February Painting Pledge - Tactical Marines and Captain Complete

Morning chums and chumettes!

I had a realisation on Thursday night that February is swiftly drawing to a close and that I'd not painted for about 2 weeks... This left me with 5 Terminators, 10 Tactical Marines, a Captain and Librarian still on the painting pledge list. Not good!

After this I thought I'd go on a bit of a painting bender over the weekend in the hope to clear as much as I can. I managed to get the 10 tactical marines and Captain completed and was hoping to carry on to get the Librarian done last night but I was too tired to carry on once I'd finished the bases on the completed stuff.

So here's some pics... Sorry for the bad lighting, I took them this morning before coming to work:

Bolter man. Only thing I'm not happy with is being sloppy with the wash on his leg armour - think he's the worst of the bunch though.. so meh.

Mr. Veteran Sergeant man with his plasma pistol and motor sword.

Plasma brothers. I could do with buying a looooooooot more of these. At the minute, my other tactical squads are Flamer / Missile (from Black Reach) and it would also be much cheaper way of an all plasma cannon Devastator squad.

Hold still lads... Group shot! (took without the flash, so it's a bit yellowy). But they look really cool all ranked up together.

Dark Vengeance Captain Whateverhisnameis. Wasn't sure what colours they used for his robes and things, so I just went off on my own. Red and gold EVERYWHERE.

So that's my lot from the weekend. As I said earlier, I've still got 5 Deathwing and a Librarian to paint up with 3 days left to go of February. I can't imagine I'll get the Deathwing finished, but if I can finish off the Librarian and at least start on the Deathwing armour layers (takes ages) then I'll be happier over running slightly into March.

• Paint 10 Dark Angels Tactical Marines
• Paint 5 Deathwing Terminators
• Paint 3 Ravenwing Bikers
• Paint Dark Angel Chaplain
• Paint Dark Angel Captain
• Paint Dark Angel Librarian
• Paint Cypher
• Buy the Dark Angels Codex

Bye for now folks!

New Chaos Daemon Stuff

Morning folks.

I've tended to shy away from "look here's new stuff!" posts, but today I'm plum out of ideas for a blog and haven't been getting any painting done due to that pesky "real life" thing.

(Thanks to HERO's Gaming Blog for the pics, and Faeit 212 for the rules rumours)

Anyway, over the last few days there's been a fair bit of activity in the Warp and Daemon rules rumours have rolled a 3+ to show up, swiftly followed by pictures of the actual models.

I figured I'd pass these on here for club folks who don't check many other blogs, but also to spout my opinion on them - no doubt there'll be people who love the stuff, others will hate it...

Slaanesh Herald - Looks nice enough, but I think she suffers a similar problem with other heralds that they don't stand out enough from the bog standard troops. Suppose it'll be down to the paint scheme as well.

This guy looks cool, suitably dynamic and menacing at the same time. I think a lot of people will have already converted stuff like this though, Bloodletter + extra Bitz.

I'm holding out on seeing the fluff and idea behind this thing because to me, it looks a bit stupid. Like the kind of thing they would force into a toy range for a Superhero movie. "IRON MAN'S HOVERCYCLE" or "BATMAN'S FLYING BAT FORTRESS". And even then, the front prow bit looks like someone has just jammed a big Squig on it.

This looks the better option visually for the Khorne kit. I'm hoping you can also convert this into being a Chariot for a Herald, as that was one of the things I was really keen on putting in my Daemon army.

This guy looks ace and, to me, different enough from the fodder Plaguebearers to stand out in a crowd. I've heard this guy will be plastic, although personally... I really like the Warriors of Chaos Nurgle Lord to use as a Plaguebearer herald.

Love the mounts, they look suitably Nurgle and disgusting. However the riders just look a bit stuck on... As though someone's opened a box of plastic Plaguebearers and glued them on the top.

Now this is ace and exactly how it should look. Lots of Tzeentchy stuff going on, dragged by a Screamer and not a flying stem in sight.

This to me isn't so good. I'm not keen on the "ghost fire" stuff everywhere although it'll be interesting to see what this actually does in a game.

