Terminator Basing (Part 3)

The crux.

Here is a project that had been pretty-much abandoned. We last featured these guys many years ago in Terminator Basing Part-1. (Part 2 featured Sven Axegrinder). Well, the recent Space Wolf Codex has me wanting to do some Space Wolf projects, or rather finish some. Also, I was thrilled/horrified to see how well thunderhammers perform in 8th ed, and wanted to get some of my own onto the battlefield. Reviewing my models, I came to the floss box that contains my Wolf Guard. They have somehow managed to accumulate paint over the years despite my never posting any blog posts about them, although none of them were ever finished. Indeed, they have come a long way since I first posted anything regarding them.

The slow march of progress....

I mentioned above being impressed by thunder hammers. This was not the first time that this has happened, and at one point roughly 10 years ago, I purchased an upgrade blister pack that contained five thunder hammers, stormshields, and Terminus Crux shoulder pads. They were some of the worst mold-line and flash infested metal miniatures I have ever bought from GW. And for whatever reason, I simply never moved on with the project. Until Now. Joshi Krakenbite will be the first bearer of a thunder hammer for the Wolf Guard of Sven Axegrinder.

Wolf Guard Joshi Krakenbite steps up! 

Recently while looking at all of the previous covers for the years worth of Codex: Space Wolf tomes, it struck me that the original one from 1993 (2nd Edition) is the only one with accurate colors on the armor. For the most part anyway. It is weird as the models pictured inside it were not all this dark, yet the ones in the current (2018) codex are, even though that book's cover depicts a Space Wolf painted in a non-Shadow Grey look. It is just a strange observation. But back to the '93 edition: I have always loved this cover. The model from that time has the exact heavy flamer, and sort of like I did for a recently inspired Goff ork I am going to attempt to paint that heavy flamer just like that!

Heavy Flamer snip from the '93 Codex: Space Wolves. 

And here it is so far! I Still need to add flame patterns onto the yellow band. Overall I think I got the colors pretty close.

Old school Heavy Flamer.

I tried use the newer colors that GW produces for the Space Wolves but they just aren't bright enough. Luckily I have enough old Space Wolves Grey to get these Wolf Guard painted but I do need to track more down at some point.

Space Wolf colora done, pending touch-ups. 

Unlike some older models, I have decided to paint the acquilla in metallics. I think I like this look, and it is less difficult to pull off than my previous preference.

Krakenbite's progress.

This guy is almost done, and I shall continue to work on him, and his brothers, before Dreadtober-2018 begins. So far I am really enjoying this trip back to Fenris...

A Rain of Plasma

"Excuse me, Does this belong to one of you?"

This past weekend I made my way to Hobbytown for a game with the mighty Warfrog, but those plans fell through. So I picked up a game with Michael C, whom you may have seen in a recent battle report over on Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop, who was waiting for some hapless fool to challenge his Dark Angels. As luck would have it, I was now more than available to step up to the proverbial plate.

Hapless fools? Look no further! 

I was wanting to give my Chaos Daemons a go, however, despite my stated intentions earlier this year I have not given them the attention necessary to achieve those goals. So I decided to run them as an allied Detachment with a Chaos Space Marines Detachment. I used them in my first 8th Edition battle and wanted to give them another go. They didn't fair too well in that fight, however I was using the Index list and only the 3 core strategems vs. a proper codex army.

The DA staging ground.

Like some sort of ritual, Michael always sets his army up in this scenic display before every battle. And this beautifully painted army always looks briliant on it! This is what he brought to the battle and the next pic showcases his three HQ choices.

Bruisers. 

Here is Michael's discription of these guys: "The Battle Brothers Bruise. Librarian armed with force axe and storm shield. Warlord armed with thunderhammer and storm shield and wearing the Shroud of Heroes relic which always adds one to hit rolls against him. And the 3rd and final HQ choice is a Master armed with thunderhammer and storm shield and carrying the relic Eye of the Unseen which allows him to go first in every combat."

