Imperial Guard Manticore

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So, we've been contemplating a return to Morristown to wage war once again across 'god's soccer field'. One thing I was lacking in our first venture there (aside from the aforementioned lack of cover) was a lack of long ranged and/or anti-tank firepower. So this time around I'll probably bring my renegade (gun line) IG. Six lascannons and a Basilisk go a long way towards alleviating the range/anti-tank problem. Another thing that also helps is my Manticore. However it was only half assembled and always deployed with a pile of missiles next to it. I didn't want to bring it to a tourney like that, so it became this weekend's painting project.

Not one of my better paint jobs but it came out decently I suppose. Despite using microsol the decals still have a little bit of a greyed halo around them. ...shrugs... oh well. In any case, as you can see the missile rack is movable though the missiles are glued in place. I didn't see an easy way to magnetize them, so skipped that. I'll just place a D4 next to it so show how many missiles have been fired. Most times the point is moot as despite its mediocre tabletop record, the Manticore is usually target priority #1!

On another note, the Manticore is sadly an end to an era. My renegade IG's vehicles are painted in a two tone camouflage of terracotta and scorched brown. However in their infinite wisdom, GW decided to discontinue terracotta quite some time ago, and as you can see at the bottom of my last terracotta paint pot at right, I'm pretty much out of it. When it was discontinued, the FLGS marked it down to 50% off to get rid of it, and I bought ALL OF IT! Not wanting to see another army get messed up by a discontinued color like my tau (nauseating blue) and Eldar (jade green) before it. The only things i have left that would need terracotta (the infantry color scheme varies) is a seventh lascannon and the third sabre platform. I doubt there's enough in this pot though to finish them off, instead the may end up being predominantly brown.

Already there are rumors that GW is changing paint manufacturer's again. Makes me wonder what other essential color I'm about to lose next? Will the ones they keep be consistent with old ones which was an issue when they left Coat d'arms (and yes, I could reorder some discontinued colors from them, but but paint is already expensive as hell to not order it from England). That leads into the next and most obvious assumption.

What? GW is changing their paints you say? What now? Even smaller pots with yet higher prices again? Let me guess, its called 'fine paint'...

And before anyone starts recommending vallejo & P3, I dislike the dropper style pots & there is that consistency issue that I mentioned. Though as often as I slather stuff in washes and layers of dry brushing, the latter may not be a valid excuse anymore...

A Tau...Catfish?

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Not much has happened this week on the painting front. its been a fairly crummy week and so I've not been in much a mood to paint. However some progress at least has been made on the Devilfish.

Neverness gave me the spearhead tank upgrade sprue for Christmas, and I added the bits from that to the front wings. They kinda look like tank whiskers to me, hence the catfish moniker (or should I call it a 'blackened catfish?'). I figure that they'll work for either sensor spines and/or disruption field generators. Initially I had no idea as to what they were, or even where they went. I was goolging images to see what the other Tau bits looked like when mounted where I eventually found a pic with the spines attached to someone's Sky Ray.

I don't much care for the other sensor bits. They kinda remind me of saddle bags. Plus the backside of them is open, wtf GW? I thought that they fit snug up against the hull, but no. So I skipped them.

While the roof hatch & drones have yet to be primed & painted, decals added & weathering, the topside is basically done. So I'm now working on the underside with the sides & rear to follow. Hmmm, just noticed those nasty mold lines on the landing gear...

I've also tried out the GW's new liquid green stuff on the engine nacelles. To be honest, my first thought on opening the bottle was:

'Surely I have some gloppy dry brush paint somewhere that is just like this. Probably could've used that saved myself $4.83.'

The engines were already in bad shape (waaaay too much glue) so the point is probably moot. Regardless, a few really bad spots were given some glops of LGS, which I'll sand down flat later. I still think that the thick & gloppy paint sludge would have worked just as well. I feel kinda ripped off actually. Oh well, such are the dangers of trying something new.

Disclaimer: While not intentional, the following sounds kinda like a rant in and of itself, sorry Madival, you kinda have that effect on me.

On another and somewhat parallel note, yet another friend of mine has started a gaming blog. The: Lesser of All Evils. The aforementioned Madival is with whom I traded off the 'god squad' for this Devilfish. He has also been the subject of some (well, maybe a lot) of my rants in regards to armies that aren't ever wysiwyg, net lists, playing for ties, shitty/dirty tactics, etc. (okay, so it was a LOT). Indeed I had blacklisted him a few years back after reaching the conclusion that I never had any fun playing against him.