Now onto the rules rumours! (All copied from Faeit212, although since then

The bloodthirsters : 280pts
WS  BS  S   T   W   I   A   LD   SV
10    4    9  7    5   5   5    10   5+
Daemonic gifts: blood axe, armour of terror, whip of destruction
special rules: daemon, daemonic flight, furious charge, rage,blood without end
blood axe - user gains a previously lost wound he has lost earlier in game for every kill he makes on a 4+
armour of terror - user gains a 2+ save and 5+ invulnerable. The bearer gains a 4+ feel no pain if the weapons AP in lower than 3
whip of destruction - 12'' shooting attack - strength 8 AP 4 rending
daemon - see page 36
daemonic flight- see chaos special rules
furious charge & rage - rule book (P41&37)
blood without end- the bloodthirsters gain +d6 attacks on the charge and makes another strike at initiative step 1 for every wound he causes.
These extra strikes do not produce any further strikes.

 This guy sounds like an absolute beast. Exactly as he should be. To me, the old Bloodthirster is measured against the Swarmlord for Tyranids, who got even better with the Psychic power buffs from 6th edition changes. The Bloodthirster should be the out and out combat King of the Universe. Key to stopping him will be the same as in 5th edition though: shooting, shooting and more shooting.

Great unclean one : 260pts
WS  BS  S   T   W   I   A   LD   SV
 5     4    6   8   6    1   4   10   6+
Daemonic gifts: plague sword of death, bloated body, aura of decay
special rules: daemon, slow and purposeful,my master gifts all,shrouded
plague sword of death - wounds everything on 2+ with an ap of 3 - turns characters into spawn
bloated body - the daemon has a 4+ armour save and a 3+ feel no pain on any weapon AP 5 or below.
aura of decay - the great unclean one has defensive and assault grenades and causes all enemy weapons to count as -1 strength (I believe this is ranged and
close combat)
daemon - page 36
slow and purposeful - page 42
shrouded- page 41
my master gifts all - pick an enemy and friendly unit at the beginning of the game. The enemy unit gains -1 toughness and strength while a friendly plaguebearers count as +1 strength and +1 to there feel no pain rolls.

This guy has nearly doubled in points, which is a shame although I didn't see them very often on the tables. The "my master gifts all" rule sounds particularly nasty for the Uber-Plaguebearers although I'm not keen on rules where enemies start off with stats modified, essentially you're robbing the other player of points they've paid for a unit. Example, I pay Xpts a model for an Incubi unit and if this rule gets put on them, they're now T2 and S2 (S3 with the Klaives) which means a points sink now becomes super easy to shift and causes minimal damage in return if it does manage to get there.

bloodletters: 14pts each
WS  BS  S   T   W   I   A   LD   SV
 5     0    5   4    1   4   2   10    6+
daemonic gifts: blood swords (strength: user  AP: 4)
special rules: daemon, furious charge,rage
unit type: infantry
Number/squad: 5-20

Good. I don't mind the issue of the swords being AP4 so much... although I loved hacking Marines up with them. Furious Charge and Rage were my wishlist for Bloodletters, along with a points drop. According to all this they'd be S6 on the charge with 4 attacks which is pretty cool - although now they strike the same time as Marines and can't slice through their armour.

Daemonettes of slannesh: 12pts each
WS  BS  S  T   W   I   A   LD   SV
 4     0   4   3    1   6   2   10   6+
Daemonic gifts: rending claws
special rules: fleet, make them suffer (+1 added to strength - already included)
Unit type: infantry
Number/squad: 5-15

 Strength boost and a points drop is pretty good. Although it still doesn't make up for Fleet getting shafted in the 6th edition rules.

tzeench gift of betrayal -50pts (one use)
pick an enemy independent character at random, that model or unit must pass a leadership test with a -4 penalty or be removed  after being sucked into the warp for tzeench amusement, models from codex: space marine, dark angels,black templars,grey knights,space wolves,blood angels take a -2 penalty instead to represent their resistance from the dark gods temptations.

