Spearhead

The new White Dwarf arrived this morning, complete with the new spearhead rules.

Here's the headline points on Spearhead:

-Force org chart is unchanged in terms of what you can take, but it adds in the ability to take spearhead formations in addition to the usual slots. There are no compulsory slots.

-Spearhead formations seem to be like apocalypse formations in that they cost some points plus models, there's one provided in WD which consists of 3 tanks or walkers gives all the models the Tank Hunter special rule for an additional 60 points on top of the model cost. More formations will be on the website, and there will be super-heavy spearheads

-Game is played from short edge to short edge

-3 new missions: Breakthrough (VP for being in the opponents half), lightning war (3 objectives), vital ground (objectives but one is nominated as the vital objective so gives 3 VPs)

-Random game length as usual

-Troops, tanks, walkers and spearhead units are scoring

-3 new deployment methods: Counter attack (deploy in a wedge shape formation), cauldron (bit like pitched battle) and Escalation (bit like Dawn of War, in you deploy one spearhead or three non-spearhead units and everything else is in reserve).

Second time with the Ogres

I got game 2 in with the Ogres this week, again doubling up with another player like last week like last week. We were taking on Skaven this time, with a magic heavy list (11 power dice and 7 warp tokens). We got stomped flat.

Both these games have really helped me get a little insight into the army strengths and weaknesses. Psychology really hurt us alot in this game with a unit of 7 Bulls and a Butcher panicking off the table on turn 1 (a good demonstration of why the MSU style list would have helped), plus my Bruiser and 4 Ironguts losing a combat against a unit of giant rats, failing their break test (even with a reroll) and being run down.

I'll be back again next week with the big guys.

First time out for the Ogres

I took my newly assembled Ogres out to club night last for their first game. Now, I haven't played Fantasy since 2nd Edition so I wasn't exactly expecting to win. I'd put together a 1000 point list out of the Bruiser, Butcher, Bulls, Ironguts and Leadbelchers I'd made out of the battalion box.

I teamed up with another Ogre player who had about 1400 points worth of troops, and we squared off against Tomb Kings. I made some pretty elimentary mistakes thanks to my inexperience and lack of knowledge, but we actually ended up winning the game, surprisingly.

Having played 40K exclusively for so long, adjusting my mindset to a game where you don't have a 360 degree field of vision took me a couple of turns to get used to; along with getting used to a game which is won and lost in deployment and the movement phase but I enjoyed it alot, I'm really looking forward to 8th Edition.

Just playing this one game really helped me to develop ideas about what is good and bad in the list I'd built, and how Ogres are played, built and deployed. Probably over the next couple of months, I'll be adding a couple more units to bring me up to 1500 points. I'll probably pick up another box of Bulls and possibly a gorger or a giant (I love the giant model).

Ogre Characters WIP Part II

Following on from yesterday's Bruiser, here's my more or less done Butcher:


Again, kit bashed from the Ogre Battalion box. The apron didn't quite come out how I'd envisaged, I realised after I'd done it that it should be lower on his chest.

One part I like is his Halfling Cookbook:


What could be a better cook book than a real, live Halfling to carry round with you?

Ogre Characters WIP Part 1

Having completed my last lot of primed 40K miniatures last week, I thought it was time I got to work on the Ogre Battalion box set I got for Christmas. I'm in two minds as to whether I'm actually going to play any games of Fantasy before 8th Edition, given I don't know the 7th Edition rules that well, I think I might as well just wait and learn the new rules along with everyone else.

Anyway, my Ogre army is about 1000 points or a little over, and I've got 4 Bulls, 4 Ironguts, 4 Leadbelchers and 30 Gnoblars built. They just need a final clean-up, gap filling and basing.

For the characters, I'm converting a spare Bull into a Bruiser and a second Bull into a Butcher. The Butcher is still not completed, but here's the Bruiser:



This was mostly kit bashed from the contents of the Battalion box, plus a couple of Ork shoulders I found in my bitz box. I tried to build him so he could be reasonably interpreted as having a few different magic items depending on how I field him (Gut Maw, Greedy Fist, Greyback Pelt etc). After I'd put him together, I glanced at the cover of the army book and realised I'd subconciously built something similar to the Ogre Tyrant on the cover....

The cloak is from a Chaos Terminator Lord with fur added using green stuff to make him stand out more from the average Bull:


I'm quite pleased with the effect of the fur, and hopefully it will look convincing when it's painted up.

It's pretty simple to do:

-Lay greenstuff over the area you want to make furry. It's need to be reasonably thick to take the marks you're going to put in it, so maybe 2mm or so.
-Smooth it out, it doesn't need to be prefect just flatter. I used the round end of the standard GW sculpting tool.
-Using something pointed, work around the fur in a line pulling the green stuff downwards to look like fur. I used this tool for this part:


It's basically a pointy blade on a stick, but use whatever you've got which is similar.
-At the edges of the fur, pull the GS apart a little as you mark it to look more fur like.

I'm looking forward to painting this one. I'll share picture of the Butcher when he's done.

Finally up to date with Plague Marines

I got my fifth and final (for the time being) squad of Plague Marines finished last night, bringing my grand total to 35 Marines, for a total points value of just over 1000 points.

I made a bit of an error with these ones, as for 5 of them I used to cheap single pose Chaos Space Marines, which meant they were much harder to convert and ultimately didn't save me that much over a proper box (plus I'd have got bitz from that).

The Champion and icon bearer standard marine kits, with the other 5 being the single pose ones. This squad is likely going to end up as a second string squad who will more than likely only see any action in an Apocalypse game.

Speaking of Apocalypse, probably the next thing I'm going to do is expand my zombie collection so I can have a full Plague of Zombies. I've got 20 done already with another 25 on sprues, which I just need to order some round bases for. The formation requires a Chaos Lord to go with it, so I think I'll paint up the Necromancer which goes with the VC Corpse Cart to act as the Plague Lord. Once they're done, I'm hoping for another superheavy, either a Nurgle Plague Tower or Plaguereaper depending on how much time I have.

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.