Considerably geekier than thou

Is it wrong that I gained a decent amount of glee in the look on the GW manager's face when I asnwered his standard series of greeting questions?
"So what are you working on?"

"Deathwing"
"Ravenwing"
"Sons of Malice"
"Midwar British"
"Late war Fallschirmjager"

*rabbit in headlights*

As an aside, and probably of more, if repeated, relevence... In GW Gloucester they had a display of their new fangled 'Fine cast' examples, glued together.
He said that he hadn't seen any miscasts in his purchases, I should have asked how many returns he'd had.
Anyway, these examples were covered in mould lines. Granted, many of them were surface joins, but some of them were those annoying shifted mould type, where you have to work hard to join the sides together without buggering the detail.

These are supposed to be brand new moulds! They're already wearing out. Doesn't bode well in my mind for the near future.

A gaming setup to aspire to

To anyone who doesn't know the famous speech, it was my vague hint that I'm getting into Flames of War. So much so, that I'm booked into the Devizes Distrct Wargames Group's annual show Attack!
There's a 1750 point North Africa / Eastern Front tournament over the weekend, and I'll be taking... Ok, should put that in a seperate post with some pictures and stuff. And on to what I actually wanted to share with you...

Anyway, I was looking around for articles, hints, battle reps, *twitch* scenery, when I found this breath-taking gaming room over at Greenstuff and Brass with some Guts behind it.

Awesome.

What? Thats not 28mm!

"Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

Suprise GW release

I for one welcome this new book - the number of 1's I roll for Deathwing has driven me to desperation many times... This may be my salvation!

Hodge Podge (not as healthy as porridge)...

As you may have noticed my posting, whilst always haphazard, has taken a further dive in frequency. No excuses, stuff happens... Yu'know?

Anyway, todays thing is spurred on by Warpstone's question: What should be in a Sons of Malice army?

Rather than an extended comment on Wot I Did, I thought I'd do a bit here, show the space wolves version I sent to Crusade, and so on. My quick answer is whatever the hell you want! I'm turning the Sons of Malice into the Ultimate Marine Army: any configuration, any unit, any codex.

While this may rub some people on t'internet at the moment, I'm of the opinion (and agreed with by everyone I've talked to or played at The Club) that as long as it's WYSIWYG, with a bit of modelling imagination on my part, I can justify almost any army configuration with minimum application of the Fluff Crowbar. For example; my Kathal's Hunt that I took to Cut'n'Thrust's Crusade tournament at the end of January:

It's a Space Wolves codex army, led by Logan Grimnar's soul twin Kathal, the current Chapter Master of the Sons of Malice. Their recruiting grounds were a barbaric backwater planet where life is hard, and the men are a little... Canabalistic.

I say 'were' because some self important numpty decided people shouldn't eat each other, exiled the Sons of Malice and genocided the planet. As hopefully you can see, the army is adopting the buddy system, each unit having a CML terminator armoured buddy. Tactically sound for any chapter!

The guys with the trophy racks are Nori and Dori, the Doomed (it's in The Labyrinth - look it up) and are honoured guys who made it through the trial - hard enough to take anything on their Lonesome.

Also in the book, you'll find giant gribblies that are mutated (space radiation, warp, whatever) failures in the Trial, and with a little electroprod application, I'm sure you could get them to carry other Doomed into battle. With this in mind Balin and Dwalin are mounted on things that aren't Thunderwolves, but beasts that are of similar size and suitably nasty. In my opinion, thats about as ridiculous as Space Marines riding giant wolves. I mean - come on!

I've also painted 5 objectives that you probably can't see too well. Sons of Malice go around Hunting (see what I did there?) slaves for a later grizzly feast. So we've got a Kroot, Ultramarine (first and last time I'll ever paint one), Firewarrior, Ork, and random chaossy dude I had nocking around, all in chains awaiting their fate.

Unfortunatly I haven't got pictures of the Blood Angles version, but as you may have noticed, most of the marines are of the assault variety and have magnetised backpacks. Yes, thats alot of magnets! So all the marines go back to the thunderhawk (no, I'm not going to buy one) and change into their jump packs. The terminators can dump their various chainfists and cyclones, and pick up a thunderhammer and stormshield (again, magnets). Then all we need is some veterans/honourguard, so I've used raptors to represent the best of the best flying dudes.

For the Chaos version (in planning), I can use all the marines (as they're all armed with boltgun, bolt pistol and chainsword, right?), terminators and raptors. For the HQ I can go terminator lord, jump pack sorcerer (they're just the same as Librarians and Rune priests in the end), or with Princes... Now on one hand this is an idea I'm particularly proud of.

In my opinion, Sons of Malice are all about Black Vs White, Good Vs Bad, and they're sitting right in the middle, no grey, just survival. So their Princes or 'avatars' of this can be seen (by me anyway) as:

Now, the only downside as miniatures is that they're not GW! Damn you GW! But I think they're awesome mini's, and will be able to use them in friendly games at least. Oh, and I was weak.