 Being a Shattershard user, rather than a target, I can't really complain about this. But this sounds pretty daft, I would hope it'd be at least a certain range away, rather than anywhere off the board etc. The Shattershard, whilst it can be really harmful, requires a Haemonculus to get in flamer range of the enemy units, so can always be shot down, tied up, hacked to death, etc. before he can get there.

nurgle's blessing (30pts)
pick a nurgle unit in your army, that model/unit gains +1 to their feel no pain roll.

 Considering FNP is now a 5+ (albeit gets used a lot more) I don't have an issue with this too much.

sword of a thousand souls: 45pts
the bearer must charge every enemy unit and must challenge but gain +2d6 extra attacks on the charge.

 Old school Rage, but he's a monster charging in. Interesting to see what units or Chaos Gods can actually take these, probably Khorne only.

dance of death: 40pts
pick an enemy unit at the beginning of the game, that unit must roll a initiative test every turn of the game or is under the control of the daemon player. The unit under control may charge friendly models but cannot move off the board or into any piece of terrain that can cause hard to the model. If the enemy passes the initiative test more than three times during the battle then the dance has been removed for the remainder of the game.

Again with the shafting of opponents right off the bat. There's nothing more annoying as a player, especially at events, to be on the back foot or have points from my army robbed from me before anything has even moved. This'll be a nightmare for Necron players if it's real...

After these rules were posted up yesterday, there's been a follow up since...

I just thought you'd want to know those Daemon rumors you posted up are fakes.
Greater Daemons are stronger than last edition. Troops are about the same and a little bit cheaper here and there.
All daemons can deep strike or can start on the board and when you reserve units for deep strike they kinda come in waves, it's similar but new at the same time.

The biggest thing I take from this, and also from interviews about the new Daemons cropping up about "balancing between Fantasy and 40k" and "Daemons needing the speed to cross the board, Warp portals, etc." is that Daemons no longer all deep strike.

To me, that was half the fun and challenge of the army meaning that you couldn't set up a fire base at the back of the board, or hide in that building straight from the off. You were at the mercy of the Dice Gods in the same way the army should be at the whim of the Chaos Gods.

I'll wait and see the Codex before casting any more judgment, but most of the models are a bit bleh and stupid (Skull Cannon0, some are really nice (Plaguebearer Herald) but I was hoping for some bigger beasties similar to the Forgefiend and Heldrake.

Anyway, that's all for now until the Codex drops some point next month I'm guessing. There'll be more stuff between now and then surely.

Cheers,
SB

The Death of "All Reserve" Lists in 6th Edition

Morning folks.


I was thinking about this one after buying the new Dark Angels codex last week and a conversation about it on Monday night. Then on the drive into work whilst trying to think what to do with my Dark Angels, I thought about doing this blog write-up.

For a while, I didn't realise this rules change was even in 6th until I mentioned it in passing about Deathwing and then checked the rulebook.

Changes to reserves in 6th edition were as follows (bear with me if some are wrong, doing this from memory):

• Always a 3+ to show up.
• Only 50% of your units can go into reserve.
• If you have no models on the table, you lose.

So. Those few little changes there make a big change to a few armies that relied on heavy Reserve and Deep-striking choices during 5th edition. I can think of a few examples that have got the shaft now...

• Deathwing Dark Angels
• Descent of Angels Blood Angels forces
• Outflanking / Spore reserve Tyranids
• Duke Sliscus' low orbit raid Dark Eldar
• All Drop Pod Space Marine armies
• And probably more I can't think of...

Personally, I used to really enjoy playing full reserve lists, especially my Deathwing. It meant I could mitigate the slow speed of foot slogging Terminators and could have a pure Deathwing list - no tactical marines, no Ravenwing, etc.

It also meant I could pin-point my strikes around the battlefield dependant on the other player's choices - Can you imagine Belial saying to his Deathwing terminators "Hey, Octavius and Romulus squads... Do you mind standing over here and watching this ruin whilst we Teleport in from somewhere else?". Key to the in-game story, I always felt my Deathwing were a precision strike force, now, only half the army feels like that.

