Helloooooooo

Yeah, so anyway, I am still alive, not that you would know it from this place.  Life and work have been nothing if not busy hence the lack of action here.  I've managed to get a decent amount of hobby done with a few nice additions to my army (including the mounted iron priest), but simply never had the time with real daylight to photograph any of it.  Maybe come new year I'll manage something.

Movember

Hello out there if you are still even remotely interested in this blog.

Its been far too long since I did anything on here, and I'm sorry for not keeping it updated.  Despite this, I've actually been getting quite a lot of hobby done, I've just not managed to get any photos of anything that I've been working on, or managed to write up any of the battles that I've taken part in.

On the other hand, I have managed to create a little banner for the site, which you can see above.  Its made from a bunch of images I found online which I stitched together in GIMP (if you object to me using any of the images then of course let me know and I'm sure we can figure something out).  Hope you'll like it.

The swarm approacheth

Here's a bit of a blast from the past, a write up from the night the Tyranid Codex was released:


For the release of the Tyranid codex, my local GW ran a massive games night, a series of combined narrative games linked to a central Apocalypse game entirely against Tyranid opposition, using the new codex. I was lucky enough to take part in the Apocalypse game with 2000pts of Wolves. I teamed up with another 2000pts of Wolves, 3000pts of Crimson Fists and 2000pts of Guard. Facing us were 9000pts of Tyranids who even got endless swarm, a bio-titan and 3 barbed hyrodules!

The whole night was organised by a provisional campaign organising group that GW was trialling in our store, although the campaigns have somewhat gone by the way, they certainly put everything into this night and it was truly epic.  One of the organisers who dabbled in blogging, FlingItNow, wrote up the night in a great review on Imperius Dominatus which is far more comprehensive than this (theres big chunks missing from my report as I was far too engrossed in the action on my board - it was awesome!).

Outflanking wolf list of DOOM!!!

Used without permission, will remove if requested

So last night after games night, a few of us had a jar or two and chewed the fat over random GW related stuff.  One of the things that came up was a possible loop-hole kind of thing in the Space Wolves codex (I know, shock, horror).  In the description of Saga of the Hunter it says "Infantry only" and where it can be selected in the Army List section there is a little * and at the bottom of the page it says it can only be taken by those in power armour that aren't either on a bike or using a jump pack.  In the Wargear section it does say that those who take a Thunderwolf mount count as cavalry, so in reality the following list won't work.  However there are those that would say that since in the Army List section it specifically singles out bikes and jump pack but not thunderwolves that its allowed - really lame reasoning, not one I'd use, but this is all a bit of fun and got us thinking about what kind of army you could build based on this.  So, considering the models I already have at my disposal we're going to see if we can try this out sometime in the future.  The list I'll take is:

Psychic shooting question

A quick question for all of you out there, when using a psychic shooting attack, do you roll to hit?

I can't see anywhere in the rule book that says you should, but also nowhere does it say that you shouldn't.  The rules say to use the same restrictions as shooting a weapon (l.o.s. etc) so for shooting psychic attacks you would expect to have to roll-to-hit.  Problem is this could make some psychic powers for races that have low BS to be pretty useless which seems a little unfair.

At the local, we've not been rolling to hit, treating a passed Ld test as auto-hitting, but thinking about it I'd say you should have to roll to hit despite how much it could affect certain powers.

How do you all play it?

Even more games - Game 3 vs Deathwing

The third of my more recent games was against a Deathwing army - painted up in a very nice looking black colour-scheme similar to Black Templars.  The army consisted of 5 x 5-man terminator squads, with a heavy weapon each and the odd power-weapon.  Bellial was included in one squad as the command squad with a banner, and there was also a lascannon dreadnought.

Image used without permission

Dark Eldar: confirmed for November

For those of you that don't get the GW daily update, this was included today:

Its the back cover of the upcoming October WD which means that Dark Eldar are coming November.  Interestingly the blurb only mentions new models, no mention of new rules, but DE being the oldest Codex it would be surprising if there wasn't a new Codex on the way as well ( link ).

Wonder just how scary these new guys are going to be?

