Tossing the Tau Zerg swarm into the meat grinder once more...

 o/

My Hogzilaries valiantly taking the objective!

We got in a sorta game last weekend. The usual four player free-for-all, though we ought to have played a 2v2 game given the late start. But whatever, here's a few pics in lieu of a proper battle report as we only managed 2 turns and I only took a handful. 

See, Zerg swarm. Just like I said. Not pictured is my newly purchased, fully painted Forgeworld Remora drone. Turn 1 it strafed Rob's Thousand Sons, surprisingly killing two due to atrocious rolls on his part. I had hoped to wing over and do the same to Mike's Deathwing who would no doubt blow it out of the sky, BUT...Rob had psykers. So instead it died to psychic mortal wound Spam, because that's apparently all his psykers do.

For whatever reason, the first two turns of every game, the Swine invariably advance 10-12" per turn.

Cameron, a Necromunda veteran who crossed the Rubicon divide. Not only he was fielding a fully painted Smurf army, but a slightly off color one that perfectly matched his hoodie (totally not planned, or so he insisted...). Cameron, Neverness and I ought to team up for a Smurfs vs everybody game!

Not only were my Swine the first to reach the central objective in turn two, but they even wounded a Thousand Son with a shotgun blast to the back! The T-Sons had been teleported across the board by one of Rob's psykers, which is what brought them (barely) into range.

The only glimpse I have of Mike's Deathwing in my pics. 

That shotgun wound was not appreciated, and the Hogzilaries were incinerated into bacon in short order. Here we see the Muppets who are about to suffer the same fate.  

Perhaps it was a good thing that we only played 2 turns, as I had already taken 30-40 casualties! That's not a sustainable number of losses if one intends to reach the end of turn 5! 

That said, the highlight of the game for me was when my Breachers vaporized a unit of Smurf Aggressors in one volley, though not before the fuckers had already wiped out 2 units of my own!

Doubt I'll make it to game night this week though, so will have to entertain you with painted minis next week I guess.

Rearming the Troops (Literally)

o/

Yes I know havoc champions can't use signums, but they look cool and besides, did the Astral Claws' signums really cease functioning just because they started shooting at their brethren?

In and amongst the slow crawl of progress that is my painting queue, I've been repositioning several of the characters that I got from Kushial. Mostly this is just a straight replacement/swap of the arms and weapons, but occasionally the head as well. Whereas in the case of the captain there in the center, he is an amalgamation of several minis along with some bits poached from my meagre collection of spares. 

A little battlefield debris has been added also (mostly skulls). Indeed, the last four bolter grunts needed to complete my first Astral Claws tac. squad received basing skulls/bitz as well, however as they're now primed black they don't photograph worth a shit. 

Clearly  enough for two armies...

One thing of note: the two Forgeworld Apothecaries are REALLY cool minis that I've always wanted! That being said, I'm using the Chaos codex for the Astral Claws meaning they have no place in the army. As such those two as well as that captain with be siphoned off with some other extras that didn't fit in with the claws for a second small Black Templars army. 

Come on...you didn't really think I'd paint all of these in the same colors did you? 

So, what to do with a non-Primaris space marine army?

The above is just a small portion of the Lions of Harlech Chapter. I do believe that there is somewhere in the realm of 4-5 fully painted companies of them.

It is a valid question as out of the blue, Kushial surprised me (stunned would be more accurate) with the gift of a large space marine army this past weekend! Approximately 2k worth in points via the old marine codex as I've yet to get the current one. 

The unpainted lions...

He hasn't played 40k in close to 2 years, and has no want to paint anymore of his beloved Lions of Harlech space marines, so he was selling off the unpainted portions of his army (dreadnoughts excluded as he has a love of dreads that borders on some kind of psychosis...). However, like myself when I sold off the handful of Rainbow Warriors and the other remnants of my non-primaris marine forces, he found that they were selling for a pittance. 

The whole lot of 'em!

So, if he was to give them away, he'd give them to someone he knew that would enjoy them, rather than a total stranger. So...where to go from here, as GW (apparently) no longer has any love for the 'regular' marines. 

Perusing the archives of this blog I thought that maybe I'd revisit one of the many, many chapters that I've fielded in the past and in doing so the Tyrant's Legion caught my eye. Based on Forgeworld's (now defunct) 6th ed list, the Tyrant's Legion was Lugft Huron's attempt to build the Astral Claws up into a space marine legion of old prior to the badab war. 

At that war's conclusion, the Astral Claw/Tyrant's Legion survivors fled into the maelstrom and became the Red Corsairs, which was another army given to me  out of the blue from the Gentleman's Ones (oh how I miss that blog, and then later given away to yet another blogger who did them proud.

