A detailed account of my various commission/hobby projects.
Warhammer 40,000 – One of my regular clients seems to be on the last leg of his fleshing out out his Grey Knights, Inquisitor and Salamanders forces. The latest batch of models he gave me to paint included six death cult assassins, five metal terminators (that needed to be stripped), three daemon hosts and a drop pod that has been built for a dreadnought.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – My marine client has started an Imperial Guard allied contingent to go with his Space Marines. He asked that they be painted up just like the rest of the army and will be using them like my other client that had me do a custom verision of the Tyrant's Legion.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – I love Space Marines. I can proudly say that the moment I decided to dump my Chaos army and focus solely on Space Marines back just before 5th Edition dropped was one of my smarter decisions. GW's poster boys have yet to disappoint. After 30 years they're still the best and to prove that point they release a homage to the original metal model in plastic with special rules. (I did own this guy in metal at one point but he was chaosified so when I dumped those years ago he disappeared with the rest of them.) Not only that but they also released a whole new book of formations, warlord traits and other useful items for the major codex chapters. (Annoying that a portion of the book was a reprint of the Kayoun stuff...)
Read MoreBATTLE REPORT: Warhammer 40,000 – A member of our gaming group is back in town for a few weeks and as such many of our members came out of the woodwork to hangout and play games. The general consensus was to play 40K so everyone brought a 750 point list and got paired up randomly. I didn't get the exact models in each list but it broke down to something like this:
Team A:
Carchadons with a Knight - Tyberous and five Lightning Claw Terminators, Scouts and Knight Gallant
Imperial Guard - Three Leman Russ, Commissar, Guardsmen
Tyranids - Two flying hive tyrants, two units of genestealers
Team B:
Chaos Marines - Belekor, two units of Chaos Marines
Impirial Guard - Tank Commander, Leman Russes, Chimeras with Vets and Sentinels
Ultramarines – Armoured Task force, Predator, two vindicator, Whirlwind, Thunderfire Cannon and Teach Marine on bike with conversion beamer.
We played Maelstrom and got in three turns before we started to lose interest. The game was a bit of a cluster as tends to be the case when you get more than four players. Some highlights from the game were:
•Knight Gallant took a multitude of hits early on and eventually exploded after smashing a rhino.
• Scouts held their ground against Sentinels and Belekor long enough four the big guns to be brought to bear.
• Leman Russ sniping the front corner of a Chimera through three pieces of terrain (True LOS is dumb, laser pointers for the win)
• Tyberous and his crew coming in on the last turn we played (I think I'm done deep-striking Terminators)
Team B won 5-4 on objectives when we called it. The general consensus was that 40k is best with fewer than 4 people regardless of the point level being played. Going forward if we have 5 or more than we'll be playing a board game, magic or something else that holds a bigger groups attention for longer.
To wrap up the night we brought out King of Tokyo and played a few quick games of that. The game is so simple yet so much fun it's always a good way to wrap up the night.
Dungeons and Dragons – And then there was one. I saved the winged demon for last, this model goes along with the rest of the Heresy Miniatures demons I've been working on. Blue is one of the less common colors I paint and as such it tend to take me a little longer to get it right.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – I love being able to move things off the painting table. The first portion of the Orange Marines is done (except for decals and sealant) I spent a bit more time on these than I typically would for a three color job just because most of these models are character and special characters.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – Jockero Orange is my friend. This nifty color has been the basis for a very large (an ever growing) commission army for one of my favorite clients. Granted it's not flashy or super detailed but working on this job has truly expanded my ability to quickly assemble, base and paint a large number of models in a short amount of time. This force really represents the most economical way to get a great looking army on the tabletop.
Read MoreTerrain Review – Awhile back I picked up the El Tarasco Bar from Burn In Designs. This is a cool laser cut MDF kit that is part of his Old West Rock Ridge line. I'm not going to be using it for that but will rather use it as part of my desert board as a random back water outpost.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – Ok so that's probably not the most accurate title for this review, but it's kinda catchy right. As part of my Damocles binge I recently finished the Space Marine Battles: Damocles and for the most part really enjoyed the book. It's a bit different from other books in the series as it is an anthology rather than a single story.
