First Dark Heresy campaign draws to a close

I'm just coming to the end of my first Dark Heresy campaign which I played in via a forum (looking back it's coming towards 4 months since we started), and I've very much enjoyed it. The game was GM'ed by Brother Aaron (check out his site, the Mystical Throne) and it all went very well.

Play by forum isn't easy, and as you can probably imagine, it's fairly slow paced. The GM wisely abandoned posting order when not in combat which helped the game flow on more quickly, but you definitely need a group who are going to checking the forum regualrly for it to work. By regularly, I mean every day. That said we still lost two players from our starting six, so we drafted in a replacement and shared the other character between us.

The adventure was "Maggots in the Meat" from the GM's kit which was a fairly straightforward mission which I think worked pretty well for play by forum as there didn't seem to be too much investigation work to get stuck on. The final combat was pretty tough though. Our party was fairly combat heavy: 2 guardsmen, 1 assassin, 1 cleric, 1 techpriest and 1 scum (me). If you're interested you can download a read full transcript of the game here.

My character, Sham, is now rank 2, so he's taken +5 Fel, Inquiry, Peer (Underworld) and Common Lore (Underworld) to keep in with his hive scum theme. He was pretty handy in combat, but can't take much damage. We acquired some armour in the last game which helped, and I've also changed his main weapon from a shotgun to an autogun. The shotgun only has a two round clip, and takes two full turns to reload, whereas a Full Auto burst from an autogun is pretty nasty.

His next mission is already a foot and should be starting in the next week or two. Our next campaign is entitled "The Lost", and we'll be keeping 3 of the current team together.

In similar news, I'll also be playing in a play by forum Death Watch campaign using the free download intro rules which should be interesting. I'm playing Brother Gregor of the Storm Wardens chapter.

Completed Obliterators

I had a marvellous time at Warhammer World last week, but the I still haven't got the pictures off my camera yet so I'll post them up when I can.

In the meantime, I finished my Obliterators the night before I went (I was up until a ridiculous time finishing them off):


I really didn't want to go to WHW without a fully painted army, so I blew threw these oblitz pretty quickly. I might redo the yellow pustule on the guy on the right, it depends on whether I have time or not.

I did also pick up some of the Forgeworld weathering powders (and some other FW stuff as well) which I've played about with on a rhino, but I'm still experimenting so I'll post something once I'm happier with the results.

Just packing my stuff...

I'm just in the process of getting my minis sorted, my rulebook, dice and so on together. Why? I'm going to Warhammer World tomorrow! It'll be the first time I've been down there so I'm looking forward to it immensly.

I'll be sure to post up some pictures when I get back.

Re-basing

I hit a bit of a problem with a two current Daemon Prince models. One of them is a scratch build and the other is a conversion of the Necron Nightbringer. When I put them together, I put them both on 40mm bases, as the old metal undivided Daemon Prince was on a 40mm base. Since then of course, GW have bought out the new plastic Daemon Prince, who is on a 60mm dreadnought size base (as was the old metal Nurgle DP in fact). For the tournament I'm playing in, I hadn't really thought too much about it, but I double checked with the TO and he ruled that any model must be on the same base size as the current GW model meaning a 60mm base for Daemon Princes. Probably if I'd just turned up with them on 40mm bases, I don't think anyone would have complained, but I don't want any accusations of cheese or cheating.

This gave me a problem. The two models were very solidly pinned, glued and green stuffed to the current bases and getting them off those bases would probably have damaged the models so I needed a solution. I was looking on ebay for new 60mm bases when I came across these:

These are 60mm plywood discs, and I got 24 of them for £3 or so (bearing in mind a GW base of the same size if £2.50 for one) courtesy of Fenris Games. The good part about these is that they are only 1.5mm thick.

Because the plywood bases a quite thin, I was able to mount the models on top of them without removing them from the current bases. Once they were stuck on there, I built up the rest of the base with milliput, sand, stones etc and painted them:


This saved me a whole load of hassle, money and potential damage to the models.

Completed Chaos Rhino

As I've been drawing up my 1750 point list for the tournament, it's clear I was short of one thing: transports. In fun games, I'm not all that bothered if a couple of units of Plague Marines have to walk but for the tournament they need to punch in a bit more and get to where I need them more quickly. Being skint the first thing I did was get on ebay to track down a rhino as cheaply as possible. I managed to pick up a mark one Rhino for £2.70 which was good, but it needed some work doing (it was missing side doors for example). No problem for me, I was going to Nurgle the thing anyway:



I actually think the top part (which was metal) in from an old vindicator or something as it doesn't have the two hatches the old rhino used to have. Taking the chassis, it was a case of just raiding the bitz box and repairing the thing. I've got so many bitz from Chaos vehicles it was fairly easy. The spikes on the front are from the Vampire Counts corpse cart, as it the body on a rope on the side.

Painting was my usual Catachan Green, washes (green, then brown and purple on the rotting parts), then drybrushing to add the highlighting.

