So do you celebrate a Liebster with a lobster dinner?

I'll eat the taters and maybe the garnish, but otherwise that lobster died in vain...

Boy I hope not, I really don't like lobster and that's an awfully expensive dinner that I won't like. I did have fish sticks last night though, does that count? Probably not, fish sticks are at best just mediocre...

Anyways, as you've no doubt already surmised, I 'won' a Liebster award compliments of Da Green Skins (cuz dems knows dat Green iz BEST!). Thus, I send many thanks for both the nomination and compliments posted on that blog. Now, what is a Liebster you ask? 'Liebster' is German for 'favorite' (at least as far as I can tell), and I have no idea where/when this started (but I'll assume it was somewhere in Germany), and its essentially the internet blogger's version of an 'atta boy' or pat on the back, etc. I first heard of the Liebster a year or so ago, and didn't much care for the concept for no other reason than I didn't get one. Well, now I have and think its pretty friggin'cool!

Such glorious hypocrisy!

With any such award/recognition there comes a bit of  responsibility.  You must link back to whom nominated you, and nominate 5 other blogs with less than 200 followers (two of my nominees below are in question I'm afraid as their followers aren't listed). Those with more than 200 are apparently already well known enough to be 'above' a Liebster, and will have to vie for a Bloggie and/or a BOB (and good luck with that as you're league with he likes of Postsecret who like BoLS got so big that he had to buy a domain).

Perusing my blog roll, it was kinda hard to single out just five (and I hope these aren't limited to gaming blogs as my list isn't), but I did so and thus (drum roll please) would like to nominate the following blogs (in no particular order) for a Liebster as well. Welcome my friends to our hallowed ranks (though considering the talented folks listed below, I'm still somewhat at a loss as to how I made it here...).

The Kingston Lounge. While not a frequent poster, when a post is made it is definitely worth the wait! The photography is stunning, the history of the photographed sites intriguing, and the hopes to have said sites restored to their former glory somewhat idealistic, but it leaves you hoping they are anyways (this one's follower count is hidden btw).

The Galactic Empire. Wow! And I thought my hobby was sometimes tedious...but still, how cool is it to be making your own CGI Star Destroyers and Federation star ships! And only 10 followers? WTF?!?  It also amuses me that he refers to the minute details on his ships as 'greebles'.

Bigtank armor 1/15 Scale. Okay here's another jaw dropper! Sometimes tedious to follow given the minute & exacting detail he goes into in his construction processes (it takes upwards of a year or so in building a model...from scratch!), but the final product is simply mindbogglingly good! Honestly, the first time I saw his blog, there was a British Mk! Landship at the top & I thought "wow, that's a good photo of one of those'. It wasn't till I scrolled down & saw him behind it that I realized it was a model not a real tank! Seriously, having seen many a model vehicle in the various Smithsonian museums on this past spring's trip to Washington DC,  Big Tanks' models put them ALL to shame! Just a word of note, Google's tanslator for Polish is a bit...off, which can often make for some unintentional hilarity...

Shut Up Internet. Mark Fender is one of the hosts of my favorite podcast 'Thac0' (or perhaps 'the host' as the podcasting equipment is his). I found his blog via their forums and its a daily read. Topics are all over the place, Legos, role playing games, Lady Gaga, lately his series on how well 90's music has aged (or not) is a new favorite. Go & check him out, and the podcast (this blog also has the follower count not listed).

4th Company Librarium. I would be remiss to not have a dedicated, 40k centric, mini gaming blog in my list. However far from the 'token addition' this one is a good read. I started following this one during his series recapping the various chapters in the Badab war books and his thoughts on them. He has a very well painted/converted Executioners army among many others, and even does some commission work as well. His armies also stick closely to the fluff which (as a fluff bunny myself) is very appealing.

So there you have it. Again my thanks to Da Green Skins for the award, and again to all of my follwers/readers who remarkably find my little portion of 'teh interwebz' to be of interest.

{:-)

My Dark Apostle FINALLY won a challenge!!!

It only took four games to do so...

He might get paint after this weekend.

Ya know, I really want the Dark Apostle to work, its a fluffy unit, and I love the chosen with power maul mini which I use for it (rather than the actual 'I just got toilet papered by some rotten kids' mini GW made for it). However, it seems I'm always faced with marines of some sort (negating his AP4 power maul), or as it was yesterday, LOTS of Tyranids which have a serious lack of 'characters' to challenge.

