Distractions aplenty...

o/

In amidst the work on the last three Incandescent Coyotes I was distracted many a time which slowed progress considerably. Be it waiting for an ink, or the contrast paint, or a weathering wash to dry, or simply 'I don't fucking want to today' my hobby area is as littered with distraction as much as my mind is prone to looking for it. As such, here are a few of the other things I was dabbling with during that little project.

First up, my Razorback: 

A few scars still remain from the removal of the original iconography.

Okay so yeah, I've already posted about this previously. Now however it has been cleansed of its Black Templar heritage and is now ready for priming. I took these pics prior to that as primed white models photograph so well...

Originally it was to have a twin-heavy bolter, but I grabbed the wrong drill bit (apparently) and broke/wrecked one of the gun barrels when drilling it out. So a twin-lascannon it is! I guess this will function as a tank destroyer as much as it will an AFV.

Next up, the scout snipers:

Yes, it seems that the Incandescent Coyotes will be cursed with this unit...

More commonly known as the Bane of MY existence due not to the damage they've ever inflicted on my armies, but rather the almost complete lack of damage they've inflicted on other forces whilst in my armies. Seriously, Ever since the debacle of my old Aurora Chapter 10th company army, scout snipers just seem to materialize around here and my dumbass keeps working on them for some stupid reason. They still need to have battlefield debris added to the non-sculpted bases before they get primed. Bleh.

...and then there are the Silver Drakes:

Raptors we are not.

I ordered an easy-build Intercessor 3-pack and got 'em built and primed to hide the Smurfy shade of their bare plastic. Originally I was going to just fill out my lone Intercessor squad, but instead i think i'll just split that instead into two 5-man squads. Telling one squad from the other was going to be an issue as I've dispensed with the squad number decals (being both annoying to apply and practically illegible once the minis are done), and instead have opted for their bolt rifles having scopes in one squad, and none in the other. Easy peasy.

Of course technically those scopes change them into stalker bolt rifles. So were these to actually make it into a game, then I might even consider using them as such since my Drakes lack any heavy weaponry. Currently however, they're all just plain ol' bolt rifles to me.

Finally, let's not forget the Children of Torment:

Obviously still a work-in-progress...

Jesus, never has an army been so aptly named! These fuckers have so much frickin' detail on them that they're a nightmare to work on!! 'Chaos' by definition does not equal conformity, so this guy's trim is in leadbelcher rather than gold. Hell, I have several metallic colors, so this army will one day be painted in a rainbow of colors (assuming I don't rage-quit the project).

So there you have it, my version of short attention span theater. The razorback has since been primed a snowy white and it...or one rather (maybe?) one of the above will get worked on next. Who knows, could be something else entirely.

My 2nd 8th ed 40k game

o/

As I mentioned in my prior post, I gave 8th ed another try this past Saturday. With four players, of which three of us (myself included) only had a cursory knowledge of the new rules, and one actual 8th ed veteran player, we opted for a 2 v. 2 team game. With 750ish points per side our opponents were the Tyranids and the Death Korps of Krieg-turned-Genestealer Cult (poor Courtland, his DKK usually gets lumped in with Chaos, but never loyalist marines it seems).

Against this veritable tide of little gribblies and Guardsmen were the Glorious Dark Angels featured in my previous post, and my Rainbow Warriors which, true to form, was the only not-fully painted army on the table. Yay.

We opted for kill points, and no command points to keep things simple, though even then it was a seemingly endless marathon game that we called at the bottom of turn 4 (11:30 pm). We all had fun and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! In the end the Nids won out with 3 Kps plus first blood, whereas we only earned 3 KPs  despite having so, sooooo many models to grind thru.... 

What follows is my usual photo dump, captioned with random highlights. My thanks to Neverness who volunteered to be combat camerman for a goodly portion of the game.

Can ya guess what deployment we used? 

Turn 1 and the Dark Talon swoops in and starts strafing the hordes!