Space Hulk is Pacman

Used without permission - no claim made, will remove if requested

Enough said :D

Squad highlights

Hey there, despite not much on this blog, I've actually been progressing quite well with painting my army, I just haven't had a chance to post much of it on here.  I finally managed to get some pictures taken of some of my progress so here it is.

I've managed to highlight all the models armour in one of my Grey Hunter squads:

More Games Played - Game 2

Game 2 was against Necrons (with special house rules)

There have been a few Necron players coming out of the woodwork at the local FLGS and a people have been talking about putting together some house rules to make the army a little more competitive.  A few different combinations have been tried, for this game it was:

WBB as standard

Gauss becomes rending

Claws (Wraith and Flayed Ones) are rending in CC

Games Played - Shock! Horror!

Hey everyone

Original image here, I "customised" it a little though ;)

Thought I'd mention that I've recently been able to get in some games with my wolves, something I've not always been able to manage, and not only that, I've even managed to win 2 of them as well.

Sadly I've never managed to remember to take a camera along to the games to get any visual recordings, but I thought I'd give a little run-down of the games for everyones enjoyment (if nothing else you can laugh at my somewhat classical failures) and so I can refer back to it in the future.  I'll be reporting the first game here, and the others in following posts so that you're not faced with a giant wall of text to wade through.

Game 1

vs.  Super Mech Imperial Guard

OK, this was the first of my recent games, I don't remember exactly the list, but it was something like:

4 Valkyries/Vendettas (some containing vets)

3 Chimeras with Vets

Psyker Battle Squad

Manticore

My list was (roughly):
8 Grey Hunters in Rhino with all the trimmings, Wolf Guard
 x 2
8 Blood Claws with Wolf Guard
Squad of Long Fangs
Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf
4 Thunderwolf Cavalry


I'll say from the start I got spanked in this game.  It was kill points and pitched battle deployment.  Guard got to go first and lined up across the board from me, with two of the valkyries/vendettas (V/Vs) scouting, and two of them coming on from reserve.  I tried for a refused flank, with a lot of my force in reserve to try and protect them from incoming fire in the first few turns, with only my Long Fangs in some cover to one side, and Blood Claws in a building nearby for protection.  I failed to seize the initiative.

First couple of turns, he lays lots of missiles and fire into the Long Fangs.  I keep allocating wounds to my Heavy Bolter Fangs as they are the least use to me, but they always manage to make their cover saves while the rest of the Fangs slowly die to the incoming fire.  If those Heavy Bolter Fangs weren't so useless to me in this game, they'd have been pretty heroic.  My fire is pretty ineffectual, stunning the odd thing here or there.

Turn 3 and my Rhinos and Lord with Thunderwolves and Lord come onto the board and move as far forward as they can to try and get into contact with the Guard and maybe score back some KPs, the Rhinos pop smoke.  I manage to pull off my usual wolf-shuffle, the thunderwolves managing to run a full 1".

Guard turn 4 and here is where the game is pretty much over.  The psyker battle squad pull their leadership reduction routine and knock my Lords Ld down to 3 or 4.  Then the manticore drops a couple of blast templates onto the Thunderwolves and kills off 2, I have to test against the Thunderwolf Ld as its now the best of the two, of course I fail and they trot right back off the board having done precisely nothing.  A few lascannon shots has my Grey Hunters out of the Rhinos, and then weight of fire reduces them pretty heavily.

The rest of the game was my Grey Hunters and Blood Claws who have now got out of the building getting across the board and doing their best to cause what damage they can.  We called it at the bottom of turn 5 due to time, and surprisingly I was only down by a couple of KPs thanks to those squads managing to knock out a few chimera's and slaughter the containing squads in combat.  However, looking at it I was definitely on the losing side, the game finished with me having very little left on the board, and the Guard force still relatively well represented and effective.


There's so much I did wrong in this game, but at the same time I'm not sure how much more I could have done, the Thunderwolves running off was pretty depressing but with the psyker battle squad and manticore it was always going to happen.  I could probably have also applied better fire priority and all sorts of other things.  I also didn't have anything near as good a list as I'm running now as this was before my Rune Priests and plenty of my more recent additions and really made me realise how carefully you need to craft a list to be really competitive.

More batreps to come (some from much more recently that I remember so they should have a bit more detail).

