Long time no post..

It has been an absolute age since I last updated this, but I can absolutely promise that it has not been such a long time since I’ve been painting! In fact I’ve smashed through absolutely tons of minis last year, including about 100 plaguebearers and the whole dark imperium box.

I’ve recently treated myself to a Sanguinor model and am attempting (for the first time) NMM.

Work in progress shots below:

Hoping to finish him tonight and post a final pic tomorrow!

Poxwalkers...

So I have a friend who I thought was normal but who it turns out is a complete and utter lunatic. He is currently trawling through 120 pox walkers for some nasty eternal horde list.. which is frankly terrifying both in the game and for just what it means from a painting and modelling perspective... 

My respect for him intensified by the fact that I have myself just finished the below squad of pox walkers, and frankly the detail on them is ridiculous. I just thought it was gonna be a base coat dip and hope job but boy was I wrong. 

I'm quite pleased with how they look though :-) 

In other news I have put in an order for one of those cool back drop things from table war, so I can get some better photos of these things. 

Hopefully by the time the chaps below are painted it will have made it through the apparent minefield that is delivering things to a newly built flat with an interesting post code. 

Dark Imperium Nurgle

Finally finished the space marine element of the death guard. Very pleased with the overall effect, I definitely prefer the more gritty look over the cartoony style they go for in the 'official' paint scheme. 

And now onto the pox walkers... 

Plan is to very roughly paint fleshy areas rakarth flesh, the rest administratum grey and then just go completely mental with washes. 

These will hopefully be done over the Christmas break! (That and some death company and a librarian dread! - ah the joys of holiday!)

More Dark Imperium painting...

Getting back into the gaming side of 40k has been an absolute blast. 8th is a very fun edition of the game, and although a part of me genuinely mourns the loss of my battle company I'm enjoying experimenting with various space marine builds. Focusing on SM for now over blood angels purely because of the codex strategems. I'm hoping that when the BA codex proper drops I can swap back to my first love! (Based on the FLG review, I am very hopeful, and progress on a librarian dreadnought will shortly be gracing this blog!)

Although that said, I looked at the Death Company I have painted the other day and to be honest was not pleased, light years away from my best work, I have five others somewhere that maybe I can redeem myself on!

The Dark Imperium gurgle project continues, only a little bit more to go on these guys, and then a very poxwalker themed weekend awaits. 

Particularly pleased with the skin on the bloat drone, although I'll vary it from pox walker to pox walker with differs degrees of washing and shading, this is kind of what I'll go for across all of them!

I also speed painted this Primaris Ancient for my game the other day. Really recommend this guy from a tactical perspective, camped in a bunker with a bunch of lascannon devastators is a nasty surprise! The forthcoming BA banner grants feel no pain as well, sweet!! 

Only downside is a really don't like painting banners, it's difficult to get the smooth finish and there is usually so much detail to pick out. I think the transfers on the one above really make it. Applied with micro sol they often go on a complete dream! This photo actually highlighted (as is always the way) one or two small details that needed tweeking, like the edge on the banner and the shoulder trim bleeding onto the shoulder pad, rest assured fellow OCDists, these have now been fixed.  

On the gaming side I've tried out a few lists, snapshot of Gulliman in action below leading the line:

Although I love his buffs I think the list is a touch fragile. Even with Gulliman going complete beast mode, personally claiming I think 4 Tau commanders (after making a 10" charge) I still lost. Of course there are many other factors at play, not least my own tactical intellect which definitely wondered off somewhere for this game. 

I actually painted Robute over the last couple of weeks, but as I haven't really got a proper set up at the mo I haven't been snapping pictures. Finally got round to ordering a little painting station tho, so more in progress pics of various things coming soon. 

Getting the bug again...

In an absolutely shocking turn of events, I managed to get some painting AND gaming in this week!

I've had dark imperium since the first days of eighth and to be honest I maybe slightly regret the purchase! It was a lot of money (esp. as I bought it from the store like a proper fan boy) and it's a lot of models that are as yet entirely unpainted. 

