Week 8: Tristan - Snotling (blood bowl)

This year I'm going to try and get any smaller outstanding projects complete. Tops on that list are my orc blood bowl team - Da Badlandz Deff Ramz, and also my necromunda Spyrers. To that end to try and get caught up with you guys I got my little snotling score counter painted up. I tried several ways of writing "skor" including k & r backwards, but still ended up liking this the best. I have something to use as a turn counter (old school musician) but I need ideas for re-roll counters - any thoughts?

MFP (must finish project) #2

Another smaller project I really feel I need to finish this year is my Spyrers. Last year I got my gang of five completed - but nothing's ever "finished" is it? My buddy Mike then gave me a couple jakara's and some yeld wings, and the expansion began. I converted one of the jakara's into a yeld and then figured I should try and get at least two of each, and use up the last extra set of wings. So I got myself the other sculpts for the orrus & yeld, and another malcadon who I'm also planning to convert into a yeld.

So I currently have just 5 models to get painted to take this gang back to 100% (until of course I decide I need to find/convert patriarch & matriarch models)

MFP (must finish project) #1

Getting the last few orcs & tokens completed for my blood bowl team. I finally got 2 old school ork goff boyz to use as blitzers alongside a couple warhammer black orcs. I have a third ork goff who I'm converting to be a chainsaw wielding star player. Varag still needs to be painted and I plan to use the extra armoured goff to be Greaser Geargrinder, an older star player (I have it and just in case they bring him back ;) ). I also have an apothecary, an older musician to be my turn counter and a little snotling to be my score counter.

I need some ideas for what to use as reroll counters. I have a couple older orcs with spears or standards who I could use - they would be on a 25mm base which is the right size for the standard reroll square. What do you think?

Any other special models you think I need to complete the Badlandz Deff Ramz?

VOGEN campaign - round two

During the week Eric & Mike had fought their battle, it was apparently very close with Mike just squeaking a win out. Ian tried a couple of times to have someone fight him as the Arbites but the timing hasn't worked out. Apparently he d6'd it and the Arbites kicked him out of the precinct in short order.

I convinced Ian to play a small 500 point game as the NPC nids attacking myself - and offered my space hulk genestealers for him to use - as an excuse to use the Space Sharks Kundera model I just posted about. Even with Preferred EnemyFurious Charge, Kundera was whooped in short order by the broodlord led 'stealers. However giving all my heavy bolters hellfire rounds meant that everything wounded on 2+ except for the typhoon missile launcher.
The turning point in the game was probably his outflanking genestealers attacking my land speeder, he literally rolled a cube of dice, had 15 or more hits and rolled a single 5, to glance (adrenal glands for furious charge) and failed to do anything more than stopping it from shooting next turn. The landspeeder and razorback did the business in the end. I have some pics from this game on my phone - this was the only decent one.
So here's how the map sat before we did another round of pins.
22 - Tristan, 11 - Tyler, 10 - NPC, 8 - Josh, 6 - Graeme, 2 - Mike, 0 - Eric, 0 - Ian
So, onto new pins. First up Eric attacked the Arbites (playing orks, Eric is rolling a d6 and going in a random direction). Ian decided to get on the board with the Trading House. I took the Theatre House which will open access to the North Road Gate next turn (re-roll reserves - yes please!) also figuring I have enough territory I can force others to attack me. Josh wasn't around but we figured he'd take the west Pleasure District (this could change). Mike attacked the NPC nids in the Basilica, and the NPC attacked right back through the Railhead Depot!
24 - Tristan, 11 - Tyler, 10 - Josh, 10 - NPC, 6 - Graeme, 2 - Mike, 0 - Eric, 0 - Ian
Eric couldn't play today (I think Mike was interested in playing him as the Arbites) so I gave Mike his battle vs the NPC nids. This would be huge - possibly knocking Mike back to zero.