Cheers, bG

Grey Hunter Squads ready for the table

So its most of a year since the release of the Space Wolf codex and only now have I finally finished adapting my Grey Hunter squads to their new rules and setup - a pretty good example of how slow I am at working on stuff for this hobby.  Last night I got a chance to sit down and work on the models I showed in this post and now I've finally got them all up to tabletop standard.  I can finally field a full, WYSIWYG force from this list.

My Rune Priests - leading the force and attached to units of Grey Hunters.

The Wolf Guard Pack Leaders and their combi-meltas.

Grey Hunters that have succumbed to the Mark of the Wulfen.

The two squads all together.  Notice the guy on the right of each image with the banner - well these are my Wolf Standard markers and I've set them up to be removable, they just slot into the backpack with a pin so I can remove them once I've used the Standard meaning I won't accidentally use it twice on the same unit.

I'm hoping to be able to do a whole army shot a-la Drax very soon (although my figs are no where near finished like his).

I was right - Forgeworld announce new range of variant Space Marine armours

OK, not exactly a ground-breaking admission, but I think I got it pretty spot on here when I called out Forgeworld for making sets of Astartes armour from the variants they haven't yet made.

Today's Forgeworld newsletter announces that they are releasing a series of armour variants:

The first of our new Space Marine armour sets is this fantastic MkIII Armour Set sculpted by Will Hayes. The full resin kit provides enough parts to build 5 Space Marines in MkIII 'Iron' Armour, including two different sets of legs, shoulder pads, arms, torsos and helmets. You can see these here, along with a gallery of photos showing examples of how these brilliant parts can be combined with plastic Space Marine kits

The MkIII 'Iron' Armour is a variant of the previous 'Crusade' pattern adapted with additional armour plates to the front, as well as a reinforced helmet faceplate and strengthened vambraces for the savage firefights of fleet-based boarding actions. This extra armour turns an already resilient Marine into an almost unstoppable juggernaut within the cramped confines of a ship. This detailed kit can be pre-ordered for despatch in the week commencing August 23rd.

And if you go and have a look at them here I think you'll agree that they are pretty damn nice!

  
  

Interestingly, these are a different design of Mk III armour from that shown in their previous newsletter suggesting that there will be many variants within each armour type as well, or perhaps more specialist models such as captains etc.

As well as the new armour variant, Forgeworld have also released a variant bolter - Umbra pattern, and a special weapon pack which has some very cool old style missile launchers very much like the old RTB01 style and Space Crusade offerings of the early nineties.

It all seems to be pointing to Forgeworld doing something in the near future involving a chapter that hasn't changed much from the Heresy era, and they are taking their design queues from the early citadel miniatures Space Marine ranges.  I think its really nice to see some of these old, classic designs being given a new lease of life and can't wait to see what they will show next!

Very, very cool Forgeworld

All images taken from Forgeworld without permission, no claim to ownership of the images intended, will remove if asked.

Wolftastic List

Image from the Space Wolves Codex - © GW

Adam over at Space Wolves Grey has posted up his Razorwolves list in part in comment to the fact that pretty much all Space Wolf lists in the UK are converging on a single principle list of Grey Hunters in Rhinos accompanied by some Rune Priests and Long Fangs.  I'm as guilty as the next man for building similar lists in part because they are just so versatile and work extremely well.  However, its not the only list out there, and so for your consideration, I present the "Wolftastic" list:

Canis Wolfborne  + 2 Fenrisian Wolves

205 pts

Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf, thunder-hammer, storm-shield, 2 Fenrisian Wolves and all the trimmings

275 pts

Iron Priest on Thunderwolf  + 4 Cyberwolves

170 pts

3 x 

Wolf Guard, power-fist, combi-melta

5 Grey Hunters, meltagun, Mark of the Wulfen, Wolf Standard

Razorback (of your choice between twin Las, Assault Cannon or Las-Plas)

223 pts each

4 Thunderwolf Cavalry, thunder-hammer, 2 x storm-shields

290 pts

2 x

8 Fenrisian Wolves

64 pts each

Which totals 1737 leaving a few extra points to allocate to something or other.  The idea is the two units of Fenrisian Wolves join Canis and the Lord, and them, the Thunderwolves and Iron Priest all charge forward and get in amongst the enemy and cause huge amounts of carnage.  With Canis all the Fenrisian Wolves and Cyberwolves are going at I5 and the enemy has to divide its attention between 4 extremely hard hitting units.  Meanwhile, the Grey Hunters in the Razorbacks (and I'd suggest going with the lascannon option on the Razorbacks for some ranged anti-armour) tool around in the back field securing objectives and mopping up.  Thats 7 Thunderwolves, 20 Fenrisian wolves and 4 Cyberwolves all going at I5 and a whole lot more.

