Astra Militarum Command Squad

Finished these gents yesterday, it’s the first Command Squad I’ve painted in many a year and I have to say I had a blast getting them ready.  The picture’s somewhat crappy as I was dealing with far from ideal lighting conditions today so if I can find the time I’ll give it another attempt in the near future.

Next up for my guard is to strip and repaint a few more infantry squads and heavy weapons teams.  I think I’ll repaint one unit for every two of three fresh projects I complete.  Next up for me is Typhus and a Knight or two 🙂

Now THESE Are Techpriests

Forge World keeps spoiling up with yet more goodies from the Machine God. While I don’t have a 30K army (yet), I think these would make fantastic Techpriests Engineseers for my Imperial Guard Astra Militarum army.

You can find more details about these lovely models here.

Astra Militarum Leaks – Ogryns, Bullgryns and a Hydra

The internet has been abuzz with some pictures of the forthcoming Astra Militarum (eventually I’ll get used to the name) new dual plastic kit that finally brings Ogryns back into the game without the need for one to take out a second mortgage. They can also be built as a more heavily armoured Bullgryn variant.

The photos appear to be from a forthcoming Warhammer Visions edition, I suspect the May one. Here they are.

Also appearing is the first ever fully plastic Hydra Flak Tank. As an unapologetic Tread Head I’ll certainly be getting a few of these babies!

Roll on April!

January 2014 GW Releases

Pins of War (certainly among others) have published what appears to be GW’s January release schedule. You can read their article here however if like me you’re feeling a bit lazy you can simply look below.

Got to say that I’m glad that the hungriest creatures this side of me at an all-you-can-eat buffet are finally getting some love as their last codex was an absolute travesty. I still have fond memories of Tyranid Attack / Advanced Space Crusade so I have a soft spot for these critters.

As it’s rumoured that the new Imperial Guard codex is due in March (Imperial Guard March, geddit?) I really hope that this paves the way for the return of the Genestealler Cults in the form of a codex supplement that combines the two armies. I live in hope!

Music from The 41st Millennium

Gleefully stolen from Bell of Lost Souls.  Matters are made somewhat clearer if you turn on the subtitles…

A New (Old) Leman Russ Pattern?

Well this is interesting. Today Forge World uploaded this image.

Now, on Facebook the mad genius that is Alan Bligh indicated that this image contains several new models that FW will be releasing over the coming year. Treadhead that I am, my eyes were immediately drawn to the Leman Russ in the foreground.

Just look at it, isn’t it beautiful? Not only does it appear to have a Predator Annihilator like twin linked Lascannon which is nice however just look at the tank’s lines and the old school targeter protruding from the right of the turret.

I think this could be a Heresy Era pattern. Even if it’s not I must have at least three.

Hitting a Brick Wall

That’s it. I knew that this was going to happen eventually but I’m officially stuck. You see, today marks a dubious record for me as it’s been exactly four weeks since I’ve picked up a paintbrush, dice or craft knife and I’m not sure how to start again thanks to all the part-finished projects I’ve temporarily abandoned.

I’ll get my excuses out of the way. This summer has been extraordinarily busy, at work our annual audit took longer than expected not to mention I’m both breaking in new staff and have just finished a massive office relocation at incredibly short notice. At home my wife and I have had to complete her application for permanent settlement in the UK, believe it or not this has taken us over three months to finish, we only just posted it yesterday! There have also been weddings, a funeral, birthdays, the Edinburgh festivals, hospital appointments and this is just what I can remember. In truth I feel that my feet haven’t hit the ground since early June!

On the hobby front I have the following outstanding:

1. A half-painted Dark Eldar Venom
2. A half-painted Dark Eldar Wych Squad
3. An unpainted old metal Dark Eldar Wych Squad
4. A half-painted Finecast Commissar Yarrick
5. 20 Unassembled Imperial Sector sprues
6. An unpainted metal Dark Eldar Incubi Squad
7. An unpainted Finecast Dark Eldar Archon
8. An unpainted Finecast Dark Eldar Succubus
9. An unpainted Finecast Dark Eldar Haemonculus
10. An unpainted Finecast Dark Eldar Lhamaean
11. An unassembled Dark Eldar Razorwing
12. An unassembled Dark Eldar Ravager
13. A part-assembled Chaos Space Marine Predator
14. An unpainted Chaos Space Marine Terminator Lord
15. An unpainted Chaos Space Marine Squad
16. An unpainted Chaos Space Marine Terminator Squad
17. A half-completed Assault on Black Reach Dreadnought I’m converting for my Chaos Marine army.
18. Two sprues of Battletech Battlemechs that I’ve had since 1996
19. 14 Inner Sphere Battletech Battlemechs I’d like to repaint
20. 18 unpainted Bretonnian Knights of The Realm
21. 15 unassembled Bretonnian Men-At-Arms
22. 40 unpainted Bretonnian Peasant Bowmen
23. 10 unpainted Bretonnian K nights Errant
24. 1 unassembled Bretonnian Lord with Great Weapon
25. 1 unpainted Bretonnian Paladin with Battle Standard
26. 1 unpainted Bretonnian Pegasus Knight
27. 1 half-painted Deathknell Watch

So, what do I do? Thus far I have always prided myself on my ability to not jump on the new army / game bandwagon every time something exciting is released, all my 40K armies have been gestating for many years (and I have the out of date Codexes to prove it!) but I think it’s obvious that my enthusiasm and ambition have slowly got the better of me.

