Waking Dead

Well, I guess you could say I’ve been busy today. Check out these fellas:

And a few more:

That’s seven in total, including both Flamer guys. I’m going to paint the three Melta Gun troops tomorrow, and if I’m not thouroughly bored I may paint the three Vox Casters in the evening as well. I reckon three per session is good going; that’s about two and a half hours of work, so I’m getting through them pretty quickly. OK, you can tell in some places where I’ve cut corners but I’m aiming for good tabletop standard here rather than presentation standard.

Anyway, the main thing is that the colour scheme looks cool (in my opinion at least!) and I’m actually getting through them. To be honest, I can’t wait to get these guys all done so I can finally paint my Mordheim warband. Given the speed I’m painting these I can have my Witch Hunters done in less than a week. Well, that’s of course ruling out me getting RSI in the meantime!

I’ve changed a couple of small details from my test model. The first is that I’ve opted for a Chaos Black weapon dry-brushed with Boltgun Metal rather than paint the whole thing in Boltgun Metal; I think this adds a slightly “distressed” look to the weaponry, especially on the Flamer tanks. The second is that I’ve dry-brushed the base with Bleached Bone rather than Vomit Brown as it gives a much more contrasting highlight, and doesn’t come out too yellow. I’m happy with these new dudes so I’ll continue to paint them in this way. Phew, time for some sleep…

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Righto, I haven’t posted any updates in a while, but I didn’t really want to bore everyone with tales of me assembling 46 miniatures. To cut a long story short, they’re all (bar two Heavy Weapons teams) glued and undercoated. Now comes the fun bit… painting! So, without further ado, here’s a couple of pictures of my first test model, painted and varnished. Firstly from the front:

And a shot from the rear:

Once again my camera work is rubbish, but you can at least pick out some of the details. I really like the colour scheme, sort of a Middle Eastern desert warrior feel to it – almost Tallarn I guess. The other bit I like is the green tint on the visor; its subtle at a distance but it just adds that extra bit of detail that sits against the other colours. Admittedly this isn’t Grade A painting, but I’m very pleased with it considering I haven’t painted anything for about two years!

I’m also pleased with the way the base turned out, especially the little bits of moss and static grass to give it a bit of variety. The absolute best bit is that because its such a simple colour scheme I managed to knock this out in 90 minutes. As this was my test model I was taking a bit more time to choose colours, so I reckon I can easily do a model an hour this way. Hopefully if I get my skates on and have a couple of good weekends at it I’ll have them all done by the end of April, if not before. That just leaves May to get some much-needed practice games in before the tournament on the 27th. Looking forward to it now – I think I might just get it all done!

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We played our Battlefleet Gothic game not long after I got back from Germany, but I’ve only just got round to writing it up – sorry! Anyway, the Forces of Order won out but it was a pretty close battle. Well, close enough considering me and Mark R had the handicap of the Orks on our side!

As usual, here’s the battle report from Mike:

Bigtoof Irongob was bored stuck up on the Terror Ship alone. Most of the boyz had gone down to surface for looting and there’d been nothing to shoot or fight up hear since the humie’s ran off. He kicked a Gretchin that was standing too close; the little critter scurried off, letting out a list of profanities that would make a greater daemon of Slannesh blush.

“Kaptin,” shouted the pilot, “we got a new contact moving in from the edge o’ the system.” “On screen now,” shouted Irongob. Strange organic vessels appeared – a large battleship and over a dozen smaller vessels. “Order the ships to attack and if those Chaos boyz want to help they can do.”

The battle went poorly for the Orks. After thirty minutes of fighting they had lost three cruisers and half a dozen escort ship for the loss of a few Tyranid vessels, but they still outnumbered the Tyranid ships, and the Chaos fleet was on its way to intercept.

The Terror rocked again as another blast shocked the power fields. “Bloody looted shield generators.” He got on the horn to his boss Mek, “Oi! Put more nailz in us before we fall apart.”

“Kaptin! More contacts from the edge of the system,” shouted the pilot. “Two week’s of nuffin’ and now everyone turns up,” grumbled the kaptin. “Put ‘em on screen.”