An image of an Astral Claw from the of FW Badab war book. Ironically, it bears a strong resemblance in color to the otherwise totally unrelated Lions of Harlech!

Anyways, originally, the Astral Claws were a loyalist chapter, and rather than have an army in open rebellion again (built of a mix of loyalist and chaos bitz as i had previously), I'm thinking of doing an earlier version, just on the cusp of heresy. The lion's share (pun intended) of the minis in my new army are 30k Mk IV marines. Conveniently, the Astral Claws had raided stockpiles of obsolete, but still serviceable kit as they sought to bolster their forces in secret. 

So how to build this with longevity in mind you ask? Simple: I use the chaos space marine codex. However like the fallen, I'll just ignore all of the chaos gods' affiliated stuff, daemons, etc., and build 'em much as a generic loyalist army, but one diverging from the codex astartes, i.e.: over sized tac squads, with 2 heavy, or special weapons, etc. 

It'll carry some of the flavor of the old FW list, whilst being entirely legal, and devoid of primaris marines and any fear of obsolescence for the foreseeable future.  Some units won't be cross-compatible of course (hey Neverness, I gotta bunch of scout snipers for ya!), and I'll need to order some bitz to convert the Landraider redeemer back into a 'regular' one. But i think it'll work and hey-best of all, that color scheme is easy to paint!

Eldar Corsair Void Dreamer for 8th Ed.

o/

So...I'm a pretty big fan of Foreworld's Eldar Corsairs, and I say that despite have next to none of them (and out of my small collection, none of them are actual Forgeworld minis). Corsairs were the Swiss army knives of the Eldar before they were effectively liquidated by Forgeworld when 8th ed was released. 

Such an awesome image and yet I have no idea who created it. 

Sure they have a handful of datasheets, but GW's sudden 'if we don't already make a model for it, then there will be no datasheet for it' mentality that curiously ignores their decades of character/unit customizability (something few if any other games systems could even come close to) killed the Corsairs as an army. Sure, sure, Foregworld's roolz boyz opted for the lowest of low hanging fruit in the 2018 FAQ with the following statement: :

Corsair Reaver Band, Abilities Add the following ability: ‘Corsairs: So long as your Warlord is Aeldari, you can include this unit in a Patrol, Battalion, or Outrider Detachment even if that Detachment contains no HQ units. However, if you do so, that Detachment’s Command Benefits are changed to ‘None’.’

Okay sure, that technically works but...the lack of an actual HQ still irks the hell out of me. This past weekend I just fielded my Corsairs as an auxiliary support detachment. However with reinforcements coming via ebay, I'll soon have enough Corsairs for a patrol detachment, and for that I'd like an HQ of some sort to lead it. 

Thus, I thought I'd forge my own fucking narrative and opted for the next-to-the-lowest hanging fruit: the Void Dreamer. In prior editions, Void Dreamers are the navigators of Corsair fleets, and on the table top, were essentially glorified Warlocks with a few more options for wargear, with...for the most part, a vastly inferior selection of mediocre psychic abilities.

That said, they were also cheap, and thus my usual go-to HQ choice. Never having a large number of corsairs myself, I figured most 'Princes' couldn't be bothered with such small and insignificant actions. Besides, I already have 2 Index Autarchs, so there's no need for a Corsair equivalent in my collection.

I still have the mini that I had used as a Void Dreamer previously, the original Farseer mini, and given said Farseer's abysmal performance last weekend, where he failed to cast ANYTHING for the first 3 turns (yes, even with rerolls), he was in for a demotion. Rather than just making him a Warlock however, is Exodite brethren gave him the boot apparently, and to navigate the stars for a bunch of pirates he goes...

As such I just took the Warlock page out of the Craftworlds codex PDF, and altered it to my liking to change the Warlock into a Void Dreamer :

Right-click and save as...

Slightly off topic but still very relevant, I'm sure you'll note that I nerfed the brace of pistols down from a D6 to a D3 (doing the same for my other Corsairs as well). I just didn't like the idea that en entire faction could be (assuming you rolled high) better gunslingers than the average 30k Moritat or hell, even Cypher! Oh, and one more thing: I dropped the higher price for the Felarch making it a free squad upgrade just like every other squad Sgt./Nob/Exarch/etc. in the GAME! Seriously, why hasn't THAT been FAQ'd yet???

Pistols and squad leaders aside, I figured that most of the Void Dreamers' Psyhic abilities would be navigationally oriented, and thus of minimal utility on the battlefield. So the only offensive power he has is the Warlock's Destructor version of Smite. However given the Dreamer's talents of reading the warp, he/she can attempt to dispel two psychic powers a turn. That makes my Void Dreamer kind of a defensive leader (which I'll admit is odd for pirates), but is hardly game breaking. 

