My Legions of Lies and Fire...

o/

I sold the Alpha Legion. 

Actually that’s not entirely true. I just sold the painted Alpha Legionnaires. 

Well, that’s not true either…

lol, ya gotta love a legion where everything about it is a lie! 

It'll be the simple Green for this one...

Let’s try one more time: I sold the painted Alpha Legionnaires, minus the 30th anniversary marine (which falls into the ‘priceless’ category in my book when you see what it goes for on ebay). I also sold what was left of their FW decal sheet. 

Why you ask? 

Well, funds have been tight a little here of late, and to be honest I was tired of painting that color scheme as it was a bit laborious. No one’s sure where 40k will land currently, so selling one of those armies would be little more than a shot in the dark. Whereas 30k is still going steady and strong.

After a week on ebay, I had a bidder @ $80 who backed out last minute, and a bucket load of ‘watchers’ who didn’t take his place. I relisted but was rather annoyed at the prior last-minute retraction and in a fit of my usual nerd-rage I cancelled the listing shortly thereafter. 2-days following that, I got an unsolicited request (presumably from one of the aforementioned watchers) to relist ‘em as a ‘buy it now’ set at $125, and away they went!

So, where does that leave me with 30k? 

The 'unpainted masses' minus the Cataphractii Termie squad.

Well, Imperialis Auxilia aside, I still have approximately 1200-1300 points of unpainted Marines. Not one to take a breather, I already had another legion in mind: the Salamanders. Among the unpainted masses above I have 2 tactical support squads, one with flamers and the other meltaguns. Add to that both a heavy & combi-flamer in my Cataphractii squad and my pyrotechnical leaning towards the Salamanders ought to be obvious. 

What? You mean you use basic grunts as test models, not termies? Huh...well now there's an idea.

Here is my 1st ‘test model’ who took just as long to paint (if not longer) as the Alphas did on average. Salamanders do like their ‘bling’ and as such the gold did slow things down a bit. Still, I’m happy with the look of it, and whilst I don’t have the FW decals, I have a bucket load of the generic SM decal sheets from which to pull the legion icons from. My Praetor is close to the ‘finished’ state as well, and will be posted up here soon.

*****

My paint recipe for future reference:

Basecoat: Vallejo Heavy Green

Base Drybrush: Glistening Green

Metal Trim: Vallejo Glistening Gold & Gunmetal

Black: GW Chaos Black (duh)

Base: Vallejo Flat Earth

Leather Work: Vallejo red Leather

Wash: Army Painter Strong Tone

Final Drybrush: GW Bleached Bone

My 1st foray into 8th ed 40k

o/

Rather than post my usual attempt at a play-by-play battle report, I'll instead just give my general impressions thus far. No doubt these will evolve as more games are played but my initial reaction is: its pretty good! I don't like everything that was changed, but the pros outweigh the cons at least early on.

WAAAAUGH!! Sadly, I'd forgotten my Tankbustas (aside from the one with ROKKIT PISTOLS!!!) and had to proxy the mob with every spare boy I could find in my case! Its a shame, as they were my undisputed MVPs. Still, this made for a cool pic.

I played a 1k game using my Orks vs. Kushial's Lion of Harlech spess mahreenz. Da boyz have been so fa behind the 8-ball for so long now, they'e more or less going to be my make-it-or-beak-it army for 8th ed. 

Here I've already moved my slugga boyz via 'da jump' psychic power. Whilst that didn't really move em closer to da beakies, it did get em away from all of those dreads!

The Lions arrived fielding 4 Dreads, 2 of them venerable...how typical of Kushial. In prior editions, this would have filled me with dread (yes, that pun is intended) as my Orks have always a fared poorly vs. enemy armor. However with vehicles all being essentially monsterous creatures of old, they'e easier to take down. 

Da good ol' Matilda (Battlewagon), resilient as always. 

Of course it was only my big mek Fix-a-flat who kept it alive. Honestly, he fired once and spent the rest of the game repairing Da Matilda. As such, this game was different from any other for him. 

