A Trip Down Ghoulio Lane

I was back in Canada for the holidays. Was able to have an AWESOME game day with BigWillie.  3 games in a single day.  Flames of War 3rd ed, Axis and Allies, and I showed them Force on Force for the first time.  Great stuff.  Hoping to see the pics soon.

But while I was tidying up the basement, I found a bunch of stuff from our old high school/college days playing Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd, and 4th editions.  I'm giving all my (my brother's actually, but he doesn't play anymore) undead to BigWillie since his buddy plays still.  But before we move on, I wanted to show some photos of this old stuff that was such a part of our early years...

First up, my brother's undead horde.  Some great figures, and not all of them either. There was a whole unit of mummies and wraiths I forgot to photo.  In my own collection, there were plenty of Skavan heroes, and other random stuff (old Dwarf Flame Cannon and Gyrocopter for starters).

The skeletons to start things off.  Constructed from an awesome skeleton box that had an entire army in it for not much money.

Wraiths and some Ghouls

Carrion Birds and Death riders..

Sweet Zombie Dragon.

Arkhan the Black I don't think he's in existance anymore.  Pity, a great model.

The Skull Chucker Catapaults

Next up my orcs that I wasn't able to bring down to California.  I'll be picking them up to sell at a later date..

Possibly my favorite scratch built model ever, a goblin mole machine.  Originally designed as a "digger" for Fantasy Rules! 2nd Ed.  I was looking for something to play other than WHFB, and found Fantasy Rules! Although we never really played the game, I built this guy as I had a left over 40k Gretchen doing nothing.  FR also got me into DBA once I had some ancients, so that started a whole historical thing.  You can also check out all my old orcs and goblins on this photo page (created so I could sell them on barter town more easily):

Some savage Orc Boar Boyz

I thought I was sooo funny back then.  The original savage orcs also had smiley faces on their shields etc. and one my Bretonnian Knights was painted as a dairy cow camo (no pics of him but I still own the  unit. 

I forget which Orc warlord this is, but the banners were my own..

A home made Snotling Pump Wagon.  Note that you can take the base of snotlings out of it and then use them as regular snotlings if you so choose.

Rock Lobber

Some random Fanatics and Goblin Wolf Riders.  My fanatics and savage orc boyz (which I sold earlier this year) were the only thing my poor army really had going for it!

I don't think they use these guys anymore, but they were magical beings to help your wizard cast spells

I also dug up my old Bloodbowl Team, which I brought with me back home in case people here want to play again (I sucked at this game).  They are known as the "Orcland Orl Blacks" and even have the black uniform and white stripes.  Some of my best Orc paintjobs, and my favorite minis.  The Kamikaze Lineman, and the Savage Orc Blocker with Face Tattoos being among the better ones.

And even some Bretonnian Ships for Man O War.  My old scratch built cork fleet that Ghoulio and BigWillie won't forget did not survive the years, and these days I'd use Spanish Main ships for micro fighting sail like this, but a fun game anyway.  

Holiday Festivities - WIP's

Howdy'all. It's been a while since I've posted anything - but I am here to remedy that with a gift of some WIP's so Ghoulio doesn't chase me down with his car. I've been super busy over the past months but when ever I got a chance I'd throw some paint on the DV models or work on my nurgle-chaos themed warband or randomly - demons. So I present my holiday offerings of the start of my Word Bearers via the DV box, some Plague zombies and old school(now at least) bloodletter allies.

1st Game of Kiss Me Hardy

A bit late, but I had a great game of "Kiss Me Hardy" by Two Fat Lardies.
Its an age of fighting sail game.  Ours was 4 British ships, a 1st rater, 3rd rater, 5th rate and 6th rate (almost a frigate) took on 2 French 3rd Raters, a Spanish 120 gun monster 1st rater, and a smaller french ship.

The thing about this game was that the rigging was RIDICULOUS.  The guy James who put the game on put a huge amount of effort into his ships.  ALL the lines were there, so the ships were amazing to look at and play.  I don't even think I got a good close up shot of them.

