March For Macrage '24 (Part 3)

 My personal March For Macragge challenge has been completed! Behold, Brother Jay the Third Company Primaris Ancient! 

The finished Ancient. 

Finishing this guy was fun, but just like Da Masta Cheef recently stated when he painted up his second version of this model, he's got a lot of decals on him! 

The base model has four decals. I put one on his left hip plate only when I realized it was a bit too large to fit one of the banner squares I had hoped to put it on. 

Applying the decal onto his left pauldron was a real challenge. The left side nozzle almost touches the pauldron and it looks like the gap is big enough to slide a decal between, but, not really. I was persistent though and some how got it to work. 

Ok,  now let's discuss this banner: 

I decided to paint the border and the backside of the banner red to represent the third company. I had the idea to use a really old decal, from one of my first decal sheets from way back in the Rogue Trader days of 1989. It's red and I thought it would pop out best against a white background. 

Decals.

The rest of this was fairly straightforward. I opted to use yellow on the shield  emblem on the banner as I like the way it contrasts without clashing too harshly against the rest of the colors. 

 

done without decals.

I used seven decals on this thing. The most odd was the scroll on the lower right. I cut up some of the copyright indicia fro. the bottom of one of the decal sheets from was using and scrambled up the words. I kind of wanted it to say nothing g but give the illusion of importance. Not unlike the Deathwatch shoulder pads in that sense.  

Done with decals. 

The decal for the main icon was a bit yellowed with age so I tried to cover some of that up with White Scar. I left a little bit showing  close to the icon because I think it gives off an odd optical effect, a bit like a glow. 

Once that was done I stuck the banner onto the guy. 

Over all, I think I'm fairly pleased with the results. 

I really think that beakie helm turned out great on this model. I wish I had the idea sooner, I would have put beakie helms on all of my Ultramarines . However he will have to do as a lone reminder of the past glorious days.

Speaking of which, the Tau skull and helms at his feet are an homage to Da Masta Cheef's Tau, even though my Ultramarines have yet to face them, I feel it might be inevitable. 

The same night I finished this guy, I also finished another small squad that I managed to cram into March of Macrage. I think they deserve their own post however so look for that soon. 

March for Macrage '24 (Part 2)

 

Having knocked out the first two models (Primaris Lieutenant and Titus) within the first fortnight of #MarchForMacragge, it was my intention to complete the Ancient and the Assault Intercessors in equal time. However reality and a looming art deadline kept me away from the hobby table for a good chunk of the past month. This left the remaining models stuck in basecoat limbo, although they were at least passable for 'battle ready' I suppose...

Basecoats on the Ancient. 

Until now! 

With art* completed I was able to ready dig into these guys.  However with a bit of perseverance I pushed on and got 'em done! Well, the Assault Intercessors anyway, the Ancient will be finished in Part 3

The one I feel I should discuss the most is the Sergeant. His breast shield (I feel like these things have a proper name but it escapes me at this time) has a very old decal in it. This decal came with our** first paint set and for the Ultramarines the decals we got were all red. This alone is what prompted us to choose the third company as the company for our Ultramarine models. 

1989, the year it started for me. 

And once added to the little shield, well, I think it works pretty good! The yellowing isn't too bad...maybe I should've painted the shield a bone-like color? 

Again I used a 30 year old paint on the Sergeant's helmet, the color in question being Ruby Red. 

The rest of these chaps are pretty much all the same, just posed differently. I really enjoy painting the Assault Intercessors models, I just think they're dynamic yet still leave a lot of space for a painter to play around with yet aren't too over the top with busy filigree noise like the Chaos Marines have. 

It's a bit more obvious on this next model than the previous guy's but I thought it might help me to distinguish them during a game to give this squad red left knee guards. In addition to just that color change I applied some old Roman numeral threes as a identifier of their allegiance to the third company.  

Another difference form this squad and the first squad is that I painted the gold using a technique found in Inquisitor Magazine. I think this makes the aquillas really pop for sure! 

And no, I still don't drill my barrels; live with it. 

And that's the Assault Intercessors done, now on to the Ancient! 

* Specifically art for Onward Retainer #9, which will be featured in Tales From The Smoking Wyrm #9.  