This weekend I managed to rectify that situation slightly and smash through building and undercoating almost all the death guard, and managed to get the first few layers on a couple of models. My process for nurgle is pretty simple and will hopefully ease  me back into the process. I basically undercoat castellan green, and then do two dry brushes (one death world forest and one nurgling green), pick out all the metal, red, and brown details and then wash agrax earthshade. Hopefully by this point i'll have my eye in enough to go back and do some nice pallid, fungus ridden flesh as well. 

WIP shot: 

The scale on these models vs. the old plague marine kits is ridiculous. On the right you can the kind of nurgle scheme I aim for. That’s the champion from the old fine cast kits with the omnipresent bendy power sword. I do not miss that at all. 

Laying in some of the base colours whilst watching Frontline gaming. 

Reviewing the progress so far...

The podcast I was listening too pretty much slagged blight drones off the whole time I was working on it.. what motivation!

Last photo above for now, got some washes in and some rust on the weapons.

I’ve missed rambling on about my various painting exploits so will aim to get back to the more usual once a week type affair. Another spreadsheet may be involved. Although the thought of a spreadsheet of all the things I haven’t painted but own is slightly terrifying. 

Speaking of rambling, I’ve done it a bit more than I meant to in this post so will leave it there. A report on getting back into the gaming side to follow... 

Blood Angels Librarian and a game of 8th!

Managed to get my first game of 8th in! It lasted a whole 1.5 turns. And not in a good way. 

The board looked pretty great, massive shout out to my opponent for building and bringing all of the terrain, and for having a generally gorgeous Tau army. 

I was taking a list that I will never be running again for reasons that will become clear:

Mephiston

Lemartes

Priest

Vanguard vets with plasma pistols x5

Vanguard vets with plasma pistols x5

Death company with power swords x10

15 scouts, 5 with snipers

5 devs with 2 las cannons

5 devs with 4 las cannons

Knight Crusader with gatling and battle cannon. 

I deployed the knight and a couple of devastator squads along with a small screen of scouts. Unfortunately I had so many drops that there was no way I was getting first turn. I'm not sure how I feel about the going first mechanic, but I think I need a few more games to be sure. My initial thought is that it really hurts an army like mine, which is middling in terms of unit count, as it advantages building to the extremes. E.g Min drops (Knights) or max drops. Whilst I think this probably provides a bit more certainty either way, it will probably decrease list diversity. Anyway....

My opponent deployed the Y'vhara quite aggressively and then just littered the back field with Fire warriors and Kroot. I hadn't ever seen those units before, and this game didn't really change that.

Mostly thanks to this gentleman, who managed to deep strike in the 1" of available space and do 18 wounds to my knight. This all but eliminated his effectiveness, and I think his total damage output the next turn was 1 drone and three close combat wounds to the riptide, at the cost of 3 more of his on overwatch. Brutal. 

To be honest, at this point I was picking up too many models from his deep striking plasma to have time to take photos. For some reason I thought 4 plasma pistol shots deep striking was a good thing, but a three man strong unit of crisis suits pumping out 18 with drones for passing off wounds sure proved me wrong and I was tabled before I got a second turn. I failed every charge from my deep strikers, even with lemartes and command point re rolls, and lost 5 of a 10 men DC unit, 6 vanguard vets and 3 wounds on the knight to overwatch fire alone. The big lesson from this game for me was not to bother with assault from deep strike. Even with re rolls it's not worth it. 

Also, wounds are so so key. You want to retain the effectiveness of a unit for as long as possible, and losing a lascannon the first time someone blinks at a devestator squad is not ideal. I'm reworking my list with these points in mind and will post what I come up with...

His total loss for those wondering was 7 drones. At the cost of my entire army. 

I feel at this point it's important to note that I do actually know how to play 40k in some capacity. 

On to more home territory: Been working on a Blood Angels Librarian as well, I've had the blister box for ages, and glad that the break from frantically tournament painting has given me a chance to work on him! - I've been trying to pick up my Dark Imperium box, but haven't had the chance yet. No idea why I went for the store pick up. Ugh.

Particularly pleased with the axe so far! 

Hopefully put some finished pics of him up this week. 

I've also built a box of plague drones, so we'll see how quickly I can get those painted! 

40k Tournament..