After selecting the mission, somehow I got to pick the deployment layout and I chose that we play short edge to short edge. Clearly I forgot what a disaster this was the last time I made this choice... I guess I like to challenge myself?

Chaos Deployment.

I opted not to bring the Daemons in via reinforcement points as that seemed like more to keep up with than I was presently prepared to do, and with most of my army being fairly fast I figured it wouldn't be too hard of a march to the otherside.

Dark Angel deployment.

The calm before the storm...

Turn One began with the Dark Angels going first. The Dark Angels concentrated on one group of Daemonettes, wiping it out, and the Devastators earned their name by nearly destroying the Vindicator. One lucky re-roll kept it in the game with 2 Wounds left! Meanwhile, my Landraider shrugged off the attacks that were fired at it. In retaliation my Landraider, the The Blood Dumpster, fired back, annihilating one of the Dark Angel Dreads and killing a Marine from a Tactical squad. Meanwhile the Vindicator, clanking around with a Movement rate of 3, limped around in the back field.

End of Turn One

Turn 2 is when everything hits the fan. Michael kicks things off by parking the Drop Pod next to the objective that I had left virtually abandoned in my Deployment Zone. He brought his speeder around to use as bait for the Daemon Prince (or maybe the Vindicator) and sets his sights on a rear assault.

The arrival.

These forces attacked the Black Legion unit in the ruins, wiping them out. And the Librarian put 2 Mortal Wounds onto my Warlord riding the Juggernaut. Meanwhile further up field the entire Dark Angel force unleashed on the Fiends of Slaanesh who were racing quickly forward and in desperate need to hug someone. Their speed and resilience clearly struck a nerve in the Dark Angels and they wanted none of their hugs or attention (the models have out-stretched arms that almost look like that they want a hug!) It took CPs and tenacity, but eventually they were destroyed (note to self: I need more!). "No hugs!" Declared the Dark Angels defiantly.

End of Dark Angels Turn 2.

Chaos Turn 2, and it was time to get stuck in. Tactical Blunder #2: taking the bait! I had assumed that the Champion on the Juggernaut could at least kill that Librarian in the Fight Phase, but although I hurt him, it was not enough. With the other two characters piling on, the Chaos Leader on his Juggernaut was slain. The psychic power the Librarian  had played on him, Aversion, definitely didn't help his survival odds. The Daemon Prince ignored the flyer and dove into the Tactical Squad, however he didn't hardly kill any of these guys and they proved to be quite tough!

The contest of champions! 

Elsewhere, the Blood Dumpster unloaded the Khorne Berserkers to assist their leader in the Juggernaut (they shoot worse than my Space Wolves) while it shot the heavy bolter at the Tactical Squad behind it, the twin-linked Las Cannons blew up another Dreadnought, laying it low with 19 unsaved wounds! The Blood Dumpster likes this edition, clearly!

Blood Dumpster!!!

The Keeper of Secrets, She Who Milks, ran up the field with the remaining Daemonettes. Using one of her psionic attacks to kill one of the Tac Marines lurking in the craters.

The purple wave approaches.

Turn 3.

With the Fiends gone attention was given to the Plaguebearers shambling up to the Dark Angel lines. Thanks to their toughness and Disgusting Resilience, only 2 died.  A few Daemonettes were also picked off but they hung there when it came to check Morale thanks to the careful implementation of my CPs. Somehow my Daemon Prince survived the brutal Fight phase with like a Wound left.

Chaos Turn 3, and the Daemon Prince flew out of melee, thankful to still be attached to the mortal realm, and wanting nothing more to do with those characters and their thunderhammers! His withdrawal gave the backfield to the Dark Angels, leaving only the barely functioning Vindicator left to fire wildly at the remaining Dark Angels.

The Dark Angels take the field and secure the objective! 