Massed autocannon fire along with my Primaris marines,
all shooting at and failing to kill the Flyrant...

Said Flyrant mocking us with its majesty!

Unfortunately the Dark Talon only has so many guns....

The Gribbly tide lurches forward...

With the demise of my Rhino (1st blood), my Captain and accompanying Combat Squad steel themselves for their approaching demise...

Accursed Zoe's, they can take an inordinate amount of punishment and yet they just keep on floating forward.

Instead of receiving one, the Rainbow warriors charge themselves and my Captain slaughters the cavalry! The few survivors would soon thereafter rout giving us one of our few kill points of the game. 

The thin primered line follows up into more gribblies and guardsmen.

I hate it when a beastie like that pops up out of the ground! Unfortunately, my Predator's autocannon did little more to draw its attention than anything else...

The Flyrant & Dark Talon 'dogfight' for several rounds, badly damaging each though both remained airborne thru to the end.

Unlike my dreadfully performing Aurora Chapter scouts, the Rainbow Warrior scouts proved to be shockingly resilient (though per standard procedure they were wiped out). Here is my remaining Sgt., tying up some DKK for a turn or three.

Ugh, more Gribblies! So many gribblies...

The Primaris marines were slogging thru the other end of the hoard.

The dogfight continues overhead to little effect.

My other combat squad gets stuck in as well. It must be said that the DKK's ability to fire their lasguns as pistols in HTH has frightening potential!!

With his accompanying combat squad dead, my captain continues to hack away with his Prismatic Blade (Teeth of Terra), remaining unwounded by game's end. 

Heading in every direction but forward...

o/

There’s neither rhyme nor reason to this week’s hobby progress, rather I’ve started several things whilst finishing notta whole lot. 

First up, the Rainbow warriors:

Having been circumvented by the sudden switch from Kill Team to Shadow War, I decided to build my scouts up to 6 marines. My Sgt. w/powerfist however needed to lose that powerfist arm as that weapon isn’t available in Shadow War (a pic of this mini with said powerfist is in the link below). Luckily, I had matching Scions chainsword arm still in my bitz box for an arm swap. 

Additionally, I found yet another Aurora Scout with a sniper rifle. Those fucking Auroras! Every time I think I’m finally rid of that infernal army another scout is discovered, they’re like god damned roaches! (huh, seems I've had this rant before) As such I suspect he’ll stay true to his Auroran roots and either never hit or never wound a damn thing!

The 1-armed marines in the background seem to be having a dispute of some sort...

The scouts however were put on hold when I realized I was out of 32mm bases. I’ve ordered some more and hopefully they’ll be here before the weekend. I’ve also started painting a Deathwatch Sgt. for my Rainbows, however the traditional Red Sgt.’s helmet (as per Girlyman’s Codex Astartes) doesn’t look quite right to me. So I’ll probably repaint it black. This is also a 1-armed mini currently, as it’ll ease the painting process.

Next up, Rogue Stars:

Insert limp-dick (no pun intended)
comment here.

I also finished ‘Crankie’ from my Rogue Stars ‘A-Team’ crew. Actually he was all but done a week or two ago, but I somehow broke his SMG’s gun barrel during painting and was out of glue at the time. Thus he remained hanging by a shred of resin for entirely too long before I was able to buy some glue to fix it. 

Ya know, despite being a pair of short little bastards, they've somehow managed to be in the way again!

He’s pictured alongside Myr’Dok who was simply plucked from the base of my Grymn’s never-built shuttle and rebased. Conveniently, you’d never know she was on that shuttle’s base which thankfully requires no repair whenever I get back around to that project. Also on the Rogue Stars front, I started painting my only statted out crew’s leader Catalina, whom you can see in back of the vertically challenged A-Team members.

Hopefully I’ll finish some of these projects this week though truth be told, I’m more likely to leave ‘em and start up some others instead.