It was a kinda epic really fun 2000 point game. I'm not an experienced 'nid player by any means but who wants the NPC to win? Mike took a ton of guardsmen, some grey knights, 3 leman russes and 3 sentinels. I had mostly bigger bugs, my space hulk genestealers, some tunnel swarms and one swarm of gants with spinefists. It's too much to give a play by play but some of the better parts include;
1. The LR Executioner, shooting at a broodlord, missing and blowing up the damaged (but still active) LR the broodlord was assaulting, thereby killing the broodlord!
2. The carnifex losing it's last wound to lasguns
3. Swarms with spinefists killing a grey knight
4. Guardsman Bob who refused to run from the Hive Tyrant, regardless of grey knight terminators dropping like flies next to him
5. 58 guardsmen, 3 terminators, 1 grey knight killed by Tyranids
6. 20 gants, 10 genestealers, 9 warriors, 6 ripper swarms, 2 ravenors, zoanthrope, carnifex, hive tyrant and a Leman Russ killed by Daemonhunters (lol)

In the end though Mike still had plenty on the table and was going to have another turn of shooting before my last reserves came on and I was happy to concede the game - I might suggest making the jump to Witch Hunters - Sisters would count the Basilica Imperialis as 4 VPs. This leaves us with the below, and maybe some movement from Graeme & Tyler or Josh if he decides he's not happy with securing the Pleasure District - maybe wants some revenge!
24 - Tristan, 11 - Tyler, 10 - Josh, 8 - NPC, 6 - Graeme, 4 - Mike, 0 - Eric, 0 - Ian
Had some fun with a couple games - won the right one and lost the right one.

Space Sharks: Captain Kundera

It didn't take very many games for me to realize I was unhappy with the armament I had given my Space Sharks captain (click link for original). A combi-plasma is ok but a chainsword was a weak selection - keeping his bolt pistol would've been better. Yes, I could've just called it a power weapon (he even had a bionic arm which could've been the reason behind it), but found I wasn't using him very much, preferring my Novamarines captain when I didn't use a chaplain or librarian.
A sweet bonus for switching to a simple bolt pistol + power/relic weapon is being able to count as Captain Kundera from the FLoT Genestealer Cult mini-dex (recently updated to v3.0 for 5th edition) A quick note here - I suppose Bell of Lost Souls (where the mini-dexes were originally published) has gotten so big they have done some rejigging - so be absolutely sure to check out the Fly Lords of Terra. The mini-dexes are what attracted me to BoLS in the first place. They are really well put together. I've just copied an image of the rules for you to see - I don't think this won't be a big deal. The bonus of getting him completed is there is an NPC nid in our VOGEN campaign @ 2HD, so he could even see some action as Kundera in that campaign.Finally I made my second attempt at a Sgt Lorenzo style power sword. I couldn't find my white dwarf with the masterclass in it, but Ron over at From the Warp gave it a whirl and documented his efforts. I don't think I even have a photo up of the Crimson Fist sergeant I tried it on first. This one definitely looks more like it's charging up to the tip, though I think it needed one more level in the blending of the electricity crackle, maybe an elf grey before the skull white.
damn, i just noticed now the edging on his back banner isn't painted.

Week 7: Tristan - Psyker/Wyrd (warhammer 40k/necromunda) painted

Well something had to be done to snap The Raf's streak (at four posts in a row, what a machine!) - I got home and took a break from doing some space marine bits (I have a large batch of Space Sharks marines & vehicle bits to paint, but one can only line with black wash for so long before one needs a break) to get this guy painted up and get my week 7 completed (late!). All in all I probably spent about 4 hours painting him.

He's an imperial psyker, I bought that blister with three of them in it to use one for my genestealer cult magus (funnily enough - not even fully painted yet) and last time I had the hobby room I primed this guy for whenever the urge fell upon me.

Any IG army I do is still a long time coming, but I could easily use this model as a wyrd in Necromunda (perhaps the Empath wyrd from Anthony Cases "Even Wyrder" supplement, or I'm sure he could be a Telepath or even a Beastmaster).

I decided to use goblin green for his robes just to be really different from anything I've already painted, he'll be based the same as my other Wyrds which should really make him pop when it's done. I spent some extra time on his face but everything else was pretty much basecoat, then a wash of devlan mud over everything. I also stayed away from red as that would've been one too many models with red/yellow/green - so some details are regal blue and the purity seal wax is leviathan purple.

VOGEN: map based, cities of death campaign at 2HD

Last week we began VOGEN, a map based campaign at Two Headed Dragon. It's based on the old GW Vogen campaign but using the Cities of Death rules. The first week was a lot of moving pins around and sorting out opponents for matches. Ian decided to force his way into the Arbites Precinct on the third turn, as Eric used the Water Purification Plants ability to attack Mike directly. That left Josh, the NPC 'nids and myself, with the NPC across the map from me, so I built up some territory and took the Palace of Peace. Josh gambled I'd wanna attack the 'nids instead of him, but naturally I decided to force the issue and attack Josh. During the week a couple more guys joined in, so Tyler and Graeme were added. You can see the territories claimed and attacks launched in the map below.