Quite a few people held that opinion, and finding himself faced with the prospect of having nobody to game with (such are the travails of gaming in rural areas) he has started to make a bit of a 180 degree turn in hopes of becoming a 'fun' player, rather than the cheeseball that I so often refer to him as. Indeed, he says as much in his latest post. So give him a look, and encourage him in his painting which is something he only just started to try his hand at. Previously everything in his inventory was either bare plastic or purchased fully painted via ebay (while some do, I personally take no issue with people buying painted ebay armies, as I've sold several on there myself).

Last week was Chaos!

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Last week I played FIVE games of 40k, and all using variations of the same list (and trying to capture a hellova lot of objectives). Photos from the first two games can be seen in my prior post (just scroll down a bit). Here's a summary:

Monday, 2k CSMs vs. Mech IG.

While I like to refer to Screech's IG as a 'Leaf blower' list, that concept never seems to work for it (there are always bitter denials as well). Anyways, Pitched battle & 3-4 (I don't recall exactly) objectives to capture. The CSMs won quite handily despite heavy casualties.

Wednesday, 1k CSMs vs. BA, infantry ONLY (just for variety).

Same set up & mission (3 objectives). I took one flank & objective, Banner Elk's BA took the other (located on the Khorne temple...hmm, BA went straight to the house of the blood God, mere coincidence?). The middle turned into a HTH meat grinder in which virtually all who enter died (barring the 2 termies in my last post). So it ended as a draw.

Friday, 1.5K CSMs vs. CSMs. Dawn of war, 1 objective a piece (I can never remember which is which of the 2 objective missions without the book in front of me).

After Rogue Trader Voril alerted us to a tourney nearby, Screech & I decided to go and were using our game @ the FLGS as a 'training op'. We went sparse on terrain expecting that to be the case (and oh ow right we were). However Ahriman & Thousand Sons, were apparently unaware that Tzeentch had forsaken their dice prior to the game. Indeed, it was later tallied that my Greater Demon killed off 700+ points just by himself! Needless to say, Screech's Thousand Sons would not be going to the tourney after that debacle!

Saturday, game #1 at the tourney. 1.5k CSMs vs. Dark Eldar, Dawn of war & 3 objectives.

This was to be the first time since the codex release that I've faced DE, and it was a learning experience (for future reference, kill the Razorwing ASAP!!!). As you can see, we were fighting on a table that resembled Iowa. It was wide open with virtually no terrain! Three guys who said they'd be there with terrain failed to show (typical of gamers) and so things started dying fast from shooting on both sides. Luckily Plague Marines (and as it turns out, Witches) make for excellent tar pits when in HTH combat.

In the background you can barely see my unpainted Plague marines hunkered in a trench. Virtually the ENTIRE Dark Eldar army shot at them for 3 consecutive turns, yet only managed to kill three of them (those guys want their paint!). The greater demon popped out of their champion, and after 2-3 rounds of HTH sent a Hermoculae (or however that's spelled) & a few surviving witches fleeing for their lives. However the infamous turn 5 objective grab won the day for the DE.

Being a single elimination tourney, I would have been out, except that my opponent had to leave and so granted me his spot to continue on.

Tourney game #2, CSMs vs. BT, Spear Head, Annihilation.

Fighting on the same table yet losing the die roll for deployment, I was in the (unseen above) corner that had 2 grain silo (appropriate given the Iowa reference) looking things, and NOTHING else...ugh. The BT army (sorry, forgot to get a photo) was actually his own chapter using the BT codex (man I hate that preferred enemy vow) and was painted in the colors similar to the Astral Claws, complete with free handed lions. He told me the name and when I said 'What?', he said (with a grin) 'The Lions of something Welsh'.

lol. Awesome!

At this point my CSMs' dice had had enough of gaming and pretty much turned on me. However my army went down fighting taking 5 kps out of the enemy while being reduced to just the greater demon running across the table towards the retreating (and denying kps) Lions and one predator. I did have 2 meltaguns both hit & blow up a Landraider crusader in 'magic range' (I always seem to roll 2's to hit in that situation). Screech had fallen in round one as did Voril, so we left to get some food. I don't know who won overall though I believe the Lions were in contention for it.

It was a fun day and both Screech & I got many compliments on our paint jobs (well, for the painted portion of my army anyways, Screech's however was fully painted). There's another in 2 weeks, on Super Bowl Sunday. They plan to have a TV set up in there to watch the game, and seeing as how we both wanted to see a 49ers/Ravens game, will probably go to the tourney instead.