Originality in 40k

Yeah, good luck with that...

o/

I was talking about custom space marine color schemes the other day with my buddy Sam. He had come up with a 'new' color scheme for his Kill Team marines, Purple and gold. Like the Hawk Lords I asked? and his shoulders just slumped. lol, no worries dude, finding an original color scheme in this game is nigh impossible. I mean hell, that's also the pre-heresy Emperor's Children colors...but whatever. So I just told him to go with what he liked and don't worry about it.

Not only is this an inconclusive list of Space Marine chapters (wait, where are the Smurfs?!), but its also an inconclusive list of the marines I've fielded over the years (which includes those missing Smurfs, the Storm Wardens...etc.).

Speaking of, I've also been searching for a chapter to use for my newly acquired 40k space marines for Kill Team ($20 for a NIB tac squad, why yes thank you!). However it seems like I'm just looking at the same old, same old, and/or rehashing something I've run before. In looking online for a bit of inspiration, I mis-read the name of the Angels Revenant and me being me I just ran with it, coming up with the following:

The Angels Irrelevant 

In keeping with their chapter name, this enigmatic chapter of Adeptus Astartes is all but unknown. An official search into the Imperial Archives of Terra, instigated by the Ordo Hereticus revealed little to nothing. It would seem that the the adepts responsible simply couldn't be bothered to record anything for posterity. No chapter lineage, founding date, home world, fleet and/or unit strength, only the rare and scattered reports of an unknown Astartes chapter engaging in small unit surgical assaults (indeed, they were the same such reports which lead to this investigation in the first place). The knowledge that there is more known of the so-called Legion of the Damned than there is of the Angels Irrelevant alarms Ordo Hereticus to no end… 

The only troop types thus far encountered have been Tactical and Scout marines, and never numbering more than a dozen or so individuals at any one time. Leading investigators to assume that their total Chapter strength to be less than one company. 

The name 'Angels Irrelevant' is only known due to a single, garbled vox intercept of inter-squad communications, believed to be rallying their battle brothers to prevail upon the enemy.

Livery is black and dark grayish-blue armor with a dull silver Aquilas. Tactical Arrows are displayed on the helmet and presumably display the company color. Scouts wear black armor with dark grayish-blue fatigues, but neither tactical marines nor Scouts show any other insignia aside from their chest plate Aquilas. 

Gee, that sounds familiar...

Curiously, a few tactical marines have been seen wearing Deathwatch heraldry. However inquiries into the matter sent to the Ordo Xenos have been ignored by the highest levels of the Ordo.

So will I use that? I'm so indecisive (like you couldn't already tell...), all I can say is: maybe. Then again I have a bunch of cool, custom decals that would work for the Black or Star Dragons so maybe I'll choose one of them instead. 

Or, maybe something all together different...who the fuck knows at this point.

For the 1st time in my 20 years of gaming, I DON'T have a Space Marine army!

How did that happen?

Oh that's right: ebay.

Yes, this pic came from their ebay auction.

The most recent marines sold (the Storm Wardens) were ironically made up of almost all of the exact same models as I got 20 years ago in the 2nd ed 40k starter box. At my height (somewhere between 4th & 5th ed) I topped out at 19 40k armies! Don't ask where the hell I stored them all, because even now I can't figure that madness out. Currently, I have 3 (Orks & Eldar, both of which struggle to reach the 1500 point mark and my Grymn Militarum and friends who can't even reach 1k). Wolfy still has her Fem Fa'Tau though, which is easily the largest 40k army in the house.

What can I say, the twin travesties of 7th ed 40k and more recently the Age of Sigmeh have really strained my love of all things GW. However their redemption may possibly be in the near future. Ya see, unlike so many miniatures that have gone the way of ebay over the past year or so to keep the lights on, food on the table, credit cards at bay, etc., the Storm Wardens have a higher purpose. Their funds are going into a savings account, to await the day that plastic 30k arrives.

