Fort Kudzu

'Fort' probably isn't the right word...its more like a bunker, outpost, or given the radar dish, listening post. Regardless, this works well as a piece of terrain, or possibly even an objective for Battletech. These are resin pieces made by a little (and fairly local) company called Xmarx.

As you can see, the kudzu is slowing taking over...

An Urbie for scale.

Having the water tower so close to the bunker itself is a bit suspect. Blocking the fields of view and no real need to be so close for access, it leads one to wonder if its really just a cleverly disguised K-1 Dropshuttle, ready and waiting for a quick evac...?

Despite the new 8th ed 40k, the malaise continues…

Dunno why…well I do actually.

Primaris Marines, the prototype sketch...

The whole ZOMG!!!! GIRLYMAN IS BACK AND THE ULTRAMARINES ARE SAVING THE IMPERIUM SINGLE FUCKING HANDEDLY WITH THEIR NEW PRIMARIS MARINES THAT EVERY OTHER CHAPTER IS GLADLY ACCEPTING BECAUSE THEY’VE ALL BEEN BLED DRY (but not the Smurfs, because they’re the best, as usual…), etc.. Yeah thanks Matt Ward, you can stop writing now. The 12 year olds you’re butchering 40k’s decades long backstory to appeal to don’t have the attention span to read beyond the first page or so.

lol, 'regular' marines, Angry Marines...I guess its all the same now.

And then there’s the new models, which Deathguard aside is all primaris marines, all the time! The basic grunts look fine, but all of the other Primaris models range from ‘meh’ to just flat awful in my opinion. A Tau Ion cannon mounted on an overweight dreadnought? What’s not to like about that? Plenty actually…

The fact that the ‘regular’ (aka: obsolete) marines have been so quickly shoved aside by GW in their ravenous attempts to get everyone to BUY MOAR!! Just makes it all the more disheartening. 

Sexy Daemons are not kid-friendly, but have you met my little pikachu-what? That's already copyrighted?!? Fuck. Guess we'll just stick with calling 'em nurglings...

Then there’s the new Deathguard and their dopey looking poxwalkers. Bleh, are they all corrupted Primaris marines, or is everything getting bigger-Guardsmen included? Don’t get too happy with ‘true-scale spess mareenz just yet folks…wait till something Xenos or IG gets released first. Also, while GW felt that Nurgle apparently needed more cowbell, I am not a fan of the new plaguemarine design aesthetic either. They’re more ridiculous than the ‘dancing’ Khorne Berserker poses!

But, but the Orks! What about Da Orks? I hear you ask…

'af our minis iz 20 years old! Ork can't
even count dat high...

Yes, I enjoyed my one game of 8th ed and its benefits to my Orks, and I believe that they’re really big winners in the new ruleset, but…personally there’s no want to paint more boyz. Even painting the one with ROKKIT PISTOLS!!! felt something like a chore before I was finished with it. Will I finally build my fighta bomma as I had initially considered doing after that first game?Don’t hold your breath. Hell, I haven’t even picked up at my Xenos 2 book since that game, other than to put it on the shelf afterwards. 

No, not really relevant, but it made me laugh!

Nor I have looked into making a Fem Fa’Tau army list (no I’m not using the new ‘spelling’ of Tau, fuck GW’s craven need for copyrights on everything!). I don’t think my Beloved Wolfy would be interested in one even if I had. Kill Team (and possibly Shadow War) aside, I think she’s more or less done with 40k.

Wait! We're called WHAT?!? now???

Then their are the Eldar, another faction which was ‘renamed’ for copyright-ability at the expense of decades of existing branding. I’ve not even looked into their rules, even though they’re easily my largest 40k army at this point. 

I think I’ll keep plugging away at my 30k Salamanders and Outremar for now. Rogue Stars and Battletech when variety is needed and as for 40k? I have no clue what its future holds for me at this point…

The Salamanders Legion, in the fluff...

...were very slow to recruit new marines. So, can I use that as my justification for only finishing one, already half painted mini since my last post?

I tried to put flames on his shoulder pad, but it seemed like a lot of effort for only a 'meh' quality result. As such I don't think I'll try that again soon. :-/

Some Salamanders & Friends

o/

As a reward for their victory this past weekend, the 3 Salamander bolter grunts have made it into the painting queue. I realized after base-coating that two of their bases were plain, so I had to go back and add stuff, hence the odd colors on those bitz.

Ack! My cell phone's flash cast these in a really harsh light!

The one with the red shoulder pad will be a Sgt., who has a 'master-crafted bolter'. Previously, master-crafted bolters just got a scope, a lick of gold paint or something like that. However with the advent of the Primaris Marines, their bolt rifles are a great way to make an upgraded bolter stand out a bit from just the 'regular' variety.

Ugh, the flash was even worse on these two!

