Thankfully September has come to an end...

 o/

Loren succumbs to the lure of Chaos...

Yeah, September wasn't a good month for me. It started out alright, however at about the week following my last post a coworker who thought he 'just had a cold' instead gave me covid. Which I in turn gave to my fiancé, who inadvertently gave it to her best (in the pic above), and its a 50/50 as to which of us then gave it to my stepson Frankie. 

We've all since recovered, but there was a lot of suck in those last two weeks (and that's just on the covid front, I'll spare you the rest). 

Doesn't even look like a repaint, just don't look at the other side of that gun shield!

The Drakes were strong with this one as it took multiple attempts (and decals) in order to get that icon to properly affix to his pauldron!

Another view from the business end. They're not in any of the pictures, but two more assault intercessors are also in-progress

Like my first time with the 'rona, once I started to feel better I started to paint minis during my enforced quarantine (unlike the last time, the quarantine wasn't 10 days, and I no longer live alone meaning I didn't paint 10+ minis this go round). 

First up I partially repainted the Firestrike Servo-Turret since the rest of my painted Silver Drakes have redeployed to the Connecticut subsector. The lack of availability in acquiring the needed metallic blue paint led to that army's demise. Given that the vast majority were unpainted, my Smurf army just got a BIG boost in numbers!

This is probably the equivalent of a Renault FT.

With the Quar equivalent of General Patton riding in the turret.

Space marine belt pouches for stowage.

The Servo turret added to the background for scale.

On a whim, I also painted up my 15mm Quar tank. I was so enamored with it that I then went on the zombiesmith website and ordered another one (different type) along with some other cool little vehicles. I'm thinking that I'll introduce Frankie to Bolt Action's rule set using the 15mm Quar in my caves terrain.  

Moving onto October...

...and it's DREADtober! My paltry entry into this year's event is my Day'lth Tau's Sub Commander Firestorm. Firestorm has thus far led my Tau infantry horde to a string of costly defeats. No doubt these were if fact diversionary assaults, drawing forces away from the actual invasions rendering said defeats into victories For the Greater Good! 

Coming to a close combat near you!

I've outfitted him/her with 3D printed, twin-airbursting fragmentation launchers (mortars) a shield generator and a prototype Thermoneutronic Projector. I thought the frag launchers looked cool and opted for them before I realized that mortars were the meta (ooh how I hate that term) weapon of choice. 

However, both pre- and post- mortar nerf, they've accomplished little. Most likely because this guy has a penchant for suicide charges into close combat where that projector is pretty much cheese on a stick! Suck it Farsight! 

No idea whose Rhino door it will be that Firestorm is striding over.

Whilst less than effective versus Neverness whose Termies all choose to hide behind the one guy with a storm shield when making armor saves, yet not when making their attacks (speaking of cheesy), Firestorm has sent a fair few of Rob's plague marines to their unexpected deaths! 

I doubt a proper paint job will improve his/her leadership capabilities, however it's high time this mini was painted since it leads and army that has 40-50ish painted models already, and is by far my most painted of armies. 

Sikh & Destroy (Part 2)

 o/

The guy kneeling in back will actually be the loader for my already painted LMG gunner.

Coming on the heels of assembling the last of my 30k Blood Angel infantry (still have a Kratos to go), I've been assembling my Sikhs for Bolt Action this week. I've had a hankering to go mucking about with Bolt Action again, and the first step in that process is build some semblance of an army. A little one anyways. 

The 2nd Infantry squad's LMG team.

Sergeants with SMGs. If I ever play any early war games, these guys will simply be omitted. 

My little collection, both those painted and still on the sprue total out to about 500pts for early war, or else 650ish for late war (and only because I recently picked up a 3D printed Chaffee). Whilst I would prefer early war, Screech (my most likely opponent) insists on only playing late war, otherwise known as the part of WWII where his Germans lost all of their battles, their country, and indeed the war.

PIAT team using the PIAT launcher from a Rubicon vehicle stowage kit. It worked out alright, I think.

