Tyranid Models

Having finally had the opportunity to get a few games of 40K in since my somewhat disastorous first game. I took a moment to get some half decent photos of my Tyranids to share with you.

First off, his Royal ones and twos to hit ness, the Swarmlord. 

Trygon prime

Tervigon

Venomthropes

The Four Stompas of the Apocalypse

The tactical situation - apoc game at the local Games Workshop. Two Ork players and a small Guard contingent line up against the varied forces of the Imperium, with Guard, Grey Knights, Space Wolves, Blood Angels and Dark Angels stood before them. Time for Waaaaaaaggghhhh!

 "Hand out those camo sticks!" yelled Platoon Sergeant Crick "Cover every exposed part of skin in green. You two, start a small brawl among that squad! Don't stand up straight, hunch over more! We're gonna have to really pull off one hell of a show if we're gonna make it back to Imperial lines alive..."

Bugrit surveyed the field in front of him. This was a Meks dream, the fruits of his labours given life on the field of battle. Naturally he didn't see things this way. Bugrit saw a good chance to crump stuff and get more loot. But despite his lack of elocution, it's fair to say that the description of his feelings was probably accurate.

Wazzdakka and a horde of bikes were over to the right flank. A Stompa and a Skullhamma were surrounded by all the wagons, truks and buggies of the clan, with a swarm of Stormboyz clustered behind the mass of the Stompa. Bugrit stood in a nest of Snotlings, plenty of ammo for his Shok Attack Gun. Over to the left, a rival clan had brought three Stompas to the party. They may think they had the best position in the centre of the field, but they aren't as fast as Bugrits lads. We'll beat em to the enemy, hell we can probably reach THEIR enemy before they do. On the far left there were what appeared to be some looted wagons crewed by Grots. Presumably they were allied with the other clan as they seemed to be in the midst of their lines. But grots are unimportant anyway...

The Stompas strode forwards, thier super gatlers tearing vast chunks out of the opposition. The entire speed freaks clan surged forward... well, not quite as one. They were bumping and shoving and trying to make sure they got to the enemy first. One truk exploded as a paniced shot from a krak missile struck home. As the vehicle fell to pieces around them, the lads emerged and vowed revenge upon the lowly marine that had committed them to walking. Their temper was not helped by their erstwhile allies driving past at speed, throwing insults and quite a bit of faeces at them. Most of the enemy fire was bouncing off the super heavy vehicles though. The occassional ripple of a kustom force field betraying the shots that could have potentially done more than scratch the paint job. Meanwhile, the bikers slaughtered the Ravenwing bikers who had been foolish enough to try to slow down the Stompa by getting in it's path. As they died, the air rippled and a squad of Terminators appeared behind the Stompa. The bikers roared into the assault, as did the Nob bikers lead by Wazzdakka. They slaughtered them in a brutal close combat, though several of the bikers were cut down in return. 

As the Orks broke in a wave upon the Imperial lines, more and more troops started to arrive behind the Ork forces. Blood Angels, Ultramarines, Space Wolves, Dark Angels. A couple of Dakkajets swooped low and annihalated the Blood Angels with supreme weight of fire. A jingling sounded as Santa came flying across the battlefield, firing missiles at... well, anyone happy really. You never know, it may even have hit the enemy. Bugrit decided that devastator squad in a bunker had been troublesome enough, and targetted his shok attack gun at them. There was a brief "Zogging eck!" followed by a bright flash... Bugrit, his grots, and the two low flying dakkajets had all vanished! Lost in the warp somewhere...
A double 1 roll on a Shok Attack Gun probably wouldn't effect flyers, but as the Orky side was winning so easily by this point that most of the reinforcements were troops that had already been killed in the battle being given a second chance we didn't see the harm in losing the flyers to such a funny result

The bikers and wazzdakka charged into the second Deathwing squad, and Santa joined them. ore than half the squad were wiped out. However when the Dread countered into Santa and managed to instant death him, the combat tipped in the Dark Angels favour. Wazzdakka tried to make a hasty escape, but he was captured by the Dark Angels. They seemed to think he had some intelligence on the whereabouts of some people who must have tripped. I don't see why they're so concerned, but have to admit that the idea of asking an Ork for intelligence shows the supreme naivety of the first legion...

By this point the left flank had started to turn upon itself. Smelling the umiez for what they really were, the Orks had turned upon them. They had then promptly switched sides and fired back. The speed freaks spotted a glint in the eye of a Stompa as they roared towards the nearest Baneblades... including a red one. Seeing the challenge, a speed freaks battlewagon instantly rammed the rogue Stompa with a deffrolla, as a looted wagon, dive bomber and Skullhamma all started firing at it. After quite a bruising the Ork player retired from the field of battle, with one Stompa dead and 2 limping (one of which had lost half it's mass, yet none of it from enemy fire!)

