Journal of a Sentient Grot: Don't Get Cocky, Kid...

Curses!

The revolution is postponed!

I had developed a super weapon, a fortress hidden beneath the wastes of this planet that when finished, would fly across the galaxy and unleash awesome destructive power. With it I would free my cousins from the yoke of Orkish oppression, and maybe blow up a planet or two just for shits and giggles...

But now it's all ruined, the whole thing destroyed, because of some random dirt eating flyboy Ork...

I suppose my overconfidence was my weakness...

Who'd have thought someone would drop explosives down a small thermal exhaust port. Knew I should have put a gate on that thing...

Now at the top of Ereyous deathlist... when the revolution comes my friend...

 

Ereyou: Experiments with Gravitational Fields, Weaponised.

 



 

Or, to put things more simply, the pictures of my finished Traktor Kannons I mentioned in my last blog post.

 



A Tale of Trukin

So I recently started a Tale of Some Gamers, and have started work on my army. I've completed a squad of boyz, a mek, a runtherd... but I've painted plenty of Orks before, the only real difference is this time there is a splash of yellow instead of red for this tribe. The one I was more concerned with was my first vehicle.

One, it's my first time painting yellow. Tricky on the little patches on the infantry, but on a vehicle, with large blocks of colour, more of a challenge.
Two, I wanted to try my hand at that salt weathering technique. So, a new colour scheme AND a completely new method of painting. I think I may have a masochistic streak... should be painting Dark Eldar.
Three, I also wanted to try out a couple of the new technical paints, and some weathering dusts. Just because.

Anyway, the first truk is done. Overall I am happy with the result. The yellow took a lot longer than I anticipated, but it wasn't as bone achingly long as the line highlights on my Necron vehicles (a method that I liked the effect of, but have never bought another vehicle for that army since doing two annihilation barges and one Doomsday ark - and if I'd painted the annihilation barges first I wouldn't have painted the Doomsday Ark, cos I never use the bloody thing!)

This leaves me with a dakkajet, 3 mek guns, and about 30 gretchin/ammo runts/ grot oilers etc to do before the last Tuesday in September. That sounds achievable. Pics of the finished truk are below.

Waagghhheeeeerrree do we go from here?

So, the new Ork codex is out and I've had a quick look through it, plus had plenty of time to appreciate the look of the new models that have been dribbling out over the last few weeks (whilst having no idea how they'd play and if I wanted them, so instead I spent my money on X-Wing this month, your loss GW)

Having looked at all they have on offer, I feel that my current Ork army has been mistreated somewhat. My usual warlord, Wazzdakka, gone. My using of Wazzdakka to make Bikers Troops, gone with him. The bikes being out of Fast attack to free up plenty of spots for Stormboyz, deffkoptas, dakkajets etc, gone. And the small units of boyz in truks barrelling towards the enemy, well it seems the new mob rules will encourage Ork players to take large units of orks... which won't fit in truks. Truks are now the specialists ride, Boyz are either Battlewagons or on foot. It leaves the look and feel of my entire Ork army a bit battered, and hoping for a Speed Freaks supplementary codex at some point in the future to bring them back to their glory... that is in my wishlist with a Catachan codex, so who knows when these will arrive.

In the meantime, I'll still want to play Orks. And they've got all sorts of shiny new toys that I DO like... but just don't fit into a speed freaks army. I love the new Meks guns, but we don't need Artillery pieces holding us back. I like the new Meganobz kits, but a unit with the "slow and purposeful" rule does not make an ideal bedfellow with a speed freaks army. Sure you can give them a transport, but it just doesn't feel like the big buggers would fit the theme...

So I have been thinking of taking a new direction with any future Orks I paint. I still have a job lot to do that I picked up cheaply from a friend who was quitting 40k (again, already looking to get back into it less than a year later) so perhaps they can be the core of a new, second force. From a different tribe.

The two other tribes I have looked at and liked have been the Deffskulls and the Bad Moons. I played around with some lists tonight, and with the deffskulls I picked what I wanted and got to roughly 1700 points. I normally aim for 2k. By this time I'd filled my HS and my HQ, had more than the minimum troop requirement, and had at least one of anything associated with Deffskulls... Lootas, Looted Wagon, Tankbustas, Meks. The problems? Well, for one, not enough points. Two, that looted wagon is the only vehicle in it apart from a flyer, so will be dead turn 1 guaranteed. And Three, there was an awful lot of shooting in the list. Sure, it can work for the Orks, don't get me wrong... but it didn't feel like why I wanted to play Orks. I got Speed Freaks to go rushing towards the enemy and headbutt them. If I want to sit back and shoot, well I've got my guard for that. Now admittedly half the time I send my guard rushing across the field to headbutt someone, but just because they attempt something out of their comfort zone doesn't mean these guys have to as well.

Which brings us to the Bad Moons. The list came to around the 2k mark. It's based around Ghazkull (or a Bad Moon counts as) and a big unit of MegaNobz plus meks in a pimped out Battlewagon, flanked by Battlewagons of Boyz. I've got some of the new traktor kannons in the list, as well as a dakkajet, some deffkoptas, and some boys and grots on foot to mind home side objectives.