It was also interesting to note that there were no SW, GK or Necrons @ the tourney either.

Cell phone cameras & TLoS

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This came up a few weeks back & has really worked rather well ever since. Indeed its become the norm @ my house.

Usually in games, photos are taken for either battle reports or what looks to be a rather cinematic shot, like this:

This looks like a long walk into a lot of Blood Angel bolter fire...

However as you can see in the background of that photo, there's a wall. Yes right up against the table. You see my game room isn't big enough to allow for us to walk all the way around the table, so on one side, determining TLoS has always been kindova pain in the ass. Usually the player being targeted has to kneel down & see if they can see the enemy gun that's trying to shoot them, that or whomever is shooting will come around the table to do the same. Games @ my house are fun & friendly, so this isn't really an issue. However recently Murl (who gets full credit here) instead just pulled out his cell phone, placed it behind his tank turret, and snapped a shot. Like this:

Actually this is Screech doing the same thing earlier this week, and a photoshoped version of the photo taken. As you can see, the camera idea works great! I would imagine that this would also work well in a tourney and prevent a lot of arguing from a situation in which the tables are set end-to-end (which I have seen several times).

Once again, technology saves the day!

A Red Corsair

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I've always liked the Red Corsairs, and probably my first (and really bad) conversion so many years ago was to make a Huron Blackheart model. Red Corsair was even my screen name on the old Portent, its successor, Warseer, and a few other forums.

So, recently I was perusing a borrowed copy of the Imperial Armor Badhab war books & was contemplating the Tyrants' Legion army list. Mixing IG & SMs has a very 2nd. ed. feeling to it in my opinion, and is thus appealing (for nostalgia reasons). However rather than misguided & heavily indoctrinated PDF troopers who think that they're fighting for the Emperor, my IG are clearly followers of Chaos. So rather than paint up a space marine in the colors of the Astral Claws, I instead went with the later Red Corsair color scheme.

Given his organization of his legion, I don't see why Blackheart would alter that once he started building an empire within the Maelstrom. The Tyrant's Legion list (aside from taking Blackeart himself) allows for a Centurion as an HQ choice (basically a 2 wound SM vet. sgt. stat wise). There are other SM units included, but really I just figure to use this guy along with my renegade IG. Once in a while anyways. The Legion's IG equivalent doesn't have access to lascannons, sabre platforms, the cyclops or manticores, thus gutting virtually all of my IG's long ranged firepower.

I was trying to think of a name for him, but the only thing that comes to mind is the NIN song: The Hand That Feeds. Not sure it that would work for a Space marine though...


Also, on a totally different subject, a friend of mine, Red Bird has started an art blog. Anyone who has perused my blog roll will note that there are several other art blogs included, so this addition is hardly out of place. Also Red bird does paint minis & hosts our Dark Heresy games as well (normally playing the role of my self-declared nemesis), so gaming related content may appear on there at some point...

Secret Weapon's Rapid Assault Vehicle

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Considering all of the new stuff that I got for Christmas, why am I painting on this second hand Devilfish? I don't even have anything else for that army ('yet' as Murl would say). However its cool looking and...

...we now interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to show you my latest toy...

So having been drooling over the CAD concepts, as soon as this went on pre-order I ordered the new Rapid Response Vehicle from Secret Weapon Miniatures. Yesterday, it arrived, behold:

Here it is, straight out of the box, no gates/mold lines trimmed or anything.

Yup, that's really cool looking! It vaguely reminds me of the South African Rooikat. Of all of its weapon options (and as you can see there are several), the hull mounted flamer & high velocity cannon above look the best I think. However that cannon doesn't really have a 40k analog (i.e.: its a realistic size for a modern day cannon, unlike say, a battlecannon). The multi-laser & support cannon (the two in the low-center) are a toss up for the next best looking options. I was thinking of painting this up to go with my Infinity-turned-VOR models, but that would be consigning this to a life on the shelf. So I think I'll opt for the multi-laser option, using this as Inquisitor Coteaz' personal Chimera equivalent.

Its roughly the size of a Chimera, though just where that size comparison photo went to I'm...not quite sure. Here it is with the hull of my new Predator tank. It could work as a Razorback, however it lacks side doors. Besides, having the wheels kind of fits better with the Chimera's 12/10/10 armor. It does have two small exit ramps in back. I wouldn't want to have to crawl out of those under combat conditions though. It also has two rear gun ports per side, though I may limit the number of those firing out to 2 rather than the normal 5 as there is no roof troop compartment hatch.