You could also lose the Fenrisian wolves from Canis and the Lord, the 4th Thunderwolf, the Wolf Standards from the Grey Hunters and reduce the Fenrisian Wolf packs to 5 minimum each and have room for another Iron Priest with Cyberwolves.

I haven't played this list, but would love to put one together and see how destructive it could be.  What do you think?

Help finding tournaments

Image used without permission from WestGamer

I'm wondering if anyone out there can help me.  I think I'm starting to get my army up to a half-decent level of units that I'd be happy to put on the table, I've got most of my 1000 - 1500 pt force painted to a tabletop level and thought I may try my hand at playing in a tournament or two, just to see what it is like.  Problem is I don't know where to find out about what tournaments are on.

Does anyone know of a centralised location (or small number of locations) that you can look to to find out what and where tournaments are on throughout the year (preferably for the UK of course) so I can see if there are any that fit the bill for what I'm looking for.  There must be some way that people find out about tournaments but I know it certainly isn't through any part of the GW website that I can find.

Thanks for any help, bG

Armour through the ages

This post is late.  I'd planned on putting this up towards the end of last week by life etc. has conspired to take away what little spare time I've had since then.  Either way, I thought I'd post it anyway despite being a little behind the curve.

A couple of weeks ago everyone got very excited by this image released as a teaser by Forgeworld:

Mk V: "Heresy Armour" helmet (Forgeworld)

Everyone was toting it as the beginnings of a release of a pre-heresy/heresy-current range by Forgeworld, but sadly more recent news suggests that this isn't the case.  A week later Forgeworld release a second image and in the text associated with it made it clear that this isn't for a pre-heresy/heresy-current range but well and truly set in the 41st Millenium:

Mk III: "Iron Armour" helmet (Forgeworld)

Having seen these images, what excites me most now is not whether it is a pre-heresy/heresy-current range, although both could very easily be used in that setting, but is looking at the details, I think that Forgeworld are moving into producing a complete range of Space Marine armour types, and that these aren't just a range of helmets.  Lets look at the details:

I've zoomed in the image, and marked up some interesting bits.  Below are some comparison images taken from the 40K Lexicanum:

       

Obviously there is the helmet, its design, and the rivets, and note that there is no topknot/spike but a vent on the top of the helmet placing this firmly as a piece of Mk III armour (the left image above is Mk II, the centre and right are Mk III).  Secondly there is the chest-plate that extends up to the base of the helmet, and is riveted at the top which is non-standard and suggests at more than just a helmet conversion set, as is the marked shoulder-pad rim which seems to be scalloped.

For the Mk V armour, as well as the very distinctive helmet design which is pretty unique to the Mk V suit, there is also the "re-breather" style chest piece and most interesting to me is the different style of back-pack that this armour came with.  The images below show this for comparison, again taken from 40K Lexicanum, and they also show the riveted shoulder pad that you can maybe see the hint of on the very right of the above image.

So, my 2p worth is that we'll see a full or relatively full set of armour sets from Forgeworld, considering that they already do a lot of Mk IV as part of the Red Scorpions range, this will leave us with Mk's III - V (Iron, Imperial Maximus and Heresy) from Forgeworld, and GW kits include Mk VI - VIII (Corvus, Aquilla and Errant), all that will be missing will be Mk I and II  (Thunder and Crusade) armour types to complete the set.

And if you can't wait, and want some of these types for your army already, well then My Wargame has a fantastic series of guides to creating your own Mk's I - V armour.

So what are everyone elses thoughts, do you think I'm onto something, or am I just extrapolating into crazy land? - bG

Iron Wolf Mount

Well I think I'll have to dedicate this post to cannonfodder after pre-empting me by just one day with his comment on my previous post on this project.