Before any games were played, the standings are;
18 - Tristan, 12 - Josh, 11 - Tyler, 10 - NPC, 6 - Graeme, 2 - Mike, 0 - Eric, 0 - Ian
Josh and I were the only one's to get our game in so far - and that was today! I'm gonna have to push these guys to get some more games in - maybe I'll see if Tyler wants to attack me since I can't move any pins until we're all together again.

Anyways, because I attacked Josh in the palace grounds, we actually just played a standard game of 40K on a board we setup with mostly hedges and we lined up the palace along one side as a barrier. It was 1,850 points, pitched battle/capture and control. My Dealer's Accommodation would let me take a Callidus assassin - but I'd written up a list and forgotten so I didn't bother. Josh's Spaceport Complex allowed him to deep strike with any unit he put in reserve, and his Gibbet Hill allowed him a preliminary bombardment (technically not in these set of rules, so we counted it as a space marine chapter master orbital bombardment).

I brought Calgar w Sternguard in DP, 2 X riflemen dreads, 3 X tactical squads in rhinos, 3 X heavy bolter/typhoon landspeeder, and a dakka pred. I deployed first and reserved only 1 tactical squad in rhino.
Josh had a captain w command squad, epistolary, termie squad, MM dread, ironclad dread, 3 x tactical squads w pfists, 6 scout sniper w heavy bolter, 5 man devastator w ml and a whirlwind. He put everyone in reserve to deep strike except the libby w terminators, the devs & WW.

Josh then stole the initiative;
Turn 1; Josh gated his libby and terminators near my objective, ran up his ironclad and shot with his scouts/devs/WW. Killing 3 marines and stunned a dread. I dropped my pod in near his objective, and swarmed his terminators. The scouts were quickly toasted by 2 heavy flamers and some hellfire rounds while more hellfire + calgar destroyed his devs. Pretty much everything else shot at the termies and I killed 3 of them - not as good as I hoped but then Josh failed the morale test and fell back.
Turn 2; Josh failed every single reserve roll he had to make, so another short turn. His termies had to keep fleeing. His tactical squad charged one of my rifleman dreads while his ironclad charged a combat squad of marines on my objective. His shooting killed a couple sternguard. The ironclad killed two marines and two more died from no retreat wounds. In my turn my sternguard and calgar destroyed his whirlwind, a dread managed to kill another termie and I charged some marines into the huge combat between his tac squad and my dread. Everything else blasted ineffectively at the ironclad as it was standing over my objective.
Turn 3; Josh turned around and made every reserve roll - most of his scatter rolls were beneficial, except for one and he rolled a 5 on the mishap table meaning delayed. His command squad and MM dread shot at my predator - stunning it, a tactical squad shot at a rhino, wrecking it. His ironclad destroyed a landspeeder in close combat and the other huge combat he killed 3 marines, but I passed my break test. His remaining termie and the libby attacked a rhino with a combat squad inside, stunning it. I made my reserve roll for my tac squad and they raced onto the board to rapid fire his recently arrived tactical squad to bits. My combat squad in the rhino stunned last turn jumped out and gunned down the last termie and he chose to retreat with his libby. Calgar used his orbital bombardment but failed miserably. One landspeeder and a riflemen dread shot up his captain and command squad, while the other ran from the ironclad.
Turn 4; Josh deep strikes his delayed tactical squad and mishaps again - I place them in the far corner where I doubt they will have much impact on the game. His libby tries to smite my combat squad but only kills one. His command squad & MM dread explode my predator, while he was about to charge my tactical squad with his ironclad, except my sergeant had melta bombs so he decided against it. In my turn, one land speeder wastes his libby, the other keeps hammering at his command squad. I throw 2 surviving marines into a rhino and park it on my objective. A combat squad of marines with a melta gun and melta bombs tries to deal with his ironclad - but only manages to shake it. My reserve tac squad charges into the melee quagmire in the middle but doesn't manage to break it up much.

** I've either compacted the events or we mistook the # of turns, but we thought it was turn 5 and Henry rolled a 1 for the game to end. I had my objective under control and Calgar the only model near his objective **

This wins me the other Palace Grounds, and four more victory points. No other games have been played yet, so that leaves us with
22 - Tristan, 11 - Tyler, 10 - NPC, 8 - Josh, 6 - Graeme, 2 - Mike, 0 - Eric, 0 - Ian
Hopefully Tyler or someone controlling the NPC can get another game in with me, while Ian resolves his fight with the Arbites and Eric & Mike sort out their game.

