that does provide some Multiwound/Equipment Shenanagins. I tend to go for more bodies and less upgrades when it comes to my Crisis suit selection.

The mission is basically Spearhead, with Objectives in the center of the non deployment corners. Kill points also play into the breakdown of the massacre/major/minor wins.

He wins the roll off and chooses to go second. I'd rather be going first, but on this heavy terrain city board I decide to try to pin him in to a very cramped table quarter.

Here he is his force at the end of turn 1. You can see the building on the top right really sucks up a lot of space in that quarter. He put his Devilfish and troops in deployment, and I didn't really worry about the fact that the devil fish for the Pathfinder might have needed to roll separately than the firewarriors it was obviously intended for it.

My turn 1 and I get a really good drop. I think one speeder stayed out. One troop goes over to camp the far 'left' objective. The Champ squad scattered back but into cover, and the dread scattered way off also (you can barely see the pod in the picture below). The termies and marhal hit down and the speeder rolled backward but was fine. Most shooting was not much to speak about (as usual) but I did manage to kill to pathfinders and they broke.

His turn 2 and one of his FW/DF teams comes on the board. He's torn because he had hoped to get two to try to kill down my one squad, but one is not going to be enough so he deploys it with his main force. The Emperors Champ squad is whittled to only 3 guys but they RZ forward, but my marshal takes a few losses and fails his LD to fall back a few inches. My Landspeeder is also immobilized.

My turn 3 and my other troop and speeder come down. I put the speeder down safe behind the other, and drop the troop down to try to hold the other objective. My dread moves their way to support them and pops smoke. I don't think my shooting is grand but I do make some combat charges. My marshal charges the Broadsides and his squad is able to kill them. My termies charge the pathfinders to help with their advance and kill them to consolidate into some cover. The EC and his two remaining lads charge one of the Crisis teams. Believe it or not I only killed one Shield Drone and lost a dude, so we tied combat.

His turn 3 and his other Troop comes on to bolter his mechanized advance which is inching up to 'my' objecitve. He does manage to down my dreadnought, and I may have lost a few other bodies to shooting. The impressive thing this turn is his HQ team kills my PF before it strikes, and the EC only manages one wound for another tied combat. Maybe Shield drones are better than I thought on these squads!

My turn 4 and I start pulling back a troop squad to camp 'my' objective. My marshal goes after a hammerhead to no avail, and my termies combo charge his suits and the other hammerhead. I still don't do anything to the hammerhead, but the crisis suits can't stand up to that many attacks of doom. In the consolidation they move toward his flank.

In his turn 4 he knows he's got to divide some effort for a chance at winning this game. His hammerheads move off to plug pie plates down on my only troops sitting on the left objective. He pushes forward with his devilfish, and he focuses what firepower he can on my troops on my objective. If all goes well for Gus he can shoot me off the objectives and take one with a surviving FW squad.

My turn 5 and my termies EC can not catch a vehicle nor JsJ Crisis team because he's blocked me off with drones from the fish. I do my best in shooting, and I also charge with my Marshal, but all I can manage is stunning the Devilfish. Destroyed would have been nice, but stuns do help. The termies kill off the drones easily in combat.

His turn 5 and his hammerheads whittle my troop on the left objective down to one guy. His Crisis shoot at my troop and take a few more bodies down.

My turn 6 and the only tactical move I can think to make is to drop my speeder in such away that his crisis can't jump to double tap plasma my troops. In shooting I suck, and in combat I kill one Devilfish.

His turn 6 and his hammerhead kills my lone guy, and the rest of his army (1 crisis team, 1 devilfish, and 12 FWs) lay fire into my guys. They go to ground (thus also avoiding even having to take the RZ test) and I am left with 4 guys standing on one objective.

While the other objective has nothing.

This was a game that I could have seen get away from me quickly do to some aggressive early drops. I I think the terrain really hurt him, as I have said many times about some of these tables and shooty armies.

As it stood I had the more objectives and more KP (but barely) so that made this a Massacre Victory for me.

Last game of the day: Sister of Battle!

4/2 1500 Game 2: Tyranids

2011-04-05T19:07:00.000-07:00

Game 2 and I draw Jason's bugs. After several losses to his Eldar over the last few weeks I at least feel lucky to now play a different army. :)

His army looks like:

Tyrant – Lash Whip, BoneSword, Old Aversary, Paroxysm, Life Leech, TL –Devoureres w/Brain Leech, Acid Blood

2 Tyrant Guard with Lash Whips/ Rending Claws
2 Venomtrhopes
3 Zoanthropes with Mycetc Spore
3 Hive Guard
25 Hormagaunts with Toxin Sacs
15 Termagaunts with Toxin Sacs
Tervigon- Catalyst, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, Scything Talons
Mawloc with Regeneration

The mission was Dawn of War, 6 turns, with the old Headhunter mission (5kp for HQs, 2 for elites, fasts, heavies, 1 kp for troops and dedicated transports).

