And the impulse buy is in!

o/

Photo copyright Games Workshop, used w/o permission.

When I got the Forgeworld update email a few weeks back listing the new Eldar corsair upgrade kit as available for preorder, I was ready with credit card in hand! This kit arrived the other day, and in looking over them I'm rather leased with my purchase.

I have no intention of using these as Corsairs. Like most people (I would presume), one look at these and my first thought was 'ooh! New Swooping hawks that don't snap off of their bases if you look at them wrong'. Being metal and in most cases, only having their toes touching the tab that slots into the base, Swooping hawks suck when it comes to keeping them attached to their bases over the long term. Yes, Swooping Hawks suck rules-wise too, but my Exodites were built with looks rather than effectiveness in mind. I'm still debating on whether I want to paint these guys in Siam-Han trim or in the colors of my Spinifex Exodites. Given their variation from the standard Swooping Hawk design, I'm leaning towards the latter.

My fear of snapping parts wasn't eliminated, rather just moved to a different location. As expected, the 'wings' are so thin that they're translucent, so I will still have to take care in their storage & use. The kit comes with 10 Lasblasters, plus the 'exarch' bits consisting of a pistol, power sword and a slightly different helmet. Not sure if I'll use the pistol or not as Swooping hawk Exarchs don't have that option. Rather, I'm wondering what I can do to make one of the guns look different to represent a sun rifle or...whatever the other Exarch gun is called.

I need to buy some Guardians first, so I have some time to ponder that.

The dead & diseased.

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First, the dead:
The build on the Triceratops that I painted is coming along nicely as you can see. The ribs have proven to be a stumbling block for a number of reasons, and I believe that the solution to the problem will be to resculpt them as the cast ribs that I painted will be unusable. Not sure if I'll get the job to paint those or not, but aside from touch ups & the sacrum (pointed out in the photo), I've painted all of the rest of the skeleton.

I was concerned about consistency of my paint jobs, however now that its almost all together (and the crew of staff & volunteers who did that did a fantastic job I think) it all seems to blend in together well. whew! We also determined last week while gaming, that rather than claiming my paint jobs as 'pro painted' I can instead claim to paint to a 'museum quality' level.

The sacrum & touch ups were painted by another volunteer, I'm not sure who other than to say it was someone who worked on the mural pictured @ right. No doubt, if they can paint like that, then a little dry brushing wouldn't prove a challenge. Initially it seemed the project was almost all me, however once I turned the painted casts over to the staff, it turned into one hellova team effort! The mural was traced out on canvas using an old overlay projector, and then staff/volunteers painted it all in. I was supposed to help but had friends in from out of town, and when I went in to the museum the next week, it was already done!

Now onto the 'Diseased' part:
I finished 'Miasmos' and he came out rather well I think. Again, he'll be used as a termie lord only until I get a box o' termies where he'll get demoted down to an icon of Nurgle bearer. Speaking of Nurgle, I also painted up this guy:

Note the Nurgling poking it's head out of his belly.

He's the infamous 'Major Outbreak' to be used as a commissar lord with my Renegade IG, now called the 'Septic Infantry' after the renegade IG in Henry Zou's Blood Gorgons novel. I've always kinda had a Nurgle theme with the army (indeed the Bane Wolf is actually named the septic tank!). Normally I use the Khorne Dog as a commissar lord, but I wanted a Nurgle lord for them as well.

This guy is an old RT Plague marine (he stands about as tall as the bottom of the shoulder pad on the termie above), however I couldn't find a back pack to fit him well (new or old) and so glued on a sheathed sword instead. He's led my renegades many a time, and now with his new paint, can do so in style! Actually, pointing as he is and in the many directions of the 3-up photo, just caused the song 'Staying alive' to pop into my head. If I play that song during the game, perhaps it'll just add to the horror of chaos' minions!

The fluff hurts man, it hurts!

o/

So, I got together with two of my friends for a 2k, 2-v-1 game this past weekend. Us '2' used the split force org setup that is commonly used in team, tournaments. Seeing it as a good opportunity to try out the Auroras, I assembled the army at left. Not having any tanks of their own, the Auroras raided the Imperial motor pool borrowing a Pred. from the Dark Hands, as well as pulling the old Silver Skulls Pred. out of mothballs (for those that don't know, the Skulls Pred. is the FIRST 40k model I ever bought so many years ago). I also included a 5-man filler tac. squad as I still don't have enough scouts to muster a 1k list. Backing up the Aurora 10th was a 'Logan-wing' Death Star list which both dealt & suffered the vast majority of the casualties inflicted (indeed, not one scout was lost during the game).

