Saturday, December 8, 2012

Guardsman Test Model for Knights Angelus

My master plan is coming to fruition, a combined imperial force that has the same paint scheme. I finished up my test model for my guardsmen.  I figure I'll be doing 200+ of these so I better like how they turn out.  The model has the same scheme as my marines for my Knights Angelus. 

I did a bit of fat fingering on the freehand on the shoulder pads.  I really need to go with a finer brush so I can get the detail.  All of the guardsmen will have the dark angels symbol on one pad and the inquisition symbol on the other.




Here's a photo of the guardsmen next to the starter box marine and my robed "elite" troop.



Pretty happy with how it came out overall. Now it's time to lock in the chimera chassis color scheme as well as get cracking on the drop pods for Adepticon!

Friday, November 23, 2012

Hobby Sales: Dragonforge & Battlefoam

It's that time of year for holiday sales.  I wanted to give everyone a heads up on a couple of places I've taken advantage of visiting.  As you can see by my latest imperial project, I've been basing my new miniatures with Dragonforge.  They're doing a buy 3 get 1 free.  It's a heck of a good deal and they honestly put some of the best bases out there.  They wrap up the sale at midnight on the 25th.

I picked up some more of the Sanctuary themed bases.  Now it's time to get priming models before it gets too ridiculously cold outisde!


The other site is Battlefoam.  I have 3 shelves in my basement entirely stacked with their stuff.  They're running a 25% off sale, which is also pretty amazing.  I grabbed some flyer transports for vendettas and storm ravens... yes I'll be painting those up in the near future.


I just got over a nasty flu which put me out of commission for a few days.  It sucks when you have all this "free" time and all you can do is stare at the TV.  It also meant I missed out on a tasty Thanksgiving dinner.  Ah well, at least it meant that I didn't gain the holiday pounds!

Stay tuned for some infantry updates for the Knights Angelus!

Friday, November 9, 2012

Dread Smash!

I finished the first two of my four dreads I'll be using in my Blood Angels / GK list.  The furiouso I had already modeled for another army, so the legs were positioned for a certain base. I had to pull it off that base and transpose it on one of my ruins bases.

The "toes" of the dread are a little unnatural on the pillar but I still think it does the job.  Nothing like 3 flame templates on an armor 13 platform to drop in and mince some infantry!  I think I'll add some static grass in the "dirt" area of the rubble to break up the basing.




My second dread was one of three riflemen.  I decided for both this one and the other that I had to do some other color to break up the model.  I tried going with blue cabling to mix things up a bit.  Blue is the accent color I use for power weapons, lenses, etc. so I figured it would work on this model too.



Another thing to break up the basing on this miniature is to add some dead leaves.  It shouldn't dominate the stone basing but it will help break things up.

I'm almost finished up with my 10 robed marines that will be used as death company / sternguard / vets!  I should have them finished Friday night.

My plan is Saturday and Sunday to get a lot of gaming in.  I'm debating for Adepticon whether to go with my Necrons or the drop pod blood angels / GK henchmen list. Decisions, decisions...

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Knights Angelus: 3 Razorbacks and More Troops!

I'm making some major progress on the Knights Angelus.  I finished up three models to add to the tactical squad, a meltagun, multi-melta and the sgt. from the dark vengeance box.  I swapped his chainsword for a power axe and plasma pistol for a bolt pistol.




I also finished up three razorbacks.  I traded my pirate ships and pirates from last year's adepticon fantasy team tournament for a few painted razorbacks, cadians and terrain.  A little primer a repaint and they are finished!





It's amazing how a semi-gloss really transforms the red.  I would rather cheat and use the forgeworld doors, but I didn't want to hack up the models, so I did some not-so-professional freehand of dark angels and inquisition symbols. 

Working on the 4 dreads now!

Saturday, October 27, 2012

New Army: "Silver" Knights Angelus

Wow, it has been a long time since I've made an update to the blog.  Work has been crazy as usual, but I am making a bit of progress towards painting.  I've added some to my Necrons, but more importantly have settled in on a new paint scheme.