I'm sure he/she has other powers, but I'd imagine being able to psychically sail a freighter (why on earth I stripped this mini of that wonderful paint job I'll never know...) through an ethereal, soul-screaming patch turbulence has little table top merit. 

The 'condensed for my collection' point values, omitting all of
the other Forgeworld goodies I neither have nor can afford
(without purchasing them from our Russian friends...).

Point costs for the Void Dreamer are the same as the warlock, and the costs of his wargear are also unchanged.

I'll be using this guy going forward (with my opponents' permission of course), though I honestly don't see any reason why they would object to it.  

*****

Also, for all of the Americans out there: Happy Independence day! Now go out there, drink heavily, barbecue, and (carefully?) play with your explosives!

Caged Lions

o/

Look who's trapped in my mud-slow paint queue...

Aways back Kushial came into a horde of Battletech tanks for a steal. Looking thru his extras, I asked how much he wanted for a lance of Manticore tanks. Knowing that hobby funds are sometimes tight for me, he asked if I'd paint a dreadnought for him in exchange for the tanks. Sure, works for me!

A few tanks in need of a refurb...

The Dreadnought to be painted is a Leviathan with storm cannon and grav-flux bombard. Yeah that sounds scary, though to be honest I have no idea what those weapons do. I asked if his color scheme was lavender with pink accents, to which he curtly replied no, lol.

I suppose I could paint the Contemptor lavender and pink, but following my Salamanders dread and the Leviathan, that would be like painting 3.5 dreads, so I'm pretty sure its safe from that fate!

Instead a Lions of Harlech Contemptor was supplied along with the Leviathan to act as a sort of color guide. Speaking of, I know that Kushial and Neverness played a game of 8th ed Sunday, however these two weren't present for the battle as they're currently in my possession, so Neverness: you're welcome!

The curious life of a Forgeworld rhino upgrade set

o/

The base of the Praetor in my prior post got me thinking about the Rhino door on which that mini stands: a ‘leftover’ Forgeworld piece. How does that happen anyways?

In the end I think this was one of my better FW purchases.

Like many geeks wanting a prettier rhino, I bought the Imperial Fists’ rhino door upgrade kit for my old Iron Hands army (the demise of which pre-dates this blog, 4th ed 40k i think). I had to buy the Imperial Fists set as at the time, Forgeworld didn’t make any Iron Hands upgrade kits. Wanting to spread the love around, I decided to put the front plate on a predator and the doors onto a rhino. 

I've recycled this pic soooo many times...

The predator served its army (fully painted) till the Iron Hands’ eBay sale, but stayed behind, as did the as-yet unpainted Rhino. The Predator was repainted in the colors of the Dark Hands space marine chapter, an Imperial Fists’ successor and garnered great renown (in my opinion anyways) when it got an honorable mention in an Atlanta Gamesday golden daemon competition's 'open' category (I forget the year). The fact that it did so whilst being a repaint made it all the better!

The Dark Hands didn’t stay around too long, also going the way of eBay (but I will note that the new owner messaged me asking for instructions in hopes of matching the army’s paint scheme which made me quite happy). Once again, the predator stayed behind, and except for a brief stint with the Subjugator’s chapter, it remains in a display case. 

It seems that the Honorable Mention was to be this tank’s downfall, as it was often targeted first for that specific reason alone, as more than one opponent told me…the bastards! 

As for the doors, I decided to add an allied Crimson fists’ squad and rhino to one of my armies, I forget which, but possibly the Dark Hands. Only a few minis were painted (the rhino only partially) before I tired of painting that color scheme (adult ADHD for the win)!

The half-painted Crimson Fists’ rhino’s only notable action was when it was parked in plain sight in one of my grandmother’s dollhouses, yet remained unseen for 4 days! She was not happy when on removing it there were (quote) ‘tank tracks in the carpeting!’

Not this tanks' best view, but no doubt Neverness will recall its demise with glee!

I believe that it was during mid-to-late 5th ed 40k when Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop itself took possession of the rhino and konverted it into a looted wagon with a BOOM gun! Its (somewhat reliably) served with them ever since, though during the ‘konverting’ stage, one door was popped out to be replaced with a plain door bearing an Ork icon, and it landed in purgatory my bitz box where it bounced around for some years. 

Well, at least one of them got an Imperial Fists paint job.

Skip forward to the present (late 7th ed) and I took this last remaining Imperial Fist rhino door and ‘battle-damaged’ the hell out of it for the very short-lived Captain Woo, of Word Bearers’ fame. Woo died before painting, only to be replaced by Praetor T, who now stands upon this last rhino door.

