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!

Alternative Death Cult Assassin

This model is a conversion of an Amazonia Decurion from Urban Mammoth miniatures. I blogged a while ago about how good some of the UM minis would be for Inquisitorial armies, and this is my first attempt at a conversion between the two. She's going to be a Death Cult Assassin, which I don't intend to run in a list but I liked the model so much I had to paint one.


The conversion itself is just a simple weapon swap from the dual pistols the model is armed with as standard.

The paint job happened pretty quickly, it was done in less than a couple of hours, though it does show in a couple of places. The skin on the, erm, chest area is not that smooth. I'm fairly please with the red cloth though. I'm looking forward to painting more Urban Mammoth minis in future.

White Dwarf UK356 Contents

The new White Dwarf arrived today, well in advance of the release date so here is a breakdown of what's in it:

-Cover: Imperial Guard
-New minis: How to paint tanks, new guard tanks (Hellhound, Leman Russ Demolisher)
-Rogue trader cover art in the news section, along with a new Space Wolf Blood Claw mini I've not seen before
-Sprue photos of the crashed Aquila Lander terrain piece (the same as the one from the Battle of Macragge set), which is out this month. I can't see a price for it in the magazine.
-Planetary empires overview with examples of painted tiles, and some descriptions of the different pieces. It's a totally different campaign system than Mighty Empires apparently.
-Imperial Guard tactics
-Planetary Empires report by Phil Kelly, which includes more planetary empires maps
-Warhammer: Empire war machines tactica
-War of the Ring Last March of the Ents Battle Report
-Modelling tanks (looks to be lifted from the How to Paint Tanks book)
-'Eavy metal masterclass: Faces advanced techniques such as aging, stubble, different skin tones
-Keith Robertson's favourite miniature

Quite a bit of 40K content this month, looks interesting on my initial flick through.

Swedish Army Composition System

You might have seen this thread over on Warseer about the composition system used in tournaments in Sweden. It makes pretty interesting reading and while I don't agree with some of the choices it was interesting to look at how my lists line up. Personally, I don't think 40K really needs a comp system as its scenario based nature means it does lean towards self balancing anyway.

The premise is that you start with 100 points (for a 1500 point list) and you gain or lose points based on what you have in the list, with a lower score indicating an tougher list. This post puts your result in a better perspective than the original post:

100pts - put the Care Bears away. This is a wargame.

75-99 - This isn't an episode of the A-Team - you are allowed to kill something.

50-74 - now you're getting there. Bit light yet though.

25-49 - You're there, balanced and competetive.

0-24 - Competetive

(-25)-(-1) - whoa, calm down a bit

(-50)-(-26) - This isn't Rambo 5 you know

(-51) or lower - Wowsers, kill count of Hotshots, Part Deux!


Working out my scores, my current Nurgle CSM list comes in at 29 points which is in the right area looking at this. My Witch Hunters list faired worse at 14 points which puts it in the competative area. WH get stung for having Exorcists, but given they're the best Heavy Support choice, I can't see you're going with anything else.

Just for fun, I ran a couple of my fluffy lists past it. My planetary strike force list from Warpstone Flux's May contest came in nice and fluffy at 75 points, whilst my all Inquisitorial force came in at 52 points and that's a 1750 point list.

Once you have the score, in the tournament it would be compared with your opponents score and you'd or they would gain additional tournament points.

1500 point Witch Hunters Army List

After a lot of thought and deliberation, I've finally settled on my final 1500 point Witch Hunters list which is what I am currently working towards completing. Here it is:

HQ
Canoness Sister Katherine the Pious, jump pack, blessed weapon, bolt pistol, cloak of St Aspira (116)

Inquisitor Lord Titus Flavian, psychic hood, divine pronouncment, bolter
3 gun servitors with heavy bolters
1 chirugeon
1 acolyte (202)

Elites
Eversor Assasin (95)

Troops
10 Battle Sisters, including Veteran Sister Superior with Book of St Lucius, one meltagun, one heavy flamer, mounted in a rhino with smoke launchers (204)
10 Battle Sisters, including Veteran Sister Superior with Book of St Lucius, one meltagun, one heavy flamer, mounted in a rhino with smoke launchers (204)
10 Battle Sisters, including Veteran Sister Superior with Book of St Lucius, one meltagun, one heavy flamer, mounted in a rhino with smoke launchers (204)

Fast Attack
8 Seraphim including Veteran Sister Superior with Book of St Lucius, 2 twin hand flamers (205)

Heavy Support
Exorcist
Exorcist

Total 1500, 13 kill points, 6 faith points

The canoness is there to take on big, tough enemies like HQs, monstrous creatures etc, with her S5 master crafted power weapon. She has a 2+ armour save which can be made invulnerable with an act of Faith. I was torn between the blessed weapon and an eviscerator. The eviscerator would put her a S6, but she would strike last. This may not be so bad, as she's likely to strike last anyway given her I3. I went with the blessed weapon as I liked it better for flavour, but I can always change in the future.

