Proof

Just to show I have actually been doing something... Here's the Almost complete deve squad. It was going to be the fully finished, but I stupidly left by black and silver, and haven't actually completed one of the bases... Buggeritmilleniumhandandshrimp.



On another note, I probably won't be getting in a game tonight at the club - I'm coming down with a cold quite hard, so instead I'm going to concentrate on finishing this deve squad, hopefully finish the first assault squad, and finish building the Seaguard. In theory, this is well within my ability tonight - but as you may have noticed, theory and actuallity when it comes to my spare time don't often click!

Shame

Yes, yes I know I said I'd have the full unit painted and finished with pics for you wonderful, wonderful forgiving people...

Look, I played fantasy on Thursday night, my Goblin army verses Warriors of Chaos. I knew that Gobbo's aren't competative. I knew this was likely to be an uphill struggle, if not a solid defeat. I was bitch slapped off the table in 4 turns.

The bolt throwers did bugger all.
The fanatics were relatively fantastic.
The shaman twins blocked all of his magic that mattered, and I got off a genius Gork'll fix it. 6's to 1's on his Phat unit? Booyaa!
40 archers did absolutly nothing - literally!

All his units managed to get ward saves of one sort or another (damn those shrines!) and hell did he know how to roll them.

Warriors of Chaos, even when reduced down to one active phase (no shooting, 2 level 3's shut down his magic phase) - combat, he wiped me off the board. Not good, people.

So I looked at my large collection of Stuff...

Sons of Ulthuan to the rescue! With the purchase of the Island of Blood box, I'll have a complete 2400 point army*. I've built my first unit of Seaguard, and tinkering with a colour scheme. Something... Watery.

* What?! Yes, my collection of stuff includes several 'most of an army's, bought on a whim or as a bargain. Sad, isn't it?

Stay on target, stay on target...!

One Farmer Geddon point for the movie...

Do you know, I think I'm about there! I've got to do the bases, but due to the messiness of sand and sloshing, I'll be finishing these at home sometime this weekend I think. I'll slap up final photo's as and when.

So briefly, I added boltgun metal to the raised parts of the Rocket launchers*, painted the casings of the boltgun and chainsword black, and gave the chest skull and honour ribbons a quick wash of devlin mud. Bob's your Uncle, Fannie's your aunt.

I'm trying to get this army up and running as quickly as possible, so I'm cutting some corners, skipping some details. For example, I'm just painting the chest eagles foundation red and stopping there. I'll hopefully go back and 'finish' these at a later date.**

Interestingly enough I'm due to have a game of Fantasy tonight, my gobbo's vs... I really should keep a record of the people I play and their forum names, cos I've got a sneaky feeling it's the same guy I played a month or so ago, pretty much a mirror match!

* I don't like calling them Missile launchers due to the regularity that I 'Miss'. Call it an Orky mentallity if you must, except I don't think an ork can use words like Mentallity.

**Awww, who am I kidding? I'll be way too busy on all the other crap I've got to paint!

Mr WIPpy, one two miss a few...

Heh, I'm getting good at the dodgy post titles!

Onwards with the seemingly endless how-to... While not working, moping, procastinating etc, I am actually getting on with the rest of the army. I've almost finished the first assault squad. Pics will magically arrive when I've done it.

Ok, now for the missing steps. Below is the result of the black highlighting.

What do you mean you can't tell?! I've mixed up a couple of batches of really dark grey and quite dark grey based on mixing Codex grey and black. I've got a feeling it's too subtle, but I tried highlighting with codex grey and washing it back, and I just didn't like it.

So these are what happens where you block paint Number 1 (the really dark) and line highlight the edges with Number 2 (the just dark). Then a good slosh of Badass black over it.
To be honest I'm still not convinced, but it's good for now, and if I find a better method/colour level, it'll be easy enough to add to what's already down.

Next, I'm still not decided on the weapons colour - I'm tempted by boltgun metal:

Other idea's I've played with are mid grey (kind of goes against the black OR white scheme), dark red (I want it as a really small counter point, and I'm already painting the chest details red) or black white quartered (am I mad, that'd be hell!).

What do you think?

Next, just because I had time, I've finished of his shouting head (Sons of Malice actually battle in silence - I'll say he's just taked a glancing shot to the cod piece) and started the seals.

So, what do you think about the weapons (bolt pistols, chainswords, missile launchers)?

Farmer Geddon's Armageddon

Last Thursday I got the second game in with the BA flavoured Sons of Malice.*


Oh, what a different game this was...





I used exactly the same list as the previous week, and I was facing a perfectly modern Crimson Fists...

Librarian

3 Min tactical squads in Las/Plas razorbacks

5 TH/SS Terminators in Landraider Redeemer

2 Vindicators

1 Landspeeder Typhoon

1 Landspeeder MM/HF

No pictures I'm afraid - it was a bit of rush getting a pick up game at all, and I hadn't had a chance to paint much, and to be honest, I'd rather not chronicle being tabled that closely!

Table quarters deployment, 2 objectives.

He went first, deployed in a loosely defensive way, knowing I was going to try a mass deepstrike.

I deployed the Devo squad in ruins quite close to his quarter (Mistake 1**).

1st turn he shot up the Devo's killing a couple of grunts - nothing too bad.

I tried shooting on the vindicators, yes, I'd need 6's to do anything meaninful, but missing 3 out of the four shotd REALLY didn't help. Good start eh?!

2nd turn, he charges the LR forward and deposits the terminators in front ready to charge. All vehicles pop smoke. Charges, wipes out the whole squad.