The Imperial fleet appeared on the grimy screen, with the massive Emperor class starship and Battle Barge leading the fleet. The Chaos, Ork and Tyranid fleets all sat silently for a while, and then moved together towards the enemy.

After four hours of bitter fighting the battle was won by the Forces of Order. They managed to destroy most of the enemy fleet with short ranged firepower coupled with devastating torpedoes and bombing runs.

Note: In the final battle the Battle Barge will be able to target the battle below and use it’s Bombard Cannon to saturate the area.

Master of Fleet Gannius stood on the bridge as the last enemy ship was destroyed or fled into Warp. The plan had worked almost perfectly and the planet had been retaken with minimum losses. He was tempted to turn his guns on the remainder of the Tau fleet but he agreed that for their help they would evacuate the remaining ground troops and leave the system.

“My lord,” said one of the servitors nearby, “we have collected Brother Captain Stern’s rescue pod and he wishes to speak to Commander Dante.” “Inform the commander and send an escort to see to it.” Gannius sat back in his command chair, instantly picking up every last detail of the ship’s status and feeling the machine sprit within. “Move the ship into orbit and contact 3rd Company; we need to know where to make the drop.”

Within two hours all preparations had been made and hundreds of Drop Pods, Thunderhawks, and Arvus Lighter transport vehicles streaked towards the planet and the awaiting Ork horde – including the captured Titan.

So there you have it; its still all to play for in the game of Epic: Armageddon, coming up on Easter Monday.

Oh, and lastly, I’ve finally starting painting my Elysian Drop Troops for Conflict North. Hopefully I’ll have something to show by Sunday night.

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Well, I arrived back at home around 15 minutes ago – just enough time to play with the cat and grab a biscuit. I had a good time in Germany, and whilst I could bore you with what I got up to, I thought it’d be more interesting to talk about what beer I drank!

First up was Saturday night at a restaurant called 12 Apostel down a little alley off Sevigny Platz. Dad was on Schöfferhofer, a Munich wheat beer. His opinion? Quite weak, not the best weissbier he’d had, so therefore only 3/5. I ordered Berliner Pilsner, again quite weak but a very clean taste. Still, it wasn’t as nice as Lowenbrau or even Holsten Pils, so again only 3/5. Poor start really…

On the way back to the hotel we decided to call in at Ullrich, the local supermarket, and pick up some supplies. After returning to our room I opened up a bottle of Warsteiner, in my opinion the king of German beers. Now it’d been quite some time since I’d sampled this particular beverage but time had not dulled its taste. Crisp yet earthy taste, not too gassy, and a good finish. Why on earth can’t we get this in Britain? Has to be 5/5.

On the Sunday night we went to the Hard Rock Cafe, down a little side-street of the Ku’damm. Even though Warsteiner was on the menu, I stuck to my guns and ordered a different beer – Konig Ludwig Weissbier. This was a very different beast to the Schofferhofer, but again it seemed to lack the complex texture of something like Hoegarden. It was perhaps slightly better than the Munich beer, but again it was only worth 3/5.

Last night we went to a restaurant called Reinhard’s, which is one of the two eateries inside the Kempinski Hotel. Due to the overall ambience of this place I decided to go for wine, although in Germany I doubt it would be considered vulgar to order a beer with your maize-fed poulard.

Last but not least I finished off a pint (well, half a litre) of Stowfords cider at the Irish Pub inside the Europa Centre. Neither Magners nor Old English was this poor commercial-grade Strongbow-equivalent. Poor showing nets it a 2/5.

And that as they say is that. One thing I did discover in the Europa Centre that was a little more interesting was this:

Yep, that’s Necrons versus Space Marines at Berlin’s Games Workshop. Impossible to play on of course, but a nice display for the front of the store.

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Well, I got absolutely battered in my final battle – I think I temporarily lost my mind. My deployment was awful, I forgot rules and tactics, and I had to concede on turn 3. Seriously, its probably the worst game of 40k I’ve ever played! Anyway, on with Mike’s (final) battle report of the 1-on-1 tournament:

“The Chaos forces took the captured Warlord to the Ork lines to present Nashgull with his prize. The Orks were more intent on getting as far away from the Warlord and the Chaos marines as possible, as the entire clan now only numbered a few hundred Boyz, and barely a few dozen trucks. The Chaos troops on the other hand taken few casualties. Although Drakoth had lost his minion Tyroth and a few Bloodthirsters, he had not been beaten in combat by anything he had met.

