Crucible Of Battle

 

 Opportunity struck and Da Masta Cheef and I were able to organize a game. Unlike our previous games we actually decided to play a Leviathan Game using cards that were included in the Leviathan box set. Of course we drew a wonky deployment zone layout called The Crucible of Battle. Catchy name, and I thought it made for a classy name for this report. Vox Static was our rule which ment we'll have to pay 2 CP for command rerolls. After that we selected our Primary Mission which turned out to be Priority Targets. 

Da roolz.

The Da Masta Cheef brought his Space Marine horde (the current low points costs on Marines astounds me  but it is what is until a future data slate changes it). This time his flavor of choice was Ultramarines. 

The Space Marine horde. 

And I brought my Tyranids. This time we upped out points to 1250 from the usual 1000. 

The Tyranid horde. 

I ended up being The Defender and Marines were the Defender in our scenario. 

Xenos infestation. 

I set up my force in the abandoned admech buildings and in a defensive posture and Cheef set his line up for a  strong surge amongst the rocks of this arid world. 

Tyranid deployment.

Ultramarines deployment.

"Who goes first" was determined by a roll off and I was forced to go first. I needed those objectives so I had no choice but to send the hordes up and over the top and dash them into no man's land. The Tyranids shooting was extremely limited with the winged Hive Tyrant being the only one with range to shoot. Of course Cheef made the one dave he was forced to make.

Tyranids 1st turn move. 

The Genestealers surge forward.

Cheef's is turn was a lot more favorable, with my xenos skittering at him full speed the target options were indeed bountiful. 

"We'll hold here, let the junior officers play a little."

Assault Intercessors move into No Man's Land.

The closest Termagant until (the unfortunate ones who rolled highest on their advance roll) were the first to perish from the combined fire power of the Marines. And some other units took a few casualties but these were minimal losses. 

End of Turn one. 

Turn two, and my unit of 5 Genestealers took an objective. And the Tyranids managed to pick off a few more Marines here and there but nothing like what was about to be unleashed back on the nids in return.  The Ultramarines deleted the rest of the termagants from battle by shooting or assault, wiped out the unit of 5 Genestealers (and overtook the objective) and really just dominated the field in this turn. However during the Fight Phase the Genestealers and Broodlord defeated the Assault Intercessors leaving just the attached Chaplain left to swing away at them. 

By the end of Turn 2 both sides were tied at 5 VPs each.

Genestealers pig-pile on the Chaplain.

Turn 3. The nids continue to move up. The Winged Hive Tyrant blew up some Marines with his Venom Cannon before declaring a charge against the same unit. The Eradicators Interstellar Jarhead Prime Gravity* with Portable Microwaves up on the hill had reduced the rampaging Screamer Killer down to just 3 wounds in the previous turn and now it was time for revenge. The Screamer Killer charged in Eradicators and was almost dropped by Overwatch, however a well spent CP re-roll saved him from being fried on the way in. Also the Genestealers (the fully painted ones) charged the Hellblasters. 

Lots of charging nids.

The Screamer Killer killed two of the microwave dudes while not taking any more damage himself. The Genestealers didn't do as well as I had hoped but they did remove quite a few of the Hellblasters while taking only a few casualties themselves. 

Fight! 

Meanwhile the Winged Hive Tyrant folded up his wings and got down to some kill'n. Thankfully for the marines, the attached Librarian's psychic  power bestowed upon them a sweet invulnerable save which kept most of the Sternguard alive.

Locked in combat. 

The blue Genestealers and Broodlord wiped out the Chaplain and moved closer to the objective holding Marines. 

"They're getting closer Sarge!"

Things didn't really go well for nids during the fight phase. The Screamer failed to wipe out the Eradicators, leaving one alive. And the Genestealers didn't wipe out the Hellblasters, and one of the guys they did eliminate was restored by the Apothecary attached to the unit. 

End if Tyranids Turn 3

Cheef got agressive. After the troops holding the objective wiped out the blue Genestealers with overwhelming firepower, the Hellblasters also pulled out their pistols and took down a Genestealer. The Intercessors moved in to assist the Hellblasters as with the Sergeant capping a stealer with a perfectly aimed head shot. 

The Eradicator fell back, which allowed  the big gun to knock two more wounds off of the Screamer Killer. 

Boom boom. 

The Genestealers were wiped down to just the Broodlord remaining. With that Turn 3 ended with the score sitting at 19 vps for the Tyranids and 24 for the Ultramarines.  Time was against us and looking at the remaining assets and the current score we agreed to wrap it up here. Victory goes to the Ultramarines! 