True, the few grot blasta and slugga rounds that I fired the dreads at were as pointless as before, but the rokkits were quite deadly and eventually, I took down three dreads and the 4th was on its last legs by game's end. Victory points be damned! I'm calling that a victory!! (Kushial won btw, 5-6 VPs.)

Da hill iz mine! Also note, Da Eleet Grot Mountin Duvishun was down to the last dregs by this point...

Da boys on the far side, hit like a trukk in close combat! swinging 1st, they tore a tactical squad to ribbons! I haven't see regular Orks grunts do so well in years! I'm used to them jumping out of a trukk, charging (invariably space wolves) and being torn to ribbons before ever getting to strike!

WAAAAAUGH!!!

Charging units hitting 1st is a MAJOR improvement for the Orks! previously, we went last vs. damn near everything! Likewise, challenges are gone, and good riddance to them! I never liked those anyways. 

Da Grot Duvishun, dying in droves as usual...

I do miss my templates though. My Ork lobbas were damn near useless. Heavy D6 = 1 to 2 'shots' per tun. I use the old WHFB Katapult krew grots, but instead of lobbing 'rocks' they were instead flinging 'gravel'. As much as this sucked for me, I'd be livid if I still had all of my old IG Leman Russ tanks!

Because this looks like a fair fight...

Also the number of wounds on everything...dunno, something about that just seems off to me. Can't quite place it yet, but I'd rather still have vehicle facings and armor values instead. I can see the need for dreads to be MCs, but everything? 

In konklushun...

Overall, 40k had so much bloat of rules that something needed to be done. Not sue if this was what it needed though. Overall the game (close combat aside) felt like much the same old 40k, but simplifying (dumbing things down?) too much could make it all seem too generic. Dunno, time will tell I guess. 

The other big part of the game is the fluff. Thus far I've stayed away from that as from what little I've read, its just flat awful. That in and of itself is troublesome, as fluff is what hooks us into the game in the 1st place.

Leaving the battlefield of the Red Sands for awhile…

o/

I’m kinda tired of both painting my red armored Grymn, as well as using their red sand flock for seemingly everything. Its cool, its different (or rather it was…), and I will no doubt continue to use it (the sand as well as the color scheme) on unfinished projects.  Luckily I have a bucket load of Grymn, still unpainted and some still unassembled. So starting a new contingent really doesn’t hurt anything aside from consistency across the army when on the table. 

Currently, my Grymn serve as Outremar Imperialis Auxilia allies to my Alpha Legionnaires, with the abhuman healot provenance (i.e.: Squats). Curiously (and unfortunately) the provenances for Auxilia are only available when you use a force commander. As an allied contingent, that precludes using any other option. 

However I’ve been wanting to try using the Imperalis Auxilia Platoon Command Cadre as my allied contingent’s HQ choice. Unlike IG command squads, this little (no pun intended) unit can be outfitted in various ways, and acts as sort of a Swiss army knife. No provenances though, sad face.

As such, they’ll serve as just ‘regular’ humans which in effect makes the good ol’ ‘regular’ space marines of 30k True-scale by comparison. 

(And suddenly off topic and on the ol’ soap box: Do you see that GW? If you hadn’t made your human infantry so fucking out of proportion to what they should have been vs. space marines in the 1st place, then this massively stupid, fluff-retcon from hell that are the Primaris-Sigmarines wouldn’t have been necessary. They may in general be pretty models, but your fluff reasoning for them is just fucking awful! Rant concluded aaaaaand, back on topic….)

Anyways, where was I? Ah yes, the Grymn. I opted for a simple ‘test’ color scheme, and here it is:

Ta Dah!!!

Simple, easy and quick to paint…yeah, I like it. The base however, not so much. I dunno, I just painted it grey and flocked it, hell the Ork bit was little more than an afterthought to cover the opening that was visible in the slotta base. I’ll probably scrape the flock off and redo it as a desert base like I’ve been using on my Rainbow Warriors. Those in general look better. Still as a test minis goes, this one is the 1st of many more just like it I’m sure. 

