Ultramarines Army WIP

Just a quick post, there has been a couple of 'army shots' over other blogs and I thought I'd share my boyz in blue, this is the current army in full, apart from drop pods, several other tanks, an armorcast Reaver titan, 6 super heavies and at least 2 battle companies in plastic!

I'm currently working on completing the 2nd company, and the masters of the chapter captains. Hopefully I'll have more pictures of these coming up soon!

Reaver Titan Challenge Part II

Following my previous Reaver post, I thought blog my progress.

I am currently working on the base, which is the based around the battle scape scenery piece. I have completed the interior of the Rhino, using a mix of astronomican grey, over a black undercoat. I then washed this heavily with badab black. The metal flour, and the computer panels were also picked out with boltergun metal, with the screen completed with blood red, and dark angel green. From the pictures you can see that the rhino interiors have been converted massively- as to fit beneath the battle scape piece.

I wanted the base to have a story with it, not just a piece of scenery- I wanted the Rhino to look complete- thus 'dead marine' was converted. This marine has been converted to fit within the body of the rhino- looking out through the open hatch- The plan is to paint him in grey armour (sorry siph) I'm not sure yet whether to paint the skull a normal skull colour, or to go with a slight 'daemonic' appearance, (I've seen a great black/yellow combination at my local GW)

I've had to clamp the battle scape down, as there is a slight warping of the plastic- hopefully the clamps will do their trick and reduce the warping!

Hopefully for the next post I'll have the titan feet on the base!

2011- Swimming Challenge

Hi!

I will be participating in another crazy challenge (to go with the Reaver!) I'm taking part in the annual Pier the Pier swim for the British Heart Foundation. This is a 1.4 mile swim from the pier in Bournemouth to the pier in Boscombe. The annual event is celebrating its 50th year, with 1400 swimmers taking part! I'll be looking forward to a cold beer(s) at the end!


The link is below,

http://www.justgiving.com/David-Halfpenny

thanks for looking-- Dave (aka PornStarJedi)

2011- the year of the Warmongers

A while ago, both myself and Siph purchased Reaver Titans, and set about taking on the infamous Reaver Challenge. We had both seen the amazing work my InnerGeek, and his awesome Reaver, thus we decided to give the challenge a go, and blog our Titans- Siph has already completed his Titan, so its my turn!

To start the task, I decided to go for a full base. My initial thought was to go base-less, however having seen several 'unsteady' Reaver's I feel that it is a necessity to have the protection of having a stable base.I've opted to go for a large wooden chopping board, from a local shopper market, This will act to give weight to the base to prevent the Reaver from falling over. I've then used the battlescape GW piece- I love the level of destruction with the piece, and I feel that it sits nicely with the carnage that a Reaver is associated with. I have also built the inner parts of the Rhino, as my intention is to have the side door and hatches open, with the inside visible. I feel that it would look unfinished if the Rhino didn't have the inner workings. So I attacked a spare rhino and cut the sides, base and centre parts to fit within the battlescape. I also hope to include a victim hiding within the Rhino. Once the base is complete I will look to pin the feet into position, pinning them directly into the wooden board.
Just for comparison, the below pictures are of the base, plus the Reaver's feet, with Chief Tigurius next to them- its a big project!

Once I've got the base finished and painted, I'll post the images with a progress report

Relictors Librarian with Force Axe

According to the Relictors fluff they have more than their fair share of Librarians to help find and wield all those Chaos Artefacts they go round finding and fighting with, so without further ado, please find my latest addition to the Relictors. I have another in the pipeine with a Sanguinary Guard winged Jump Pack.I picked this one up on Ebay basecoated to a reasonable standard to save me the time and effort of starting from scratch and proceeded to highlight the armour, do detailing, shading and plasma coils and Relictor Grey panels, shoulderpads, base, all metal work etc. Pretty much all again then! The face is not my own work except the scars/bio eye and I picked out the teeth and tongue. The seller only wanted a tenner so a bargain considering the fair state and efforts he had put in on the face, cloth and parchment and the time it has saved me!Don't worry Hephesto, I haven't forgotten your request for an Army so far progress shot but you will just have to wait until I get back in the country again, damn real jobs!

