Much distraction...

Reading, Pokemon, Borderlands 2... So many things to do that are not painting miniatures.

But, I have now played my first game of 6th edition 40k.

I used my Thousand sons. My army consisted of a Sorcerer, 2 Thousand Sons squads in Rhino's, Havoc squad with 2 Autocannon and 2 heavy bolters, 4 bikes with 2 meltaguns and a Land Raider.

I played against the friends of all races - a Necron force that contained 1 Lord, 1 Destroyer lord, 5 Destroyers, 10 Immortals, 2 squads of 10 Warriors and 6 wraiths.

We played the Emperors Will scenario, deployed in Hammer and Anvil.

In traditional style the Thousand Sons lost. We stopped the game after turn 4, with the victory points sitting at 1 for the Thousand Sons (First Blood) to 4 for the Necrons (Warlord and Holding an objective).

By that stage I had 1 below half strength squad left, 2 rhinos, the havocs (in combat with the wraiths) and the land raider.

The game was good. I learnt a few things. Unfortunately the Thousand Sons did about as well as I was expecting, which was not very. They are quite good on an Alpha strike, but with their numbers they cannot weather the return fire very well. In the world of chaos and must challenge, Sorcerers are not all that good a choice as your warlord. The Tzeentch psychic powers are not very good. The basic power is probably the worst one as its strength is variable. Bolt of Tzeentch did Ok for me, in that it took a wound off the Destroyer lord and killed 2 warriors and an immortal during the whole game.

Sadly I think that overall I would have been better off with a force of normal CSM's with a mark, rather than the Thousand sons. The thousand sons are really expensive and I could only fit in the two troop choices. This did not help with with holding objectives, or the potential to hold objectives.

Oh well. Next week I shall try again.

Some pictures are coming shortly.

Cheers.

Some pics from the already painted Night Goblins

Well, painting is going Ok on the night goblin archers.

I will post pics of my progress on Friday, but for now, here are a couple of photos of some of the more interesting units from my Night goblin force.

First up is the trolls. 6 Trolls of the stone kind. I like the look of the stone trolls more than the river trolls.

Then it is the squig hoppers and their boss.

Not much of an update I know, but hopefully some progress in Friday's update.

Cheers.

Sick of Tyranids - Time for a change

Back to a project that I had left for a while.

Well, I am a little sick of painting white Tyranids at the moment. So I thought that I would move back to a previous army project of mine.

Which is my Night Goblin horde. I actually have around half of this painted now. Which sounds good, but with 300 odd Night Goblins painted and only being at the half way point is a little sad.

Not sure why I keep going for the horde armies when I am quite a slow painter, but I do like how they look when they are all ranked up.

So this is a unit that I had started and then left almost complete. I finished off the last 14 of them and this unit of 50 is now done.

No that they are done, I am moving onto their accompanying archer unit. This is the start of the unit of 20 of them.

The first half of the unit is now undercoated - onwards to painted glory!


Photos of the rest of the army will be uploaded slowly, but it so far consists of the following fully painted models / units:

• Skarsnick
• 4 Night goblin shaman
• 2 Night goblin big bosses
• 1 Night goblin big boss w/ spear on giant cave squig
• 50 Night goblins w/ spears and command group
• 50 Night goblins w/ spears and command group
• 50 Night goblins w/ hand weapons and command group
• 100 Night goblins w/ spears and command group
• 4 units of 20 Night goblin archers w/ command group
• 10 Squig hoppers
• 25 Squig Herd - 15 squigs, 10 herders
• 11 Night goblin fanatics
• 6 Stone trolls

Still to go are:

• 1 Night goblin shaman
• 2 Night goblin big bosses, one with army standard
• 1 Night goblin boss w/ hand weapon on giant cave squig
• 50 Night goblins with hand weapons and full command group
• 100 Night goblins with hand weapons and fill command group
• 4 units of 20 Night goblin archers w/ full command group
• 10 squig hoppers
• 25 Squig Herd - 15 squigs, 10 herders
• 11 Night goblin fanatics
• 2 Mangler Squigs
• 6 Stone Trolls

And then we can start on the Orcs and then the normal Goblins for the army... I swear that I am not crazy... Well, not too much... Sigh.