One drawback of the mark one is that it is slightly smaller than the current rhino. This sort of cuts two ways. On the plus side it's slightly easier to hide it, but on the downside, it's harder to hide troops behind it.

Gun Servitors

These guys have been sat on the "To Do" shelf for months now (looking back the WIP was posted in March), so I slapped some paint on them for a break from green stuffing obliterators.


This one was a fairly quick paint job, but it'll do. I'm pleased with how the face has come out on the guy on the right. The scuplt really gives him that mindless servitor look.

Battle Report: Chaos Space Marines Vs Blood Angels

I got my first game against the new Blood Angels Codex (I know it's been out for a while, but I've mostly been playing Fantasy) on Wednesday night. The games was at 1350 points, annhiliation with the spearhead deployment.

The BA army was something similar to:
-Mephiston
-5 Sanguinary Guard, with +1 Attack banner
-5 Assault troops with jump packs, power fist, infernus pistol
-5 Death Company with jump packs, power fist
-10 Tactical Marines in a Rhino, melta gun, missile launcher
-5 Scouts
-5 Devastators with 4 heavy weapons

I was playing a couple of different options with my list. I took Wind of Chaos on my Daemon Prince instead of my usual Warptime, took 2 squads of 2 Obliterators, and a small unit of Lesser Daemons. I was trying some stuff out to crystalize what I'm planning for a forthcoming tournament.

I had some decent luck right at the start. I got to pick the table quarter, and chose one with some high buildings for my Oblitz to go in. I also opted to go second and then stole the initiative.

It was a good game and I emerged the winner with 6 kill points Vs 3 kill points. Mephiston was pretty scary, but his lack of an Inv save hurts him. He lost 1 wound to a perils of the warp, one to a power fist, one to a melta and the final one to a bolt pistol (!). He'd chewed up a whole squad of Plague Marines before this, and was just out of range to chew up my Daemon Prince, though the Sanguinary Guard managed to do that anyway.

With regard to my list tweaks, Wind of Chaos I only got to use once and I really could have got more use out of Warptime. With Warptime I'm pretty sure my Daemon Prince could have annhilated the Sanguinary Guard in combat and then taken on Mephiston, so I'm going to take that in future.

Oblitz are definitely in. They're excellently flexible, and took out a rhino, 3 devastators and 4 Death Company before they ran out of targets.

Summoned Lesser Daemons I've used before and like them alot. They're useful to bolster your lines where they're needed, in this game that was to support the Plague Marine squad who were taking out the tactical marines, and they're the cheapest thing I've got to hold objectives.

I just need to get a few games in with the list at 1750 points before November now.

Nurgle Obliterators WIP

I've got a 1750 point tournament coming up in November, so I've been putting some work in on my Chaos Space Marines. The heavy support choices that I currently have I didn't really fit in with what I wanted to do. One Defiler is pretty much toast, so I initially thought of going with 3 of them but financially I just didn't want to do it. In the end I decided to go with some Obliterators, four in fact.

I really don't like the official model that much. It's expensive, and not that nice, plus I hear they are a pain to build. What I decided to do was get some AoBR and convert them.


A terminator is slightly smaller than an obliterator, I've tried to bulk them up a bit so they're now more of less the same size. The rest of the conversion was bitz and green stuff. These ones will be next on the painting table.

Back in the saddle again

A month seems to have gone by since my last post, which is pretty lax of me. It's not that I haven't been doing anything, quite the contrary, plus I've been really busy at work and at home.

I'll be posting up some stuff I'm doing and have completed these past couple of weeks over the next few days. I've got a 40K tournament coming up at the end of November, so alot of my focus has been around getting my Chaos Space Marines into shape for that.

One pretty cool thing I got to was last Thursday. I was down in London with work, and it just so happened there was a Black Library event on at Forbidden Planet in London. There was a good collection of authors there: James Swallow, Sandy Mitchell. Nick Kyme, Graham McNeill, Nik Vincent and Dan Abnett.

I managed to get Titanicus signed by Mr Abnett himself:

Ogre Ironguts

I've got my next unit finished now in my Ogre army: a unit of Ironguts.











The faces were harder to paint on these ones, due to the more restricted poses of the miniatures (the arms in front of the face, the helmets etc). The banner was done in much the same way as the banner on the Ogre Bulls I completed a couple of weeks ago.

I've resolved to push myself a little bit more with each paint job, to try something new each time, maybe some freehand, or wet blending, so that's going to be my resolution for future units. I was going to freehand a bit more on the banner, but I didn't get chance.

Next up: build my giant (I built 6 more Bulls last week as well), then I've got a couple of 40K projects I need to get done soon, namely 6 Obliterator conversions from AoBR terminators, and a new Rhino. I managed to pick up a classic Mark I Rhino on ebay which needs a bit of attention but I should be able to turn it into a suitably Nurgle vehicle.