Of course, this being a resin kit, and a new one at that, it has some issues. Odds are you've already spotted the huge air bubble on the one tire, and the mold apparently slipped on the other side. To render that invisible would require GS skills far beyond what I can manage. However as this is a $45 kit (shipping included) , I popped off an email with attached photos saying as much to see if they would send me replacements. I figured I'd get a response in 24-48 hours, as per the usual for online inqueries.

About 45 minutes later when I came in from taking down my Christmas lights, there was already an email in my mailbox from Mister Justin himself, apologizing for the defects & letting me know that replacements will be shipped out ASAP! For a small online sales gaming company, with whom I've never dealt with before, that's as good as it gets from a customer service point of view!

...and now back to our regularly scheduled Tau nonsense...

...here is the color scheme that I came up with. Chaos black with Hawk Turquoise & codex Grey trim. Looks pretty good so far I think. Neverness gave me the Spearhead vehicle upgrade sprue for Christmas, and while I don't care for the look of the 'saddlebag like' sensors, it does have some interesting looking sensor array-things to go on the front. I had no idea as to what they were till I googled the Tau spearhead upgrade images and found a pic waaaaay down the list that had them. First & only time I've ever seen them used, so liking the uniqueness of that, I'll add those in after finishing up with the chin turret.

Da Grot Mega Tank & a Devilfish

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This past weekend, I played in a 2 v.1 at our local FLGS, and I got to use Da Grot Spee for the first time (still no regular grot tanks as of yet, but no one seemed to mind). And....it didn't do too much aside from look good (and hide dice underneath itself to everyone's detriment). Turn 2 a squabble broke out on board rendering it incapable of shooting, and shortly thereafter it took a lascannon amidships & was stunned for all of turn 3. Still, It did shake a Rhino one round & kill a SW scout or two. Rather than repeat myself with a battle report, I suggest you go here & read neverness' excellent recap.


While @ the FLGS, I also traded out the Paladin 'God Squad'. I had hoped for a Hammerhead, however after perusing the collection of tanks (and swapping out parts to get a complete kit with all parts & no mysterious gaping holes) I just opted for the Devilfish. Overall the hull is in good shape, though drones aren't pictured here. Neither drone had flight stands, and one had the typical broken antenna (both issues which are easily remedied, though its then just a debate as to how long before I break the antenna off myself).

The engines however aren't in the greatest of shape. As per this kit's usual, the sprue gate on the FRONT of the engine nacelle (good job with that GW) apparently left a nice air bubble/hole. Perhaps I'll try the liquid GS on those. Also the undersides have excessive glue and...flash? Heh, why trim that off, right? lol. The flash & worst of the glue gobs have been removed, but its still not too pretty. However as this is all on the underside, it'll be easy to hide.

Engineseer of the Dark Mechanicus

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Ok, here's something a bit more lighthearted after all of yesterday's negativity. Last night, BannerElkGamer's Blood Angels arrived to wipe my renegade guardsmen from the face of the planet, and almost succeeded (almost meaning one survived, the Enginseer). My plan started to unravel early, and in hindsight, removing the HTH oriented IG units (Straken, Marbo, etc.) from my list whilst knowing that the BA were on they're way was a bad decision. However there were a few highlights.

Starting off, over the course of the game, i do believe that my two quad Sabres inflicted just as much damage as the much feared Manticore (I really need to assemble the 3rd Sabre). Second, the Infantry squad that disintegrated under a BA assault squad, almost made it to round 3 when a lone grunt made 6 out of 7 flak armor saves! Had he done so it would have been irrelevant, but making that many saves is always worthy of a mention. Speaking of tar pits, while Major Outbreak (my renegade commissar lord) & the veterans fled for their lives at the first opportunity (box cars on the LD check, nice) the two merged infantry squads has to be killed to a man over 3 consecutive rounds of HTH. Indeed the last survivor was a commissar who rolled box cars on his flak armor saves, and thus holding the BA in place for another unnecessary round.

However the 'hero' of the day was my Engineseer, or a Heretek as they're known in the Dark Mechanicus. You see, in turn one a drop pod landed in my backfield, and a dreadnought emerged (and that's what I meant by "My plan started to unravel early..."). Seeing little hope of survival against that beast of a machine, the Engineseer valiantly charged the drop pod! Krak grenades & servo arm poised & ready. Sensing the danger, the drop pod swiveled it's storm bolter in his direction and opened fire! The result:

FIVE ROUNDS OF EPIC HAND TO DROP POD COMBAT IN WHICH ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENED!!!!

