One thing leads to another.

Hi all.

So following on from my last post about Daemons I have gone off on another tangent. I still have a big of a pile of models from various "in process" projects but I have again diverged from my "list" and started another project. I am on a bit of a Nurgle kick at the moment (as you may have noticed) and have accidentally started a 40K Chaos Marine army.

I was playing around with my Daemon list and in one version I added a unit of Plague Marines as I have a half finished unit of them lying around. I thought a bit of shooting might help. Well after looking at it for a while I didn't think it was a really a goer but it did make me think about an actual Chaos Marine list. I have a nice paint scheme for Plague Marines as I had painted up a few models for allies in various other lists so one thing lead to another.....

It initially started because I was trying to finish the things I had started, so I was painting the Plague Marines and I bought a Rhino for them and really liked the way it looked. I also have a bunch of Chaos Imperial guard models from a previous army that I can use as Cultists so the actual army won't take that much work. The final nail in the new army coffin was that the manager of my local GW gave me a discount on a bunch of models as a wedding present. How could I refuse?

Chaos Rhino

So now I was committed I logged onto the Forge World site and ordered a couple of the Plague Marine conversion kits as the FW Marines are way better than the Finecast ones. I have finished the first squad along with their Rhino and these are pictures below. This army is going to have a few vehicles in which is different for me as I don't really use vehicles much so a Vindicator and a Pred are next on the paint table. I am allying in some of the Daemons as well. The Marine list is pretty light on troops so I am taking a couple of Heralds hoping that I can summon a few units of Plaguebearers to make up the numbers and "park the bus" on some objectives.

Plagues Marines

Chaos Rhino

Chaos Vindicator

Chaos Vindicator

Plague Marines

Painting wise I am a good way through the list so it should be completed in a month or so.

Malifaux - Resurectionist Nurses.

I have also painted up a few other things this month, I have made some progress on my Malifaux crew by completing a couple of Undead Nurses. I still haven't played this game yet but have lined up a game with one of the club members that is knowledgeable on the rules. I love the models for this game, they are very different to anything else that is on the market.

My club in Brighton also ran its first "Con" recently (more on this in another post) and Warlord had a sales stand there which meant that I had to make some purchases. A Stug was added to my Bolt Action Germans which are still waiting to be painted, although I have painted the Stug. I also bought a starter set for Hail Cesar. This is an historical game whose rule set is very similar to GW's old Warmaster Game. I will be sticking these together ASAP so I can get a game in. Again the models are cool, they aren't the best quality models on the market but they are nice, and when they are ranked up look good.

STUG

Celts

So its been a pretty good month.

Until next time...

P.S. Look out for the two new tabs detailing my "Year of........." projects.

Like a Bolt from Salute, with some big guys too.

Hey Folks.

Its been a busy month on the hobby front, in some ways good, and in others not so good, but not so good in a good way.

This month saw the annual event that is Salute. This sees thousands of gamers go to the eXcel in London to gather and do all things gaming. Its a great event with lots of tables of various games and retailers selling everything under the sun gaming related (this is the good). This means that I went with a bunch of cash and came away with very little cash (the not so good). However I swapped this cash for a bunch of cool gaming stuff (the not so good in a good way).

Mortar. 

The first of my purchases was a Bolt Action army. This game has become very popular at the Brighton club and I have been intrigued by it, I am slowly becoming a big fan of WWII games (maybe this is an age thing). I went for the Germans as they have the coolest tanks by far and regular readers will know by now that I am all about the "cool". After opening the box and savouring that new box of models smell I pulled out the tank, stuck it together and slapped some paint on it. I haven't even done a list yet I just wanted to get the tank painted. First list will be in the region of 750pts I think, start small and build up. The one thing I am struggling with is all the different weapon options but that will come over time. I am going to get all the models stuck together first so I can get a few games in whilst I paint them. Army list wise I have no idea what I am doing so am just going to make something up and go with it. I have played a basic demo game and I really like the mechanic of picking a dice out of a bag to determine who moves the next unit as it adds a very tactical dynamic. Some of the models for the game are excellent, not GW standard but good and I am looking forward to having a game. As well as the tank I have stuck together and painted the Mortar and the Machine Gun. The basic troops you can play with just stuck together, but you can't really stick the artillery stuff together as it makes painting it tricky so I have done these first so I can play with them and not have models falling about all over the place. Its a basic tabletop paint job, nothing I have put a massive amount of time into.

