Wave Assault

It was Wednesday night club night last night, and I got a game in playing a mission from the new Battle Missions book last night. I had been a bit skeptical about the book before, but I was definitely wrong, and this game was really fun.

I was playing my usual Chaos Space Marines, and was playing against Orks. We rolled of the for mission at random and ended up with the Wave Assault mission, which is a Tyranid mission. The Orks took the role of the Tyranids as the attackers in waves, I acted in defense.

The mission is objective based, with 4 objectives on the board which are in fixed position dictated by the book, and the attackers (Nids normally, Orks in our case), come in three waves in each of the first three turns. The units in each wave are decided on by the player, but it's random as to which wave you get. The attacker does get to choose which board edges (their side, or either of the two short edges) they come on from and each wave comes on completely, ie. they aren't in reserve as such.

Tactically, it was a challenge to decide how to deploy, and I made an error at the start. I spread myself out a little too thinly to cover the objectives with my three scoring units. This meant when the second wave of 3 loads of Ork Trukk boyz and a Warboss came on in turn 2, they could get a charge in and destroy one of the units, and then go on to roll over another one, whilst the rest of my army was too far away to help.

For this mission, I should have castled up a little closer together and looked to defend three of the objectives and leave the other. That would have meant my harder hitting stuff would have been better able to support my scoring units. As it was I'd lost two of my scoring units by turn 3 which meant it was looking dicey.

Towards the end, I castled up a bit around the centre of the board where two objectives are close together and tried to protect my surviving scoring unit of Plague Marines but against the tide of remaining Orks. I was only holding on for a draw rather than a win. Had the game ended on turn 5, it would have been a draw as all the objectives were contested. Unfortunately it went to an extra turn, and my Vindicator which was contesting one of the objectives was destroyed, giving a win to the Orks.

I'm definitely looking forward to playing some more missions from the Battle Missions book.

Completed Imperial Ruin

Last night, I got some time to finish this piece of terrain (I've been on holiday hence the lack of blog updates). It's a club piece to add to the terrain collection.



Clearly, it's built from one of the standard GW kits which I really like. They're quick and easy to build which is great if you want to get a lot of terrain together quickly (like when you've got to build terrain for a club tournament), and there's a fantastic amount of detail on them if you want to go to town on painting them. The drawback is that everyone can have them, which makes your terrain less unique and special.

I prefer to base the GW buildings on hardboard for stability. I've heard differing opinions on this, with some people saying they don't need it. I for one am always knocking stuff over when gaming, so the extra stability from the base is great for that.

They're based on hardboard which I got from B&Q for about £2 for a massive sheet. I cut the shape out with a jigsaw and slope off the edges with a stanley knife and sandpaper. After that, slap on all purpose filler for a bit of texture and add sand/rubble etc to taste. I tend to use brown for the bases on these, as they need to blend in with a number of different coloured boards at the club.

White Dwarf UK365 Contents

White Dwarf arrived in the post today, unusually early, so here's a quick run down on what's in the issue:

-Cover War of the Ring Battlehosts
-New releases: Mostly War of the Ring, with some nice Ruins of Osgiliath terrain. Also the new Fantasy River Trolls and Boar Boyz.
-Design Notes on War of the Ring Battlehosts
-War of the Ring scenarios, then a short piece about painting the Ruins of Osgiliath terrain piece.
-War of the Ring Winged Nazgul conversions showing all 9 Ringwraiths
-Battle report is War of the Ring: Mordor Vs Gondor
-Fantasy article on Orcs and Goblins. Just an advert for the army really.
-40K Historical Scenario with Blood Angels Vs Tyranids
-Fantasy article on army composition. This one follow the series showing different types of army builds.
-Standard Bearer, only skimmed this, seems to be about terrain.
-Painting Masters: Golden Daemon.
-'Eavy Metal Masterclass: Black Orc Big Boss on a boar
-Next Month: Warhammer 40K Spearhead

Plenty in this issue if you play War of the Ring.

Battle Report: Witch Hunters Vs Space Wolves

I got a game in on Thursday night, and for the first time I played my Witch Hunters army.

The list was a little cobbled together, and I managed to get 1200 points together:

Canoness, Jump Pack, Cloak of St Aspira, Blessed Weapon, Frag Grenades, Bolt Pistol, Litanies of Faith

Inquistor Lord, Divine Pronoucement, Psychic Hood, Bolter
3 Gun Servitors, Heavy Bolters
Acolyte
Chirugeon

Eversor Assasin

10 Battle Sisters, VSS with Book of St Lucius, Heavy Flamer, Meltagun, Rhino with Smoke Launchers
10 Battle Sisters, VSS with Book of St Lucius, Storm Bolter, Meltagun, Rhino with Smoke Launchers

9 Seraphim, VSS with melta bombs, 2 twin hand flamers

Exorcist

My opponent was playing Space Wolves, so it was always going to be a difficult battle. His list was something like:

15 Blood Claws, Wolf Guard with power fist, Wolf Priest

10 Grey Hunters, Wolf Guard with power fist and combi-melta, one melta gun, rhino
10 Grey Hunters, Wolf Guard with power fist and combi-melta, one melta gun, rhino

6 (might have been 5) Long Fangs with missile launchers
5 Long Fangs with heavy bolters

We played Annhilation with the Spearhead deployment. He chose his quarter and chose one with a lot of cover and set his Long Fangs up in a ruin where they could see pretty much the whole battle field. My quarter had very little cover in it.