We weren't sure how to count the Emperors champ and Tyrant Gaurd, so we decided we would call them both a 5 pt HQ choice.

In case you want a count, that means his army has 22 kps in this scenario to my 28 kp. Oh and you need 8 kp more to Massacre, 6 and 4 for Major and Minor victories. D-lightful for a 1500 pt game.

I don't even remember who went first. I think it was him. Time is not helping me remember this mission so clearly, so some of this might be slightly off, but it still gives a good impression of how the game went down.

I think this was him after turn 1.

I think on his turn 2 he shuffled some guys around, and the Mawloc went under. Zoes stayed off the board.

My turn 2 and I got two whole pods in, and that was my elites. Oh boy. The dread maybe killed one bug, the termies ran to spread out to try to avoid Mawloc death.

His turn 3 and the Mawloc popped up with a small scatter, and I think that took out one of my TH/SS.

The Zoes stayed off. He did some shooting but amazingly my dread lives but I think was stunned (or maybe DCCWless?). The Mawloc runs to try to put some distance from the remaining termies in cover.

My turn 3 and reinforcements arrive in the form of my Marshal w/ Troops and my two HQ-less Troop choices. I think I also dropped a speeder but kept it back and safe out of the way. The marshal's squad ran for some cover. Shooting was minimal, but I did assault his Mawloc with the termies, and figured the dread was going to die soon anyway so charged him into his Hormagant squad.

I killed the Mawloc and consolidated back to cover, and the dread killed a Hormagant. :p

His turn 4 and his Zoes come down. They shoot and kill a few marines. I think his other shooting didn't do much. His Tyrant is able to slip around to the back of the dread and wreck him, and his little bugs consolidate forward as the Tyrant slips back into cover.

My turn 4 and my last speeder and Champ squad come down off to the left in 'safety' area. I know I've got to start to bring the assault or I'm just going to be picked apart. My far left troops assault the termagants. My termies and my Marshal squad assault his Hormagants. My Troops on the right assault his Zoantrhopes and I multicharge to put the fist on his pod. The Damn venom thropes mean there is dangerous terrain and every squad takes at least one casualty, but the one that hurts is my second TH/SS terminator. Combat goes pretty well. I can't but wound one Zoe put I do pop the pod. My other troops win against the Termagants but a few hang tight. I kill a good number of Hormagants and he takes a number of fearless deaths as well. He pulls from the terminator squad, and in the end I have to try to consolidate to him but I can't make it. Unfortunately because I have to move the full distance I am not out of cover, which is where I obviously don't want to be!

His turn 5 and in the excitement I have again forgotten my camera!

His tervigon spits out 9 or so gants put also taps out. They charge into my troops on the left but I kill some more and he takes a few fearless saves, but both squads remain. I think his Hive Gaurd are able to shoot a Speeder down. The Zoes whiff but I can't wound them either. His Tyrant charges my termies, one gaurd goes after a pod, and the other taps my marshal. The result is that my termies and pod die, my Marshal puts a few wounds on his HQ squad, and my remaining squad almost wipes out his remaining hormagant squad.

My turn 5 and there isn't much to move. My speeder takes cover between a pillar that provides LOS. My Champs squad charges in to assist the marshal. In combat I think I finally kill the hormagants, but his Hive Gaurd kill off the rest of the marshals squad. The Marshal takes two wounds, but puts enough wounds to kill off one of the Tyrant Gaurds. My troops on the left are able to kill off both his gants squads, and I think my troop on the right kills the wounded Zoanthrope.

His turn 6 and his Hive Gaurd shoot a few of my now free troops dead and charge them with the Venomthropes and manage to kill my fist (doh). His Tervigon charges and kills a pod. In combat the Zoes and marines whiff each other. The remains of my EC squad is killed off by his Hive Gaurd, my mashal dies and my EC is wounded, but his Hive Gaurd dies and his Tyrant is left with one wound. I now remember my camera for this epic fight to the death!

My turn 6 and all that really matters is the Emperor's champ manages to make 2 4+ invul saves, and then take the one wound off the Hive Tyrant.

To lesser huzzah the Hive Gaurd kill of my squad while losing one guy, and the Zoes and Marines continue to whiff each other.

In the end The Champ came through for me.
I killed his Tyrant (5), Tyrant Gaurd (5), 2 Termagant squads (2), his Hormagant squad (1) and his Pod (1) for 14 points.
He killed my Marshal (5), my Termies (2), my dread (2), 3 troops (3), 1 speeder (2), and two pods (2) for 16.

Since this was less than 4 kps (yay ard boyz missions) this result was actually a draw. Had the EC failed one of his Invul saves that would have put him at 21 kp and been a majov victory for him.

