Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I'm well and truly set in with the rellies for Christmas now, and would just like to wish you all the most Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year (or whichever equivalent winter solstice festival that you celebrate).

I've got pics all ready to post so I'll be returning very soon in the new year.

Till then, see you on the flip side

bG

New Years Resolutions 2010 edition

Right then, in my last post I reviewed how I'd done with last years resolutions and as I'd just been starting out I'd aimed pretty low and had managed to just about complete them all. This year I'm going to try and be a bit more ambitious so here they are (in a vague order of priority):

1. Get my Space Wolves up to around 2500 pts so that the army has some flexibility in its build
2. Build proper themed objective markers for the army
3. Post on here (or at 40K Roughnecks) at least once a week
4. Bring the M.I. up to 1500pts keeping as close as possible to theme
5. Play in a campaign
6. Enter (and play in - no cheating) a tournament
7. Visit Warhammer World (and try to get in a game while there)
8. Take up one of GW's other game systems
9. Paint some Necrons and Eldar (for the fun of painting as I love their models)

So there you go - a little more adventurous this time round, lets see how I get on.

New Years Resolutions 2009 - a review

So its only the start of December, and I've been pretty lax on the hobby front for the last month or so. I've got a few things done, but never the time to chronicle it - especially not photos. I don't know if I'll get much more time till close to Christmas either, so I thought I'd get the ball rolling on New Years Resolutions.

First up, a review of last years resolutions. They were:

1. Get at least one army together and most importantly PAINTED so that I can play a game or two - this is where my future Necron purchases will come in nice and handily.
2. Start PLAYING GAMES again. I haven't had a game of 40K in years, and I'm keen to see how the game plays with all the changes that have happened over the last decade.
3. For point 2, BUY THE NEW RULEBOOK and start to learn the new rules
4. Retrieve all my lovely old models (mostly marines) from the 2nd gen 40K and start to paint them up (see a near future post for ideas I've had regarding this)
5. Get my SPACE WOLVES army together to a point where I could also have a game or two with it

So, what have I achieved. Well, I've got an army, they are space wolves, they are painted up to a tabletop standard if not my best painting, I've got the new rulebook and I've had a few games and I've managed to retrieve a good portion of my old models. What haven't I achieved - well there's still some models somewhere in storage at my old childhood home, and although I've got an army, it isn't the Necrons I orignally intended (I'd still like to do them though, especially after seeing this reposted).

I'd say I'll give myself a 4/5 for this year - not bad.

I'm going to try and be more ambitious and specific with my resolutions for the coming year in the hopes that they will spur me on to greater achievements.

New painting method

So I was thinking the other day, and realised that there was a better way for me to make the base coats on my figures.

I use a grey undercoating medium (grey liquitex gesso - I have nowhere that I can spray prime) and needing a blue-grey colour, I wondered if using the blue GW wash would give me the right colouring. I bought a bottle and tried it out last night and it works brilliantly. Using 2 coats to get a nice even coverage and get rid of any obvious pooling look. In relatively short order last night I was able to get the blue coat onto one terminator and do a first coat on all 6 of my new Long Fangs. Its a great technique as it also manages to do shading for you at the same time.

Its not exactly the same as painting with fenris grey and washing as my previous technique was, but I'm going to continue with that technique for the units I have already begun to paint, but use this technique for my newer units - its close enough to not be obviously noticeable, but at the same time will be nice to use to differentiate the rank and file that I have already painted from the newer, more specialised units that I am beginning to paint.

Giant Wolf Model

So finally someone has stepped up to the plate and is making a wolf model for thunderwolves (that doesn't look like a chinchilla I mean).

John over at Santa Cruz Warhammer has been in contact with MaxMini and they have just confirmed that they are indeed making a multi-option giant wolf model that can be used to make thunderwolf mounts (post1 and post2, post 2 has an image).

I'm going to be keeping very close eye on maxmini to order one as soon as they become available to see what it'll be like. YAY!

Full Wolf Force

So, with the additions of the last two posts, and the 5 AoBR termies that I finished the basic colours of last night (see below)

I've now got a pretty decent force building up. Below is an image of the whole force.

It includes:

• Lord with twin lighting-claws
• 7 Terminators: 5 with storm-bolter and power-fist, 1 with assault-cannon and chain-fist, 1 with storm-bolter and power-weapon
• 10 Grey Hunters with power-fist, power-weapon and flamer
• 9 Grey Hunters with power-fist, power-weapon and melta (there's only 9 of these guys as the wife took one as her something blue on our wedding day last week - she's awesome!)
• 12 Blood Claws with power-fist, power-weapon, plasma-pistol and unknown special weapon
• 1 Dreadnought with multi-melta and storm-bolter
• 2 Drop-pods with storm-bolters

Not bad for 7 months of collecting considering there's probably been at least 1 1/2 months during which I've been completely unable to hobby due to work trips and organising a wedding. Just need that new codex to get here to see where its going next really ;)

That brings my painting points up to 64 tabletop ready and 4 completed. As ever, comments/criticism/pointers etc more than welcome. Cheers, bG

Painting competition terminator

I'm not sure if I mentioned at the time, but when Space Hulk was released for pre-order, the local GW did a bit of an event in celebration including giving away a free termie or stealer to all those who placed a deposit in store. They also said they'd have a painting comp for them on the following Saturday, but seeing as noone turned up it never happened. Anyway, I was able to grab myself an assault-cannon and chainfist terminator and set to wolf-ifying him. One night was spent on cleaning him and attaching some of the greenstuff. A second night was spent finishing up the greenstuff and then basing and undercoating him. This left me with evenings to paint him. Below you'll see the results. I'm pretty proud of him, the photos don't entirely do him justice as I had to take them indoors and then touch up the colours with Gimp.

Dreadnought

The first in a series of posts updating what I've managed in terms of painting over the last couple of months. My time to paint has been drastically reduced, right now I get about one evening a week when I can paint solidly, outside that I can get in the odd 30mins in a morning before work but even that is a push. As such, progress has slowed, but my batch techniques have improved so its a bit better. Below are some pics of my wolves dreadnought STAMPY (in his last battle he lost both his arms in 2 turns, but then proceeded to stomp on guard for 8 rounds of combat killing 1 or 2 a turn).