To each their own, I guess. I'm sure it has more to do with the late war German super (unreliable) tanks which will make mincemeat out of my Chaffee, but whatever. I can always team up with Neverness who also has British troops. Between the three of us, we might even have a vague idea of how to play the game...maybe. Of course there's always Bob who actually knows how to play, but where's the fun in that? lol.

Chaffee is one of my favorite tanks, even though it only arrived at the very tail end of the war. 

This one came primed black; however, I'll reprime it OD green now that I've added the stowage to it. 

Anyways, below is all that I've put together here this week. I have another 15-20 or so infantry to go, then will set about painting them.

They'll be a bit daunting to start painting once the rest are all assembled!

Mk VI Marines, they came by twos....

 o/

Currently they're camouflaged to look like Space Wolves.

Welp, my Horus Heresy Mk VI marines are all assembled, and I can honestly say: I'm notta fan. Oh sure they look fine and all, rather what I dislike are the way the models are designed. I mean, they're mono-pose marines, how is anyone to get excited about that? 

I do like the bayonets. My Mk IV guys all have sheathed combat knives bayonets strapped to their belts, allowing me to mix 'em in with these guys.

Well, at least they're not like the 2nd ed 40k mono-pose marines!

No mixing and matching of parts with any of the other various armor types here. No variations of pose aside from: is he looking left? Or right? Or just forward. 

WTF GW? 

It's bad enough all of your characters are mono-pose, but now your grunt infantry have to be too? It's not like they're fielded in squads of 20 where the massed repetition will be noticeable or anything, right? 

Well at least these two turned out differently after one was promoted to Centurion. 

Speaking of, the only pistol-in-hand option that comes with this kit is a plasma pistol, which is still quite possibly lethal to its wielder in HH. So instead, I scrounged up a modern 40k bolt pistol hand. 

I ordered a bunch of 'IX' pauldrons from eBay. Seemed fitting for the 9th Legion.

Comms/augery scanner dude on the right is the rare marine who stands out in this crowd.

Also, I like assembling 2-piece pauldrons said no one ever. Yeah I get why they did it, but it seems unnecessarily fiddly to assemble, much like the Praetor's cloak which is inexplicably in 3 pieces. Also, even with the instructions, did anyone else have a hellova time getting the cloak and backpack fitted together just right? Or was that just me? 

This beastly bit will remain detached until I paint it and the Praetor, otherwise there will be no reaching those recessed areas!

Anyways...for the time being, these guys will constitute my 2 base legionnaire squads of 10 each. Once I build the Kratos, I'll have approximately 750 points meaning I'll need to buy another squad of something to at least hit 1k. Not sure what though I can assure you it won't be anymore Mk VI's!

Someday these guys hope to all be in the same squad (assuming I don't lose interest well before then...)

30k Blood Angel Artificer Sergeant

 o/

I'm getting a serious McDonald's vibe from this guy...

Well, this was an experiment to which I'm giving the result a solid 'meh'. 

In my past experience with 30k, prettymuch every squad sergeant (termies aside) has Artificer Armor in hopes of surviving a challenge for more than 2 seconds. Usually this is paid for in the army list but isn't actually represented on the model. Indeed, how many times is a sergeant put back and exchanged for another marine once it's been realized that the sergeant was accidentally removed as a casualty?

So, what to do? 

Whilst the 9th Legion isn't as vain glorious as their Emperor's Children brethren, it's likely that that bionic arm has glass-ceilinged this guy at the sergeant level of command.

I decided to try and paint most of his armor gold, allowing him to stand apart from his subordinates in his golden arches artificer armor! Hrmm, perhaps I ought to have painted all of his armor gold. Am contemplating that for the Praetor though I'm a bit wary of doing so after this guy. 

Curiously, on the charge his squad will wound on a 2+ thanks to their bayonets, whereas he will only wound on a 3+ with his chainsword (though he will get a reroll due to 'shred').

 

He does stand out from the...um, crowd. Or rather he will once I finish painting his squad.

My Inquisitorial Retinue is done!

 o/

But who's retinue are they?