We've all seen the sprue pics, so we know its going to happen, the question is when. Luckily GW's marketing division likes to keep their customers completely in the dark, so who the hell knows. Right before Christmas is my guess. Regardless, I'm generally not in the position to make a triple-digit impulse buy (which often seems like GW's overall marketing scheme). Thus the Storm Wardens' funds will await that release. I may add to it in the intervening days/months/years as well...we'll see.

I do still have marines though. My current inventory of them is as follows:

Dark Hands/Subjugators: I have the periodically retired predator that I got an honorable mention with at Gamesday Atlanta some years ago, along with my Subjugators Librarian. Not sure why I kept him, I just like the mini I guess.

Exorcists: Yes, the accursed Matt Fucking Ward still exists, in my game room...I forgot about that model until just recently actually.

ANGRY MAHREENS!!!: Floyd Uberson is the only one I actually painted, and the only one I have left...and he's really fucking pissed off about it!!!

Aurora Chapter:  How in the FUCK can there still be a damned Aurora scout sniper left in this house?!?!?! I've sold them to Sweden (literally), given them away, repainted them and then given them away, and yet there's another half painted, headless one in the fucking mini case! Its like a god damned conspiracy or something...

Techmarine: He's a 'non-denominational' techmarine, meaning he's bereft of chapter iconography as I got tired of switching/repainting his shoulder pads (you can see him in Floyd Uberson's link above). He has 2 heavy bolter servitors that have been primed green for years now.

Blackshields: My former Emperor's Children, 30k contingent. Currently I have the recently painted Centurion and 5 recon marines (a.k.a. Scouts), a Techmarine with a conversion beamer along with a pair of Servo-Automata flunkies to serve as ablative wounds for him. I also have the now former Captain I killed Draigo (11th pic down, fighting some losers...), swimming in simple green who will be demoted to a mere grunt, an original rhino that's swimming with him, and my original predator which is the very first 40k model that I ever bought (in another year, that tank will of legal drinking age in this country!).

Storm Wardens: (3) bikers, of which only one is assembled and painted. These are the first minis my beloved Wolfy bought me, and thus they have sentimental value, yes even on the sprue.

Red Corsairs: with the demise of my Chaos marines, Centurion Niro has found himself retired to my Hall of Heros awaiting the day he can scratch the cowardly name of Tigurious off of his Murder Sword...

*****

I was going to further list the chapters I've fielded in the past as the number far exceeds the total number of marines listed above, but...I'm kinda tired and its getting late,  so screw it.

Maybe some other time.

Scouts, why does it always have to be Scouts?

o/

With Space Marines on my mind after the rant in my last post, I decided to paint a scout/recon sergeant, and partially repainted two grunts with bolters. Then I went on use them alongside my Storm Wardens in a game this past Saturday night. (on a side note, I found another stupid Aurora Scout with a sniper rifle this weekend! Most worthless unit ever!!! I sold that infernal squad years ago to somebody in Stockholm Sweden which has plenty of icy waters to drown them in, yet they still keep coming out of the wood work around here, what the hell?!?!)

...and with that outta the way, here's this week's painting:

The two with bolters were repaints of the Recon Marines I was going to use for the Emperor's Children in 30k (which is such a laughable notion considering our finances right now). Honestly, despite purple being my favorite color, I didn't like em as they were. Painting them black gives me some options on what to use them as, although the Imperial Fists are my preference. I really like the Breacher Marine minis (and their Legion specific rules requires Breachers as compulsory troops choices). Also, recon marines probably wouldn't work too well if they're wearing bright fucking yellow armor. So the black works for that legion as well.

2nd ed 40k starter box marines, vs. old Warzone starter box Imperial infantry converted into Astra Militarum (Cadian arms fit them perfectly) and fighting over The Imperial Forestry Service who were acting as objectives. Miniature-wise it was a battle of the ancients! Indeed, virtually all of the infantry in this game were as old as, if not older than my opponent!