Codex

Got to flick through the codex over lunch - I'm liking it. There are some really powerful units and characters in there, but they are well and truly balanced by cost. 

Logan for instance gives himself and the unit he is with a choice of USR's EACH TURN! He costs 275pts though.

There is a non-HQ independent character that is the Lone Wolf, the last remnant of his pack who roves around on the battlefield looking for a glorious death so that he can join his pack. He starts out pretty cheap, but has almost unlimited pack upgrades so can get expensive very quickly, and I think is going to be a really fun distraction unit.

Wolf scouts get a new version of OBEL. You cho0se the turn you want to bring them in, and roll a D6, 1 is the left short edge, 2 is the right and 3-6 you can choose any edge you want.

The wolf riding pack are good but expensive: 1-5, 50pts each. WS+BS=4, S+T=5, A=4 and rending in CC.

Arjac is very cool as well with his thrown thunder hammer and storm shield attack on the charge.

Long Fangs are back, you can put together a 5 man unit with heavy bolters for under 100pts and still have the split fire!

Before everyone starts to chant broken at them, I worked out with one of the IG players that was in there that they are likely to be outnumbered 3+ to 1 in most battles plus the IG tanks so they are really going to suffer against armies that put out a lot of high volume fire power.

I also got to fondle the new wolf pack sprue and not only is it packed with stuff, but the levels of details are really high, every piece has some adornment to it, lots of wolf skulls, teeth etc. You are going to be able to make some very very pretty models out of it, or alternatively it'll go a long way to giving a wolfy theme to a lot of squads of regular marines. Its a very good way of doing it in my opinion.

There was the termie box but it wasn't opened. I did see that the top right termie on the front cover has a BA Baracus head - funny.

NEW WOLVES

So there's loads of rumours around about the space wolves, but I've just seen that the new sprues are todays feature on the GW blog!

YEAH! There's a lot of details on those sprues - you could probably put together just about 10 really really individualised wolves from a couple of those sprues, or you could go and buy a tac squad or other and make up a couple of units. I think the idea is going to be that you buy up one or two of these box's and then buy the packs from the regular space marine line to make up the majority of your army if you don't want them to all be uber tricked out, and then you can make up some very very detailed and special mini's for your Wolf Guard etc.

I'm liking it, and best off it encourages you to head to your local GW and get them to show you the copy, I can't wait to get down to mine and read the whole dex!

So

Very

Excited ;)

Space Hulk played!

As the title says. Got in a game this weekend, and oversaw a game as well for a couple of other players as the staff were v. busy.

The games great. The 3 min time limit for the marine player (I was only using 5 of the 11 termies) really makes you have to think fast and gives you a good impression of the frenetic pace that they would have to act in the hulk. The mission was to flame a room, and I got hosed. My opponent was very savvy, saved up his blips, and as I was approaching the room I was all of a sudden facing 15+ stealers. Needless to say I was wiped pretty quickly after that. 

Lessons learned - overwatch is much better than guard if there is a bit of a gap between you and the stealers. KEEP YOUR COMMANDER ALIVE. The command points make a huge difference and when he dies, and you don't have them, you really feel their loss.

The game I oversaw the marine player won in part down to rolling more 6's than I think I've ever seen. Seriously, every second roll was a 5 or 6 killing a stealer. I watched one of his marines on overwatch kill all 11 stealers that were trying to get to him and the flamer termie behind him, he didn't even get a scratch.

I really can't wait for my copy to show up and start playing it.

SPACE HULK!

Just went into the local FLGS and their copy of Space Hulk was there, what can I say

OH MY GOD! AMAZING!

Seriously, this kit is something special (sorry, I won't put up pics, I don't want to do anything that might jeapordise the status of the local).

The level of detail on the models is far, far beyond anything I've seen before. The terminators are in 2-4 pieces each, the posing is very dynamic, and the details are beutiful. There is one crouching down, ripping up the floor, one checking out a sensor that is built into his power fist, so much detail on all the models, there's even a drop of blood dripping from one of the termies power fists. The assault cannon terminator has little disc shields in front of each shoulder just like medieval age suits of armour, protecting the joints. 

There's even more details in there, so many I just can't remember them all.

The stealers - wonderful and very, very spikey. I managed to catch myself on claws, teeth and bits of carapace all over the place. The broodlord is very big, and looks lovely, although not too different from a regular stealer, just a lot bigger (I thought it would be better to make him a bit more "special"). There are many lovely poses for the regular stealers as well.

Objectives: The seated temie looks lovely and will make a brilliant objective marker for any system. Theres even a little bomb disposal robot type of thing with a shrine and servo-skull atop it.

The board pieces are really good. They are made of that type of cardboard that is so many pieces of paper squished together it is almost wood. And there is even some texture to the board, with the separation between floor tiles etched into the card. Lots of iconography everywhere, bits of tyranid growths somewhat like in the movie Aliens, and door wise there's even one with Tau iconography on there.

The rules, from a brief read, seem to be about the same as the original versions, although they have incorporated a lot of the rules from the older expansions into the current rule set - imagine all the old rules combined and streamlined. Things like overwatch, facing and ammo limits, jams and psi are all there.

This Game is going to be so very good, I can't recommend it to anyone enough, I have one on order. I'm still struggling to find ways to express how good this is. Seriously, get yourself involved in this while you can.

mmmm, furry

After almost a month of absence, I'm back with some progress shots. Getting time to post has been difficult and the time I've had I've been giving to the sculpting and painting of these guys.

So, with without further ado:

Terminators

I've spent ages building up the green-stuff on these guys, but finally finished them tonight, all they now need is basing and painting of course. All the arms are magnetised so they can be switched out depending on what loadout I want them to carry.

Dreadnought

Sorry about the dodgy colours on this one, taken late at night using my desk lamp and the camera just couldn't cope with the conditions. In fact, probably true for all the images. He's got a magnetised MM, and is still to be attached to the base and I'm still trying to decide if I like the look of the genestealer under the foot or if I should just go for something like a rock?

Blood Claws

They are slowly getting painted.

So that's what I've achieved over the last month. Please feel free to drop in a comment, especially any tips and hints and thoughts on the genestealer, I really like getting feedback on what I'm doing and it helps me a great deal.

Cheers

Wound allocation?