Aaaanyway, what I'm getting at here is that I'm building a Space Marine army that with the addition of unique units (thunderwolves, veterans JPs, Deamon princes) and the liberal application of magnets, can be legally and reasonably fluffily played with.

A marine, after all, is a marine. A rhino is a rhino, and a terminator is a terminator. Until they do a Codex: Sons of Malice, I can play them as I see fit. Now I've just got to win some games!

Better late than never? BT Vs SW 1500

Apologies dude (you know who you are...), but I'm finally putting up the battle report from January, as best as I can remember it.

Rightio, random pick up game, 1500 vs Black Templars, and this was supposed to be a practise game (for me anyway) for the painful experience of the Crusade tournament. Less said about that the better...

Right, he had something like:

Emperors Champ
Dread
Venerable Dread
3 biggish crusader squads
1 smaller crusader squad in a 'tactical' formation.

I had a stripped down version of my tournement army:

Logan
Rune Priest
2 Termy lone wolves
2 TWC with PF SS
1 Long fang squad with 4 ML
10 wolfguard inc 2 Cyclone termys
2 x 5 wolfguard inc cyclone termy

Deployment (smile, you're on camera!)



Since I can't remember the turns at this point, we'll go for the less organised story format I'm famous for (in my own head)!

Ok, end of the first turn, everyone more of less charges in an unorganised mess on my side, and he shifts his Dreads and hitty squads to meet me in the centre - he takes pot shots with his squad on the hill (heavy bolter I think) and dreads.



His shooting manages to knock a couple of wounds off the TWC in the centre- I thought 3++ was good?! Logan and his big squad is moving straight down the centre. Rune Priest and his 5 men are taking the long way round and heading for the dread lurking behind the woods on the left.
I stupdily charge the remaining TWC into the full crusader squad - preferred enemy hurts! Logan and squad follow - this turns into 10 of mine versus 20 of his... Guess who wins when the templars reroll to hit?!



The long fangs sit in their corner taking pot shots and successfully not being a threat... Big combat in the centre draws in everyone within reach. By the way, you probably didn't notice them, but there's a 5 man squad in the far right taking whatever shots they can... in the end my saviours!



Behind the jungle in the left third, the dreadnought keeps being shaken into submission, behind the rocks in the right third, the second dread is mostly 'armless, but feeling left out.

The keen eyed my notice an ommision in the next picture. I killed on of the guys in the rocks near his board edge, he failed his test and they ran! One of the disadvantages of BT (pass and they run forward after 1 wound, fail and they run backwards!).



They combat in the middle is drawing to a close - I move the remaining lone wolf to the left to try and do something about that damned dread behind the jungle.



With the Templars finally wiping out the wolves in the middle, their survivers make a beeline for the squad on the right. My rune squad decide to chill behind the jungle on the left.



The survivers charge into the healthy rested wolfguard squad on the right
and blood insues! Note the mostly 'armless dread sneeking around behind the rocks.
Note the dread sitting behind the jungle on the left behind repeatedly hit by a grumpy lonely guy with a chainfist... Failing to do anything repeatedly.



If I remember rightly, I had two guys left on the right who consolidated back to claim the objective they'd been loitering by all game.

Close of play - his crusader squad claims the objective in his left corner, I claim the objective in the jungle (dread was a touch out of contest range), and his sneeky 'armless dread is no more than an eight of an inch outside of contest range behind the rocks on the far right.

I forgot so many special rules, it's not funny, but it was a pleasure to play, and I have to say that trying to kill lots of marinez is not easy!

Define... Rage

Thanks to Santa Cruz for finding this...

The Saga Of Biorn from The Animation Workshop on Vimeo.

This in no way encapsulates me or my journey through life... But I frequently have what I call Skratt moments... You know, the prehistoric squirrel of Ice Age fame?

The moments of horror, frustration, rage, and helplessness when all you can do is wordlessly scream. Quite often in a slightly comedic fashion to release the tension.

Oh, and the above short is really good too!

Sons of Malice Book of Grudges

I was looking for a picture of the Book of Grduges, and all I found was this baby oposum... Such is life!

I've added the new section to the left, to detail my win/loss/draw record for these gents in black and white, as I think this is the army I'll be rolling with for a while, and probably taking to any tournaments.

Anyway, last Thursday I had another 1750pt practise game against Jason of the Ravenguard... Who was using Imperial Guard. Hang on...?!

As soon as we rolled the mission, the likelyhood was a draw - 2 objectives and quarters deployment. He didn't move a great deal, and I couldn't get through all the armour and bullets/rockets/las/plas/melta.

CCS

Primaris Psyker + Psyker battle squad, chimera (Really annoying hiding at the back!)

Infantry platoon with 3 lascannons blobbed up good. I made him take 3 leadership tests in 3 turns, and they held 3 times. Dammit.

Chimeltavet squad

Chimplasmavet squad + Bastonne - humourously lost 2 plasmas in openning salvo. Unfortunatly also killing Thunderwolf!