Sorry if this was a bit long-winded, but the recollection that one upgrade kit was split between 3 different models, for three different armies, over the course of 3 different 40k editions amused me, and I thought it needed telling. 

Alpha Legion Cataphractii Praetor is complete!

o/

Despite his skin tone, he's been dubbed 'Praetor T' after his paint job survived unscathed from a fall into a (mostly) empty glass of iced Tea!

Overall I’m quite pleased with the mini even though the gold doesn’t match my Asirnoth mini. That means I undercoated the gold on that model with something else (Averland sunset perhaps?). Oh well. It looks fine as is, and I won’t be painting any more gold till I buy something else!

My Beloved Wolfy is especially fond of how they cloak's decal came out. Mind you that was the second one as the first attempt met in dismal failure (and was accompanied by a considerable amount of profanity!).

Evidence of yet another combatant on this mysteriously
red-sanded nightmare of a world!

Cleansing the galaxy of the Imperium's allies, foes and xenos invaders alike is a dirty business, and as such his armor is quite dirty as per my usual preference. I’m also really fond of how his base turned out! He’s standing upon what’s left of an Imperial Fists’ Rhino door. Its a leftover Forgeworld piece (and how does that happen?) and leaves little to the imagination as to the fate of the Rhino from whence it came…

With this guy out of the way, Its back to Cataphractii Terminator assembly for me! 

The 30k Blast Pistol

o/

In the Forgeworld's Imperialis Auxilia army list there's a curious weapon that has a stat line but no descriptive entry. Its just an oversight I'm sure, and considering the typos that Forgeworld had in the previous publication of this list, if this is the only issue then I'm good with it! Anyways, this is the Blast Pistol:


Type: Pistol

Basic Stats: Range: 6", S:5, AP: -

Special Rules: Twin-Linked, Gets Hot.


So...a pistol that hits like a truck, but has no penetrative power. Its pathetically short ranged, but has a high probability to hit, except when it blows up in the shooter's hands. I pondered that a bit, and to me that sounds like the 40k equivalent of a Blunderbuss.

Unglamorous as a blunderbuss is, I find it curious that it only squad leaders and officers can get them. I suppose then that its meant to either be an aristocrat's weapon, or...that anyone of seniority in the Imperialis Auxilia potentially bought the rank rather than earned it, and is assumed to not be able to hit the broad side of a barn.

So why am I bothering with any of this you ask? Well, I wanted to give my Outremar Platoon Commander a weapon that would set him/her apart from the rest of the platoon. Hasslefree's Grymn miniature line has a lot of different sculpts, however the variety of weaponry is somewhat lacking. Its mainly 2-types of assault rifles (which easily pass for either autoguns or bolters), dual pistols and lastly heavy and/or special weapons.

Note: The shells in the bandolier on her back are now almost as big as the gun itself!

So I took one of my Grymn grenade launcher troopers (the unpainted one), clipped the barrel of the grenade launcher off. From the barrel I clipped off the grenade launcher's tip and glued it neatly onto the GL nub that the (now former) GL trooper was holding, and with that: tahdah! Due to her funky little pistol, I now have a Platoon Commander who stands out of the crowd.

That said, in a squad full of Heavy Stubbers, my PC armed with a blast pistol will be a complete waste of points, but...well, at least she looks cool.

Where the fluff meets the sprue...

o/

So…this is a little bit of a rant the percolated out of the comments that Greg Hess and I exchanged on my previous post regarding the new, plastic Mk III Space Marine sprues. Just give me a minute to practice my crotchety old geezer voice...

After assembling 40k space marines for for years, as well as the more recent Mk IVs from the Betrayal of Calth set, I (apparently wrongly) expected GW would follow the same tried and true route with their new Burning of Prospero Mk III tactical marines. Yeah I know, stupid on my part right? Right.

Complaint #1: Why in the hell are the legs in 2 pieces? 

Wait what?

Seriously, aside from taking longer to assemble, and taking up more room on the sprue, what does that add? The poses aren't more dynamic. Hell, if anything they're more static than the norm! (see Complaint #4 below) Forgeworld could make the legs in one piece, but GW could not…apparently do so in plastic. Also the mold lines are quite hard to remove due to the myriad collection of rivets all over the place. Greggles has subjected himself to correcting that nightmare whereas I have decided that they're not visually bad enough to warrant me doing more damage than good (to the rivets) to bother trying to remove them. 

Complaint #2: Why in the hell are the back packs in 2 pieces?

Um...seriously?

Yes apparently the legs weren't enough, meaning now we have 2-part backpacks. No idea why that was necessary either, its not like they're a really funky design or anything. The design is nothing worse than the CSM backpacks. No, they were just made to take up twice as much space on the sprue for no conceivable reason. Makes me wonder if this was an attempt to make life difficult for ebay bitz resellers that failed or something...