With wound allocation, especially in hand to hand, I got into a discussion with a guy at the local the other day. From reading the book, I was of the opinion that you allocate wounds at the end of each Initiative based round of hand to hand, for example, work out wounds and take saves after all guys with I=5 have fought. Is this correct?

Also, he was of the opinion that you could allocate wounds from specialist weapons such as power weapons separate to the wounds from regular cc weapons, so in the example, I'd caused 4 wounds to two opponenets, one of which was a power weapon wound. He wanted to allocate the power weapon wound to one model (essentially killing it outright), then allocate one wound to the same guy, one wound to the other guy, and then a third wound on the guy with the power weapon wound because he thought that you could then place the cc weapon wounds alternately. This would have been 3 wounds to 1 for his two guys. I was pretty sure that in those circumstances you had to do it evenly so there would be 2 wounds on each. I let him have it for arguments sake, but wanted to find out what people think the rules are. I looked it up in the book after the game and on my reading, I'm still sure that my opinion was right, but I'd also be happy to be told differently if someone could help me understand how I've got the wrong impression.

Please help me with this one. Cheers

Drop pods

Here's the pic of where I ended up my painting night.

I got the rest of the second one glued last night before playing two games. The first I lost badly thanks to completely failing to remember that you can't assault out of a drop pod. Needless to say, against Tau I was completely destroyed with only the drop pods and my ven dread left by the end of turn 5 when the game ended. There was also some comedy rolling on both sides, with me managing to pass 3 5+ invulnerables but fail the one 2+ save I had to take in one round, and my opponent managing to roll 5 out of 6 1's when rolling to hit with BS=5! It was a fun game though, with a great opponent who I'll be hoping to play again in the future. The second game was a two round, 750pt game before time ran out (again against Tau) which ended in a draw on 2 KP each.

Painting night... pt4

and final

Its 12:30, I've been up since 4:30am and I'm thoroughly tired.

For my efforts I have one drop pod completely assembled and just requiring some shadow grey to finish basic painting. The second has the base assembled and needs the fins and top attaching as well as the same level of painting required. I've even painted the displays in the central console as they are pretty much unreachable once assembled.

I'll post a pic in the morning as I'm just too tired now, happy but very tired

Painting night... pt3

Well thats the last of the cutting, I finally finished trimming and cleaning the last of the parts of the second drop pod. Its 9pm and time for some food before spraying the second pod and getting on with dry brushing the first.

Painting night... pt2

Well its 7:50, I've got one whole Drop Pod undercoated, the central sections of the second assembled and am moving onto the doors and fins for the second. I've even dry-brushed some silver onto the harness section of the first.

Music listened to: 

A.F.I. - December underground

Green Day - Dookie

Painting night... pt1

Its 6:15pm and I've just done a first spray of black undercoat on my first drop pod parts. Its not entirely assembled, I'll show some pics through the night but I'm hoping to assemble and paint (at least a bit) 2 pods tonight.

I'll post as I go and try and put down some WIP pics.

1000pt list

Its going to be 1000pts tomorrow, here's my list based on what I have available:

• Wolf Lord, 2 x Lightning claws and Belt of Russ (4+ inv)   120pts
• 11 Blood Claws, power fist, power weapon, plasma pistol and flamer, the rest of the slots bolt pistols and close combat weapons   188pts
• Drop Pod   35pts
• Wolf Guard Battle Leader, Terminator armour, power weapon, storm bolter and wolf pelt (3+ hit in CC)   81pts
• 4 Wolf Guard Bodyguards, Terminator armour, power fists, storm bolters and wolf pelts   104pts
• Drop Pod   35pts
• Venerable Dreadnought with multi-melta   165pts
• 6 Grey Hunters with bolters, power fist, power weapon and meltagun   142pts
• 6 Grey Hunters with bolters, power fist, power weapon and flamer   138pts
• Total   1008pts

I think my idea will be to drop the termies in on the first turn using the drop pod assault rule as they will be able to take some pounding during the game. I'll set up the GH in cover along with the dread and work them onto objectives or move them forward through cover if it is kill points. The lord and BCs will drop in later to wreak havoc amongst the Tau lines and they'll then hopefully last long enough to contest/claim and objective in the enemies territory later in the game.

If anyone has some tips or comments I'd love to hear them

At last

... something that might, at least to me, be worth saying.

So after getting back from my big trip (and planning the next for mid July), I boshed through the jet lag and now am resembling a human being again. Last week I trotted into the FLGS on gamer night that was ending early so I didn't get in a game, but lined up one with another lad getting back into the hobby. He plays Tau and the thought of trying to march my whole army across the board into his guns didn't fill me with much confindence so I decided to put together my drop pods.

What have I learned? Well, GW's instructions are rubbish. The order they show putting it together is very counter-intuitive, especially the restraint harnesses which they show you should put in after glueing in the central column. To my horror, I found that to do this you have to cut them up a bit, and then force them in really hard - much better to glue the harnesses to the central collar before glueing it all down to the base. Also, the instructions, including the "completed" picture do not include the second set of harnesses on each of the 5 fixing points, it is down to you to realise that these need attaching.

I've got one pre-assembled, and the other just needs the doors and main fins cleaning then I'm going to be spraying them black, quick dry brush with the silver and pick out a couple of details before final glueing and they'll be ready for Thursday night. WIP and my army list to follow soon.

Back in action, Hoo Raa!

Completely not 40K related

So, I've not really posted on here this week, but there's a very good reason for that. I've been in Australia installing a telescope in a school as part of a project I am involved in. It's AWESOME!

The telescope is huge, with a half-meter mirror, weighs in at about 100kg, and is probably the largest privately owned and operated telescope in Australia. I am really privileged to be a part of the project (can't give too many details away before the official opening) and it's been a very exciting few weeks for me. Next to the telescope is the "first light" picture, the first object photographed with the telescope: NGC104, also known as 47Tuc is a cluster of millions of stars in our galaxy.

Just thought some of you might be interested. In gaming and modeling terms I did bring some things with me but haven't had a chance to do anything with them, and will be getting back to posting some things at the end of this month or at the start of next month.

