Look out Farsight! There's a new Commander in town...

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Hey folks, I wanted to list some highlights of the weekend's game night at the FLGS. In a nutshell, my GF's Fem Fa'Tau have came of age. Sure she's been playing on her own for awhile now, had some wins, etc. She's no longer always needing to know what is what and what needs what roll to hit/wound/save. Various enemies are still a mystery, but that's the case for all of us who can't afford EVERY $50 dollar book out there.

So how did this come about you ask? Well, in a 1750 point slugfest vs our friend Scott's DA with allied GK, she pulled out a quite convincing win. A win from a game of all sorts of raucous commotion, fist pumping and arms in the air, hooting and hollaring (and her 'Ms. Olymipa' pose at one point). lol, as games were ending everyone was clustering around their table to see what all the roar was about.

Whilst a lone charging DW Termie was pulled down in HTH combat by a squad of fire warriors needs to be mentioned...if there was an MVP of her force, it was her Tau Commander. Outfitted with everything but an onager gauntlet yet the kitchen sink, the Commander clocked in at just over 200 points, and paid for herself in spades! Over the course of the battle the commander took out: Belial (also in HTH) which was followed immediately by Scott's stepson saying (quote): 'you killed his favorite model'. She also gunned down a contemptor dreadnought, gunned down the GK commander, he was a special character, Crowe I think, as well as several other marines of various types and affiliations...

Um, yeah. I seriously doubt there will be anymore of the 'go easy on her' thoughts out there, as instead the Fem Fa'Tau and their commander (both on the table and the one rolling the dice) has forcibly staked her claim as a 40k player. OR, as Scott's stepson put it:

"You've gone from Tau Player to Belial Slayer."

lol, nice!

Alpha Legion Recon Legionaires

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Just a quick post. As I've said previously, I repurposed some of my Storm Warden Scouts to be used as an Alpha Legion Recon squad in scout armor for Warhammer 30k.

Not a bad change for what was originally a heavy bolter toting scout eh?

Not wanting them to look just like my other Storm Warden scouts (yes, I'm using my favorite color-Hawk Turquoise for these guys too) I did a head swap using instead an IG gunner's head (Aquila removed). Scraping off the Aquila on his chest, I added all sorts of pouches, grenades, the Scout demo charge on their backs (looks like a rucksack). Also, if you may have noticed, the new Scions' command arms fit just fine on the scout bodies!

No, I doubt that he'll ever hit/wound anything, in 30k either...

I suppose I can still use them for the Storm Wardens, but most likely I won't. This squad tends to just fail miserably anyways, only the shotgun scout squad ever accomplishes anything useful (some of the time anyways).

A few more Astral Claws...

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Notta whole lot of note round here. The weather has been rather nice here of late, and as such we've still been quite busy which has limited my hobby time. I have however gotten a few more Astral Claws assembled for my Legion Cohort (which now numbers 11 marines).

Astral Claws, now with FW shoulder pads!

The Tyrant's Legion is limited to just allies of convenience for IG & Marines only, with no other allies options. The Astral Claws on the other hand is just another SM chapter. Allowing them to ally with my Storm Wardens if I want to. To lead them I have yet another Librarian. As usual its a Grey Knight, with different arms/head/and shoulder pads.

These guys, along with the rest of my Tyrant's Legion got to see combat this past weekend (Librarian excluded).  They were teamed up with the Fem Fa'Tau in a 2v2 game vs. Orks and Dark Angels. We won decisively due to the game carrying on to turn 6. Had it ended on turn 5, the outcome could have gone either way, so it was a good game. Two things of note for my troops though.

First up, my Astral Claw grav-gunner got his first ever kill with the grav gun! Firing an overwatch shot, and killing an Ork with his 6+ save!!! He did later account for a DW termie though. SPEAKING of the DW Termies, getting cocky due to an overwhelming number of saves made. They turned their backsides to our forces to 'moon' us...and thus Belial took a lascannon up the ass (that was the Warlord VP, thank you very much!). lol.

A reenactment & a place to remember...

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This past weekend, my GF and I went out of town to celebrate her birthday. The weather was perfect, we ate some great food, and I wish we had more time to explore the area! Also, before anyone thinks the following photos are of things that wouldn't be appealing be to her, she all but planned the weekend out, asking me: 'Would you want to do this?' Boy would I!!!

The 'Battle of Buchanan.' In truth it was more of a rearguard skirmish on the Union Army's march on Lynchburg. The Confederates succeeded and delaying the Union army by burning several bridges (and most of the town of Buchanan by accident...).

Still, Who can say no to artillery duels, cavalry engagements, you could all but 'hear' the the fun they were having in their voices as they yelled their battle cries whilst charging each other!

...and of course infantry engagements. Playing up to the locals here in the South (which included a historically inaccurate cameo appearance of Robert E. Lee), the Southern troops were apparently zombies who continued to get back up and fight. Thus by the battle's end, almost all the casualties are Union troops. Not quite sure if that's what 'the South will rise again!' is supposed to mean...

This is a view off of the Blue Ridge Parkway between Buchanan and our lodge at the Peaks of Otter. This pic and the next are for John Lambshead, as he periodically posts beautiful pics of England which I always enjoy!

Our view of Sharp Top Mountain, and Abbott lake as seen from the balcony of our room.

The D-Day Memorial in Bedford, VA. Proportionally, Bedford suffered more D-Day losses per capita than any other town in the country. 19 on D-Day itself, with 3 more during the Normandy campaign, from a town of just 3200 people, which is why the Monument was located here.

