Happy New Year & Update

Hey-o it's been forever since my last post, but it's also been forever since the last time I worked on my army too. As I said, my regular opponent wanted a break from 40k so I thought I'd take one too. Nothing really new since my last update with the magnetized Rhino's, except I finished all their doors so I have 4 Rhinos ready to go at a moments notice. I also primed the remainder of my 40k tokens so they are ready to paint at a moment's notice as well. On an up note, I think I've found another person I might be able to play regularly thru a mutual friend. I believe he runs Guard and Space Marines, neither of which I have faced before, so this should be entertaining, haha!

Oh, I did go out and buy some "stone texture" spray paint that I tested out on my buildings to give them more detail. It works to a point, since again, if you put too much, it starts to eat away at the styrofoam and reveal white spots, but if you get the perfect amount and distance away from the object, it gets a good coat that's realistic. Just seems to be like a fine sand is mixed in with the paint already. Not as pronounced as some mixes that used ground down foam, but it's just one of those things you can add for your own benefit as a modeler more than as a gamer.

To ring in the new year I'll be hosting a LAN party at my place, which actually makes this the 2nd annual event. Mostly playing L4D2, TF2, and the always classic Quake 3, doing some file sharing, and drinking some booze to ring in the New Year, geek style! Hope everyone else has a Happy New Year as well! With that I leave you with an image I found showing maybe there can be peace in the galaxy:

A different kind of hobby

Well, I was all poised to start working on models again this week after some down time for video games, but another opportunity came up. Some friends of mine who have a 2-hour radio show on the local university station asked me to guest-DJ with them this week. So I had to come up with a music mix and a bunch of singles to fill about an hour of the time. For those that don't know (i.e. most of you) another hobby of mine is mixing music, mostly different sorts of electronica together. It's on the smallest and furthest back burner of my time, but it's just as enjoyable as the rest, and one of the cheapest! So, I spent all week after work finding these songs and managed to make a 4 song mix really quickly.

If anyone is interested in listening to the broadcast online, you can go to www.wiux.org and check out the high quality stream from 8-10pm tonight, Nov 12th. Also, a portion of my mix and my first mix ever are posted at http://www.thesixtyone.com/#/djhaunter/. And yes, I took the name Haunter from the Primarch of the Night Lords, lol... I'm such a geek.

Break time

Nothing new this week. I've taken a break from 40k and modeling to hit up some new video games. Top of the list is Borderlands on PC. Plan on some friends buying it and we all co-op from start to finish. Also Gratuitous Space Battles. It's like a space-strategy turret defense game. You load out each ship and put it on the field of battle with your choice of weapons, defenses, ship class, etc and then click "Fight". The battle takes place without your input, you just have to have the sense to equip the ships correctly and then place them on the map before the battle in a way that they work together. Sort of like training on how to deploy your 40k forces to respond to the enemy's deployment, if it were pitched battle each time, hehe.

Also, after the last defeat of my Tau friend he will be taking a break from 40k to focus on more nerdy endeavors like DnD, while all my other friends think 40k is too nerdy for them to get into, tho they play WoW, DnD, or Magic. I'm the odd man out that's into science fiction or what some call 40k, science fantasy. I hate elves, magic spells, and everything wooden and ancient. Give me space-age alloys, crossing the galaxy in the blink of an eye, and super heated plasma. We'll see which one wins in a fight, lol.

Anyway, I'll get back to painting and building models next week or so. Stay tuned.

Magnetizing My Rhinos

So another one of the hurdles that was keeping me from finishing my army has been wanting to magnetize as much of my models first, before assembling and painting them. Awhile back I ordered a couple different sizes of magnets from Miniwargaming.com so I could finally stop making excuses. After finishing a good number of my 40k tokens that I posted about earlier, I decided to switch gears and get some models done. I hemmed and hawed about how I was going to do this, but when I sat down with the models and magnets in hand, this was probably one of the simplest mods I've done or probably will do, since magnetizing the troops will be a smaller, more delicate job than the huge rhinos.

So as I said this was simple. I used the 1/4" x 1/16" Disc Magnets to ensure they could hold the weight of the finished HB or HF sponson of my Baal Pred. I measured out the distances needed inside the hatch here to make sure the magnets had actual contact in both situations of a door or a sponson. With the one magnet on the hatch itself and the other on the sponson, they had full contact and were spaced perfectly! Now for the door, I needed a spacer to make up the distance to the magent in the recessed area. I snipped a piece of sprue, filed it down to the width of the door and tested it: perfect again! With the sprue spacer and the size of the magnets they had full contact and perfect spacing. I started by using the rounded GW file to remove the rivet from the center of the inner rhino hatch to provide a smooth surface for the magnet to adhere to. Applied a dab of super glue and let it set.