With the allies system in 6th edition, I want one paint scheme that can tie together a good chunk of imperial armies.  Namely: Guard, Space Marines (many flavors), and Grey Knights.

I love the look of silver and red with gold trim.  It's a regal look and with my light colored bases from Dragonforge I think it will be a beautiful contrast.  Plus this will go along with my Black Templar.  I absolutely love the new Dark Vengeance models, and the standard tactical marines have inspired me.  I will be using them as my marine base with rules for either standard marines, dark angels or blood angels.  Here's my first set of miniatures. 


With the new citadel paints, I want to make sure I limit the colors to the new ones out to keep me from running out on old colors.  I'm currently finishing up three razorbacks.  I got them from a trade from a friend, so I cleaned them up a bit and re-primed.  I'll have them finished tonight. 

Here is the 1,850 list that I'm debating for Adepticon.  It will be either this list or my Necrons.

In this list, I'm debating switching points to get a quad gun in as well as switching one of the power axes in my death company with a power fist.  Also the other swap is whether I take the stormraven or switch it out with a blood angels vindicator and a 5th razorback.  

Grey Knights (primary)

HQ: Corteaz
Troop: Henchmen; 3 servitors with plasma cannons and 5 acolytes
Troop: Henchmen; 3 acolytes (ride in the stormraven)
Troop: Henchmen; 3 acolytes in Razorback with psybolt ammo
Troop: Henchmen; 3 acolytes in Razorback with psybolt ammo
Troop: Henchmen; 3 acolytes in Razorback with psybolt ammo
Troop: Henchmen; 3 acolytes in Razorback with psybolt ammo
Heavy: Dreadnought with two twin autocannons with psybolt ammo
Heavy: Dreadnought with two twin autocannons with psybolt ammo
Heavy: Dreadnought with two twin autocannons with psybolt ammo 
Fast: Stormraven (mindstrike helps me assassinate psykers)
Fortifications: Aegis Defense Lines

Blood Angels (secondary)

HQ: Librarian with Blood Lance & Shield of Sanguinius (goes with death company)
Troop: Death Company 7 with bolters, 2 with power axe and pistol in drop pod
Troop: Tactical Squad (10), Multi-melta, meltagun, Sgt with power axe and melta-bombs in drop pod
Elite: Furioso Dread with Frag Cannon and power fist with heavy flamer in drop pod

The idea is that I put two drop pods in my opponents face immediately.  They act as a distraction while I pew-pew with my more fragile shooting and scoring MSU. 

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Nova Coverage: Games 7-8.. I am a weiner!

I woke up very tired (6am came fast) with a cold coming on.  I hate that feeling when you know you're getting sick.  After sauntering down to the gaming floor I set my army on a table and anxiously awaited my next pairing. 

Game 7 (Round 3 of mini-bracket)

I finally got to play against an army I feared... a flyer-wing with more flyers then me!  The most important roll of the game was the roll to see who went first or 2nd.  Luckily I won the roll and went 2nd.  I knew if I had deployed my flyers first they would have been shot out of the sky with Doug's 8!


Doug also had Immotek which is a flyer killer himself and 3 squads of scarabs (which ended up almost costing me the game).  He had one loss where his opponent was able to table his army off before his flyers arrived.  That is the danger when everything is off the board with the exception of a few models. 

This mission was Objectives then Quarters then Kill Points.

The other scary combo that Doug was fielding was 2 squads of deathmarks with the crypteks with the flamer o'doom.  The one that wounds vs your leadership on strength 8 ap1.  With the deathmarks causing the unit to be wounded on 2's it meant for some nastiness.  Since he had 2 of those squads, both of my wraith units were marked. 

Doug's big mistake was that he pulled his flyers into my one flank (to successfully annihilate my one wraith/lord squad) but then set himself up in a nice formation for my doom scythes.  NOVA had FAQ'd that the beam from the death ray could hit flyers (but not both flyers and ground at the same time).  My flyers then rolled up and shot / beamed the crap out of his. 


