My new 10th Ed 40k army?

 o/

Well, yeah sorta. 

You should get 20 Skitarii out of one boxed set!

From what I understand, Imperial Agents aside, allies are most likely going away in 10th ed 40k, which is a frightening prospect for my multitude of side projects:

The Inquisitors and haughtily find themselves above such concerns.

The Incandescent Coyotes were recently eBayed off, much to Zzzzz's dismay.

The Eldar were transferred to Neverness.

The squad of Demiur-uh, Votann will go to Rob when I next see him. 

The Iggies  are...kind of in limbo at the moment (I like them, but loathe the financial costs of expanding them). 

The Chaos marines and cultists are likely to suffer the same fate as the Coyotes. 

Lastly, the Adeptus Mechanicus has (by 9th ed point values) recently doubled in size!

This exploded view of the Dino-bot is missing it's ribcage which covers the engine in the main body. This kit looks soooo much nicer than the actual mini in my opinion.

Currently they're sitting at the 500 point mark, with a 3D printed dino-bot (Ironstrider) still in pieces as it will be a paint-as-I-assemble model due to all of the recessed nooks and crannies once it is built. I didn't mention what specifically were my purchases from Wargame Exclusive in my last post, but it was the aforementioned dino-bot, and their oh so excellent Skitarii conversion kit. 

After assembling a 2nd squad of Vanguard to go with the first, I used the conversion set to build these Rangers.

As you can see, they seamlessly fit with GW's excess parts, though head positioning angles are a bit limited without some minor trimming. 

While GW's multi-option kits make sense for them from a logistical point of view, everyone who's ever bought one of said kits ends up with a LOT of wasted plastic. Sure, we all like bitz, but I'd rather have both squads, or two separate squad boxes at a lower price point. Or, a conversion kit that lets you make both squads from one boxed set (and for about $20 less than buying two Skitarii boxes).

Aside from a pile of unused 25mm bases (from both GW & WGE), these few parts are all that was left over from the Skitarii box.

This week in random paint jobs (part 1)

 o/

With no games planned, Saturday night seemed a good time to finish off several half-painted minis.

I believe this was February's Robot of the Month Club's offering.

I love these things. I have 3 more to paint (Including a cybernetically enhanced mouse which arrived Friday). This bot is currently staring win awe in amongst my wife's house plants. I do wonder how long it will take her to notice...

These are from Diehard Miniatures' E-Corps range. Am guessing that they're sci-fi mercenaries or something of the like.

These two have a very old school 40k feel to them which is why I bought 'em.

I have no clue as to what I'll do with these two blokes. I like their cobbled together, sorta or perhaps at one time formerly fully powered armor. Paint wise they don't match anything else that I have in my collection, but who knows, maybe I'll find a use for them at some point.

Characters and squad leaders (currently just this one) have fancy bases. 

The shady as fuck livery from their parent Forge World of Hel is on full display. 

This is the entirety of the painted portion of my Skitarii force. 

I finished off my Skitarii squad as well. The squad leader's colorful base has the markings of the Mordian Iron Guard on it. Whatever happened to those guys anyways? I guess they didn't survive the transition away from metal armies (which is ironic considering the plastic cyborg standing atop said base). 

Also present on the left is my Skitarii warlord, Techno-Archeologist 808 Linum, as well as the Ordo Adeptus Inquisitor MS-D05 on their right. MS-D05 has been most perturbed here of late by whispers in the warp saying that he won't be able to ally with the forces from Hel, though the veracity of that has yet to be proven...

What's part 2 you ask? Well, you can see that here. 

A Friday night brawl in the Appalachian Subsector

 o/

If this doesn't qualify as a brawl, then I don't know what does.

I got to play another round of 40k this past weekend vs. my buddy Screech and his golden horde of Necrons. It was just the two of us in a 'standard' rather than multi-player game, and as such we upped the game size to 1500 points apiece. 

Three central objectives were used, approached by many, and taken by none. However, we'll get to that here in a bit...

My 1318 points of Smurfs (their maximum at this point) accompanied by a small Mechanicum contingent lead by Techno-Archeologist 

808-Linum and Ordo Mechanum Inquisitor MS-D05.

The golden Horde. Note: all of the warriors were being proxied as Immortals (gulp).

The Necron Deployment.

The Smurf Deployment with the Mechanicum off in the distance.

My first turn was disappointingly uneventful with the sole exception of my Firestrike Servo-turret removing a heavy destroyer from the other side of the table (it was perched atop the ork ruin in the distance). 

Displeased with this, his war-of-the-worlds walkers opened up on the Firestrike. The transhuman physiology stratagem was the only thing to keep said turret from being blown off of the table itself, though it came perilously close with but 1 wound remaining. 

I didn't get pics of the wraiths 1st turn charge, however my Smurfs were soon victorious and my close combat 'blob' advanced on the Necron line with another squad of Intercessors near by in support. The intercessors in back were meanwhile trading fire with that walker in the distance.

A better view of the close combat 'blob' consisting of assault intercessors, Reivers, a Chaplain and Lt. Horridus.

On the other side of the table, the combined fire of a third squad of intercessors and the Hellblasters dispatched a squad of Immortals who had done the same to my Skitarii the turn before. The Skitarii were arguably less of a target than the other two squads, however they out-shot all 16 marines combined, which slated them for immediate (and successful) removal.

After a short ranged fire fight, the Smurfs prepare to charge!

Or conversely, to take a charge on the other table end...

Overwatch got one!

And then the big 'crons killed two marines and wounded a third. 

