Sunday 23 June 2013

Some more of the Sed Wars, a confession and where too from here...

Hi there.

Well, I got back into the painting and finally finished the next 4 models for Sedition Wars.

 
So that is 8 down, far, far too many to go. But that is part of the fun with painting. Always more to do. Oh, the terror of the more still to do.

 
So I realised also that I had not updated my painting count previously. So it currently stands at:

Painted mightily this year: 36. Not too shabby an effort.

Purchased so far this year... That is now another story...

See as you know I was trying to only purchase a miniature for each one that I painted, so as to not grow my back log of miniatures any further than the vast mountains that it already contains. Unfortunately, you also might remember, I am rather fond of Kickstarter. And am very weak willed against the shiny new stuff. This is as I do know, a very bad combination.

So far this year, there was a Robotech kickstarter, which I was quite restrained with, only purchasing sufficient to balance the sides up, but still ended up with around 160ish models I believe from that pending, and also the Mantic Deadzone kickstarter, which seems to be a sort of Necromunda style game, but potentially using larger forces. I will have to wait on the rules for that one. So with restraint I also managed to limit myself on that one, but still will probably end up with about 100+ models from that one.

Oh, there was also the East Asian Villiage kickstarter, which had some awesome lasercut pre-painted scenery, but also included minatures with some of the buildings. So I think there is another 30ish models coming with that one.

So for 36 painted so far, and 300ish purchased I don't think that I am going to be able to bring this back. I am still going to keep a track, but I am guessing by the end of the year the number is going to be in the negative. Quite largely in the negative.

Anyway. I am going to continue with my Sedition Wars painting, and next up is the floating weapons platform. Then another 4 models and I will have painted the bonus vanguard extras from one of my sets.

But I am being tempted by trying to paint a new 40k force for Arcanacon next year. So far I have three ideas...


A 5th company force of Ultramarines, I already have the models for quite a large force as I can use the unassembled ones that if I am honest will never go onto my Howling Griffins. But they may... Argh, the choices. I am wanting to paint them in a more metallic look than the standard. If I go on with them, I will modify my painting slightly from the test model. Start with a mid silver base, highlight up to a light silver and then apply the blue washes over the whole thing. That should a better look than this one which has a flat light silver then the washes, but was a good test of concept.


Or an Eldar force. This is an in progress test model for a Biel Tan force. Yes, I again fall in for another force that would require a lot of white in it. Sigh.


Or getting my Imp Guard from the Lerothian 12th into a stand alone force. They were from a previous use as allies for my Sisters of Battle army and it is probably time that they get their own full force organisation chart. I currently have a full infantry platoon painted (55 strong) and an armoured fist squad and Leman Russ. So it has some progress already done. I might post up photos of it at later date.


So at this time, I am not sure which one to decide on. 2 involve starting new armies fron scratch, at least from the painting side. The benefit of them is that I have access to almost all of the miniatures that I would need for the first two. Strangely the third one is the one that would require the most purchases, however still not a great many as I have most of the other items that I would need in that force still.

Or then again there are always my Tyranids...

The distractions call...

Sigh...

Cheers.

Thursday 13 June 2013

Never bring a tank to a Titan fight

Well, after the success of games the day before we assembled for the Apocalypse game.

This was a lot of fun. Thanks to the supplier of the mighty Titans. We had many of these machines walking the battlefield. Also thanks to the supplier of the excellent table that we played on. 12 Feet by 6 feet of carnage, with 11,500 points fully painted per side. It looked quite impressive.

Well, enough of my talking, on with the Pictures!

 The mighty Warlord Titan that was deployed for the Glory of Chaos!
 
 The Chaos Deployment
 More of the Chaos Deployment zone
 The view from the Imperial lines
 The  Imperials had a Tank or two deployed
 But they also had some Yellow marines and Eldar 
 The chaos Warlord decided to mock the Imperials before the game began
 The majestic Chaos force prior to turn one
 View from the Chaos side
 Mid Chaos deployment
Hmm, maybe the mocking was a little early... I am sure that we had some tanks before the Imperials first turn
Yes, the Mighty Warlord went down. Fortunately it didn't go critical.