Lucky for doug he did save 2 flyers with jink saves on my beams, and I failed to pen on one of the others.  In the end I downed 3 of the flyers and evened up the odds.  My other wraith unit then ran (away from the deathmarks now on foot) to try and clean up the right flank of the pesky 5 man units. 

This fight was tough.  Immotek successfully lightning struck down one of my doomscythes and put some wounds occasionally on other units.  I lost my left flank but rolled up Doug's right.  Since Doug got the scoring ability on his warlord trait, Immotek was able to stretch his way down my left flank to cover off on that objective.  The middle was a huge scrum of immortal on immortal fighting.  My last immortal squad was able to stop within 3 inches of the center objective and melee.  Had the game ended on turn 5 it would have been a tie on objectives and quarters. 

At this point I figured I would ignore Doug's flyers for the most part.  I did forget to move one on (this happened twice over the weekend) after I zoomed off.  That loss of firepower was big in these final turns.  I need to make sure I always check for a flyer off the board.  

The pesky scarabs did what they needed to do and joined the melee in the middle and won the fight, piling into my unlocked immortals on turn 6.  He brought a second unit in as well.  My other unit of immortals had 2 remaining.  I threw my remaining 2 wraiths who had pulled his units off his back corner objective into the middle and killed off Doug's remaining troop on the center objective.  Doug caused 3 wounds on my immortals... 2 remained... I failed both saves and lost the middle objective. 

We both had 2 objectives, 2 quarters and I ended up winning on kill points.  Very close game.  It was on to the final round!

Game 8 (Final round of mini bracket)

I went into game 8 nervous.  Not that it really mattered, it was just a fun tournament at this point, but I now really wanted to win this.  That also would mean I would exit with a 6-2 record, which is more then I could ask for.  I was up against a list my opponent said he designed for the NOVA missions... drop space wolves.  He was right, he had an army that was great on table quarters and could weather a ton of firepower. 

He had a strong drop list combined with 3 long fang missile units and corteaz with a unit of grey knights.

The mission was Quarters then Objectives then Kill Points

I completely spaced out and didn't take any pictures outside of turn 2.  I decided to try and roll up a flank and use my flyers to concentrate firepower and soften things up for my wraiths.  I figured if I could hurt one of his home quarters and camp out with my wraiths I could use firepower to knock out his "lighter" quarter late game.  It almost worked...


I set up my barge on the right flank behind the hill.  I figured it would be a bit of a bait for one of his drop squads.  It ended up doing just that as I got lucky that one scattered off the board (I placed it in the rear right).  Stupid for me, I think my opponent would have castled up in that quarter regardless.

My flyers all came in on turn 2 and I committed them all to the left side. The combined firepower of all my flyers allowed my wraiths to work over the remaining space wolves in combat. 

Turn 3 I angled my flyers to the middle and concentrated on the grey knights.  It worked as I pulled down them all in shooting and insta-killed corteaz (due to one missed 2+ save on strength 7).  He did the smart thing and focused his missile shots on my wraiths.  I had one unit that had one wraith and an injured destroyer lord left.  They fled to try and use their points to hold a quarter.  The other unit pressed the center of the board to stop the advancing pod on the right.

My flyers on turn 4 failed miserably to either hit or wound much of anything and he made most of his saves.  My 1 man wraith and lord unit worked back to my home objective (my lord had the scoring warlord roll) to grab my objective as one of my opponents drop pods landed in my left quarter and tied up my back units in shooting / assault. 

Turn 5 I made some pretty big mistakes.  At this point I knew we would probably tie quarters and it would turn to objectives. 

I had the one on my left (with my lord and solo wraith).  The one on my opponent's side (my left) I had as well.  He took the middle with some advancing grey hunters and had his rear right.  On my side left, I was able to drop a 5 man warrior squad to contest the objective.  Hooray I figured I would have the win if I could knock out one guy (the only one within 3") of my right objective.  It worked. 