"You just stay the hell away from me!" 

If turn 4 had happened I would have changed Screamer Killer into the Hellblasters in an attempt to kill the Apothecary. Having the Assassinate secondary objective would have made that a more valuable target than trying to crush that Eradicator. But I doubt the nids would have survived thru to the end of the 5th turn. 

All in all, it was a fun game. The new dice were a lot more fair to me than my usual set and we both enjoyed the match up. I think this game would've been a bit different had the marines had gotten the first turn, but that's speculative at best. 

*Yeah, really. 

Rest & Recovery Models

 A week ago I was released from the hospital  (yay!) But with a lame primary arm. (Boo). You can see more details on all of that in the previous post.. I couldn't paint or draw,  but I could, carefully, build models. As you might be aware, my pile of unbuilt kits is somewhat overwhelming and it's nice to find time to build some of  them even though the circumstances suck. It was relaxing actually and helped take my mind off things. 

Primaris invasion! 

So what did I build? Well, mostly all of the marines from my Imperium Magazine collection. Starting with a squad of Eliminators. Although technically I haven't finished building them yet as their gums and backpacks cover up a lot of details I need to be able to reach with my paint brush. So I will finish their build-outs as I paint them. 

Snipers! 

Next came the Primaris Lieutenant in Phobos Armour. I think he'll be a perfect leader for my Reivers. Even though he's not  nearly as terrorifying despite his big-ass knife. 

Lt. with scary mask envy.

The next unit that was assembled was  a rather large unit of Infiltrators. I think these models are rather bad-ass and I am very impressed with their poses and details. 

Does he  have a wrist mounted ...TV? 

"Yeah, anyway where was I?"

Pew pew.

I followed that up with the assembly of a Primaris Librarian with the cameoline cloak. I'm thinking that this guy might be fun to stick with the Eliminators since clearly they shop at the same military surplus outlet. 

Librarian Excedrin.  

Next came a squad of Assault Intercessors. I was careful to make sure not to use the same head on the Sergeant to distinguish him from the first squad of these guys that I have already built. 

Assault Intercessors Squad 2.

While building these guys I happened to review their army list to see that the Sergeant can have a different load out which inspired me to assemble the next squad of Assault Intercessors with a very kit-bashed Sergeant.  His head comes from the Ultramarines  Upgrade Sprue, the thunderhammer is from the old Vanguard kit, and his hand flamer is the classic one from the early '90s Space Marine accessory sprue.  I think I dig him! 

"I will set them on fire then beat 'em with my hammer!"

The final guy to be assembled (mostly) during this construction spree was the Ancient. This is the one from the 8th edition launch box that I later found on ebay.  I prefer him over the one that GW currently sells in a claim shell pack. For a guy called "the Chaper Ancient" I thought it made since for him to have a helmet that reflected this concept. Also it's a call-back to the first Ultramarine models my brother I built back in '89 from the classic RTB01 kit. I left his banner detached at this time because I think it'll be easier to paint. 

"C"mon gimme a hand." 

All of these models will most likely get their own threads and posts here on the Chronicle at some point, either later this year or decade. But for now I'm celebrating getting so many models off of their sprues and frames and upright and sort of playable. Meanwhile, now that my wrist is starting to feel better I need to get back to the drawing board and focus on my 2-D art. 

Lieutenant Titus (Part 2)

 After the frenzied pace of the holidays and my invigorated art schedule, it's been nice to find a few fleeting moments to revist Titus.  Part 1 was pretty much a declaration of intent and now we're into the work stages. 

Basecoats.

...and that's as far as I got before a serious of events derailed me. 

Badly. 

First the weather knocked out our power for a few days, and without getting into the details of that saga I will just sum it up with that it sucked.

More trees fell then Dark Angels after the Heresy...

 Then I had a minor heart attack and spent five days in the hospital. I am home now, but I am out of work, resting, while waiting to see when I am going to have open heart surgery.  It's a difficult time. My primary arm is still recovering from the heart catheter procedure and doing fine things like painting, drawing, etc. causes me pain. Not a fun time huh? 

Ouchy.

But hopefully that should pass soon. I don't know when the heart surgery will be, but afterwards I will be out of work for 5-8 weeks. And it's going to be tough! My family started a gofundme to help out*, and I'm not asking for help per se, but if you feel inclined to do so I will be forever grateful. 

I hope this year turns around for the better soon...

*Note from Da Masta Cheef:  "Also a word of caution on GoFundMe: the 'suggested tip' at the end is both unnecessary, and does not go to Neverness' benefit. GoFundMe keeps that for themselves on top of the fees that they collect, the sneaky gits!'

