Ultramar Defense Auxiliary allied contingent

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All of the painted ones.

This week I was working on my 'loyalist' Imperial Guard contingent (which is miniscule compared to my Renegade Guard). Mainly in the form of painting their new Basilisk and finding them an identity. I spent quite a while perusing Lexicanum going thru the lists of planets, Imperial Guard regiments, etc. Found some interesting ones, even some whom I'd never heard of, yet have quite a bit of back story. But nothing really jumped out at me, aside from the Ultramar Defense Auxiliary. 

So what if the lightning bolts are going different ways.

First off, it seems that in general, everyone seems to despise anything to do with the Ultramarines (I once had a U-Marine army for just that reason), and second, the infantry was originally intended to be used in a Tyrant's Legion army, and already had blue berets and unit patches (ultramarine blue as it turns out...).

Most Ultramar Defense Auxiliary armies I see, are just as blue and bearing just as many ultramarine icons as the Ultramarines themselves. That's just fine for the parade ground, but on the battlefield? If they had power armor to hide behind, then sure, but for mere grunts? Umm...no, leave such foppery to the Mordians and Praetorians. While not obligated to tithe regiments to the Imperial Guard, several hundred UDA regiments have done so anyways, and these guys will be from one of them. 

 For infantry, I'm using the old, original IG Storm Troopers, which as I said were to originally be used for the Tyrant's Legion as mercenaries (guess they're redeeming themselves in their new role). Rummaging thru those that I got from Rogue.Trader.Voril and Dylan Gould, I took the pick of the litter and dumped the rest onto ebay (where despite being in such bad shape, they sold for far more than I expected). I have enough for an allied contingent using the 6th ed rules (its a good thing too, sergeants go for stupid amounts on ebay!)

Starting off, for the HQ I have a command squad equipped with an autocannon, an old metal Catachan Lt. as the commanding officer, plus a master of ordinance and master of the fleet. For troops, a single vet squad with three meltaguns, and a sergeant with a bolt pistol and power sword. Fast Attack I have a sentinel (still on it's sprues) acquired from Sonsoftaurus via ebay, and for Heavy Support the Basilisk that Screech gave me for my birthday. So for such a small contingent (about 500 points), it really feels like these guys have come from all over!

I simply painted over the Lightning decals pictured above to match the unit colors.

Ya know, I seem to have forgotten just how much that I enjoy painting tanks. This Basilisk for example, I cranked it out in no time! I wonder if its just Guard tanks though? I have several SM tanks that need painting, but for whatever reason, have had little to no urge to do so.  As I said in a prior post, this is a 3rd hand tank, so little things like the driver's hatch being upside down were left as is. I also left the pseudo cheese cloth/camo-netting in place as I figured that removing it would expose whatever mess was underneath. Instead I re-flocked it. However that looked too uniform, so went back over it with a brush to take some of the flock off. I succeeded in  both making it look more ragged and getting flock all over the friggin place (was a hellova mess)! Painting over the decals was much easier than expected and links the tank nicely to the infantry. I've decided that the direction of the lightning bolt differentiates infantry and armor units.

Anyways, at this point most have probably put this post into the TL;DR category & just looked at the pictures and captions before moving on. So will stop rambling here. Hope everyone has a good holiday weekend! I'm going to Hive Angel's wedding Saturday, and then meeting my family in NC to do some white water rafting, hiking, etc., for the weekend.

Kill the chicken with fire! (and breading...)

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Screech and I met R.T.Voril (thanks again to him for the photos) yesterday for what was supposed to be a tournament in Morristown. However no one else showed up, so instead he kindly walked us thru our first game of 6th ed instead (all the while asking variations of 'do ya get it, can we go eat chicken now?' which is where this post's title came from). Figuring on a tourney while not knowing the 6th ed rules, I opted to over compensate with brute firepower, while Screech just said 'screw it' and used one of his preexisting mech IG lists.

Note the new base coat on the new Basilisk.

Neither of us had any pyskers, fortifications, aircraft, or allies. Just kept it simple as one way or another they were going to be learning games. I say I overcompensated, as in 1500pts., I had 2 Basilisks, a Manticore and 2 lascannon heavy weapon squads, plus the usual horde of garbage infantry, a command squad with NORK DEADGOD!!! mounted in a Chimera, and the ever popular septic tank (Bane Wolf). Its what Hive Angel likes to call my 'leaf blower' list, lol!