Meanwhile, across the city, the other forces were falling back but still they found time to engage one another.

The first forces to meet where the Blood Angels 3rd Company and the Serpents of the Void Craftworld. The Autarch in charge of Eldar force approached the Marines and told him that they must work together to avoid the planet falling to the forces of Chaos. Chaplin Grisssom told him that as long as Xenos remained on the planet there would be no peace.

The Marines attacked the Eldar forcing them back, causing losses on both sides. Despite a valiant counter-attack by the Swooping Hawks, the Eldar were still forced back. The last squad of Eldar gathered around the Avatar as Grissom stared at the immense Daemon standing in front of him. He knew to attack now would destroy both forces – and the Autarch’s words still haunted him. He called a cease-fire, and both sides left with their dead and injured.

The second forces that met were the Daemonhunters and Tau, both taking up defensive positions in buildings near each other. Half the Daemonhunters went forward while the other half hung back to defend the position. Wave after wave of Tau Battle Suits charged the Marine lines and the Grey Knights had to abort their attack to help out with defence. When the attack had finally been halted the Ethereal and Fire Warriors had already made their escape.

The final battle was between Hive Fleet Annihilus and the Serpents of the Void, as the Tyranids tried to gain access to the Eldar Webways. The Eldar had called on their most elite troops to guard the area and, led by Maugan Ra, they unleashed salvo after salvo into the approaching horde, destroying the bio-beasts before they could even get close. Eventually what little remained of the Tyranid force retreated, and the Webways where saved.

Captain Antonius and Inquisitor Lord Marchant were both contacted by the Planetary Governor, and told that a new signal had been detected at the edge of the system – Imperial reinforcements had finally arrived.”

As I said above, that’s the last of the 1-on-1 games. We still have Battlefleet Gothic and Epic to play, as well as a final grand-melée to finish things off. Can’t wait! Anyway, here’s a link to the final table:

Link to Table

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I thought I’d post a quick update as my Elysian heads arrived yesterday. Now, Mark R was putting the Forge World order together and was a little concerned when they turned up about how small they were; getting hold of them myself I began to share this concern (I had nightmares that they’d look like the shrunken-head guy out of Beetlejuice!). I remembered VERITAS/AEQUITAS on WarSeer had a converted-Cadian project log so I went back there to take a look. The first time I saw this log I was really inspired and decided that this was definitely the way to go for my own Elysian force. I’ve never liked the Forge World Elysians; there’s just something about the slightly thinner frames and faces and odd postures that scream “ugly” to me – heresy perhaps, but I’ll stand by it.

Anyway, I went back to check out this log and it seems that the main difference is that VERITAS/AEQUITAS has cut off the neck and sunk the head directly into the neckline. I quite like this, but again it gives a slightly unnatural posture to the soldier. I’ve kept the necks on my guys and the heads do appear a little smaller than his, and I think that’s down to the extra mm of height given by the neck. Even so, I still prefer to have that neck there so it blends a little more naturally into the body.

See what you think:

Note: There’s a picture of the other guys here.

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Right, I did some minor conversion work tonight to put together a guy with a Demolition Charge. I had a look at the Catachan models but I didn’t really like them – I didn’t think I could get a good conversion out of them. Anyway, I had a look around at my bits and this is what I came up with (ignore the slightly dodgy perspective in the picture):

I’m really pleased with it, even though its a little rough in places. Still, once painted up it’ll look pretty cool – I hope! The charge itself is from the Cadian Heavy Weapons sprew (I think its the Lascannon battery) with a very thin slice of plastic covering the hole on the back, and a small sausage of Green Stuff I’d been saving for shell casings bent around to look like a cable.

The knife arm was a real pain; I had to cut the knife grip in two, then glue the top end above the hand (taken from a power sword) and the teeny-tiny pommel below. The hand holding the charge is from the grenade arm, drilled out and smoothed to take the grip of the battery.

