Astronomi-con: bonus pics

A quick little bonus post - a couple of my buddies from the group who went to astro tried to take pics of everyone's armies.  I have a couple pics of mine and pics of most of our groups to show off

novamarines - taken by jon

Here's Mikes salamander army, particularly impressed with his display board, goes very well with the resin bases he used.  He got a lot more detail onto his army than I did.  He ended up placing 3rd overall.

mike

Here's Jons pre-heresy emperors children. Jon ended up winning best army, and was second for both best individual model (the ironclad dreadnought) and judge's painting score.

jon

This is Claudios space wolves army.  He went in with perfect comp and ended up winning best sportsman too!

claudio

This is Lorand's imperial fist army - we joked it would look better in black & white - LOL!

lorand

A bit of a messier picture of my Novamarines, you can see my cool custom army counters I made.

novamarines - taken by mike

Unfortunately missing pics of Joey's marines (yes we have a lot of marine players) and Darrins "pinnacle of the hobby" imperial guard. Enjoy!

Astronomi-con: Recap

I went into this tournament with a nearly entirely infantry scoring army.  MANY of the missions looked to be weighed heavily in my favour either due to scoring or the fact I had Gate of Infinity on my Librarian.  Unfortunately for me, I only got to play 2 such missions (my two wins) which was a bit surprising but such is the way the cookie crumbles.

Shane was definitely my most fun opponent. We spent the whole game laughing, he was carefree and just looking for a fun game. His quote about his army "I'm going for table or tie" - it was a very direct BA army with Dante+Sang Guard, Lemartes+DC & DC Dread in Storm Rave, DC Dread in Lucius Pattern Drop Pod. It was a crate pick up mission, my drop pod scatter stranded my terminators from using GoI with the locator beacon and I didn't roll a scatter "hit" all game.  Still I made too many mistakes trying to catch up in number of crates and ended up with none.

Game 1 vs Shane (Blood Angels) Loss

Patrick had a pretty cool desert theme Tau army.  Nothing too shocking in his list - 2x 6 FW in devilfish, 10FW, 6x PF in devilfish, 3x 3 Suits, 2 Broadsides and a Piranha. He played very conservatively and I think that was his undoing.  His pathfinder devilfish immobilised itself in a building during it's scout move and I think it scared him a bit. It was a "clear buildings" mission where scoring units were particularly valuable (yay!) so I just focused on destroying his fire warriors and clearing buildings.  He had a chance to tie late but I blew up his devilfish and panicked his remaining FW squad.

Game 2 vs Patrick (Tau) Win

Mark's army had custom made mycetic spores from foam cups & expanding foam as well as a starship troopers toy to represent some FW gargantuan creature.  The toy wasn't too bad but I thought the spores weren't so hot. We played a crazy mission with a sandstorm where everywhere was difficult terrain and to shoot over 12" you needed 6's to hit.  I thought I had eeked out a draw but mistakenly thought only his genestealers were troops but warriors are as well. If the game had ended on turn 5 I would have actually won.

Game 3 vs Mark (Tyranids) Loss

This was probably my least favourite game.  Chris was running a Space Wolf list but his marines were only partially painted and mostly as black termplars. His army was also a bit on what I'd term the "beardy" side, running 5 multi-melta long fangs in a drop pod with Grimnar was not quite what this tournament was supposed to be about. He was a good sport and fair, he managed to steal the initiative but to be honest with his squad of 6 combi-plasma wolf guard in a drop pod I dunno if the result would have been much different. This was another "crate" pick up mission, which if it had ended on turn 5 would have been a draw because he wasn't paying enough attention to what turn it was but it went to turn 7 and ended a total massacre.

Game 4 vs Chris (Space Wolves) Loss

A fun game vs. a fun opponent.  Derek brought a Armoured Company IG list that unfortunately was just sprayed green. I made a huge mistake thinking that you needed scoring units to claim table quarters (some missions were) but this one wasn't so I wasted a couple turns focusing on the wrong units.
In the end he had last turn and was able to contest the quarters I was trying to hold and held two of his own. 
I enjoyed the game immensely though.

Game 5 vs Derek (Imperial Guard) Loss

Paul was only the 3rd army that was fully painted.  He was doing a DIY BA successor, but to be honest I think he might have done better running them as Vanilla Marines. He had a couple tacticals, a min dev squad, a squadron of landspeeders and some termies.  The city board we played on was the nicest table I got to play on all weekend, so that was a treat. It was an objective based mission, which suited my all scoring army well (yay!) and in the end I destroyed his two tactical squads and contested the objective his assault marines were on and held three myself.

