Imperial Name Generator

Jabberjabber over at Warpstoneflux posted earlier this week about Daemon name generators, used to help you with ideas for naming your daemon's to fluff up your army. Pretty cool, and like he says there used to be one on the GW website that I can't find either.

But, what if you're not a servant of the Ruinous Powers, and what some ideas for naming your Space Marine captain, your Cannoness, your Comissar or your Inquisitor? Well, over on the Dark Heresy website, there's a name generator for generating Imperial Gothic names for either gender, in different formats. Try it if you need some inspiration for naming your Imperial characters.

Plastic Plaguebearers?

I see that today BoLS is reporting that the second wave of daemon's in coming soon, and it includes plastic plaguebearers and nurglings. The all metal plaguebearers was one of the things that was stopping me from collecting an all Nurgle daemon army to go with my all Nurgle CSM's, so this is great news.

Short blogging break

I've not fitted in many updates recently, mainly as I've not had much hobby time. This won't get any easier as I'm going to Las Vegas for 6 days tomorrow. I'm taking a couple of Black Library novel to read on the plane so expect a review when I get back.

Battle Report: Chaos Space Marines VS Orks

I had another fun game this week, this time taking on Orks in a 1500 point battle. Last time I played this army (albeit at a smaller points level) I got stomped flat, but I'd taken some lessons from that encounter.

The mission was seize ground with 4 objectives, with a spearhead deployment.

My list was my current one:
HQ: Daemon Prince, Mark of Nurgle, Wings, Warptime (175)
Elites: Dreadnought with multi-melta (100)
Elites: 7 Chosen, Icon of Nurgle, 3 flamers, 2 melta guns, rhino (246)

Troops: 7 Plague Marines inc Aspiring Champion with power fist, meltagun, flamer, rhino (251)
Troops: 7 Plague Marines inc Aspiring Champion with power fist, meltagun, plasma gun (226)
Troops: 7 Plague Marines inc Aspiring Champion with power fist, meltagun, plasma gun (226)

Heavy Support: Defiler (150)
Heavy Support: Vindicator (125)
Total: 1499

The Ork list was roughly:
Ghazghkull Thraka accompanied by 4 Meganobs in a trukk
5 Nobz in a trukk
Big Mek with a Shokk Attack gun
20 Boyz including a big shoota
20 Boyz including a rokkit launcher
3 Deffkoptas
Zagstruck and 5 Storm Boyz
1 Battlewagon
1 Deff Dread

The Orks won the roll to go first and elected to do so. The objectives were close to each baseline. I'd placed mine as close together as possible so I could have units on both objectives supporting each other. I also deployed them a little more forward than I have previously (took a tip from Goatboy talking on 40K Radio a few weeks back) and placed them where I wanted my units to move to rather than where I wanted them to start. The other two were in the Ork deployment zone at opposite sides of that zone.

He deployed a unit of Boyz, the Battlewagon and the Deff Dred close to one objective. The second unit of Boyz and the Shokk Attack Gun were defending the other objective, with the Deffkoptas and two trukks in front of them ready to advance.

My deployment was as close to the edge of my deployment zone as I could and in cover, ready to advance on the two objectives I'd placed. I actually won the roll to steal the initative, and I elected to take it. I'd read the advice of Fritz at Way of Saim-Hann that you're better going second on objective based games and I absolutley agree, but there was so many Orks bunched up together I couldn't resit going first with the intention of dropping large blasts on them from my Vindicator and Defiler. I'd also hoped to pop Ghazghkull's truk, forcing him to walk across the table with his slow and purposeful Meganobz.

Early turns: My Vindicator and Defiler moved up to fire on the big cluster of Boyz, Deffkoptas and trukks. Due to scatter issues, and my Vindicator being out of range of the trukks and so having to fire at the Deffkoptas, I managed to kill two Deffkoptas and 6 or so Boyz, but still not too shabby. My Plague Marines moved up to take the two objectives I'd placed, and they spent the rest of the game getting there and then defending them.
As I'd failed to pop Ghazghkull's trukk, it sped forward. It's occupants jumped out and proceeded to attack my Vindicator, immoblizing it and destroying its Demolisher cannon. In my subsequent turn, the Defiler charged Ghazghkull and his Mega Nobz, and over the next 4 turns destroyed the Mega Nobz and locked Ghazghkull in combat. My opponent was rolling pretty badly, so my Defiler was fortunate enough to last that long. By the time this was over Ghazghkull was too far away to do anything more (and I'd destroyed his trukk by then).