In my game this weekend, they served as regular 'old codex' scouts.  Fielding a squad of 5, the three newly painted ones not only survived their first game, they took out a basilisk that was deep in cover as well! Easily paying for themselves (which made up for them not showing up till turn 4...). In the end the game was a close one and ended in a tie, though had it gone one more turn I probably would've been tabled.

...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...

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.

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!!!

Filling out the ranks

o7

First off, today is Hive Angel's Birthday, so everyone take a second to head on over to his blog wish him a good one! ;-)

Back to me, I skipped out on any games for this week. Three last week was certainly enough to fulfill that need. That and the weather and autumn foliage have been perfect so I've been all to happy to take my dog for a walk/hike every afternoon instead of gaming. I have been working on minis in the evenings though:

First up as you can see below these are my repurposed Sternguard. Four of these were previously in my Aurora command squad. Shoulder pads were swapped and a few arm/weapon modifications made.

Some much need punch for my army.

The Storm Wardens were created by Fantasy Flight for the Deathwatch RPG, and back when contemplating playing that game (may have to tweak that fluff as Ozwald apparently came back home), I made the Storm Warden DW marine you see here. At the time I had labeled them 'the lame chapter' as they were newly created when plenty already existed.  I never envisioned having an army of them...lol! The shade of blue is different than what I use now, the shoulder colors are reversed, it needs a wash, etc. However like the Auroras that switched armies, it shouldn't take too long to remedy those issues on him.

Again, the 5th ed. starter mini is the Sgt.

In last weekend's games, the Wardens still looked a lot like the Auroras (whom I may be stuck with). So many unpainted scouts and repainted...turncoats? (not the right word but don't know what else to call them) So I also started work on a second tactical squad to reduce my reliance on the 10th Co. I painted the Sergeant's helmet a little different than the last one, and kinda like this one better to be honest. Also, I got 2 old 2nd ed Flamer marines via ebay for basically the cost of shipping them. They will bring the two tac squads  up to 8 marines each and give them something other than just bolters to play with. Once those minis come in, they'll go straight into the Simple Green for some 'submersible training.'

Been wondering though about just how long I can go on these guys till (as usual) I get bored with the concept & something else gets shunted to the front of my painting queue...

Baptism of fire

o/

Well, this past weekend my Storm Wardens got their baptism of fire as did my bastion (normally its just inert terrain) and my small DA tac squad (run as vanilla marines). Coming out with a 2:1 record I'd say that they're off to a good start! Over the course of the weekend, the bastion worked well, especially for the scout squad within (at least till a ''7' was rolled on the building damage chart in game 3). No aircraft were encountered, however the Icarus lascannon killed quite a few things anyways, despite it needing a '5' to hit.

The 'new' guy is the squad sergeant.

First round was vs. RTVoril's Dark Eldar Saturday night. Not a whole lot of highlights to this round aside from the DE crumpling like the tinfoil that they are, my librarian insta-killing an Archon with his force sword (something I only seem to accomplish once every few years), and that this was the first game ever in which my unsupported drop pod dread survived a game!

Sunday Screech & I went to Morristown after some prodding from Voril so that he may exact his revenge upon me! As it turns out, I didn't face him leaving him to take out his anger on Screech's IG, and it was a bad day for the IG...

In my first game of the day, I faced a younger kid with Tau. However while he did try, the Greater Good was not the order of the day and he suffered heavily for it. the game can be best summed up by the exchange he had with one of his friends afterwards (and I quote):

'So, did you get raped?'

'In the ass...hard.'

'Me too!'

lol, well someone's taught these kids the 'proper' after action report terminology it seems...

Outflanking with shotguns, the ultimate cure for the Tau Broadside!

My second game I came up vs. the infamous Draigo wing. The Wardens took to the field with accusations of cheese (which were gleefully confirmed by the enemy)! During deployment however, the GK were fretfully pondering what to do about the AV14 on my side of the table, as hammers were their only option in that regard. As it turned out, that was more than adequate to the task...