Complaint #3: Why aren't there different heavy weapon options?

Sure the heavy bolter looks cool (I would know, I have a dev squad full of em), but we all know that MLs are much better at killing marines and vehicles. The ML (or something else) was no doubt omitted due to the extra amount of space that was wasted by the legs and backpacks.

Complaint #4: They all have really static poses.

Swivel your helms to the left, then swivel 'em to the right...

Yes, yes, assault marines and Wulfen aside (do the Wulfen really even qualify as marines?), Spess Mahreens aren't known for super dynamic poses. That said, let's give a big and hearty WELCOME BAAAAAACK to the 1980s and its super statically posed Space Marines! I'm not saying I wanted more Karate Kid posed minis (that Wulfen is bad enough to not be repeated), but at least the Mk IVs had some possibility beyond just swiveling the head from one side to another, the Mk IIIs? Well, yeah that's just about all they offer. Hasn't technology evolved since the the days of spin-casted lead minis? Thanks to cutting edge design, we now have CAD, injection molding, and the same static poses as 30 years prior. Woot!

We all know that fluff-wise, the Mk IV armor was an improvement over the older Mk III design, but as a fluff-player I have to say:

 'For fuck's sake GW, did you have to include that little bit of history in the damned sprues?' 

Whilst I like the armor's aesthetic appearance, I'm sure you've figured out by now that I'm less than pleased with these new minis. I like em, but I also don't like em...I dunno, I suppose that any future 30k tactical marine purchases will likely be either more Mk IVs, or else Mk VIs poached out of 40k tac squad box.

Like a shot out of left field!

o/

On the red sand, this guy's actually camouflaged!

Here's my Blood Angels test model. This is one of five (sounds like something from the Borg's collective, lol) Chinese recruits, purchased via ebay back around the time that the Betrayal of Calth had just been released. I wanted Mk III marines, more than Mk IV's, but couldn't afford the Forgeworld originals. The quality was decent enough at the time, but I never actually built any of them as I was working on the Mk IV's.

Then the Burning of Prospero came out, and I bought a single Mk III mini via ebay and yeah…side-by-side, the quality of the plastic mini vs. my Chinese knockoffs was startling. As such, they were punted out of the 'to-build' queue and all but forgotten until I drew up an army for my 30k game with Bob. In double checking my numbers, I found I was one mini short, and so I built this one to fill that hole in my roster. 

The Chinese recruit prior to his first death in combat...

Following that game, I went back to build the rest. I knew they had issues, but figured I could get 2-3 more out the remaining four, but they were so poorly cast that during my attempted assembly I threw them all out in a fit of nerd rage! In hindsight, I ought to have kept the helmets to decorate bases, but oh well. That's my only regret at this point.

At the time of purchase I wanted something cheap, and that is exactly what I got.

Skipping back to the present, I figured I'd paint this mini up as a squad of plastic Mk III's was just purchased via ebay. Had this mini not been painted prior to their arrival its likely to have joined its brethren in the trash dump! That said (and for whatever stupid reason), I didn't want this mini mixed in (again) with my Alpha Legionnaires. Thus, on a whim I painted him as a Blood Angel. 

Old, fugly pic. This mini will
be rebased and get a BA decal.

The intent was to give my non-denominational Techmarine a new lease on life as a BA Forgelord. Add in a tac squad and possibly my half-painted predator redone in BA colors (more on that in a later post) and that would make for a nice little loyalist allied contingent to back up my Outremar. 

I lack the numbers necessary to siphon models off of my Alpha Legion army to build a new faction, however if I put the bolter grunts to the back of the painting queue, as bare plastic marines they can fight for either Legion. Works for me since I have close to 20 tactical support and devastator Alpha Legionnaires to paint anyways.

*****

For my personal reference: this paint recipe is waaaay simpler than the one for my Alpha Legionnaires. Indeed, I was able to match my Techmarine which was originally painted who knows how long ago!

Blood Angel paint recipe:

Base coat of Mephiston Red, trimmed in whatever bolt gun metal is called now.

Then slather on Agrax Earthshade. 

Once dry dirty & touch up as normal. 

Interrogator Themis

o/

With the recent interest in KT, I picked up this mini from Prodos Games to lead an Inquisitorial Kill Team. Equipped with a bolter and storm shield (which curiously, Inquisitors don't have access to, just their flunkies), this is a really kickass looking mini! Most strangely...it was cast as a single piece of resin.  Yes, seriously.

This is exactly how it looked right out of the box: 

This is from a game called Space Crusades (that last 's' is apparently all that's needed to stave off a copyright lawsuit from GW).