Mid-Game: The Boyz and Battlewagon heading towards my left flank rolled forward a bit but weren't doing much, I guess they were sticking around to hold the objective at the end. My Chosen turned up on turn 3 and rocked yet again. They opened by wrecking the Battlewagon from the relative safety of the Rhino. Next turn, they blew up the Deff Dread, leaving that flank protected only by one mob of Boyz.
In the centre, the other trukk with the Nobz in it attempted to ram my dreadnought (a bad idea in my opinion). The dread performed a death or glory attack and destroy the trukk forcing the Nobz out. In my turn, my Daemon Prince and Dreadnought ripped them apart, killing two, reducing the others to one wound each and routing them.

End-game: My Chosen jumped out of their rhino and destroyed about 15 Boyz with their flamers, followed by the remainder of the squad in the following turn. His Storm Boyz eventually turned up, but got turned over in assault by some nearby Plague Marines. In the centre, my dreadnought went into a blood frenzy, and charged and destroyed the last deffkopta. In the final turn my Chosen ran over to the objective closest to them (one of the two in the Ork deployment quarter), but not being troops they couldn't hold it anyway but it felt staisfying. The final tally was I held two objectives to his one.

A good game. I had some pretty good luck, and my opponent seemed to be rolling really badly. Gazghkull was well contained by the Defiler and should have destroyed him quickly, with his huge number of attacks, high WS and S10 but it took way too many turns.

The Chosen were awesome again in this battle, I would seriously consider a second squad of these in a future list.

Gale Force 9 T.A.C template

I bought one of these a couple of weeks ago, as I'd wanted to try one out since I heard a review of it way back last year on 40K Radio. I acutally got to use it in a game last night, so I though I'd share my opinion of it.

As you can see from the picture, each side of the template has a different measurement which you are quickly going to use in a game of 40K. The long side is 6" long (assaults, infantry movement, walker movement etc), there's a 2" side (unit coherency), a 1" side to make sure your models and your opponents stay apart by the minimum distance, and a 4" side for vehicle squadron coherency. The other side has a little ruler measured in clear 1" increments for measuring distance when for example a unit is running.

I used it in a game this week. It took a little getting used to, reaching for this template, and not reaching for a tape measure, but once you've done it a couple of times, I found it really helpful. You can pretty quickly measure distances for rapidly moving models, and most importantly, you're measuring accurately. No more stretchy tape measure, going 7" instead of 6" etc, the template gives you the accurate measure.

The template itself is thick plastic, and mine is a much darker blue than the picture above and it's transparent. I did manage to put a scratch on the back of mine, so I'm not sure how long the ruler on the back will last.

So I enjoyed using it, and I found it useful. I wouldn't consider it an essential purchase by any means, but if you've got a bit of spare cash, or need to make up an order to a minimum amount to get free shipping (which is how I ended up with mine) go for it. The cost is £4.50 on Wayland Games, $5.59 from the Warstore.

Vallejo Black Primer tryout

I road tested a new black primer last night, the Vallejo Black Primer spray. I'd use the white version twice before on the rare occasions I prime anything white, and my usual GW Chaos Black spray had run out, so I thought I'd give it a try.

The cost of the spary was a bit cheaper than the Games Workshop spray (mine was £7 or so from Maelstrom Games) and it's actually designed as a primer rather than just being spray paint. I tried the primer out on two Rhinos and two human size minis, and the results were OK. The paint seems pretty thin and the spray is light which gives decent coverage without going on too thick. It also dries really quickly as well, it was touchable within a few minutes of spraying. I tend to leave undercoated minis overnight anyway, but it's a nice bonus.

One thing I would say about it was that on my first attempt, the primer seemed very watery and didn't cover the model that well, especially on the sides on the tanks. I suspect that I hadn't shaken it enough. The can says shake for one minute, which I thought I had, but possibly not. I gave one of the rhinos a second coat after a good long shake of the can which covered better, although of course, now it's a little thick in a couple of places. All trial and error really.

Battle Report: New Units

I haven't played any Warhammer 40K for about four weeks, as I've been busy at work and some other stuff. This week though, Wednesday to be exact, I did manage to get along to my local club. I've only missed three weeks, but I felt like a total stranger, the club has absolultey exploded in size in that time, which is really great. There was about 8 tables of 40K running, two Fantasy, a Necromunda campaign and quite a few people painting. They've even expanded into a second room. Anyway, all good stuff. I got a game in against a guy I played on my very first visit (on that first visit, there was one 40K table, one Fantasy a game of Dark Heresy on) who is a great opponent and it was a really fun game.

