30 Jul 2013

Chaos Daemons Decimators WIP

Hi one and all,

A quick update to show you my current WIP- 'the twins' my 2 Decimators. The moment I saw the models I knew I had to have at least one in my force, I like the overall look and feel of them- also their rules are pretty handy- plus they have a variety of wargear options. Straight away I knew this would be a project involving magnets, I wanted to have all the weapon options available.

I will do a post (I'd call it a magnet masterclass- but I'm no expert..) later on to explain how I magnetised the weapons, but briefly I have magnetised them in such a way that all options are interchangeable with both decimators, and have pinned them so that the torsos rotate, and are also interchangeable.



 I opted for a black armour appearance for both of them, as a way of having them appear 'chaos' without a colour that defines a set god- the plan is to have the paint the 2 faces on each model- one on the left leg, the other on the arm tom a set god- (red for khorne, green nurgle etc)
 I've also gone for a simple bronze edging on the armour plating, and boltgun metal for the interior wires/piping etc-the weapons were kept simple also, with a scheme to match the rest of the model.

 Once these are finished I'll upload the final results..

24 Jul 2013

Necrons - Doom Scythe / Night Scythe Flyer

So I hinted with my last Necron post about the finalised colour scheme and how I am still using the Blue (Necron Abyss) colour carapace and now a new red for gauss energy.  Here is my latest offering dear readers, a Necron Night Scythe / Doom Scythe, shown above as a Doom Scythe.
The side profile of this craft is very 'Independence Day' and looks great. The colour scheme came about through functionality, I can spray the near completed craft completely silver and double wash (Devlan Mud and Badab Black) before any detailing and finally add the two blue pieces once painted too.
The addition of a few well placed transfers adds loads I think, maybe pilot name or honours?? Who knows if the pilots are sentimental? Ha. This scheme also leaves it easily open to adapt for the next craft, maybe more blue panels - or totally blue? Maybe to differentiate between Doom and Night Scythe's?
Here's a close up, a simple controls detailing and the lens panel was added after it was painted to make it easy. The Death Ray (great name) fits without glue and is interchangeable with the wormhole from the Night Scythe.
I added some simple rocks for some minor detail to break up the expanse of the base, plan is to add one or two spare Scarabs later on, or trophies from it's future battles.
Here is a close up of the Night Scythe trans dimensional Worm Hole thingy....
Thanks for reading, hope you like.

16 Jul 2013

Necron Colour Scheme - newest and best

I have battled with how I wanted the Necrons to be painted for some time now, hence why I haven't painted the boxes and boxes of them I have... The Necron Destroyer was changed, the carapace Necron Abyss Blue and gold transfers applied and it was a good scheme... but the gauss colour of blues as well just didn't pop or grip me. But I think I've cracked it... this is Red gauss energy and it's easy to do (important), looks good enough for me and as my next post will show (hint above - what's he standing on??) suits the blue carapace and golds.

This guy has now been changed 3 times, I think I'm finally happy with my scheme and ready to swell the unliving metal ranks with Legion of Necrons...

The metal coincidentally is Army Painted Platemail (like GW Chainmail), washed with Devlan Mud and Badab Black and highlighted with a little Chainmail.

10 Jul 2013

Terrain and Scenery - Power Generators / Transformers

Hi, I'm away at sea now and have a few posts scheduled in my absence, however I'm sure 6thDegree and Lord Halfpenny will have some good posts coming up until I get back. (Lord Halfpenny - post something, anything ;) I know you've done stuff!)

In my ongoing fight against the dull grey monotony of grey plastic scenery, this year I vowed to paint some of my stuff. So far it has gone well. Here is my latest offering, made from a couple of "Batchelors Pot Shots" noodle pots and some city ruins and some gubbins. A nice LoS blocking piece and simple to make. The raised earth around the bases is modelling clay. I used car primer to paint these, nice Mechanicum red and actually sticks the the surface, GW sprays just cracked and peeled off this plastic.
The primer was washed with Devlan Mud, dry brushed with some Macharius Orange and Boltgun Metal (Leadbletcher). Base was my usual Calthan Brown, dry brushed Kommando Khaki and Bleached Bone and some green flock for spot colour.

