A new lease on life for an old favorite...

o/

Amusingly, the 'new owners' of this tank only field the Destructor pattern of the Predator.

I've been wanting to use my old Dark Hands predator but there's a bit of a dilemma with that. Mainly as I didn't want to (a) repaint it as its nicely painted already, (b) just use it as a proxy Storm Wardens Predator again, or (c) restart another Dark Hands army as I don't miss them (though ol' Captain Kurtz was a rather pretty mini).

Thus I was perusing Lexicanum to see if there were any other SM chapters out there with similar color schemes (even though the official Dark Hands color scheme uses a much lighter green) and iconography, as GW is notorious for reusing icons. Given the Imperial Fists front plate, I started there and quickly found a successor chapter I'd never heard of, but still fit the bill nicely: The Subjugators.

Perfect! Once again, I can use a bit of artistic license to alter the colors to my liking (i.e.: Catachan green instead of that more emeraldish green), and put the ol' predator back to work. About half of the minis I have for the Storm Wardens are still primed green (because Hawk Turquoise covers that much easier than it does black), and as such they're half way ready already.  No worries, I still quite like my Warden army, just not too keen on painting anymore of them here lately.  Also, these guys are actual IF descendents, so I can still use the IF chapter traits, allowing me try a different chapter trait for the Wardens.

Not enough contrast on the shoulder icon, hmm...

One thing I lacked for this little endeavor however was a leader, as all of my suitable minis are already painted. Well, except for my Angry Marines' leader 'The Fist Fucker'. Yet with a name like that, how can he be anything other than an angry marine??? lol. That said, one  of his angry marine subordinates volunteered to leave his brethren, to be re-equipped as a captain for the Subjugators. Trading in his bolt pistol and chainsword (and helmet), he now has a power sword and the 'Primarch's Wrath' relic weapon.

Old timers will recognize that gun as coming from a 2nd. ed. scout's heavy bolter, albeit trimmed down and modified a bit. Also, the Subjugators don't seem to display company colors anywhere. However the predator has 3's all over it from its former company, so I added one to the captain's shoulder to tie him in with the tank, and announce which company it is that he leads. Not too well though, as the chapter's fluff on Lexicanum states that the 3rd co. was almost completely wiped out during the 13th black crusade. Indeed, of the 3 companies initially deployed (the 1st, 3rd and 5th), 168 battle brothers were lost in short order, most with their gene seed unrecoverable! Leaving the chapter master to decide on whether or not to pull out of the conflict...

On a totally different note, Mac (last week dubbed as 'Mac n' Cheese' by Screech) sent me a pic of two of his newly acquired and now painted Red Corsairs:

Amazing! He made more progress in mere days than I did with them in 2ish years. Damn they look good too! Neverness commented: Wow! Fuck it, i quit...lol.

Also tomorrow is Thanksgiving. So to all of you out there in the good ol' US of A, I wish you a good day replete with entirely too much good food, a football game to fall asleep in front of afterwards, and then followed of course by pie! :-D

Thus I wish you all safe travels as the snow has arrived!

The view off of my deck this morning.

...and yet another hero falls from grace...

o/

The photo of his original paint.

A good ways back I decided to field an all scout army, even going as far as to have BS 3 predators with Scout crews (and all too often THAT was kinda painful). Leading my Aurora Chapter's venerable 10th Co., was the Aurora's rising star, Captain R. Lee Ermey. It was his job to mold the 10th into a supreme fighting force, and unlike most chapters, he insisted on doing so by fielding the company enmass. No divvying out a squad or two to assist their brethren, under Ermey's command the Aurora 10th took to the field as a whole and...generally failed miserably.

Oh I didn't lose all the games...but the statistics were pretty ugly. Worst off were the fucking scout snipers, where even the stupid Sgt. with a sniper rifle ALWAYS rolled a '2' to hit...worthless bastards. Only after many attempts and a price reduction did that particular squad find a buyer on ebay. One in Stockholm, Sweden as I recall. All too appropriate I think, as there are plenty of icy waters available to dump those bastards into when they no doubt failed their new owner.

Bitter much? Oh yes...