The Herald of Slaanesh, Plague Bearers and the last squad of Chaos Marines were slowly making their way up yhe field. The Chaos Marines provided fire support for the Slaanesh Daemons who were making their way swiftly to the Dark Angel lines.

"What does 'meander' mean?"

The Keeper if Secrets charged the Tactical Marines in the Crater, slaughtering them with delightful ease. The Daemonettes crashed into the othet Dark Angel squad in the ruins wiping out all but two if them!

"Hold the line!"

The Landraider chose to be bold and split it's Las Cannon shots between the two Razorbacks, but this only resulted in damaging one of them due to half the shots missing and only one damaging.

With this, it was past time to close up the shop so regrettably we had to stop the game here. The VP tally was 6 vp to 1vp, Dark Angels for the win!

Even if I had managed to take the objective in his zone I would not have been able to claim the points needed to surpass his tally. So what went wrong?

As previously stated my choice of battefield layout did work against me, but it was not a full-on Gettysburg scenario that it looked like it would've been. If not for those Daemonic Invulnerable saves, and a few well executed Command Point Rerolls, the death toll would have been worse I think.

Devastators hold their position.

In hindsight I feel that my 2nd big mistake was going after the Dark Angels that arrived in the Drop Pod in my deployment zone. If I just speed on ahead and ignored them they would have been a less useful asset to him, and I could have used the Berserkers against foes that wouldn't have the Warlord around to lean on.

She Who Milks, claiming souls...

My MVPs in this fight were the Keeper of Secrets and the Land Raider. Particularly the Land Raider! The Blood dumpster racked up some very impressive kills and I was pleased with its effectiveness.

Blood Dumpster earns the MVP.

All-in-all it was a good game and an educational one for me. I think next time I'll keep my detachments limited from choices from the same codex.

Special thanks to Warfrog and Matt for their rules insights and assistance with this game.

Shamble On

Recently Warfrog gave me a 6 figure box of Nurgle Plague Zombies. He got them by accident somehow and couldn't conceive of a purpose for him. So he gave them to me, which I am thankful for. But when I went to incorporate them into a list I figured out that I needed more, so I went and got a second box. Unlike a lot of kits I buy or acquire with the intentions of building and painting quickly but instead leave on a shelf or in box for many years, I actually built these in one sitting!

Zom-bee-ee-ee

The guy with the rubberband on him didn't want to join together as flush as he needed to be, so the added pressure of the rubberband was required to secure to two sections. It looked too weird having a dislocated bicep floating above his arm so this was a necessary step.

Happiness is a tentacle arm.

So does this mean I am about to go full throttle into building and painting up a Death Guard army? Well, I am unsure of that, so much so that I haven't even put the usual 'part 1' on this post's title. But I might assemble the Know No Fear plastics, run them with my early 90s Deathguard in a few small games and see where it takes me.

Days of Rust (Part 2)

In Days of Rust Part 1 I talked about The Doctor's initial work on this project as well as our playing of the Necromunda starter scenario. Excited and rejuvenated by this experience Dr TSG returned to his man cave, with airbrush in hand, and has made considerable progress on his Zone Mortalis tiles.

"These are the paints I used, over an automotive primer."

"I layed down the purple over the primer, then came in with the raven black and dark rust mixture. Then, I added the red earth mixed with a little purple and raven black. Then highlighted with red earth." -Dr. TSG.

What follows is essentially a photo dump of his progress so far. He told me that this is the results of about 3.5 hours of work. Enjoy!

So far, so... grimdark!

The Road to Gorkamorka (Part 4)

Well, it appears I was more done with this guy than I had realized when I wrote up the last post. All that was left were a few touch-ups and some basing flock and off to da waaaargh!!!!

Da front.

Da rear.

Da Side.

What is next up in this series? Well, it is looking more and more unlikely that these guys will actually be played in a Gorkamorka gang so I am going to work on them still with the mindset that they will be reincorporateded into my over-all ork force as part of the Goffs Detachment. I talked about this recently that I plan to breakdown my Ork army into clan themed battalions. I have at least finally primed the boyz and two trukks, which,  believe it it not, actually is progress!