**My brother and I. 

Who Hunts Who?

 

Bug Hunters. 

This is more of a Battle Summary than it is a Battle Report. The reason for this is that this is Warfrog's second game of 10th edition and we were trying to take a deep dive into the rules and try to make a study of some of the aspects that felt to us a bit like grey areas. Where I have played more games of 10th I was able to point out some of the differences from previous editions and he was able to show me some things I was unaware were changes that haven't come up in the games I've played thus far. it was a good learning experience and a fun challenge also. So we whipped up a pair of 1000 point lists and got together to see what mayhem we could cause. 

The Bugs of Doom. 

If you want to play big things that hit like a runaway truck and only have to keep up with a few rules, this is one way to do it. We have a Norn Emisary, a pair of Exocrines, a Biovore, a Maleceptor, a Haruspex and the leader of this gang of critters, the Parasite of Mortrex. 

The Deathwatch of Neverness. 

I brought the Inquistion's favorite, so-called, alien hunters: the Deathwatch. I, stubborn cuss that I am, steadfastly refuse to give up on the Deathwarch. My previous game with them was a humbling situation, but I blame that more on my horrendous dice rolling than I do the rules for this army. They're led by a Chaplain attached to a 5-man Veteran Squad, three DW Terminators squads and 6-mai unit of DW Bikers. And I thought I was being cheesey...

We played Dawn of War set up, with Scramblers and Purge the Unclean as our rules and mission. 

One of the rules I wanted to figure out was Rapid Ingress using the teleport homers to bring in the Deathwatch Terminators. I only brought in a single squad on Turn 1 to try to hurt the Norn Emissary. Luckily it had Advance during it's movement phase and didn't unleash psychic hell on them when they showed up after it moved. I was able to move and dump a lot of fire power on it, well I would have if the 3D3 roll had allowed me more than 3 shots. The ability to now declare Oath Of Moment is a stark contrast to the last time I played the Deathwatch and it really improved my ability to shoot. However having 11 Toughness really makes this thing a challenge to take down, as well as it's FNP saves. Over the two Fight Phases of being stuck in melee with this thing, the Terminators would be defeated with only a few wounds inflicted upon the Norn Emissary. 

Start of Deathwatch Turn 1. 

During Turn One I had the genius idea (add sarcasm) to charge the Haruspex. This was a result of my ignorance regarding the Haruspex as I honestly knew nothing about it. A lesson I failed to learn from the previous game using these bikes is that I really don't need to be charging with them. Sure, the Long Vigil Close Combat Weapons are decent, but these things are just better at zipping around shooting stuff than they are trying to slice and dice their foes. This first Fight phase the Haruspex killed two bikes. I knew it was tough, but bad dice rolls happen. On the 2nd Fight Phase during Warfrog's 2nd Turn, the Haruspex stompled, crush, slammed, bit, torn and devoured all the remaining bikers. it was both glorious and terrorfying at the same time. 

Also during Turn Two, the DW Vets were killed off leaving just the Chaplain who now found himself locked in combat with the Parasite of Mortrex. He took three Wounds during that fight, and came very close to taking out the Parasite. On Turn Three the Chaplain almost did it too but his prayers and litanies failed to produce the results he had hoped to leaving the beastie alive with a single Wound. On Turn 4 the loyal Maleceptor wou;d bound over to his leader's aid and finish of the Chaplain for him. It was a glorious last stand, and a grand achievement for the Tyranids who had Assassinate at a Secondary Objective. 

Going for the glory!

Remembering to bring the rest of the Terminators in on the 3rd Turn, I tried to go for the Behind Enemy Lines Objective. Mainly to stop the biovore from tossing around more Spore Mines. (The bastard was plopping Spore Mines on to objectives and as rules are currently written we could not find anything clarifying or stating that Sporemines can't full-fill secondaries (such as Cleanse in this instance) or hold objectives). Gotta love it! Anyway,  the Terminators arrived and dumped fire power into the Haruspex, seriously hurting it. It Charged into the closest Terminators on it's next turn, killed a few of them before getting killed itself. That squard charged the Biovore on the next turn, killing it. The other Terminator squad got to work on the Exocrines. 

Terminators vs Exocrines. 