The scouts performed decently for a first run. They did a fair amount of damage to what came their way, however with Logan & friends drop podding into the Nid backfield, they weren't too high on the bug priority list. The 10-man scout squad didn't feel the need to outflank till about turn 5 (I should have combat squaded them to help mitigate that problem) and though they did move onto & cover an objective, they never fired a shot the whole game. The snipers (true to form) missed more often than not, so much so that the Sgt. with sniper rifle consistently rolled 2's to hit. They did inflict several casualties though, with the hero of the squad being the ML scout who popped the Doom of Malan'tai with a krak missile (though not in time to save four marines out of the command squad).

Then there was the Predators. As described here, I've planned on fielding Scout crewed BS:3 predators in my Aurora army. Sounds great on paper, but its kinda painful in prcatice. Both tanks had several rolls of '3' to hit that had to be picked up, not to bad to handle EXCEPT for the Silver Skulls' Pred. which rolled straight 3's to hit with ALL weapons for TWO consecutive rounds.

...sigh...

I got a few looks, where I'm sure the other guys were waiting for me to say 'fuck it' & take the 3's as hits. Aaaaand I seriously considered it, til I figured that if I compromised on that principle now, I'd never hold to it in the future. So I picked up the 3's & moved on to the next unit. Success was thus sacrificed on the bloody alter of fluff.

I made a stop by the FLGS Saturday for more paint & primer. I was going to wait till next week, but I was an idiot and Friday night when putting the paints up for the evening, I forgot to close my Chaos black paint pot which was already down to it's last dregs. Those dregs were dried up completely when I found the open pot Saturday morning. Ugh. Ya can't do a whole lot of painting without black. While @ the shop I got a can of primer, and so despite their mediocre performance on the tabletop, the last 2 scout snipers in my squad are now finished. I may flesh these guys out to a full 10 man unit & then split it into two 5-man sniper squads with Telion leading one of them.

Time will tell...

Oh no, I'm outta primer!

o/

Having not been to the FLGS in over a month now, my supply of oft used paints, primer and matte varnish is starting to run low. The FLGS went to an every other week schedule, which initially led to much nerd rage, though I've since found the break in routine rather enjoyable. However I've been outta town the last two times that they were open for gaming. Thus, I've been cut off from resupply (the FLGS is 20+ miles away, so its not like I just wander in @ random).

Needless to say, painting on the Aurora scouts has ground to a halt. I use Testor's desert tan which is essentially bleached bone in color (and the whole 'don't use flat paint as primer' is nonsense IMO). I do have other shades of primer, but I wanted to be consistent as priming with a darker color will subtly darken the entire paint job.

My cheap box o' scouts arrived this week, so all was not lost on the Aurora front. I assembled them with shotguns to mix in with my pistol & CCW squad. There's only four shotgun & arm sets in the box which is annoying, however I had extras from a prior box as you can see by the primed arms. One scout was given a servo skull and so will be painted as another Mechanicum neophyte. At some point I need to paint one in blue as a Librarium neophyte. I'm thinking of putting one in a bike squad maybe, using his 6th sense to not die when driving into difficult terrain.

I did have some black primer though, so I assembled and started work on my lone terminator for the Purge. In the short term he'll be used as a terminator lord whom I've dubbed 'Miasmos'. However @ some point I'll pick up a box o' termies, and he'll get demoted. I plan on running two squads of three. One squad will form a bodyguard for my Blood Eagle terminator lord, and the other two will go to the Purge. I don't plan on having any other FW plague marine termie bitz (this mini was acquired via ebay bitz auctions), so he will instead be the holder of the squad's icon of Nurgle. That's why he just has a twin-bolter and power weapon. To me three man termie squads are (supposed to be) cheap and disposable units that you drop into the enemy's back field to cause your opponent problems.