I’ve attempted to prioritise my hobby time based on upcoming games but since most of my regular opponents have been similarly busy this really hasn’t been effective. It’s impossible to go with what I like the most since that’s part of what’s got me into this state in the first place!

I think that the best thing for me to do is to bloody finish something as soon as is humanly possible and luckily I have this coming Sunday free to do just that. But what do I attempt to finish?

Watch this space…

The Fury of Menasa

After almost four months of building and painting I present to you the pride of the 57th Menasan Armoured Infantry, the Mars-Pattern Baneblade Fury of Menasa.

Happy Accidents

One of the things I really love about the hobby is the occasional random discovery one makes completely by accident. A good example is my ever growing collection of models I’ve used to test colour schemes, generally I’m happy with most of the results produced but sometimes such results get used in some very unexpected ways.

A couple of years ago I bought a Valkyrie for my Imperial Guard, while I painted this in the colour scheme of the 57^th Menasans I decided to be true to the fluff and paint the four crew in different colours to represent the fact they belonged to a branch of the Imperial Navy. At this point however painter’s block hit, while I knew I wanted to keep the two tone aesthetic of the Menasans I had to make them distinct.

Cue a quick trip to my local hobby store and the purchase of a set of five basic plastic Cadians. I knew I wanted either a grey or a blue tone for my crew so I very roughly painted these.

(L-R) Mordian Blue & Smurf Blue with Badab Black wash. MB & SB with Devlan Mud wash. Fortress Grey and Codex Grey with BB wash. FG and CG with Devlan Mud wash.

In the end I went with the blue and Badab Black wash but you really can’t tell the difference between that and the one washed with Devlan Mud, something to remember for the future.

This left me with one remaining model, since I’d recently bought a box of foundation paints I decided to pick two colours I thought would go well together and see what happened and this was the result.

"I'm a Lonely Soldier!"

After this model was completed I put it on a shelf and forgot all about it. That is until I started my Dark Eldar army six months later.

At the time the new codex was still just a rumour of a rumour, indeed it would be a further eleven months until its release. As such there was little in the way of cheap models with which to test my ideas for Warrior and Wych colour schemes. In the end I decided to use the cheap set of four Craftworld Eldar Guardians and produced the following four options.

While the one on the far left ended up being the basis for my Kabalite Warriors I wasn’t completely sold on any of the others for use by my Wyches. After a few days of unproductive cerebral meandering I happened to glance at the random red and purple guardsman I’d painted on a whim and realised that its scheme was perfect! As you can see below, the scheme survived the transition almost without change.

I often wonder what other random afterthoughts of mine will one day turn into something productive. Can’t wait to find out!

The 31 Year Old Virgin

Well, not quite but bear with me on this one. You see, I have a confession to make.

Until last Saturday I had never experienced a day-long gaming session with multiple games and opponents since coming back into the hobby two years ago after an eleven year hiatus. Since both the games and I have for the most part changed immensely since then it’s very much like starting afresh. Will all this in mind it was with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that I drove to Melrose in the Scottish Borders with a good friend and fellow gamer by my side and our 40K armies in the boot.

The rules were simple; you had to bring a legal 1,200 point army containing no special characters to fight randomly generated missions from the main rule book. The lack of complexity and the low points cost meant that it should be possible to fit in at least two games each, maybe more if time permitted.

The point limit presented me with many difficulties; as a guard player I’m used to throwing platoons of troops to their deaths with callous disregard while masses of tanks pound the enemy into submission, this time however I had think very small indeed. After days of indecision I decided to go for the following force:

Army List

The basic plan was simple, the infantry elements of my platoon would advance under the cover of my Exterminator and Scout Sentinels while the Heavy Weapons Squad and Leman Russ would provide ranged support. The Vets would be deployed either in support of the main push or to open up a second front in order to capture any objectives or harry the enemy and my Storm Troopers would be kept in reserve so that they could deep strike wherever they could cause maximum disruption. With my force and tactics in place I was as confident as I could be that I’d be able to acquit myself well no matter what I was to face…

Game 1

Opponent: Necrons

Mission: Annihilation

Deployment: Spearhead

Bloody hell but this was a fun game! I’d never played against the new Necrons before so I was really looking forward to seeing how these undead space dudes now worked and I have to say I was very, very impressed.