Wolves vs. Guard (half game)

So as alluded to in my previous post, I got in a game with my newly expanded wolves army. It was about 1000pts (I couldn't give exact as I had just broken out the dread etc and hadn't worked out a list). My list comprised of roughly:

• Wolf Lord with twin lightning claws with one wolf guard bodyguard in termie armour
• Grey Hunter pack with meltagun and 2 power weapons
• Grey Hunter pack with flamer and 2 power weapons
• Blood Claw pack with flamer, power-fist and power weapon
• Dreadnaught with multi-melta, cc-weapon and storm-bolter

I was facing up against a guard army with 2 platoons, a squad of ratlings, some missile launchers, a leman russ with sponsons and an armoured sentinal with plasma cannon. The game was capture and control (4x4 cityfight board), three objectives of which there was one on the edge of each of our deployment zones at opposite ends of the table, and one mid-way between the two on the side of the objective on my side. Setup was pitched battle. We had very limited time after waiting for a table to free up, less than an hour, so were likely to only get in 2-3 turns. 

My opponent set up all across the board, mostly in cover on or in buildings, with the tank parked up facing the left side of my deployment area and the sentinal on the right. As I was facing over-whelming firepower, and had nothing long ranged myself (something I must rectify) I decided to pile down my left side where "my" objective and the thrid objective were, so set my dreadnaught up facing the leman russ, all my squads around it, and left my Lord and guard on the far side to keep him from reacting across the board towards my main force. Guard player was going first.

His first turn he opened up with the russ on my dread as it was the obvious threat to him - missing spectacularly with the lascannon, and the battlecannon shot scattering and taking out a grey hunter. The majority of the rest of his firing was innefectual except on the other side the Lord and bodyguard absorbed a plasma-cannon shot, 4 krak missiles, and a load of lasgun fire for the death of the bodyguard and 1 wound from the Lord (all working nicely to plan).

My first turn - everything forward at a run except the dreadnaught who in an epic moment, at max range, wrecked the leman russ with a single shot from the multi-melta! (I'm going to have to model on a trophy for that ;)

Second turn - he fired a lot, killed the odd guy on the left hand side, and on the right, another round of plasma-cannon, krak missiles and lasgun fire finally finished off my lord (perfectly to plan as that had kept all those possible templates from my main force).

My second turn was piling forward again, hoping to get some combat before time ran out. The dread tried to get the sentinal but was unlucky and missed.

Third turn (and final as time ran out) he stayed static again - completely losing sight of the aim of the battle, and fired everything he could again ablating away the odd model here and there.

My third turn, I just dropped back a bit to claim the two objectives and that was the game for me.

So, what did I learn:

• I need some ranged support and some template weapons to thin out numbers of forces like guard, orks and tyranids.
• I think piling down one side was a decent tactic in the situation as it negated a lot of his firepower - whether it was necessary to sacrifice my lord and guard such I don't know - what do people think?
• I want to get transports to get around quicker, running across the board like that into guns was a real disapointment - I didn't kill anything all game apart from the russ as I just couldn't get to combat and with the saves from the building, shooting would have been a bit of a waste.
• It really helps when your opponent doesn't play to the objective of the game - afterwards he claimed to have a long game to take the middle objective with a squad of guards who all game had been skulking in a ruined building killing themselves on dangerous terrain tests - but I somehow doubt they would have got past a squad of GH, and as we knew it would be a short game, a long game strategy wasn't much good.

Any other thoughts??? What do you all think might have helped or hindered me? I'd really appreciate your thoughts so that I might be able to improve in the future. Also, how does the new layout work for people?

It emerges...

I broke out the Black Reach dread as it is just too tasty to not do really. Love it! I've also aquired some greeny-yellow-grey stuff (milliput - I have the regular but its a bit grainy so I'd recommend people go for the extra fine stuff in future) so I'm making the dread as wolfy as possible:

As you can see, I've got some nice trophy's (the left hand bit of wire has broken off so I'm going to have to redo that), a bit of pelt on the leg, and my favourite bit being the wolf over his shoulder which I'm going to complete once I glue on the arm as it will span the gap between arm and body. I need to come up with something for the multi-melta arm, and I am thinking of a nice bit of tread as in his first outing last night he blew away a leman-russ in one shot at max range completely crippling the guard army I was up against >:D. I also plan on some extra little wolf totems etc, and the genestealer is just for deco at the moment, although I kind of like the look of him executing it under his foot so he may remain after a little reposing to make it more realistic.

I've also got the Blood Claws assembled and I'm beginning to paint them:

I'll be posting a quicky battle report in a bit on last nights game, and as I'm off to Sydnet for 3 weeks for work next week, this'll probably be some of the last activity on here for a while (although I am taking the dread, BR termies and my bits and bobs with me in case I get some free time and the weather is bad).

Reinforcements have arrived

So my birthday is upcoming, so I decided to treat myself to some new crack.

AoBR, two drop pods (one for the dreadnought, one for the bloodclaws), a Landraider for the termies and a land-speeder which will be fitted out with multi-melta and assault cannon for some nice anti tank fast attack goodness. As you can see I couldn't resist and I've already cut out and put together the dreadnaught (although I will be taking him apart to clean up).

Awesome! Happy Birthday me

All were bought from Gifts for Geeks who are really great. Prices are almost universally 20%+ cheaper than GW (I got all this inc delivery for less than £100), delivery for courier was about £4, it arrived about a week after placing the order, and they are really nice and helpful even letting me change the land-raider from the standard to redeemer/crusader variant with no issues what-so-ever. I would definitely recommend them to you for your larger purchases where you will really save yourself some money.

Grey Hunters (2)

So I've got my second unit of Grey Hunters up to table-top standard, and I completed one more of them to near full level (trialling techniques). I'm still not totally happy with the final result (and the photo's don't entirely represent the paint job), so, without further ado:

As ever, comments, questions and tips are very much welcomed, I'll be updating my painting points accordingly.

Space Hulk!

This evening, the poker face of one of the guys at GW gave away the reality of Space Hulk being on the cards, and obviously in the nearish future. I don't know anymore, but knowing him, I'm convinced its on its way!

Woo Hoo!

Games Night

Last night was games night at the local GW so I headed on down with my two GH squads and Wolf Guard Battle Leader (WGBL, the cool one with twin lightning claws) to get in some gaming. I got two games on the same city fight board as my first game. 

