Everything was going wrong, UNTIL...

...the Killer Kans charged the Furioso, cause that makes sense.

It has Blood Talons? Huzzah!

I played vs. Hive Angel last night & suffered my first defeat in 6th ed. (four games in, I suppose I had it coming).  He stole the initiative (always seems to do that, I think he has a loaded die somewhere...) and from the start, orks started dying in droves. Such is the fate of pretty fluff bunny armies I suppose. Indeed as I have a trukk mounted speed freaks army, usually at some point in any game where I use this army, the following tirade (or some similar variation thereof) takes place:

'According to this book here (brandishing the Ork codex) Orks are nigh unstoppable in close combat! Yet when they charge Blood Angels (or Space Wolves, or whichever SM chapter is in front of me at the time) they get wiped out almost to an Ork before ever getting to roll a die! I shouldn't have to rely on  hiding in battlewagons with deff rollas, KFF shenanigans, and using boom gunz to win a game! I want the old Ork codex back when choppas were actually good for something! Changing your armor save was too confusing apparently, they were 'going in a different direction' with the Codexes they said, but now there are deathmasks, scarabs, and all sorts of stuff that change the enemies' stat lines. Meanwhile aside from great fluff and models, Orks just have a t-shirt, strength THREE and a choppa that hits like a guardsman in close combat! Its the WORST hand to hand army that supposed to be a hand to hand army, and ya know why? Cause Matt Ward had to make all spess mahreenz AWESOME!!!'

...sigh...

Never have I loved and hated an army so much. Ya know I named the blog after this army as it was almost fully painted at the time, and I was (and still am) so dissatisfied with the codex I waited a FULL DECADE for, that they were about to go the way of ebay. Can't sell em though, cause da blog is named after them...

Upon victory, the kans fell to the firing line behind that furioso...

Anyways, (rant off) it was the same relic/weird, 4th ed-like triangular deployment. The relic as you may have read is 'delicate' (yeah Orks are good with delicate). Speaking of which, in the first photo, notice that red kan on the right, the one that's standing at an angle? Yeah, its on an angle cause it was standing on the relic...

Da kans, despite losing one member of da skwadrun did manage to kill the furioso (can't recall when I last saw an all dreadnought [well sorta] close combat slug fest),  which added to my total tally of about 6 Blood Angels prior to getting tabled. That said, Da Boyz held out to turn 6, when it had originally looked like they'd get wiped out in turn 3. Speaking of wiped out...

Were it not for the last  stupid meltagun shot, Masta Blasta would have survived all of that firepower, the other two, not so much...

Above you can see my big mek Masta Blasta, screaming obscenities at their current situation while behind him da Warmasta (the shoota boyz nob) sifts thru the squashed flat wreckage of the relic. You should also note that the Blood Angels were apparently drawn to the Temple of Khorne, funny that...

Grot tank mob, who needs it? Da Megatank is WAY cooler! (and no less ineffective)

Prior to this debacle (such things happen I suppose when speed freaks enter a bombed out city) da boyz all posed for a group shot in parade ground formation.

...and with that, the pretty army goes back on da shelf. :-/

Post-weekend update

o/

I played one out of two prospective games and got a little bit of painting done as well, here's the recap:

Friday game vs. Rob fell thru as expected. Now that summer is over perhaps he'll get to play some. Actually I ran into him at the FLGS where I was getting some paint and the 'new' White Dwarf for the first time in years (it seems alright i guess). He was getting one as well and I asked why as he doesn't game anymore. lol, that was met with a snarled 'yeah, tell me about it!'

Saturday Screech came over and his Thousand Sons took on my Aurora Scouts along with a small contingent of the Ultramar Defense Force (as those guys have been seconded out to the IG, I'm not sure if I should still call them that or not).  Anyways was a 1k game, 'The Relic' scenario, with the funky triangular deployment zones. He got the Warlord kill VP (plus another as his warlord trait, as his WL killed mine in a challenge), he got first blood, and line breaker, and had the objective for most of the game, it seemed all was lost....till I table him or rather, the basilisk table him (...snicker...).

My close combat scout combat squads & captain did a decent job of taking down one squad of Sons, and wounding the CSM termie lord at the cost of their own lives. The PDF troopers killed a few chosen, and the other 15 scouts (9 of them with sniper rifles) killed just one chosen...WTF?!?