Hetzer

Machine Gun and Mortar Teams

The second of my purchases was a new Malifaux crew and the 2nd Ed rulebook. I have wanted to have a go at this game for a while and the 2nd Ed rules are supposed to be a bit easier to get your head around. The models are really nice, Wyrd have just started out with plastics and they have done a cracking job on the sculpts. Once the Bolt Action stuff is done I am going to stick them together and get some paint on them. The quality of the models is excellent with lots of detail and as you only need a few to have a game I can spend a bit of time on each. I went for the Ressurectionists purely because I liked the look of the crew, the main guy is a very flamboyant undead pimp basically and his crew is a bunch of undead hookers which makes for some interesting models.

The last purchases were for Warmachine, I picked up the new Butcher (because he is awesome) and the Convergence of Cyriss Colossal, its rated up there with the best Colossals so it will be interesting to see how it performs. I think it can work well in a 35pt list unlike some of the other Colossals so I am looking forward to getting some use out of it.

Behemoth

Painting wise this month has been very productive and mainly features big hitters. for Warmachine I have finished of the Behemoth Warjack and the Gun Carriage Battle Engine. Behemoth is a great Jack with two guns and some heavy hitting fists that halve the AR value of anything being hit. He is pricy, I think the most expensive Jack there is (bar Colossals) but as I very rarely play more than one Jack in a Khador list it isn't too difficult to fit him in. The Gun Carriage is a model I have wanted to field for a while. Out of all the Battle Engines it probably one of the better ones and will look really cool in a Winterguard based list.

Gun Carriage

At the club I play at in Hemel we are starting a 40K tourney soon that will run over a couple of months. I was going to take the new Daemon army but thats an 1850 list and the tourney is 1500. I am not so sure that the Nurgle list will work so well at 1500 so what to take? I have my Ultramarines or Grey Knights but how to make them a little different and add something new.... how about a Knight? GW just released the new Knight model, at first I wasn't going to get one but I had a read of the codex and the background was really cool so I made the purchase and OMG the kit is fantastic. I assembled the kit in stages basically the skeleton on its own and then painted that and the armour plates separately before sticking them on. Once I finished it I just sat and looked at the model for a good five minutes, it really is a lovely model and although pricy its well worth it and I am seriously considering buying another three or four to make a full army of them. It took me a good solid twenty hours to paint I think but it really is worth putting in the effort.

Until next time...

Centurions

Hey Folks

Trying to get as much Hobby in as possible at the moment. I should be moving house in a few weeks so I suspect my hobby time might get reduced for a while after the move. The bonus is that the house we are moving to is only 50ft way so moving should be fairly pain free, I also get my own man-cave too. I am hoping this will give me enough space to put in some kind of video setup so I can do some model 360 vids. But I need to fully plan out the room first.

So whats been going on? Well I have had my second and third games in the Warmachine tourney against Dave and his Cryx and Andrew and his Gators. Dave put his army on the table and my first thought was that I had no chance of winning. Dave had a couple of Units of Banes, Nyss and Goreshade ready to summon another Bane unit. He also had a couple of fast moving jacks and Tartar Sauce to get Banes back if I managed to kill any. I was using my more sensible army but looking at the sheer number of Weapon Master Banes I thought I was going to get smashed. But I always have a good game against Dave so I set about trying to do my best.

I got lucky early game, my Widowmakers shot up the Nyss and then they ran away. Dave's first charge against my Man-O-War failed to do much thanks to some bad dice rolls on Dave's part and a couple of passed Tough tests for me. The Man-O-War with a damage boost buff managed to dispatch most of the Banes in front of them and then the Winterguard hiding behind them managed to take out a few more. I feated which prevented Dave from charging and then my shooting managed to take out enough of the remaining Banes to reduce Dave's damage output to non-threat levels. It was a tense game but I played a lot better in this game, thinking about my own strengths and plan and not letting the other army freak me out into a change of plan. It worked and I also got a bit of luck. In the end it was a bit of a slaughter, I lost the Man-O-War and a couple of Winterguard, Dave was left with his caster.

I also managed to get a win against Andrews Gators winning on scenario. This was just a game of attrition, two armies grinding it out against each other and I came out ahead. The Gators are good but their model count was low and my Khador can take hits as well as dishing out the pain. The Gators were good and difficult to get rid of, but once they started falling each model lost was a real hit for the army.