The first was against a SM biker army (about 11 models inc one captain with power sword) at 500 points, annihilation and pitched battle. My GHs were basic with bolters, no special weapons, and the WGBL was basic with twin lightning claws and a belt of russ. It went well to begin with, the massed bolter fire taking out a number of the bikes, then we got into combat and it was a battle of attrition and the toughness 5 was the decider. I did last about 8 or 9 rounds of combat (we weren't counting turns) which was a surprise to both of us, but eventually I was wiped out.

The second game was against a deamon army at about 650 points, seize ground with 5 objectives and pitched battle again. Having only two squads I tried to get the objectives set in two groups as close as possible so I would have a chance of claiming as many as possible. I had my most tricked out list - two 9 man GH squads lead by WGLs, power weapon and fist in each, and a wolf lord with wolf pelt, belt of russ etc. My opponent had 2 squads of 5 bloodletters, one lead by a champion, 5 chaos houds, some plague bearers and some slaaneshi...girls... whatever they are called.

I got pretty lucky in this game, one squad of bloodletters scattered and were destroyed in the first turn so I was able to bolter his hounds to death in my second turn. The rest of the army arrived in turn three, the bloodletters with champ opposite one squad on two objectives, and the plaguebearers and girls opposite my other squad with lord who were on three objectives. I just stayed put, rapid firing my bolters at the plagues and bloodletters and then counter-attacked when they charged. After 2 rounds of combat, losing only a couple of marines I had pretty much wiped the deamons from the board and my opponent conceded.

All in all, I really enjoyed myself, the opponents were nice, helped me out, and I realised that despite having an old codex, the old wolves are still a very competitive army, especially in close quarters. Being on foot, I imagine slogging across a board towards a Tau or Guard army I would suffer, but in these battles they aquitted themselves very well.

New Squad

So I've got my camera back, and finished up assembly on GH2 (minus some missing backpacks which are on order from the local GW). These guys were put together using the old metal GH bodies that I managed to source from ebay so will make a nice counterpoint to the plastic ones I painted first. Here are some pics:

Bolter wielding marines (minus bolters for ease of painting).

The full squad, commander sporting a hammer as counts-as CC weapon.

The more "customised" members of the squad.

Probably my favourite of the bunch.

I'll be trying to get the bases painted so I can get at least a base of fenris grey on them tonight and then I can take them down to the game night and try to get in a first skirmish game with them as a force.

Also, keep your eyes peeled for my next post which will be up soon from my awesome easter weekend!

As always, C&Qs welcome. Cheers, bG

Grey Hunters (1)

So I've been threatening these for a while, my first squad. They're battlefield ready, have been shaded and had a second layer. Last night I sat down to apply highlights and got first highlight on 5 troops, and completed one of those as a treat to myself. Next sitting will be first highlight on the second 5, then finishing them off one by one including all the details. So, without further ado, the full squad (apologies for the terrible lighting):

and the completed individual. He has some runes on his armour which is going to feature throughout my units, and he has what is supposed to be a claw mark down over his right eye. I'm not happy with either the claw mark or the army badge on the left shoulder so will probably go back and redo those:

 

I can't wait to get these guys up to scratch, but I won't be concentrating on them too much, I've got the second squad on the go which are made with the old metal figures and I can't wait to get them up to scratch!

Comments and suggestions more than welcomed - I need to come up with something for the squad marking, cheers, bG

Look, a bandwagon, cool, all aboard...

I have to admit, the whole painting points idea is growing on me, so in the best traditions, I'm going to get involved. As listed here on Lone Pilgrim I'm going to try to keep track of what I have painted. I'm not the quickest, and I don't really have a score from last year as I wasn't even back in the hobby till the last few months, but the scoring will of course be something like this:

• Infantry = 1 point
• Terminators or Bikes = 2 points
• Character or Dreadnought = 5 points
• Vehicle = 10 points
• Superheavy vehicle = 20 points

The models have to be up to a standard that I am happy to put them to one side with, so that will generally mean that they will get a set of base colours, washes, second layer of colour and at least one highlight.

For last year I have 9 points (which is one tau complete, one black reach terminator and 11 tau and 1 drone needing the second layer of colour and highlight so I'm awarding myself a half point for each). This year I don't have any points yet, but all I need to do is give my first GH unit a bit of a highlight and I'll have 10, so I'm pretty sure I can beat last years total ;)

I'll put a little counter on the right somewhere to keep track of it all once I get my first points. Perhaps this will result in a bit more forward progress on it all, and I might even get those highlights done and a few pics of that first unit up on the web.

Intro gaming session...

... that sadly left a bit of a sour taste.

As I said in my previous post, the missus and I went in for an intro battle session for her to see how she likes the game. All in all it was really good, and she really genuinely seemed to enjoy it up to the point at the very end when the GW hard sell fell into place, but that is the last I'll say of that, on to the good stuff.

A couple of weeks ago, I went in to order up the new wolf guard model, and Mrs. G was with me, and while I was faffing around making the order on the computer, one of the lads in the shop got talking to her about the game. Ended up he talked her into coming in for a taster session. I was all up for this as it'd be nice to have a game or two with her. We went in at the weekend, and had 2 hours with one of the staff, we did a little painting, and then had a game with the shop black reach set. We had to kill the war boss in less than 3 turns otherwise the stompa in the background would wake up and annihilate us all.

It was quite a funny game, the two bolter armed combat squads were charged by mobs of boyz, while the dread was wiped out in the first turn by the warboss who was then charged by the termies and captain. The combat with the regular marines was amusing, despite only rolling 4 or 5 dice in a turn, and the orks regularly rolling 15-20 dice, the marines ended up winning or drawing the combat in every round. Highlight was the deffkoptas charging the marines already in combat, orks losing the combat (the deffkoptas completely failed to kill a single marine) and they then failed their break test and ran away.