Next I decided to magnetize my sponson options, eventho I feel I'll never A) use HF on my Baal Pred and B) never field a normal Pred that has las-cannons as an option, I still felt like I want the option or maybe something would change come next BA codex. This was a bit more tricky trying to decide how I wanted to mount it. I contemplated using Oni's method but I wanted to retain the up and down tilt of the guns for some reason, don't ask me why. So what I did was just cut above where he did to leave a bit of the arm that sits between the two gun halves. For this I used the 3/16" x 1/16" Disc Magnets. In general, go with Oni's method. I would too, but if I switch now, they won't all match up and I'm OCD when it comes to stuff like that, lol.

 (Click for closeup)

As for the other parts of the Rhino like switching out for a Whirlwind, Rhino doors up top, Pred turret, and the little hatches I decided that them being on top, I'd just let gravity do the work of holding them on. Trying anything else would be too complicated for all the options. Next up will be my Land Speeder, with magnetized options for the missile launchers, MM or HB and the HF or AC underneath. Should be a bit more of a challenge. Then will be my Heavy Weapon, Special Weapon, and Sarge in my tac sqaud.

As a general update, I've also started priming everything that I finish in Krylon Primer Gray. This eliminates me from trying to decide between priming in either white or black depending on the model as I have the full foundation paints and I wholly endorse them as a base paint, so the primer color is almost a moot point. Plus the can is labeled "primer" so it's gotta be right for the job, no? And it's only 3 bucks at Wal-mart and it has the angled nozzle so you can do passes in wide lines instead of a centralized circle.

Battle Report - 1500pt Blood Angels vs Tau

Managed to fit in a quick game on Sunday with my friend Dak and his Tau again after a long hiatus. He's more into Dungeons and Dragons right now so his Tau are on the side lines at my place most of the time. I decided to repeat my last army list, which my friend Seth came up with during my last batrep. I also took pictures this time to help detail the situation! My list:

• Carbulo (on foot)
  
• 3 Death Company (on foot)
• 2x Land Speeders with MM and HF
• 2x Baal Preds with HB Sponsons
• 1x Furioso Dread w/ DC and HF
• 3x 10-man ASM (2 in Rhinos, 1 Jump Packs)
  
• Sargent w/ PW and MB
• 1 Plasma Pistol

One unit of ASM were using Packs for two reasons: 1) I didn't have enough Rhino hulls to represent 2 Preds and 3 transports and 2) I had yet to field Jump Packs and wanted to see how maneuverable and deadly they could be. Tau forces were (from my memory):

• 2x HQ Suits with Plasma/Missile and Shield Drone
• 2x Suits with Plasma/Missile
• 2x Hammerhead with Ion Cannon
• 1x Hammerhead with Rail
• 2x Firewarrior Squads, only 1 Devilfish transport
• Squad of Kroot and Hounds around 20 or more strong
• Mystery unit that was in the back, but never shot or did anything so I can't remember what it was.

Here is a picture of the opening layout. We rolled for Seize Ground and Pitched deployment. He won the roll off and handed me first turn. I deploy everything and so does he.

(BA Deployment Details)                (Tau Deployment Details)

For the most part in the Tau picture what you see is what you get. I had to point out my stuff as I proxy a lot. He tries to steal the initiative, but rolls low, a theme that will dominate his dice. I move my tanks up, staying behind the destroyed bunker to get cover saves instead of popping smoke. My Rhinos and Speeders on the right move up to the wall and tower with one of the objectives. My overall strategy this time around is to play the waiting game and make him close the distance to get shots on me, so I'm not out in the open getting pinged by all his S7 shots from Missiles and Ions. My forces in the center move up behind the bunker for cover with the goal of charging across the middle to get into CC with the Kroot on the other point. One of the Speeders on the right goes flat out to the center bunker as well, to help the Baal Preds take on the Hammerhead on the left. No shooting takes place on my first turn. In general nothing dies on the ensuing Tau turn via cover saves ignoring everything he throws at me. Here are the results of Turn 2 shooting, to speed things up:

(Bottom of Turn 2 Shooting Details) 

The Tau only managed a Shaken result on a Rhino and a Stunned result on one Speeder. My Baal Preds moved up to guard the point and my Speeder while getting angles to fire their ACs on the remaining HQ suit on the left. The Jump Pack ASM were in range to jump into the remaining FWs. The ASM took on shots from the FW and an Ion Hammer, but as I said, Dak was rolling lots of ones tonight and failed to down any of them. On the right, knowing I had the DC, a Furioso, and a HF Speeder all ready to pounce on the Kroot, plus I had a Rhino full of scoring troops on the flag behind the wall, I went for a crazy move and tank shocked his HQ. He failed his DoG and I crushed the suit and it's shield drone.