The Inquisitor is more there because I like Inquisitors rather than being a solid gaming choice. I went Lord level for him to give him he Ld bump to 10 making his psychic hood and divine pronouncment even more effective. The rest of the squad are a mobile fire base, and/or ways of avoiding wounds on the Inquisitor.

The Eversor is there to give people a nasty surprise when he outflanks. With a power weapon, bolt pistol (the only assasin to have 2 CCW), melta bombs, a 12" charge move and D6 additional attacks on the charge he can be nasty. Even if he dies he explodes with a S5 blast! I was tempted by the Callidus but the Eversor is 25 points cheaper.

The rest of the army is rounded out with solid Sisters choices, and is either jump infantry or fully mechanized. I'm not sure how I will deal with AV14 vehicles having only the 3 melta guns, so that will stand some play testing once I get the army finished.

Completed Battle Sister Squad

I was "working from home" today, so that meant I got in a good amount of painting whilst keeping an eye on my emails and listening to podcasts. Kind of like work really, only I can't paint there. Anyway, I managed to get my first squad of Battle Sisters completed and here they are:




This is the Veteran Sister Superior armed with a Brazier of Holy Fire:


The squad has been done in the same colours as my already completed Canoness and Seraphim. These are colours of my an order of my own creation (one of the Order Minoris, hence the blog name), though I haven't settled on a final name or emblem for the order as yet. Each sister may well get the emblem painted on once I finally settle on what it is.

I actually quite enjoyed painting these, having loathed painting the Seraphim. I used drybrushing on these instead of the 12 layers I'd used on the Seraphim and it was much better, not to mention much quicker.

This squad isn't really finished, as the storm bolter armed sister will eventually get replaced with a heavy flamer, and there will be a rhino to go along with them. There's another two of these units in the army. I've worked out the rest of the army will set me back about £150 so I'll be working on it for a while yet....

Quick update

It's been really busy here this past week with work and family, so I haven't had chance to do much hobby stuff, hence the lack of updates.

Sunday was my sons birthday, so I spent the day building Lego and we went to see Ice Age 3. He liked it, I thought it was pretty average.

At the tail end of last week, I got a couple of games of Last Night on Earth in with the ZAI rules, which ended in one easy zombie victory and one easy hero victory, both using the "Escape in the Truck" scenario. A good draw of characters, and a good draw of cards can make all the difference between win and loss.

Anyway, I'll hopefully have more time for painting this week, so I'll get some updates in.

Battle Report: Chaos Space Marines VS Orks

Just a quick summary of a battle I fought last night. I had been hoping to use my new list but my opponent only had 1000 points of Orks with him, so I had to drop down a little.

My hastily drawn up list:
Daemon Prince, Wings, Mark of Nurgle, Warptime
7 Plague Marines, Champion with power fist, flamer, meltagun, rhino
7 Plague Marines, Champion with power fist, plasma gun, meltagun
7 Plague Marines, Champion with power fist, plasma gun, meltagun
Vindicator

..and my opponent:
Ghazghkull Thraka
Warboss with power klaw
4 Meganobs with power klaws
6 Nobz with big choppas
2 Trukks
1 Deff Dred
2 Killa Kans

This was a seize ground mission with the dawn of war setup.

The Ork list was brutally hard to kill. He rushed me with the trukk with the warboss and nobz in it, and destroyed my Rhino on turn one. I responded by bringing in all my Plague Marines and shooting 3 squads of them at them. This failed to kill them all, partly as he claimed a 5+ Inv save on them which looking again at his list (and the Ork codex) he shouldn't have had as he didn't have a painboy to give them Cybork bodies. I rushed them in assault and over the next couple of turns reduced them to one Nob and the warboss before my PMs died. My daemon prince finished them off.

Meanwhile, Ghazghkull and his meganobz rushed my Vindicator (which had blown up a trukk earlier). I backed off my two PM squads from them, knowing I had more chance of shooting them to pieces than in assault, and I was also hoping to get on an objective and hold it by turn 5. My shooting took about one Nob and they charged a PM squad. My Daemon Prince charged them in return. The Orks then slew the Plague Marines and the Daemon Prince, though Gazghull was down to one wound. My final Plague Marine squad was eventually caught and killed by the nobz and killa kans.

So the result was a loss for me. I did use some decent tactics, like I kept my units close together to support each other. Had I taken out the first Nob unit quicker (for example, had they not grown a mysterious Invulnerable save), I would have been in a stronger position to receive the attack of Ghazghkull and his Nobz. Still, lessons were learnt.

Last Night on Earth ZAI rules

I posted a couple of weeks back about Last Night on Earth and how much I enjoyed the game. Things have been pretty busy at home this past week, so I haven't had much time to sit and paint for long periods of time, but I did snatch an hour or so last night to try out the Zombie AI rules available for LNoE on boardgamegeek.com. These rules basically mean that the zombie play automatically.

Well, I can report they are a blast and still do provide a challenge. I played just the basic card deck and the basic "Die Zombies, Die!" scenario, and managed to get a couple of games in. In this scenario, Heroes must kill 15 zombies, and Zombies must kill 2 Heroes. The game last 15 turns.