To me, it's like I now have to pay a babysitting points tax and have units start on the board simply for the sake of having them there.

Now...Why was the change to reserves made? Simple...

Firstly, to get more models on the table earlier on, rather than having your 500pt HQ and bodyguard show up on turn 5 and not get to do much.

In addition to this, it's bad game design to have any player with Zero models on the table at any point, hence the "you lose if you have none" rules. I've played some games in older editions where players units came in 1 at a time, that unit got shot / assaulted / killed and next turn 1 more rolls on. Sewer Rats stratagem in Cities of Death springs to mind.

Secondly, my personal view, is to avoid less of the "Alpha Strike" gubbins where Player A would set up entire army, player B would drop a few inches away from them, massacre half an army in a turn, then we play the rest of the game.

On top of this, we have the change to how the reserves arrive. They've gone from being a decreasing dice roll depending on the turn they show up, to now being a 3+ every turn. Combine this with the fact EVERY army now has access to a +1 reserve roll modifier (Aegis with comms relay).

This would mean that there's a pretty decent chance you'd be facing the entire opponents army in Turn 2 teleporting down in front of your face, probably shoot a LOT and then the game doesn't feel fun and reactive. It feels like a sucker punch.

Don't get me wrong... I understand completely why these changes are there. I just think it shafts a lot of the playstyle and options of some armies.

I now feel like I'll have to spend points on Scouts, Tactical Marines or Ravenwing to start off on the board so that I can use my Deathwing properly. And I'll never get to use a full Deathwing list without having to sit 2 or 3 Terminator units in my deployment zone.

So... What does this all mean?

It now means you'll need "home guard" elements if you want to play these sort of lists.

• Deathwing require Tac Marines, Scouts, Ravenwing to be on the field or more Terminators to start deployed on foot.
• Tyranids can't go too heavy on the Spores or Outflankers.
• Blood Angels can't go all deep-striking Jump packs. Again, they'll either need ground troops or to deploy the Jump packs on the ground.
• Duke Sliscus' Dark Eldar will have to start half of them on the ground, which means half as many targets for the enemy to shoot at.
• And so on...

Or failing that, you'll need some cheap way of getting around it. Like a tac squad and a Rhino being 2 units for the 50% count, therefore giving you 2 Deathwing that can go into reserve. Although I'm not sure whether Ded. Transports are included on unit count for this.

To me, Terminators aren't the sort of troops I want sitting at the back of the board with a set of 24" guns and the odd heavy weapon. I want these guys right in the face of the enemy providing immediate threat to units.

Deal with it!

As with most stuff in 6th edition, it's just things you need to accomodate for now with these rules changes. It's just unfortunate that these "pure" lists then need help from other units or to hinder themselves by sacrificing their mobility options to deploy on foot.

My old 5th edition Deathwing list looked like this:

• Belial
• Terminator unit with Hammers / Claws and Cyclone missile.
• Terminator unit with Hammers / Claws and Cyclone missile.
• Terminator unit with Hammers / Claws, Apothecary and Deathwing Banner
• Terminator unit with Storm Bolters and Assault cannon.
• Terminator unit with Storm Bolters and Assault cannon.
• Deathwing Dreadnaught in Pod
• Deathwing Dreadnaught in Pod
• Land Speeder with Multi Melta
• Land Speeder with Multi Melta

Out of that list, the only thing I'd be happy with deploying at the start of the game would be the Speeders. The Dread is pretty useless without the Pod so they could make way for some Ravenwing bikers and Tactical marines.

Again, it's just changes that we have to work around in 6th Edition and once I get the Deathwing on the table, I'm sure they'll be fine. Just less "Deathwing" and more "Terminator-heavy Dark Angels".

//--------------------//
UPDATE:
As I say when I wrote this, I was doing it from memory. Apparently units that have to start in reserve (Drop Pods, Spores, Daemons) all ignore this. So it's still an issue for Deathwing and Duke Sliscus lists since they have the option... but it still doesn't answer the question of Marines.