WHFB escalation league @ HSG - week 6

Yesterday was another round in Heavy Support Games' WHFB escalation league. I missed last week so this was my only chance at 1,250 points. I took two units of 20 night goblin archers with fanatics (one led by black orc big boss, the other by a night goblin shaman), a unit of 20 orcs with choppas/shields, two units of wolf riders (one had a big boss with a 1 hit wonda), a unit of 3 trolls and 2 spear chukkas.

I was a little delayed finishing up painting my wargs, so I got the buy for the first round.

The second round I played against Shawn with his dwarves. It started quite well with my fanatics ripping through his clansmen unit and my wolf riders getting into position to charge his war machines when animosity got the better of me (I should've waaaagh'd) and finishing them off just took too long. Meanwhile his bolt thrower was regularly destroying guys as did my own fanatics. His longbeards worked their way around the woods and eventually was able to charge my squabbling orc unit. It took him a couple turns but they destroyed the orcs and overran into one of the spear chukkas. Unfortunately for me he saved his thane and standard bearer from the fanatic decimated unit so I didn't get many victory points. His hatred also helped him to ensure he routed anyone who got into combat with his longbeards. A loss for me.

The third round I played against George again - who is always great fun to play and possibly my favourite opponent from the escalation league. He kept his hydra hidden from my spear chukkas and used his two dark rider units to suck out my fanatics early. Those units were quickly decimated and it hemmed my army into my half of the board for the early parts of the game (which might have actually helped me). My wolf riders routed one unit of his crossbowmen, and my spear chukkas panicked the other. It took a few turns of dancing around but he finally decided to charge my trolls with his hydra. Unfortunately for him I managed to regenerate every wound his hydra and beastmasters managed to cause, and after a few turns of him passing his break tests I finally broke the hydra and it was destroyed. Meanwhile my orcs and a unit of wolf riders were keeping his executioners and two sorceresses busy. He managed to get off a couple black horrors which decimated those units but crucially he couldn't finish off the orcs. At the end of the game I'd destroyed a lot of his army (2 dark rider units, 2 crossbow units, and his hydra) and had two table quarters, to his one table quarter and one destroyed wolf rider unit, one reduced wolf rider unit, one reduced orc unit and a reduced night goblin unit. My first official win of the league - hurrah!!

Week 6: Tristan - LOTR Wargs (warhammer) painted

A quick post. I had to focus on getting my wargs painted as they've been sitting here primed for two weeks. I've actually painted 30 of them, you can see more details on my blog. Not sure how many this should count but I definitely need them to count as week 6. Some of you (aka Karl) have seen my washes only goblins before. This is more of the same.
Edit: Wow no comments eh? I guess it's not very impressive seeing three models. Maybe this will be more impressive. (< 6 hours total painting time from primed to finished for all 30).

I've given myself 15 points for these guys, as they are essentially all 1/2 a model until I get the riders done.

30 wargs painted in just under 6 hours (356 minutes) +30PP

Well, I've talked a lot of talk about these guys, now I've pulled it off and my estimate of 6 hours was correct for total painting time (not including assembly, green stuff, basing, priming)

Here's a close up of three
and here's all thirty of them

Here's the list of steps for anyone interested.

(# of mins) step

1. (6) white drybrush on 6 wargs
2. (4) black drybrush on 6 wargs
3. (14) paint grey stripe on backs
4. (63) paint mouths black
5. (38) gryphonne sepia wash
6. (32) gryphonne sepia wash
7. (35) gryphonne sepia wash
8. (16) paint eyes yellow
9. (28) paint teeth dheneb stone
10. (14) paint accessible claws dheneb stone
11. (10) paint tongues skorne red
12. (25) paint hard to reach claws dheneb stone
13. (10) paint grass catachan green
14. (25) fix bases grey
15. (10) black wash base and teeth
16. (26) drybrush base bleached bone
    

Space Hulk Terminators - magnetizing for 40mm bases

Here's a post for the Herald of Discord at Weekly Minis. He's been converting and painting up a set of his Space Hulk Terminators in death company colours and we began discussing basing them. I'm also converting mine (as I don't want them to look the same as everyone elses) mine will be painted up as Flesh Tearers.