With these four, I'm calling my participation in this year's Inquisitorial Conclave complete. Originally, these guys were to be Inquisitor Tibadaux's retinue of liberated miners. However, with one guy sleeveless, and the other in short sleeves, they don't much look the part of cold weather-equipped warriors. 

Likewise, their motley assortment of kit, and the color variations thereof don't fit well with Inquisitor Vinderthoff's immaculate tastes in attire. As such, they'll instead go to my most frequently fielded Inquisitor, Othias (he had yet to be named at the time of that post). 

In a group chat of my gaming friends, somebody recently suggested putting Smurf bitz matching my army as basing decoration as a way of mockery. Little did they know I had already done just that!

Vinderthoff  meanwhile will await the soon to be rereleased Eucidian Starstriders (just the lasgun toting grunts...and maybe the dog) from RTKT, whereas Tibadaux will get...I don't know, something. Until I figure out what, her Rhino can wait. 

The decal-turned-tattoo worked out nicely I think. 

Do NOT make fun of his golden cod piece!

[Insert Cyclonic torpedo joke here]

Many a cornered rogue psyker, sorcerer/ess and warlock has no doubt had the same thought:

'Is he really a soulless ginger, or is that just dye?'

Whilst you may know this miniature as Janus Draik, of Blackstone Fortress fame (it took me about 10 minutes of googling to recall what his actual name was, and from which game system he came), in my collection he is known as Inquisitor Vinderthoff. Or more formally: Ordo Malleus Inquisitor Wezley Sharlz Vinderthoff the III. 

His archeotech laspistol has a strength of 4 because Inquisition.

With such a grandiose name he no doubt comes from humble origins wouldn't you say? Clearly not. Indeed, he has not only come from the highest levels of Imperial society, but still quite enjoys it or so it would seem. Like so many things with the inquisition though, his origin story is shrouded in mystery...

You have to wonder: Is that his former faithful companion draped across his shoulders? Or was it someone else's?

*****

'YOU IDIOTS! Get the hell out of the way so I can shoot!'

I did manage to get a game in this past weekend vs. Neverness. Be sure to keep an eye out for his forthcoming battle report. 

Tossing the Tau Zerg swarm into the meat grinder once more...

 o/

My Hogzilaries valiantly taking the objective!

We got in a sorta game last weekend. The usual four player free-for-all, though we ought to have played a 2v2 game given the late start. But whatever, here's a few pics in lieu of a proper battle report as we only managed 2 turns and I only took a handful. 

See, Zerg swarm. Just like I said. Not pictured is my newly purchased, fully painted Forgeworld Remora drone. Turn 1 it strafed Rob's Thousand Sons, surprisingly killing two due to atrocious rolls on his part. I had hoped to wing over and do the same to Mike's Deathwing who would no doubt blow it out of the sky, BUT...Rob had psykers. So instead it died to psychic mortal wound Spam, because that's apparently all his psykers do.

For whatever reason, the first two turns of every game, the Swine invariably advance 10-12" per turn.

Cameron, a Necromunda veteran who crossed the Rubicon divide. Not only he was fielding a fully painted Smurf army, but a slightly off color one that perfectly matched his hoodie (totally not planned, or so he insisted...). Cameron, Neverness and I ought to team up for a Smurfs vs everybody game!

Not only were my Swine the first to reach the central objective in turn two, but they even wounded a Thousand Son with a shotgun blast to the back! The T-Sons had been teleported across the board by one of Rob's psykers, which is what brought them (barely) into range.

The only glimpse I have of Mike's Deathwing in my pics. 

That shotgun wound was not appreciated, and the Hogzilaries were incinerated into bacon in short order. Here we see the Muppets who are about to suffer the same fate.  

Perhaps it was a good thing that we only played 2 turns, as I had already taken 30-40 casualties! That's not a sustainable number of losses if one intends to reach the end of turn 5! 

That said, the highlight of the game for me was when my Breachers vaporized a unit of Smurf Aggressors in one volley, though not before the fuckers had already wiped out 2 units of my own!

Doubt I'll make it to game night this week though, so will have to entertain you with painted minis next week I guess.