Overall, I got absolutely smashed. My Canoness and Seraphim were good, they managed to tar pit his Blood Claws and a Grey Hunter squad for three turns before their martyrdom.

The Battle Sisters I just wasted on nothing really, and the Exorcist was totally useless thanks for diabolical rolling on my part, and some poor target selection.

The Inquisitor was not much use either, the lack of synergy between his psychic power (18" range) and the heavy bolters (36" range) was clear. Back to the drawing board with him, I need to balance my desire to have a cool Inquisitor character and his usefulness in games.

Don't get me wrong, it was a fun game and a learning experience. I didn't play that well, and had some poor rolls when I really needed them (Exorcist and a melta gun failing to even scratch the paint work on a Rhino for example), so the result was an absolute tonking.

Plague Marine Squad

I built this squad for an Apocalypse game last year, and I've only just got around to painting the thing. I use them as Plague Marines, taking my inspiration from the Blind Dead movies.

In that Apocalyse game, they walked onto the table, and then a scattering asteriod thrown by Orks in space killed all of them instantly....



The paint job was more functional than fancy, but they look OK on the table.

The heads on the these are from Pig Iron Industries, and I'd definitely use them again. I don't think I'd use them again for Chaos Marines though, as the size of the heads are a little too small for marines. If I ever get round to that Traitor Guard army, these will be on those models.

WIP Gun Servitors

I'm hoping to acutally get a game in with my Witch Hunters this week, but I was short of two gun servitors for the list I wanted to use.

Last night, I went on a bitz box raid and threw together some bitz to make some cheap and easy gun servitors:


They're still WIP, as I'm going to add some tubes and other gubbins with green stuff later. These were a fairly easy kit bash using bitz from the Empire flagellant sprues, Immolator and zombie sprues, plus a few other bitz I found.

Easy stuff, plus it saves a few quid on paying the price of the GW servitors.

Completed Doomsday Device of Nurgle

Towards the end of last year I built a Doomsday Device (WIP pictures and some info on what I was trying to do with the model) for a club apocalypse game. You can read about that game in the battle report, but generally the Doomsday Device was pretty awesome thanks for my lucky rolling to activate it on turn 1 and then not roll for it to blow up....

Anyway, for that game, I wanted a super heavy done quickly and cheaply and that's where this came in. I hadn't really been planning on painting it this week, it just kind of happened. I started on it so I was actually do something whilst waiting for a wash to dry on some Plague Marines I'm just working on.

In the event the painting didn't take that long, mainly because I pretty much drybrushed the thing.


(Spawn shown for scale)

The whole thing was drybrushed with the three shades of green in the foundation range, with the darkest first. I then stippled some browns to break it up and bit, then gave the whole thing a light Bleached Bone drybrush.

The boils where done with Warlock Purple, then Tentacle Pink.

Metal was done using my standard rust method which I've used before (details in my post on my Nurgle Dread).

I'm hoping to play in an Apocalypse game with the UK Freebootaz over summer, so inevitably the Doomsday Device will be coming out then.

Busy building

As you might have guessed from the lack of posts around here recently, I've been working away alot.

I've been spending a stupid amount of time sat by myself in hotel rooms thanks to the great job I have (I'm just living the dream)....

It has meant that, whilst I don't get to see my wife and kids very much, I do get to build miniatures. I don't much like painting in hotel rooms as most of the time the light is too poor to do anything, but building and converting minis is fine. I've built an Immolator, plus 24 Ogre Gnoblars. I also put together a SoB Exorcist I got for Christmas last week. It's one of those old skool kits where you get metal parts to attach to a plastic part (the Exorcist I'm using is the standard GW one).

Basically the kit is the Immolator, plus the metal work for the pipe organ and decor. In keeping with all SoB models, there's a ridiculous amount of flash to clean off the thing. Helpfully, GW don't include the instructions in the box on how to build it, presumably they expect you to pray to the Emporer or use His holy tarot in order to work out how to do it.

Constructing the Immolator was easy, it's a Rhino with a couple of extra bitz for the doors and the top. It's the big bag of metal work which is more difficult. Fortunately I found this guide on Dakka Dakka.