No assembly, washing or anything required. Look at those undercuts...what the hell? Makes ya want to ask: Okay Forgeworld, why in the hell can't you make stuff like this?' Sure they make minis that look just as good, but not flawless single piece casts!

Took a bit of a break from the 30k bolter grunts

o/

Given my slow one-at-a-time building and painting process, it seems like I've been working on 'em forever. In reality no, I have less than 10 tactical marines actually done (seriously?!?! WTF???). Nope, I ain't got nuthin' on the high-speed painting machine that Mordian7th is, but I am enjoying the process at least. Anyways, given that my troops choices will be veteran legion tactical squads, I switched things up a bit and painted a heavy bolter legionnaire.

Ya know, I've painted probably a dozen or more heavy bolter marines over the years. Hell, I once had a dev squad with 4 heavy bolters in it! All models and designs but this one...this one for the pose alone is the best I've ever worked on! It looks soooo much better than all of the prior sculpts! This was also the first one to get the FW decals added. The ones on the shoulder pads ended up a bit low, but overall, I like it. That and these are of a much better quality than the standard GW decals!

I also finished my Techmarine. There's a saying which says 'the devil is in the details'. Well, if that's the case, then after painting this guy, I've decided to name him el Diablo! Seriously! I don't think GW (or me and my conversions) could have added more detail if we tried! Well, I guess I did actually, as why not add a small generator to his base as well to add some more visual distraction, am I right?

Right.

My new Legiones Astartes - Age of Darkness book has arrived!

As you can see, its still in the shrink wrap...which is something of a travesty in and of itself! Sigh, its been a busy afternoon, and I've simply not had the time to open it, sprawl out on the couch and give it a good read-thru. Originally, I was going to do another kill team battle report for this post, but I'm tired, its late and...yeah. That'll just have to wait for Monday.

Thought for the day: Suffer not the shrink wrap to live!

The unit listing on the back cover includes all the recently added model/unit types, but it seems not the Legion specific rules/Rights of War. Oh well, I can just print off the half dozen (or so) pages that I need for the Alpha Legion and save myself $50+ that I'd spend on the other book otherwise.

Edit: This book has alternate Rights of War and there's one that fits my army perfectly!!! Which sounds like the makings of another blog post in the near future...

My "Brexit" purchase

o/

Whilst the world reeled in shock at the unexpected voting result in the UK, and the value of the British pound dropped to its lowest point since 1978, I thought (as most everyone did): "how does this effect me?"

The answer:   FORGEWORLD'S ON SALE!!!!!!

lol, actually Hasslefree Miniatures has been all too happy to tout the low price of their products to foreign buyers in all of their news letters since the Brexit vote, so I'm not the only one to cash in on the event. Whilst that is tempting, I instead spent my $$$ on Forgeworld given I had recently gotten a bunch of Grymn anyways.

The nightmarishly frequent typos in the 'Tempest' FW book's Militia army list have been corrected in this tome.

Though still on a Grymn related note, I bought the Crusade Imperialis army list book. Now my Grymn-turned-Outremar Imperial Militia have an actual rulebook and not a hacked Russian PDF!

True to form for a legion that prefers a shroud of secrecy, their decal sheet was decidedly difficult to photograph. This photo is the best I could manage.

The Alpha legion weren't left out either, as I got their decal sheet. I'm waiting for the updated and combined into one volume HH Space marine 'red book' to come out and then I'll get that for my Alpha Legion as well. Shouldn't be long now since the 'special edition' of it sold out near-instantaneously!

The next 'chapter' in the life of an old dreadnought...

If I recall correctly, approximately 20 years ago Brad, one of my 40k buddies in Florida worked at a resin casting company. Working the graveyard shift and under the guise of 'training' he cast multiple copies of his SM dreadnought (the multi-melta version), and gave several of us in the gaming group a copy. Forgeworld, whilst in existence wasn't producing dreadnoughts of their own yet, meaning all dreadnoughts were made of pewter! Indeed, when I moved to Tennessee this feather-light dread took many people by complete surprise when they picked it up to give it a look. 

I had to dig almost all the way back to the beginning of this blog just to find some good pics of this beast!

Last time I spoke to Brad in person, about five years or so ago whilst visiting in Florida, I mentioned that I still had one of his resin dreads in regular use. He'd long since left mini gaming himself, and was pleasantly surprised to find that any of his old dreads even existed anymore. As such it seems that this dread is the sole survivor!

Like many of my older minis, this Dread has fought in several past armies including the: Iron Hands, Silver Skulls, Chaos Undivided (up to and probably including the Red Corsairs prior to FW getting ahold of them), and The Blood Eagles (CSM Warband of my own creation and in who's colors you see above) just to name a few. 