MOAR DAKKA!!!

Another complaint, is that like IG sergeants, he can't have a bolter. Instead, if he's attached to a footslogging squad (primarily my 'Plasma-Death' havoc squad), he's useless till HTH is joined (and even then his odds generally don't improve). Instead just waving his mace in the air and screaming obscenities. The easy fix as you can see is I made the simple conversion of giving him a twin-bolter. Don't worry about how the bolt gets into the lower barrel's chamber, as this arrangement makes as little sense as that of the GK stormbolters.

I did get three games in this past weekend, and in my infinite wisdom I forgot to bring a camera to get photos of any of them. Typical. Its especially a shame as in my first game vs. Murl, we ended up with our usual HTH brawl involving 30+ models. During the game, my Nurgle lord, down to 1 wound achieved an Apotheosis! Whereas his Nurgle lord (and earlier a champion) were both 'spawned'! lol, one would ask what are the odds of that, well...it turns out, pretty good odds. It was a close fought game and ended in a draw.

My second game was Sunday in Morristown vs. Ben (who it seems I always end up playing out there). His Nidzilla vs. my CSMs. Games vs. Ben are always close fought slugfests, and this one (multiple objectives scenario, I forget which one) and this one was no different. It came down to turn 6, where my plague marine champion (my last 'troops' model) fought his last genestealer (and thus his last 'troops' model) over an objective, giving me the win. When its that close of a game, whomever won is kind of irrelevant. Its always a good game vs. Ben.  (oh, and my Apostle did nothing significant aside from making 4+ invul. saves like a madman!)

Game 2 yesterday was vs even more Nids (why is it that the CSMs are having to cleanse Morristown of Nid infestations?) Big guns never tire, short table edge deployment, and um...yeah, it was a blowout. The nids only had 2 shooting attacks, more or less making it a Pickett's charge kind of thing. He got first blood when a helbrute went nuts & charged the monstrous creature line solo, and then 2 tyrants and a carnie ganked the Plague marines. Beyond that, everything else went right for me.

I also found that tank shocking with destroyer blades gives a whole new life to the rhino, and yes FINALLY, the Apostle won a challenge killing off a Brood Lord. His boon of victory (rerolled as the first roll was an unworthy offering) was adamantium will (+1 to deny the witch). Having just killed the last enemy psyker on the board to get that, was just irony I guess (stupid, fickle chaos gods...).

With it close to 5pm and not wanting to wait to see who won the last game to go for a title of bragging rights only (and a 50/50 chance of fighting yet more nids), R.T.Voril & I decided it was 'chicken:30' (diner time) and quit the field. All in all it was a good weekend of gaming after my hiatus due to remodeling the bathroom (which came out great btw).

Return of the Greater Good...sorta.

o/

As I said a week or two back, I found half a crisis suit in my bitz box, and so I ordered the other half and painted it up last weekend. Here it is:

What's that? Looks like a plant, not a threat...

This will be my commander for my little Tau allied contingent. They'll fight alongside the Storm Wardens and Exodites. I've named him Commander Cold Shadow after a Tau story in the Best of Hammer and Bolter volume 1. In that story (written like a memoir) he used a modified stealth suit however that's not an option in the rulebook (it was a mission specific modification anyways).  It was a really good story and conveniently I read it about the time I found the suit bitz.

In truth, aside from a Gotrex & Felix  story towards the beginning (I never liked those) and 2-3 recycled stories (also towards the beginning) its actually one of the better story compilation books GW has produced. I've really enjoyed the majority of them, whereas usually its only half or so.

I have a half painted Devilfish, however I think I'm going to just get a Hammerhead turret sprue to upgrade it. Then all I'll need is a half dozen or so Fire Warriors, and it'll be a nice little contingent.  Being a lone commander, there's not much I can expect out of him, so I figured the twin-linked missile pod was the way to go.  No need to close with the enemy. The shield generator is for some survivability and the lens thingamabob on his other arm can stand in for a black sun filter and/or targeting array.