 (Turn 3 Details)

 

At the end of my shooting phase, before I even assaulted his FW with my ASM, he called the game. He failed to kill anything of mine and his troop choices were dwindling. He was down to one suit as well that already lost its drone and a wound. I would say my forces were nicely balanced and I was rolling an abundance of 4+'s with about 3-4 rending shots on his suits. He also rolled an abundance of 3-'s for his to-hits, to-wounds, and armor saves for his troops. 

Strategy Summary: I'd like to think I had a better strategy as well compared to other fights. Presenting 2 Baal Preds and a MM Speeder up against only 1 Railhead means he can pop one of my guys but I still have enough to kill off his suits. On the right I had a Furioso with HF, the DC, and a Speeder with a HF, all threatening his Kroot in cover (which wouldn't matter vs HF and assaulters with 'nades). This overwhelms the opponent's choices for attack and provides that even if something is eliminated, I have enough backups to get the job done. I also used more cover for my vehicles in terms of doubling up so the one behind is covered and then popping smoke on the front unit where possible. These cover saves stopped all his incoming missiles and ions, and he just rolled poorly for his two Rail shots so they never landed either. Also, with my limited Melta shots and good blocking cover, my strat was to avoid taking on the tanks. I took on the Devilfish as I had a side shot with a MM within 12" and got a destroyed result. Beyond that, I was going to focus on the suits and just run away from the armor or let my ASM charge in with a Melta bomb and 9 Krak attacks on the rear armor, rather than hope 1 melta shot hits his AV13. This seemed to work better as I popped his suits with ease, while his tank shots were deflected by smoke.

After the battle, I did find one thing I played wrong and that is having my Jump Pack squad enter the bunker in the center. The Rule Book states buildings are the exact same as transports except they are immobile, so they cannot fit Jump Packs inside. I jumped them to the door on turn one and embarked and then disembarked on turn two on the other side and moved them up to assault. Had I know, I would have just used the building as cover and stayed out, jumping over it and assaulting, either way, I would have made it in on Turn 2, but I wanted to write this down to remember for next time.

Battle Report - 1500pt Blood Angels vs Chaos (x2)

My friend Seth, who was the one that pushed me into the table top hobby, visited from out of town this weekend and he brought his mixed Chaos force to do battle. We played 1500pt, Dawn of War, with one Control Point, that being my AV14 Bunker in the center of the board. It was going to be a blood bath. We played two games using this setup. The first is sort of my "all-comers" list and the second is his suggestion of an "all-comers" list, so neither were geared for killing Chaos. His forces:

• Daemon Prince with Lash
• 3x Squads of Death Guard with 2x Meltas and a PF each w/ Rhino
  
• 2x Squads of Bezerkers w/ Rhino

My Forces in Game #1:

• Lord Dante
• Carbulo in Rhino with 3 DC
• 2x 5-man ASM in Rhinos
• Sargents had PW and Melta Bombs
• 10-man Tac Squad with Las-cannon
• 3x Landspeeders with MM
• 3x Baal Preds with HB Sponsons
• All vehicles had Extra Armor

My Forces in Game #2:

• Carbulo
• 3 Death Company (foot slogging)
• 2x Land Speeders with MM and HF
• 2x Baal Preds with HB Sponsons
• 1x Furioso Dread w/ DC and HF
• 3x 10-man ASM in Rhinos
• Sargent w/ PW and MB
• 1 Plasma Pistol

To keep things short and sweet, and maybe it's obvious, but both games ended in draws. With only one CP in the center, there weren't any chances for last turn grabs and there were just too many things to kill that any one thing could contest. In the first game I used two Landspeeders that had no weapons to turbo boost in and just provide something to contest. Overall, most of my stuff died, including Dante on turn 1 from a melta (*curses old edition codex with no eternal warrior*). In the second game it was more of the same, but my units fared a bit better with surviving and killing the Chaos, but still a draw. A picture of the end of game two is below. At the bottom of 5 we just laid it out on the table of what we'd do the next couple turns and it was determined that it was impossible for either of us to get a "win" as all of our units were on top of the point, so even if he cracked open the objective and killed my marines inside in one turn, there were still Rhinos that could sit and contest that would take more than 2 turns to wreck or destroy, so we just called it.

(Click for details with text)

Some observations, instead of a turn by turn account... Chaos are crazy tough to beat. Damn DG just don't go down with what weapons I have. Plus they get 2x Meltas, which I believe to be the best weapon/most broken weapon around. It kills anything, infantry or vehicle with two "rule modifiers" that being AP1 which adds to the dmg table (and ignores all armor) and 2D6 for pen, plus it's an Assault Weapon so you can fire it on the move. This is infinitely better than the "ancient and lost tech" of plasma weapons that can actually back fire and don't get either vehicle bonus. I digress... The other thing was how it felt anything he used to attack negated any of my special rules. Meltas, Monstrous Creatures attacks, and Power Fists all ignore armor, which screw my DC with FNP and Carbulo who can heal a wound... just not those types of wounds... Chaos also has defensive grenades that keep me from getting attacks on the charge, which is the whole point of an assault army. Also, he kept rolling 2s on the vehicle pen table, which I would ignore with my extra armor... but these were always Melta shots, leading to weapon destroyed results, which my Speeders only have one, and my Preds rely on their AC to do any real damage...

