Three more Ultramarine Intercessors are complete...

 ...but as usual, you can't see them because they're camouflaged!

The guy on the left is ready to stomp on some flowers in a very un-Smurfy fashion.

Grenade launcher #2, so each combat squad can have one...

...or one can instead just have both.

The Intercessors' last marine 'Smurfette' along with my Ancient and my first Hellblaster to see paint have all been started in earnest. 

Rebels vs. Scum & Villainy Battle Report

 o/

Frankie joined me for another bout of X-Wing this past weekend and here's how it all went down...

Frankie wanted to use some of the FLGS' 3D-printed Hoth terrain for Star Wars Legion as asteroids rather than the usual cardboard chits. We decided that the low split on the left side asteroid would be passable to fighters without any ill effect.

As such, my Binayre pilot took his Z-95 off in the direction to do just that, whereas my smarter pilots decided to go around...

X-Wings approaching from the other side. 

The Z-95 chickened out and instead made a hard right towards the Red Kraken that was charging across the center of the board. This Y-wing (which was outfitted with a bomb loadout upgrade yet no bombs because stupid pirates), squeaked by in hopes of making of a flanking run.  

Overconfident due to the Kraken's near invincibility in the past, Frankie charged straight into the teeth of my force and lost damned near all of the Kraken's shields for his efforts. 

His Z-95 unsuccessfully tried to thread the gap, losing a shield in the process. 

That said, he was rather amused as my Z-95 then flew straight into another asteroid in the following turn. 

The opposite flank of the board also saw some seriously close maneuvering as well!

Dipping into armor at this point, Chewbacca slews the Kraken around in a K-turn, Whilst the passing Dragonfly continues to pump dorsal ventral turret fire into the rebel YT. 

With ships scattered all over, I'd like to point out the two Black Sun Z-95s on the right. The one facing the X-Wings was my leader, N'Dru Suhlak (curiously I can't find a pic of him/her/it) who also had the Lone wolf and hull upgrade cards. Thus he got an extra shot and could reroll a blank die while either attacking or defending so long as no friendlies were within range 1-2.

But do you see that other Z-95 to his left? 

Yup, that little fucker wandered within range two, robbing N'Dru of his bonuses, and as a result the two X-Wings made short work of him, blasting thru all of his shields and hull points in one turn.  Damnit!

Speaking of leaders, Chewbacca and the Red Kraken were down to their last hull point and although the Kraken stripped all of the shields from my incoming Y-Wing, the Y's return fire finished him off!

Frankie's X-Wings however were still on a tear and would vaporize The Dragonfly in a quick retaliation!

At this point my buddy Rob wandered into the shop, and there was an intermission whilst we caught up. Frankie meanwhile played X-Wing Jenga, and the battle resumed once I took notice of both this and his obvious boredom. 

I'm not sure as to at when his Z-95 met it's end, but the tide finally turned at this point as I took down one of his X-Wings, leaving the other on it's own. 

The surviving X-Wing made a run for it, intending to fly thru the asteroid pass and off into the void. Unfortunately, it cut a turn a little too wide and glanced off of a different asteroid. While no damage from the collision was incurred, the distraction was enough for my for Y-wings to take out Frankie's last ship.

Following the requisite 20 minutes of sorting and putting away of Fantasy Fight Games nightmarish menagerie of tokens, I then took Frankie out for dinner, followed by a bit of Christmas shopping for his Mom. 

All in all, it was a fun evening!

Primaris Intercessor painting continues...

I really ought to get back to that DKK diorama, but momentum and all that... 

Ready for inking.

With two back-to-back games of 40k fielding my Ultramarines vs. Neverness, I've been (slowly) working on getting more of my army painted up. As such, in between those two games I started work on another trio of Smurf intercessors. 

It still surprises me at how flat these look without washes, and to think I didn't use them for well over a decade...

Were they the standard blue, they'd have painted up quickly but as always I've taken the long way around and camouflaged them. Speaking of, I reversed the order in which I applied the Macragge blue and Mechanicus grey. Once complete I doubt any difference in appearance will be noticeable and I sure as hell am not going back to repaint them! 

Apparently these two were underperforming and will thus remain just basic intercessors.

Another issue with these three intercessors is that they were originally allotted for my Silver Drakes army. So I tweaked that army list (500pts) and promoted 5 of my 7 painted grunts up to veteran intercessors, who will be lead by the (recently acquired) bolt pistol and power sword wielding Primaris Lt. who has since been demoted to Vet. Sgt. and downgraded to a 32mm base. 

I was concerned about matching the level of filth on the repainted pauldrons as compared to the old ones, but I think I got it. 

The other sides match pretty good as well. 