Or was it the other way? After the Terminators fired on the Haruspex, on the following Turn the two Exocrines unleashed a hail of shots into the Terminators picking off a few of them. They moved onto the closest Exocrine, pumping shots into it before charging the Exocrine and taking a few Wound off of it. On the next Turn the engaged Exocrine fell back so the other one could fire and charge. That Exocrine got the Terminator down to just the last pair who put even more damage on this one. Finally, on Turn 5 this Exocrine fell back and the Norn Emissary charged up and finished them off. Yeah, they didn't kill anything, but they sure put some hurt on those monsters. Impressive though that may seem, hurt doesn't equate to winning. And the Terminator's bio-mass was now being consumed. 

The final move. 

Finally the last group of Terminator killed off the Spore Mine (why they don't explode when shot is a mystery to us) and took an objective. Our final score ended up being 70 to 30 with the a solid win for the Tyranids. Most of the Deathwatch's points where accrued in the final rounds of the game. So what could I have done better? I had to hold onto the main objective but maybe I should've taken better advantage of the terrain during the set-up phase of the game so the Veterans wouldn't be so easily targeted. And I was bit too bold with the bikers and the first squad of Terminators. With a force as small as this, I really need to be a lot more focused with my assets when it comes to targeting and objective acquisition. Also dice happen, but really, I can only control what I can control. 

Deathwatch are not an easy army to run despite their appearance as a take-on-all-comers list, they really can't in my current opinion. Not currently in this edition. Oath of Moment was a huge help, without it they likely would've been tabled. 

I'm still not ready to give these guys up yet for 10th, even though they are woefully in need of help in this edition; just some pruce reductions at the least  would help them. They lost a lot of fun options between 9th and 10th, and their weapon options where made woefully generic (simplified not simple!). A force this small and niche needs to have a "sticky objectives" option somewhere, that is one way to fix them. I spent the early morning hours seeking advice from a vampire, ("Games-Workshop does not support Deathwatch; I do!") so who knows, maybe I did learn more about them through this experience? It maybe a good while before I try them out again though. 

The Tyranids on the other hand, I think my biggest take away is that I need to bite the damn bullet and somehow obtain a copy of their codex. Playing them without all of the Stratagems available has definitely been a handicap. However, despite the wonderful gift of a few bugs from Warfrog (Thanks again man!) I will not be expanding my hivefleet beyond what I already have done last year. That's mostly a budget thing, at least for the immediate future. Staying on top of the FAQs is something I need to get better at also so that I can be aware of changes  (the ruling that Devastating Wounds no longer cause Mortal Wounds) that dramatically effect things like the Norn Emissary. 

Thanks again to Warfrog for hosting this game and for the extra goodies!

This Old Whirlwind

What we have here is the first Whirlwind model released by Games-Workshop. Sure there was the template for making your own multi-launcher way back in White Dwarf 117, but this is the first one that came in a box with the words Whirlwind on it. Released back in the spring of 1995. Back then when GW did a big army launch the new stuff would appear in the UK first before being released to the rest of the world. I think it was almost two months before these hit the shelves in the USA. Our parents were on a vacation to England at the time and my brother gave them a list of models and miniatures that he wanted for his birthday. The way the dollar to Pound Sterling rate conversion worked it was cheaper to go* to the UK to buy these things and ship them home than it was to just get them here. (Hint, it still is!) .  So he got almost all of the Ultramarines for 2nd edition before most folks here in the States did. 

Also, this is really the point here, is that GW in the UK was still producing their metal miniatures in lead while here in the States GWUS had already switched to pewter. The lead was definitely better at catching details in my opinion and the flash was easier to clean up. And the weight difference was also quite substantial as well. The lead was definitely heavier! 

My brother was eager to paint this thing, and after painting a few Marines for practice he dove into painting this thing. And you know, it holds up a lot better than either of us felt at the time. Really, for the first vehicle he ever painted this isn't bad at all. The only issues with it were some of the decals. Particularly on the side door where the decal disintegrated while he was trying to position it. I have been trying to track down one of the the old Whirlwind decal sheets so I could correct this, but it has proven to be terribly scarce. 