So once again the last dice rolls of the game determine the result of the game, this time pulling in my favor to eek out a draw.

It was a fun and incredibly fun game. In any non semi-ridiculous Ard Boyz mission I think I lose this matchup, but with an silly mission and a little luck I feel thankful for the tie.

Next up: Gus's Tau!

4/2 1500 Game 1: Blood Angels

2011-04-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

So off to the races we go! The LGS felt a little underpreparred which was too bad (and a little unusual), so they ended up using Ard Boyz mission from 2009. Not the worst but, eh, this is a 1500 pt tournament. Plus we only had 12 people show so they decided to just do 1st, 2nd, 3rd place (no paint, no raffles) which is a bit of a departure for the store.

First up I drew Frankie's newly assembled BA army. I played Frankie's SW army a few months ago with my orks and had a narrow loss. Since then he's gone on to go 5-0 at the Grand Waagh in Alameda and I think he just went down south to win the Broadside Bash in LA.

His list:

Libby, Jump Pack, Unleash Rage, Shield
Libby, Jump Pack, Unleash Rage, Shield
Furiouso Librarain Dread, Shield, Wings
5x Sanguinary Gaurd, 1 PF
2x Sang Priests, 2x PW, 2x Jump Pack
10 Assault Marines, 2x Meltagun, PF
10 Assault Marines, 2x Meltagun, PF
9 Assault Marines, 1x Meltagun, PF

Definately has that DoA feel like my army but some intersting other choices that I looked forward to seeing how they played.

The mission was a mix of objectives as primary and kill points as secondary. Spearhead deployment, 6 turns.

I lost roll off so he made me go first. I put everything in to drop. So he decided to start on the board. Then he went to steal the turn, and did.

So he spend turn 1 and turn 2 moving forward to get to this position.

On my turn 2 I got my Champs squad, my termies, my dread, and one both speeders. One speeder landed on his guy but went back to reserves. One speeder landed back a bit from where I wanted. The termies landed closer than I wanted. My dread I was hoping to land to get a rear shot on his libby dread but my pod landed in the way. The EC went over by the dread to support him. I should have still shot the dread with my dread, but for some reason I didn't, thinking the flamer might kills some FNP marines. LOL. Shooting overall did nothing but maybe kill one guy. My termies ran to get fully in cover.

This is just the drop.

Now I've got no pictures for several turns, because the game was fun, but I was really on my back heel the whole time.

His turn 3 and his libby dread flew to assault my EC squad, where he would be tied up the remainder of the game. His Sang gaurd and another squad charged my termies. The other squad was not needed, the Sang Gaurd wounded 9 times and I failed more than enough Invul saves to kill the whole squad. He had a squad melta the Dread but only stun him, so they assaulted and got tied up in combat.

My turn 3 and I think everything came down. One troop dropped back a bit trying to stay a way out of charge range of his Sang Gaurd squad. My speeders moved to relative safety and the other speeder dropped down safe as well (they may have MM a marine or two). My Marshal squad landed to try to support the EC in combat with the libby dread next turn. Another troop I put on the farthest objective in my zone. In combat my dread killed a few more marines but his fist popped my DCCW. My own fist only managed to stun his libby dread and he killed a marine.

His turn 4 and he decides to send his Sang Gaurd after the Marhal Squad. He killed everybody but I think the Melta marine and the PF (after my fearless saves), the Marshal I think took a wound, but my Marshal popped off 3 Sang Gaurd. One of his free troops charged my troops on the rear objectives and does a real number, leaving maybe 2 or 3 guys and managed to pop the Drop pod. His other troops tried moving toward my last free troop unit and I think whiffed melta shots against a speeder. My Dread keeps fighting his guys but we are still locked in combat. Same for the Libby dread who pops one more guy but we still stick around fearless.

My turn 4 and I remember I have a camera! I was able to move both speeders and my free troop unit down to lay fire on his non FNP troop and really whittled them down a lot. I charged them with my troops and I still took losses but was able to clear them out to a man and moved to get in cover.

His other troop squad wiped the rest of my squad and consolidated.

Meanwhile my dread keeps fighting with one attack, and now is immobilized to boot so grenades are now against WS. His Libby dread kills another guy and is whittling down my troops. Damn AV13 means my EC can't do a thing! My Marshal manages to only kill one Sang Gaurd (DOH!) and my fist fails to kill his priest. However it turns out my Marshal makes his saves and his priest only manages 1 wound killing my melta guy, and I make my fearless save.

His turn 5 and I promptly forget about the camera again! His roaming unit hops toward my stragglers and amazingly his priest dies to jumping out of terrain. He's not able to get in assault range the way the pod and LS are positioned so he shoots them and maybe kills one. He finally is able to kill my dread with his fist and he moves his unit a bit to go off toward an objective. His libby dread kills another guy or two. But the critical part for me is that his priest kills my PF, so I can't kill his Priest this turn and the Marshal kills off the last Sang Guard, and is now locked with the priest.