All other Terrain Posts for your own ideas can be found here... TERRAIN

5 Jul 2013

Iron Warriors – Heldrake

Hi guys, I managed to grab 5 mins last night to take some pics, so I can now post up my newly(ish) finished Heldrake.
Boy this model is a doozy! I didn’t appreciate how big (and spiky) it was until I started building it. This one is just a standard build with no conversions – I will be getting another, so this was really an exercise in how it fits together and what is in scope to be changed next time; I’m thinking a new head and change up the position of the wings and legs…
The model is also a beast to paint – the second I glued it all together I regretted not painting it whilst unassembled, although in the end it wasn’t as bad as I first feared (definitely doable because the bits you can’t reach also can’t be seen in detail). I’ll definitely give respect to anyone who has done a good job of painting more than one of these those – curse those wings!!! It took me around an evening’s painting to get down the gold vein basecoat on one side of a wing – so four nights of painting gold veins. Then another night of clean-up. Then another four nights of highlighting the gold. And that was just the wings! Because I only have time right now to grab an hours painting every other night or two – this model actually took me about 6 weeks to complete.
I have tried to use blue glowing effects on the eyes and belly to match the Forgefiend and plasma weapons in the rest of my army and I think it’s starting to get neater.
The base was pretty fun – seeing as it only needs to hold a flight-stand, there is loads you can do with it. For a start, the base is made from about an inch of polystyrene, carved to shape, sealed with PVA and sand and a cross cut into it for the flight-stand. I’ll definitely be doing that on similar bases because it means you can slot the flight-stand into the base and model and it holds without glue – so great for transporting.
I decided early on that I wanted a pit filled with smouldering bodies; as if a pile of (imperial) corpses had been burned (might be a little morbid looking back now…). I used zombie models from the Zombies!!! board game (you can buy a bag of 100 for £10). The models aren’t great and are all the same pose, but I cut some up, repositioned a few and finally held them over a lighter so they twisted, contorted and the surface bubbled a little.
Anyhow, I am pretty happy with how it turned out – comments and suggestions on how to improve the next one are appreciated as always.

P.S. Just thought I would mention that these guys live up to their rep on the table – you HAVE to prioritise and kill them the turn they arrive or they will make a mess of your army…doubly so if you are running power armour (in BW5 my Heldrake got taken down immediately in game 1 but in games 2 & 3 went on to massacre about a third of each opponents army).

1 Jul 2013

Weemen at Blog Wars 5

Hi guys, sorry about the late posting – been really busy since Blog Wars. Anyway, I’ll start by saying BW5 is probably been the best one yet, so a massive thanks to Alex for organising it again (you should start doing this professionally…or at least make some money off it)!
I say it was my favourite yet – this in large part came down to how I finished (more on that later), but also that I played against some great guys with some fun armies as opposed to uber-competitve or some of the new scary Tau or Eldar (which admittedly probably helped with my final placing).

You can see my list here. Unfortunately it wasn’t until near the end of the first game that I realised I had forgotten to take pics/notes…so the following summary is from what I can remember (apologies if I get anything wrong).

Game One was against Luke Frogg with an Imperial Guard army with Sisters of Battle allies. The list seemed to be Pask in a fancy Leman Russ, 2 Vendettas, 2 Manticores, lots of guardsmen, Celestine and 2 units of sisters in Rhino’s.  The game was Purge the Alien and Vanguard deployment. 

I wasn’t completely confident against this list. Saying that, I wasn’t confident full-stop with this being my first game with the list. Previous smaller games had gone well until a T3 tabling by Greylamb… It seemed to have a lot of infantry AND tanks AND fliers; something I didn’t expect.

Luke hid his Manticores out of LOS behind a building and set up around it with the Leman Russ and Guard. The Sisters were on the edge of his deployment. I set up in as much cover as possible and crossed fingers.

Night fighting took effect and I stole T1 – managing to pop a Rhino and kill a few Sisters. Luke killed the Forgefiend in return and advanced Celestine to attack my lines. T2 and I dropped Abaddon and his Termis behind Celetine and surprisingly inta-gibbed her with a combi-melta shot… The Heldrake arrived and flamed a couple of Guardsman, but Luke had managed to deploy in a way that I couldn’t get a Vector Strike in. Luke replied by bringing in his Vendettas and killing the Heldrake. The rest of the game then deteriorated into a brutal shootout, with Abaddon and Termis getting killed by massed Lasgun fire (after Abaddon fluffing a charge with 12 attacks…), with both of us trying to cling onto units by the skin of our teeth. 

The game ended 7/6 to Luke.

Game Two was against Matt Calow with a mixed Space Marine force containing Khan (White Scars), a couple of bike squads, a Kheres Contemptor, 2 Vindicators, a Predator, the DA flyer, a Librarian and some tactical squads. The game was Scouring and Hammer and Anvil deployment.