In the middle, it was almost the opposite, despite all terminators being in range to attack the warboss, and directing every attack against him, it took two full game turns to kill him due to some shocking rolling to wound. In the end we won on the last dice roll of the turn, just before the stompa started up so winning the game. I have to admit I was feeling the tension towards the end as I really wanted us to win (Mrs. G and I were on the same team against the member of staff)

Sadly despite it all, I just don't think she'll be a convert to the cause, just isn't really her thing.  Oh well.

bG out

Much progress

So quite a lot has been going on recently:

• I got the wolf-guard battle leader model (the new one) which is awesome, I've got him cleaned and mostly undercoated and I can't wait to paint him up.
• The first unit of GH are up to a more than table-top standard, are just awaiting some light highlighting and some detail work but I'm going to move on as I want to get a force together. I'll try and get a few pics up soon.
• I've got all my eBay models stripped - Dettol works wonders, the paint just fell away, I could almost just rub it off with my fingers and it came away as a single piece. I'm going to be putting together a second squad of GH, and a squad of 12 BCs that I plan to drop-pod onto the table.
• I've got a whole load of arms, weapons and other bits on the way to make up the models, I will just have to make one more order from bitsandkits to get a load of axes, hammers and other assorted items to act as CC weapons for the BCs.
• Finally my fiancée and I had our painting and gaming session in the local GW at the weekend, she liked it but I'm going to make a separate post on that.

Hopefully a bunch more posts and pics in the near future.

A more detailed 1st battle report

So here is my battle report, the first part is meant to be somewhat story like, read it in your head in the most inspiring voice you can think of, at the very least, try the voice from the narator of 300 (the local GW SM force are called the spartans so its fitting):

The Wolves squad charged forward at the sight of the enemy, eager to join battle and win glory for Russ no doubt. The fools couldn't even hit one of the chaos rhinos at range, probably unused to wielding the melta weapon as anything other than a club. Thankfully we spartans, and our eldest, most noble warrior in his iron sarcophogus was more than up to the task, disabling the chariot with ease. They died in droves to the massed firing of the 3 squads that exited their transports and faced them. They weren't incompetent though, merely out of their element, for a mere 3 of them faced up to the assault from 10 of the enemy marked by tzeentch and striking first, and not a single one fell. They took 4 of their foe with ease. As we joined them we killed 3 more, and cut down the others as they turned to flee.

To our left, our brothers rained assault cannon shells on the hated vindicator, tearing its weapon free, and penetrating to its heart, rendering it a useless lump. They charged forth, and struck a hefty blow to a rhino, blowing it from this world with a single, crackling upper-cut from a power-fist. The khornate troops that faced them were no match, and were soon fleeing from the field. As the dust settled on the second phase of the battle, it was obvious we would seize the day.

This was my introduction game at the local GW to get me back in the swing of playing, refresh the rules and all that. It was only a couple of turns as there was only an hour in which to play. I don't think the sides were particularly balanced either, but I did get to run out my somewhat painted grey hunters unit which was nice.

Space Marines:

10 Grey Hunters with melta-gun, captain with power-weapon (acting as a regular tac squad, no special rules)

2 x 10 Marines, flamer, missile launcher, captain with bolt-pistol and CC weapon

6 Terminators, storm bolters and power fists, captain with power-weapon, mounted in Land Raider Crusader

Dreadnaught with multi-melta

Chaos Space Marines:

10 Marines with mark of Khorne in Rhino

10 Marines with mark of Tzeentch (+1 I) in Rhino

10 Marines

Vindicator

Set up was on a city type board, 4'x4', a grid of streets like a naughts and crosses board. Rolling for mission we got capture and control, my objective was the central ruins (imagine the bottom middle square on the naughts and crosses board) and the chaos objective was the opposite square, deployment was pitched battle. I placed one combat squad with missile launcher on my objective, another with ml up in a ruins on my left hand side, and the crusader with terminator and a combat squad next to them to go up the left side. The wolves, last combat squad and dreadnaught were on my right. The chaos side deployed the vindicator opposite my land raider, and the three rhinos in a column opposite the wolves et al. (I was going first and the member of staff didn't steal the initiative).

Turn 1:

I move the wolves, combat squad (cs) and dreadnaught forward along the road on my right, the cs remained in cover behind a ruined building, and the land raider and second cs forward on the left. The cs up in the ruins fire the missile launcher at the vindicator, but it sails

off into the distance somewhere. The crusader then opens fire with its assault cannon, rolls 2 rending hits, blows off the main weapon, then proceeds to do the same again immobilising the vindicator. On the left, the wolf with the melta-gun takes a shot at the lead rhino and completely misses, as my opponent pointed out, and I have to agree, being a wolf he's probably more used to using it as a club than a gun. The dreadnaught then stunned the crew of the rhino.

Chaos now have nothing on the left, and the lead rhino on the right can't move, so I think his plans were a little scuppered (I'll point out that the sides were far from even for this game, at least it seems to me so it was always going to be a bit unfair) but he moves the two rhinos, the one carrying the khorne troops towards the centre, to provide some cover for the left, and the other to the right. All troops pile out, and the two squads from the rhinos that moved fire on the wolves. They kill 7 - ouch! The tzeentch squad from the stunned rhino then charge the wolves. However, they fail to kill a single wolf, despite rolling something like 30 dice in the attack, and I even managed to kill one of their number.

Turn 2:

On the left, I move up the crusader so it can see round the central building, and the terminators disembark. The cs on that side also moves forward, and would run in the shooting phase to get them as close to the objective as possible. On the right, the cs and dreadnaught move forward to charge the combat involving the wolves. The only shooting is from the land raider that kills one khornate marine, and the storm bolters of the terminators that kill a further 3 (this almost backfired on me as only 2 of my terminators could then get into range of the squad for combat. The terminators then charged (those that couldn't reach the squad charged the rhino), as did the cs and dreadnaught on the right. In the combat with the terminators, I chose to resolve the rhino combat first, and it was a mighty uppercut from one terminator caused the rhino to explode with a 5" blast radius, killing 1 more khorne marine but not harming the terminators. The ensuing combat with the marines was a success, killing 2 despite the captain completely failing to hit anything with his power-sword. The marines then fled, but got away to run off the edge of the board. On the right, the combat wiped out 2 more of the tzeentch marines but not before they killed two of the spartan marines (the wolves stood up to more combat blows and survived). The chaos marines then turned to flee but were cut down.

There wasn't too much left for chaos to do, the remaining squad fired all it could on the wolves but couldn't kill them, and then time was up for that session.