Speaking of leaf blowers,  Screech had his usual all vets in Chimeras (barring the one squad with the mortar and sniper rifles), Straken's command squad, Pask in a vanquisher and a standard Leman Russ (no Valks though...).

We fought long table edge to long table edge, 5 objectives, only the 1st turn was night fight, bad air...or something turned all HTH wounds into poisoned attacks (we forgot to use that), my warlord trait gave my command squad Counter-attack whilst in my deployment zone, however being close combat oriented and in a chimera, it was a waste. Straken's trait put a -1 on my non-existent reserves. I'm sure we forgot a lot of things (like snap firing at charging units, and what the objectives do till the tail end of the game) but it was still fun...for me anyways.

Advancing into the teeth of my siege line...

There were cries of woe and lament from Screech all game. My IG sucks! Its going on the shelf, I'm getting Elysians, etc., indeed, GW's attempt to 'fix' vehicles does seem to have made them kinda frail. Why is it they always go too far? It seems too easy to just glance/hull point a vehicle to death.  Its odd to think that fluff bunny foot slogging IG horde fits the new (((cringe))) 'meta' (ugh, disgusts me just to use that word in the context of my armies). Then again, GW did more or less thumb their noses at the tourney crowd.

In the end I didn't table him, as the game ended with 5 'loyalist scum' still on the table. I had one objective to his none, plus had the first blood VP, though by game's end I'd lost all units in his deployment zone so no line breaker points. We had to berate Screech to agree to try his army again a few more times in other scenarios before shelving it (and with perhaps using his 2 Valkyries?).

We then packed up and went to Zaxby's, where they killed chicken with fire...and breading.

The Battle of Mordheim

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Stupid Ogre spent most of his time drooling...

Screech came over to play Mordheim last night & we managed to get two games in. The first one ended so quickly (the end of turn 1) as to not really count (nor be worth his drive to my place). It was the 'guarding the stash' scenario, and bull rushing the center with Skaven is quite easy. So after a quick aftermath & adding a few more rats to my ranks, we then played the 'Chance Encounter' scenario. Truth be told though, it was more like a direct frontal assault! Indeed, we've never had such a bloody or brutal game of Mordheim as that one!

Really need some WHFB terrain, so I don't have to use 40k terrain.

The Photo above shows (left to right) the battle as it was joined, more piling in, eventually thinning out, and on to where I chose to rout lest my rat ogre with his one remaining wound get gunned down by Screech's Telion-like hand gunners (seriously, they're ridiculous!)

Damned cell phone cameras! He could see the Shredder (who summarily took yet another round to the chest). Luckily he was only knocked down and was lucky enough to not fall over the side (a fate that took out an elf ranger in the first game & permanently killed my last not-so-giant rat in the second).

The aftermath was even worse! While never rolling a single die more than once, the models above are all the fatalities suffered! I never rolled higher than a '2' on all of those rats including my Black Skaven, ouch!  Screech only lost his two newly hired spearmen.

On a totally different note from the bloodbath above, Screech recently acquired a large amount of FW IG tanks, turrets and whatnot. I was kinda jealous till I thought about my Red Corsairs and yeah, I'm still (apparently)  envied for having that army show up on my doorstep unannounced. Anyways, he's sold some of it & asked what I wanted out of it, if anything. I wanted another Basilisk to go with my loyalist IG allied contingent, and for my birthday he gave one to me! Its a bit dusty and in need of some new paint, but to be honest, I was kinda hoping he would do that!

Huzzah!

Get thee back demon!!!

o/

Copyright of Daarken on Deviant Art

Well last week was an exercise in misery (for the most part). It seems the GF aggro to which I'd previously referred was in fact an agent of the ruinous powers sent to enslave me. Intoxicated by her beauty and cloying musk of desirability, it was only once I was completely in her thrall that I saw her intent was to destroy who I am with the aim to rebuild me in the form of her completely subservient minion. However she pulled her 180 a bit too quickly causing me to see the reality of the situation and as such I barely escaped with my life!

Moving on from that debacle my birthday was last Friday & I used that as an excuse to get outta town for a few days. I went to visit my sister & brother in law, and we had a good 'family' weekend. Eating out, tubing down a river (during which I got a big ugly bruise on one knee from a rock), racing in go carts, etc., it was a good time.