Spiggan

Model wise I have put together a couple of new casters (pVald and pButcher) and made a start on the Warjack Drago. I also put together Gorman de Wolfe and Eyriss, I used them for the first time in a game in Brighton and really liked them, they may have to find a space in more of my Khador armies. After these guys I will probably leave the Khador for a while, I am still after a Behemoth and War Wagon so if I see those models around I will pick them up. I did manage to finish my Spriggan although he is yet to take the field in anger.

 I continue to work on the Flames of War starter set Germans and have completed the command section. I have also painted up a couple more Bolt Action models, again completing my German commander unit. I also put together my first infantry unit and they are on the paint station ready and waiting.

Bolt Action German Command

Centurions

GW released the new Space Marine codex this month, so I picked that up as well as a box of the new Centurions. I didn't like these when I first saw them but the real models are better than the pictures. It took a while for me to decide how to arm them, the Grav Cannons seem the obvious choice but I wasn't sure about them, but I think I will give them a go and see how they get on.

German - Conquest

Hey Folks...

The first game of our club Warmachine tourney happened this week and I managed to field my newly painted Conquest.  Needless to say that "newly painted model" syndrome hit and the big bugger didn't do anything.

Conquest

Having been off the hobby for a while with my shoulder injury I really felt rusty. I thought my 35pt Conquest list was a real winner but I played like a complete noob. I did have a chance to win the game as my Conquest had three chances to hit and kill the opposing Warcaster but he managed to miss with each swing.

Looking back at the game I don't think Irusk is the best caster to use with the Conquest, Fire For Effect is a good spell but Irusk cant really get anything else out of the big boy, I have a few candidates for my next caster which can utilise the Conquest so I have them ready to be painted up. I think the first one I will try with him is the Butcher, nice simple run and hit stuff. I think his buffs and feat will work better with the Conquest. Irusk is a finesse caster, the Butcher - not so much.

This month I also managed to paint up my IronFang Officer and Standard, the rest of the unit currently sitting in their box waiting to be assembled.

IronFang UA

As well as the Warmachine stuff I have been painting up some WW2 models of various scales. I have always had an interest in WW2 and have been reading up on it more and more over that last few years so I thought I would try out some WW2 gaming which I haven't ever really got into before.

German Infantry

A while ago I bought the new Flames of War (FOW) stater set, for the money its really good value. You get a bunch of models infantry and tanks for both the Germans and Americans plus some scenery, dice etc. Its a game I have looked at but never really liked the look of due to the infantry models, but the more I have looked at it the more I fancied having a go. I watched a few videos on YouTube and liked the look of it so I thought why not. The starter set isn't that expensive so if I don't like it, then I haven't wasted too much money. I painted up some of the tanks a while ago and now I have finished my first unit of Troops. This is one of the basic German infantry units, the beauty of 6mm is that you don't have to spend a massive amount of time on them to make them look good. I found that a basic paint scheme and then a wash with a basic highlight is enough to make them look pretty good. I also painted one of the big artillery pieces. I am looking forward to getting them on the table, one of the other guys at the club has the same set, so he is painting up the Americans so we can play our first game. I also picked up one of the "Army Books", these focus one one particular period or operation and give army lists for the forces that fought during that time. The first book I got was the one focusing on Operation Market Garden, there are two books, one looking at it from the German point of view and then the other from the Allies perspective. As well as the army lists there is a lot of interesting info on the history and people that were involved. They are well worth a read.

Pak 40

On the WW2 theme I have also picked up the rule book and some models for Bolt Action. This is a 28mm WW2 game and is very popular at the club I go to in Brighton. You don't need a massive amount of models for a decent game and the models do look very nice. I am in the middle of painting up my first German officer as a test piece before assembling the units and planning out my first 1000 points. Warlord actually have a 1000pt German Starter army that actually looks pretty cool so I might just invest in that.

So to finish off here are another couple of pictures of the Conquest. So whats next? Well I have a couple of new Khador casters to paint, also a couple of Warjacks in boxes namely a Spriggan and the character Jack Drago. I will also be aiming to finish off the rest of my Flames of War Germans so we can play our first game. The Bolt Action Germans will also get some attention purely because I really like the models.

Until next time...