Stripped of his command and his dignity, the Auroras exiled Ermey to a personal penitent crusade to atone for his failures. A concept that appears occasionally in the fluff/BL novels and I wonder: How do these guys travel around the galaxy on their own? He was not expected to return, rather just to die on some forlorn and unknown battlefield.

Briefly he tried to pull a stint as a mere Sternguard veteran amongst the Storm Wardens, but was found wanting. He finally did find a new calling though. It seems that, in the quest to enlarge his chapter to legion strength, the Tyrant of Badab was all to willing to take the failed captain in. If not qualified to train and lead marines into battle, he should at least be able to lead the Legion's Auxilia units. As you can see, Ermey is now bearing the colors of his new chapter: The Astral Claws and has been given the rank of 'Centurion'. Whilst not as highly ranked as his former captaincy, his position does allow him to kill his minions when he needs someone to blame for his failures.

A new and quite pleasing 'fringe benefit' of his new posting...

The Red Corsairs

o/

As I mentioned briefly in my last post, last weekend I fielded a veritable menagerie of CSM forces at the FLGS. Leading this mess of inconsistency was my Red Corsair Centurion (taking the name from FW's Tyrant's Legion list) who was being used as a Chaos Lord. Nothing too fancy really, Aura of Dark Glory, VotLW, bolt pistol and (for a little bit of flair) the Murder Sword. Facing me were the so-called honorable Ultramarines lead by the infamous Tigurius.

Thus at the beginning of the game my Centurion proclaimed that his Murder Sword had Tigurius' name written all over it, and he made a bee line for his target. Tigurius for his part would use craven cowardice to save his skin...an odd trait for Mac's Ultrasmurfs. Indeed, after just one round of the psychic slinging of his powers, he promptly left his command squad (can he do that?) and fled into the safety of a nearby landraider. My Centurion had no way of cracking that beast open (nor apparently did my all-lascannon predator), so denied his prey my lord went on instead to rampage thru the 'veteran ranks' of the Smurfs! Over the course of the game, he personally took down the following in hand-to-hand combat:

a Termie Sgt. (the gods found this an unworthy offering)

The entirety of Tigurius' Command squad.

a Sternguard Sgt. (the gods offered him a boon of redundancy for that one...) along with the rest of the 5-man Sternguard squad.

...and he was on his way for more when the game ended. Not too shabby! Despite the games' loss, I was rather pleased with it overall. Indeed Mac, my opponent commented: 'That didn't feel like a win...'

Pleased as I was with my lone Red Corsairs' performance (the rest of the lot were at best mediocre), it got me to thinking about the Red Corsair army from which he came. This model was broken on arrival when the army was amazingly given to me free of charge. Thus he was removed from his fancy resin base, and replaced with the 1-off Corsair that I had originally painted.

For those who don't recall, the army was beautifully converted and given to me by a reader who had determined that we was never going to paint it. Honestly it felt kinda like winning the lottery, and that gift still amazes me to this day! I presume the prior owner felt that it did the army no justice after all to remain in a permanently primered state. Sadly, 2ish years on, I find myself in a similar state. I'm not entirely thrilled with the CSM codex, and thus my CSM forces have for the most part languished. Indeed of that army, only the Centurion above and one other have been painted.

That's pretty sad on my part.

Suffer not the Blood Angel to live...

The only other change has been the short lived addition of Harold of Nurgle. However the CSM codex's loss of daemons (and with it, the Corsairs' deamonette and plague bearer contingent which were given to Rob). Harold was rebranded as a sorcerer who seemed incapable of anything other than to give my opponents a cover save via clouds of flies (WTF, really???). Thus he too has been removed from his fancy resin base, and has now been relegated to a mere Tyrant's Legion Marauder Brute, though he may occasionally moonlight as a CSM champion-turned-spawn after a successful challenge and disastrous roll on the boons table.

Thus the the Red Corsairs army is now lighter by about 20 or so models from when I got them. The loss of the daemons to Rob, and another 5 who have been put on standard bases to match my Centurion above. So where does that leave the remainder of them? Why yes, still primered black and in their case, rarely seeing the table top.

Well, not for much longer...

Many times there has been discussion over the fight for the army in the case of my untimely death (I'm sure I can expect some nerd raging after what's next coming...). Especially as I've said I'd never get rid of them. Let me rephrase that, I'll never sell them. (I'll let that sink in for  a few...)