And according to the rulebook units and their dedicated transports are treated as a single unit for this.

On top of that, Independent Characters count as a single unit, regardless of whether or not they're attached to a unit. So for Belial and 2 units of Terminators, you need to have 3 units starting on the board.
//--------------------//
Cheers,
SB.

P.S. If I've got anything wrong then please let me know. I've not looked at the 6th edition reserve stuff in extreme detail and don't have the rulebook with me whilst I write this up... It's just whatever spews from my brain on the drive into work.

2013 Hobby Goals - Progress

Morning folks,

Hobby time at home is going to be a bit limited the next few days so I've not got any painting pledge stuff to show... So I thought I'd go back and re-visit my "2013 Hobby Goals" post and update it with what I've done so far this year.

Here goes!

//---------------------//

Imperial Guard:

- Find a use for, and assemble, 18 plastic Cadians.

- Buy 3 lots of the hostile environment special weapons upgrade sets from Forge World.

- Assemble and paint 3 special weapons teams.

- Wash vehicles to dull them down and match rest of the army.

Necrons:

- Spray and paint the following...

- 1 Cryptek

- Imotekh

- Trazyn

- 1 Catacomb Command Barge

- 1 Overlord

- 10 Immortals

- 5 Lychguard

- 1 Ghost Ark

- Go back and wash older models to match them with new stuff.

Dark Eldar:

- Paint the following...

- 10 Hellions

- 1 Raider

- 1 Razorwing

- Re-purpose my Dark Elf corsairs into Trueborn.

- Decide if I'm ever going to use the old DE models and do something about it.

Squats:

- Paint up and glue on some power axes for the Sergeants.

Eldar:

- Actually bother writing an army list.

- Paint the following...

- 6 War Walkers

- 3 Wave Serpents

- 1 Falcon

- Paint heavy weapons for the Guardian Squad

Chaos Marines:

- Buy the new Codex

- Spray Dark Vengeance Chaos bits

- Paint Dark Vengeance Chaos bits

- Use what I can to get the army to minimum 1,000pts to use as allies for Daemons.

Dark Angels:

- Buy the new Codex.

- Buy and paint Belial (Removed this as sticking to my own)

- Paint Cypher

- Spray Dark Vengance bits

- Paint Dark Vengance bits

- Get bits for 2 Veterans I found in my box to convert to Chaplains or Vet Sergeants

 

Tyranids:

- Assemble and paint Battleforce, Gargoyles and Carnifex

- Get hold of as many Mycetic Spores as I can

- Get the army to at least 2,000pts before the end of the year.

- Ensure that the army is fully assembled and painted.

Orks:

-  Fix the 2 converted WW2 planes I have into the bases and carrying the correct weaponry for Dakkajets and Bommas.

Bretonnians:

- Paint the following...

- 3 Pegasus Knights

- 20 Grail Pilgrims and Grail Reliquae

- 8 Grail Knights

- 15 Men at Arms

- Actually play some Fantasy!

Blood Bowl:

- Assemble and paint 13 Gnoblars for Ogre team

- Buy box of Ogre Bulls for Ogre and Human team

- Make some spare Blood Bowl pitches, templates and counters that can be left at the club.

- Start a Blood Bowl league

Hobby:

- Build / buy enough buildings for gaming table at home.

- Organise hobby storage better.

//---------------------//

Chances are, there'll be a few more bits added to this list in the next few weeks each time a Codex drops but overall I've made a bit of progress and chipped a few sections off the list.

That's all for now!

SB

Tyranids - Mycetic Spores

Morning again Comrades.

Having decided to finally take the plunge and start a Tyranid army for 2013 I decided I would try a few things out, one being a heavy emphasis on Mycetic Spores in my list.

Currently my Nid collection is as follows:

• 3 Warriors
• 1 Fex
• 16 Gaunts
• 16 Hormagants
• 8 Stealers
• 4 or 5 Ripper Swarms
• 10 Gargoyles

So the hope was that with the addition of a HQ later down the line, I could have some of the units drop down in Spores and cause havoc.