 The drop pod dread in the backfield further made a mess of his plans and my mini-deathstar (captain, librarian, techmarine and the tac squad above loaded into a landraider crusader) put a fair bit of hurt on the GK initially! Indeed, Draigo, despite all kinds of attempted 'look out sirs!' & FNP rolls, was down to 1 wound by the time HTH was initiated. In the ensuing challenge my captain & Draigo killed each other! By killing Draigo with  a 'nobody' captain, I claimed moral victory, and that's all I claimed before being all but tabled (the predator survived at least...). It was a good game though and was going good to the Paladin mob's unbelievable HTH capabilities took their inevitable toll. The GK were given a bloody nose at least.

As I said above though, overall it was a good start for the army. As for the Aurora scouts (amusingly after putting them up on ebay, I still found myself painting another scout as seen above...),  apparently my rant last week carried thru onto ebay. So will go with the shameless plug suggesting you bid now & often, lol! Otherwise they'll be consigned to a dusty life on the shelf...

Shifting Allegiances...

o/

Well, the Aurora Chapter Space Marine army has come to an end (or will shortly). I am just tired of having 9 scouts with sniper rifles and a missile launcher fail to kill anything! Even the Sgt. never rolls higher than a 2 (that photo caption is kinda prophetic in hindsight...) or barring that, failing to wound anything. The ML scout does fairly well, but only cause he is generally firing a frag missile. Screech commented 'it was a cool idea, but it really doesn't work.' 

Only my outflanking close combat scout squad really worked well, but the inability to outflank & charge in the same turn kinda kills that. So, if you're interested in an Aurora Captain & 15 (mostly painted) scouts, which would make for a nice allied contingent assuming your dice are more kind to them than mine have been, then check ebay later this week.

However I have so much unpainted SM stuff (much of it still on the sprue), that removing the painted Auroras, replacing them with my painted captain & tac squad of the Storm Wardens, and only a few minor shoulder pad & painting adjustments to a few other (now) former Auroras, and I basically have another SM army of roughly the same size (I'm such an addict...), just with more power armor this time (though I still have 2 scout squads remaining).

First up, my Librarian:

Ya gotta love Ork decals on Space Marines!

I still don't like any of the Librarian models, so I just gave him an arm swap as I didn't care for his old the GK style storm bolter. Now with a glowing plasma pistol, he looks less like a blue GK than he did before. The plasma glow didn't come out as good as the last one, and is a bit brighter/whiter meaning he'd best pull that trigger soon...

lol, its a 'counts as' Axe.

Then there is my favorite old Techmarine. This guy started life as a Red Corsair, who was a renegade from the Sons of Medusa, and has been painted a time or two since then. I really like the model & didn't want to get rid of him as I still use him frequently (even though basic Techmarines suck). Luckily his Aurora shoulder pad popped off easily & cleanly, allowing me to put a generic Mechanicum shoulder pad from the SM vehicle sprue on. Now bereft of chapter iconography, he'll outlive whichever SM army I decide to get/get rid of, plus he can go with either the Storm Wardens, or the Dark Angels (which I got enmass in the DV boxed set).

One problem is in all of the descriptions of power weapon types, there's no listing for 'circular power saw'. WHAT...THE...FUCK...GW?

...snicker...

I also wanted to keep my 'chaplain' drop pod dreadnought. That concept, while basically a suicide unit, works well enough and again, I liked the paint job. Luckily, having a chappy entombed within, the only thing that was green was the leg guard. The Hawk Turquoise that I use easily covered that, and a decal was applied. Conveniently, the Ork decal sheets have lightning bolts of all sorts of sizes though the one that fit best is in a black box. So I carefully cut around it so it just has a black outline. It works well enough I think.

The tac squad was next but I have no pics as of yet. The one time I've used the wardens previously, the Sgt. was hard to pick out as the only difference between him & the others was the color of his helmet. I have a few base coated 5th ed starter box tac marines though (former Alpha Legionnaires) and so will use one of those per squad as the Sgt., while the old one just got a helmet repaint. That mini is only half done so will post pics of that squad later.