Anyway, we also used some nice plastic "fired" tokens which look quite nice to show who's shooting who because its hard to tell at such a distance.

I had to leave early, but when I left, the Spanish monster had been distracted by my British 6th rater for quite a while, allowing my two larger ships to double team the other French ships.  Unfortunately we'd taken quite a bit of punishment so its was still in a balance.  I wanted to post the pictures anyway since it was such a good game, even though technically its not "fantasy" as Legio is generally (Covering Fire, our other blog is focused on FOW, so what is an historical gamer to do?!).

A really simple system using TFL's standard card driven turn sequence.  Makes me want to go out and buy some Langton ships!

Can't wait for XMas to arrive.  I'll be showing BigWillie and our parents Force on Force using his 40k figs. Should be a blast.

Good closeup of the lines here. Just beautiful.   My ships are on the bottom of the picture blasting the two upper French/Spanish ships.  Of course, they are shooting back..

The maneuver circles you can see are for different "Rated" ships, so the large one is for bigger ships, the smaller one for 6th raters and frigates.  This allows smaller ships to out-turn their larger opponents.  Reminds me rather of the old Car Wars "manoova doova" that my brother and I used to use.

Warmachine Vassal and Choir Leader Finished

A weekend of painting has the Vassal of Menoth and the Choir Leader finished.  This brings my painted force for the Protectorate up to a full 15 points.  They particular guys painted up nicely.

Next up is probably the Exemplar Errants.  Those guys were a complete pain to glue together, but I think they should paint up nicely. A little complicated but nice.

Anywhere here are the Vassal and the Choir Leader.  After I'm finished a few more I'll base 'em.

Winter War is Upon us!!!

Over the weekend I attended a 20 person tournament at a local game store. The tournament was 1500pts and allowed Forgeworld (40k approved), Allies and Fortifications with no comp scores which meant no limitations. I know for many of you this might sound like a nightmare situation when going to a tourney because you will expect to see the most heinous, “Ard Boyz” type lists imaginable. I personally had a totally different take on it. In my opinion 6^th ed is so new who is to say what is overpowered and what isn’t? What type of list is “offensive” and what isn’t? It’s just so early in the edition everyone is still learning how to play it so penalizing players for trying things out doesn’t see right to me. When I talked to the organizer and he said he just wanted to open the doors to everything and see how the chips fell as this was his first 6^th ed tourney and I think that was the perfect way to go. You know the funny thing is? This tourney was one of the most balanced, evenly represented tournaments I had been too lol. There were no “Ard Boy” type lists at all which was great. Even though people had the option to bring any Forgeworld nasty to the table they didn’t. Good to see that putting faith in your gaming community pays off once and a while lol. 

Warmachine Protectorate Choir and pKreoss Done

I finally finished painting both my Kreoss Warcaster, and the choir, both or which are basically required for me to be able to play even a 15 point game of Warmachine.

First off, the entire crew:

Cryptek and Warriors Complete!

On December 1st there is a tournament coming up (1500pts) and after playing a bunch of test games I decided I wanted to change things up a bit. I was noticing that the regular lord in my Immortals squad was doing virtually nothing other then providing a small buff in durability and that while the Ghost Ark is awesome, that little 5 man squad just didn't have enough bodies to get it done. So, I traded out the Lord for a Transmorgification Cryptek with a Tremor Staff and a Seismic Crucible and then with the left over points I was able to add 4 more Warriors to the 5 man Warrior squad, maxing them out to fit in the Ghost Ark. The whole reason I had that Lord in with the Immortals was for some close combat support...then I realized if I can reliably make it so people can't assault me while giving me some more offensive punch it might be a better idea. How would I do that you ask? Anything I hit with the Crypteks Tremor Staff now counts as being in difficult terrain till the start of my next turn and the Seismic Crucible reduces one squad of my choice assault range by D3". So, I can reliably set up within 12" and pretty much never get charged. Awesome lol

This is the first Finecast Cryptek I painted for this army and I gotta say it's going to be the last. Despite putting the staff in hot water to bend it back into place it's still warped. The detail is awful around his hand with things blending into each other (same thing with Imotek and his fire gauntlet). Ah well, lesson learned I guess lol