I really, really enjoyed the game, and it is super fast compared to the games I remember for 2nd edition, and I can see how tactics are much more important in the newer versions. I couldn't really call this a victory as I'm sure I was gone easy on, and the sides were horribly unbalances (I couldn't guess at the points difference, but I imagine it was large). I'm looking forward to getting some more units painted up so that I can put together a small force and go join the evening battle club and get in a few more games as soon as possible.

Sorry for the long post, cheers, bG

First 40K Game

O.K., not too much to report, I had my first game of 5th Ed, my first game in over 12 years, and LOVED IT. Went into GW for an "academy" which was a blast, the manager guy there who took me through it all was sound and a great fella, someone who I'm sure could open a can or two if he wanted to, but was so good with me. I'll see if I can post a report after the weekend (I have a rather expensive stag do to attend and the beer will be flowing), I'll do my best to make it interesting as well. I have to say I love the new edition, really fast, pretty easy, and you have to be good on tactics, I sucked quite a bit, but got lucky, and the wolves did a sterling job even if they were mascerading as a tac squad. I also got some ideas for future conversions, including a wonderful Hamlet GH.

More soon, bG

New Acquisitions

So I haven't had much painting time of late, so nothing to show there I'm afraid, but I have had far too much ebay time, and so my Wolves army is expanding (model wise, it'll be a while before anything is painted).

So, to go with the 10GH I am currently painting (see a couple of posts before) and the 1 black reach termie that I got with WD, I now have:

10 metal bodied Blood Claws badly needing to be stripped

17 metal GH bodies that are stripped, but have not arms etc

A devastator squad missing the heavy bolter backpack that need stripping as they appear to have been dipped in paint.

That all came to £30 plus about £10 postage for over 30 metal miniatures, not bad I think. I have to admit, that although the plastics are getting better, and the pose-ability is really good, they just can't match the detail on the metal bodies, so I'm dead happy to have these in my army, and it'll also allow me to differentiate units nicely. All I now need to do is source a whole bunch of arms, pads, backpacks, weapons and bases, but I have a feeling that when I finally get to my old model stash, a lot of that will be solved.

I've also got a case from KRmulticase coming my way. These seem really good, a lot of variability in the foam inserts, and at only £21, the combination I've chosen should be able to hold 54 largish termie sized or heavily armed miniatures, and 80 smaller, bolter armed and fire warrior miniatures.

Well thats it for now, maybe a painting update in a few days if I get a chance to sit down and do something one evening. Thanks for dropping by, and as ever, comments are always welcome

Wolves Rumours

So I stumbled across this linked from a post on another blog that I follow. It updates from time to time as new news comes to light, so is worth a revisit from time to time.

Looking through it, my thoughts are:

October/ November Launch (Confirmed but maybe earlier)
- Can't come early enough.
2+ New Special Characters (probably Kjarl and Bjorn again. I think those were the 2 removed) (Bjorn Confirmed)
- not too bothered as I prefer to put together my own characters for the fluff I am building around my army.
2+ New Units. One is possibly the 13th Company Wulfen Guard as an Elite
- This would be pretty cool, and as regular SMs get the legion of the damned, seems to make sense. I'm curious to know what the other new units might be.
Long Fang's may get Slow and Purposeful Special Rule
- This would be great, and finally make the LFs worth taking. It would also fit fluff wise somewhat as they are the veterans of the wolves and so most likely to have that kind of ability.
Minor reduction to Long Fang points [1/6/09]
Full sized Codex (Confirmed)
- cool, not much else to say. I don't think they would do it any other way though, GW seems to be going back to full codex.
Possible removal of True Grit Army Special Rule. (80% Confirmed. Grey Hunters may have 2 attacks standard now)
- curious, if they do get the 2 attacks, then I wouldn't mind, if they don't then I really hope the mention about wargear (next point) had better be true otherwise GHs will end up being nothing but regular marines.
(Standard Space Marine Wargear: Frag and Krak Nades, Bolt Pistol, Bolter)
(Standard Chaos Wargear: Bolt Pistol, Bolter, CCW)
Standard Space Wolves Wargear: CCW, Bolt Pistol, Frag and Krak Nades [1/26/09]
- If they then allow the GHs to take an additional bolter, not replacing the bolt pistol so they end up like a mix of regular SM and CSM then happy, otherwise this will really hurt them.
Grey Hunters may get Heavy Weapons added to squad [1/26/09] (50% Confirmed because notes currently suggest higher point costs)
- Not totally keen on this, I would take the lack of heavy firepower to keep the fluff difference of the wolves, and the different composition and structure.
Possible removal of Leman Russ "Exterminator" (80% Confirmed)
- I'd like to see this stay, I don't think it is used that much, but is a nice piece of fluff and could be fun to have from time to time.
Blood Claws lose Berserk Charge (+2 charging attacks instead of +1) but gain Furious Charge (+1 I and S) [1/6/09]
- Why not, this fits in with GW removing as many special special rules and using universal special rules if at all possible.
Rune Priest gains psychic powers but not the same as Librarian [1/6/09] (50/50. Apparently they get Storm Caller and Librarian powers)
- Can't really comment as I've never been a fan of psychic powers and haven't played with them since restarting the hobby.
Fenris Wolf Packs count as Fast Attack Choice[1/6/09] (80% Confirmed. May not add to force org chart)
- If this ends up like the WG so that you can take as many as you want, and spread them round your army for on organisation slot, then cool.
Frost Blade unchanged [1/6/09] {False. According to sources its now the same as the Relic Blade}
- Not too keen on this as it becomes a double handed weapon, so not something you would want to give to a character, if this happens, I don't think we'll see many of these.
Iron Priest may get Full-Servo Option [1/6/09]
- This would be good, and iron priests kind of need something. Would be nice to get heavy weapon servitors as well.
Get Ironclad option but Venerable is going to be cheaper like currently [1/26/09] - ok.
Gain Land Raider Crusader and Redeemer but do not get Thunderfire Cannon [2/9/09]
- Absolutely fine with that, I wouldn't want to see the thunderfire in a wolves army, completely goes against the theme of the force.
Removal of Wolf Guard Battle Leader [2/9/09]
- I'm half and half on this, I'd like to see them stay, but if they go, it won't be the end of the world.
Wulfen Rune Priest may be available but can only have The Gate power. [2/9/09] - ok.
All of this is obviously assuming that the Wolves get to keep counter-attack (gaining the extra attack when charged as well as charging) which I think is one of the better fluff additions to the army, and also very nice to use in game.