Still hanging on to 5th...

o/

rogue.trader.voril in all his glory...

I went out to Morristown for their bi-weekly 40k tourney yesterday and...it was a dud. Could be summer (when gaming in general seems to slow down), or people not knowing if they were going to be running 5th ed or 6th ed., the guys who usually run the tournies weren't there so there wasn't much of anything in terms of organization/support. Its probably a combination of all of that really. As such there was only 5 of us & and just hanging out for a bit, we just decided to play a regular game.


 Screech and I paired down our IG and Aurora lists into 2-1k split force org lists while Voril boosted his DE up to 2k.  As Screech and I are holding out for the starter boxes with the little rulebooks, we just played good ol' 5th ed. The other guys in the background (no idea what it is, but looks like there is something red taped to the back of that guy's head...) were trying out 6th ed and kept asking me for rules clarifications (despite repeatedly telling them all I knew about 6th ed was gleaned from blogs as I don't have the rulebook). I think they were using 5th ed night fight with the whole game in night fight...Dunno, we didn't pay them too much attention but there seemed to be much anger over there...

Goodbye outflank & charge.

Anyways, victory went to the Imperium.  The heroes of my army were the (as usual) outflanking, combat squaded scouts with  bolt pistols, CCW and shotguns (all the schmucks with bolters and sniper rifles couldn't hit the broadside of a barn, as usual...). While losing 7 of their members, they succeeded in wiping out/running down (a laughable concept really...) all of the DE bikes. I think they managed to take out a few Kabalite warriors as well.

However I know in 6th ed., any units that outflank/arrive from reserve will not be able to charge on the turn that they arrive (rumor has it Snikrot will be outflanking on ebay quite soon...). Guess I'll finally have to assemble that landspeeder storm I got last year... It was a good game and followed by dinner, a good day. Which is something I really needed as I had had a pretty rough weekend prior to that point (yes Madival, GF aggro is indeed bad).

On the painting front, last week's painting came to a paltry total of the lone battlemech you see above. It is a Hoplite, which can be used by both inner sphere mercs & the clans (different variants of course). Luckily the 2 units I've settled on for those 2 factions have the exact same color scheme, so I'll be able to swap this mech back & forth depending on whichever faction I'm playing.

A weekend away...

o/

I'm running a day late I suppose, but from time to time such things will happen I guess. I spent the weekend out of town, (sounds like as good an excuse as any, right?) starting off in beautiful Asheville, NC for a concert (and food fight) Friday night, and then half of Saturday just wandering around before heading back to TN. However rather than going home which would take me directly into the path of 100,000+ screaming & intoxicated NASCAR fans (you can tell the economy is still shot as I didn't say 160,000+). Instead I went to my grandparent's house which is only about an hour away from my place.

Spending the night there I was able to get a little bit of painting done. though it did take a bit of effort to get going initially. I had an army with me, and so pulled out a plague marine champion to finish out, rather than start on something new. Indeed, when done I figured that at least I'll have something to blog about...

Such an awesome backpack!

Then Sunday morning Screech arrived & we went to Morristown for then biweekly 40k tourney. I had the Aurora Scouts with me & though I lost it was a close fought game that was decided in the bottom of the last round, so I can't complain. Plus Orks won, not mine but that's still ok. Especially as it wasn't the usual 4 deff rolla, 2 KFF, cookie cutter list. Regardless, I picked up my razorback that was ordered after my earlier win, so I showed up & got a free tank, and that alone is worth the trip in my book.

Screech made it to the 2nd round, so rogue.trader.voril & I played a game as we never had before (which is kinda odd). I think we called it when Screech lost (he claims he threw the game allowing Chad & Madival to split the win) and we were ready for some dinner. Not sure who won our game but it was good & bloody, so no matter.

...and that was about it for my fun filled weekend!