I drop in Honour guard, Vanguard, 1 combat squaded 10 man, and the 5 man. one of the melta combat squads deviates into terrain, sprain their ankles and start running... flashforward: This squad keeps running due to running right past half his army, rallys on turn 4, only to be shot out of cover.

The honour guard immobilise the LRR - woop dee doo, then get wiped out by the terminators.
The vanguard charge the rear of a razorback and do jack, get wiped out by subsequent shooting.

The combat squad that actually landed on their feet shake one vindicator, then twiddle their thumbs. Finally charging the other vindicator blowing it up. Woot!

The flamer squad land, then wonder what the hell they're going to do, try charging the razorback holding his objective, fail to do anything, then they're wiped out by shooting.

The Librarian's 10 man squad deem to arrive, lining up for a Blood lance shot potentially hitting 3 vehicles***. 1 blows up, one gets stunned. His librarian then gets all emo, and Avengers half the squad away. Crap!

The following combat was really the only fun to be had, my Libby killed his Libby, the rest of his squad takes me down to just the Librarian. Next turn I cast Sang Sword, he swings, he kills a dude. Following combat phase (quickly now, my Librarian is the last model on the field), roll for Sang Sword again, and blam, his head explodes from demons tickling his eyeballs or somesuch.

The games ends his turn 5, nary a black and white dude on the pitch.

Umm, I'm at a bit of a loss here. The tools I had failed me (I know, a bad craftsmen), and in some cases I justs didn't have the tools I needed. I'd even bought new dice for the occasion, and showed that rolling ones and two's is actually an innate skill I posses. Seriously!

I'm going to go look back at seeing if I can make sure that both 'thpecial' squads have at least one powerfist. Also wondering if dropping and relying on Meltaguns to can-open is really a valid idea. It probably is, it just didn't work out too well for me this time.

* I don't think I have a thing for Bruce Willis?
** I think this is was the first mistake, and as bad as the second.
*** The only other major mistake, Landing them all together in a big KILLME squad.

Last Man Standing

Last thursday my magna marines AKA Sons of Malice AKA Blood Angels got their first outing on the battlefield, 1500 points, Kill points, quarters deployment. I didn't take any photo's I'm afraid, partly due to the exitement of the first outing, partly due to the very unpainted nature of my dudes...

My oponent was Imperial Guard, and as per every other time I've faced them this edition ( i.e 3?) I was shocked just how much you can fit into 1500!

CCS, astropath, naked chimera
2 X Vet squad, missile, 2 plasma
2 Infantry platoons, all with missile launchers, flamers, Chimera
Sludgehound (Banewolf, that I now dislike with a passion)
Vendetta
Valkery

8 Chimera chasis and 2 flyby's... This was nasty.

I took

Librarian, jump
Honour guard, 3 meltas, jump
2 X 10 man Jumpers with 2 meltas and PF serg
1 X 5 man jumpers with flamer and PW serg
5 Vanguard Vets with mixed weaponry
10 Devestators with 4 ML
2 Sang priests, one camped with the deve squad, 1 dropped with none librarian unit.

He deployed and went first, reserving flyers and banewolf. I deployed devestator squad in the open (uh oh) and sang priest. First turn he chipped a couple of ablative wounds off the deve's, I killed a chimera.
His second turn was a repeat, and in mine most of my squads come in, all combat squaded, all dropping within melta range of the rear of his Chimeras. Nothing scatters more than 2 inches (woohoo!). In fast forward... the turns get blurry...
I kill most of his chimeras, 1 is alive at the end. His flybys come in turn 2, my final squad (honour guard comes in turn 3, kills vendetta, his banewolf comes in turn 3 kills my honour guard. Ouch!

Deve's kill valk, and most of the contents on next turn. I kill myself alot due to being too close to exploding chimera's, and he kills my squads down to 2 or 3 members with pure lasgun blindingness. I think, hey, 2 marines can take on 7 or 8 guards? Surely? Bah! Major fail on all combat counts. Come to turn 5, I've got one dude, left. Just a dude. Singular. He's out in the open. He thinks its a great idea to go and bat a measly lonesome guard sergeant around the head. Fails.

We roll, turn 6 goes on! He rolls for attacks, bounce, I roll kill!

Now he's still got a bunch of guns, the nastiest of which belong to the vehicle now dubbed sludge wolf. Plus enough guns to get past marine armoour.

We roll, game ends! I win on kill points, 10 or 11 to 9. Yes its close!

...

What he should have done... His shooting was largely unfocussed, I don't think he concentrated fire enough to take out whole squads of only 5. His choice of reserves were reasonable - if he'd left the banewolf on, it would have been target number one, but if it had survived, it would have rampaged. Same with the flyboys, I think.

My mistakes... I think I failed to account for my ability to roll ones and twos for... Everything!
I should have probably kept the squads at 10 men - they wouldn't have been able to split fire, but I think they would have maintained more combat effectiveness. I also dropped the honour guard out in the middle of nowhere, basically panicing about the 3 twin linked lascannons on the vendetta. That resulted in the sludgewolf killing them in one hit. This may have been a mistake, or it may have been providence that took it out of danger range.

I've also got to study the wound allocation, deep strike, Descent of Angels and vehicle damage rules alot more closely. I think I would have more, and he would have had less... But there you go!

Nice chap, good mech army, with a bit to learn about target priority. He said himself that he was a serious fantasy player, and 40k was his 'fun'. Hopefully I'll get a whole assault squad painted for thursday, and get another battle in (with pics this time!).