Recently a new guy has entered our gaming group, the aforementioned Mac and his cowardly Ultramarines. Last week he showed me a Red Corsair test mini he did, as he was pondering starting an army of them (yes, you probably now know where this is going...). Mac is something of a painting machine, and quite a good one at that. Damn good actually! Also, unlike the rest of us who often sell an army once painted. Generally because we're bored with the army by then as its taken us years to paint! Whereas Mac won't even field an army till its painted! Quite a rare mind set around here.

I'd much rather see the army painted and shooting at me, as opposed to all black and hidden in their case. So I asked him the other day if he'd be interested in them and...his reaction sounded much like mine when I received them. Felt kinda good actually. He'll be the 4th owner of the army, and my hope is that the 'bad things coming in 3s' has come to an end, and he'll actually paint them all up!

Time will tell I suppose, but the prospects look good. Regardless I still feel that I am forever in the debt of the reader who originally sent the army to me. I was given the stipulation that I do with it as I pleased, up to and including passing it on as I am now doing. My thanks to you again kind sir, but like you, I think its finally time this army was given the colors it so deserves! Hopefully in a few months I'll have pics of it all painted up to post on here.

There's too many of them!

This past Friday, we descended on Neverness' house for a 2k, 2v1 game of 40k. Having gotten the both of us sick the week prior, we were intent on exacting our revenge on Screech and his thousand Sons (of Bitches). However we were instead surprised to find his Space Wolves had come out of cold storage for the game! It would be a 2k game of: WAAAAUUUGH!!! Neverness with 500 points of the allied Eleet Grot Mountin Duvishun, vs. The Spess Puppies. Scouring mission, dawn of war deployment, Orks set up & went first, with first round as night fight.

 The kitty was a tempting proxy for a squiggoth...

 Army deployments (with both sides of the green skin's deployment zone).

 Turn 1, Ork shooting was typically ineffective, and saw little else other than a general surge forward. Whereas the Spess Wolves landed a drop pod far forward with a deathstar contained therein. That said, their shooting was no better with only 2 dead orks and a half dozen grots removed from the board.  

 

 Having failed to kill much, the Wolves' Deathstar (consisting of: a SW Lord, Ulric the Slayer, Arjack rockfist, and some Grey Hunters) prepares to weather the orks' incoming fire. They didn't realize that that would be a literal translation though, till Mad Doc Grotsnik and a bucket load of burnas hopped out of the battlewagon!

Yes folks, 51 total Burna hits!!! Arjack would soak up 16 of those before finally melting into oblivion. Ulric went shortly thereafter and when all was said and done, just the Lord and 2 grey hunters remained. Da Grots gunned down one grey hunter and da' shoota boys the other. After da' boyz charged in to get stuck in good and propa!

 The Wolf Lord wisely challenged the Nob. Outnumbered a gazillion to one, the Nob had rerolls galore, however the Wolf Lord had the 'saga of something, something' (the Eternal warrior one), so survived the fight whilst only wounding the nob in return. 

 Prepared for their commander's demise the SW line moves up to avenge his soon to be death!

 Fed up with the shokk Attack Gun's Mek making all of his cover saves, the Predator resorts to popping grots with its' lascannons...

The Wolf Lord dispatches the Nob, only to fall under a rain of choppas shortly thereafter. Da' Boyz don't go far though, as they fight over 'da good skrap!' that termie armor provides...

Meanwhile, da' flankin' manoover proceeds (albeit slowly) on the uvver side of da' board...

 Whilst the SW Lord was finding his way to Valhalla, Grotsnik and his boyz failed to charge the grey hunters by the tiniest of margins. This would cost them dearly...

 

Such abysmal SW shooting...the dice were not kind.

 Da Grots' green plutoon would soon become mired in the creek, diving under the waters in a desperate attempt to gain cover! (don't ask how they were breathing, I think as many drown as died to SW shooting...

After suffering a mere 2 wounds from the Shokk Attack Gun, the Long Fangs see where all this is heading and turn tail, running off the board!

 

 The horde grinding forward towards yet another objective...