He couldn't glance, couldn't penetrate, couldn't even rewire/corrupt the infernal machine spirit within to silence that damned gun! Nor could the pod hit half of the time, or inflict a substantial enough wound to cause him to fail any armor saves! Not even heavy bolter & lascannon fire from a far off Landraider could see the Enginseer off!

The hilarity of that continuing situation made the game far more entertaining than it otherwise might have been!

Also, note the much improved lighting of the battlefield, and the Manticore. Out of missiles, heavy bolter ruined, and half dragged over some terrain via magna grapple (and only after a great many attempts to drag it towards the immobilized dreadnought was it finally moved a mere 3").

Sportsmanship defined and a tourney list to go with it.

The quote below is how sportsmanship was defined on a regional forum by an avid tourney player, quote:

"Sportsmanship is about sucking up and telling your opponent you like their paint job, asking them about the tournament so far, yucking it up over your own bad dice and talking about lunch."

Several comments above said statement was the following army list:

Draigo

1 Venerable Dreadnought with 2 TL autocannons and psybolt ammo
1 Venerable Dreadnought with 2 TL autocannons and psybolt ammo
1 Venerable Dreadnought with 2 TL autocannons and psybolt ammo

1 Paladin with MC NFS
1 Paladin with NFS

1 Stormraven with TL plasmacannon, TL Multi-melta, Searchlight
1 Stormraven with TL plasmacannon, TL Multi-melta, Searchlight
1 Stormraven with TL plasmacannon, TL Multi-melta, Searchlight

1 Dreadnought with 2 TL autocannons and psybolt ammo
1 Dreadnought with 2 TL autocannons and psybolt ammo



Note the list totals out to an odd number as that's part of the tourney's theme and that's about the only part of the above that acknowledges theme.

On top of that, the person who made the statement & list above is himself a tournament organizer who in the past has said that he hoped everyone will come out and 'have a good time' at his tourneys. I guess that concept doesn't apply to other people's tourneys.

With this kind of attitude, it should be no wonder as to why I avoid tourneys like the plague these days.

Making a few changes...

o/

Well, after the epic clash of the Deathstars from my last post, I then played Murl's Deathguard with a slightly trimmed down GK list with the grand master & god squad left unchanged. Needless to say, Deathguard, which is usually a strong army, crumpled like tinfoil in the face of so much cheese. Indeed Murl's reaction to the realization that after so many shots that he'd only wounded a Paladin rather than killed one was worthy of a Youtube upload (were a video camera available). He had been considering going to a 40k tourney in Knoxville that's only a few weeks off, but said the hell with it if this is the kind of army he could expect to see there.

Way to go GW.

So feeling like a slimeball WAAC player, I'm trading off the god squad to our local cheeseball who's (unsurprisingly) starting a Draigowing army in return for a tau tank of some sort (yeah, yeah, shut up Screech). For whatever reason I've wanted to paint one of those for going on 6 months, yet have had no urge to buy one. So that works. Besides, the Tau rumors are intriguing. I'll keep Matt Fucking Ward (reducing him in rank to just a 'mere paladin') & go back to my original retinue horde with a handful of GK in support idea, that list worked fairly decent & made for a better game i think.

Next I got a few upgrades for my game room this Christmas.

First off are new stools on wheels. Its amazing at how hard these were to find for under $75 a piece. However Lowes came thru in the end, having them @ $30 each. Previously I was using my old & new desk chairs, and while comfy (more for one person than the other), they took up too much space. Especially if you didn't really want to sit down. The stools are low enough to roll under the game table if they're unwanted/in the way, yet still comfortable to sit on for the duration of a game.

Next up was an improvement in lighting.

The ceiling looks black when you aim the camera directly at a light...

The combination of blue walls, and only a ceiling light with a single bulb led to a running joke that we were always 'night fighting' at my house (take a seat Mr. Necron Stormlord, your little party trick is old news here). However yesterday we installed a new ceiling fan that Mom gave me. Now having three bulbs, the lighting in there is dramatically improved. Not to mention the fan will help move the air around when its hot in there during summer (though that could be a detriment when Murl and/or Neverness start communing with Nurgle after eating some Chinese food as happens from time to time...).