As some of the Orks withdrew, the umiez on the left realised that the Imperials weren't so forgiving of their earlier "play-acting" as some of their shots had been a little too convincing... terminally convincing in fact. They meant to get their revenge on the traitors, so the guard switched back to the Ork side as they fought for their very lives. The Dark Angels swiftly retreated with Wazzdakka, who having been unseated from his bike for the first time in months was finding walking a little difficult. He'd have to escape when he had feelings back in his legs. The guard were slaughtered as the first lads out ran riot, though most of the boyz were still in their transports, having not reached the enemy yet. It was decided that it was a solid Ork victory and the imperials withdrew to lick their wounds, as the lads celebrated a glorious victory, and a bloody good fight. One or two even wondered where Bugrit and Wazzdakka had got to, and why were they missing all the fun..?

Santa Klaws Rulez...

As promised, the rules I came up with (and by now should be using in an apoc game) for Santa Klaws and his Sleigh...

UNIT OR FORMATION NAME: Santa Klaws POINTS: 250

DESCRIPTION:

Oi get your choppas out,

'ear the umiez cry,

Giv em all a clout,

and watch em all die...

Santa Klaws is coming, to WAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

SANTA KLAWS:

	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
Santa	5	2	5	5	3	4	4	9	6

Santa is equipped with Power Klaw, Eavy Armour, Cybork Body, and Santas Sack of Prezzies, Santas Sleigh.

Santas Sack of Prezzies.

At the start of the shooting phase, choose one Ork unit within 12” of Santa, and roll on the following table.

D6	Result
1	Lumps of Coal. The boyz have been bad. The unit cannot do anything this turn except cry.
2	The unit gets shiny new choppas and sluggas but no tactical change
3	As above, but these ones are snazzier, so the orks feel even better. No tactical difference, but they're happy.
4	Lotsa Ammo – Santa has given out extra bullets, all guns get +1 shot this turn
5	Wooly jumpers – The extra thick layers give +1 to the armour save this turn
6	Med Packs – The unit has FNP this turn!

The effect of Santas Sack lasts for one turn only. No unit can receive a second gift from the sack. That wouldn't be fair.

SANTAS SLEIGH:

	BS	Front Armour	Side Armour	Rear Armour
Santas Sleigh	2	11	11	10

Fast, Chariot, Open Topped, Red Paint Job, 2 twin linked dakkaguns, Exhaust Cloud, 4 Joy Seeking Missiles, A very Special Task. The sleigh has 4 hull points.

Joy Seeking Missiles.

Read out the name of the missile. Whoever has the biggest smile (friend or foe) is the target. That players most expensive unit is targeted.

Range unlimited, no LOS required. AP2 One shot heavy 1 hits on 2+. All are fired at once. Str variable*

*If the person is upset at this turn of events, the missiles are Str 6. If they are ok with things, they are Str 8. If they find the whole episode hilarious, Str 10.

A very Special Mission

If this unit is being used in December, it can choose to be a flyer during any turn. It must be a flyer for the complete turn. As a flyer the rider can vector strike instead of doing his sweep attack.

If the flyer is shot down, the unit that shot it down is immediately targeted by the nearest unit (friend or foe) and an out of sequence shooting attack is directed against it, as everyone is mad at them for spoiling Christmas. Furthermore, all units on the board (including the “friendly” ones) have preferred enemy against THAT unit for the remainder of the game. Whichever player ordered the unit to shoot down Santa can expect to receive abuse from all other players for doing the most callous thing since Alan Rickman called off Christmas...

Santa Klaws is coming to Waaaaaaaaagh!

'E sees you when youz sleepin,
'E knows when youz awake,
Cos 'E's peering through your window,
So stoppit fore you go blind mate!

Oh get your choppas out,
Raise 'em in the sky,
Giv your mate a clout,
We'z tellin you wy,
Santa Klaws is coming, to Waaaaaaaaaaaagggghhhhh!

Cities of Death in 6th Edition

 In the new year I plan to run a Crusade of Fire based campaign at my local gaming club. As any battles fought over Hive City tiles require a Cities of Death game to be played, I thought I'd have a look over the rules and bring them in line with sixth edition.

For starters, I'd say we need to take into account the rule changes sixth edition has brought. To that end, there are some basic rule changes to clear up first.

NOT all units are scoring, nor does it matter how many survivors there are in a scoring unit. Troops only score, others deny, and unit strength is irrelevent.

Deep Strike, Reserves, Dusk and Dawn, Random Game Length, Infiltrate... these are all basic parts of the game now, so anywhere that says "If these rules are being played" can be ignored. Likewise anything that let's that rule be played is fairly irrelevent.

Anything that talks about determining Line of Sight can be ignored, we use True Line of Sight now.

I will also suggest using the secondary objectives that we have come to know in sixth edition.

 All good so far? I can see you're enthralled!

