My Camo Smurfs are done (for now)

By my order as an agent of the Holy Inquisition and in the name of the God-Emperor of Mankind: Kill them. Kill them all!

Eight minis painted, which in a combat patrol consisting of a mere seventeen models is a pretty good chunk. Ironically however, in order to fit in the Inquisitor, my list consists of three squads of five marines each (intercessors, assault intercessors and hellblasters respectively) Thus, one of the above painted intercessors gets to remain in the mini case for the time being. 

Forethought and planning, for the win. 

I loathe what that set of AGL arms cost me, suffice to say it was almost as much as the rest of the marine that's holding them! 

This was my first application of an assault marine decal in a very, very long time!

Rather than finish out the last intercessor, I ought to have painted a single hellblaster so that each squad would have at least one painted mini. Oh well, I'll get back to these guys eventually and rectify that. 

I'm really pleased with how this guy in particular came out!

Overall I like the way that this little project has progressed thus far. The dirty, urban/mountain camo looks good I think and certainly presents a rather different visage for these Ultramarines (as opposed to the usual blue tide). 

*****

Next up in the paint/assembly queue will be some Bolt Action followed thereafter by my most recent Eldar Corsair and Exodite acquisitions. 

My Smurfs are now a slog...

 

It was inevitable I guess...

I will finish the above minis before I move on to something else. Inquisitor included these will put me at eight painted minis for this army - in a row! That's a little more than my usual average before my mind loses interest in painting the same old colors and wanders off. Real Life™ has been quite busy this past week or so which hasn't helped the Smurf cause either. 

By rights these ought to already be done, with me blogging about my Eldar or perhaps my next (futile) foray into Bolt Action (both or which have recently risen out of the depths to catch my attention once more...), but I digress. I'll press on with these three and hopefully have the whole little painted band set out for a group shot next week for ya's.

Ordo Astartes Inquisitor

 o/

Collecting evidence...

The Ordo Astartes is an ordo minoris of the the God-Emperor's Holy Inquisition. Numbering approximately 50 Inquisitors they are charged with overseeing the Adeptus Astartes as a whole, and are clearly way out of their depth given just how many loyalist chapters have either partially or in full turned traitor over the millenia. At least they got those bastard Celestial Lio-oh wait...uh yeah, anyways.

Any similarity to a run-of-the-mill hive enforcer is just part of the disguise...

I don't have a name for this guy specifically, so he's currently running under an alias of Archibald Wrex which was taken from another miniature of mine that will likely never see the table top anyways. Inquisitor Wrex is currently investigating the frightening rumors that several Alpha Legion Traitor Astartes have somehow undergone the Rubicon Primaris! 

There's a refractor field somewhere in that...stuff on his back.

I painted this guy on a whim last weekend and am really pleased with how he turned out! He's part of my small camo-Smurf army and as is appropriate, he's wearing standard-issue Inquisitorial urban camo. He is armed with a bolt pistol (of the revolver type, a rather more eccentric than efficient weapon), frag grenades and lastly a force/power/plain old regular sword depending on what points are available.  

That scabbard apparently hides a blade of many potential types.

Camo Smurf Intercessors WIP (Part 2)

 o/

Target acquired...

With my 500pt. Smurf army clocking in at a whopping 18 models, it is now just shy of being 25% painted. True...that means I have a mere four models completed, but let's face it: I'm notorious for my short attention span when it comes to painting. So I'll boost my numbers anyway that I can.  

Here they are seen on a sweep and clear mission, somewhere in a suburban sprawl of the Appalachian Subsector. 

Their camo actually blends rather well with the concrete!

Aww fuck, what'd that guy on the right do, tackle a Salamander?

Looking at the third photo I saw  some unwanted green paint smeared on the pack of that right most marine. Oh well, twas' but a quick fix and once again all four are now complete. I've assembled an intercessor with an AGL and have started painting both it, the squad's last grunt as well as my Assault Intercessor Sergeant.

Fixed!

Tarellian Hog Soldiers

Yes, you read that correctly. 

No, 'Hog' is not a typo. 

Lurking deep in the wilds of the Appalachian Subsector...

Tarellian hog soldiers are sometimes employed as auxiliary forces of the Tau. Canon images are few and often conflicting. Likewise, inventing background for what is likely to be just a lone Tau auxiliary unit (not that I've never done that before) didn't really appeal to me at this time. Thus, they're Tarellians. 

Whilst the woodland camo does its job nicely...

These hired Swine will likely be deployed as Fire Warriors, only I was thinking of arming them with the humble lasgun, as their Tau-esque gun is a bit puny in comparison to actual Tau infantry weapons. 

...curiously the Fem Fa'Tau pauldron coloring blends in as well!