There are some downsides to Bad Moons. For one, all that YELLOW. That is intimidating to paint. But with the new paints from Games Workshop I've heard it is easier now... I may have to do some test models to see just how easy it has become to see if this is something I could feasibly do. The other downside is that I was considering basing the second ork army in the same way as the first, so that both tribes could be part of a greater waaaaagh on the same iceworld if I wanted to. But I think the bright yellow bad moons would look better against a darker base colour, and the snow splatter effect that looks good up my bright red truks wouldn't look quite as effective on a yellow battlewagon. Dark mud sprayed up the side of a bright yellow vehicle, different story. So perhaps it may be time to give the poor Vahallens some rest, and to take my Waaagghing elsewhere for a while. Of course, only time (and a test model or two) will tell. If I can't do Bad Moons, I'm likely to return to the Deffskulls... and Blue works just fine on an ice world...

*Pictures of Deffskulls and Bad Moons borrowed from ebay, apologies if I've picked up someone elses models, as explained in the post above I haven't painted any of my own in these colours yet and wanted something illustrative.

Speed painting win

With the upcoming winds of war combat patrol tournament, Ginge and I are taking a small dark eldar force. As neither of us actually play dark eldar, this has meant creating a new force. One that I haven't had time to paint. However given my somewhat hectic period coming up I've (well lying on a beach drinking) I am unable to paint my part of the army before the deadline. However in order to give Ginge an impression of how I want my 500 points painted I have done a single model as a sort of guide.
So I have completed a dark eldar razorwing fighter in under 2 hours (not including drying time) which for me is a personal best for practically any model, yes even gaunts. Considering this. It doesn't actually look half bad. Given a lot more time i could probably make it look better. However this will suffice for the purpose.

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 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*

Allies in 6th edition

One of the huge changes to the game for 6th edition will be the inclusion of rules for allies in normal games (in the grim darkness of the far future, there are only hugs :-P), while the internets have been all a flutter with this potentially breaking the game and making some armies unstoppable with the combination of special rules and units available.

I am slightly more optimistic though, while sooner (rather then later) powerful and nasty combinations are bound to get out and be abused, due to the ever evolving nature of the online community, these lists will spread like wildfire, then be demolished by the next abusive list or countered through tactics and rewritten army lists. On the other hand, there are some people looking at this in another light, looking for that something extra special to add to their fluffy armies, or their themed armies. Such as my Halo themed space wolf army. This was a 500 point force for a doubles tournament and I had a great time painting and converting the models and was really pleased with the result.

However with the two squads of Grey Hunters, long fangs and Razorbacks, I was swiftly running out of options for expanding the force while sticking to the original theme. With the inclusion of allies, this ceases to be an issue. I could expand this force to 1750 for taking to blog wars 5 (I'm hoping this will happen :-P) or up to 2000, using Guard or vanilla marines and selecting units that are similar to their Halo equivalent. All these projects could see themselves increased to full army status.

What do you guys think, will allies be a good or bad thing for the game?

Blog wars 4

So Alex of From the Fang has put up the date for Blog wars 4, I shall of course be attempting to attend the fourth blog wars as well. I think JC would like to attend this one as well, despite neither of us doing particularly well at blog wars 3, I had an absolutely fantastic time so would love to attend No 4.

So the date for BW4 is the 14/10/12, the only danger of this date is that it may clash with Braknell Forest Gamers escalation tournament, though hopefully this won't be the case.

So the question then becomes what army to take?

My Tyranids were ready just in time for BW3, I mean literally the morning of the tournament. So they are a potential entry into BW4, although I think I will need to mix up the army list slightly to make them slightly more effective. 

My Tyranid BW3

Another alternative is to take my Tau force, they did pretty well at BW1 coming third overall. Although I would like to change the army composition significantly for the next iteration of the army which could come at significant expense to myself and given my upcoming wedding, it isn't likely to happen.

My Tau Army at blog wars 1

My third and final option would be to take my Templars these would need to be dusted off before being used for gaming, the models are actually quite dusty, I would also need to spend a bit of time painting up some new models, although this would take time rather then expense as I have stacks of space marine models to build and paint. 

It also remains to be seen how these armies will operate under the 6th edition ruleset (not that it really makes a difference to my final choice unless a force becomes pretty much unplayable). I'm currently leaning towards the Templars though as it would be nice to take a third army to blog wars.

Decisions Decisions......

Painting Scores

Scotchjon has had the rather good idea of keeping painting scores on the blog so we can track the progress of our armies, in a pseudo-competitive way. So I shall be using the scoring system that he currently implements for his own blog with a couple of minor differences.

Infantry / Infantry Base - 1 Point

Large Infantry / Cavalry / Bikes - 2 Points

Monster / Dreadnought - 5 Points

Large Monster / Vehicle -10 Points

Super-heavy Vehicle / Gigantic Monster - 20 Points

I shall be adding points scores to a gadget in the near future, this shall include the year to date total as well (so quite a few for my Tyranids thus far :-P) and I shall reset the scores every year. I'll also update the points values with the Dropzone commander model types when I see how they compare to GW figures.