A note from a tournament I went to last weekend. Just a one day 3 game affair, but with a really cool format. I couldn't be bothered to type out the full details, what with 8th happening and rendering any tactical nounce  gained utterly redundant. For the same reason I'm not really gonna give too much info on my opponents lists, I'm more just glorifying in having my full battle company on the table for the last time :'( So it's really just a selection of photos!

All games were played on a 4/4 mat, with objectives in a centre across the board and deployment 15" from the back. So everyone was up close and personal. As an additional complication, the middle of the board (outside deployment zones) was considered no man's land and was -2 leadership. This basically meant that marines got the wobblies much more frequently than one would expect, and anyone else who wasn't fearless was a total wreck of combatant who couldn't be relied upon to stand firm in any way shape or form. 

Points limit was 1500, which combined with the way the missions worked (no maelstrom all about end game objectives) meant I needed to make a few tweaks to my list. 

After two practice games (both of which I narrowly lost) I settled on the below: 

Chaplain 90
Kor'sarro Khan 125 WARLORD 

4 Tactical Marines: grav-cannon and grav-amp; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant 105
4 Tactical Marines: grav-cannon and grav-amp; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant 105
4 Tactical Marines: grav-cannon and grav-amp; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant 105
4 Tactical Marines: + 1 Space Marine Sergeant 70
4 Tactical Marines: + 1 Space Marine Sergeant 70
4 Tactical Marines: + 1 Space Marine Sergeant 70

1 Attack Bike 40
4 Assault Marines: + 1 Space Marine Sergeant 70

4 Devastator Marines: 2× grav-cannon and grav-amp; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant 140
4 Devastator Marines: 2× grav-cannon and grav-amp; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant 140

Battle Demi-company
• Free Rhino: dozer blade 5
• Free Rhino: dozer blade 5
• Free Rhino: dozer blade 5
• Free Razorback: lascannon; twin-linked plasma gun 20
• Free Razorback: twin-linked lascannon 20
• Free Rhino: dozer blade 5
• Free Razorback 0
• Free Razorback 0
• Free Rhino 0

10th Company Task Force
• 4 Scouts: + 1 Scout Sergeant 55
• 4 Scouts: + 1 Scout Sergeant 55
• 4 Scouts: + 1 Scout Sergeant 55

Ordo Malleus Inquisitor: 3× servo-skull 34

5 Sisters of Silence Squad 65
• Null Maiden Rhino 45

1,499 points

This resulted in only the smallest amount of frantic painting (the attack bike and the servo skulls) before I was ready to go! 

I took quite a lot of photos at this tournament, as by this point it was apparent that I would literally never field this many tanks ever again, so please indulge my last hurrah. 

Also a special shout out has to go to quite possibly the best 'counts as' void shield generator I have ever seen:

Game 1:

So for the first game I was drawn against a really cool blood angels list, one that I've always wanted to field, lots and lots of death company, all in the formation that lets them be up in my face, and on this board that meant really really quick charges! 

The guy's army looked really cool, all modelled on lava bases and generally just a very effective army. 

There were also some Sanguinary Guard in there.. but, spoiler alert, they got their golden buts handed to them. 

I really thought about whether to leave the scouts out there as a screen... in the end I decided to, they sacrificed themselves nobly for the cause. 

The cause being the grav based revenge my army delivered the following turn.

Game 2: 

Against some dark eldar, again I won't really give any details but needless to say, the AP 3 flamers on the *insert name of DE unit I can't spell* devastated me, and despite some last minute shenanigans with the battle company, I narrowly lost. The narrowness proving particularly decisive as with a good game three I could still place! 

Game 3: 

And I got very lucky in my game 3. A board with no cover, first turn, and a lot of grav vulnerable units on the other side. 

This mission also gave a point for every unit that survived the battle that was on the board at the start. 

Needless to say the battle company was deployed in full and I took a lot of photos to celebrate its final outing. 

Important to note that the Knight at the back and the drop pod my side are representing 'command centres'. 

This game was a tabling, but my opponent was very good spirited and must have done well in his other games because he came quite high up the rankings! 

Ah the rankings, I got lucky. Thanks to the last game, and the enormous amount of points I picked up, I managed to come third! Bagging myself a limited edition captain! I've always wanted this model and can't wait to splash some red on him!

And now onto 8th....