Once again there is no gaming @ the FLGS this weekend, so the Aurora will go back on hold. Dunno, maybe I'll continue on the Purge theme and finish some of their half-painted Plague Marines.

weekend recap

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All the gaming last week was balanced out by not going to my local FLGS on the weekend. My future brother-in-law's bachelor party was this weekend and that took precedence. Wings, alcohol, the strip club, etc., its a worthy excuse for skipping a night out with the geeks. The party started out with a round of golf (and they were dedicated to that cause as the weather sucked), however I'm not a golfer so I hung out @ Sci-Fi City in Knoxville playing peanut gallery as I watched a buddy of mine (the esteemed rogue.trader.voril) FAIL EPICALLY in a 40k tournament.

After 2 rounds I couldn't take it any more (nor could the golfers) & left for the party. Apparently he couldn't take it anymore either, and dropped out when one of the winning players bailed from the tourney for whatever reason. Its mind boggling to me when someone leaves mid tourney & blows a hole in the roster. Too bad there was no sportsmanship award, as r.t.voril should have gotten one for voluntarily withdrawing to even the ranks again.

As for my scouts, work continued on Saturday between the drive home and a much needed nap (was out waaaay too late). Both the sergeant & missile scout are now done:
I didn't notice how the wash collected to the right side of the segeant's nose till I had these pics in photoshop this morning. It doesn't really stand out on the mini, so will probably leave it alone even though it looks kinda funky in the photo. Maybe its a tribal marking from his youth or something. Anyways, they came out pretty good I think. I still have 2 snipers to go as well as Sgt. Onteli (Telion). I'll try & get them done before my short attention span has had enough of scouts & switch to another project.

Its been a good week of gaming.

o/

Things have been rather busy on the gaming front this week.

On Tuesday, Screech brought over a potential chees-err, umm Space Wolf tourney list. Meeting this nightmare head on were my Dark Hands with their Aurora scout allies. It was the usual slugfest, with the center of the table looking particularly ugly about mid game. My LR Crusader was immobilized, his LR Crusader was immobilized, one of his rhinos was immobile next to my LR, and in between that mess of pill boxes was Lysander & 5 termies, vs. a SW 'Death Star' backed up by another Grey Hunter squad. Lysander's fate was never in doubt, but he did do a good job of plugging up a BIG hole in my line for a bit. Had the game ended turn 5 it would've been a draw (multiple objectives scenario, can never remember the name) but on Turn 6 he pulled me off of one of mine, giving the cheese wolves the victory.

Out of spite, I gave him imaginary zeroes for comp & sportsmanship for putting a Death Star in his army. ;-p

The day after, Hivefleet BannerElk descended on Bristol once more & George Lupus & his Rebel Alliance stood ready to face the onslaught. It was the 'auto-tie' mission (I hope Ron from FTW doesn't see that) and yet another glorious slugfest! Despite heavy casualties, George Lupus orchestrated an ugly win (not that Plague Marines are ever 'pretty'). However had the game gone into turn 7, then I think a tie would have been inevitable.

Tonight will cap off this week's gaming @ a friend's house where they hold what I like to call 'weird board game night'. They have a bedazzling number of European board games, and hold game night once a month. Usually our DH campaign conflicts with these game nights, but currently our GM is out of town on business. So that'll be something different, and I don't think I've ever played the same game twice (how they manage to know all of the rules for these games baffles me).

On the hobby front, work on the scouts continues, albeit slowly as it's been a busy week. I finally managed to get an 'el cheapo' box of scouts off of ebay, and they are currently enroute to me. I also found one of my missing sniper rifle bitz, which returns another scout to my roster. Last night I worked up the mini below for use as a Sgt. when Sgt. Onteli (Telion) isn't in use.
I've never liked this particular pose, nor having him hold the scope in his hand. However, sometime between stripping off his old paint job & this week, I lost the left hand & scope bit. So I chopped up the rest of the arm as well as an Iron Hands bionic arm to fit. Then added an Auspex. I trimmed the SM head a little as well, looks a bit large but I think it'll work. So now it looks like he's calling out targets to his squad.

And last but not the least...

After having sold off my O&G army I no longer have any content forthcoming for you WHFB readers out there. However an old friend of mine, Necron Bob, has started up a blog called From the Jaws of Victory that is focuses on his experiences playing in WHFB tournies. You should go & check it out!

Some more Auroras

o/

Work on my techmarine went quicker than expected, so rather than just getting him painted, I managed to paint a pair of scouts as well. First, the techmarine:
Ya know, in all of the multitudes of space marine armies that I've fielded over the years, I don't think I've ever fielded a techmarine that was painted in the traditional deep red with just the shoulder showing his chapter's colors. Dunno why really, I've painted librarians in blue, chaplains in black, but never techmarines in red. Oh well, that's not an issue any longer.