Leviathan Terminator Librarian (Part 4)

We have arrived to the finale of this saga. 

To date, I think this is my best painted Ultramarine model. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. Although I can see room for improvement, which is encouraging  and it will push me to do even better next time. 

In particular I think the psychic energy on the armor could've turned out more brilliantly. I think this is due to how I used the '90s Ultramarines Blue on top of the Macrage Blue which is a brighter result than the examples I reviewed when I started this guy. 

I decided to not have the runes glowing on the book, since I think it's obviously a tool not being used by this model in the moment. 

The most frustrating part of this whole model, yes even more than dealing with repairing the axe after the cat broke it, was the chapter decal. The one you see here is the final one. The first one sort of broke apart when I attempted to apply gloss ('ard Coat) to the decal after I used Microset on it.  After scraping off the whole decal I was able to get it to work the second time. 

I have definitely been spoiled by Guillman Fleshwash, it has completely transformed how I paint skin tones, especially faces.  I have seen examples of this model painted so that it's eyes are glowing the same color as the psychic effects on the armor and axe. Which is a pretty sweet way to tie it altogether. But I was happy with the model at this point and opted out of missing around with the face.

The next thing to do is to put him, securely, into a box and ship him off to Seattle! Hopefully he'll conquer whatever shelf/desk he comes to occupy.  I have to confess, if I can find time for a game I would love to get this guy into a battle report, but those odds are still low...

UPDATE:

The model made to Jay successfully and intact! Hooray for that victory! 

Leviathan Terminator Librarian (Part 3)

 Continuing on from parts One and Two it was time for the psychic glow stage. Referencing a GW painting tutorial after I had went and bought paints I found that somehow I still bought the wrong one. I was supposed to get Baharroth Blue but instead bought Hoeth Blue. The names were just too elfy I guess. I also picked up two Contrast Paints that I thought might work also: Pylar Glacier and Briar Queen Chill. Both of these look like they would look amazing on this model the Pylar Glacier being the one closest to Baharroth Blue. 

Choices. 

I went for the Pylar Glacier. I applied two layers as it does run a bit thin. And I think it turned out alright. 

Glowy psi power.

I am particularly pleased with how well the effect worked on the outstretched hand. 

Hand blasting for the win! 

I am also found of how well it seemed to work on the runic script on the paldrons. 

Runes of power! 

Almost a week went by before I could back to it but before I could calamity ensued. Or is it CATlamity? One of my more adventurous cat decided to explore my hobby table and when Mrs. Neverness attempted to intervene he wrecked almost everything in his mad dash to escape. Surprisingly, only one model was damaged and it just happens to be this one. The axe head busted off and I found it under the living room couch. 

Disarmed by a cat.

So this project is temporarily stalled while I fix the axe. Hopefully it'll be restored without too much effort in Part 4 of this series...

2023 Year End Review

 It is 2024! Let's review what I finished in 2024! 

#artistvsart2023

I'm going to let the pictures do the talking. Each title is a link to the finished project where you can find all you might want to know about how I painted these things and the processes that got me there. As I usually do I try to list these in order of completion. 

Deathwatch Veteran Bikers

Worldeaters Master of Executions

Kharn

Technically Kharn was done a few years ago, but his expanded base was enough of an upgrade that I felt he deserved to be on here. 

Nurgling Ripper-rider-objective marker.

Classic Screamer Killer

Ripper swarm. 

Ten Termagant

'90s Space Marine Challenge.

Inquisitor Alpha

Original old one eye.

Deathwatch Dreadnought

Voss Prime Skitarii

Voss Pri me Dominus

Ultramarines assault intercessors.

There were plenty of models started or worked on in 2023 that I did not get finished. I did not include 'battle-ready' models on this list either as I don't regard them as done by my standards. 

Most recently  the Ultramarines Librarian who spent the last day of 2023 being reglued after a CATastrophic event from the day left him separated from his axe.  I will expand upon this event more on the next update regarding this model. And yes, the cat still lives...

Axeless.

As for hobby goals in 2024 goes, I have a few. I want to do more with my Primaris Ultramarines and get them to at least 1k points of painted models. Then I plan to return to the Tyranids. My family will be moving to a new location in the Spring (if all goes well) and I hope to be able to start working on terrain for my home table as well as the big homesteading project: orks! With the old world returning I'm excited about the prospect of finishing my Orcs and Goblins army and who knows what else that could lead to... Empire and Bretonians maybe? I am excited for the new year ahead, even if only a fraction of these projects get done I am still hoping for some good fun to be had!