All in all, I think that if all this came to pass, I think that the wolves could certainly become something worth thinking about again, and I'm sure that there will be a few new rules that won't ever get leaked before the Codex release that might be game changing, and of course I really hope the new models are kick ass. I'd love to see a more extensive customisation sprue (something more like the Templars have) and a terminator conversion sprue.

So, what do you guys think of it all?

Leaders of the Pack

Here they are (the first unit in my new wolves army)!

I managed to complete the assembly of them (guns left unattached but resting in their hands for the photo) last night, got them based, and have even managed to give them a basecoat with gesso since the photo was taken. 

NOTE: gesso isn't perfect, I got a number of airbubbles in mine that have stayed as part of the undercoat, and it does obscure some of the details, I wouldn't use it on a character for instance.

I can't wait for next week when I can start to colour them and get them ready for a game. 

Woo Hoo!

Back at it

Well I'm back in the UK and happy to be so. I've even managed to get a little hobbying in. Yesterday I dived in at the deep end and managed to not only buy a bunch of long fangs on ebay, I have a further 30 items watching, but also stopped by my new LGS and got myself a box of grey hunters.

One thing I have to laugh at: this rune priest (active till about 8:30pm 11th Feb); he's got about 3 and a bit hours left to go on his auction, and the current highest bidder is at £7.23 with £2 postage on top of that. A quick look on the GW website shows this fella is only £6.85 brand new. Some people obviously don't really check what they are buying all that much ;)

Anyway, I'm sure I'll have more soon

Ta Ta for now
bG

All shaded and ready for yellow

So I'd hoped to do a step by step on painting the Tau, but I got a little carried away and painted more than one stage. Since the last update, I've added grey to the soft armour parts, and then I did two black washes to shade the armour and cloth.

I don't have proper washes so I've had to make my own up. Nothing more than mixing a heck of a lot of water in with a little bit of black paint. The consistency I aimed for was not much different from the water I clean my brushes with, that thin. I also added a decent sized blob of washing up liquid to try to help it run. The first time I tried without and it almost avoided the gaps in the armour, with the washing liquid it was better but still not perfect. I imagine that a wash would flow into the gaps a bit better, here's hoping when I get to try them out.

Next stages are to paint on the yellow regions of the armour, finish glueing the arms and etc on to complete the assembly, and then the highlighting and basing.

This is far and away the quickest I've got a unit painted up (even just to this stage), and hopefully the standard won't be too poor once they are finished.

I've popped up plenty of pics for record. The photography isn't the best, I don't have a place to photograph, or more than one lamp, so the lighting's poor and the camera struggles to focus.

There probably won't be many more posts for a while as I have a move at the end of the week back to the UK and I have to pack my whole flat up this week in between work. It could easily be a month or more before I get to sit down again with these or other models. I'll keep following all the blogs, so keep up the good work.

Cheers, bG

Progress of sorts

Hi everyone

So I haven't really had a chance to do anything for the last week, in fact, my Tau have been in the cupboard for the last week as I've needed to table. However, I got some time tonight, so sat down with them and have managed to get the main armour painted on 3 more of the fire-warriors. I'm doing my best to speed up my painting which has always been painfully slow so tonight I wasn't particularly careful how I painted as long as I was getting the coverage I needed, I can alway tidy things up later.

I've also had an idea how to do the other parts. I'm going to try painting the soft material parts in a grey before giving the whole lot a black wash to add depth, and then highlight. I'm going to wait till I've got them all with the armour painted first though, try and keep an even look and make the process more batch like.

More soon hopefully

Cheers, bG

I hate cleaning and assembly

I really hate cleaning and assembling my models, especially the cleaning, and it always takes me forever!

About the only good part of it is being able to convert models to give them some individuality. Its certainly easy with the new plastic kits as they are so poseable to begin with. Below is the first unit I've put all together since getting back into things, my tau. Most of them are pretty much just as they come, in differing poses, but for some of them I just had to do some further conversion work. I don't have any green stuff so I've had to do all conversions simply with the knife and trimming things to fit.

Top is the full squad, middle are the models from the left hand side of the squad, and bottom are those from the right. From left to right, models 1-12 (excluding the drone) the ones I'd draw notice to are:

1: I had to pretty much remove all the fingers, chop them up into little bits, and reconstruct the hand to show it pointing.

2: My test model, the first one I put together and experimented on the colour scheme with

3: My squad leader, as a traditionalist marine player, he is the one without a helmet

5: The spotter. He is using the scanner, and indicating where to direct fire. I made the pointing hand by carving the grenade out of one of the stock arms. He will have a rifle attached to his backpack, although I will do this after the first stages of painting so I can access some of the details.

7: Standing on a falling beam, and resting his hand on his rifle, a pretty easy conversion.

11: He is reaching for a grenade on his belt. I've set this guy forward on his base as I plan to add a partial wall or other obstacle behind him to suggest he is preparing to round a piece of cover.


Sorry for the long post, its partly for me to keep track of what I have been doing. I've also tried to re-enable Disqus on the blog for comments, if anyone cares to post a comment and it doesn't work, I'll stick my email in my profile for a while, if you can email me I'll try and fix things.

Cheers for dropping by
bG

It's all change

So it seems that Ron of +++From the Warp+++ fame and now to be found at Standard Template Construct has trumped us all in the New Years Resolution stakes. It also seems as if as a result, Peter from Aspect Portal has got a resolution he wasn't entirely expecting.

Firstly, to Ron, thank you, and I'm glad that you will be sticking around. I think what you created in the FtW blogger group is a brilliant contribution to the community, a brilliant idea, and we are better off for it. I was pretty new to it, but look forward to continuing to contribute when I can.

Peter, thank you for taking up the reins, it can't be an easy thing to volunteer yourself for, and as I said in emails, if you need any help, I'll do what I can.

In other, more personnel news, this month I may have a bit more time to paint and model so there is a chance that the first unit of fire-warriors may get completed before I move back to the UK.

Once back in the UK, I can get cracking on my New Year resolutions, first up will be my kick ass Wolves. I should be able to get hold of my unpainted Blood Claws, I have an old Bjorn that I'm going to paint up, and perhaps a few other bits and pieces and I'll see where I go from there.