Game 6 vs Paul (Blood Angels) Win

Overall I had a really great time and the "hobby/comp" aspect of the tournament I really liked.  I meant the armies were a little more flavourful than 3x unit A, 3x unit B, etc. The one really dissapointing thing was I felt my army was the nicest out of all my opponents - and having only scored 15/30 for painting it kinda sucked not to play a bunch of nicely painted armies.

Our group did quite well overall, with my friend Mike coming in 3rd overall, Jon picking up Best Army for his pre-heresy Emperor's Children and a surprise win of Best Sportsman for Claudio who wasn't expecting it - but whose Space Wolf army was commended by the organizers for being the best "balanced" list they saw all tournament.

I even ended up winning a raffle prize - won myself a free rhino.  Woot!

Astronomi-con: final touches

Well I am nearly there.  Tonight I got out every model in the list I am taking saturday/sunday for Astronomi-con. I lined them all up and gave them all as detailed a visual inspection as I could.  I ended up with lists of little things to fix on both tactical squads, the terminators and the new scouts I converted from the land speeder storm riders with a couple simple bolter armed scouts to round out the five (I did convert a missile launcher scout from a rider but unfortunately didn't have the points to make them a seperate squad).  The only squad to stand through inspection are my original sniper/telion/missile launcher scouts who I couldn't find anything "wrong" (I'm sure they could be better but at least they were neat and without mistakes)

fall in - in line for inspection!

I probably should have taken close ups of the drop pod and the land speeder storm as they are probably the most interesting new things painted.  Unfortunately I wasn't thinking about it and it's too late now - maybe I can snatch a couple good pics at the tournament.  Here are just some different views.  Have a close look at the new figs added to the tactical squads (sergeants and meltas) I used some printed decals for their tactical designation but I think it actually looks pretty good.  I ended up using a different size of skull decal on the new batch of terminators but since the skull is actually the exact same but for size I don't think it detracts much.

from the right (check out the new sergeants w red helmets)

from the left (plus same original objectives)

Some close ups with the new tactical sergeants (used helmets so I could paint them red - they both have combi-meltas that came from Mik and they have backpacks with emblems instead of banners)

close up 1

Here you can see the terminator sergeant whose left arm I magnetized so he can be a standard trooper or a second sergeant.  You can also kinda see the magnetized storm rider scouts on their bases - all my friends like the one sitting on a pile of logs! :)

close up 2

This will probably be the last update before astro.  I hope to get the guys who I have recently painted sealed on Friday evening so they can dry overnight and be protected for the tournament.  If I have time after all the little fixes I am trying to do some extra detailing on Mordacis shoulder pad for some personal heraldry.  Oh and I used water effects for the first time trying to give the landspeeder storm a cooler looking base.

Wish me luck!

revival nearing completion... Astro prep enters final days

As mentioned in my second Novamarines revival post, I am going to be participating in Astronomi-con this upcoming weekend.  A lot changed in terms of what I wanted included in my list and what I needed to get painted.

I ended up ditching the assault terminators - a small squad like that without a transport just seemed to be a big points sink, instead I decided to max out my tactical terminators so I built and painted another five, adding a second cyclone missile launcher and magnetizing the power fist arm on the sergeant so I could field either a single squad of 10 or two squads of 5. In my new plan for the Novamarines I will probably try to build an assault cannon heavy terminator as well just so I have all the options.

I also played around with ditching either mordaci or the dreadnought in drop pod for a second tactical squad.  I definitely liked having more power armoured bodies on the table.  First I cut the dread and then I tried swapping in a venerable dread for mordaci but in the end, having all my units be scoring is pretty scary especially when you're looking at a unit of 10 terminators with 2 terminator HQ's that counts as scoring.

I cut one of the scout squads out very early since I found assaulting out of the storm was difficult to accomplish and just went with 10 scouts in telions squad - 5 armed with bolters who I will throw into the storm if I get the first turn or I can leave them as part of telions if it needs beefing up.  Keeping them as one FoC slot helps with my comp score too.  I also tested removing the multi-melta from the landspeeder storm as a BS3 melta isn't the scariest thing in the world.

So in the end, I had a paint a lot more bodies than I had originally expected, including a couple sergeant and special weapons swaps.  I still think it was easier than trying to finish 3 rhinos, 3 dreads and 2 landspeeders.  Particularly pleased with the drop pod - to keep it simple I opened the doors and sprayed it black.  The interior and fins all got a quick metallic drybrush.  I quartered each door to keep the theme of their paint scheme strong and make it easily recognizable.  I painted the bone first, using the same dheneb stone/ogryn flesh/bleached bone combo and going beyond the edges of that quarter. Then I used green painters tape to cover up the bone portion so I could easily fill in the blue without ruining the edges.  It was extremely quick and easy.  Then I just added some Novamarines decals and touched up the spots around them.