Chiflamervet squad

Squadron of 2 Leman Russ BT

1 Leman Russ Exterminator - yeah, when was the last time you saw one of those?!

1 Nasty Ouchy Cheesy Horrible Manticore Rocket Launcher.

Battle report in 2 sentances... I had to take 2 shots from the manticore until the scouts came in and showed it some melta love. I don't think the infantry platoon did much but eat my frag, my 4 killer units accounted for... A chimera. No line of sight blocking terrain resulted in enough shots to take out all 4 by turn 4, and they just couldn't make it into his castle. Maybe with some better run rolls but nevermind! Everything else shot, shot and shot some more, while slowly being whittled away. End of turn 5 we didn't bother carrying on, as he'd killed everything on the way in, and he wouldn't be able to make it to my objective.

It's a shame really, as I think we'd both have been happier with a different mission/deployment, and a board with a bit more line of sight blocking terrain, ie > 0.

Hopefully I'll get in another game thursday before the Sunday tournament.

In the meantime I'll have to put up some painting/modelling progress, which there's been plenty!

Revelations - are these the end times?!

And lo, Games Workshop hath thrown all Dark Angels players the Holy Frickin Bone.

New Dark Angels FAQ.

3++ Storm Shields!*

Heavy 2 cyclones!*

Heavy 2 Typhoons!*

Arguably worse apothecary rules!

Definetly worse smoke rules!

BS4 POTMS!

Wow - I found out about this Sunday morning, and I'd already sent in my Crusades list on Saturday night. Oh well, I'll finish painting up the 2000pts Sons of Malice, then back to updating the Dark Angels!

If you're not a DA player, you have no idea how big a boost the Deathwing have just recieved!

WE'RE BACK BABY!

* And the second best part - all at C:DA prices, making them in some cases cheaper the C:SM!

Bang on!

Had the pleasure of playing Chaos space marines last night at 1750. This wasn't his usual army, and wasn't tournament optimised, and it was still a close thing:

Chaos Lord terminator, combiplasma, lightning claw
2 Chaos Dreadnoughts TL Heavy Bolters
8 CSM (with Lord in LR)
10 CSM + Rhino
10 CSM
Landraider
Vindicator
3 Oblits.

Power fists, icons and special weapons to taste, with extra armour up the wazoo. Working it out on army builder it only comes in at 1670... Either I was struggling through the second half against an undersized army, or I'm forgetting something!

Annihilation mission and Spearhead deployment. I rolled to go first and set up with the Thunderwolves and Lone Wolves at the front, long fangs on either corner, and the 3 squads in the centre.

Three sentence summary: the 4 big scary killing machines killed quite a bit before dying, and most of all did the scary thing very well! The rest of the army seemed to underperform a bit, rockets went flying, living lightning sparked, and Logan Grimnar stood scratching his... Ruff most of the game. I think if I'd been less gung ho with my two small wolf guard squads, and more aggressive with the Big Man's squad, I would have had a better result than 8 -7 to me.

After that, I felt alot more comfortable with this army - it feels like it's within my grasp to master to a sufficient level. Guess I'd better send in the army list for Crusade then!

Queue the montage!

Rightio - I've paid my money, 30th January see's the Cut'n'Thrust Wargaming Crusade tournament. 1750, scenario's out of the book.

The trouble is that I don't know what to take! 2 big questions:

Whats Good?
What can I get ready in time?

So, I own half painted or complete armies for Eldar, all flavours of Dark Angels, Tau, and Sons of Malice. No chance of getting Imperial Guard or Orks ready, so I'll exclude them. I think we'll put aside the Dark Angels too - they can be good - but I I need to alot of work to get them up to that level. Deathwing are great fun, put so underpowered right now, I'll look elsewhere.
Tau - I can see how they're supposed to be good. I can see how they're supposed to work. I do my best to make them work like that. But that's no good if they HATE ME!!!
Ahem.
I had a 1750 game last night against Eldar, and my dice failed. Game over after the my first turn of ineptness. Bah.
That has put me off using them to be honest - it's a real shame, as it's my only finished painted army! I've got one more chance next week to test a list before I have to hand in the list. Do I persevere with the tau? or do I try something different?

Eldar - I don't think I can use them - I need to paint a couple of wave serpents and a bunch of dudes. At the rate I paint those damned falcon chasis I'll never be done in time! Plus, and this is probably why I won't use them, I haven't played them in a good 6 years!

Sons of malice. Do I use them as Bloodies, or Wolfies? I've had a couple of games as blood angels, and I'm not completly happy with my grasp of the subtleties of dropping the right squads in the right places. I need alot more practice (see a pattern here?). Plus I need to paint quite a few dudes including the difficult Vanguard vets and honour guard.
Woolfies - I can see how they're supposed to work. A bit like squishy, more numurous, and more deadly Deathwing. To be honest I'm swinging this way.
I think I'll be able to paint all the needed dudes in time, and I think I've decided on the model for the thunderwolves.
I'll get everything ready for next thursday, and I guess I'll make a decision next week!

P.S Sorry for the monologue - I thought it might help?