Moving on, deployment. Now Cities of Death missions all used table quarters deployment. I did consider updating this to 6th ed deployments, but with the fact that Cities of Death had it's own different deployment when it was released and it isn't updates that have left it looking different, I will stick with table quarters. There will not be a specific order to what you deploy or alternating deployment - player 1 deploys their forces in their quarter, not within 12" of the centre. Player 2 then does the same. Player 1 gets first turn, unless player 2 siezes the initiative.

 A couple of other specific changes to the rules as listed in the book.

Page 9 - Rubble is listed as a 4+ cover. This needs to be a 5+ to bring it in line with 6th ed.

Page 34 - Command Centre - the secondary option for this is in relation to the long out of use Target Priority Checks. Best just to ignore this secondary power and stick to the primary power if you use this strategem.

Page 40 - As mentioned earlier, deep strike and infiltrate are now part of the game, these strategums are redundant. The sewer rats strategum is still useful though.

Page 45-46 - All rules are in line with 6th edition, these pages can be pretty much ignored.

The Missions

Firesweep
At the end of the mission each planted flag counts as 3vp.

High Ground
The objective building is worth 3vp to the side that claims it.

Domination
Each occupied ruin is worth 3vp to the holder.

Maximum Attrition
Each unit destroyed is worth 1vp to the opposition.

Urban Assault
Each objective building is worth 3vp to the holder.


There are also some special missions, but they're different enough in their own special rules that they don't really need modifying. Just use a little common sense and you'll be fine.

Hope all this is useful to someone, and I will be blogging about the campaign over on my personal blog when it all starts off, and will try to keep the writeups both characterful and also useful to anyone who wishes to run their own Crusade of Fire campaign in the future.

Pirates Dead in the Water...

I am sad to report that my begging letter to the tournament organisers fell on deaf ears, and the Pirate project is simply dead in the water.

They suggested using one of the Raiders as counts as venoms, but a) I don't want to confuse opponents that one of my raiders is a raider but the other ones a venom b) venom wouldn't fit the whole squad on, making it a pointless transport and c) the upgrades had been modelled onto the model, such as grisly trophies, enhanced aethersails, dark lance... and these would not be available on the venom. It just wouldn't look the part.

Limiting my force to one raider wouldn't work either. The crew of the Dutchman just look like weird mutants without their ship, so I'd have to include the Dutchman... but the Dutchman is easily recognizable because of The Pearl, and without that it's like "What is this some sort of ghost ship?"

I am continuing to work on the models as best I can but it is somewhat gutting. My hope is to complete the project and perhaps find a combat patrol doubles tournament that HASN'T incorporated this random ruling. Alternatively, I go to Bracknell this year and make my case for the problematic rule to be taken out so that we can take Pirates vs Ninjas NEXT year...

To that end, I have gone completely against character and come up with an efficient spammy beardy list. It is completely in line with the rules they have set. The restriction of vehicles was apparently to defeat Necron Quantum Shielding spam. Now given most people complain about Cron Air, QS spam is a new one on me. There are 4 vehicles that come with Quantum Shielding. The Annihalation Barge, Command Barge, Doomsday Ark and Ghost Ark.

Annihalation Barge - it's a HS slot, so self limiting. Only max of 2 in the combined 1000 point force if BOTH players take Crons.
Command Barge - needs an HQ choice to ride it, can't have HQ choices with more than 2 wounds, therefore ineligible.
Doomsday Ark - Ordnance weapon, so ineligible
Ghost Ark - sure you could spam these... but would you want to? They support warriors, and of all the things in the Necron codex, if someone wanted to spam warriors and ghost arks I'd say LET THEM.

Anyway, in their desperation to prevent anything more than one necron vehicle in an entire 1000point combined force, they have put the same limits on everybody else. The only vehicles you can take more than one of are sentinals, venoms, vipers, killa kans, grot tanks, war walkers, land speeders and storm talons. Now from the various tournaments I've heard, there's nothing there that can be spammed to death right? Right?

So, with about 6 weeks to go to the tournament, I now begin 500 points for Winds batch number 2. Ken and I have usually finished respectably mid table even though we've been playing with sub par fun whacky crazy lists. It'll be interesting to see what we can do if we realy put our minds to it...

Trazyn the Infinfinfinfinfinfinfinite...

So today I played a game with my Necrons where Trazyn REALLY excelled himself. In scenes reminiscent of Snatch he proved that you can't keep a good robot down, at least not for long.

Playing The Relic mission with standard deployment I gambled, and deep struck Trazyns squad to the centre, hoping to grab the relic with the edge of the squad and start my withdrawel on turn 2. However, a wayward scatter put me far from my target, about 6" in front of the enemy... an ork horde army. Ah...

Making the best of a bad situation the warriors Gaussed the battlewagon to death, giving me first blood... and spilling out a pissed off set of Ork Nobs toting lots of Power Klaws, lead by a rather angry looking warboss.