39 painting points right there!

Here's how my list stands and is very unlikely to change.  My final swap out of the venerable dread and drop pod to put mordaci back in left me with 15 extra points and in the end I decided to throw the multi-melta back on the storm.  With the heavy bolter it really served no role other than to zoom around and pray.  At least with the MM it might make opponents second guess themselves.  If I don't have the first turn to get a scout move melta shot off I will likely reserve it to outflank.  I could have removed the storm shield from the librarian and swapped a flamer in for a melta in one tactical squad to get a second drop pod but I haven't had a chance to prime the second drop pod yet so that kind of forced my hand.

* mordaci blaylock

* librarian w force weapon/storm shield (powers: null zone/gate of infinity)

* 10 man terminators w 2x cyclone missile launcher

* 10 man tactical squad w melta/missile launcher, combi-melta

* 10 man tactical squad w melta/missile launcher, combi-melta/power fist in drop pod w locator beacon

* 10 man scout squad w 4xsniper, missile launcher,  telion, 5 bolters

* land speeder storm w multi-melta

revival indeed... Prepping for Astro

I've been convinced by my friend Mike to enter Astronomi-con in June. I threw a couple 1500 lists together (one for Novamarines & one for Space Sharks) to test out.  I liked the Space Sharks list but it was going to be a lot to get finished, then I found out that certain additional rules were allowed (such as FW characters) and considering the crazy tables/missions they have I became a little enamored with using Mordaci Blaylock so basically all my units would be scoring!  Here is the list I was thinking - unpainted stuff in red.  It also had the (seemingly at the time) additional benefit of less to finish painting - now I'm not so sure, but I'm plowing on with it because switching back now could be catastrophic!

* mordaci blaylock

* librarian w null zone/gate of infinity

* 5 man terminators w cyclone missile launcher

* 5 man assault terminators w th/ss

* dreadnought w multi-melta/ccw in drop pod

* 10 man tactical squad w melta/missile launcher, combi-melta in drop pod

* 5 man scout squad w sniper/missile launcher,  telion

* 10 man scout squad w 4 bp/ccw, 5 bolters, power fist

* land speeder storm w multi-melta

I got started by picking up the storm recently at GW - this was going to kill two birds.  I did need another scout with a missile launcher and another bolter armed scout.  So I magnetized the riders and made bases for them to stick to as well.

land speeder storm w riders magnetized

I also was originally just going to replace the AoBR sergeant with a combi-melta armed sergeant, but I figured for 5 points at the same BS it would be stupid not going in with a meltagun instead of a flamer - so I got those two built and started on getting them painted (also a nice place to use a helmet on the sergeant for the chance to paint it red)

replacements for tactical squad 1

A cyclone missile launcher for the standard terminators was due as well!  As I used a mini that was already painted getting this done was a breeze!

simple missile launcher from IG sentinel conversion

I've been building the assault terminators over a while waiting for the shield bits (so I could keep them all the same!) Thanks Mike & Lorand for donating some shields!

assault terminators (check out the shields)

I played a couple games with them last Saturday.  The list had too much gimmick, not enough meat & potatoes. So I wanted to add some bodies, and definitely do something about the terminators - at this points level it can be tough for them to earn their points back.  I'm going to scrap either the assault terminators or blaylock so I can increase the size of the standard terminator unit to 10.

I decided to scrap the dreadnought for another tactical squad.  It added ten more guys to get painted, but it's a worthwhile switch I think - a single dread can wreak havoc, but more often than not is too exposed and vulnerable to have much real impact.  Yes it can be a distraction but one that can be stunned/shaken and ignored.  The tactical squad is a better all rounder and is just more utilitarian.

second AoBR squad with replacements

In order to afford the full squad I dropped five scouts - it means I have to choose between bolters (without an extra missile launcher) or bp/ccw. Regardless I decided to keep the Land Speeder Storm - I'm just going to have to use it differently than I planned.  I think in the end I will go with the bolter scouts - partially because they are from the same kit but also just because it will make me think twice about charging out!

missile launcher won't make an appearance :(

As was rightly pointed out by Mike - I can't expect to throw my power armour librarian in with the terminators to deep strike.  So I figured to be safe I should really give him terminator armour - and I happened to notice that the base terminator armour upgrade doesn't come with any other weapon! Yikes I didn't realize that storm bolter cost an extra 5 points.

original model

Hmmm - so I decided I should do a little fix up on my termie libby so his right hand is magnetized to afford other weapon options.  I'm also debating getting rid of the banner if I can find another celestial wizard staff bit.  I think I will have enough points for the storm shield but it's nice having options just in case - still need to make a hand on it's own (maybe shooting lightning or something)

ta da!