Touched by the hand of celebrity (sort of)

I was skimming through my FaceBook feed this morning, when I see a post from the day before yesterday on the My Battalion page:

http://mybattalion.com/content/artic...-by-tigerstyle

That looks familiar, I thought...

The admins at My Battalion had picked out my Ogres to feature on the hobby page! I was quite excited, sad but true.

And it was picked on my birthday as well :D

Battle Report: Chaos Space Marines Vs Imperial Guard

I had been planning on playing 8th Edition Fantasy at club night last week, but I couldn't find anyone with a small army so I ended up playing 40K instead. I haven't played 40K for a while so it was a nice change.

I was playing an Imperial Guard player, who's army had more heavy weapons than I've ever seen in one army. He must have had about 20 or so heavy weapons teams, plus 3 Leman Russ (one ordinary, one exterminator and one punisher), plus some veterans. There were so many gun teams in fact, I'm not wholly sure how he?d managed to get them all in, but then again, I don?t know the IG codex that well. Anyway, it was Annhilation with Dawn of War deployment.

In my list, it was more or less my usual 1500 point list, except that I dropped the Defiler and Vindicator in favour of 2 squads of 2 Obliterators. This was one of the driving forces for me for the game, as I've got a tournament coming up in November so I thought I give them a try and see what the fuss was about.

My plan was fairly simple: get close and kill IG in assault. This is exactly what I did. My units suffered a bit on the way over there, but once I got there I was able to tear units apart. IG have nothing really against a unit of Plague Marines up close, even two of the Leman Russ were of limit use. The Punisher cannon was pretty useless against T5, FnP Plague Marines. Even my Rhino got in on the act and tank shocked 3 heavy bolter teams off the table. So the end result was a win for me by tabling him in turn 6.

The obliterators worked fairly well, while they didn't kill much they felt pretty threatening throughout the whole game. I had lost three of them by the end, but not one had died to enemy fire. No, my dreadnought had gone into a fire frenzy twice and killed three of them. The game helped me with some thoughts around what will we be in my tournament list (Obliterators) and what won't be (Dreadnoughts, of which I had thought about taking three).

Ogre Butcher

I've not had much time to devoted to painting recently, but I've just managed to get my Ogre Butcher finished:




The Halfling Cookbook:


The apron wasn't very smooth, I'm weak at smooth green stuff. With hindsight, I should have used milliput as that's much easier to get smooth.

The blood sprays on the apron were done with a mix of scab red and chaos black. I then thinned that down, and dipped an old toothbrush in it. I then used the stiff bristlles of the toothbrush to flick the paint over the model, mainly the apron and the cleavers. After than I added some more blobs of paint by stippling Scab Red and then Red Gore to highlight some of the larger blobs.

Ironguts are on the table next.

Ogre Bulls: Finished

Just found a spare half an hour this weeks to finish off the bases, to complete my first fully painted unit for my Ogre Kingdoms army: 4 Bulls with additional hand weapons.




The colour selection for the minis was a bit of a gamble, as I hand't painted any test models before hand to try it out like I'd done for previous armies. I knew I wanted to do snow bases, and knew that I wanted to keep to a fairly muted, cold palette for the unit as I plan for them to be from the high peaks of the Mountains of Mourn. I quite like the colour selection, but I'm not sure on the banner background for a future colour, I think it needs more contrast.






Mostly the unit was done with GW foundation paints, with Adeptus Battlegrey and Astronomicon Grey for the skin, Fenris Grey, highlighted up to Shadow Grey for the trousers.

Generally speaking, I'm pretty rubbish at painting faces, but the size and level of detail on the Ogres meant it was quite easy to do. I'm particularly pleased with the Bellower.

The standard was a bit of a gamble as well, as I hadn't planned out any kind of army or tribe symbols so after much deliberating I went for the symbol of the Great Maw. I figured I could always paint over it if it went wrong. I started but drawing around a 1 penny piece with a pencil to give me a circle to work to, then I drew in the teeth part with the same pencil. Once that was done I painted them in with Mechrite Red, highlighted with Blood Red and touched over any stray pencil lines or red paint with the grey.

The bases were done using GW snow, something I hadn't used before. I toyed with painting parts of the base white first and then snow covering those, but in the end I decided a more natural effect would be to do the snow in a couple of layers. I think next time I'll texture the base a bit more first with some milliput to provide lumps and bumps and then add the snow in a couple of layers.

With 8th Ed just around the corner, this unit will probably get bulked out to 5 models and have a character added to give it two ranks of 3 Ogres. I envisage using my Butcher in this unit, so that's what is going under the brush next.

Precinct Omega Podcast

If you're after a new podcast to listen to, then I can thoroughly recommended the Precinct Omega hobbycast. It's five episodes old, and I'm really enjoying it, it's a change from the usual podcast fair as it focuses purely on hobby stuff for all different types of miniature painting. Robey from Precinct Omega studios is a great painter so the information is very good (he used to go to my local club before he moved down south), so check out his podcast here, or search for precinctomega on iTunes.