 

Alongside da' boyz, da' Grot Spee rides the heavy swells of rough terrain with all gunz blazing (and typically hitting nothing).

 

Some 'hot Dread on Dredd  action'. Even though the SW dread was already down to 1 HP, statistically it should have won this as it went first. However I believe this was during the point in the game where Screechs dice were in 'fuck you buddy' mode and failing at everything...

 I say that, as in the same turn, a Yahtzee roll of 1s and 2s by the grey hunters, saw them fleeing from Groztnik and the burnas they had charged!

 

With the demise of both nearby dreadnoughts, the Boyz claim another objective!

 

Grotsnik and friends continue to run amok on their side of the table...

 

The dice suddenly turned in Screech's favor when a lone Grey Hunter found himself in shoota boy range, yet made an inordinate number of saves!!!

 

Already wanting to concede, but brow beaten into continuing the Wolves fallback in an attempt to simply survive...

 

 SCHULTZ!!! triumphantly plants his flag on an objective, and a goodly portion of his duvishun starts celebrating victory early...

 

The end is nigh as Grotsnik, the Grot Spee and cy-bikes run rampant in the backfield...

 

Firing a full broadside, the Grot Spee takes out a rhino and 2 nearby Grey Hunters!

Many thanks to blogger for its mysterious, and seemingly un-fixable spacing issues...

 Grotsnik finishes off the vindicator, and the last few marines start to fall...

Ork shooting finally takes down the drop pod (along with a few half drown Grots).

 

Speaking of shooting, things go horribly awry for the Shokk attack gun, slaying the Ork's warlord...

 

 Despite a last ditch rout of the cy-bikers in close combat, the game ends on turn 7 with nothing left on the Spess Wolf side but a predator stuck in the river (though it did manage to vaporize Gotsnik in a final parting shot).

Tallying things up, the VPs were clearly in the greenskins' favor with 14-1 (and that '1' only resulting from the shokk attack gun's misfire...). Demoralized by the experience, Screech's Space Wolves summarily went back into cold storage, lol.

Screech's Thousand Sons (of Bitches) took to the field Saturday in a huge game, which I didn't see the end of. Whereas my Saturday game vs. Mac's Ultramarines ended in a loss, though there was an honorable mention, but I'll save for my next post...

My Struggles with Nurgle...

o/

In my last post I commented on how Screech was under the weather and acted as the 'Bugle of Nurgle' to help rally Rob's Plague marines. Well, it seems he also spread contagion via that same method and I've been slogging thru Nurgle's attentions myself this week. I'm hopefully on the downward end of the affliction, after concocting a witch's brew of dayquil, nyquil, and some anti-biotics left over from last spring. As such, my hobbying has been limited as I haven't been in much the mood to play with my toys. There was some minor progress though.

First up, I pinned and repaired the icon atop the mast of Da' Grot Spee yesterday. Whilst the Crimson Fists rhino-turned-looted wagon is regarded as my best model, Da' Grot Spee is the hands down favorite model out of my ENTIRE gaming collection! Thusly repaired, it will leave drydock tomorrow as part of a large, 500 point chunk of Da' Eleet Grot Mountin Duvishun to fight alongside the WAAAAUGH!!! of Neverness.  We will be fighting the Harbinger of Nurgle himself, Screech and (presumably) his 'Thousand Sons (of Bitches)'. I'm sure one of us (if not both) will be taking photos for a bat. rep. blog post in the future.

Last night, I intended to assemble more Skaven slaves...initially. However on reaching into the box o' bitz, the first baggie I randomly grabbed had a plague priest in it. Yeah, fuck you Nurgle. So I painted a bit more on my War Litter instead.

Note the Ork's hide on the left side. No doubt the chariot's prior owners didn't go quietly...

As you can see the ink on it is still quite wet, and only the first layer. Will go over it again with Devlin Mud after I paint the Stormvermin, then go back and dry-brush and really dirty the thing up. Skaven lends itself well to grime, and my Skaven Lord's ride will be no exception!

Da' Bloody Fields of GREEN!!!

o/

With my last post, this blog crested the 100,000 page hits mark! Honestly that's a remarkable number that I don't think I ever thought possible to attain when I started this blog a few years back. So thank you to all who have wandered over to my little corner of 'teh interwebz' to see what I've been up to! Thus it seems fitting to mark the occasion by posting a bat rep of Da' Long Wayz Dezert Groop itself in action!