NEED MO' DAKKA!!! (WIP Pt. 1)

o/

I forgot to get pics of my Tau crisis suit that I painted last weekend, so that may be my late week post, will see how much/if any free time at home is available. This weekend was gaming free as my folks were in town and we're redoing my bathroom. As such I was out on the deck cutting tile with a wet saw & Makita till about 9:45 last night (porch and flashlights ftw!). We got off to a late start and really didn't think we'd get all the tile down, but just kept going once we got going, especially as I don't have the needed vacation days to be off this week.

Anyways, no one comes here to read about tile flooring, so instead weez will talk about Da Orks!

So what if that shoota doesn't have the range to hit anything, it adds MO' DAKKA!!!

Take dis yoo stoopid flyerz: Dakka, dakka, dakka!!!!

These are my WIP Ork quad-gun pics. With a BS of 2, it just makes sense to have an Ork gunner rather than an automated system. Looking at the sky as he is, he's kinda helpless vs. anything on the ground, so no concerns for not having any HTH swings if it gets charged. I still need to add some gubbins to fill in around the where da gunz sit inside the hatch piece, but it's looking pretty good so far I think.

Its a little hard to see, but the gunner is laying on a spare box-o-ammo that's (not so wisely) pushed up against the motor for the drive unit which makes the gun turn/swivel. Engine heat and ammo, yeah...

...eh, Orks do love pyrotechnics!

Insert 300 reference here...

o/

You know exactly what he's saying...

Yup, I made it to post #300, and all I have to show for it is this 300 photo, and the three minis below (one for each hundred posts I guess). No parties, giveaways or any of the usual fanfare that many blogs have when they reach a post # that ends in double zeroes. Oh well. Its just another post, though I was pleased to see that the blog crested the 60,000 page hits mark on my previous post, which means I've averaged about 200 hits per post (though I wonder what percentage of that number is made up of my own page views which don't count).

Anyways...

Last weekend I did manage to get some painting done, and as there has been no painting happening this week, nor will there be this weekend, I'm going to milk those few painted minis for all they're worth (Yes Neverness, that reference was for you as this post is mainly about chaos).

First up are a pair of DV cultists:

This sculpt is my favorite out of the DV autogun squad.

As I said in Tuesday's post, I think I'll resurrect my Tyrant's Legion idea, and to do so, I'll paint the cultists accordingly. I didn't see any photos of the Legion auxilia troops in the Badab books, however as the Astral Claws colors were silver & blue, I would imagine that the auxilia wore grey and blue. Having a duplicate of just about every DV cultist could get kinda bland looking, however when reversing the colors as I have above, then as a whole they ought to tie together well enough (especially those with Marks of Slaanesh, as I hear that they're into that sort of thing...).

I also finished painting up my platoon/company standard bearer for the Beastman IG. These will pull double duty as renegade IG, as well as cultists. To mark them out from the regular cultists in my first game with the new codex, I gave them a mark of Nurgle, which worked fairly well (especially when Hive Angel's heavy bolters rolled a bunch of 2s to wound!).

The Standard is made of scraps of standards belonging to defeated Imperial foes. While I'm not sure who's unit the '812' came from (doesn't matter I suppose as they're presumably dead). I would like to note the codex grey scrap of fabric at the bottom, where you can make out part of the name 'Cadia' on it...lol. When I mentioned doing that to Screech, his praise at being honored in this way was dripping with sarcasm...

So that's it for post #300. Thanks for your continued interest in my mediocre paint jobs, rants, rambling diatribes, and generally poor grammar and punctuation.

Da Masta Cheef

My first game with the new CSM codex

o/

I had a good long weekend with my Dad & Grandparents. Some painting was done in the evenings, but I'll save that for another post. Instead, I thought I'd give my initial thoughts on the new CSM codex learned from a game vs. Hive Angel last week.

First up, the HQ's:

Starring Centurion Niro, in his battlefield debut!

 I wanted to try out the Dark Apostle (chosen mini on the left).  As a fluff Bunny I really like the idea, but on the table he didn't fair too well. Hive Angel really doesn't like the idea of challenges (get over it pal, I have 2 CSM armies that are required to issue and accept them). Thus my Dark Apostle challenged a BA Sgt., waylaid into him with his power maul, only to have the Sgt. make his armor saves and then kill the apostle with a powerfist.

FAIL.

Whereas Centurion Niro, of the Tyrant's Legion (more on that below) did nothing more than send his cultist minions on a grueling forced march. From short table edge to short table edge, and straight into the enemy guns.