9000pt Apocalypse Madness - Picture Heavy

Another weekend, another 40k battle - this time Siph and I decided to go 'old school' with a good old fashioned floor battle - as we had a full weekend potentially available we went for a mammoth 9000 points a side, including titans and superheavies - as we arranged our respective armies together, it was apparent that this battle was going to be colossal, with potentially average 40k armies getting killed in a single turn. (Turn 1 and 2 being the Relictors!!- Siph)

The scenario for the titanic battle pitted the mighty Ultramarines against the Relictors. Each force included Reavers and, for the Relictors a Warhound from Legio Astorum. The Relictors had also included two Baneblades and an Emperors Fist of 10 Leman Russ Battletanks and a lowly squad of 10 Guard (all I'd painted! - Siph) to fight on their side. For the Ultramarines, a Shadowsword and Banesword fought on their side, along with a Vindicare and Eversor assassins.

### (Transmission) ### Marneus Calgar - this is Sgt Abacus, we have located the site were the forces of chaos once fought. The city of Andarc, once a proud Imperial City - now a wasteland of deserted buildings and wrecked tanks. We believe that we have located relics within the city, 5 in total. We have sent scouts ahead to monitor the location, however reports indicate that they spotted a large force heading this way - request further intervention - Lord Calgar - we have spotted titans - aaarrrgghhhhh...(static)(Transmission Ends) ###

## 'Sergeant Abacus, Lord Calger- confirmation- titans?' 'Sergeant Abacus confirm!' ###

### 'Master Librarian Ephesus - Ultramarines have been spotted within the city- how would you like to proceed? '

'Titan Honorum - engage the hostiles'

'Sir? - these are Ultramarines'

'They are here to prevent us taking the relics! We need those relics for the Emperor - engage!' ###

Deployment

As per a normal Apocalypse battle we selected our strategic assets, and the time to deploy. Having played a couple of apocalypse battles before, I knew how important going first was. I decided to opt for a deployment time of 90 seconds- Siph 22 minutes - Thus the mad dash to deploy all my initial troops started- with Siph laughing as I hopped over buildings trying not to cause too much damage. I was quite happy with the facts, that I had 3 trusty strategic assets- careful planning - allowing half the reserves to arrive on turn 1, flank march - allowing my reserves to enter from any table edge and legion relic - a nasty S10 power weapon, that doubles the users attacks, I gave this to my Jump packed Captain - 8 attacks on the charge- nasty!

Siph went for the precision strike - allowing all models firing at a single unit (Emperor's Fist against Terminus) to hit on a 2+ for a whole turn, Orbital Bombardment- apocalypse barrage (4) S8, AP3 of pain (which I forgot to use! - Siph. Doh!), and Strategic Redeployment - allowing any of my forces outside 12" of enemy to move anywhere across the table on Turn 1.

Deployment

Turn 1

Turn 1 saw the arrival of half the Ultramarines Reserves, taking key positions around the relictors deployment. In response the Relictors used the strategic redeployment to re-deploy force to the left flank of the Ultramarines.

Key moments- Saw the arrival of half the Ultramarines reserves, taking key positions around the Relictors deployment. In response, the Relictors utilised the strategic redeployment assets to redeploy forces to the left of the Ultramarines. The Ultramarine terminators supported by Marneus Calgar, and honour guard into the Relictors terminators, with the Relictors taking heavy casualties.

Turn 2

Key moments- Relictor Vindicators turn to combined fire against the Land Raiders- however the blast (even though it was 10inches missed!) Ultramarine Ironclad disposed of the Chief Librarian, and took a wound of the Relictors Chapter Master.

Turn 3

Key Points- Marneus Calgar finishes off the Relictors chapter master, The Leman Russ's take damage from the Land Raider Terminus, however the Russ's take out the marines holding the objective in front of them, the Ultramarine Scouts are blasted apart by the banblades in the centre- again leaving an objective clear. The Ultramarine captain with the legion relic charges into the Reaver, taking 2 structure points- in return the Reaver flattens the Captain with a mighty stomp. Ultramarines down 1 objective.