Problem is, there's no Mycetic Spore models and I planned on using a ton of them.

A lot of people have used the Mega Bloks "plasma hatcher" eggs, but they seem to be getting more and more expensive and harder to find, because people want them for the same reason.

I found a few auctions on Ebay however of other Mega Bloks eggs and managed to win an auction for a job lot of them for £5 + P&P. These showed up a ccouple of weeks ago, but I forgot to do a post mentioning them.

So here's what I got, I think there was about 14 or 15 in there in a few different designs.

And then a size comparison next to a Space Marine drop pod, of which it's supposed to be a similar size. When you account for the size of the fins, the larger eggs on the right are pretty much the same size and footprint and also look a lot more suitable for holding 20 infantry or a massive Carnifex.

The smaller Spore on the left could be used for Zoanthropes or Warriors later down the line to differentiate them.

There's also a few other types of "iron" looking eggs that have metal plate sections on the egg, so I would have to find a way of removing them or making it look all Bio-looking chitin or something before I can use them

So that's that... I've got about 15 of them so plenty to use for a fledgling Nid army, it's  just a shame that with the changes in 6th edition I can no longer do an all-Spore Tyranid army. The plan may be to keep a firebase at the back with a Tyrannofex, Tervigon and some other bits whilst everything else Spores forwards.

All for a fiver. 15 of them for the cost of 1/4 of a single Drop Pod.

Goodbye for now folks!
SB

February Painting Pledge - Ravenwing and Chaplain Complete

Morning chaps!

After not doing any painting all week I found myself having a flurry of activity on Friday and Saturday night. I've now got 1/3rd of my painting pledge for the month finished and hopefully I can plough on with the rest through this week.

First up are my Dark Vengeance Ravenwing bikers. Now these guys are covered in all sorts of details, winged fronts to the bikes, purity seals and a different back "fin" wing design to the older Ravenwing Bikers.

So in other words, I don't feel like they'll blend into the rest of the bikers I have properly... the hope is to get myself another set of the Bikers and use them as a Ravenwing command squad, but this'll be at a later time. Ideally I would convert the middle biker to be a standard bearer and the robed Sergeant into an Apothecary.

Whilst I was waiting for the wash on the Ravenwing to dry I thought I would make a start on something else and wasn't really up for painting loads of layers of bone on the Deathwing, or starting on the tactical marines so I grabbed the Dark Vengeance Chaplain and started work on him instead.

To be fair, there's not a lot of exposed armour on this guy, so to me it looks like I've just left his armour un-painted, as the bulk of the model is the cloak, details covering the shoulders or the front tabbard thing. Either way, I'm really pleased with this guy (apart from a black splodge on the back of his cloak) as I was worried with him being a limited edition model whether I would actually get round to painting him.

Also, the back smoke chimneys I didn't realise until I looked in the Codex last night - Asmodai's ones give off grey ashy smoke rather than flames. But I think I did enough grey / black drybrushing on those areas to make it more smoke than flame.

I think the model looks really nice, but the sheer amount of model that's covered by robes and cloth annoys me. It'll be the same with the Captain and Librarian too, although their armour colours will be easier to spot no doubt.

• Paint 10 Dark Angels Tactical Marines
• Paint 5 Deathwing Terminators
• Paint 3 Ravenwing Bikers
• Paint Dark Angel Chaplain
• Paint Dark Angel Captain
• Paint Dark Angel Librarian
• Paint Cypher
• Buy the Dark Angels Codex

So, this weeks plan is to finally decide whether to paint my Tactical marines in the darker green armour I used for Cypher and then make headway with them.

The hope is that I can get the tactical marines and Captain done (since they're majority same colours) and dusted over the space of a week, then spend the remainder of the month on the Deathwing and the Librarian as a final treat.

Looking good this month folks, setting myself these goals is really helping to blast through backlogs - even more so when GW release new Codexes that I have to spend my hobby budget on, rather than new minis.

Cheers,
SB

February Painting Pledge - Cypher Complete

Morning folks,

I had an hour spare last night so I made a bit of progress on my painting list for the month...