I also did well on the ebay front last week, not that I really had the funds for it.  After having bid on them countless times, I finally managed to get a mini WHFB rule book for a reasonable price. Once I get and reread that, I'll be able to make a proper Empire list, and will then have to come up with some other reasons why I can't play the game with Madival. lol. 'Umm...wizards, yeah that's it, I don't have any wizards! Or artillery, yeah, no big guns either...' To be honest I no real desire to play the game, just figure it'll happen eventually. However currently, he's the only one around here who seems to want to play it, thus he's the only one to avoid.

I also won an IG sentinel from Sonsoftaurus. Not sure if my small loyalist IG contingent will get that, or rather if it'll go to the beastmen, will have to see...

Punted back to the reserves...

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Very little painting was done by me this week. I had plenty of time to paint yesterday, just didn't feel like it. Instead I sprawled out on the recliner and fell asleep while watching the St. Louis Rams look as bad in their 2012 preseason as they have in the past several regular seasons.

I did paint some knee pads though! (Yeah I know, kinda lame right?) From what the rumors say, all that I'll need for a Dark Angels allied contingent will come in the stater box that GW will release whenever they realize some of us don't want to buy the big-fucking-rulebook. I've already heard comments online of 'I'm tired of carrying this book around'. indeed we gamers are a lazy lot.

Anyways, while I have no idea what the new starter minis will look like, they're going to be a hellova lot better than these guys' poses. Figuring that they wouldn't fit in too well, I redid their knee pad company markings, and dumped them into the 6th reserve company, and instead the starter box minis will get the 3rd. battle company markings.

I suppose the real reason that I didn't feel like painting yesterday was because I was still kinda wiped out from Saturday. The gentlemen of the road was in town and my GF & I spent the afternoon and night wandering around, watching shows, and in general enjoying ourselves. It was a really good time! The weather was perfect and the headline act, the Mumford & Sons, put on a hellova good show!

One other thing I painted this week was this homely looking thing at left. One of favorite (if somewhat useless) vehicles in CBT is the AC-2 Carrier. They've never released a model for it, or even an illustration!

Basically its a 60 ton, mud slow, card board box (the upgraded LBX version is armored in plywood) with 5 fixed forward AC-2s. AC-2s are long ranged but otherwise crummy weapons. In very specific scenarios (i.e. when parked next to a lance of Alacorn heavy tanks) Its quite exceptional at exploiting the damage the heavier tanks inflict. However I don't have those, so its just kinda there for my amusement. The AC-2 Carrier has only 2 things going for it. Incredible long range, allowing it to hide in a corner and hope to not annoy my opponent enough to draw any fire, and ammo. This thing has a stupid amount of ammo! I could fire all 5 guns, for all 20 turns, and still have 80 rounds left over, WTF? Anyways, I converted a Hi-Drone Scout carrier (which is another useless 60-ton card board box) for this model.

They came from teh interwebz...

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About a year ago or so, I posted some feedback of some sort (honestly I have no recollection of what) on Mad Robot Miniatures about the poses/designs of their WIP Great Coat troopers. Meager as I presume my contributions to be, The Mad Robot himself offered to send me some minis when they were complete in return for my comments. Sounded good to me, and given my short attention span, I promptly forgot about it.

About a month or so ago, The Mad Robot contacted me wanting to know if I was still interested in some free minis (and what gamer isn't?) and refreshed my memory as I had long forgotten about his offer. So I said sure, sent my mailing address, and figured on a mini or two arriving in the mail.

An excellent use of a VHS case!

As you can see (and much to my surprise!) I got a whole squad of them!!! I've been pretty busy these past two weeks, so i haven't had any time to properly look into these guys, but as you can see, there's a whole lot of pewter there! Again, I'm not sure as to what my contributions were, but this is well in excess of whatever I expected! I'll post pictures of these when I dig into them...

Yes, this is all I did hobby wise this week.

Speaking of stuff from teh interwebz, the remaining bitz i bought via ebay arrived, and so last night I assembled a few more beastmen IG. The three in the front row will be 2 squad sergeants while the one on the left with the slightly bigger horns will be a bodyguard for the Chieftain that I had in my last post (or a Lt. if I ever field them as a regular platoon).  Of the three in back, the middle one is newly assembled while the other two had arm swaps as I didn't like their older poses.  I have enough now to run them several different ways, whether as part of my renegade IG, or as a stand alone (well sorta) allied contingent of beastmen IG, who will be semi-permanent allies to my Orks.