The brave men of the 57th Menasan face the Necron menace,

Fortunately I managed to deploy and move first so I wasted no time unleashing bloody hellfire onto the lines of remorseless automata and was heartened to see two squads suffer considerable casualties. I was less than impressed a few minutes later when virtually all of the casualties rose back up and rejoined their units!

Not impressed by their refusal to do the honourable thing and stay dead I decided to advance my infantry squads and Exterminator towards their line, this was my first major mistake since it brought the tank within 12’’ of a Scarab swarm. In the days running up to the battle the excellent Doc Bungle of Miniature Musings of a Bear attempted to impart his wisdom onto me. In particular he stressed that under no circumstances should I let anything, especially armour, within the assault range of Scarabs. You know what, he was bloody right; they proceeded to latch onto my lovely tank and knock four points off its armour value!

Not wishing to repeat my mistake I had my Vets deal with the beasties in the following turn but the damage was done, my Exterminator had less armour than a Dark Eldar skimmer and was too much of a liability to use in a frontal assault. Instead I decided to consolidate and blast at the Necrons with everything I had. This tactic was quite successful, I managed to inflict an increasing amount of permanent casualties while only loosing a single infantry squad in its entirely. However at this point the Lychguard struck.

Unfortunately for my opponent, the Lychguard were just out of assault range so I disembarked my vets nearby and issued them with First Rank Fire… which remarkably destroyed the unit! My weakened Exterminator then turned its full fire power onto the accompanying Necron Lord who was very quickly reduced to a puddle of Necroderm. Just as I was starting my ever-so-sexy victory dance the Lord’s Resurrection Orb kicked in and both it and the entire squad rose to their feet. On the next turn they made short work of the Exterminator before routing the Vets the following turn.

Elsewhere the battle was going more my way. My opponent’s Monolith was forced to roll on the Deep Strike Mishap Table so I elected to deploy it in the far corner of the battlefield which greatly limited its effectiveness. My surviving infantrymen were trading fire with the entrenched Necron Warriors and were steadily reducing their number. Everything was very evenly matched.

The stalwart Imperial Guard dig in and trade fire with the unholy automata.

As turn five drew to a close we both had an objective look at the state of play and decided to call it a glorious draw. We reckoned that both sides had inflicted an equal amount of damage, but more importantly we’d had a bloody fantastic time. All games should end this well.

Game 2

Opponent: Grey Knights

Mission: Seize Ground

Deployment: Spearhead

As with the Necrons, I hadn’t faced the new-rules Grey Knights but frankly the thought terrified me. I was playing against another friend who’d made the trip down from Edinburgh and while he’s an accomplished Warhammer Fantasy Battle general this was his first 40K game in a very long time. Just as in the previous game I was able to deploy and go first and again I left my Storm Troopers in reserve.

The brave men of Menasa face, for some reason, the Grey Knights,

Now, I knew that Grey Knights were expensive but the fact that his army consisted of only seventeen models surprised the hell out of me! My force was up against a Terminator Librarian with five Paladins, a five man Terminator squad, a six strong Purifier squad and a Venerable Dreadnought. Also, against the advice of everyone (including me) he elected to deploy all his units on the table, leaving nothing to Deep Strike. In his defence, I’d probably do the same were it my first game since at least he’d have the experience of using all the units, nevertheless this was his downfall.

Likewise the Grey Knights face off against loyal servants of the Imperium.

I knew that all I had to do was knock out seventeen models so on the first turn I didn’t advance as one would normally given the mission. Nevertheless it left me in a position to start pounding his army with unrelenting fire power and since he had to advance through this to my objective he was at a distinct disadvantage.

To cut a short story shorter I eliminated his Paladins and Librarian thanks to the combined fire of my Exterminator (love the multimeltas) and my Heavy Weapons Team by the end of the third turn. On the fourth turn my Vet squad finished off his normal Terminators without leaving their Chimera.

At this stage all he had left was his Dreadnought and the Purifiers, not nearly enough to stop my force from over-running his objective. After the fourth turn my honourable opponent conceded, it was a well fought game and the only thing which limited him was his lack of experience; I’ve known this gentleman for years and I’m certain that with a few more games under his belt he’ll be a force to be reckoned with.

In conclusion this was a Saturday well spent. I met some fantastic new people who I hope to game with soon and I played my first games against two new armies which taught me a lot. If only all weekends could be this productive!

Also, and this goes out to everyone, do not underestimate the wisdom of Doc Bungle; had I listened to him I may well have won my fight against the Necrons. The next round of toast is on me, dear Bear!