I am guessing anyone following the blog has noticed a real slow down with posts over the last few weeks. The reason for that is the house we are building is almost at completion and we are going to be moving in over the next 3 weeks. Right now all my Warhammer stuff is already packed up and in storage save for my Necrons and a few paints to finish these guys off for the tournament next weekend. So, that sadly means it is going to be very slow until the start of January with moving, unpacking and Christmas all back to back. On a plus note once we move I will finally have a permanent place to paint and I am going to be getting a bunch more time to actually enjoy this hobby. So come the new year and beyond there shouldn't be any more slow down in posting. I will also be starting some new stuff (I have a couple projects in mind) and I will be taking a break on the Necrons. I am really looking forward to trying out some new techniques which includes picking up an Airbrush so I can redo my Eldar in style once that codex gets released at the end of next year. I want to thank everyone who follows the blog and I look forward to getting back to it soon.

Imotek...Complete!

Soooo...I realized I literally JUST posted an article called "Necron Army...Complete!" so I do get the irony of immediately finishing more models for this army. So, I had a bit of free time over the weekend and figured I would paint up this guy.  Even though he was finecast (hiss...boo!) the sculpt wasn't THAT bad...wasn't that great either. His staff is very bendy and I just couldnt fix it for the life of me. Overall I am very happy with how he turned out. Really pleased with the colour choices and the fact that I did the runes in that neon green. Makes the model "pop" quite a bit more then a standard lord. I apologize in advance as I took the pics with my phone, couldn't find my camera. Once I do find my camera I will do some re-shoots as my phone doesnt really do him justice.

Necron Army Complete!

It took a while to actually get a chance to get a real shot of the whole army together. Overall the army took me about 16 days total to paint (full days…like 8-10 hour days). When you consider that my Dark Eldar took a full year of work or my Nids were about two I think that is a pretty epic feat lol. Overall I am very proud of this army to the point where I would put it on the same mark as my DE. The reason I say that is because of how little time it took to paint because of the techniques and limited palette I chose to work with. Just goes to show that because something is speed painted doesn’t mean it has to look bad lol.

As far as playing the army I am having a lot of fun with it. Sadly that can’t really be said for my opponents. The closest game was against my friend Jon and I still won that by a mark of 12-5 for victory points. The funny thing is I created this list in 5th ed with the sole purpose of being a "softer" list that is fun to play against. Little did I know certain units would get such massive bumps in power like Night Scythes and Warriors lol. The things I like the most about this army are having a balanced list with some sneaky tricks (two things which are trademarks of my lists it seems lol). Here is the list:

HQ

Overlord - warscythe, mindshackle scarabs, tesseract labyrinth, rez orb
Royal Court
Lord - warscythe, mindshackle scarabs, rez orb
Destruction Cryptek - eldritch lance, solar pulse
Despair Cryptek - veil of darkness

Elites

Triarch Stalker - heat ray

Troops

Warriors (20) - (Overlord and Despair Cryptek here)
Warriors (5) - ghost ark, (Destruction Cryptek here)
Immortals (10) - tesla carbines, night scythe, (Lord here)

Fast Attack

Tomb Blades (3) - particle beamers
Scarabs (7)

Heavy Support

Annihilation Barge - tesla destructor, tesla cannon
Annihilation Barge - tesla destructor, tesla cannon
 Tomb Spiders (3)

1750pts

The “allstars” of this list are the Solar Pulse and that 20 man warrior squad. The reason I love the solar pulse as much as I do is because being able to control night fight against all opponents can be potentially game winning. The durability it adds to all your vehicles since they are skimmers cant be understated. Basically, if you move all your AV 13 vehicles will have a minimum of a 4+ cover save. You get in decent cover from 24”+ it can get down 2+. Very rarely do I surrender “first blood” even when going second because of the pulse. Another nice benefit is that half the time the first two turns you have night fight on, which is amazing.