Read MoreMalifaux – Recently I had to repelnish my supply of Ice Pillars for the online store. It's been a little while since I've been active on the Wyrd forum, but every now and then I get people directed over here looking for the LED Flame counter or Clear Resin Ice Pillar.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – As part of the massive pile of commission work I'm attempting to crank through one of my clients dropped off the models for Execution Force that he wants to have painted up in a generic scheme. He's actually going to use these to play the game and wanted a basic three color with a wash.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – I'm so swamped with painting jobs at the moment, I'm having to bounce around to keep them all moving at a good pace. Not sure if that's the best way to do it but it does keep showing progress for my clients so it's the way I feel I need to move through these projects.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – Over the weekend, I played in a 1500 point raffle event at RIW Hobbies. The events they run typically have a few restrictions on the force you can run. For this event it was single faction, and you had to include a CAD, which was apparently confusing to people because several players had to make on the spot changes to their lists to fit the requirements. The most confusing thing I think is the fact that the allies matrix lists Forces of the Imperium as one entry, and has the Factions listed separately. (one day maybe some one will run a straight up by the book 40k event, but I won't hold my breath)
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – I've been lacking posts as of late, because I've been focused on two major projects; my Space Marines (which I've been putting off finishing) and an intense demon project for a client. With a 1500 point tournament looming of 3/12 I've been primarily focused on getting my list fully painted. For game nights I'm fine with just getting three colors on the models so I can tell which are mine, but for events I like to have my list fully painted to my personal top standard.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – There's another local tournament coming up in March, this one has some slightly odd variations (I'm going to just have to accept that outside of my basement playing 40K per the official rules isn't going to happen.) but I settled on a list that I need to get painted and assembled before the event.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – It's odd how different two similar armies can look and feel. This is the second Salamanders army that I've painted recently and needed to match the existing force my client owns. This is another one where the original paints don't exist any longer so I had to custom mix some colors to come up with a close approximation.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – I just finished up another batch of Grey Knights to go along with the force I previously painted for the same client. The interesting thing about thes models is they were literally saved from a fire. Once of the local stores I visit semi-regularly had a fire that caused some major damage, as a result he was able to pick up some pretty badly damaged product that he needed me to salvage.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – So yeah, prior to the Betrayal at Cath set coming out I bought a tactical squad of resin Mark IV marines. I really have no plans to play Horus Heresy but the models were a good deal and I like that Mark of armor, so I'm using the bodies for other purposes.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – I'm not sure if juggling several projects at once is the most efficient way to work when I have a bunch of stuff that needs to get done in a similar timeframe. It helps to show all parties progress steadily but I almost think it adds time to the overall process. Regardless I finally wrapped up these Salamanders that needed to match a previous army I painted.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – One of my regular opponents just assembled a decent size Tyranid force and really wanted to get them on the table and I had a list I really wanted to tryout prior to a tournament coming up in March. We agreed prior to the game that we'd play 1500 points, Battleforged, Eternal War on a urban table.
It works out well when you can predetermine all those elements before a game, that way you're simply pulling out the models rolling off and going. We also emailed each other our lists prior to the game so there weren't any surprises.
I decided to run my Twilight Ravens as Imperial Fists this game:
HQ - Chaplain
Elite - Command Squad - Apothecary, 4 Melta guns, Melta Bombs, Drop Pod
Elite - Sternguard, Powerfist, 2 Melta Guns, 7 veterans, Drop Pod
Elite - Sternguard - 2 Melta Guns, 8 Veterans, Drop Pod
Troop - 5 Scouts with shotguns
Troop - Powerfist, 4 Scouts with shotguns
Fast - Storm Talon lascannon, assault cannon
Vindicator Squad - 3x Vindicators
My Opponents ran:
HQ - Flyrant
HQ - Flyrant
Troop - Genestealers
Troop - Genestealers
Troop - Genestealers
Troop - Genestealers
Fast - Lictor
Heavy - Mawlock
Heavy - Carnifex
Elite - Warriors
The game was Relic with corner deployment. The Tyranids set up and went first. Which resulted in me losing a scout squad and another getting pinned. My first turn dropped in the Sternguard who proceeded to paste two squads of Genestealers. The trio of Vindicators blasted the apocalypse template onto another group of Genestealers and managed to take out half of them.
Turn two the tyranids strike back. Closing into combat the bugs start to tear up the marines. Being locked in combat means my Sternguard are less than effective.
Turn three is more messy combat where the marines seem to be slowly winning. Even though a Mawlock burst out of the ground and killed of half a squad. The command squad and Storm Talon come in but are less than effective.
Turns four and five swing decisively to the Tyranids and i concede when I only have the three scouts left that can possibly score the objective. (The mawlock bursting out of the ground into the relic sealed that)
Overall the game was really fun. I don't see myself using a vindicator squad in this list again. The giant template was cool but I feel like I could get more bang out of several smaller units instead.