 (Okay that's probably an exaggeration, I'm sure they killed something else...maybe, but honestly I can only recall one actual kill. As always, the Sgt. w/sniper rifle consistently rolled 2's to hit and with that guy training them, why should I be surprised...)

 My Aurora dakka pred it should be noted was hitting with about 90% of its shots all game That's pretty good for a scout crew with only a BS of 3, hell it was better than when I have real marines for crew! However it kept shooting at Thousand Sons who would simply comment 'We're dead you fool.' and continue to wade thru the incoming fire, lol.

On the painting front, work on the Chosen was initially delayed as my paint recipe calls for scorched brown, which I have been out of for quite some time.  So painting couldn't begin till I picked up a bottle of the new rhinox hide at the FLGS (given the horn on this guy's helm, I was already thinking of naming him 'rhinox'). That and then I spent a good deal of my time at my grandparent's house yesterday helping my grandfather on projects around their house rather than painting. Beautiful day out, and am always happy to help them, so that was just fine by me.

Its been a rather long time since I've last painted a Blood Eagle CSM, but the base color still came to a pretty good match with the others. One  thing I noticed though, those that I already have painted, were done prior to when I started using washes again. Anymore that's just standard operating procedure, however to use a wash would alter their color substantially.

So I'll probably skip the wash as I don't want to go back and have to repaint the models that I already have done. That seems to be more counter productive than anything. Lacking any actual troops models (the Blood Eagles have always been something of a hard luck case, with a meager number of marines amongst their ranks), I was figuring on just using cultists (in the periodic event of when the Blood Eagles get paired off as an allied contingent) and figure I can uses washes on them. Would be fitting for those grubby little bastards, lol!

Dark Angel Chaplain

o/

It doubles as a flashlight...

I finally finished my DA chaplain! Still not sure why I lost almost all motivation to paint him (lol, he's a Dark Angel chaplain and I lost my motivation...irony). Its not the new limited edition one from the DV box, as I don't much care for that model (so it'll sit in the box for a year or so before making an appearance on ebay). Rather this is my 'bitz ordered chaplain'. To be honest I really don't like any of the actual chaplain models.

I've named him 'Bane' as his mask reminds me of the one Bane wore in the latest Batman movie. As such I've been working on my impression of Bane's voice for him. Not sure how well I'm doing other than to say its probably just as annoying as it was in the movie. As you can see I used the glowing plasma paint scheme. Never tried that before and to be honest, it looks better than I thought it would.  I may have to go back and add that effect on the one painted plasma gun in my CSM 'Plasma Death' havoc squad. Speaking of the CSMs, I've decided to paint the Chosen with the powerfist from the DV set next as its such a cool mini!

Clean robes are for sissies!

Its been quiet on the gaming front this week, though as nice as the weather was yesterday (and as it is forecast to be today), I doubt I'd want to be gaming anyways. Its been perfect weather for an afternoon hike! That said, I'll be playing 40k vs. Screech Saturday, and possibly Rob on Friday...not holding my breath on the latter though. His work schedule or family obligations that suddenly materialize tend to negate his chances to play anything.

Battletech Tanks

o/

I spent Friday night and Saturday of this weekend at a local music festival, so after a collective 15ish hours of music and fair food (deep fried EVERYTHING), I was feeling kinda dead yesterday. Normally that's my main weekend painting day, so not much got done. Conveniently though CBT tanks paint up pretty quickly because they're tiny.

The AC-2 Carrier is so screwed...

I repainted the AC-2 Carrier to match the 'generic' color scheme that I've since picked (its not so much as generic, as it is used by 3 separate units from 3 different factions). As well as the two Scorpions (AC-5s removed, because the three available missile variants are so much better), and finally my two Oro heavy tanks for the Hell's Horses. I purchased those prior to deciding on going for just cheap tanks due to the damage charts, however considering that everything in the Clan arsenal is brutally expensive, they are still sorta cheap...maybe. Okay probably not, but those HAG 30s hit like a truck so who cares?

On the 40k side of things, I got a little bit more work done to Bane, my DA Chaplain, will try to get him finished up this week. Its odd, I've found myself unable to motivate myself to paint him up, whereas I cranked out the 2nd ed. 5-man DA tac. squad in no time at all. Must be a result of seeing all of the new and pretty Dark Vengeance DAs...