Note the cultists in 'Cadian camo'.

With the cultists added in as troops (albeit with very limited options), I'm thinking that I can resurrect my Tyrant's Legion army idea. As you can see at left, I fielded 40 of them, the 20 from the DV box, and a blob of 20 beastmen IG who had the mark of Nurgle. While 'fluffy' CSMs feeding cultists into the enemy guns doesn't win games when objectives need to be taken. So I'm going to need to have at least one unit of power armor troops.

That said, the cultists held up well under the onslaught with 2 units breaking at the end (sealing my fate). But with just 6 survivors out of the original 30, that can be forgiven. The other 10 were with my lord, fearless, and cut down to a man. Leaving Niro on his own at game's end.

I rather like the Helbrute's D3 chart, and now see why it can't have extra armor (i.e.: it doesn't need it). It was also rather novel to have them advancing behind my rhinos and predator without fear of them killing those vehicles. Speaking of the Predator, while a 'dakka pred' isn't too effective against MEQs, I hadn't at the time of the game really read the codex all the way thru. Having now done so, I' think I'll be upgrading it with the Warpfire Gargoyle (which the turret sorta has already).  That ought to give it a bit more punch...or at least be a bit more annoying to the enemy.

My 'Plasma Death' havocs got a nice little bump in the form of the Mark of Slaanesh and the icon of excess (FnP on the plasma Havocs is nice!!!) and giving their champion a combat familiar. While he lacked a power weapon of any sort (and his squad the extra CCW), slinging 5, i5 attacks a turn was fun! He was the only one of my champions to win a challenge, however the gods were not impressed and he got nothing for it. 

So, I still need to play around with it, but I'm not really seeing a need for any major purchases for either CSM army (which is good). Maybe some spawn as I don't have those models, but's really it. No Dino bots and stupid looking dragons for me.
 

On a different note, I found that there is ample room to rotate my game table 90 degrees to allow for all the deployment options. Previously one end of the table was up against the wall. Its a little tight though, so it might not be feasible for any of my opponents who have the 'Bulky' special rule...

;-p

Amber Wizard & stuff

o/

I managed to get my Amber wizard all painted up and to be honest I'm rather pleased with the result! Take a look:

I should have used a different color background...

Ya gotta love washes, they add in so much otherwise impossible added depth (for my painting skills) to a mini. A light dry brushing over that to add a touch of grime, then a few touch ups/highlights, flock, clear & 'ard coats & it was done! All told (including letting the wash dry) it took maybe 2-3 hours. Currently he lives on the shelf, as his army is living in a drawer.

On the 40k front, First off, my much maligned Aurora Snipers are boxed up, and ready to go. This afternoon they'll begin their long journey of exile to their new home in Sweden! Looking up the address on googlemaps, there's plenty of icy waters for them to be drowned in should they fail their new master as well (and perhaps that'll give them a bit more incentive...).

Also, I finally got the new CSM codex & will give them a try this evening vs. Hive Angel's headless Blood Angels. It'll probably be my last game of anything till after Thanksgiving as my Dad is coming in for a visit this weekend. Then next week I'll be prepping the bathroom to re-tile it as well as replacing the vanity. Mom will be in next weekend and stay thru till just before turkey day to do that (Mom & my late Stepfather both used to be tile contractors).  So thing's will be kinda busy these next few weeks. I'll try to get some painting in where possible, but if my content gets a little light for a little bit, you now know why.

This post has a W:L ratio of 1:1

That's 'Wizards' to 'Lasers'...yeah I know, kinda lame but I couldn't think of any other title to tie these two models together. lol, anyways...first up the wizard. I've been wanting a wizard for my never used Empire army (which means he's more likely to be zapping my Skaven in Mordheim). Picking via background fluff rather than effectiveness, I wanted either an Amber or Amethyst wizard.

The new battle wizards box would make a good model of the latter but not the former. Only really need one, so that was kind of out as an option. The older Empire wizards are one hellova collection of some god awful looking models! Whereas the new limited run FAILcost Amber wizard is ridiculously overpriced while cast in a questionable material. So perusing ebay I found the Amber wizard that rides the my Gryphon (I think) for $7 shipping included, and bought it figuring it would make a cool conversion. Here he is:

Much better looking than the other Amber wizard minis...