As I said there, up till last night I'd worked on this guy on and off over the last few weeks just doing a little green-stuff here and there, pinning him slowly together.  It was a really slow process as I could only really get one or two things done at any time as I'd invariably have to wait for the previous gs or pinning to dry before moving on for fear of either breaking the pins or squishing the previous gs work.

Finally last night I'd done pretty much everything I wanted to so it was just the final assembly and base.  I opted for a relatively simple piece of slate on the base to not detract from the model which I want to be what draws the eye to the piece.

Hopefully these'll give you an idea for how its looking.  I'm going to see about getting the base sanded and then undercoated over the next couple of evenings and then I'll be breaking out the boltgun metal paint in a big way!

Here's a new view for you as well, not one you see of a model that often

With luck this guy'll be game-worthy pretty soon and then its just working on a pair of legs to mount atop the back that'll be suitable.

Please do leave comments and criticism (C&C) as I'm very interested in what people think will help and improve my work.  Cheers, bG

Very interesting interview

I've just finished listening to the most recent Bad Dice podcast in which they have a long interview with Gav Thorpe of GW and Mechanical Hamster fame discussing games development and the general workings of Games Workshop.

The interview is extremely interesting to listen to and includes a lot of insight into the structure of GW (at least up to the point at which Gav Thorpe left), their methods and practices as well as going into a lot of detail as to some of the reason as to why GW has not/does not publish large scale online/print changes to Codices/Army Books with the introduction of a new rules system.  I found this part of the interview quite enlightening and can see the points that they are trying to make.

I also agree with the thoughts of the hosts towards the end suggesting that GW could do worse than considering publishing/allowing more similar interviews to this to give people an insight into their workings and reasoning, something that would very likely reduce the amount of hate and vitriol that seems to be aimed at GW from many corners of the internet.

I'm very much aware that some of you may not be the biggest fan of Gav Thorpe after the Chaos Codex posts (1 and 2) he put up on his blog and his handling of that, but I would still strongly encourage you to give this interview a go and listen to what he says.

Do listen to this, and if nothing else, take away his book recommendation, Iain Banks' Excession is one of the best Sci-Fi novels out there, period.

Well Done GW

To all those doom-mongers who were worried about how all the forces would fit into the new 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy, GW has pre-empted you and today published updated FAQ/Errata to cover the changes in the new addition.

Whether these will answer all the questions people will have I don't know, but this is a big improvement on GW's part in attempting to update all the armies in line with a new addition - perhaps they are listening to the general outcry.

Go check them out and let me know if they actually make a difference.

Necrons - a beginning

I love the Necrons.  I know they are pretty poor in games, desperately need a new codex and all that stuff, but I just love the look and feel of these guys, they are just great.

So, my lovely wife bought me the Necron battleforce for my birthday last month and I've finally put together and painted one of them up.  I expreimented with a load of different options before settling on what you can see.  He's got a tin-bitz body, grey and washed gun, and I'm experimenting with OSL for the weapon effects.  I think I went a little over the top with OSL on this guy (I was doing it under artifical lighting and it didn't look as over the top till the next day) so I'll be toning that down on future models.

So, without further ado:

I need to make a wire insert for the gun and paint it, and perhaps add a secondary colour to the body.

Tyranid and BA FAQs - Doom Neutered

Well, GW has released the Tyranid and Blood Angel FAQs:

Tyranid FAQ

Blood Angel FAQ

First thing that pretty much everyone will be looking for is what is the resolution of the Doom of Malantai's powers.   Well, the answer is that YES you can take cover saves, NO they do not affect units embarked in vehicles  -  probably the right decision (IMO) but I'm sure lots of people will cry foul.

The big questions likely to be looked for in the Blood Angels FAQ are:  Baal Predators can move flat out in their scout move AND use smoke after a scout move.

I'm sure there's going to be a lot of discussion about this over the next few weeks, and we should all probably be keeping a close eye on the FAQ site in case they decide to do a double-take a-la Space Wolves.

New paint pots are real

A month ago TTGN reported that GW would be revising its paint pots to a design based on the foundation paint pots.