The nobz and a squad of 30 boys charged in, and thanks to trazyns empathic obliterator I managed to tie the combat. My lychguard piled in so at least some of the power klaws would be hitting invulnerable saves as opposed to chewing up combat res on the warrior squad. Trazyn helped tip the combat to a draw again with more empathic kills. My opponent then threw another squad of 30 boyz AND a squad of burna boyz into the mix. The burnas hacked trazyn apart with wild abandon, after he had failed to get a kill annoyingly. The combat was a massive loss and the lychguard ran, and everyone was hacked down. But trazyn got back up amidst the slaughter (on a 5 no less) Utterly surrounded I used my annihalation barges to try to blast my way through the burnas to let trazyn charge the big squad of boyz. Sadly I couldn't break them, so Trazyn charged the warboss and challenged him to a fight. He passed his mindshackle test... Trazyn wounded him, but without the mindshackle the warboss tore him to shreds. Again my opponent tried to block where he could deploy, but again Trazyn stood up. My opponent then tank shocked him into line of sight of the lootas, who gunned him down mercilessly. He got back up again. He then moved on and charged the boyz squad. He took out a healthy number but they took him down. Sick of his shenanigans, they finally deployed in such a way that he could NOT get back up. I then rolled for Trazyns other ability, and on a roll of a 5 (only needed a 2+ but still sweet nonetheless) he reappeared as a lord over in the other squad of warriors! He still lived.

After being held so long in the middle, my opponent broke forward with his boss and nobz to finish my immortals, the only scoring unit I had close enough to challenge for the objective. He moved one solitary boy that survived his first squad almost within spitting distance of the relic. The other squad had been sent packing by an effective gauss volley that put them below the 25% threshold, and they left the field of play. So the nobz charged my 3 immortals and one lord. The lord challenged the warboss, who accepted. Who then failed his mindshackle. The immortals did little but die ignominiously, but the warboss put three instant death wounds on his own squad, which only one cybork body saved. My lord taking the 2 wounds off the warboss left my lord winning the combat by 3, and he promptly ran down the surviving nobz. The game ended turn 5 with me scoring first blood and slay the warlord and my opponent scoring nothing. If there had been a turn 6, I would easily have taken his last scoring unit of one boy... leaving him just two turns to grab linebreaker and SOMEHOW slay my warlord to get the a draw, though slaying my warlord would have involved tabling me as he had 20 ablative wounds in the warrior squad. A solid victory, and I owe it all to just how tenacious Trazyn proved to be. Without him holding up the mass brawl in the middle then nipping at their heels to slow them down they'd have surrounded the objective and claimed the three points long before.

Trazyn, you'd do Boris proud...

Yarr harr fiddle de... oh f*$k...

So, there I was, storming along in my preparations for Winds of War 13 when the tournament pack finally came out, and my plan has completely come off the rails.

So yeah, I designed my army with last years restrictions on heavy vehicles in mind, meaning my two raiders plus two squads of wyches and a beastmaster with razorwing flocks was fine. Then the tournament pack has come out, and restricted the field to 2HP vehicles... So pretty much none of the transports, just light walkers and buggies.

You are allowed ONE 2+HP vehicle, provided it doesn't break the 33 armour value rule. That is, one for your combined force. So I'm still screwed.

I've emailed for clarification, because it seems a drastic change from last year. Chimera spam was annoying but you could still deal with it, and vehicles being easier to glance to death now I wouldn't have had a problem with facing them again. One of the more hated armies for small scale games would be venom spam, and that is STILL legal under this tournament pack. It doesn't make much sense.

The tournament pack was pretty clear and it didn't seem like a mistake, though it is a very drastic change from last year, which is why I've queried it. But it didn't look or feel like a misprint... it felt like a deliberate change of the way they want their combat patrol games to work. Which means that the nice little 500 point force I've been working through, am more than half finished, will be illegal. I can try to keep the stuff I've done and adapt the rest but I'm not sure how it's gonna work out...

Watch this space...

Why I should learn to keep my big mouth shut...

This won't be the usual kind of post, I'm going off-topic with this one. I'm planning to discuss movies. The inspiration came from perusing my game shelf trying to think of something that may be worth writing about, I spotted my old "Red Storm Rising" and "Hunt for Red October" games. This got me thinking about Tom Clancy and the ones that had been made into movies, and I came up with the idea of a post entitled:

Why There Won't Be Any More Jack Ryan Movies

Sadly it seems, hollywood has not read the script. I had an idea in mind for what to write about and just wanted to grab a couple of images off google to break the article up a bit, and lo and behold I find there actually will be another Jack Ryan movie. I will enter into the reasons for my despair later, but for now I'm going to start with the basis of my original thought, hastily rephrased to:

Why There Won't Be Any More Jack Ryan Movies That Are Even Remotely Connected to the Source Material

This title I have to admit, isn't quite as snappy... hence why I went with the one about learning to keep my mouth shut. Sure they've clearly been working on it a while, but equally I'd held this opinion for a while... I can't help but feel I've jinxed this into happening!