So yeah, I didn’t get as much done tonight as I’d hoped, but over the weekend I did manage to put together another six guys and get everything else undercoated. Next step is the basic troopers I think; my Elysian heads should be turning up this week.

Note: There’s a couple more pictures of the converted Demo Charge guy here and here.

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Myself and Mark R had a game of Warmachine last night using the new Remix Quick Start Rules. This was the first time either of us had played, and I only knew as much as I did because I own the Iron Kingdoms roleplaying game. We each chose a faction and, using proxy models, put together the basic Battlegroup Box of 350 points. I chose Khador while Mark opted for Cryx.

The game itself is a small-scale skirmish game with only a handful of miniatures per side (in fact Khador only starts with three). The main person in your force is your Warcaster; Warcasters generate Focus every turn which can be spent on casting spells and powering up your Warjacks to do cool things. Warjacks then are semi-living mechanical constructs that have limited reasoning on their own, but can be commanded to perform devastating attacks. The general idea is to destroy your opponent’s Warcaster, but getting through the Warjacks is the real problem.

The game is pretty quick, even though I suspect we took twice as long to play as we were learning the rules as we went along. Each round you start with Upkeep, then move on to the Control Phase. This is were you generate Focus for your Warcaster and assign it to either yourself or the Warjacks in your Control Area. It seems that the Control Phase is where you do most of your planning, working out strategies and combos and providing just the right amount of Focus to each of your units.

After this we move on to the Activation Phase; you pick a model to activate, and can then move and/or attack with it. Only once you’ve completed all your actions with one model can you move on to the next. This is a great idea, one that really encourages strategic thinking; working out the exact order you want to do something, moving positions to get cover bonuses or attack boosts from other units, firing off spells that will effect your next attack… It’s all good, really.

As for the system, its pretty crunchy, but in a good way. It plays way more like an RPG than something like Warhammer, and only needs a few D6. Any time you attack its usually 2D6+MAT (melee attack) or RAT (ranged attack); damage is calculated in the same way, adding your POW for ranged weapons and P+S (power plus strength) for melee attacks. You can really wrack up some massive numbers, particularly as you can “boost” a roll (adding another D6) by spending a point of Focus. The Warjacks though can take an awful lot of punishment, and even at the end of the game they were all still on their feet (though one of mine had lost an arm and one of Mark’s was basically mindless).

We had great fun playing it and I’m really keen to pick up the proper models and get assembling. I like Khador but I think I’d like to have a go with one of the other factions before I buy anything. I think we’ll probably get another couple of games in with proxies, then think about what we’re going to collect. Of course, once we’re up and running with Warmachine we should really pick up Hordes as well…

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The penultimate round ended with two draws, so the table now looks like this:

Link to Table

The last game is technically Round 7.5, as me and Si C duke it out to see who can claim second place. With the points as they are, a draw would make it a three-way tie! In terms of number of losses, myself and Si would overtake Mark (he has three to our two) making it a two-way tie. Then what do we do? It seems that the only fair solution would be to see who has the most number of points remaining (or who destroyed the most number of points) at the end of the final game, with the victor here moving up into top spot.

Of course, I could just beat him and finish second outright.

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I put together one of my Heavy Weapons Platforms last night, again using non-Elysian heads. I think I prefer the facial expressions for these guys, and in terms of fluff it can be argued that they dropped in before the main force so they’ve had time to remove their respirators and set up. Anyway, without further ado may I present to you the story of Private Bosworth and Private Snipe, 102nd Airborne Autocannon Gunners, as told in pictoral form:

“Over there Brian! Keep firing!”

“Yaaaaarrr, have some! Hey, where’d Kevin go?”

“Ohmygodmyeyes!”

As frivolous as that is, I hope it illustrates the amazing fun you can have with magnets; I’m gonna make all my Heavy Weapons Platforms this way. I was even toying with the idea of molding the Green Stuff base around the loader’s feet, and then having some kind of bloody smear on the base where he stands so that when you remove him it gets uncovered… I like the idea, but I think for more practical reasons I prefer to just have the magnets stuck to the feet.

Next up I’ll do the Command Squad as promised – those magnets are tricky little buggers to get right, so I fancy doing something a bit simpler!

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