So here is what I am thinking - please let me know your thoughts - there's now one big decision and a couple small decisions to be made.  It has added some volume to what I need to paint, but I think I can pull it off.  I plan to keep the drop pods really simple - doors will be quartered but everything else will be metallics.

* term libby w null zone/gate of infinity
* 10 terminator squad (cml, cml OR heavy flamer) 5 to paint
* 10 tactical squad (melta, missile launcher, combi-melta/power fist OR bolt pistol) in drop pod w locator
* 10 tactical squad (melta, missile launcher, combi-melta) in drop pod w locator 10 to paint
* 10 scout squad (3x sniper, missile launcher, telion, 5x bolters OR 5x ccw 5 to paint
* landspeeder storm w heavy bolter
? mordaci blaylock or assault terminators (th/ss)

Biggie: Mordaci or Assault Terminators?

Little 'uns:
bolter or CC scouts for the storm?
power fist in one tactical squad or second cyclone for terminators in place of flamer.

Novamarines

army value: 2,600 points max
background: Index Astartes: Novamarines
condition: 70/72 models complete tabletop standard (97%)
record: overall 5/1/10 w/d/l

• To2G 2/1/4 w/d/l 1st
• Astronomi-con 2011 2/0/4 w/d/l 33rd
• Astronomi-mini-con 2012 1/0/2 w/d/l 10th

awards;

• 1st place, To2G @ Two Headed Dragon.
  

related links;

• Novamarines blog posts.

army development;
This project was my first 40K army since getting back into the hobby.  A lot of the inspiration for my Space Marines came from thinking about deathwatch in Kill-Team.  I built a little matrix that made sure I had original or successor chapters from each "loyal" legion, and I especially chose several chapters involved in the Badab War (based on the original Badab War:A Dark Stars Campaign - big ups to Gadge the writer as it inspired me a lot to give character to my marines through their chapters) as I already knew Marine vs. Marine battles were common (my bro and I used to play my SW against his DA) and picking some from each side would ensure I could explain the battle in fluff terms more easily.  After getting a bit of painting practice under my belt, I began looking around for hobby stores to play and meet other gamers.  This was back when GW still had grey knights - I found a store near my old neighborhood (two headed dragon) where the local grey knight was beginning a "tale of four gamers" style competition - called "Tale of 2HD Gamers" aka To2G, requiring a portion painted every month, and playing games got you points.  Being able to be a part of something similar to possibly the most inspiring set of articles ever to grace white dwarf was a real motivator, I joined in time and selected the Novamarines as the quartered pattern is striking even without much highlights and I had the bits to make their deathwatch marine (even back then I knew I would paint multiple chapters and tie them together through deathwatch).  Turns out I ended up winning the competition (you can read all about it using this label link) taking home some loot and gaining a huge amount of motivation, which ended up being applied to other chapters as I had a small usable force painted.  Now with some newer Badab related supplements out, these guys are likely to see some new lovin' - I especially wanna get the rest of the scouts painted up as well as building a land speeder storm to carry them around.


army composition (italics to acquire);
(195) Chapter Master w artificier armour/primarch's wrath/relic blade *HQ1
(195) Captain in Terminator Armour w storm bolter/chainfist OR counts as Mordaci Blaylock *HQ2
(165) Librarian w bolt pistol/force weapon or counts as Tigurius *HQ3
(190) Librarian in Terminator Armour w storm bolter/force weapon OR counts as Mahabala Durja *HQ4
(14) Tactical Sergeant w bolt pistol/chainsword
(39) Veteran Tactical Sergeant w bolter/power sword *T1
(24) Tactical Sergeant w combi-melta/bolt pistol
(59) Veteran Tactical Sergeant w combi-melta/power fist
(19) Marine w flamer
(48) 2 Marines w meltagun
(14+) Marine w ?
(58) 2 Marines w missile launcher
(210) 15 Marines w bolter *T2
(70) 2 Drop Pods
(40) Terminator Sergeant w storm bolter/power sword
(45) Terminator (Sergeant) w storm bolter & magnetized options (power sword, power fist, chainfist)
(45) Terminator Sergeant w thunderhammer/storm shield
(240) 6 Terminators w storm bolter/power fist
(180) 4 Terminators w thunderhammer/storm shield
(50) Terminator w heavy flamer/power fist
(60) Terminator w assault cannon/power fist
(65) 2 Terminators w storm bolter/cyclone missile launcher/power fist
(23) Scout Sergeant w Combi-Flamer/chainsword *S1
(61) 1 Scout w bolter OR counts as Telion *S2
(18) 1 Scout w bolter OR Sergeant w Melta Bomb
(39) 3 Scouts w camo cloaks & shotgun
(65) 5 Scouts w camo cloaks & bolters *S3
(42) 3 Scouts w camo cloaks & sniper rifles
(26) Scout w camo cloaks & heavy bolter/hellfire
(56) 2 Scouts w camo cloaks & missile launcher
(45) Land Speeder Storm
(45) Land Speeder Storm
(100) Dreadnought w multi-melta/dreadnought ccw
(35) Dreadnought Drop Pod (scratch built)
Terminator Helmet Objective
Wounded Marine Objective *O1
Hidden Ammo Stash Objective