First here's the first model I prepped. You can see that some blood angels iconography has been removed. Where there was space around a blood drop to paint a saw blade I left the blood drop - otherwise they were removed.
First I drilled holes for magnets in the model's "space hulk" base. I used blu-tac to hold the model to the 40mm base and used the holes in the 40mm base as guides to make sure they ended up exactly placed.Then I glued magnets into the 40mm base. I then built up the base (depending on the "space hulk" base for the model - for example the librarian is coming down steps so I just wanted the rest of the 40mm to be flat)Finally here he is, attached to his base.

Same pics for the second model.

Request: Orc & Goblin list advice

OK, here's the situation. I'm currently painting up 30 LOTR wargs (hope to have them done in the next day or two) they are the plastics and will all have riders (since I'm using for WHFB).

Now the conundrum is that I just got an older box of metal warg riders. It includes 3 with spear (all same sculpt) and 2 different archer sculpts. I was thinking to use them as champion models, and then had the epiphany of using a couple spear armed guys to convert some standard bearers, like this example I found online (though I will probably just convert the spear into a standard)
My question is - what would you recommend? Considering I have 30 wolf riders - how many standard bearers do you think I should convert? IMO musicians are more important to fast cavalry, so would a couple standards be sufficient and should I convert some into musicians? champions? I figure the archers could pretty easily be converted to horn blowing musicians (using their bows and green stuff)
What number of each would you break down the 5 models - champions/standards/musicians?

ps. Planning to get a Sharku to act as a big boss.

Week 4, Week 5: Tristan - Marksmen (mordheim) (catchup) painted

I also got around to painting a couple quickies to try and catch up. These are a couple old metal handgunners I got with a bunch of stuff my friend gave me. Even though I prefer crossbows in mordheim, I figure at least if I find any I will have models to represent. They are quite terribly painted, but that's ok as they fit in with the rest of my terribly painted talabheim mordheim warband. Basically I painted on a white undercoat, where they weren't going to be red I used 2 coats. Then I painted the quarters red, the faces & hands flesh, the stocks & bags leather, the beards and metals black, then boltgun metal on the guns and helmets. Yellow for the ribbons and then a wash of gryphonne sepia over everything and they're good to go. This puts me back on track for tomorrow, not sure what's up next...

Week 3: Tristan - Wardancer (warhammer quest) painted

Yikes, is this guy ever late! Week 3 my ass! To be honest I found him a bit of a chore to paint after doing the Dwarf. Along with having other priorities for hobby time meant he got the back shelf for a bit. I think I'm going to test out saving up a bunch of painted models and then just doing a bunch of bases in one day.
I tried to stick with a very limited palette on this guy as with my other warhammer quest models. I want to make sure they are all quite unique and easy to pick out from one another. As his hair was going to be blonde I went with purple for his gems. Once I had everything basecoated I gave him a wash of devlan mud all over and then started picking out details.

WHFB escalation league @ HSG - week 4

I altered up my army a bit for this past Sunday's WHFB escalation league @ Heavy Support Games. I removed all the fluff from the night goblin archers unit and used a black orc big boss to lead them (simply a fanatic delivery system). I also mixed up my wolf riders, using two units of 12 both with bows and spears.

First game was against Nathaniel and his High Elves. He's using the new Mantic Games elves and they look great. He had a unit of seaguard, 2 bolt throwers and a mage on dragon. He forgot about my fanatics, so mistakenly moved his dragon too close. Between them and my spear chukkas his mage & dragon were dead by turn 2. Even with this great lead my army managed to fail me miserably, squabbling at the wrong time and failing fear tests to charge elves. I realized later that because my spear chukkas have 4 crew it might be possible for them to claim table quarters (which would have turned the loss into a draw) but a fun game regardless. Well done to Nathaniel for hanging in there.

Second game I got the buy, meaning I get full score as there was an odd number of opponents. Only thing to say about this was I'm upset I forgot I brought paints and I just sat around watching games.

Third game was against George with his Dark Elves; dark riders, cold one riders, 2 crossbow units, a bolt thrower and a mage. Started well, using my waaagh to get just close enough to release my fanatics at his cold one riders - pretty well decimating the unit. The tides swung back and forth all game, both our mages miscast (his twice, killing his mage), my wolf riders fleeing from charges and then just running off the board, my spear chukkas did well again this game. In the end he had more victory points, but not by enough to secure a win. My second draw!

I will soldier on and get that win! Next week is 1,250 points. Got some list making to do.