In case it would go another round I pulled two flyers off the board.  I then shot up the one guy off the objective (unit was still intact) so I know had the 2-1 objective bonus... and then realized my mistake.  I forgot to move a flyer that had a unit embarked.  I asked my opponent if I had moved it and he thought I had... I thought back to the flight path and did the honest thing.  I destroyed my flyer since I failed to move it.  Zooming flyers are considered destroyed if they don't move at least 18".  Since this was such an important game I didn't want to "take back" a move. 

Still with that, I figured I had the game, but go figure I didn't think about the fact that combat was won by my opponent on my left side flank.  He rolled high enough on the consolidation and proceeded to contest my objective!  Crap! 

The dice gods did have something to bless me with.  His unit with his rune priest that was on my right side objective (although not claiming) broke on a roll of an 11.  Now this isn't normally bad since they would auto rally if the game went on.

Well it didn't.  We rolled and the game ended.  Crap on a stick.

Quarters?  We each had 2. His center unit was more in the quarter that his broken unit was in.

Objectives? We each had 2. 

Kill Points?  Well my honesty killed me on that.  Since I moved two flyers off the board (for the next round of shooting) and I self-killed the one I didn't move, plus the fact it had a unit on board which is then forced into ongoing reserve.  oh, and I didn't bother to assault or shoot at his drop pods.  I was only up by two kill points.  Yup two.  So we tied on all three and it went to victory points.

After recounting at least three times and adding up our totals at least three times I won by a total of 70 points. 

Had I lost on victory points I would have had a hard time moving on from those mistakes. Either way I'm glad I did the right thing about killing my own flyer since I forgot to move it in the movement phase.  It would have cost me the game combined with the fact I put two flyers into ongoing reserves.  And since I ignored (and forgot to charge a couple rounds) the drop pods, that was easy kill points I should have grabbed.

What a nail biter.

With that, my NOVA games were done and I finished 6-2 and won my bracket.  An exciting weekend of gaming and I think I'm better equipped to run my necron flyer / wraith list. 

Since I'm horrible at battle reports (I need to take notes and take pictures), you'll be happy to hear I'm back to hobby and painting articles! 

Monday, September 17, 2012

NOVA Coverage: Games 5-6

I'll apologize right now, during the mini-tournament in my 2-2 bracket I got caught up in the games.  As I mentioned before I was able to win all 4 games; in the process of concentrating and working at it I didn't take many pictures.  Here's the lightning round of how each went!

Game 5 (Round 1 of the bracket tournament)

I played Jason from Texas who borrowed a friend of his army.  I loved the Kromlech (I think) Mexican sombreros and bits.  Unfortunately the army wasn't painted.  Jason had an ork list that had 3 big mobs of boys, 1 stormboy mob, 1 massive nob biker mob with boss and a big squad of lootas.  He had all infantry which is great for scoring at NOVA and had very little killpoints.  I had some concerns about running against this style of a list as the nob bikers can brutalize my wraiths.  At least there was only 1 loota squad so I wasn't as worried about my flyers being destroyed.

The mission was objectives, quarters then kill points.

I deployed my wraith units away from each other.  I wanted to use one as a sacrificial bait squad (I know, pretty expensive) and one to try and roll up a flank.  I knew with that many orks, I would have to soften them up before assaulting.  If the squad was small enough I could split my destroyer lord off and take advantage of his toughness of 6.  It actually worked that I would issue a challenge.  If the nob accepted, I had a good chance (which worked) to kill the nob before he could use all of his challenge rerolls (from cheering orks) to strike with his klaw.  After that the second time I charged a mob with my lord, the orks needed 4's by 6's by my 2+ save.  A depleted mob was decently easy to handle.

The nob bikers zoomed forward on the left flank and I retreated my unit into the ruins so I would at least get to strike first.  My unit of other wraiths played hide and go seek with the unit of storm boys and held behind the right hill until they got within my charge range.