*****

Paint Recipe: (for my own reference):

Armor: Vallejo Green Grey

Clothing: Vallejo German Camo Orange Ochre

Leatherwork: Vallejo Red Leather

Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade (slathered on as per the norm)

Drybrushing: the usual Bleached Bone.

My 1st Ork of 8th ed!

Now...I haven't actually bought anything for 8th ed yet. Nor have I played a game of it, but this is my 1st 40k mini painted in 8th, and he's armed with weapons which are unique to this edition:

ROKKIT PISTOLS!!!

(yes, those 2 words, put together just amuse the hell out of me for not logical reason...)

Note the Lions of Harlech
helm on the base.

It was a bit slow going as I'm still trying to snap out of my 40k malaise, Kill Team and Necromunda 1.3 Shadow War not included. Nonetheless its done and I'm quite happy with the mini, and he'll 'round out my Tankbustas to an even 10 Orks.

As you can see by his looted armor, this Ork is a veteran of the sacking of Rynn's World. Which is always a nice middle finger to marine players, especially those who field chapters of the Imperial Fists' heritage.

Beakie tanks make da best Orky armor!

Speaking of...I believe the Lions of Harlech technically fall into that category, and Kushial and I have a game tentatively scheduled for this coming weekend, allowing for us to give 8th ed itself a try.

All's quiet on the hobby front

Nope, I haven't made it to the FLGS to pick up my copy of the Xenos 2 index, nor did we make it to game night last weekend. Actually, all I've managed hobby-wise is to get some paint on ol' Rokkit Pistols from my last post.

You can also see a WIP Rainbow Warriors' Scout Sgt..

About the only thing of note thus far on this mini is the space marine helm on his base is conspicuously the same color as those of the Lions of Harlech...

ROKKIT PISTOLS!!!

When I ordered an Ork thrower off of ebay to use as the basis of a Warboss conversion, I was dismayed to find it was no bigger than a standard Ork boy. I thought it would be bigger, and mistakenly said so out loud. So go ahead and feel free to insert whichever "that's what she said" joke you please there. My beloved Wolfy did and just ran with it, much to her amusement!

If all Ork throwers were armed with rokkit pistols, they would be more popular...

Anyways, a warboss was out of the question and aside from special characters, the Ork warboss options available are...well the same as they were YEARS ago. Seriously, what the actual fuck GW?
Anyways, the purchased bitz to go with this mini were too large for it, meaning a good ol' rummage around the ol' bitz box to see what I could scrounge up. By this point the bitz box is all but devoid of Orky stuff, but I had enough to make him into a slugga boy at the least.

More ammo!

Then, an idea popped into my head: ROKKIT PISTOLS!!! I don't know what they do, I don't know if they're even worth a damn but...c'mon they're called ROKKIT PISTOLS! As an Ork player, how am I supposed to resist a weapon like that? Well, as you can see: 

I'm not. 

My first Rainbow Warrior Deathwatch veteran is complete

o/

Curiously, the 'ard coated eye lenses didn't catch any of the flash, instead rendering them into darker pits of blackness... 

For the time being this guy will serve as my Rainbow Warriors Kill Team sergeant. I say for the time being as I have second, identically equipped deathwatch marine in the squad who is still just primed currently. The metallic green helmet arrow, marks him out as a survivor of the chapter's 4th company.  No doubt not that's not the standard green of the Rainbow's former 4th company, but more of a decorative flourish. Perhaps in recognition of his initiation into the Deathwatch.

His bolter arm's Mk III armor has been scavenged from a deceased Red Corsair.  The bolter which is an old and obsolete, though apparently still serviceable design was likely also of battlefield salvage. His other arm is bionic and the chainsword is in the Rainbow's standard livery for weaponry.

I tried using a different color for his helmet's eye lenses, but shaky hands prevented me from any success and after a bit of frustration I opted for just glossy black against his matte black armor. I figured 'what the hell, it works for Darth Vader, right?'

Don't hold your breath on my usually scheduled Thursday post. Real Life has reared its ugly head, and I'll be so busy after work these next few days that I predict absolutely zero hobby time till maybe Friday.