The bloody fields of Tennessee

o/

Been kind of a busy week, as such there wasn't any progress on the hobby front aside from priming some minis and reading thru the little 6th ed rulebook.  The reason my week was so busy was that I played two games instead of painting stuff (an excellent excuse I think...).

Lars in all his glory!

Tuesday evening, Neverness came over and we stumbled thru a 1k game of 40k. There's quite a bit that'll take quite a while to wrap my head around, but I'm/we're making progress. I fielded 1k of the ever popular  'Rebel Alliance' (CSMs), although my Nurgle Sorcerer George Lupus wasn't present for this battle against the Space Puppies. However my Chaos Lord Lars Blood Eagle led the Alliance to a crushing 13-3 victory (or rather, the winds of Chaos cursed Neverness' dice so horribly, that my CSMs simply had to go thru the motions). He took several photos, however its debatable as to whether or not he'll actually want to blog about a battle-turned-debacle. We had fun though which is what counts.

Moving on to last night, Hive Angel came over for yet another rousing game of Battletech. My Taurian 3rd Lancers took on his SLDF in a brutal assault mech slugfest (with a smattering of small, fast and very light support units). I took a few photos and he took copious notes as per his usual (he's getting quite good at battle reports). Due to time (damned near midnight) we called it early, but it ws fairly close to a draw I think. I'll let him go into the fine details of the game, but I thought I'd post an image of pure OVERKILL!!!! Yes folks, what you see below is a 95 ton Banshee, unleashing its full compliment of firepower in its (successful) attempt to kill a mere 10 ton SRM hover APC (luckily no infantry were embarked within), lol!

Really? I mean REALLY???

The Anteaters of War...

o/

Here of late I've been pondering Battletech quite a bit, along with slowly grinding my way thru the 6th ed rulebook. Looking for a bit of a change (cause my painting projects are so consistent to begin with) I decided to paint some Quar this weekend.

I've never played Songs of Our Ancestors, probably never will actually, however I enjoy these little guys, even if they're doomed to an eternity on the shelf.

The unit I created for these guys about a year ago is made of the remnants of shattered units, and as such, I painted these guys in a variety of color schemes to represent that (as its doubtful I'll get anymore aside from those that I have now).

I seem to be missing a ryfler...

I have an equal sized opposing force of Quar Crusaders, however they're all still unassembled and in a box...somewhere. Not sure where to be exact. As mentioned in the caption above, I'm missing a ryfler. I'm pretty sure that I have an officer and a squad of 10 for both sides, so I'm assuming that the missing Royalist has been captured by the accursed Crusaders, and is currently imprisoned in that missing box of Quar. Anyways, with these guys now painted, they look even better on the shelf, huzzah!  Perhaps one day they'll finally have some Crusader Quar to glare across the shelf at...

Also on a bit of a side note, last week I reached the 100 followers mark!!! Wow, that's pretty awesome! While never really looking to amass a huge array of followers, I never thought I'd get even close to this many. So I just want to thank all of you out there who stop by periodically to give my little corner of teh interwebz a look!

:-)

Hover APCs = Winning?

o/

One of the gripes we've had here of late with Classic Battletech is the vehicle hit chart. Wanting the game to be focused on 'giant stompy robots' (as the saying generally goes), mechs have only two locations that offer possible crits (at least until you punch thru their armor). Whereas with tanks, fully half of their locations offer possible crits (even with full armor). Heavy Gear, which also is based on the 'giant stompy robot' concept, just makes tanks terribly expensive cause they realize that from an engineering standpoint, tanks are MUCH more survivable than a Gear is. In Battletech, its just the opposite. Why an untouched 20 ton Locust is less likely to suffer a crit on the first hit (assuming its wafer thin armor doesn't just evaporate) than say, a 100 ton Demolisher II, is simply mind boggling.

As such, we've moved away from 'uber' tanks, and are instead looking towards fielding just the cheap and crummy ones. The two Oros that I have for the clans will be the heaviest MBTs in my inventory. Although the AC-2 carrier is comparable in weight to an Oro, it really is just garbage (though amusing) and thus is correspondingly cheap in points. Meanwhile my Maxim, while really just an AFV, seems to be my preferred inner sphere 'MBT' due to its versatility (even though it can be kinda pricey points wise), and for added fun, the Clans can use it too.