When I finished off my Dark Eldar, I ran out of my most cherished painting posession - Badab Black. This left me in a situation as I'd heard initially bad comparisons between Badab Black and it's replacement Nuln Oil.

I'd originally thought about investing in some Army Painter dark tone "Quick Shade" but it would add a lot of extra time onto painting and it's hard to get time to varnish at home. Plus, I can't get it as easily at short notice, unlike GW materials.

Anyway... I got some Nuln Oil and figured I'd do Cypher as a test model, since if he turned out badly he could get stripped pretty easily or be left as is since he doesn't have to match up with an army.

It's easy to spot the big splodges on the bottom of the robe, but really bad on his left side gun pouch...

I realised when taking the pictures this morning that there's a splodge of Dheneb Stone on the inside of his right leg, but I've since fixed that.

Overall, Nuln Oil isn't the same as Badab Black, but it's close enough for me not to be fussed. It runs into crevices better, but doesn't coat the flat areas so well. In other words, I just have to be a bit more careful with how I apply it, rather than slop it on. Possibly having to do a re-wipe with a clean brush to distribute the blobs of Shade a bit better.

Also when painting Cypher I tried out using Orkhide Shade as a base for the armour, rather than Knarloc Green like my original Dark Angels stuff. I much prefer the darker armour as I've always thought my Green armoured DA looked a bit too much like Salamanders colours - so this might tempt me to go back and re-paint their armour at some point.

So he's done and checked off... and last Friday I bought the new DA codex (thoughts coming when I can read it properly!) so time to tick stuff off the February list!

• Paint 10 Dark Angels Tactical Marines
• Paint 5 Deathwing Terminators
• Paint 3 Ravenwing Bikers
• Paint Dark Angel Chaplain
• Paint Dark Angel Captain
• Paint Dark Angel Librarian
• Paint Cypher
• Buy the Dark Angels Codex 

As for the rest of the list, I've basecoated them all in black undercoat (touching up the areas the spray missed)

And then while I was ploughing on I did a batch of Leadbelcher drybrushing on everything. I've since gone back and made a start touching up the Ravenwing armour.

The plan is to paint all these side by side, so this week's job will be the armour on everything and hopefully that's the bulk of the work done...

That's all for now folks. I've got to decide whether or not I want to paint my Tactical Marines and characters with the darkened green, which will then mean re-painting my Drop Pods, Terminator shoulder pads and more importantly, the older tactical marines.

Bye for now!
SB

Blood Bowl - Bal Timorea Ravens v San Fancis Orcz

Morning folks,

As part of our attempt to keep up with Blood Bowl, we're trying to set aside the first of each month to play a game of it, with the hope to get a league or cup going soon.

Anyways! Last night myself and Mr. One had a game with my Orc team vs his Human team and re-named the teams to match the Superbowl teams. (I found the Bal Timorea name from this link on Santa Cruz Warhammer)

Bal Timorea Ravens

• "Hotpoint" the Ogre.
• 6 Linemen
• 2 Blitzers
• 2 Catchers
• 2 Throwers
• 2 Re-Rolls

San Fancis Orcz

• "Chicharito" the Goblin
• "Hargreevez" the Troll
• 2 Black Orcs
• 2 Blitzers
• 5 Linemen
• 2 Throwers
• 2 Re-Rolls

Orcz make a push on the nearside of the pitch with the Thrower on the far right holding the ball.

The two teams lined up fairly evenly, big guys v big guys, blitzers v blitzers etc. with the Ravens kicking to the Orcz, which landed off field and touched back to an Orc thrower.

The Ravens used their game plan of "push everyone back and not follow in" to prevent the Orcz from getting many blocks off, combined with the fact the Troll got KO'ed pretty quickly and never came back, meant that Orcz blocking was very poor.

Eventually the Orcz broke through the left hand wide area and scored a touchdown in around Turn 4 of the first half.

During the rest of the first half, the Ravens fought back crushing a lot of Orcz in the process and eventually running the ball for a touchdown in their Turn 8.

