Crushing defeat

Last Saturday we had another game at Laurents place, 4 players with 1000 points each. Tyranids and Chaos versus Orks and my Dark Angels.... The game was quite even until turn 4 were the dice gods decided to wipe out the orks and marines, in two turns of shooting we didn't even manage to land a single wound! and it was not for lack of trying.

I am considering using the Blood Angels or Space Wolfes codex for my army lists, Laurents created a 1000 pts Space Wolfes army that I may try out for our next game. The list calls for 3 veterans armed with power fist and combi-melta. Since I only have 1 combi-melta in my bitsbox I decided to try and convert a few from some bolters and vehicle multi-meltas. For the first sergeant I used the sergeant from the Black Reach box, I think the result is quite good.

I'm still painting my command squad, all thou I found out that they are considered one of the worst units in the Space Marine codex, but for a fluffy army they are a must. I've realised that fluff and proper army lists are mutually exclusive and thus I've adopted the strategy to build and paint my army according to fluff and add some models (like the three power fist / combi-melta sergeants) to a separate flavour of the month"bits box".

First time freehand

Inspired by The Angels Talon I decided to start painting some freehand on my 4th company battle standard. The design is based off the Dark Angels 4th company badge, with a winged sword overlay. For some unknown reason I painted a 5 in the lower right corner... I'll have to fix that later on :).
This is the first basecoat and I have to change some things, the border and back side of the banner will be changed to Dark Angels Green since the company badge doesn't contain any green parts. The sword should be painted up in a white tone, maintaining a black border to set it apart from the white squares.The banner pole and winged skull will be painted last since I use those part to handle the banner while painting.

I've started work on my Ironclad Dreadnought, first up is a coat of Dark Angels Green on all the armour plating. Due to some rather useless instructions in the Ironclad Dreadnought kit I've assembled the close combat arm in a way that makes it impossible to mount the storm bolter or heavy flamer underneath.
Since everything is glued with plastic glue it is impossible to disassemble the weapon so the only option left is to split the weapon with a razor saw and fit it back together with some green stuff. I find this really annoying, especially since the model cost 250 DKK. Games Workshop could at least make some useful instruction sheet for the kit.
In the current instruction sheet there is no mention of a gun placement on the close combat weapon - instead it shows that you can mount either a storm bolter, heavy flamer or meltagun on the seismic hammer, however only the heavy flamer and meltagun are legal choices in the army book! - and as a matter of fact the close combat weapon must be equipped with either a storm bolter or a heavy flamer!!. I sent an email complaint to Games Workshop three weeks ago but have yet to get any answer.

Lastly I worked on a couple of objective markers for my angels, I didn't have a lot of bits that could be used but i think they turned out pretty nicely.
On the other side of the right on is a book from one of the Dark Angels Upgrade Kits.

Still undefeated

Spring has hit Denmark and I'm spending a lot of time in the garden, this means not much time for painting but some progress has been made.

We had exceptionally good weather this weekend so I took a break from gardening and primed a bunch of models, having removed mould lines and washed the models the day before I was all set.

First off I sprayed an empty sprue just to be sure that everything was all right. The finish was perfect and next up were the side sections of my first rhino. The rest of the models were lined up on various pieces of board.

Since I want to paint the inside of the rhino, I decided to assemble a few sections and prime them separately. I put the side sections up on a nail board that I made especially for priming models. This allows me to turn the board around and paint the rear side right away. Since the sections were upside down I will have to touch up the primer on the top of the tank later on.
Next up were weapons and backpacks for a tactical squad, usually I paint these by hand but I wanted to try out spraying them instead. I had to be a little careful since the spray easily could have blown all the bits off the tray - only a few slipped off.
I removed the board and let the bits dry before turning them over and spraying the rear side.

The terminators were next, they were arranged on two wooden boards with three models on each board. After spraying the first board the spray started to run out - and I still had a lot of rhino parts and a whole tactical squad to paint! with a little luck I managed to finish up the terminators with the last drops of paint. Unfortunately it was my last spray can so the rest of the bits and models will have to wait until I can get a new can or two.