Very useful, it takes you through the process, including pictures.

One tip if you're building one of these, get some decent superglue. There's no way I'd attempt to build this with GW superglue. Second tip, be prepared to bend, file and cajole the thing to fit, and once you get it together, be prepared to fill the massive gaps in the metal.

I also managed to get a copy of the Dark Heresy Core rulebook on ebay quite cheaply (alot cheaper than the recommended anyway), so I'm in the process of reading that and hopefully getting a session in for it.

Bought a new Codex

You know when you really shouldn't be thinking about starting a new army, because you're strapped for time, resources, and cash, but then you go and buy a new Codex?

Well, I picked up the Chaos Daemons Codex yesterday.

My current Witch Hunters force is on hold slightly anyway at around 1200 points, since GW have witdrawn the basic Battle Sister box set, so I've got to have something else to do to go along with my CSMs....

Since I've already got two Nurgle Daemon Princes all done, plus 40 Plague Zombies (20 painted, 20 boxed) to use as counts-as Plague Bearers, I've got the start of a force already. A great daemon I could also double up for use in my CSM army aswell.

Now to read the Codex and start thinking about some lists. I really wish GW would hurry up and release some plastic Plaguebearers.

Nurgle Daemon Prince: Completed

It's generally pretty rare that I get to paint much at the weekend, but yesterday was an exception. I got about 3 hours to my self, a perfect opportunity to finish my second Nurgle Daemon Prince:







I've blogged before on the stippling method I used for the wings, and I'm quite pleased with them. In addition to the method I used in the post, I also added a wash of Devlan Mud close to the finger part.

I'm also quite pleased with the layering on the cloth at the bottom of the body (it looks a bit better in reality, a bit more defined):



I got some Liquitex Flow-Aid and Slow-Dri before Christmas and they were really useful for the cloth, and I used the slow-dri to keep the paint wet on the palette for longers whilst I applied it to the model (you could use a wet palette to better affect as well).

What I'm not happy with yet are the eyes. I don't much like for the conversion of them, the intentionally uneven nature of them doesn't look that great, plus the colour choice is wrong. I tried yellow on them first and that didn't look right either. I possible might break out the green stuff again and change it around.

Battle Report: 500 point tournament

Following on from my post yesterday about the list I used, here's some details on how I went in my three games. The tournament was held at Maelstrom Games in Mansfield, and it's a really great gaming venue which will be even better when the whole area is open:



Game 1: Vs Space Marines

I was facing off here against two 10 man tactical squads, with heavy bolters and melta guns and one Rhino, led by a librarian with Might of the Ancients and Gate of Infinity.
This one was a table quarter's scenario, and the Space Marine ability to combat squad meant he was able to hold two quarters and contest a third. I only held one quarter by the end of the game but I scored an extra point for getting more victory points (a minor victory). This was mainly due to a good round of shooting from my Rhino and it's occupant destroying a whole combat squad and a librarian. Overall, a draw but a reasonable start.

Game 2: Vs Imperial Guard

In this game, I faced off against a Company Command Squad with an Autocannon and grenade launcher, and couple of veteran squads, one with Harken and two armoured sentinels.
The was the King of the Hill mission from 4th edition, so we had to capture the centre of the table. I got my marines onto the objective quite quickly and then had to whether the fire from the IG army. My Lord started well, breaking a veteran squad and then killing the command squad in assault. From this good start for me, the IG pulled it back round. My ability to destroy either of his armoured sentinels was gone thanks to a Get's Hot! roll on my plasma gun so I was relying on krak grenades. This meant the IG could get in close to the objective with his Sentinel and a scoring unit to contest. The other sentinel charged my Lord in assault as I'd taken the bait and got near it and slowly wore him down. The IG won this one on victory points, so a very narrow loss.

This was the final battle around the central objective:



Game 3: Vs Imperial Guard

I had a strong game in this one. The mission was capture and control, so I parked a Marine squad on my objective. The second squad in a rhino and the Lord advanced down my left. Harken then appeared on that flank right next to them with a veteran squad and destroyed the Rhino with a demo charge, and then charged the occupants and the Lord in combat. The IG were rapidly destroyed by the Lord's Daemon Weapon. That squad then advanced on his objective, destroying another veteran squad in assault. His Chimera advanced on my objective, but I got a lucky roll and blew it up with my plasma gun. The game ended with me holding both objectives (for full battle points), and a massacre result in victory points.


Overall, I managed to finish in first place, which was a real surprise to me. I had a blast in this, and I'll definitely want to play in some more tournaments in future.

With three games under it's belt, the short comings of my final list were clear (I should really have playtested it, but I didn't get time).