The second key piece to this list is that 20 man Warrior squad. When you combine the size, the 4+ resurrection protocol, their standard 4+ save and the nearby ghost ark you have a squad that can take anything you throw at it and still remain close to max strength. How I use this unit is to draw my opponents units towards my lines while I get some shots off at tanks, softening up their troops, etc. and RIGHT before he is able to assault I veil to the other side of the board normally into his un-protected backfield or onto an objective. I am constantly blown away at how well this works.

The runner up prize oddly goes to the Stalker. The reason being is 100% based on twin linking everything in your army when firing at his target squad. I cant get over how well this works combined with the style of shooting for this army (volume of fire). Just awesome lol.

I am hoping to be doing a tournament on Dec 1^st with these guys (at 1500pts so I drop the Scarabs and Spiders) so I will obviously be doing up a tournament recap. I am also hoping to get in some battle reports too.

Vypers...Revamped!

The great Eldar revamp continues. It was slow again at work this weekend so I spent some time fixing up my Vypers and started work on my Wraithlord (will have him done soon). Below I have a pic of the original Vyper that was painted up for my old Ulthwe Strike Force list (it was BS 4 and had a crystal targeting matrix, hence the bright lance).

And here are the two Jetbikes with an added underslung Shuriken Cannon and new style Cannon for the turret as well as the new flying bases.

Up Next: A full army shot of the Necrons and I will also be talking about my experiences with the army so far!

Keeping Busy...

Over the last couple weeks I have just been plugging away at some current projects. The number one thing I am working on right now is the mega Eldar revamp to update them to 6th ed. I added a new unit of Dark Reapers to replace the 3rd ed ones I have. This way I get much nicer figs and an Exarch that is armed with a Tempest Launcher, which is huge. I also updated my Vypers to have 2 Shuriken Cannons each as they greatly benefit from the new 6th ed Fast Skimmer Rules. After that its mostly re-basing and adding one or two new models. Here is a quick pick of the conversions for the under-slung Shuriken Cannons and the new flying bases:

For the second project my friend Matt and I also picked up the Warmachine 2 Player Starter set just to try something new. So, in between projects I have been plugging away at the starter figs. The first thing I noticed when I started putting these together and painting them is that they are NOT Games Workshop miniatures. They have a fraction of the detail and leave much lacking in the form department. With that being said the more I work on them (also have some Trolls which are significantly nicer then any of the Warmachine figs) the more they grow on me. I have really started liking the super goofy cartoony look. Really nice change of pace from 40k both in rules and miniatures. I am going to treat this game like one would for Necromunda or Blood Bowl. Just a small faction of 20 models painted to a super high level (for the Trolls). For this starter set though I am just doing very basic painting. For this guy its just one level of high lighting. Super basic.

War Walkers...Finished!

After recently completing my new Necron Army I was somewhat at a loss as what to do next. I spent about a week looking over the Chaos codex when I came into the same issue I do when I look at the regular Marine codex...I have no idea how to build an army with this book lol. I look over the units, I can see a couple units I would like to have but the idea of making a coherent list just baffles me.

So, seeing as there are no other armies out that even remotely interest me I decided to look back at the remaining projects I have still left on my table. I know I want to do a slight revamp for the Dark Eldar to bring them into 6th but adding Eldar allies and a defense line. I also was looking at the Eldar codex and noticed it actually isn't looking too bad with the changes to 6th. After realizing that I decided to take a look at what I needed to do to update the army as I haven't played it in 3 years and the needed changes are surprisingly little.

My War Walkers have been one project that has been staring me in the face for the last 3 years. I originally had them armed for 3rd edition so they had Star Cannons (back when they were 3 shots each) and a Scatter Laser (back when they were D6 shots each). After "Octocon 2009" I realized just how shitty that combo was as my Scatter Lasers did all the damage with the massive volume of shots and my Star Cannons were just a waste. So I spent the weekend updating the weapons, re-basing the squad and finally finishing the last model in the unit. Overall a very productive weekend lol.

Up Next: After redoing these guys and realizing just how expensive this hobby has gotten it got me thinking about the idea of what one needs to do to revamp their older armies to get them ready for the newest addition and why, for many people, this is a great direction to go instead of starting fresh, which is something I have always done.