Cheers.

Looking back to game again

I was discussing Confrontation on the weekend. And this lead to a goal to try and play the game again, as I have a fully painted wolfen force and my friend has his Scorpions of Dirz.

We did play a very small amount of this game when it was out. However not long after we started, Rackham began their decline into oblivion. And by a small amount, we played through the learn to play guide of the Initiation Set

To this day we cannot remember the victor in the one game that we played of it, however we do both remember having a lot of fun with it.

 

Unlike my usual choices for forces, I decided that I wanted a group of mighty headband warriors. In Confrontation, nothing says "Fist to the Face" like giant angry wolfen. So they are the force that I have. And they were one of the forces in the starter and initiation sets. Not the weak models, but mighty predators of blood, fang warriors and Onyx the Prowler. That is pretty hard hitting force there. Add in Syriac with summon Animae and the predators can become Ultimate predators and really lay about with both fists, feet, swords and teeth.

 

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the look at my Confrontation force.

 

I have only two models for unpainted, being a Worg and Irix the Ultimate (and still in boxes). I guess that I should try and get those painted at some point.

Oh, and in the interests of full disclosure, I didn't paint these models. They were painted by a good friend of mine, who I hope that I can convince to paint the last two models for as well.

I do have a number of Cynwalls as well, but they are neither painted or assembled. Another project for a later period of time.

Cheers.

Late again...

But I remembered to take a whole army photo first for my Tyranids.

Well, at least it is the whole army as is currently fully painted.

So now, onto my thoughts on the X-wing miniatures game.

I played both the intro mission and a further mission. Now, the second game was limited to the ships that I have so far, which is only a few extra Tie fighters and no extra rebel craft.

In the first intro mission, my two tie fighters were shot up by the Rebel pilot. Targetting system errors (ie I did not roll well) were not helped by tactical computer failures (ie I just plain played badly). But overall the game did assist me in learning how it all works, which is the main thing. Don't split up tie fighters...

In the second game, we used the full rules. It was quite a lot of fun and it really felt like a star wars style dog fight. The way that you allocate movements to your ships means that the tie fighters really do the large looping moves as seen in the movies and the x-wings are quite tough craft. Their target lock followed by plasma torpedoes is really vicious. However, for the loss of one TIE, in the second game I managed to shoot down the rebel scum and claim victory.

So far it is 1 game each for us.

The game itself has very nice components, which is something that Fantasy Flight do well. And I can see the game being quite interesting once slightly larger squadrons are used on each side. The characters included are excellent and do give you a range of different skill levels. However I can see that there is little point to not taking the very best pilots in each game, unless their points costs are too high. And pre-painted miniatures. YAY!

All in all, I am looking forward to playing it some more. Though as I am only purchasing Imperial craft myself, I will have to encourage my opponent to purchase some Rebel craft of his own.

Cheers.

Success... but only in a loose sense...

So on my painting stands currently are these fine xenomorphs...

Which means?

That I finished my second unit. YAY!

Yes, the 16 hormagaunts are now complete.

So two units in my army are done. Yikes, if only I had a HQ choice, I could have a fully painted minimum size force.

With only 10 models to go till 500 points of painted greatness, I can sadly see much distraction in my future.

Borderlands 2... Sigh, it is an ongoing (but really enjoyable) distraction.

Till Wednesday, when tales of my trial games of X-wing the Miniatures game will hopefully be forthcoming.

Cheers.

Good Weekend

I had a good painting weekend. Only some distraction with Lego, Borderlands and Deep Space 9.

So here is what I am currently up to.

Yes, those are Genestealers. What does that mean? I got the previous 4 hormagaunts done.

So if I get this lot done by next week I will have photos of the second complete unit to upload.

30 models done. 14 models to go.

Cheers.