I also finished painting another Grymn in the more normal-ish uniform and armor colors. I'm basing them (which includes rebasing the first) the same as I am both the Rainbow Warriors and the Salamanders. This will allow them to be used as allies in some form or fashion in the future.

There's nuthin' like a good ol' fashioned blood bath!

o/

This past Saturday I played  1500 point game of 30k with Bob. As my forces are a bit thin in the ranks, especially following the departure of the Alpha Legionnaires, Bob offered to lend me up to 30 bolters grunts. I used most of em, and at the start it looked more like a shattered legion than the Salamanders. However Bob turned on the hurt quickly, and the loaners were the first to go! We opted for a simple kill point game with 2VPs for destroyed units plus the usual secondaries.

What follow's is my usual photo dump/pseudo battle report.

My multi-colored left flank.

...and my right. The rhino contained my Praetor, Apothecary and a tactical support squad equipped with meltaguns and a Sgt. with a Powerfist.

Luckily I only had 1 landraider full of Cataphractii termies to deal with this time. A 20 strong tac squad filled out Bob's right flank. A rhino full of Autocannon equipped Devastators, a praetor with accompanying command squad and 10 breachers held the middle, and...

another 20 strong tac squad and the very scary Sicarian whirlwind was on his left. 

The lines draw closer...the Sicarian already gutted my tac squad on the right in the first turn, whereas Bob's other tac squad (not pictured) suffered almost as heavily on the other side due to massed bolter fire and flamers (over the course of 2 turns). 

My rhino sped forward, bypassed the breachers on turn two, and deployed my melta marines for a decapitation strike on the Iron Warrior praetor and command squad. 

The fearsome Devastators disembark in the center, ready to reinforce...well, prettymuch everyone.

The Covenant of Fire rights of war makes all Salamander melta weapons master-crafted. The problem of course comes when you roll three 1's to wound. Bob's Praetor took a wound, but had eternal warrior, leaving him singed but alive. 

Well this is going to suck! And boy did it! Overwatch did nothing and despite taking down 2 Iron Warrior cataphractii in close combat, the Salamanders lost at least 3-times that number and fled. They rallied shortly thereafter but the cataphractii and landraider simply blew the survivors off of the board. 

A second round of meltaguns finished off the command squad and after the charge & challenge, both Praetors broke out the recaff to BS whilst doing absolutely NOTHING to one another over the course of several rounds of close combat. 

Likewise, massed fire reduced the Iron warrior Termies to just the sgt., and once again the charge & challenge resulted in the two sgt.'s flailing about fruitlessly with AP 3 weaponry for a few turns.

What was left of my Flamer squad finally charged what was left of Bob's one tac squad...

Luckily I was rolling good, and the lightning claw equipped Sgt. sent em running!

The breachers wade in and my Sgt. with powerfist called his out for a challenge and summarily died! 

Finally! I got lucky and Bob rolled a snake eyes on armor saves and his warlord was killed!

Bored waiting for the pointless termie close combat to end, the devs pivot and slaughter my last few flamer marines whom had just done the same to the tac squad they had been fighting. 

Despite losing my last 2 melta grunts, the breachers fall back from my Praetor and Apothecary. 

My termie sgt. finally killed his opponent, and the termies avenged the flamers by bathing the devastators in fire and then charging, wiping out the survivors!

On the other end of the table, lots of shooting resulted in little aside from the loss of my predator and several Iron Warrior tac marines. . The two depleted squads, would remain locked in combat for the remainder of the game...

My ragged survivors out of close to 60 marines!

At the end of 6 turns we tallied it up, almost as an afterthought as I had killed more units plus had all 3 secondaries, though I don't recall the exact number of VPs. It was a bloody game and out of Bob's force, whilst all 3 of his vehicles survived, his infantry horde was reduced to just 5 tac. marines, vs. my lone rhino and about a dozen marines. Yup, attrition warfare at its finest! The game was a lot of fun and I look forward to more games of 30k in the future.

My Legions of Lies and Fire...

o/

I sold the Alpha Legion. 

Actually that’s not entirely true. I just sold the painted Alpha Legionnaires. 

Well, that’s not true either…

lol, ya gotta love a legion where everything about it is a lie! 

It'll be the simple Green for this one...

Let’s try one more time: I sold the painted Alpha Legionnaires, minus the 30th anniversary marine (which falls into the ‘priceless’ category in my book when you see what it goes for on ebay). I also sold what was left of their FW decal sheet. 

Why you ask? 

Well, funds have been tight a little here of late, and to be honest I was tired of painting that color scheme as it was a bit laborious. No one’s sure where 40k will land currently, so selling one of those armies would be little more than a shot in the dark. Whereas 30k is still going steady and strong.

After a week on ebay, I had a bidder @ $80 who backed out last minute, and a bucket load of ‘watchers’ who didn’t take his place. I relisted but was rather annoyed at the prior last-minute retraction and in a fit of my usual nerd-rage I cancelled the listing shortly thereafter. 2-days following that, I got an unsolicited request (presumably from one of the aforementioned watchers) to relist ‘em as a ‘buy it now’ set at $125, and away they went!