The other two painted Drakes remained standard intercessors and as such had their right pauldrons repainted and redecaled with tactical arrows (which is a change to the army's overall markings). 

Turning back to the Ultramarines, once the above Smurfs are finished next my paints and brush will come to my Primaris Ancient. This was another recent purchase (bought the demoted Lt.) both of whom saw their first taste in battle little more than 24 hours after arriving in the mail

The Lt. was unceremoniously cut down with little return effect. Whereas the Ancient, not so much. Historically in my experience, 40k standard bearers seem to share that same particular fate on a regular basis, making them a rare sight on the table top. However this guy stubbornly (and somewhat futilely) fought to the last, refusing to let any see his red(?) flag fall! 

YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIV-oh wait...

As such he's next in line to be painted, in recognition of his glorious demise pictured above. 

Incandescent Coyotes Apothecary

 o/

I knocked out a quick mini last week in between assembling the parts for my DKK diorama. If you haven't already heard, white contrast paint is in fact the shit when it comes to painting white minis. As such this is the first, fully painted Apothecary that I've fielded since...4th? or maybe 5th ed 40K?  Granted, for a good while there they were also kinda worthless on the tabletop giving little incentive to fight with the white paint. 

Even in natural light he looks washed out. For example: the base he's standing on is actually painted bleached bone. 

Not sure if having all of the various bottles be transparent makes any actual sense, but it does add a bit of visual interest I suppose. 

The business end of an Apothecary. 

This is one of the firstborn minis gifted to me by Kushial way back when, and he's painted to match my Incandescent Coyotes chapter. If there's one complaint with this guy, it's that the sand wash that make my Coyotes look like they're weathered all to hell, didn't work out so well with the white paint job. Oh well, whatever, this guy is the only white marine in the army.  

Better...

...much better!

Speaking of, I also went back and repainted the bases of my previously painted combat squad. They look much better now I think as the dust that cakes their armor and equipment now more closely matches the bases that they're standing on. This minor alteration to the squad and the painting of the Apothecary above however are the extent of any forward progress on this army aside from having more squads from my collection being assigned to this army, but more on that at a later date...

*****

This past weekend I actually managed to get a game in with Neverness! Unfortunately for me, my phone was almost dead when I got to the FLGS, so I took few photos. However you're in luck as he took extensive photos and will be posting a battle report later this week, so stay tuned!

A preview pic showing my camo-Smurfs actually doing a decent job of blending in with local terrain!

The End of the Road (pt. 1)

Chill out, I'm not talking about the end of this old blog. 

it may not be as flashy as Zzzz's Inquisitorial hot rods, but it makes for a good IG staff car.

Once painted, this will likely get a post unto itself.

The road goes on forev-oh wait....

For something a little different for myself, I've decided to do a simple little 40k diorama. Mounted on a 170mm x 92mm textured resin base, and featuring one of the Wargames Exclusive 40k cars (the purchase of which I'm blaming on Zzzzzz). I'll also be using two of the DKK minis from the Kill Team starter set. 

The officer. 

The DKK minis presented something of a problem, that being their backpacks. Normally IG backpacks have always been in the 'I want' category, but with the KT set, the omission of said packs leaves a gaping hole in the backs of the guardsmen. As these two will have recently exited the car, it's a bit stupid to think that they first donned their packs before doing so. Thus a little conversion work was needed.

And his beleaguered driver.

First, using the edge of a sharp knife, I shaved off the pack straps so as to look like the strap instead goes around his neck and under the collar. Rarely having any success with my mortal enemy (green stuff), I instead trimmed down a thin piece of plasti-card (almost feels like plastic paper), and glued it into place. Once dry I then used the blade's edge to file down the card's edge into a smooth transition to the rest of his body. 

The Commissariat said they'd shoot me if I was late.

Hopefully they were joking...

Conversions complete I then needed to set the mood. Conveniently, the KT sprues have a myriad of options for the arms/weapons of each models, most of which are interchangeable with the others. So it was relatively easy to create the sense of consternation and confusion felt by these two Guardsmen. 

Well its no wonder that this poor fucker got lost,

both of his maps are blank!

The officer, no doubt worried about getting admonished or worse yet executed for arriving late to wherever it is that he was going, is checking his time piece. Whether his pistol is out to 'encourage' his driver to correct his navigational error, or more practically a precaution due to being lost somewhere near the front line is a mystery. His driver meanwhile, frantically scanning both full sized and pocket maps, is pretty much self-explanatory. 

the 25mm bases will go away once the two guardsmen are painted.

Overhead view of the tentative positions.

Now that I have all of the needed parts assembled.

Painting may commence!