Making some shady alliances...

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First off, contrary to my last post, the Corvis did not get painted in recognition for its glorious actions in combat, due to my running out of black primer. Instead is has a very sparse coating of said primer & nothing more...

This past Saturday, i was to have my first game of 6th ed. (in lieu of going out to Morristown on Sunday), however with mere hours to go, rogue.trader.voril texted me with claims of wife aggro. Thus the game didn't take place. We had intended to keep it simple, no psykers/fortifications/flyers etc., though I was going to take a small contingent of allies. The list I had built was using my Orks. Just seems appropriate to have my 1st game in the new addition to be with Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop itself. To accompany them I had selected a small contingent of renegade IG (I decided against adding in a Manticore to keep it 'friendly' however after he cancelled, such niceties will be off for the next time...lol).

My beastman champion with demonic (power) axe, yeah screw the needing 5s to wound crap...

 I'm sure that Orks being Orks, that they'd run roughshod over some stoopid umies, so instead I was going to use my ungor/beastmen. Their demeanor is about as uncouth as an Ork's and I figured the two would get along well. I had ordered some bitz to make a command squad and some pistol and CCW equipped squad leaders.  Am still waiting on the Catachan arms, but then with those parts and a bit of reorganization, I'll run them as a command squad and two penal trooper squads when allies while still have the numbers to use them as conscripts when fielding the IG.

Speaking of shady allies, in addition to painting the mini above up, Interrogator Chaplain Bane did receive a bit more paint this weekend, though again, nothing noteworthy enough to bother photographing. That said, at right are my new Dire Avengers who have not a lick of paint on them! lol.

They will accompany my Saim Hann Autarch and his little ally contingent. Rather than give the Exarch the 2nd Shuriken catapult I opted for the power weapon and shimmer shield. I figured that with just five of them, blade storming won't accomplish too much. However with my assault oriented Autarch, the defend skill would make them much more survivable in close combat (yes, yes, I do realize that I'm talking about a just 5 Eldar, so stop laughing). Aside from paint, now all they need is a falcon to ride around in.

PAINT! That model needs paint!!!

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Screech came over for his birthday last night. I took him out to dinner and we then played a bit of a refresher game of CBT. 5k, just a straight up 'kill each other' setup.

His Nova Cats fielded:

Novacat Prime
Shadow Cat Prime (I think)

My Hell's Horses fielded:

(2) Oro Heavy Tanks (HAG variant)
Corvis 2

A staged shot of the early casualties.

Starting off his Shadow Cat ran straight forward taking cover behind his wrapped birthday present (which was 2 blisters of Joust Medium Tanks).   The nova cat held back, while my tanks rushed forward to flank with the Corvis hanging back. The next turn saw my first connecting hit when an Oro damned near decapitated the Shadow Cat with a large pulse laser. In return he tore quite a bit of the armor off of the two tanks.

What followed thereafter was a quick, brutal, and short ranged firefight in which the Shadow Cat all but disintegrated under the Oro's HAGs  and LPLs (HAG stands for Heavy Assault Gauss, or as I like to call it: Huge Awesome Guns).  Whereas one Oro popped, while the second lost most of its armor, had tread damage and its turret jammed sideways (its just not a proper game of CBT unless I have a tank with that problem). In that state, the Nova cat easily out maneuvered the Oro & popped it.

Paper buildings do NOT like to be landed on!

That left just the untouched Corvis and the lightly damaged Nova Cat, or in other words, a 70 ton Omnimech vs. a 40 ton Second line (non-omni) mech. That's a pretty uneven match, despite the damage to the Nova's armor. Undeterred, my Corvis charged into what I predicted would be a foolishly suicidal duel. Out maneuvering the bigger and slower omni, and spending most turns jumping from one paper building to the next, my dice were hot and his were mediocre! With that equalizing the tonnage disparity, we engaged in an epic dual in which during the final turn the Nova Cat came apart, while simultaneously silencing the HAG in one arm, while tearing the entire left  torso and other arm off!!!

Yeah that was awesome! In recognition for his glorious actions, the Corvis shall receive a proper paint job this weekend. Below are the record sheets for the two mechs showing just how badly beat up they were at the end of the game.

Yeah, that just HAD to hurt!!!