Da' boys took to da' field this past Saturday vs. Rob and his plague marines for a for one of our usual slug fests (as every game with him turns out to be, don't think we ever have a 1-sided blow out now that he traded off his Ogres). 1500 points, Dawn of War deployment, the Scouring mission.

Da' Battlefield.

 Da' Groop, ready for battle!

No Rob, not even Windex can clean up the contagions of Nurgle, nice try though...

Da Boyz, deployed and ready for da' Banzai charge across the field.

The other side of my deployment zone. The table in the back shows all of the boyz who are in the trukks.

Vile monsters! These would cause me quite a bit of trouble...

Rob's deployment, You can see the former Colonel Extra-Hand Straken mixed into the cultists in the middle of his line.

Da' Groop steals the initiative!!!

 And takes da' hill!

Da' Eleet Grot Mountin' Duvishun flanks around behind the onrushing vehicles...

Rob thinks that this is the best tank I've ever done. Its certainly a favorite, though it rarely lasts long on the tabletop. :-/

After some typical ork shooting, which produced few casualties, the Plague Marines advance (with the exception of the stunned rhino).

The Hellbrute blows the boom gun off of a looted wagon, and big mek Fix-a-Flat prepares to ride to da' rescue!

Kapitan Krunch and his boys celebrating after claiming first blood by massacring the Cultists in hand to hand!

The termies gun down the bloo kan, and then charge the other two!

Panicked by the damage, the crew of the looted wagon 'pressed dat' and took off like a bat out of hell, away from Fix-a-flat! Here you see the spawn pursuing after taking out the other looted wagon.

Da Masta Cheef, his Nobs, and a slugga mob get stuck in!

They killed everything, including a sorcerer. However the two champions were too busy comparing powerklaws to bother fighting and they all remained locked in combat. Meanwhile the other plague marine squad was pasting Kapitan Krunch's mob. Da' Kapitan was killed in a challenge, and in return, that champion was turned into a spawn for his efforts! lol.

Only one kan to go...whilst the tank bustas repeatedly hit, and fail to do damage to the Hellbrute.

Finally catching the looted wagon, Fix-a-Flat repairs the boom gun, though not its accuracy as its shot at the pursuing spawn went right off the table! In the background the outflanking deff-kopta arrives, zooming past the 'misplaced' deep striking oblit.

With only 3 people at the shop to play, Screech opted to work on a bolt action tank instead of gaming. His incessant nose blowing became the 'Bugle of Nurgle' to help rally Rob's toops. Here you can see him trying to clear his nasal passages by huffing glue...

With the loss of two termies and the last kan, Da' Eleet Grot Mountin' Duvishun storms da' hill!

SCHULTZ!!! initiates a suicide charge, and flatly refuses the Plague Lord's challenge! His grots are slaughtered, and he executes the last two after they fail their LD check. SCHULTZ!!! then flees the field to find another Duvishun...

The Deff-kopta takes down the rhino, and the last plague champion finally dies. Da boys' disperse, but is mostly for not as incoming fire guts the slugga boyz.

Charging the termies, Da masta Cheef is almost killed before he can even swing by the Lord's lightning claws! Only one FNP save keeps him in the fight! The Nobs begin their futile slog which kills one termie in exchange for all of the nobs. The damned lord would keep blowing his rolls to hit and wound, and yet make a stupid number of invul. saves in the following turns...

The few remaining slugga boyz, try in vain to clear an objective of one last plague marine. The two spawn, having killed Fix-a-Flat and the other looted wagon, arrive to finish them off and clear the flank!

Da' Cheef FINALLY kills the warlord (claiming an extra VP due to his Warlord trait) and takes on the other two termies. He failed one invul. save, whilst they each make theirs and finally falls...

With the game ending we tally up the VPs and the losses. The above are all that remained of both sides, while we tied on VPs with 4 a piece.

All in all it was a fun game, and as much as I don't really like the Ork's current codex, I do like the army. It was fun to drag em' out of their hiding on the shelf for a game. Dunno, I may just leave them in the game cart for another trip to the FLGS next week.