As far as the painting goes, I think it holds up. The only exception are the winged skulls that adorn the Multilauncher tubes and the hatch next to the radar dish. So in order to update this thing to conform to my current Ultramarines scheme, I want to re-paint the winged skulls, paint the rocket tips, and give the whole tank a Fenrisian Grey edge highlight. The temptation to paint all the rivets a silver color was abandoned as I have always felt that this wouldn't make sense. In reality these things ate typical painted over to protect from rust and decay so to me it makes sense to give the impression that these would be painted over. 

And I did everything I just said I would to this, but this damaged decal needed a bit more attention...

Some light battle damage / wear and tear was the logical choice in lieu of not having a replacement decal. A few swipes of Stormhost Silver...

And a few low-lights of Abaddon Black and Macrage Blue and I think I got the result I wanted. 

But it didn't make sense to have this be the only wear on this thing right? So I grabbed a sponge and lightly dabbed Stormhost Silver on areas that I thought would most likely acrue wear on the paint. 

Mostly this scouring  would be applied to the fromt corners of the tank and the running boards since I think I these areas are most likely to be weathered. 

Also the rear of the tank where the ramp would drop was worthy of the sponge also. 

But there was one more area that now earned my attentuon: the gunner. I find his lack of should iconography...disturbing. and foresee that fixing it will challenging.  I painted one of these models for my Space Wolves about 20 years ago and I was able to convincingly free-hand that iconography, but the Ultramarines icons are wickedly tough to do. 

No decals on the gunner.

I cur down the decals to get them to fit and after a bit of work got them on. 

Decals on the gunner.. 

Amusingly I think I got the shoulder pad icons on the wrong sides. Oops. HAHA... I can't be bothered to fix it. 

Well, this old Whirlwind is sufficiently updated to my satisfaction and after I spray it with some sealant it will be ready to see the tabletop again. 

*Assuming one doesn't factor in the travel and lodging expenses. Also assuming of course that this isn't your only reason to go to the UK, in which case one must re-evaluate the priorities in life.  I'm specifically talking about the  cost of the items.

Metal Winged Hive Tyrant (Part 1)

 Yeah. I have a metal winged Hive Tyrant. Well, the wings are not metal. In fact, I'm pretty sure the wings aren't even from a GW product, but I suspect they're from an old McFarlane dragon toy.  I have never confirmed this however. Regardless I think it looks cool. I got this of. Of ebay before the current Hive Tyrant was released. Back in those frontier times one had to convert wings onto their metal Hive Tyrant models if they wanted one. Usually folks used either the plastic dragon wings that most of the WHFB dragons all used or the LotR Balrog wings. 

Target Alpha, Codename: Flappy. 

The mad genius who put this model together was seriously into magnets. To this day I'm astounded by what this person accomplished on this thing. A series of perfectly polarly aligned magnets dot the back of this model and connect to the piece that the wings are attached to. The arms are all attachable with magnets also. The builder of this thing must have drilled into the model to allow the magnets to sit so perfectly in them. 

Magnet madness.

For reasons that confound me he even drilled into the upper half of the model and built a base on the lower half for the magnets to connect so perfectly. I think transportability was the inspiration behind a lot of these choices. Despite all the greenstuff and other steps used to secure this model, his tail broke off when I moved back in 2014. 

Bug bisected.

Despite all the magnetization and the inherant potential to be able to swap weapons, this critter only came with one loadout, which was the Venom Cannon. And for reasons I don't recall, I simply never acquired the other weapons. Until recently when Mrs. Neverness gave me the gift of the Swarmlord kit. 

New weapons, new choices. 

Now I have the additional weapons and I have attached the magnets to them, I am ready to move forward with this project. (Although figuring out storage is still proving to be a challenge). 

"...help..."

As I was ooh-ing, and ah-ing over this model, while attempting to figure how to paint it, I felt it needed the requisite dead foe bit somewhere on it. I had a left over Sergeant hand from the Assault Intercessors kit and I thought it would be amusing to have it poking out of the rubble in all it's futility.  It, no doubt, belonging to the crushed marine under the collapsed floor or wall that this Hive Tyrant now poses on.

For now this Hive Tyrant will join the queue alongside the Swarmlord (and few other friends).  I hope to be able to paint both of these big miniatures together but we'll see how things in my "real life" shake out.