Half time: Ravens 1 - Orcz 1

The second  half began and no sign of Hargreevez the Troll (again) from the subs bench meant that my infamous Goblin super sub was brought on for an appearance.

The Orcz held onto the ball at the start hoping to pick out a Paul Scholes-esque long pass to the Goblin substitute, only for him to break through a load of dodges and then get crumpled by an assisted block and sent into the KO'd section of the bench.

Humans then began crumping all the Orc players, at one point there was only about 3 of the 11 standing up, which made it hard for the Orcz to get a reciever somewhere.

Towards the end of the second half a hole formed on the far side of the pitch where an Orcz Blitzer and Lineman broke through looking for a pass. After a few dropped balls and bounces, an Orc thrower dodged his way onto the ball and held it.

Turn 8. Bottom of the 9th. Deep into Fergie time.

Orc Blitzer and Lineman go long into the End Zone and hope for a good throw. The Orc thrower dodges out of a tackle zone, stumbles (re-roll gets used) and manages to weasel his way into a throwing position.

Turn 8 Touchdown. As you can see, there's not much actually left on the pitch by this point...

The thrower winds up as time slows down, the stadium held it's collective breath as the pass is succesful and looking good. Moment of truth, the Lineman needing a 3+ manages to catch the ball in the End Zone. Fireworks go off, floodlights explode, the Orcz have done it and scored a Turn 8 touchdown without their 2 star players.

The team in red does it again!

Full Time: Ravens 1 - Orcz 2

This was a really enjoyable game and went down to a few key failed rolls (falling over, dropping the ball, etc.) and the Ravens showed their brutal side by caving some Orcz heads in over the course of the game.

Looking forward to the rematch with this when hopefully my best players don't die so early on, that way I can learn the special rules for them a bit more!

Cheers,
SB

February Painting Pledge - Dark Angels

Morning folks.

Last month I set myself a decent goal of getting the following completed:

• Paint 10 Hellions
• Paint Razorwing Jetfighter
• Paint Raider
• Spray Dark Vengeance Contents

After a bit of struggle to get going again after finishing the Hellions, and spending an hour out in the snow spraying Dark Vengeance I managed to tick off everything on the list. So I'm pretty pleased with that progress, but there's still a lot to go to try and clear this backlog.

This month I'm setting myself a bit of a bigger target since it focuses mostly on Infantry, so there's no vehicles to knock out quickly.

• Paint 10 Dark Angels Tactical Marines
• Paint 5 Deathwing Terminators
• Paint 3 Ravenwing Bikers
• Paint Dark Angel Chaplain
• Paint Dark Angel Captain
• Paint Dark Angel Librarian
• Paint Cypher
• Buy the Dark Angels Codex

Now... I'm hoping for this I can split them into 4 categories for painting in batches:

• Green Armoured Group - Tac Marines, Captain and Cypher
• Bone Armoured Group - Deathwing Terminators
• Black Armoured Group - Chaplain and Ravenwing
• Blue Armoured Group - Librarian

Hopefully once the armour stages are out of the way, which is the bulk of the work, I can then return to batch painting the details on them all as a group.

I actually started a bit early on these, getting the undercoat touched up on Tuesday night:

I then spent last night drybrushing everything with boltgun metal to get into all the cracks and crevices and means I don't have to repaint the armour again at a later stage. I debated for a while whether to do the armour or metal first since the armour is the majority of the model, but ended up doing it this way thinking it'd mean less re-painting of big areas that get covered in armour colour.

So... There's my plan for the month. Get my Dark Angels signed off and ready for gaming with the new Codex. Once I've read it I'll probably end up wanting to buy more stuff, but I need to try and be vigilant.

The only thing I'll allow myself to get is the new Belial model, but if I do, he's getting tacked onto this painting list so that my Dark Angels are fully finished (for the time being...).

We'll see how it goes this month, but I'll probably never want to touch power armour again for a while after this... Which is a bit discouraging since I've got the Dark Vengeance Chaos bits to do.

Bye for now!
SB