After 3+ games in which every anti-tank weapon I've had has harmlessly bounced off of Screech's War-of-the-worlds walkers, the stalker bolt rifle equipped Intercessors of all things (with the aid of a stratagem or two) actually managed to take one down, huzzah!

Retreating to shoot again (its a Smurf thing). All while cursing the useless Inquisitor and Techno Archeologist 808-Linum for failing to do anything useful to the monster in their midst. 

Turn three, and practically everything I had left outside of the stalker equipped squad charged. 

Well, and Lt. Horridus who felt it prudent to hang back and buff those in combat with his Tactical Precision following his charge roll of a 2...

Turns out that a flag pole makes for a halfway decent close combat weapon!

Thinning 'em down but then...

...Necron chicanery fills their ranks with the undead Immortals once more! 

That has got to be one of the ugliest walkers in the whole 40k universe! 

After the Inquisitor failed to psychically dominate the Necron Lord's already dead mind, the beast charged yet again, taking down another marine!

And as it was almost 11:30 pm, that's basically where the game ended, with damned near everything in close combat and not an objective to be had by either side at any point. 

Not mentioned above but worth noting here: the Immortals toughness of 5, rerolls in addition to their we'll be back rolls and vast number of shots that they can dish out is down right frightening! Once again I had to question Rob's lack of wisdom in gifting this army to Screech when he arrived to play peanut gallery. 

We had fun though, so all was good even if the game only ended in a draw. 

Cheese, Smelly Cheese & the Smurfs

 o/

This here is my blog, and if I want to call both of my opponents cheesy while claiming not to be myself, then you can just accept that as gospel and not some sort of Imperial propaganda. 

Just saying, lol. 

I met up again with Rob and Mike for another game of 40k, I tried to lure in Neverness, but he's still lost in the warp it seems. 1K each, central objective, (as it turned out, not so) random initiative and firing into enemy combats, just like the last time. 

The smurfs deployed in my center. Not pictured but on their right were 5 hellblasters, Captain Horridus and a 7-strong firstborn tactical squad from one of the reserve companies.  

On my left was my first ever deployment of the Adeptus Mechanicus. They're from one of the unnamed custom forge worlds and their bonus was +6" to their carbine's range. The painted one is Ordo Mechanum Inquisitor MS-D05, and to his left is Techno Archanologist 808-Linum, as well as an X-101 class servitor.

Mike as you can see brought the 3D printed cheese. The wraith guard with shield and spear is a proxied Farseer as he has yet to find a file for one of those. 

With his Necrons still snoozing away somewhere, Rob opted for his good ol' Nurgle psychic shenanigans list (though as we would later learn, the Eldar had shenanigans in spades as well).

Turn one and I made a general 6" advance with the assault intercessors advancing 11" right into range of the Wraithguard who summarily slaughtered them to a man!

The Legions of Nurgle reveal themselves enmasse (to me anyways, I'm sure Mike could see them all just fine from his side of the table).

The Marines decide to stay in place and just blaze away ineffectually at the wraith guard from afar, wounding 1 in exchange for another dead marine or two thanks to the wraith lord.

I was rather enjoying the 24" ranged carbines (ineffective as they were against wraith guard), Mike however was not amused and removed that squad from the board. 

With bolters proving worthless, the hellblasters softened up the nearest squad of plague marines, before sending in the firstborn to finish them off. While a successful endeavor, this would be a multi-turn brawl that would take a marine or two of mine with them.

Rob had gotten to the objective (the ruined building in the middle) first, earning him a VP or two. It was also at this point that the Smurfs and plague marines pondered joining forces against the nigh unkillable Eldar. Mike's dice were rolling good and shrugging off most everything we threw at him. 

Realizing that the X-101 had a grav-gun meant it died next with the inquisitor taking 3 wounds as well. In fact, the only Inquisitorial thing that MD-D05 would do before dying was iron willing an Eldar psychic power off. 

After some more generally fruitless shooting, Rob's Daemon prince and the surviving death shrouds prepare to charge into melee...

...however the wraith guard overwatched and using some side-boarded 6's via the strands of fate of some such chicanery, they obliterated Rob's daemon prince!

The first born having finally dispatched the last plague marine advance and engage the stupid poxwalkers who all but one die as usual. The rest of my surviving army shoots at the lead wraith guard squad reducing them from 3 models to just 1. bleh!

I'm sure that the eradication pistol is a damned fine weapon when it's shooting at something that isn't toughness 8!

As the pox walkers pop up out of the ground like daisies to further bog down the firstborn, more terminators wade into the scrum on the other side of the objective. At least nobody was getting any points for it now. 

808-Linum charges in to meet his destiny...

...and suffers 2 wounds for if troubles. We later learned that had Mike read his rules properly, 808-Linum would instead have been reduced to a fine mist!

The plague marines and firstborn exchange a few potshots but little becomes of it. 

The wraith guard turn away from my smurfs to engage with the far more dangerous terminators in their midst. 

As usual, the entire surviving smurf contingent unloads on the wraith guard, killing the last one from the front squad and wounding another.  

Well that was fun despite feeling like I was totally outclassed! The all wraith guard list has always been the cheesiest in any edition when it has been available (the only time I've crushed it was with an IG armored company). 

That said, to his credit Mike only chose it because it looked cool rather than knowing how good it was. Had he actually read more than just their most basic rules and stats they would've been so much worse!

We weren't sure of the total VP count, Rob had 1 or 2, and neither of us had any so the point was moot, and the Plague marines claimed the victory.