Game 1:
A punishing zombie victory. The heroes were converging on the gun store to get tooled up but just couldn't make it. Jenny the farmer's daughter found herself in unarmed in a building which had just been overrun and got eaten by 5 zombies. The remaining heroes converged on the diner (which has two exits to get out of) to get some gear together, only to find the lights going out in the building as a zombie had chewed through the cable. They made a run out to another building, but were slowed by heavy rain. Becky the nurse, who was already wounded from a surprise zombie attack in the hosptial was far too slow running from the advancing zombie horde, and a surprising turn of speed from a zombie meant she was caught and killed. Victory to the undead.

Game 2:
The heroes looked strong from the start on this one. Drawing two combat characters (Johnny the quarterback and the Sheriff who starts the game with a revolver), and two other decent characters (Jenny and Jake the drifter) was a good start. The gym wasn't on the board so Johnny started in the centre sqaure and promptly drew the pump shotgun which is the best gun in the game. The sheriff was holed up in the police station (which means the pump shotgun can be drawn from the discard pile if it runs out of ammo), so all the characters went there. Jake is excellent at finding decent items, so it quickly ended up with the heroes having 2 shotguns, 2 revolvers and a clutch of hand weapons. Eventually, the zombies were so decimated, the Heroes emerged from the police station to actively hunt them down resulting in a swift hero victory.

Completed Nurgle Chosen Squad

I managed to get my Chosen squad finished last night, so here they are:




As you can see they are armed to the teeth with special weapons. They'll be a Rhino as well, and I'll be outflanking them to bring some pain.

This squad was a bit of a challenge, as I need to differentiate them from a "normal" CSM squad, but I didn't want to make them so Nurgly they looked like my Plague Marines. In the end, I went for some light kit bashing, mixing some of the Chaos mutation heads in there, a Bezerker champion head, and some green stuff work, such as the tentacle arms and legs, plus some rot and marks on the armour.

The paint job was a speed one really. Based Catachan Green, washed Thraka Green, drybrushed with Catachan Green and Rotting Flesh in increasing amounts. It then just remained to pick out the detail such as the shoulder pads, rusty weapons and so on.

So, another 7 painting points, and hopefully they'll be good on the table top.

I know Forge World is expensive but this is ridiculous...

Just found this in the Epic section of the Forge World website:


That's a hell of a price for two pieces of Epic scale terrain ;).

Battle Report: Chaos Space Marines/Eldar Vs Dark Angels

After 10 days without hobby and without internet access whilst I was on holiday, it was good last night to get in a game.

This one was an unusual team up (forced on us by how many models people had bought): 500 points each of CSMs and Eldar Vs 1000 points of Dark Angels. This meant it was two players against one player.

My list was my normal 500 point list:
Daemon Prince, Mark of Nurgle, Wings, Warptime
6 Plague Marines, 2 melta guns, rhino with a dozer blade
Vindicator

...and my team mate:
Farseer with Doom and Guide
10 Dire Avengers with Exarch and Blade Storm in a wave serpent
Falcon

Our opponent:
Terminator Librarian
5 Deathwing Terminators
10 Tactical marines with missle launcher and plasma gun
10 Tactical marines with missle launcher and plasma gun
10 (or so) Veteran Dark Angels.

The mission was seize ground with 4 objectives using the Dawn of War setup.

Early turns:
The Dark Angels looked to have the advantage early on. CSM and Eldar shooting was ineffective and my Daemon Prince failed to turn up from deep strike. The Deathwing terminators struck close to the vindiciator but only managed to shake the crew. In return, all 5 got blade stormed to death by the Dire Avengers. My Plague Marines parked up on an objective to hold it but the Dark Angels clearly had strength in numbers.

Later turns:
The Dark Angels veterans destroyed the Plague Marines and Vindicator in close combat, leaving us with only one remaining troop choice. My rhino tank shocked them and luckily they broke. The Dire Avengers flew across the board in the wave serpent and destroyed the remains of a combat squad who were holding the DA's only objective. My Daemon Prince decided to turn up on turn 4 and just made it into close combat with 9 Space Marines, killing 5 in the first round and the remaining ones in the following turn. The game ended on turn 5 with us holding 1 objective to the Dark Angels none.

This was a really good game which I enjoyed. We had a good laugh at various points, alot of which was due to my appalling dice rolling. It's always easy to lament bad luck in battle as the bad luck sticks out and the good luck doesn't, but my rolling was atrocious throughout. For example:
-My Daemon Prince failed to turn up until turn 4, scattered so far he nearly went off the board, and then rolled really poorly in assault (3+ to hit on 5 dice, result was one hit). Luckily warptime gave me a reroll, but still I only hit 4 times.
-My vindicator was unlucky as well. The first turn the scatter was so large it missed everything, second turn it was shaken, third turn it hit 6 marines in area terrain and killed 1 (statistically I should have killed 2.46 marines), and then got destroyed on turn 4.


Hobby projects over the next week or so are to finish my Chosen (just need basing and some detail) and then start on a Battle Sister squad.