The Good

Ok, let's start off with the positive. Jack Ryan is the lead character in the majority of the books written by Tom Clancy. Readers follow his career (and that of his compatriots) through decades of espionage, government service, and eventually political life. The movies started off portraying some of these aspects quite well. Ok, they were condensed, as movies made from books always are to fit into a commercially viable running time, but generally they followed the basics of the plot quite well. Jack Ryan was first played by Alec Baldwin, and in the second and third movies by Harrison Ford. The movies saw the character older, and the actor was older too. This was acceptable. Admittedly, Patriot Games was chronologically set before Red October in the books, but not many people would have been aware of that, and it wasn't much difference in time anyway. I considered both actors to play the part of Jack Ryan well. Jack Ryan was in far more action than would normally be expected for an analyst while Harrison Ford played the part, but even then he portrayed a reluctant action star - not swaggering around perfectly at home, more someone who was caught in a bad situation and was merely trying to keep control of things. This suited the character well.

The Bad

We then move on to The Sum of All Fears. Hollywood decided to cast Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan. To cover the sudden youth of the character, they reset the Jack character to be far earlier in his career and love-life. As reboots go this was a poor move, as for one reason by putting him far earlier in his career he was a lowly analyst... and therefore hardly likely to be involved in decisions of magnitude or able to access the areas or speak with the Russian president with great trust. In the book, Jack Ryan used his wealth of experience and "enemy" contacts to save the day. In the book, it was the "dinosaur" Jack Ryan being marginalized and ignored by the hip young political elite who thought war would never threaten them. Suddenly, in the movie, it's the youthful Jack Ryan saving the world from the political dinosaurs who want to nuke everyone because they can't get past their paranoia about the bad old days.I suppose I can see why they swung it a little bit - movie audiences are far more likely to be the hip young people than the dinosaurs, so you want your audience to feel good about themselves. But of course just reinforcing the young audiences attitudes won't help them realise that experienced people have opinions of value, but I guess it's not a movies responsibility to teach appreciation for ones elders. Above all else though, I thought this was a bad time to reboot the franchise, because I didn't see where they'd go from here, as explained below.

The Ugly

In this post 9/11 world can you ever honestly see someone making a movie where someone makes a suicide dive with a fully fueled jet plane into a building wiping out most of the US government? Of course not, people would say it was too close to the mark. But the next book in line after The Sum Of All Fears is Debt of Honour, which ends with exactly that occurrence. This was written before 9/11 - in fact I have often wondered if Tom Clancy ever felt some remorse, that he may have given the terrorists ideas? Highly unlikely, any idea for destruction can be thought up by more than one person... but it did seem like the rate of book release dropped off after 9/11 as Tom Clancy started to be more of an umbrella release name for other authors carrying on his style of work.

Now with this book off the table and all other books following on from it kinda being nailed to the pivotal plot moment where the US government gets wiped out and Jack Ryan ascends to the presidency (albeit reluctantly) it does leave the question of where, if The Sum of All Fears was intended as a reboot, did they intend to go? They can't follow the next books, and the few former books that were skipped out were in a different world (usually related to the cold war, meaning Ben Affleck can't be involved there, as Sum of All Fears was set in the modern day.

So I really saw nowhere for them to go.

Which brings us to Jack Ryan, the movie, to be released in 2013.

From what I can understand, it includes Jack Ryan (funnily enough) against a terrorist plot by Russia to destroy the US economy. I guess they could be taking one of the plot strands from Executive Orders for this, but it seems more likely that there is no literary connection whatsoever. The new Jack Ryan is played by yet another actor, who seems even younger than Affleck.

Which begs the question, if it's not got the same actor, and it's not based on the novels, what exactly is the point of making that tenuous connection to the character? You may as well call the movie something else and give the guy an original name! I can't see many people who are fans of Tom Clancys Jack Ryan going, and if they aren't fans... then the name is meaningless!

It seems it is just there to annoy me... Studio, I give you the Ford finger. Leave Tom Clancy alone, you've done enough damage already...

We shall need a crossbow, an hourglass, three goats, one of us must learn to play the trumpet, whilst the other one goes like this.

An update to the Pirates project...

The Pearl is ready! I never thought that a sewing kit would ever form part of my warhammer 40k painting tools, but hey ho life throws unexpected items at you sometimes. Here are a few snaps of The Pearl, ready to sail...

Hoist the Colours!

Power Through P... RUM!

This is the day you will always remember as the day you almost...

So, I have finally made a start on my Pirates project.