Sunday was spend in Aarhus with Laurens and 4 of his friends for a 2250 point game with each player controlling a 750 points force. My Angels did good, the new Ironclad Dreadnought took a LOT of punishment he was immobilized with both weapons destroyed before finally succumbing to the overpowering tyranid attacks.
Each player had a secret objective and the overall winner would be found by adding up the victory points, my side managed 7 points with my marines accounting for 3 points against the other teams 4 points - however the game was much closer than the numbers tell - in fact it would have been a draw if the tyranid player had made few better rolls for capturing his final objective.

Springtime

Finally! today spring hit Denmark with temperatures in excess of 15 degrees Celsius, and  humidity dropped below 60 for the first time in weeks. This could mean only one thing: primer time!

I got a Ironclad Dreadnought from maelstrom last Saturday, i spend some time assembling it this weekend. I also glued flock to and removed mouldlines from my command squad and commander. Last night I washed everything and scrubbed it with a toothbrush so it was ready when the weather turned today.

Due to the Army Painter failure on my first tactical squad I'm now using Games Workshop Chaos Black Spray again, it hasn't failed me yet. It was a bit windy but I found a good spot to set up my paint booth (a old moving box..), the whole spraying session took about 30 minutes.

I left off some of the smaller bits to be hand primed, and I still need to go over the primer with a brush.

I've assembled all four weapons for the Ironclad Dreadnought, so I can field it in any configuration I need. The Hunter Killer missiles have been left off thou.

I got a Rhino and a devastator squad in the mail today, this will allow me to finish assembling the last tactical squad I've planned, I need to figure out which squads and models I should paint first - I've tried to make a few army lists in order to prioritize the paint order. First up will be the command squad and Ironclad and after that it will probably be a second tactical squad. That should form a solid core army I can add models to.

A moral victory

Last week my ear started to hurt a bit, it turns out I have an inner-ear infection and I'm now on penicillin to get rid of it. Due to the pains I haven't been able to paint much.

In spite of this I went down to Aarhus last Saturday and played a game of 40k with Laurents and his friend Nicolai. The game was a blast! Nicolai was a beginner in 40k like me and Laurents acted like a game master and controlled a few neutral squads of Imperial Guard troops. The objective was to seize and hold a spy who may have important information, it was not known which of the neutral squads he was in (and it turned out it didn't matter much either :).

I made some horrid mistakes setting up, and in turn 2 my razorback and one of my rhinos payed the ultimate price for my foolishness - both were rammed by the ork vechicles - the rhino was destroyed and the razorback went up in a gigantic explosion. A few turns later my last rhino got blown to pieces too.

All this put my army on the defensive, well away from any objectives. they bravely fought the orkish onslaught and by turn 4 only the remains of my two tactical squads were still standing - one had 3 killer kan's inches away while the other one were being chased up into a building by a mad ork boss (a space marine dreadnought converted into an ork boss armor by Laurents - truely a horrific sight for my loyal marines).

But as the title states it was a great moral victory - in the closing moments of the game the ork boss lashed out with 6 attacks against my last 3 marines, but Nicolai promptly rolled 5 1's and a 5 to hit, meaning only one lost his life. Nicolai then went on to roll a 2 to get a sixth turn and the game ended with my 2 marines still standing. And Nicolai's last attempt at seizing one of the objectives with his last 3 troops failed, inches short of the spy.

All in all the game was draw.

On the painting and assembly front not much have happened, I received my pack of 3 scouts today and decided to assemble the squad. It's not the prettiest squad, the new plastic scouts definitely looks better but since I had 7 it was still cheaper to buy 3 more from the collectors range rather than buying 5 plastic scouts.

I wanted to bring a terminator squad to the game, so I had to to assemble them in a bit of a hurry Friday evening, I had the weapon loadout sorted so it was just a matter of cutting and gluing. The sixth terminator in the back I'm not really sure where I got from, perhaps it was included with White Dwarf at a time. The terminator squad didn't do much good in the game - on Laurents recommendations Nicolai made a point of wiping them out and the orks were up to the task, the one with the assault cannon went running off the board after one round of combat - he won't be getting any purity seals anytime soon.