*HQ1 - The captain from the AoBR set was the first character to get painted.  His power sword has broken so many times it's probably had three or four paint schemes too.
*HQ2 - Blaylock is a recent addition, from IA9: Badab War, I kit bashed this model from just standard terminator bits, but used a chainsword and lightning claw to build his master crafted chainfist.  He still needs some freehand on his black shoulderpad.
*HQ3 - This is my favourite model from my Novamarines, I converted his force axe into a staff and used a bit from the empire wizards kit to have the circulating heavens.  Before FW came out with anything new about the Novamarines, I had written my own Index Astartes (also linked above!) where I had based them on the Babylonians due to their association with astrology/prediction - a reason I developed for their icon having changed from the sun/12 point circlet surrounded by stars to a skull/12 point circlet with no stars.  It fit in well since they had some drastic change and then had never fought together as a chapter much after a certain point.  I've had further ideas to implement in IA:Novamarines and will probably try to give it a much needed update once another big chunk of them are complete.
*HQ4 - Also a newer addition, I started building a terminator librarian when the Badab War playaid developed by FLoT (6 months after the To2G competition) came out to use as the special character Mahabala Durja.  IIRC RealGenius from FLoT was influenced by my IA in naming this character (le woot)
*T1 - Part of what really sparked my love of Space Marines again, and gave me the answer to tie all my different chapters together is the deathwatch.  The Novamarines got the first one due to a perfect bit (Asmodai's power sword) having the logo sculpted into a shoulder pad.  Like every deathwatch marine I build, he has a back banner that just uses a simple pin to attach or detach from his backpack.
*T2 - Due to the "gradual build" idea behind the competition, I needed to have two troop choices for my first game (to have a legal list) so to give me some flexibility and make use of my deathwatch marine, I also included a spare bolter armed marine in the painted squad so I could actually use two plain 5 man tactical squads.
*S1 - This sergeant will be getting a bit of an update at some point, I built him with a chainsword before I'd started playing the new edition and didn't realize the chainsword with a combi-weapon gave no benefit.  he will get either a bolt pistol, power fist or power sword (unlikely) - any suggestions there I'd be all ears.  This is done - he has a bolt pistol.

*S2 - I just used a boltgun on one of the cloaked scout bodies with a piece of sprue for a silencer.  He can fit in with the boltguns if I want to skip the heavy weapon or be used as Telion or just a sniper sergeant.

*S3 - I originally planned to keep this army fairly small as the quartered scheme isn't the quickest or easiest - so during the competition I was trying to stretch out every available resource (my plan at the time was a set of AoBR, a box of each type of scout, a librarian and home-made drop pods - only ever built one) I made an extra boltgun armed scout using the additional torso from the snipers box and a small GW palm tree, sculpting his cloak over some sprue where his legs would be.

*O1 - The competition gave bonus points for building objectives and terrain for the store (I also built a small bunker which remains at the store, but got pretty beat up as it was based off the old card one in white dwarf) My favourite is the wounded marine, missing an arm and using a grenade in a last ditch effort to take as many enemies with him as he can. I got asked if he was break-dancing the other day which was pretty funny!

to-do;

paint alternate special weapon
get & paint second land speeder storm

painting chart;

01-04-2016

photos;

CLICK HERE FOR LIGHTBOX PHOTO ALBUM

6/11/2011

2/25/2011 (no flash)

2/25/2011 (with flash)

2/24/2009

bulked up tactical squad

captain avra

deathwatch sergeant

dreadnought

torso scout, counts as telion, missile launcher

librarian

heavy flamer aobr terminator conversion

wounded marine objective

badab war characters

tactical squad 2 - combat squad 1

tactical squad 2 - combat squad 2

drop pod