Turn 4-

Key Points- The Leman russ's charge into take the objective in the ruin- they open fire on the shadowsword by the Ultramarine held objective, causing a hit, which took a structure point, the result of which caused an apocalyptic explosion! (Siph rolled 3 6's in a roll!) the resultant blast killed the Ultramarines holding the objective! Marneus Calgar took all the firepower of the Reaver, falling after several destroyer blasts from the turbo laser destroyer! (simply overkill.... Jedi)

The end of the battle saw Siph holding 2 objectives, Jedi with 0 (due to the -1 legion relic)

Overall a really great battle, with several interesting situations. (I will be working to produce some Apoc House Rules as a post over the next few weeks.) it definitely helped having plenty of space for the battle, and having floor space for dice rolling/discussions/beer drinking. There were a few moments of heated discussions- such as drop podding next to a titan (within void shields) and whether a hit from a destroyer weapon should negate some invulnerable saves (storm shields) These are definitely special battles, which can provide those magic moments- the 3 6's Siph rolled was just incredible- then the apoc blast of 11inches taking my squad out holding the objective.

WeeNids WIP

Since starting a WoC army the ‘Nids have slipped from my attention a little – although I did manage to get some painting done since New Year:

Tervigon

I was going to wait and paint the Tervigon in a few months (hopefully giving me a bit more practice painting), but I had a few games coming up where I really wanted to use the model and show it off – so dived into painting this bad mutha.

Having used it in every game since I made the conversion, I can understand the abundance of multiple Tervigon lists that are floating round the net. So much so, that I have been tempted to make another Tervigon for higher point games – although recent rumours of a Tyranid 2^nd wave this year that supposedly includes a Tervigon kit means that I might wait and see what appears.

Prime and Warriors

For a while I had been wondering what to do about my Tyranid Prime – I knew that I wanted it to have dual boneswords for instant-death goodness, but couldn’t make up my mind how to convert it to make it different to my other Warriors. Whilst scouring ebay for bargains I stumbled across a 2^nd Ed warrior and thought it would be perfect given my 2^nd Ed experience. This was another model I wanted to leave for a while before painting, but after finishing the last of my Warrior brood and being faced with batch painting another 10 gaunts I said to hell with it.

Flyrant

Every ‘Nid payer needs a Flyrant – even if you never use it in a game and an annoying but fortuitous error made by a GW packaging troll meant that I had two Tyrant kits – one built and lightly converted (and in the process of being painted) and one sat in its box unassembled. I always intended to convert this second Tyrant and give it a set of wings to be the start of my Nid’s “Air Division” – but have been putting it off for ages.

Well, in a fit of slight boredom I picked up the bitz and got to work.

The plan was to magnetise the model it for storage/equipping.

First job – which wings to use….checking online, it seems to be a toss up between WFB Dragon wings and Balrog wings – with pro’s and con’s for using either. I personally liked the more lizard-like appearance of the Dragon wings, so went for them.

Next stop – the magnets. Again, checking a few online sources told me the best sized magnets to use are 1/8” x 1/16”. The plan was to magnetise the arms and the wings – the rest of the model would be pinned and glued in place.

I set all the magnets where I wanted them and then…epic failure. Despite the magnets being powerful (they are the typical rare earth style magnets that you would use for this job), the limbs just wouldn’t stay in a fixed position and kept drooping (ewww….droopy limb images).

I think it was because the limbs could physically only hold a single magnet (two would probably have been better) and the fact that it was tough to get the magnets to sit perfectly flush against each other (they are set in a moulded torso as opposed to flat tank/dreadnought sides).

I tried to get round the problem by adding a temporary pin to the limbs that would help stabilise them when attached to the model – but this didn’t work well enough, so out of frustration I said screw it and glued on my favourite combination of weapons (please GW – keep the T/L Devourers as good in the next edition).

I’m now left with the problem of storage/moving the damn thing from game to game – but I think it looks pretty nice and can’t wait to paint it…

Relictors Mortis Pattern Rifleman Dreadnought

Well, finished the latest addition to the growing Relictors Army, Ancient Brother Drax (a salute to Admiral Drax just 'cos he seems a nice chap), a Mortis Pattern Rifleman Dreadnought. I moved the light from the top to the midrift, I quite like it and it doesn't clutter the top with all the spikey bits.

I love this shot, four barrels of boom boom, Pornstarjedi's Ultramarines are gonna hurt. I added some scale empty ammo cartridges to the resin base.

And lastly a shot with the first dread I painted, not a bad match! Just still need to do the spare arms of the Mortis one just in case I feel the need to field as an Assault Cannon and Dred CCW.