First up I've been working on one of the raiders, in the case The Pearl. I wanted to make a couple of conversions to this so that it was still easily recognisable as a raider, but also clearly fitting into my new theme.

The first idea I had was to change the main armament. I wanted to put a cannon on board. I had planned to represent this by using the gun option of disintegrator CANNON, but when I realised this would leave me with NO anti-tank in my force I re-thought this. I instead am sticking with a dark lance, but the lance will be a physical lance, fired from a cannon! Presumably it explodes once it's penetrated the target for those who are wondering what effect firing a sharp stick will have against a tank, but still.

Next up I wanted to change the aethersails. I wanted something more western and like a traditional pirate. I have made the mastwork I wish to use, and after I've painted the model I shall make some sails and rigging to go with it. The pictures are to the right and below.

Since these pictures were taken I've added a couple of extras - namely a skeleton as the figurehead and a barrel of rum on deck - my power through pain will be power through rum, therefore instead of grisly trophies (reroll Ld tests in range) it'll be extra rum rations for the same effect!

I also made my first squad of wyches, the crew for the pearl. I used mostly the wyches kit, but also some pieces from the Empire Militia box and the Dark Elf Corsair box.

 As for the sea turtles I mentioned the other day... when confused as to what I could do that would be piratey yet would represent a skyboard... I came up with the idea of lashing a couple of sea turtles and making them into a raft. And while so far I've only secured them with green stuff and superglue, I do intend to make the bond secure, with human hair. From my back...

Anyway, I have modelled the Beastmaster in place too...

So, as my project get's under way, I can merely hope to motivate my compatriot and team mate into starting by insulting his cause...

Ninjas are mean, as proved by the following. Pirates are too cool to do such petty things as the following...

Razorwings...

So, it was my birthday the other day...

Which meant Cake!

Oh, and also some nice people sent me birthday money, including my fellow blogger Firewasp. Muchly appreciated, as it has allowed me to order the stuff I need to make a start on this pirate project I've been itching to get going on. I've ordered two boxes of wyches and two raiders. I already had my sea turtles, which I've started working on (I need to lash them together with human hair... from my back...) and have also got my razorwing flocks. I wasn't too keen on the GW model (the price was rather off putting, and peoples suggestion of breaking it down into several bases to get your monies worth... well, as the ducks in Open Season state, you can't flock with only two. So anyway, for the razorwing flocks I've picked up the models below from Reaper miniatures.

Sadly no more to say just yet, just gotta wait on the bloody postman now... c'mon, c'mon! :oP

Sea Turtles, matey...

The answer to any pirates riddle.

With these arrived, my bitz also, I'm just waiting on my razorwing flocks... and the cash to buy the two boxes of wyches and two raiders I need, then I can start this project. Itching to make a start on it...

Setting Sail for Winds of War 13...

Those of you who have come to read Insane Heroism having read either Ignatum or Need More Tanks will have seen in the past that Firewasp and I have attended events run by Bracknell Forest Gamers. This event was something our friends went to and reported back favourably on, and so we went along. We too enjoyed our experience, and the pleasant atmosphere combined with it being roughly halfway between where we live has made it into our most regular tournament spot for the past few years.

Now personally I like to do theme armies for Winds of War - it's combat patrol, so 500 points let's me play with things outside my usual comfort zone without committing to an entirely new army. It also lends itself well to small, themed forces. Now in one instance, my Star Wars Guard, I ended up having more theme ideas than 500 points could contain... that army currently sitting pretty at a 2k list, but for the most part 500 points is a fun thing to work with, and if you want a reminder of the crazy stuff I've done check back over this fifth edition review...

Of course, one of our best was the team effort one we did for Halohammer, in 2011. That year we picked up the much coveted Fergus Award, and had a cracking time with a fantastically themed force. Well, we want our trophy back...

Now various ideas had been passed back and forth between us, and some of these may get done in the future... from formula one race teams to classic cartoons to other popular films. But it was something someone said in passing down the local GW that finally clicked into place. They said they'd love to see Dark Eldar, being piratical raiders, converted into something more nautically themed. I was itching to get working on this, being a well known pirate fan. But could we do this for Winds? We'd need something to compliment it, and I didn't think Firewasp was particularly interested in pirates... and then the flash of inspiration occurred...

Ninjas

Ninjas and Pirates, natural enemies, thrust together on the field of battle and forced to work together! Needless to say, Firewasp saw the potential in the idea so we set to planning lists. At first we thought that Death Cult assassins would make great ninjas, but sadly there was no way to get them into the list as scoring in a combat patrol, and we couldn't think of a good way to get the Troops of Grey Knights into the list. We toyed with the idea of samurai but felt that we'd have a very small scoring unit, and no transportation for the army at all. As much as we like a theme, we'd still like it to be playable. Which is a shame as the distrsutful allies of Dark Eldar and Grey Knights would have perfectly suited the relationship between Ninjas and Pirates.