These 3D printed minis came with integrated 20mm bases. I tried to remove said base on this mini and instead broke the little guy's legs in several places. After gluing him back together I tried placing the base atop  a 25mm base, and green stuffing around the edges to blend it all in, but didn't like the look of it. So instead I inverted the 25mm base, glued the integrated one inside of it, and green-stuffed in the resulting gap. It works I think, even if it looks a bit wonky. 

Also of note the shoulder guard (do the Tau call them pauldrons too?) is on the wrong side. Several of these minis have been mirror imaged, during the 3D printing process, so the pauldron will go on whichever side doesn't have the little shoulder epaulet. 

I have 10 of these little guys, and enough pauldrons to field 20 if I decide to get more at some point. I also have a lone different sculpted hog that could pass as an Ethereal-stand it. Just not sure if it would be best called a Divine Swine, or rather the Hog Father...

The Silver Drakes 40k debut!

 o/

This past weekend I masked up (lots of infectious Tyranid spores in the air out there ya know...), and went out for my semi-annual 40k game. Actually it was about as 'fluffy' as we could get with myself fielding my Silver Drakes vs. my buddy Matt and his Tyranids. We even used the ice world table and terrain which matched my marines'' bases! 

500 points, I forget the scenario name, but basically there were 5 objectives to hold, for secondaries I had thin them out (or something like that) and abhor the witch vs. Matt had the Slay the Warlord and Line breaker secondaries. 

Here's how it all went down:

Our forces as deployed. The Nids occupied the forest opposite, whereas my Drakes were more or less grouped together for mutual support, aside from the forlorn hope assault intercessors who were sheltered behind the ruins of the Chateau du Neverness. 

Going first I can assure that my turn one shooting was more or less a big fat whiff (as usual), killing nothing. In response, Matt's Zoey ( smited? smitten? smote?...yeah let's go with smote) smote a lone intercessor. There was also considerable movement amongst the nids and my assault intercessors.

Speaking of, said intercessors prepared to go out valiantly...

Charging in with a gazillion attacks, I have to say that despite not liking the whole strategem/CP game mechanic, when marines are charging a carnifex, gene wrought physiology (to-hit rolls of 6 auto wound) combined with preferred enemy and trans human physiology (marines ignoring incoming to-wound rolls of 1-3) are collectively the shit! I didn't kill it, but despite catalyst the monster suffered 4 wounds for the loss of only 2 marines!

Matt's hivefleet (kraken I think?) could fallback and charge in the same turn, needless to say, the aforementioned wounded carny did just that in order to get the hell away from the assault intercessors! It also regenerated most all of it's wounds much to my annoyance.

Aww hell! Thinking of past experiences, I figured that this was going to be it for me! Instead however the Drake's line miraculously held (in part to transhuman physiology again) and both combats were more or less a draw. 

The little gribblies tried to overwhelm my assault intercessors to no avail, and things went much that other way. Irritated, in the following turn the Zoey smote them out of existence. 

Everybody was stuck in by this point, even my Ordo Xenos Inquisitor who isn't seen here as he was too busy plunging his power maul up the left side carny's ass! 

As you can imagine, that was enough to finally finish off the beastie, and I turned my attention to the other one. However it would fall back, and then charge my Lt., barely squeezing into range! Despite Iron Will and artificer armor, my Looey went splat, garnering Matt a secondary. Sad face.

Suffering from Loss of Lieutenant, unlike in the game of Infinity where that throws an army into disarray, in 40k it sent my marines into a rage, and they quickly dispatched the second carny. Huzzah!

An aerial view of the bottom of turn 4, it looks grim all around with a mere victory point separating both sides. 

...and that's where it went all to hell. Matt smote my lead squad of intercessors with an impressive 6 mortal wounds! The inquisitor went off and dispatched the 2 lone gaunts on the flank, however my other intercessors were apparently disheartened by the sudden loss of their comrades and failed to wound any gaunts with their shooting. Worse yet they failed their charge and were not able to drag the gaunts off of the objective via a last ditch effort of HTH combat. 

That was pretty much it. 

In the end, total VP's were something 20-34, in Matt's favor. Still the game more or less came down to the wire, as we were just a single point apart going into turn 5. His Zoey was definitely the the MVP, as smiting two wounded units out of existence really hurt me at the end, leaving little in any way to recover. Still, I killed 2 Carnifexes in close combat and survived to tell the tale, so I'm a happy man! 

Notta bad start for the Silver Drakes non-Kill Team career. Honestly I thought I'd be toast on turn two and not even live to see the bottom of turn three, but GW's love of all things primaris meant that even in an army bereft of heavy support, they can still hold their own!