A size comparison to the Maxim

Taking this attitude to the extreme, I picked up 8 generic hovertanks from an old board game on ebay. I intend to use them as the machine gun fire support variant (that's the part where you're supposed to laugh) of the 10-ton hover APC (they never made a model for the APCs because they suck). With the full lance weighing in at a mere 456 points, they're quite the bargain. The crit chart is irrelevant as a hit from anything more powerful than a medium laser will kill them outright (except on the rear armor, where a medium laser will kill them on its own).

Individually, they have a total damage potential of just 6 points in 3 2-point groupings, however they have to get REALLY close to even get into range. To do so, they clock in at 10-15 hexes per turn (about all that they have going for them aside from being cheap), meaning they're not going to be too easy to hit. If they're ignored, the whole lance has the potential to put a 24 point shotgun blast of machine gun fire onto a target. That'll even get an assault mech's attention really fast!

I also have, 4 more hover APCs that I'm trying to figure out how to mount an LRM5 on (kinda hard as they're so small), and a pair of Scorpion light tanks to fill out the ranks of the dirt cheap fire support. I still need 1 more tracked tank to fill out my piss poor fire support lance. Honestly, I am tempted to put an old style Demolisher in there for that purpose, but whenever I ponder that, the hit chart issue stops me from doing so. So perhaps I'll add in another AC2  carrier or an equally worthless (but still amusing) laser carrier (no link on that one as I assume they're just not worth the effort, lol).

...and now that my weekend is FINALLY over...

...we get back to our regularly scheduled programing. lol.

o/

I hope everyone (here in the US anyways) enjoyed their holiday weekend! I did and even went so far as to extend it on into Tuesday. Not much to report on the hobby front, though there are a few tidbits I suppose.

First up, is Battletech. Unlike my Hell's Horses' Corvis (which deserved paint but didn't get any in recognition of it's glorious actions in combat) Friday night the Hunchback at left did! Though it wasn't so much as spectacular, but rather just it's stubborn refusal to die. I mean really, how does a mech manage to stand back up, when it's right torso, arm and leg are all missing? There wasn't a whole lot left of the center torso or left side at that point either... The Maxim on the other hand, was just a quick and easy paint job.

Yes, he's coping with marriage...

Saturday I ventured into the depths (or rather the heights...as in, the very top) of the North Carolina mountains to attend the wedding of Hive Angel and his (now) lovely wife!

Best of luck to the both of them! I also hear that she's taken a liking to the look of the Necrons, so 40k has the potential to be 'quality time' which we all know is every gaming geek's dream!

I ducked out of the reception early, so that I could journey three hours southwest, heading out of and then back into the North Carolina mountains where my family had rented a mountainside cabin for the long weekend. It was a fairly easy (if long) drive right up to the end. Then my car's navigation system had an EPIC FAIL! Right at the point where I was to turn off of the main road, it couldn't find the road and the map went all to hell! Righting itself (or so I thought) it then realized I was passed where I was supposed to turn and in it's digital wisdom, led me 10 miles up into the mountains, on a narrow and twisty-turny road (in a downpour no less) to the Blue Ridge Parkway so that I could make a U-turn!

...there was much profanity...

Sunset from the front porch.

Yeah, way to go Chrylser (and no, I'm still not spending $150 to get the updated nav system CD at that supposedly new 'low' price...). Anyways, I finally made it there, when I called for help and was led to my destination via cell phone. The house was so far up the mountain that they could follow my headlights virtually all of the way in. We had a really good time, lots of laughter, good eating (we're all fairly accomplished cooks) and of course, the main excuse for the trip (aside from the above), white water rafting on the Nantahala river which is something my family hasn't done in several years.

Note my expert steering which caused the front row to fall into the second...

Apparently having not already spent enough money on my little vacation (to be honest, I haven't even looked in my checkbook to see just how dire my finances are right now) I stopped by the FLGS on the way home to get some primer. I haven't been there in well over a month as...to be honest, they're not really all that local for me. Anyways, while I did get a can of black primer, I also made one other not so minor purchase...

I have the little rulebook with me to read at lunch for the next week or so. Hopefully then I'll be ready to finally get 6th ed all figured out. as of yet I haven't touched any of the sprues other than to 'ooh and ahh' over my new toys.