I'm not going to go into detail much on the battle, just a quick summary, as I want to talk about a couple of new units. It was Annhilation with Dawn of War setup. My list was my all new one with my Nurgle Chosen and Dreadnought. He plays Nurgle CSM's as well, with his list featuring, amongst other things two Land Raiders carrying a squad of terminators and a squad of Bezerkers. It was a really good game and in the end I lost with five kill points to his six.

So this was the first outing for two new units in this list: Chosen and a Dreadnought. I wanted to cover a little bit how I felt each unit did in this game.

Chosen: Awesome. Pure awesome. My opponent deployed two Land Raiders on his base line close to one table edge. I outflanked with my Chosen, who are in a rhino, have an Icon of Nurgle, 3 flamers and two meltaguns. They came in on exactly the side I wanted them, and then immobilized and exploded a Land Raider. The resulting explosion killed a Bezerker who was in the Land Raider. They followed this up by destroying the rest of the Khorne Bezerkers (8 in total) and two terminators. They almost popped the second Land Raider in turn 7 but I missed with the roll. Had they done this, the game would have been a draw. I would consider a second unit of these.

Dreadnought: This unit turned out to be more fun than effective. The first two turns he acted normally, but turn 3 he went into a blood frenzy and charged out of the cover he was in. Next turn he blood frenzied again, only this time my opponents Daemon Prince had moved much closer and proved to be in range (the Dreadnought is fleet when he is blood frenzied). He took a wound from the daemon prince and tied it up for a turn. All in all, he was fun, and I definitely run him again.

Naturally, I'm already planning further tweaks to the list, but I want at least five games with this list before any changes happen.

On my painting table

Just some work in progress shots of what I'm doing at the moment. I tend to work on modelling a few things at once before I get on to painting them.

First up, a lightly converted Nurgle Rhino:



Second up, the first vehicle for my Battle Sisters, a rhino. I've left the turret loose on this one, so I can swap it for an Immolator turret at some point in the future:


And finally, nothing special with this one, an Eversor assassin:

Naturally, they'll be pics when they're painted.

Quick post: Games Workshop Contest

Just a quick one to point this out contest GW are running in case you missed it. Full details are on the GW blog, but basically for the mega-prize all you need to do is register on the GW website. The prizes are:

1st prize: A trip for two to visit Games Workshop HQ, The Studio and Warhammer World, including flights, train fares and hotel accommodation.

2nd prize: Every new product that Games Workshop releases for the next twelve months.

3rd prize: A 5,000 point (game legal) Warhammer or Warhammer 40,000 army of your choice.

Now to me, the second and third prize sound better than the first one, but it's all good stuff.

Dremel/Multi-tool tips

I got a Dremel (well, the Draper version of it) for my birthday a couple of weeks ago, so I thought I'd give a test run with something I'm converting (actually an objective marker for my Witch Hunters). However, I really struggled to get anything done, at least with the attachments I got with it as there's no explanation with it of what the bits can be used for or anything.

I sanded some milliput, no problems there.

Next, I decided to try and cut some metal with a cutting wheel. Epic fail. The thing wouldn't cut and the mini heated up so hot I couldn't touch it so I ended up having to cut with a saw instead.

Finally, I thought I'd grind some excess metal off which I hadn't been able to cut. Tried a grinding point, that didn't work, tried a diamond grinding point, seemed a tiny bit better.

Anyone got any tips as to where I'm going wrong, or what attachments are best for miniature work? I have one of the flexible drive shaft attachment which is designed for detail work

GWPertinent Vintage 40k Model Contest

This is my entry for the GWpertinent vintage 40k model contest. It's a squat trike from about 1989, which I painted some time in the early 90's.

My painting area

I know that posting painting area pictures was a fashion about 3 months ago in the blogosphere, but I've only just got round to photographing mine.

Anyway, this is my painting area with the Inquisitorial Torturer in progress:


Various boxes of bitz, minis is various states of assembly and painting, books, old White Dwarfs, Darth Vader's helmet etc. All up on a high shelf so little hands can't get hold of them.


At the end of every session, all paints, brushes, tools, glue, everything except the water pots, tiles and newspaper gets put back in this and locked up. Having two small inquisitive children, I don't really want them playing with my hobby knives.