So, where does that leave me with 30k? 

The 'unpainted masses' minus the Cataphractii Termie squad.

Well, Imperialis Auxilia aside, I still have approximately 1200-1300 points of unpainted Marines. Not one to take a breather, I already had another legion in mind: the Salamanders. Among the unpainted masses above I have 2 tactical support squads, one with flamers and the other meltaguns. Add to that both a heavy & combi-flamer in my Cataphractii squad and my pyrotechnical leaning towards the Salamanders ought to be obvious. 

What? You mean you use basic grunts as test models, not termies? Huh...well now there's an idea.

Here is my 1st ‘test model’ who took just as long to paint (if not longer) as the Alphas did on average. Salamanders do like their ‘bling’ and as such the gold did slow things down a bit. Still, I’m happy with the look of it, and whilst I don’t have the FW decals, I have a bucket load of the generic SM decal sheets from which to pull the legion icons from. My Praetor is close to the ‘finished’ state as well, and will be posted up here soon.

*****

My paint recipe for future reference:

Basecoat: Vallejo Heavy Green

Base Drybrush: Glistening Green

Metal Trim: Vallejo Glistening Gold & Gunmetal

Black: GW Chaos Black (duh)

Base: GW Mournfang Brown

Leather Work: Vallejo red Leather

Wash: Army Painter Strong Tone

Final Drybrush: GW Bleached Bone

My 1st foray into 8th ed 40k

o/

Rather than post my usual attempt at a play-by-play battle report, I'll instead just give my general impressions thus far. No doubt these will evolve as more games are played but my initial reaction is: its pretty good! I don't like everything that was changed, but the pros outweigh the cons at least early on.

WAAAAUGH!! Sadly, I'd forgotten my Tankbustas (aside from the one with ROKKIT PISTOLS!!!) and had to proxy the mob with every spare boy I could find in my case! Its a shame, as they were my undisputed MVPs. Still, this made for a cool pic.

I played a 1k game using my Orks vs. Kushial's Lion of Harlech spess mahreenz. Da boyz have been so fa behind the 8-ball for so long now, they'e more or less going to be my make-it-or-beak-it army for 8th ed. 

Here I've already moved my slugga boyz via 'da jump' psychic power. Whilst that didn't really move em closer to da beakies, it did get em away from all of those dreads!

The Lions arrived fielding 4 Dreads, 2 of them venerable...how typical of Kushial. In prior editions, this would have filled me with dread (yes, that pun is intended) as my Orks have always a fared poorly vs. enemy armor. However with vehicles all being essentially monsterous creatures of old, they'e easier to take down. 

Da good ol' Matilda (Battlewagon), resilient as always. 

Of course it was only my big mek Fix-a-flat who kept it alive. Honestly, he fired once and spent the rest of the game repairing Da Matilda. As such, this game was different from any other for him. 

True, the few grot blasta and slugga rounds that I fired the dreads at were as pointless as before, but the rokkits were quite deadly and eventually, I took down three dreads and the 4th was on its last legs by game's end. Victory points be damned! I'm calling that a victory!! (Kushial won btw, 5-6 VPs.)

Da hill iz mine! Also note, Da Eleet Grot Mountin Duvishun was down to the last dregs by this point...

Da boys on the far side, hit like a trukk in close combat! swinging 1st, they tore a tactical squad to ribbons! I haven't see regular Orks grunts do so well in years! I'm used to them jumping out of a trukk, charging (invariably space wolves) and being torn to ribbons before ever getting to strike!

WAAAAAUGH!!!

Charging units hitting 1st is a MAJOR improvement for the Orks! previously, we went last vs. damn near everything! Likewise, challenges are gone, and good riddance to them! I never liked those anyways. 

Da Grot Duvishun, dying in droves as usual...

I do miss my templates though. My Ork lobbas were damn near useless. Heavy D6 = 1 to 2 'shots' per tun. I use the old WHFB Katapult krew grots, but instead of lobbing 'rocks' they were instead flinging 'gravel'. As much as this sucked for me, I'd be livid if I still had all of my old IG Leman Russ tanks!

Because this looks like a fair fight...

Also the number of wounds on everything...dunno, something about that just seems off to me. Can't quite place it yet, but I'd rather still have vehicle facings and armor values instead. I can see the need for dreads to be MCs, but everything? 

In konklushun...

Overall, 40k had so much bloat of rules that something needed to be done. Not sue if this was what it needed though. Overall the game (close combat aside) felt like much the same old 40k, but simplifying (dumbing things down?) too much could make it all seem too generic. Dunno, time will tell I guess. 

The other big part of the game is the fluff. Thus far I've stayed away from that as from what little I've read, its just flat awful. That in and of itself is troublesome, as fluff is what hooks us into the game in the 1st place.