This mini is a repaint. So many years back (well before the current CSM codex) , he started life as a Red Corsair renegade techmarine that was painted in the colors of the Sons of Medusa. Of course no techmarine is complete without a bionic arm, which came from an old Necromunda pit slave. While visually impressive, I doubt there can any more of an impractical replacement for a hand than a ginormous circular saw blade!

In the grim darkness of the future, there is....carpentry? Moving on...

Finishing the techmarine Sunday morning, I moved on to some more Aurora scouts in the afternoon.
Two snipers, stripped of their former Dark Hands colors & now in a different shade of green for the Auroras. As in their previous life, I gave them my usual flocked ghillie suit treatment. Its simple, and looks rather good on snipers I think. From the back, they look like shrubbery with sniper rifles poking out.

In looking through the stripped snipers, I seem to be missing a few bits, so may have to peruse ebay for some missing parts if I can't scrounge them up in my bitz boxes. Speaking of ebay, my attempts to buy some cheap scouts have so far been thwarted, however cheap SM scout auctions are a dime a dozen on there, so hope on that endeavor is not lost yet.

I'm thinking of building the Auroras towards a combat patrol sized contingent for now. True, combat patrol won't let me use the techmarine or Captain Erme, but it offers a far more plausible goal to reach than just aiming for a proper army (though that's the eventual aim). Whether I'll use them for a combat patrol styled tournament, who knows? Currently the nastiest CP list I can think of is using my renegade IG. That's still some ways off yet though, so we'll see.

As a side project rears it's ugly head...

o/

I had the urge the other day to paint a Techmarine. Dunno why, I just did. Knowing I had one somewhere, I dug though my mini cases & bitz boxes and excavated the Aurora's Techmarine and it is now primed (so technically it got painted). With the Aurora in mind I dug out their lone painted scout squad & did a few touch ups, gave them a bath in Delvan Mud, and clipped off the Sgt.'s chainsword & replaced it with an old 2nd. ed., SM powerfist. While a bit of a hack-job, it works well enough I think. The poor Aurora's have been on the back burner for so long, that when I mentioned working on scouts to a friend of mine, his reply was:

'What scouts?'

Too funny. I have a bid in on ebay for another squad of five and if successful, I plan to add them into this squad outfitted with shotguns. That'll give me a full squad with a good mix of short ranged firepower & HTH capability. Proper work on the Techmarine will commence later this weekend. On his completion, he along with the scouts will likely operate as allies to the Dark Hands. I have the Aurora's Captain Erme painted, but a captain accompanying a mere five scouts (currently) strikes me as odd. A Techmarine could be as well, though the squad has a mechanicum aspirant in it, so it strikes me as a bit more feasible. Perhaps they have an ulterior motive for their alliance or something like that.

Also on the gaming front, Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop was a attacked by Hivefleet Banner Elk the other night in the Emperor forsaken city of Bristol. It as the annihilation scenario and bringing an ungodly number of kill points along with them, my Ork's doom was never in doubt. That said, there were some rather epic HTH combats which made for a glorious game nonetheless! So was a rather good time. The Hivefleet is already vowing a return, but odds are it will vs. one of my other armies. I rarely play the same one in back to back games (unless laziness has set in) as it keeps me from getting bored.

For the TNWargamers

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While I was uploading these army shots onto TNWargamers, I kept on getting a lot of file size errors when trying to upload them. I did manage to post them but they're REALLY small. So, I just linked the blog in my post so that they can see them better on here (if they're so inclined).


This is the army that I'll be using vs. BannerElkGamer's (from TNWargamers) Nids this evening. While getting da boyz out, I realized that there are only 3 unpainted models in the army, so some group shots were in order! No close ups, but some are linked @ right.

A bit of a lull...

o/

I didn't have much time for painting whilst away, other than doing the Warlock @ left.

I've also found out that the forthcoming summer tourney will be a 'normal' one & not a combat patrol. So I'll see what I can come up with, Orks probably. I have more of them painted than anything else after trying to make the Chattanooga classic last year.

Sorry. I don't have much to say again, will try to get back in gear as soon as is possible.