As I expected my unit was utterly destroyed but fortunately my destroyer lord got back up (to later annoy the far boys squad).  Once combat was finished my opponent was relatively bunched up for my flyer strafing run.  This is where my doom scythes paid dividends.  They both came in and their laser beams of doom along with 3 sets of twin link teslas killed all but 2 bikers and a wounded boss.  It neutered the squad enough that I could take it apart with the rest of my army.

I proceeded to tear into the rest with my flyers and strafed around the board.  In the end I tabled my opponent and got the win.  He was a good sport about it and it advanced me to round 2.

Game 6

My 6th game was against Jimmy V.  Before the tournament started, we set up together to get our armies judged for painting.  I really loved the way his biker list looked, and was very impressed it could fit into a small case... what a perfect army for traveling.

This mission was Quarters then Objectives then Kill Points

We had another hammer and anvil style deployment which in this case worked to my advantage. I went 2nd and made sure I was out of any range of shots the opening round.  Jimmy's command squads (he had two) were nasty in combat.  Toughness 5 with storm shields, combat weapons and an apothecary.  The captains had 2+ armor so could take the bulk of wounds before the rest of the squad was touched.  I knew I wouldn't get to escape them long with their mobility so decided to "attempt" to refuse one flank with my wraiths and double up on one of the squads.





It worked  only due to the fact I had some good rolling but more importantly Jimmy missed some major 2+ saves.  My one unit of wraiths tied up the command squad long enough to have the other one jump in.

My flyers all failed their first roll for reserves, but with the communications relay, I made every second roll.  It paid for itself for the whole tournament in this game alone.  I committed all 5 flyers at the right flank and tore into his other command squad wiping them out.  Between death rays and tons of tesla, the pulled them down. 

My combination of 2 wraith units finally pulled down the other command squad and my flyers then proceeded to hunt down the rest of the bikes.  Strength 7 on toughness 5 negates a lot of the bonuses of the bikes.  Jimmy did have one lone attack bike that chased after a hiding leftover wraith (I was using one to help claim quarters) and assassinated it!  My immortals were not too happy with that fact and decided to shoot and charge the remaining attack bike. 

In the end Jimmy was left with a wounded attack bike on his far corner and I picked up all 4 quarters.  It was a rough matchup for him.

With the night being done, I was excited and nervous about going into my game 7 and 3rd game of my mini bracket tournament!

Saturday, September 15, 2012

NOVA Coverage: Awesome Armies

I try to get as many pictures of armies that inspire me.  Since the lighting was a bit dim, I had to play around with whether my flash was on or off.  With the flash on it washes out the photos but at least they can be seen.  Here's a compilation of armies that inspired me.  This is probably one of my favorite parts of going to major tournaments... seeing great themed lists!  I hope you can take some inspiration from these pictures.



Yeah it made me chuckle...

















I'm now getting set to take on my next big projects.  One of them is kicking around the idea of my shock and awe (half drop pod) space wolf infantry list. The next is my thoughts on a themed guard / dark angels army that will be painted in dark silvers and red.  I'm going to call it Knights Angelus, or something of that nature.   I also need to settle in on a army for the Badab War.  I could really use your help on inspiration!  More to follow...

Friday, September 14, 2012

Wreck-Age Kickstarter: Pretty Cool!

If you haven't checked out the Kickstarter from Wreck-Age, do yourself a favor and do so.  It looks to be a fun game and the artwork and back-story is beautiful. 

Here's a link to the Kickstarter:    Wreck Age: Tabletop, RPG and Board Game
Here's a link to their website: Wreck-age: Hyacinth Games


I am a sucker for post-apocalyptic fiction and the miniatures have a lot of character.  I decided to go with the $155 pledge to support their rulebook and two factions.  Honestly I am very tempted to do a third (if they had that option).  Either way I am for sure doing two to be able to host some fun games with friends.

The whole kickstarter concept is a great way to get small companies off of the ground.  I applaud the team for putting in the hard work to get their concept rolling and I'm looking forward to the additional quality miniatures and background they come out with!

Thursday, September 13, 2012

NOVA Coverage: Games 3-4

With a loss under my belt, it took the pressure off the games.  At this point I just wanted to stay at least 50/50.  My next game was the big heartbreaker for me.  Lots of mistakes on my part, mainly due to inexperience.