My turn 5. I try the double flamer and shoot with my remaining troops at his unit but it doesn't go quite as well as the last time I tried. I don't think I bothered charging as I would have to go through cover and he'd strike first. In CC my marshal finally pops his last Priest and his libby dread kills another guy but I only stun him.

His turn 6. His unit that killed the dread hops over to an objective. His other free troop charges my last troops and kills them. His libby dread kills another marine.

My turn 6 and I'm hurt. I move on speeder up to flame and melta one unit hoping maybe I'll get lucky and break them or something. I kill a guy or two but they hold, but we end up contesting there.

Meanwhile my other speeder blasts up to contest his troop that have squatted on an objective. The last big thing is my marshal charges his libby dread. He directs the attacks to the marhal, but I make my one Invul save to avoid being force weapon-ed to death. If I can kill the libby dread my troops can move to the objective (they might even be within 3 now).

But despite being able to pen him once I think I only immobilized him. It was a great game, and I like games that come down to a few dice rolls.

I had killed: Sang Garud, Sang Pried x2 (with help from terrain), and one troop. 4 kp
He had killed: Dreadnought, Terminators, 3 Troops, One drop pod. 6 kp

I thought that was respectable given he had 9 kp to give up and I had 16. :p

Since I could not kill the libby dread to claim a Major Victory for objectives without more kp, he received a Minor Victory for having the same objectives and Killpoints.

So I took my minor loss on the chin, it was a great game, and then drew my buddy Jason's bugs for Game 2.

1500 Tournament Tomorrow

2011-04-01T19:10:00.000-07:00

So I've signed up for a 1500 event at the LGS for Saturday. I originally thought I would make a go of Ard Boyz fantasy for my 'one Sat of gaming a month', but I've since realized I'm really under prepared for that... which means I probably wouldn't have much fun.

I've been a bit half-assed about putting together a list. Part of that is because it is hard to get motivated about 1500 when most of my planning and purchasing is built around 1850. Sometimes you can just make some cuts to go down but not always. I don't feel like my orks or my thousands sons work well at 1850. I feel like my orks are really built to function at 1850, and below 1750 the list really needs a rework. 1ksons are just too pricey, and below 1850 is like playing 1000 points in marines. Two squads one hq and maybe some oblits? Yawn.

That leaves Tau, BA or Templar. Tau are always fun, but at the LGS where there is are some really heavy terrain boards I think they have challenges drawing LOS on advancing combat armies. It can work but it isn't easy for an army that has challenges. Plus my kroot hounds and 2 piranhas aren't done so they're out for now.

The BA could be interesting. I've thought of a couple of things I could do. Drop Dante and the 5 man, go with only two troops. Drop the 5 man and one Vangaurd squad. Drop Dante and the Sang Garud, add more assault marines. Well that one requires paint, and the others just feel so light. And again at the LGS with tons of terrain on some tables there are certainly risks in running an all deep strike army.

So that leaves Templar. As much as I have interest in running a Mech force I've got nowhere near enough models and really I have so much on my workbench to paint I'm just not going to go there. The Drop Pod option actually scales ok because the army is built around adding redundant sub 200 point units. Add in the latest Templar FAQ and there are some compelling things to try.

Emperor's Champ, AACNMTO
Marshal, Terminator, TH/SS
5 Assault Termies, 3 Claws, 2 TH/SS, Furious Charge, Drop Pod
Dread, MM/HF, EA, Smoke, Drop Pod
5 Initiates, 2 Neophytes, Melta/Fist, Drop Pod
5 Initiates, 2 Neophytes, Melta/Fist, Drop Pod
6 Initiates, 2 Neophytes, Melta/Fist, Drop Pod
6 Initiates, 2 Neophytes, Melta/Fist, Drop Pod
Speeder MM/HF

Speeder MM/HF

Lots of Kill Points as always, but the Termies will probably either make or break this list. The Marshal doesn't have my favorite Adamantite Mantle but hopefully the 3++ will come through for me. I would really rather try the new improved Typhoon speeders but I only own one and it isn't painted. I think they would give me some range and a weapon that could threaten things that single Melta shots are able to mitigate (ie Storm Ravens and Wave Serpants).

So we'll see how it goes. It's a 4 game event so it will be long, and I might get the ringer on missions. But the army looks good and on the heavy terrain tables it may work out well for me. Expect some pictures and battle reports next week.

Thousand Sons Rhino

2011-03-31T21:24:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-30T21:01:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-29T20:56:00.000-07:00

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:

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

2011-03-28T21:33:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-24T22:06:00.000-07:00

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.