Back in the day of fire frenzying dreadnoughts, I changed it's weapons loadout from the then equipped twin-lascannon and missile launcher to the current twin-heavy bolter (a FW piece), and a dreadnought CCW with heavy flamer to minimize my own casualties. That said, I distinctly remember it killing three of my own chaos marines during it's battlefield-debut with these new weapons.

Damnit.

Anyways, skipping forward to the present, and this venerable model has begun the first stage of ritual cleansing in a bath of Simple Green. After a few weeks of that it'll be fully-stripped first of its paint, the old, skinny base as well as any incriminating CSM bits, before being refit for battle with loyalist marines once more. I'll be keeping the twin-heavy bolter, but given that dreads still suck in close combat, I'll be replacing the CCW arm with a missile launcher. This will relegate it to purely the role of fire support, but given that heavy firepower of any kind is generally lacking amongst the few survivors of my (now quite small) 40k armies these days, that'll be just fine I think.

And if it still sucks? Well...its a dread, so what did you expect from it anyways?

For once, there's some exciting news in 40k...

...exciting to me anyways.

Apparently, Forgeworld is getting off of its ass, and is finally updating the Doom of Mymeara! I spotted this during my weekly perusal of Bell of lost souls, and for the first time in a long time, I was glad I gave that site a look. True, a quick skim of the comments ran along the lines of OMG! The Eldar are more OP! More D everywhere! Nerd RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!!!! and the like.

You know, the usual.

What the fuck ever, not everyone plays like that, and if they all do, then maybe the assholes playing the game are more at fault rather than the assholes in Nottingham, but I digress...

Anyways, the Eldar are my largest surviving army, and are broken up into roughly 3 equal, 500ish point parts: Craftworld Iyanden, Exodites and Siam-Hann-ish Corsairs (they're so counter-culture that they don't have any jet bikes!).

Sifting through the rumors, the following tidbits caught my eye and generated the aforementioned excitement:

The piss-poor Void dreamer has gotten an overhaul, though whether or not its for the better remains to be seen. Currently, the Dreamer only has 1 good power (Soul Scry) and is more dangerous for his Neural Shredder than anything else. I use the Dreamer so often that mine said 'fuck it, I'm going back to Iyanden where I can be an actual Farseer!' The powers have been redone, so there's some hope there, and they have their own perils chart which looks harsher than the normal one (basically, if you have to roll on it, you're fucked in some form or fashion).  Speaking of psychic powers, all of the Corsair HQ's will have the option to get them.

As for the Corsair Prince him/herself, there's a much needed point reduction of 25 points (currently a very basically equipped one usually clocks in at 120 points). Plus he has a 12" LD bubble, no idea if the rarely useful orbital strikes will still be there or not, but better yet...

Ahoy mateys!!!!

...there's now a 'Baron' option for an HQ which clocks in a mere 30 points. He's probably a glorified Sgt., but as I only have 500 points of Corsairs to begin with, I have a feeling that this will be my little contingent's go-to-Commander.

All of the Corsairs will also have 2 LD values, a higher one to test on as normal and a lower one to regroup with, because Corsairs know that dead pirates don't get any booty! Its fluffy, and yes its detrimental, but I like it! Also, for +10 points they can upgrade their armor to a 3+ save, and can reroll difficult and dangerous terrain, at the cost of Fleet. Hell, they didn't have Fleet to begin with so yes, sign me up for some of that please!

Speaking of, the Corsairs' version of Fleet is a flat 6" AFTER shooting. With jet pack equipped models getting 6" + another D6". That means jet packs are still optional: YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!! I believe the intent is to let people bolster their forces with plain old Guardians (lasblasters and shuriken catapults are interchangeable currently). HOWEVER, if you have the lasgun toting Guardians from the olden days lying around like I do (I have 20+ of them) then you're in luck...and if not, well they sell for ridiculoulsy low prices on ebay. Also, Corsairs will now have Guardian stat lines (LD excluded), with Felarchs (Sgt.'s) having +1 WS & LD.

An finally regular Eldar (all of the other types) are Battle brothers so they'll still sink up nicely with my other little contingents.

Edit: ....and then this morning I spotted this post on Faeit 212 (just skip the parts about the Titan and summoning Daemons).

Cleaning up resin minis' bad name...

o/

For years I've had a love/hate relationship with Forgeworld. Lots of us have...

Forgeworld produces some of the industry's most awesome models, but in general they're so horribly expensive that I actually referenced it in this blog's banner. Seemingly, in equal proportion to the high price is their piss-poor quality control of their products (one of my better rants in that link...lol). Air bubbles, miscasts, warped pieces (gun barrels especially),  Gates in the WORST places, gates that were so large and still attached that they broke the parts they were attached to in shipment, silicone mold release that won't come off no matter how many times you scrub the parts, the list goes on and on. Yes, FW has excellent customer service, and its not all bad (just 'mostly'), but I've just come to understand that resin is a nightmare product to work with.