Game 3

The third game was against another awesome opponent, Peter.  He had a balanced tyranid list with a combination of 2 trygons, 2 tervigons, 3 zoanathropes and a Tyrant with preferred enemy. The preferred enemy was brilliant.  It allowed his hive guard two re-roll their one's to hit on shooting.  Very cool.


He rolled two spells on the zoans that would make one of my units fire under his control.  This scared the crap out of me as I worried that a flyer would fire on another (easy way to down my own).  This put them as a high priority for me.

The mission was Objectives then Kill Points, then Quarters.  We deployed Vanguard. 

Target priority was my biggest mistake.  After the zoanathropes I should have really concentrated on the Trygons.  The 6 wounds for some odd reason intimidated me... which seeing that they are only toughness 6 (against my strength 7 guns) and 3+ save, it should have been a no-brainer. 

Peter did do a great job putting the forward pressure on me with the trygons.  With them crashing the middle followed by the Tyrant and pals, I had to knock them out so they didn't obliterate my ground troops.  In hindsite, I should have just retreated and avoided them or sent sacraficial troops as my flyers wrecked havoc. 





Instead I did knock out both Trygons but in the meantime, his Tervigon pumped out unit after unit.  One of his Trygons went 6 turns putting out units... crazy.  Had I knocked them out early it would have been a wholy different game.  I did go hard after his zoanathropes on turn 3 (when the rest of my flyers came in) and caused them to pop.  This was the game that even with rerolls on my com relay, I only got a couple of flyers in to start. 

I had a failed charge by a couple of wraiths (had this happen multiple times with a 5 needed or more) meant I couldn't pull a unit off his far corner.  My flyers also pulled the Tervigon in the lower right down to 1 wound but I waited way too long... this meant it was able to capture the bottom right objective.

Damn you resiliant Tervigon!


My mistakes on target priority cost me the game and Peter won 3 objectives to 2.  My flyers ran rampant but I just didn't close it out.  All those extra units generated worked me!

Game 4

I was a little bummed out now going into my 4th game 1-2, but very pleased I had 3 great opponents.  To be honest, I wanted to dish out some hurt.  I drew one of my favorite opponents of the weekend, Casey.  Congrats Casey, by the way for winning your bracket.  He went on to go 4-0 in his 1-3 bracket. 

Casey had a tau list with ork allies.  This is the great thing about 6th edition, you can help the weaknesses of your army (resilient troops for tau) as well as paint a nice distracting force without having to go all in on a new army. 


Having played some of my local players with Tau, I have come to respect the tau rifle.  Strength 5 and 30" can chew through my wraiths.  Additionally when the broadsides get hot on their to hit rolls of 6, they tear through my flyers.

The mission objectives were: Quarters then Objectives then Kill Points


Normally I prefer to go second but I wanted to neutralize the shooting as fast as possible.  I won the roll and went 1st, trying to overload a flank.  Since his defense lines were on the left side, I figured I would charge them with my wraiths and potentially take out his AA quad gun with my annihilation barge.

Casey won a roll to seize initiatve which put me in a panic.  So much for pushing the flank! I decided to refuse the left flank and keep the orks and kroot out of the fight as long as possible while I worked on his shooting.  I pulled the one wraith unit into the ruins (since kroot don't have frag grenades) and pushed the second around and towards the middle to hide behind the middle piece of terrain. 

I got lucky and took out the AA gun with my barge which allowed my flyers to come in unmolested.  They proceeded to pick apart the army, but did get a couple downed by broadsides.  Casey got hot one round and rolled 3 6's in a row.  I luckily got 2 jink saves.  In the end he pulled down 2 flyers; the total number my first 3 opponents did combined. 

In the end I was able to push Casey down to a few units remaining and capture 3 quarters.  He was a great sport and we had a great close to the last round of the qualifying set.  I was then seeded into bracket #5 with a 2-2 record. 
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