Matt deployed first – pretty offensively, but left me two great sets of ruins to hide in. Given the amount of firepower in his list – I definitely wanted to be hidden T1. Nightfighting took effect and we had a look at the random objectives – I got all the high pointed ones, so Matt was coming to me!

T1 and it was the start of Matt’s bad dice for the day – he moved everything up and shot…but only managed to stun a Rhino. I replied by stunning a Vindicator and killing a few bikes. T2 and Matt brought in Khan and his flyer. The flyer managed to take a wound off an Obliterator and Khan got into position to kill the CSMs holding a juicy 4pt objective. I brought in my Heldrake and dropped Abaddon in his backfield to trouble the tactical squads holed up there. A combination of the Heldrake and Havocs killed his flyer, the Forgefiend wasted the Contemptor, the Obliterators popped a Vindicator and Abaddon and chums shot apart a tactical squad. All good!

In T3 the Forgefiend was killed and the remaining Vindicator cleared out a couple of CSMs for Khan to charge…who was then overwatched by a Lascannon which killed him instantly…  Having only lost about 8 models so far, the rest of the game was spent with my taking out the remainder of Matts army – which was tabled in Turn 5 and allowed me to grab all the objectives for a massive 16-0 win.

After that win I was bounced to table 2 to take on Jamie (from Index Astartes) with a great mixed SM army. I have been following Jamie’s blog for a while and really thought he was going to win the painting competition – every unit of his was a beautiful example of a different component from various SM armies and his NMM Lysander was stunning (and got my painting vote). We both found it weird that we are more painters than players, yet ended up on table 2…
 
The mission was Emperors Will and Dawn of War. Jamie took Lysander, Assault Termis, Sternguard in Drop Pod, Storm Talon, a Bike squad, Predator, Scout squad, Assault Marine squad and some Tactical squads.

I got to choose deployment so went for the side with two large ruins looking opposite a single ruin in my opponents deployment. We both deployed in cover with the Heldrake, Abaddon & Termis, Stormtalon, Sternguard & pod, Assault marines and Termis all going into reserves.

I took first turn and took some pot shots at the ruins opposite me – but Lysander and his warlord trait gave the ruins a 2+ save – only a few marines died. In Jamie’s turn, he daringly landed his drop pod directly behind the ruins with my objective and Lysander and the Sternguard ran out and opened fire on the CSMs guarding it.

In T2 I brought in my Heldrake which wiped out the Bike squad. Abaddon and Termis walked on from my edge to deal with Lysander and the Sterngaurd. Their shooting took Lysander down to 2 wounds and the rest of my nearby forces wiped out all but two of the Sternguard. In Jamie’s turn, the Stormtalon came on and immediately targeted the Heldrake – but failed to cause any damage. The Scouts and Assault marines entered and pushed towards my objective. Lysander fluffed his charge through cover into my CSMs leaving him exposed for next turn.

In T3 the Heldrake downed the Stormtalon and started flaming the squads protecting his objective. Shooting from the rest of the army thinned down the Assault marines to 4 strong. Abaddon charged Lysander and killed him before he could strike back. Jamie then managed to deep strike his Terminator squad next to my ruins where they would try to clear out the objectives next turn. The Assault marines and Scouts moved to the edge of my ruins.

T4 and the Forgefiend made a mess of the Terminator squad – showing what 3 S8 AP2 blasts can do to a tightly packed Terminator squad. Abaddon charged in to finish them off. By now Jamie’s army was blunted with only his Scouts and half an Assault squad left out of his deployment. The rest of the game involved Abaddon, Termis and CSMs keeping them at bay (and eventually killing them all) whilst the Heldrake and the rest of my army cleared out his ruins.

It was close but the last roll of T7 was Jamie trying to save his last marine holding his objective. A pintle-mounted combi bolter fired…hit…wounded and Jamie needed to make his 2+ save to draw the game. It was a 1…tabling him and winning me the game 3-0.

That was the last game and in the end, left me in 2nd place…something I really hadn’t expected at the beginning of the day.

In the Character painting contest, it was apparently a three-way draw between myself, Jamie (and his awesome Lysander) and Nathaniel Gibbs with a nicely painted Coteaz, who managed to just swing the win. I am more than happy to share 2nd with Jamie on that.

In the Army painting contest, I placed 2nd as well! This time behind Henrick who had a very nice Dark Angels army that you can see more of on From the Fang.
So overall – an awesome day playing some awesome people, with three very unexpected 2nd places for Weemen!