An interesting map of the landings in a tiled mosaic above Eisenhower's head in his part of the memorial.

The use of air jets to represent incoming shots at the troops as they wade to shore is genius! Note: the granite 'Higgins boat' on the left.

The perfect pic were it not for the photo bomb...

A monument of thanks to Bedford and the United States from France, with the 'Overlord Arch' behind it.

As you can see it was an excellent time, and we hope to go back and see all that we missed sometime in the future...

Hail Hydra!!!

lol, well, contrary to my comment on Thursday of: "I'm not too fond of the Alpha Legion or Night Lords specific rules" I think I'm going with the Alpha Legion. Really the only part of the rules I don't like is that units w/o infiltrate or deep strike have to have a dedicated transport or else they can't be taken. When using the Legion specific rules that is...which are awesome (and allow for army-wide infiltration, so I guess that's an exploitable loophole).

Of course its probably a moot point as the army may never actually make it to 'army' status. Plus I was looking more towards assault squads (who can deep strike via their jump packs), and I do have an ancient (if somewhat beat up) rhino for a tac squad. So I guess its all good.

The Alpha Legion have always been a favorite, all the more so after reading about them in the HH novels. Also, having a Centurion-Vigilator wearing scout armor so he can operate with a recon squad deep behind enemy lines screams Alpha Legion like no other! Raven Guard maybe, but to be honest I got bored halfway thru their section of FW's HH book III.

Looking online for Vigilator images online looks like it requires all kinds of greenstuff work. However like the old predator from my last post, I also have this old (and recently stripped) model:

Thunder armor...scout armor...what's the difference?

In a word: Perfect.

Also 'recon squads' can get scout armor and so model wise they're essentially SM scouts. Everyone knows I have several of them, and whilst my shotgun squad usually does quite well, my bolter scouts have a tendency to suck ass (and do so with a disappointing consistency). So, the bolter schmucks are traveling 10,00 years back in time and are Joining the Alpha Legion. Here's a test model:

Cool looking Imperial Guard helmets FTW!

I wanted to give them helmets, and the IG vehicle gunner helmeted head fit the bill nicely (once I scraped off the Aquila). One issue with these is that only the disgustingly effete Emperor's Children can wear the Aquila on their armor. However the bolter covers it almost entirely, and well...perhaps they're masquerading as those purple idiots anyways. 

Fluffy, no? 

So these guys will give me a few existing minis to play around with for the time being. Perhaps I'll have enough to field against Bob and/or Kushial and their HH minis in a 30k Kill Team game sometime soon.

Salvage operations in progress...

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Waaaaaaaaay back in February of last year, I sank my old predator (the first model I ever bought for 40k) into some simple green. I was planning to strip it of its MANY layers of paint to conscript it into yet another army. At the time the Dark Angels were eying the tank, but that project (like so many of mine) went the way of ebay. As such, this poor sunken wreck remained in its watery...or rather Simple Green grave till today.

I recently downloaded the first two Horus Heresy rule books (and many thanks to those fine Russians who make such things possible), and have been pondering a small Warhammer 30k force ever since. Now, to be honest, I'd LOVE, love, love, love to have the actual FW books, but I don't have the funds to spend $100+ on just one book, much less three of them. Maybe one day...

The extra bit is from an old IG Griffon that was used as extra armor on the tank's front. I've found another of these in my bitz box, so I won't have to worry about stripping the glue off of it. I also found a brand new set of side doors, so I may just run it without sponsons.

Still a bit of crud to remove on the front and the side sponsons...

...speaking of those sponsons, if you're in the market for some, they're available here. ;-)

Likewise I don't have the funds for a 30K army either, but I do have some old minis, such as this one that will scratch that itch with minimal, if any cost to me. It still needs some clean up, but is coming along nicely. Indeed, especially so when considering that whilst scrubbing off the layers of paint, the tank looked like something from one of Nurgle's fantasies, ugh.

When Deathstars collide...

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Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop took on Kushial's Hello kitties of Harlech this past weekend. I took some pics, but for a more in depth battle report click on the link above. Things started out badly when I realized I'd forgotten my killa kans and my warboss!!!

What. The. Fuck. 

A squad of Kommandos filled in for the kans and Blum, a mere nob filled in for Da Masta Cheef himself.

1500 points, Big Gunz Never Tire w/5 objectives. Tau deployment, Beakies went first with no night fight (which we later forgot about)...

Turn one sees 2 of the 3 landraiders trying to flank my line.

Da Ork Ay-jis wiv LOTS of gunz!!! (and an objective)

30 Ard Boys still melted in the face of overwhelming firepower...

Da Matilda's adversary. These two would go several rounds and do little to one another in the process...

And here's where the 'Deathstars collide.' Da Beakies' Kommanda and his decked out kommand squad charges the Nobz mob launching an epic multi-turn brawl! Beside them you can see the much diminished ard boys unit.

His ard boys wiped out, Blum and his attack squig charge the closest landraider...

It go BOOM!

Meanwhile the beakies charged the battlewagon, and their krak grenades amounted to just 2 glancing hits, lolz!

Eventually they would take down the battlewagon. No matter as the nobz wiped out the Beakie kommanda and hiz kommand boyz (and still held an objective).

Killing off the useless Kommandos, the Landraider and Matilda (and its squad of Tankbustas) continue to trade ineffectual fire. Seriously, the tankbustas BETTER GET TANK HUNTER in the new codex, or they'll continue to be all but friggin' useless! Must've hit that thing 15 times, and only got 3 glancing hits.

At games' end, we tallied up VP's and da Beakies had 2 more than da boyz. Still, it was a good game so all was well.