In the end we found that the best bet was a dual Dark Eldar force. We'd just use modelling and painting to define the differences, though using different transports in each list would also help. So, the army lists.

Ninjas

5 wyches (1 hydra gauntlet) inc hekatrix with Blaster Pistol and Power Weapon
ded tran Dual splinter cannon venom with night shields (sneaky ninjas)

5 wyches (1 hydra gauntlet) inc hekatrix with Blaster Pistol and Power Weapon
ded tran Dual splinter cannon venom with night shields (more sneaky ninjas)

10 mandrakes lead by nightfiend - because these guys look very manga and kinda fit the feel of the army

Pirates

10 wyches (2 with shardnets and impalers - they look so nautical!) hekatrix with agoniser
ded tran Raider Shock Prow, Enhanced Aethersails (we're pirates, we NEED sails) Grisly Trophies


10 wyches (2 with shardnets and impalers - they look so nautical!) hekatrix with agoniser
ded tran Raider Shock Prow, Enhanced Aethersails, Grisly Trophies and Torment Grenade Launcher

Beastmaster with two flocks of razorwings


I had ideas for how my army works the moment someone raised the idea of pirate dark eldar back in the workshop... my guys wouldn't use power from pain, they'd get power from RUM! Win a fight, have a drink! As they get more sozzled they feel pain less, gain drunken strength and eventually get so bladdered they feel immortal and become fearless. In my army, Grisly Trophies will be renamed Spare Rum Supplies! THere'll be rum everywhere!

The flocks of razorwings are because someone suggested painting them up as parrots. I did at first struggle with the idea of getting a Beastmaster on a skyboard into the theme, but eventually I struck upon some inspiration. Hell, if the pirate ships are represented by raiders, there's no reason other modes of transport can't move with the times too.

The torment grenade launcher is to represent the terror one of the vessels will inspire in the enemy. For I will of course be going with popular culture for inspiration for my pirates, and one of my raiders will be black, the other more ghostly and rotten.

Yes, I plan to go into battle with both the Black Pearl AND the Flying Dutchman!

Anyway, I've started getting supplies from ebay and checking my bitzboxes... just waiting on some money to come through from one of several overdue directions and I'll pick up the necessary Dark Eldar boxsets and make a start.

I'll leave it to Firewasp to explain what he wants to do with his force. I imagine some ninja/pirate banter will develop over the coming months. Hey, we're working together, no one ever said these two would be friends.

But for now, just for a short while, they may not be the absolute worst of enemies. Ninjas are merely rivals to Pirates... much like Acrington Stanley are rivals to Manchester United... ;oP

Sixth Edition Initiation Game

About 4 months after the rest of the internets I have finally got round to playing my first game of sixth edition. Unfortunately it was at rather short notice. So I rocked up at Ginges house today and borrowed his Ork army for my first game of sixth against his necrons. Essentially playing Orks for the first time against an army I have never played against using a game system I haven't yet played.... so didn't expect to win, however I wasn't expecting things to go quite as badly as it did. So I'm going to use this more of a run down on my feelings of sixth rather then a battle report.

Mission and Deployment
We ended up playing Big guns never Tire with Vanguard deployment type. Not necessarily my ideal deployment type for this game but no matter. I won the roll for deployment and decided to go first. I was hoping to be able to hit Ginges' lines without having to take too many turns of shooting. Didn't quite work out that way though.

Charging:
I think that charging has become a far bigger risk now in 6th edition. With random charge length and overwatch shooting. Frankly, charging large squads in cover with a squad of Orks is more or less pointless. I lost so many models from overwatch fire, by the time I had struck last in combat, the orks were causing less casualties then the crons. Removal of the nearest models doesn't help this either, as trying to thin a squad out prior to charging with shooting just means you have to charge further, making reaching combat less likely, while still having to face a round of overwatch shooting (even if you don't roll high enough to reach combat!?!). This is made even worse in the case of necrons with the nearest models dying, then making their ressurection rolls and resurfacing further away from the assaulting squad, while still being close enough to provide rapid fire overwatch shots.

Challenges:
Frankly, probably the worst army to face challenges against, mind shackle scarabs vs a low leadership army are brutal. Meaning you have a choice between not participating in a combat with your hard as nails Ork, or killing yourself in the second round of combat. Though even if you challenge in the first round of combat (negating the MSS) chances are the lord will just stand back up and either kill you or get you to kill yourself the following combat. Not exactly the cinematic effect GW were aiming for in this case.

Hull Points:
Necrons strip hull points from tanks with grim efficiency, half a squad of shooting would have been slagging land raiders with Ginges rolling in this game. No vehicle survived past the first thing to shoot at it. Frankly it's pointless even talking about it.