The other night I was in the local GW and low-and-behold there were a stack of the new pots of no other colour than Blazing Orange as pictured above.  I guess this change is real and the new pots will be replacing the old pots as they run out - expect to see a phased change over the next few months.

Space Wolf reinforcements

Hey there everyone.

So at the weekend I finally managed to get a few projects I've had on the go for a while to a stage of semi-completion.  Plenty of additions to my Wolf Force which brings it that little bit closer to where I'd like it to be.

First up we have some Fenrisian Wolves - made from the Chaos Warhounds set with some extra green-stuffing to help them look a little more wolfy.  I'll be painting these up in shades of grey and brown, trying to keep them nice and dark as that's how I think they are portrayed.  I'll probably tack a couple of these to my Lone Wolf to give him a little extra punch, and perhaps use the rest as a nice screen unit.  The Dire Wolf at the bottom right will be a cyberwolf leader of the pack should I chose to use that upgrade.

Next up are my Rune Priests.  Made from a mix of Wolf Pack parts and a few bits of chaos marines that I was able to get from someone at the local GW, I've mounted these on a piece of slate each to raise them slightly above the main packs.  I've attached these to my Grey Hunter units in the last couple of games (my first time  using unpainted models that has left me feeling a little dirty) and they've been nothing short of spectacular - gotta love Murderous Hurricane!

My Wolf Guard Pack Leaders - using the combi-meltas from this post, again to pick them out from the crowd I've added totems to the tops of their packs so I can see them in amongst my Grey Hunters and Blood Claws.

Last but very not least, Mark of the Wolfen models.  I finally have some dedicated figures for these.  Adam over at Space Wolves Grey has just posted his awesome Wulfen conversion if you want to see how its done properly.  I've been digging around for the parts to use for these for a while now and finally found some old genestealer models that I could take the hands from, I've also used some arms from the marauder horsemen kit, and then needed to pick out some suitable heads.

I specially picked out head that have open mouths and tried to position them as if they were howling as the canix-helix takes over their actions and drives them into a rage.  I still think they need a little extra - I may add a bunch of extra wolfy decorations to them to make them seem a little more feral and specialised, or I may just wait to see how they look when painted.

So where does that leave the painting chart?

Not that much change, a few extra squares of orange instead of red, not too much added, but hopefully I'll have most of those orange squares yellow before too long.

If you've made it this far, thanks for persevering.  Keep checking back as I hope to have a post later this week hinting at a new project  

< elmer fudd voice > sssssssh!  its a secwet < /elmer fudd voice >

Super Simple Combi-melta

I've finally built up some specific Wolf Guard models to lead my squads of Grey Hunters and Blood Claws - till now I've been using the power-fist models that came with the sets, but now I have the models I want, combi-meltas included.

There's loads of tutorials out there on how to make combi-weapons, and pretty much each one does it somewhat different - and I'm going to be different too.

I've ended up using the body of the melta-gun as the basis of the weapon instead of simply using the barrel and fuel tank which is where I most differ from the majority of the tutorials out there.

Here you can see the melta-gun in question, and one of the older model bolt-pistols.  I've used this older bit partly because I seem to have a load of them in my box, and also because it is a nice size to mount onto the meltagun body and is a bit more bulky than the current model bolt-pistol.  I shave the top of the melta-gun body to make sure it is flat (there is a little details on there that is lost) along the green line, and I carefully cut off the magazine etc. from the bottom of the bolt-pistol along the red line, preserving the magazine for use later.

The bolt-pistol body is then glued to the top of the meltagun and the magazine behind it (the first weapon  I did is the one at the bottom and I'm not too happy with the position of the mag so I'll probably move it sometime later).

There you go, really simple, quick and effective.

Some general progress

Hey there everyone - I'd love to do a big shiny update of my progress, I've been working away, but haven't got anything major to show for it as its been a lot of detail work.

I hope to be able to show you some shiny new figures soon, but in the meantime I thought I'd post up my new army tracker that I'll be using to figure out what I need to be able to field the armies I listed in my previous post.  I got this idea from Admiral Drax who has been using it for ages to help him visualise how close he is to completing his epicly large Guard company.  Here's my painting chart:

I'll be trying to keep this updated as I go so I can see how close I am getting to my ideal Wolf army.