I trimmed out from between his legs so it didn't look like he crapped his pants and was carrying a load! Then cut & repositioned one leg so it didn't look like he was supposed to be riding something. That only sorta worked, and I wasn't sure how to fix it. So I added the Beastman skull to his base making it look as if he's awkwardly stepping over that whilst casting a spell (all but ensuring a miscast). I think it works. The sword hilt under the cloak almost perfectly lines up with that peak in his cloak as well.

FREEEEEM!!!

Next up, in light of all of the futile arguing over flyers, I finished painting my Bastion's Icarus lascannon. To celebrate this achievement, it failed to hit anything Saturday night, before Kushial's terminators thunder-hammered it's bastion into oblivion. Typical.

Oh well, the bastion is now complete at least and I'll work on getting the Wizard done for my next post.

Sometimes I hate my bitz box.

o/

Welcome, to the pit of despair...

I have a bit, the old track unit from the original Thudd gun, its gotta be in there. Here's what I found:

Some shields for my Stirlanders when I next buy a free company box.

(5) more grots for da' Eleet Grot Mountin Duvishun

Some random bitz that might be useful for my Ork quad gun kunvershun

(1) pewter Battletech hex base

A bunch of plastic GW palm trees for Rogue Trader Voril's terrain project.

About 1/2 of a Tau Crisis suit, with a just about all the weapon options & upgrades.

A beat up Techmarine (no servo arm back pack)

A CSM icon that Screech may be able to use.

And as for that track bit? Nope, notta trace. I do have an alternative bit though, and after an hour of digging, I've given up on it.

I guess you could call this a tactical withdrawal...

o/

Well, no progress has been made on my second squad of SW tactical marines. Basically I got bored painting a half dozen identically posed minis (when i reached that point, I heard cries of lament from the dev squad which is still on it's sprues).  So I thought I'd try something else.

First up I worked a bit on an Apothecary. I never had much success with my Aurora command squad, but had the extra model so figured I could periodically split the Sternguard in half to make a command unit. Then I recalled why I have no white minis in my armies: because I hate painting white! I don't have any white primer (and I can't see buying a can for just one model) and my skull white is so old as to be sludge (no amount of thinning was helping either). So currently the Apothecary is bathing in Simple Green and on his exit I'll peruse some of From the Warp's white paint tutorials and give it another go...maybe.

Then there are the scouts. I still have 15 unpainted scouts (plus the ones in the LS Storm box), and the painted ones are going nowhere on ebay. I looked at other SM scout listings, and they seem to sell for a pittance (So Screech, you know you want Aurora scouts for Christmas right?) Thus, I omitted the unpainted snipers from their auction, and painted one up for the Wardens (so that the epic failure may yet continue...).

'Warrior poets' are not known for their marksmanship...

Apparently the Storm Wardens' creators at Fantasy Flight really liked Braveheart (or just Scotland) as not only do they have a fondness of claymores, and tartans, but the tribes they recruit from are fond of painting themselves up in woad prior to battle. The Imperial indoctrination process doesn't entirely eradicate this tradition (early on anyways) and as such, sometimes their scouts do as well. While its kind of hard to see above, half of the scout's face is painted blue. Nothing is better to fuck up a sniper's aim, then to get all pumped up for battle with some (potentially hallucinogenic) face paint right?

The cloak came out darker than anticipated as I mistakenly touched it when the first wash was only half dried, and it came off leaving a clean spot! So i had to do it a second time. Oh well, at least these guys won't look like free roaming shrubbery on my bombed out city table like the Aurora scouts did.

...and on a totally different note, 'teh interwebz' has been all up in arms on cron-air lists here of late (oddly, there are no Necron lords leading them named Nicholas Cage). Indeed even Madival was inquiring about my thoughts on flyers (no doubt mining opinions for a blog post of his own).  Again, I've yet to face a flyer in 6th (yes I know its coming), so while not qualified to form my own opinion on the subject (which isn't to say that I haven't) I'll instead cut & paste Snord's thoughts on the subject. The screen shot below was taken from amongst the nerd raging commentary on BoLS the other day and seemed to not only be well thought out, but an echo of my thoughts on the matter. 

Yeah! What he said.

Edit: New Ork rumors popped up this morning!!!