Aircraft:
Proved to be entirely ineffective this game, with two dakka jets putting about 18 wounds on a squad of necrons (though Ginge had cleverly placed his lord with 2+ save closest to where they would enter play) meaning he lost about 2 necrons and a single wound on his lord (which the 2 crons just resurrected). When shot at by Ginges annihilation barges they just dropped out the sky. Although needing sixes to hit, with twin linked weapons that score 3 hits for every six rolled, and me failing all the jink saves, well they didn't last long. Against armies that don't have such efficient AA weapons, I can see flyers being hugely effective. Though my inexperience proved to be there downfall more then anything though.

Overall:
I quite enjoyed my first game of sixth, frankly given the circumstances of this game (and Ginges' insanely lucky rolling, I think he probably won't roll another 6 for a good few months) despite it being a complete whitewash I still had a fun time.

I think the game overall has shifted to more of a shooting game, even more then 5th. Which is going to be a pain for my Tyranids (though the loss of no retreat wounds, means they should last twice as long in combat).

I think I will have to try out my Tyranids and Tau next.

The List, The Dreaded List...

In my post yesterday I mentioned that I was doing the Baneblades as I wanted to cross a couple of big items off the To Do list. Of course that is big as in model size, sadly not big in proportion to the rest of the list. Out of a sense of morbid curiosity I made a note of all the things I could think of that I own that need painting. Worryingly, this may not even be a complete list, but here goes...

Key

P - needs painting
B - needs building and painting
RP - bought second hand, needs a repaint to fit my colour scheme
C - needs converting/building and painting

Guard

Baneblade - P
2 x Shadowsword - P
Stormlord - P
Banehammer - P
Avenger Fighter - B
Valkyrie - P
Vulture - P
3 Sentinals - P
Hellhound - P
Hellhound - B
2 x Demolisher - P
4 x Hydra - RP
Leman Russ - RP
Demolisher - RP
Chimera - RP
Basilisk - RP
2 x Chimera - P
4 x Jetbike - B
1 x Landspeeder - B
10 Rough Riders - C
100ish Guardsmen - P
100ish Guardsmen - RP
10 Ogryns - P
30 Kasrkin Stormtroopers - P
Manticore - RP
Several Character Models - P

Orks

Looted Wagon - P
Blitza Bommer - P
10 Stormboyz - P
5 Nobz - P
15-20 Boyz - P
Mega Dredd - B
26 Deffkoptas - B
Land Raider Battle Wagon Conversion - C
5 Tankbustas and Bomb squigs - B
Several Character Models - B

Necrons

Doomsday Ark - B

Empire

5 Pistoliers - B
5 Knights - P
24 Handgunners - P
20 Halberdiers - P
Steam Tank - B
30ish Militia - P
10 Crossbowmen - P
5 Huntsmen - P
Celestial Hurricanum - P
Hellstorm Rocket Battery - B
20 Swordsmen - P
Cannon - P
Hellblaster - P
Several Character Models - P

Tomb Kings

20 Skeleton Archers - P
2 Screaming Skull Catapult Conversions - P
3 Ushabti - P
Bone Giant - B
10 Skeleton Cavalry - P
Casket of Souls - P
Battle Standard Bearer - P

Dark Elves

40 Corsairs - P
2 Reaper Bolt Throwers - P
20 Spearmen - P
Several Character Models

Miscellaneous

Model Contents of Space Hulk - P
Model Contents of DreadFleet - B
30 Fallen Angels from a long shelved project - P
15 Space Marine Bikers from a dead project - P
24 Dogs of War Pikemen that are currently unusable in my Empire Army - B
9 Pink Horrors from a "some day a tzeentch daemon army" project - P
Wrecked Land Raider Scenery Conversion - C
10 Boombunnies of Khorne for an apoc scenario - P
1 large box of second hand chaos space marines that I use for conversions which includes still about 10 terminators, a lord, 30 beserkers, 10 chosen, 5 possessed and a predator... I have NO idea what to do with that lot :oP

So there's my list... what should I do next? I know what I want to do most... make a start on my Winds of War 13 project! For which I don't even have the models yet. THIS is why this list grew so long. Every time I sit down to make a crack at it I see somethi... OOOOH SHINY! *leaves blog post unfinished*

Arrogance is a Virtue

At least, it is when it's tank shaped, and the Orksies have one just as big!

Decided to get a couple of big jobs off my painting "To Do" list

The Fortress of Arrogance, Yarricks personal transport, is a minor conversion - a little plasticard and some pieces from the city buildings sprue created his pulpit, and the paint job was simplicity itself. Hard to tell here but there is a red line around the pulpit, the turret housing and the top of the guns.

The skullhammer took somewhat longer, with having SO much red to paint. Some extras from the Stompa kit and a spare cannon from one of the variants in the shadowsword box went into this, plus a few spare grots and a couple of bits from the Ork Truk sprue.

And finally, if an Ork is smiling at you, be worried....