Finally I managed finishing the first tactical squad, only some detail work was left. They still need some varnish and touchup on the bases but I'll wait for better weather with that, it is quite humid in Denmark at this time of year.

Tactical Painting, Part 4

I finally decided on a base design, I will go with the Obsidian Lava Field mentioned in the previous post. The first test base seems cool and I will be using it for a future model. Using this technique I will position a leg on the large "rock" in an aggressive stance. I'm not sure which model it will be used for, but one possibility is the devastator sergeant with combi-plasma I'll be putting together shortly.

Basing the tactical squad is a bit of a hassle, since they're already painted - usually I'll use a black ink or a thinned down chaos black to basecoat the flock, but with painted model it has to be done carefully. For the next squad I will glue the flock and make any green stuff moulds before the priming. After the black paint was dry it was just a quick drybrush away from the finishing line. I decided the tactical squad would only get a few large rocks and no lava flows at all.

All that's left for this combat squad is a touch-up with chaos black on the base (the rock, anything missed in the basecoat of the base, and the base border), a spray of varnish, some water transfers, a final coat of varnish and as a last touch, some gloss varnish on the big rocks. However I will wait until the rest of the tactical squad is finished so I can do the varnish in one go.

 The rest of the tactical squad on stage 3 of 5, its mostly detail work now and it should be done soon. As you can see I decided to base these models along with the rest of the squad, might aswell get it done.

The robed marine I'm working on for the command squad is coming along slowly - the paint job got a little thick from the first failed attempts but I don't think it shows much.
Next up is the green power armour, with a steady hand so I don't ruin the robes. He was based in the same manner as the tactical squad, but with the robes covering most of the base there's no room for special details - I guess I'll save that for the terminators and dreadnoughts.

I went to Silkeborg today and stopped by Asgaard Games, which was a pleasant surprise, It's quite a large shop with competitive pricing and a huge range of wargaming products - even a few games I haven't heard of before. I picked up a few brushes, a couple of issues of White Dwarf and two half-price blisters.

The Brushes are Rotmarder-Kolinsky, a size 1 and 0/3, they have a comfortable grip and a good price. I look forward to trying them out. The blisters were a "Tomb Kings Standard Bearer" set, that will go right in the Tomb Kings box of unopened goodies, and Dark Angels Chief Librarian Ezekiel - did I mention it was half-price? :). Of course I already had a standard librarian, but I like Ezekiel's model a lot, I may go all-out when painting it - to see how good I can actually paint a model if I really try.

I ordered some Forge World bits the other day, I want to start assembling my Land Raider but I'd like to use the Forge World doors and bits to make it stand out from any other Land Raider, along with that I ordered a Rhino and a Razorback for transportation - in hindsight I could have gotten them just as cheap from Asgaard Games as Maelstrom Games but done is done.

Tactical Painting, Part 3

The second combat squad of my first tactical squad is starting to take shape, I'm painting all five models in one go, applying the individual stages to all five models before proceeding. My paint guide is up to 5 stages with 4-5 steps in each, the guide is based on the Dark Angels painting guide, tips from Painting Tips for the Dark Angels and some of my own ideas.

I've also been working on some bases, my own tries didn't turn out too well and they were quite comprehensive, instead I turned to this article, in particular the Obsidian Lava Field. My plan is to use it plain for the troopers, and do something special with lava and such on the special models. Before trying it on a painted model I'm making a test base to try out the guide - if all goes well the test base can be use for a character later on.

I had to do some work on the bone-coloured robes of the veterans marines, I find it difficult to paint the lighter tones without loosing all the shadow and highlights, especially when the colour I'm aiming for is so close to white. I tried out a few guides, but they didn't really pan out, the one based on Bleached Bone and a Devlan Mud wash was especially bad - perhaps I'll never really get a hang of using washes :).

I went back to the Painting Tips for the Dark Angels and tried it out, so far it looks ok - perhaps a bit too much on the bone/skin tone but hopefully that will be fixed with the final highlights.