It's main problem was I only had one way of destroying armour of any kind: one plasma gun. That meant that in game 2, I was really struggling to take on the armoured sentinels after the loss of the PG. The second problem with it was it only has two scoring units, meaning that at most I was going to hold two objectives. This cost me in game 1. On the plus side, the rhinos with havoc launchers worked well causing quite a lot of casualties, and making my army quite mobile.

500 point Chaos Space Marine tournament list

Yesterday I played in the first UK Freebootaz Open Tournament. I played in the one day 500 point tournament, which had list restrictions similar to the Adepticon combat patrol rules:

Only ONE HQ allowed
2-3 Troops
0-1 Elites
0-1 Fast Attack
0-1 Heavy Support
Maximum of 3+ armour save
Maximum Armour Value of 33 on any individual vehicle (front + side +rear)
Maximum of 2 Psychic Powers
Monstrous Creatures are NOT allowed


I spent an age throwing lists together before I finally settled on this one:


Chaos Lord, Mark of Slaanesh, Wings, Daemon Weapon, Melta Bombs

7 Chaos Space Marines, one flamer, Icon of Chaos Glory, Rhino with Havoc Launcher
7 Chaos Space Marines, one plasma gun, Rhino with Havoc Launcher

Total: 500 points

My thinking for this was that the Lord would be there to hit things hard in CC, plus use his instant death causing Daemon Weapon to deal with multi-wound models like Nobz or Tyranid Warriors. He'd be supported in this by the flamer squad who I gave an icon to as I thought they'd be getting into combat more often and might need the re-roll. The other squad was an objective holder. The two rhino would use their havoc launchers as long range support to thin out units.

The tournament was a mixture of different scenarios, including the table quarters and king of the hill missions from 4th edition.

I'm just writing up some details for the battle reports, so stay tuned.

WIP: Wings in Progress

This is a WIP shot of one of the wings from my Nurgle Daemon Prince (here's some earlier WIP shots of him during the conversion phase). The wings are fairly heavily cut down ones from the LoTR balrog.

The "fingers" are just basecoated currently, I'll be highlighting them a little lighter when I get chance. I really happy with the way the wing membrane has come out, as this was a little experiment using stippling, something I've never tried before.

I wanted the wings to have a mottled, organic feel to them so I thought stippling would look a little more natural than trying to blend the two colour together.

The wing was basecoated with Kommando Khaki in several thin coats as on such a large, visible area I wanted the paint to be as smooth as possible. Next, a wash with Devlan Mud to try and pick out the ridges in the wing folds. At this point I was unsure of where to go with it, and it was then I hit upon the stippling idea.

I used an old small drybrush to do this, but GW do make a nylon stippling brush. Really, it just needs to be a relatively stiff brush. Beware than doing this will ruin brushes as you'll end up splaying the bristles out

I started by stippling the area close the wing fingers with Bestial Brown, so this was the lighter of the two browns. Once this was done, I then repeated the process with Scorched Earth, this time going even closer to the finger. When stippling, take off most of the paint before you put it on the model, otherwise it'll just blob on to it, not stipple.

The final step was a quick drybrush of the whole wing with Kommando Khaki to pick up the ridges of the skin.

The final result looks pretty pleasing for me, I'll definitely try this again. This could be a good way of adding textures to any organic surface, for example a Tyranid carapace.

Chaos Lord of Slaanesh

I just got some time to finish up this miniature last night. I planning on running this guy in the tournament at the weekend:

Chaos Lord, Mark of Slaanesh, Daemon Weapon, Wings, Melta Bombs

I had originally planned to use him as a Sorcerer but I decided against that plan. I've gone with daemon weapon as it gives +D6 attacks (provided you don't roll a one), and the Slaanesh version inflicts Instant Death. This combined with the wings and melta bombs mean I'm going to be using him to take down tough, multi-wound models (Nobz, Tyranid Warriors, though no monstrous creatures are allowed in the tournie), plus use his melta bombs to destroy any light armour that I come across.

In terms of painting, I really struggled with this. I find the pastel pinks and blues difficult to paint. The snake tail blending is a little rough, and the shoulders are a bit too blue really. I'm quite pleased with the wings, they look OK.

15th already....

Blimey, it's got to the 15th of the month and I've managed a sum total of zero posts...

Work and home have been pretty manic so far this month so not much hobbying has been done. I've managed to paint for about an hour but that's it really.

This is going to have to change this week, as I've got a tournament coming up this week (UK Freebootaz Open). I'm playing in the one day 500 point tournament, which follows similar list restrictions to the Adepticon combat patrol rules. I'm going to be playing Chaos Space Marines, but the list I'm going to be using isn't actually painted fully yet. Between now and the weekend I need to finish off a new Slaanesh Chaos Lord (formerly a Sorcerer then I changed my mind and just went for a Lord with wings) and magnetize two Havoc Launchers to two rhinos. Painting this Slaanesh Lord has reminded me why I've always failed with painting Slaanesh stuff before: I suck at it.