Progress thru priming.

The Road to Gorkamorka (Part 3)

The mostly done Runtherd.

The road for this chap has been a long one for sure. Continuing from Part-2 I decided to work on the white area on the shouldetpad giving it a dark grey basecoat which I will work up to white. I used a dark brown paint on the metalic areas and the whip.

Basecoats.

Firy Orange was the basecoat for the pistol and Khornate Red for the red trim on the armor. Ulthran Grey was used over the dark grey.

More basecoats and some midcoats.

Sunburst Yellow was the next layer on the fun  and it was also the highlight color for the Ork skin. Mephiston Red was applied onto the red armor trim.

Red muzzle.

He is starting to come together nicely. I use a craft paint called Graphite on the black armor and then I apply Nuln Oil over this. I find it gives the flak armor a bit more depth. I tbink he is turning out to look quite Goffik.

Mostly done.

I decided to follow Warhammer TV's tutorial on how to paint grot red noses on the really big boil on this guy's head. Kev Adams sculpted many zits onto his Ork miniatures back in the day, and I am glad to have finally found a painting method for them that I like. Of course I topped it off with a White Scar highlight.

Like I said, it is mostly done, I just couldn't knock out the final steps in time for this post...

Days of Rust (Part 1)

Welcome back to the Underhive, where decay and rust chart the march of time and industrial entropy. To commemorate knowing each other for 30 years now*  my good friend Dr TSG came down to hang out for a day over Labor Day weekend. He brought with him the current Necromunda boxed set along with some Zone Mortalis Battlefield Network wall sections and tiles.

Zone Mortalis sections prepped for priming.

He is going for a rusty industrial decayed look with the painting on the tiles which complements the pieces from the Necromunda boxed game just perfectly. He also pointed out that the sections work perfectly with the Necromunda tiles, so instead of playing with blacked out areas, he intends to use the Zone Mortalis sections for his Necromunda games.

Zone Mortalis tile. 

The Doctor has been studying a variety of techniques and tips in preparation for this (and other) projects. He shared a lot of this knowledge with me and also pointed me in the direction to do some research of my own. For example I was unaware that there was actually a periodical devoted to the topic! And it is very good and we both highly recommend it. As he sends me updates and photos I shall continue to share them in this Days of Rust thread.

With time limited we decided to give the game a go. The Goliath and Esher gangers from the boxed game were not yet assembled so we decided to use older models. I used the original Goliath miniatures from the '90s and he played with some old Orlocks and Future Warriors miniatures to represent the Esher.

The gangs set up.

We played the Starter Scenario that uses the inside of the box top as the board. This was definitely different but a pretty straightforward way to learn these new rules. We found that,  unlike Kill Team, this book wasn't as easy to reference and seemed to be written more for people to read through casually.  Which makes figuring out (for example) all the rules for how being Pinned works a bit of a challenge.

End of Round one.

Once we figured it out by the end of Turn 1 we felt confident about how this game plays. I had taken a model Out of Action and we had pinning figured out. By the end of Turn Two we had very few gangers still standing and we were having fun when we had to pack it all in due to the store closing. (The store's Sunday hours changed from 6 to 5!). We didn't declare a winner, since it seemed to be fairly even-handed, and the whole session was really just a learning exercise.

What movie did I see this in? I'm sure it was a comedy...

One thing I liked about this (the new Kill Team sort of does this too) were the pre-generated stat cards. It is a great way to learn the game or to quickly assemble one for a spontaneous gaming session. I would like to see GW do more in this area. It is nice to see them, once again, embrace the "Games" in their name.

My gang.

It was good to see The Dr again and to catch up on stuff, and we had a good time exploring Necromunda.

*(1988; a few months later he, and a few other friends, would introduce me to Warhammer 40,000.)