At the end of 4 turns, we managed to pull a draw somehow. We destroyed one of the midzone objectives by having an obliterator write obscene slogans on it, and no one wanted it after that. For the loss of the Warlord, the other side did lose their Revenant titan, their Knight and the Baneblade.

Our Warlord was slain by a cravenly placed Apocalypse template from the Reaver. While the other side nominated Lysander as their Warlord, so we didn't touch him.

I was very lucky with my rolls on the Biomancy table for my Daemon prince and he ate a Librarian, his terminator bodyguard and two full squads of Eldar jetbikes. Typhus went down and the other Nurgle Chaos Lord just after he killed the Ultramarines Chaplain and offered his unworthy head as a sacrifice was promoted to Spawndom. And a Single Plague Marine was left to contest one of the objectives amongst an imperial tank company and Imperial Fists squad.

However after the first turn of Imperial shooting (note for future games - going first is good unless it is the Golden Fez battle, because our normal opponents deploy guns close up and just try to toast you, like a brick to the side of the head) which was very (very) effective it was not looking good.

At the end of the game the objectives stood at:
Chaos Deployment - Both in the rightful claw of Chaos
No Mans Land - No one held this (Ok, so I only need to not fail one jink save. No worries. Oh, bother, nothing but ones and twos on the dice is not good for success). The other objective had been declared un-collectable due to the nature of the substance used to do the chaos mark on it.
Imperial Deployment - One held by them, one contested by Chaos
Chaos Warlord - Dead
Imperial Warlord - Not Dead

Well, I should get back to some painting now. So many half completed miniatures on my table I really should get some done.

Next post - How to completely blow your plan to only purchase a miniature for each one that you paint in two easy kickstarters...

Cheers.

Wednesday 12 June 2013

Wattcon 2013

I have returned from Wattcon. Games were played. Armies were destroyed (mostly mine) and fun times were had. So all in all a very successful day. Thanks to Dave for organising the day of gaming.

For this set of games I decided to take my Howling Griffins. This is because my Thousand Sons don't really work at 1200pts with the way that I like to run them. Squads in 9's eats up a lot of points and leaves me with very few scoring units.

So for the games I decided to take my half of the 4th Battle company of the Howling Griffins. 3 Tactical squads, 1 Assault Squad and 1 Devastator Squad with a Captain.

For the first game, I played against a Tyranid force. I have trouble against tyranids as they always seem to outnumber me. Surprisingly this time I outnumbered the Tyranid force, at least at deployment.
  Tyranids after deployment
 

 Tyranids after deep striking
 

 Some days, it just does not pay to don the Power Armour
 
 
So after a few turns, the Tyranids had the objective and I was down to a very thin red and yellow line. Overall, it was a loss. But there was a high point. I managed to get first blood (take that Mycetic Spore!) and also down the Carnifex.
 
Then it was onto game 2. Against an Imperial fist army lead by Lysander. Again, I managed to get first Blood, and take 3 of the 4 wounds off Lysander, but by the end of the game the Fists held two objectives and were contesting the third.
 
 My deployment
 Fists left flank
Fists Right flank (not shown, Thunderfire Cannon just behind the photo)
 
So with another defeat out of the way I moved onto the third game.
 
 
This was against an Exorcists marine army.
 

 
 
This game gave me my only win of the set of games. I would like to claim that it was a mighty tactical victory on my part, as they fell for all of my cunning traps and excellent strategies, however that would be a lie. A great, stoking lie. His dice failed him at every turn. Like my own space marines, the Exorcists seemed to have forgotten to turn their power armour on. The leadership tests failures on both sides were amusing (less so for my opponent, as two squads walked off the table this way) and I was down to a single devastator marine and two of my squads were down to only three marines standing but when the smoke cleared and the points tallied, the Howling Griffins came away with a win at the end of the day.
 
And with scoring First Blood in all three games.
 
So lots of fun was had. I ended up coming dead last, which given that two of my games had me only gaining a single point was hardly surprising, and congratulations to the overall winner with his Blood Angel army, and also to the Chosen of Chaos with his Tau force.
 
Next post will be about the Apocalypse game held the next day.
 
Cheers.