Inquisitor's Torturer

"Often the work of a Witch Hunter can only begun once their prey has been captured. Both information and repetance must be extracted from a victim, often in the depths of the torturers dungeon by the red-hot implements of his trade".
-Codex: Witch Hunters

Just a quick paint job on the Chirugeon from my Inquisitorial retinue. I've gone for a torturer for him, and given him a medieval look with the hood and apron:


The green stuff could have been a little bit smoother, I'm not much cop at smooth GS. The conversion as you can probably tell is based of an Empire Flagellant. I think the hood has come out a little bit like the Scarecrow from Batman Begins which is cool, on the other hand he does have a slight masked wrestler look to him.

The robe was done with Charadon Granite as a base which is a colour I don't actually think I've used before. I'm quite pleased with the colour, so I think I'll be using this one again.

In game a Chirugeon (which is the "type" of follower that the torturer is) allows the Inquisitor to ignore an unsaved wound per turn. Two of these guys allow him to ignore a wound that would otherwise cause instant death.

New stuff

I was my birthday yesterday, reaching another depressingly advanced age. I thought when I turned 30 that was the end of the world, looks pretty good now I'm 32....

Anyway, I got some new toys. I got an extra Chaos Rhino for my CSMs, and an Sister of Battle Immolator which I'll build as a Rhino for my recently completed first Battle Sisters squad. I also got a couple of Urban War starter sets (Gladiator and Triads) which are nice models I'm looking forward to painting. The best part was a Dremel style multi tool (basically a Draper version of it) which should be really useful for conversions and around the house.

In addition, I got a ticket to see "Walking with Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular". If you get the chance to see this, go. Life size dinosaurs = WIN. I went with my father-in-law and my oldest son who is 4. He was a little bit scared at the end, but on the whole he loved it too.

Always thinking about the next project....

If you're anything like me, once you get a little way into a new army, you're already starting to think about what you're going to do once its finished, or those long term projects you'd really like to do but don't have the time/cash/skill to do. I thought I'd share some of the things I'm toying with at the moment. If anyone knows any good resources for any of these that would be great.


Plague Reaper: I'd love to convert up one of these for my Nurgle army. I've converted a few Nurgle vehicles (like my Vindicator and Defiler ) so a big project like this would be good. As it's an Apocalypse super heavy, I'll probably aim to get my CSMs up to 3000 points first and then think about this (they're about 2000 points currently). Cost wise this will set me back about £60 for the Baneblade kit.

Savlar Chem-Dogs: These guys are an Imperial Guard penal legion who were involved in the Third War for Armageddon. I found some fluff about them in the 2003 Chapter Approved, and the IG codex seems a good opportunity. These guys use alot of rebreather masks so plenty of conversion opportunities, and I see them with plenty of Commissars to keep them in line. It would also give me the chance to include some Ogryns and special type of Rough Rider called Chem-Riders. These would come after my Witch Hunters forces as I could use them as Inducted Guard whilst I was expanding them.

Adeptus Mechanicus: Plenty of conversion opportunities here, these guys would be an add-on to my Witch Hunters as I'd use the same rules for them. Here's how I would use them rules-wise:
Magos = Inquisitor Lord
Enginseer = Inquisitor
Electro Priests = Arco-Flagellants
Hypaspists Skitarii = Inquisitorial Storm Troopers
Sagitarii Skitarii = Retributors (these are heavy weapons specialists)
Balisteria Skitarii = Exorcists (these would represent artillery)
Praetorian Servitors = Penitent Engines (I'd probably use Ogre Kingdoms Gougers as the basis for these)
Once my Witch Hunters are finished I'll probably think about adding a squad of Hypaspsits to them based on the plastic Cadians with heads from Pig Iron Industries.

Feral Orks: Orks are fun, and give plenty of scope for conversion as there's plenty of plastic kits around. Feral Orks (or possible Snakebites) would be a bit different from the usual. I have an old Feral Ork list in front of me, but I'd probably try and use Codex: Orks instead. I'd see these guys with plenty of Cyboars (counts as Warbikes), Wyrdboyz, Boyz and Squiggoths (counts as Battlewagons).

Genestealer Cult: I was reading the excellent BoLS mini-dex on this again last week, and I'd love to do an army for this. I've even got an old Genestealer Patriach already, and some familiars. I'm not entirely sure how I'd go about doing the army whilst using a current GW codex. I could probably shoe horn it into a WH list, with inducted Guard.

Just some ideas I'm playing around with it. Let me know what you think!