Still distracted

XCOM:Enemies Unknown, Borderlands 2 and watching Star Trek DS9 have all taken their toll on my painting time and will this last week.

But here is where my Hormagaunts are up to.

More painting will be done today though, so a little more progress on the next entry.

My review of the new CSM book will also be done soon. Having trouble editing it to make it sound less rant like. Oh well.

Cheers.

Borderlands 2

Is the name of the reason that I don't have an update today.

Even after an additional long weekend, I am only half way through the next 4 hormagaunts. But a lot of Borderlands 2 has been played.

And some Rocksmith. I quite like it. I have only played a little, but the game delivers what it set out to do, which is allow me to plug my guitar into my PS3 and play some songs. I just wish that we had the full amount of DLC that is available in the US, but I guess that it will come in time.

No promises on getting more painting done this week, but I hope to get some in. It all depends on how weak my will is.

Also later in the week I might post up my complete thoughts on the new Chaos space marine codex. My current thoughts on it?

Damn I hate being right... Tzeentch, why does GW forsake thee?

Cheers.

Hormagaunts Onwards!

Well, no updates last week.

I would say that is because of events of mighty significance, but it was me being distracted by Borderlands 2 and Torchlight 2. Enjoying them both very much.

But over the weekend I got back to some painting and have now completed the next 4 hormagaunts.

So only 6 Hormagaunts to go for this unit. Which means that I have another minimum size unit.

And with only 18 models now to go, the end is in sight.

(Lets not think of the models that I already have for the expansion to take this force to 1200pts...)

Yes, the end is in sight.

So a short but progressive update.

Cheers.

50%

Of the 500 points is now painted.

Yes, 22 models.

So here are the first lot of the full hormagaunt painting batch.

 

So only another 10 to go now until this unit is done.

Short update today, but as progress was made, I thought that I should update away!

A busy weekend ahead for me. I will see if I can get some more painting done by Monday. It's downhill from here.

Cheers.

Some of my own work

Well, I finally got around to putting paint to brush to miniature again on the weekend.

In the works are still the Termagants.

They are not looking too bad at the moment. Hopefully this lot of 4 will be done by the end of the week.

You might notice the numbers on the corks. Why did I do this? I found that I was forgetting which order I was doing the couple of layers of washes in, so I numbered the corks so that I could paint them in the correct order.

I also got the last few colours that I will need (well, ordered on-line really) to paint up my Dark Angels. And in looking back over it, which could be just a nostalgia thing which will likely last just as long as it takes me to play, I am painting them up to have a bash at 2nd ed once again.

Yes, back to the days when 11 models was a legal 500 point Space Marine Army. Looking forward to the other things from second edition again - virus grenades, vortex grenades, every psychic a level 4, because you would be crazy to take any thing less. And the always popular 49 point tech marine. Then there is the unkillable Bjorn, the assault cannon / cyclone missile launcher Space Wolf terminators who could shoot all of their shots in the first turn layering your whole deployment zone with krak templates of doom.

Hmm, why am I going back again?

Onwards to 6th edition and more Tyranids painted!

Cheers.

Games Day Aus 2012

Well, it has taken me a few days to get this up.

 Lots of photos to go through. Yikes.

My thoughts on this years Games Day was that it was so much better than last years. The organisation, the entry into the venue (only thing that I thought could be improved from this year still) and the activities and displays were all a lot more fun and easy to access.

The splitting of Forgeworld from the pre-orders was good. And the shop area was better this time.

Overall, I had a great day. Got my limited edition mini. A metal Ahriman for my Thousand Sons, a print and the 12/13 Games Day limited edition book.

So not a large amount of purchases.

 

And this year there seemed to be so much more colour in the entries to the painting competition part of the day.

Here is a number of my favourite miniatures from the day. Not sure what actually won, but these were some of the ones that I liked.

 My top 4 ones from the above in no particular order are, The High Elf dragon rider, the Night goblin V Dragon Ogre fight, the Biel Tan Dreadnought and the Inquisitors warband.

Looking forward to next year.

Now, off to do some painting of my own (Hopefully...)