With North American manufacturers, the story starts to differ a bit. With Heavy Gear I've had a near flawless tank, and a (pre-blog) walker that was on par with Forgeworld in all respects. My Grymn flyer and its base from Bombshell and Secret weapon miniatures were cleaned of the mold silicone, but they're simple models (though the flyer has some gate issues similar to the one linked above). Xmarx's CBT terrain was fine, but again, really simple in design. Zombiesmith...despite remaking molds before sending me replacements, considering all 3 resin vehicles (simple as they are), I still can't honestly recommend them for resin (just stick with their metal Quar!).

So, expecting the worst (as usual), I steeled myself for another resin nightmare when I received my new 15mm Khurasan tanks Thursday. However, that nightmare is not to be it seems...no, actually they're as close to flawless as I've ever seen in a resin model! Seriously, why can't other resin manufacturers, and Forgeworld specifically given the horrid prices deliver quality like this? (and god I hope this isn't just a fluke either)

Near flawless casts, silicone release already cleaned off, gates REMOVED and sanded flat, the guns/hatches are metal (and also flawless), and most importantly, the two tanks together cost $2 less than the typical 40k plastic character clamp pack (i.e.: $33). Check em out:

Note: these are sitting on a 1" grid.

I love em!

There it is, the worst of the 2 casts...otherwise known as the only flaws!

Sanded off gates, what a concept!

Uh yeah, buh-bye Forgeworld! There will be no more of your over-priced garbage for me! Although with 40k quickly falling towards the bottom of the list of my favorite games, that's probably little surprise right?

30k: Centurion and Techmarine

o/

Whew, its been a wild week! I had the whole week off, but there was little hobby time as we had family in from out of state, and of course Christmas day which included me surprising just about everyone when I popped the question to Wolfy (she said 'yes')! So needless to say, it was a really good week for me!

Just prior to Christmas, I put in a bid on ebay for the crew of a Forgeworld Rapier Laser Destroyer (without the Rapier itself or shoulder pads for the crew). I didn't have the $$$ for it, but they were a good deal, so I placed a minimum bid, knowing I'd lose but wouldn't kick myself for not trying. Naturally, I won the auction. Yay, one more charge for the already screaming credit card. Oh well, Friday and Saturday were kinda quiet and so I put the two together.

First up, my Centurion:

I'll probably paint that helmet on his base in EC colors as well, leaving one to wonder if it belonged to friend or foe...

One thing the Emperor's Children were known for was trophy taking. If they defeated a particularly worthy foe, they would take a weapon from their victim as both a trophy, and for use on future battlefields. As you can see, my Centurion has done just that.

Its not really visible, but the arm holding that blade is actually a bionic arm. So it leaves you to wonder if his organic arm was separated from his body by the very blade that the bionic replacement now wields...

I'll count it as a Charnabal Sabre which is a CCW that confers +1 initiative and is rending.  Beyond the exotic blade, he's a bit of a no-frills type of officer who is outfitted with a bolter, bolt pistol, and grenades. I intend to field him as just a standard Centurion, not one of the optional Consuls.

The other Rapier crew-marine (the one who is normally mounted on the Rapier itself) has been converted to a Techmarine with Conversion Beamer:

Armed to the teeth and looking for a fight!

This guy is something of a blasphemy I guess (no doubt why he was slated for termination by his traitorous brethren) as he's an amalgamation of actual Forgeworld and Chinese knock-off resin parts! I had gotten the Astral Claws Techmarine via China but didn't care for some defects in the casting of his torso (though to be honest, it was no worse than some of the actual FW purchases I've made). As such, it was never painted. With the demise of my Astral Claws, I omitted the offending parts and added the rest to the 30k gunner's body.

He looks kinda comical with such an enormous backpack, no doubt his servo-automata (servitors with bolters) help to keep him upright when on the move. Of course the conversion beamer gives my fledgling force some much needed heavy firepower which will also make this guy target priority #1! Thus the servo-automata will also serve as a few ablative wounds to keep him alive a little longer as well!

So, all I need now are some squads in the 'Troops' category (my recon marines sadly are a support squad, so can't be used for compulsory choices). Currently finances don't permit that but...I still only have two of my 30k marines painted so that's alright I guess as there's plenty to do in the interim.

Note: for anyone running short of Mk III shoulder pads, some of the CSM shoulder pads work just as well!

With New Years day falling on a Thursday, I'm not sure if I'll have another post this week or not. So in the event that I don't I'd like to wish all of you a happy New Year to come!!!