I can live with the draws as they just mean we both had good results and bad results. He knows how to better set up an attack, but I'm good enough at reacting to them to hold him off. I can always do better, but he has a couple years of play on me, so it will be awhile before I could best him in strategy. I'm also learning the limitations of my army and what can work and what doesn't. And yes, the picture is quite ugly with my unpainted Marines and Rhinos, Necron and Tau proxies, etc, but we never get confused as to what is what, and this is still the learning phase for me in the hobby. Plus as you can see I'm painting plenty of other things like terrain and tokens, haha.

» Any constructive comments on my army lists are welcome, though I feel either were quite well set up, maybe it's just my overall strategy that needs work. Also, how do you handle taking on the Chaos craziness of mobile Death Guard and Daemon Princes stomping everything?

40k Counter Tokens

Well, I've finished up my testing pieces for my side project, which is painting the GW 40k counter set! They come as neon green, clear-ish plastic with raised features like footprints and bolter outlines, etc. I thought I'd add some character to them myself so you wouldn't have to go over across the board and pick them up to actually read what the affect was or see what turn it was. I made a standardized color scheme for the Infantry; Vehicle Damage, and Vehicle Movement tokens. All Infantry tokens are black, all Damage tokens are red and all vehicle movement tokens are blue. This, plus the writing of the effect in white will make it easy to spot at a distance to know what effect is going on. So let me know what you think:

(Click for detail)

• The turn counter is based black, then the gear is Mechrite Red then Red Gore. The numbers are Burnished Gold then Shining Gold. The Skull is just Skull White with Bleached Bone on top, and I went back with Skull White highlights. The moon (to designate turns with the Night Fighting Rule) is the same gold layering.
• Blue movement tokens are based in Midnight blue, then Regal Blue and finished with Enchanted Blue.
• Red damage tokens are based in Mechrite Red, then Red Gore and finished with Blood Red.
• The smoke puff is based in Bleach Bone and then watery Skull White is added to give the surface a cloudy, dirty look from vehicle smoke.
• Symbols on each token are based in Boltgun Metal, then Mithril Silver, and dry brushed with Boltgun again to keep them from shining too much. The explosion lines are the same two steps of gold as above. And then I hand write the effect on in skull white. Everything is covered with 'Ard Coat to seal the colors in since these will be heavily handled by people.

It may seem like a lot of work and paint layers, but they look sooo awesome in person and add so much to the game instead of clear neon plastic. Plus Everything in the picture took about 2 days of work while watching movies, so it's not a big deal. Hope you enjoy!

My Necron Army (a WiP)

I did state and intend this blog to cover my first army, the Necrons, not just my Blood Angels successors. I didn't find it necessary to start a second blog just for them as the blog is mostly just my "workspace" on the internet, just like my work table at home. So, some background, first. I got into 40k via Dawn of War back in the day and was in love with the lore, read everything I could on Wikipedia (before they started taking it down). Necrons were my number 1 choice for the campaigns in Dark Crusade, many, many times. I just wasn't sure about the hobby/minature side of 40k, and never got into it. Then I played my first game as a proxy using my friend Seth's Khorne army as my necrons (oblits as heavy destroyers, Rhino as my monolith, etc) vs my other friend's Tau. It was a blast to play and I said the next day "I need more." Thanks go to Seth who egged me on to play that day for the first time. And thus began my spiral into the 40k hobby. I did some searching on the net and found the Necron Battle Force to be the best value and got it from a combic book store online that sold it for much cheaper than GW. I set up a production line to create my dudes and got enough up and running in the week I got the box to play 1000pts that weekend.

(Click for detail as usual)

As far as my lists go for battle, I've played them about 10 times so far, and never repeated the same list. I'm still learning what works and what doesn't. I've tried different combos of Destroyers, Heavies, and Wraiths. I tried a Warrior heavy list by cutting the Lith, but got cut down myself. Otherwise I've been able to hold my own with a [6W/3L/1D] record against Tau, Nids, and two different Chaos armies. And I only have what was in the box, so it's about 1500pts, 40 some odd Warriors, a Lord, Lith, 6 Destroyers that normally see action as Heavies, and around 15 bases of scarabs. As for painting them, the pictures follow below. I've left their arms off so I can paint the chest easily. So I have about 40 Warriors that look like the picture on the right, ready to go at a moment's notice.

They are primed black, painted once with Mithril Silver, then the chest is covered in Bleached Bone, Goblin Green in the rib cages and eyes, and Blazing Orange for the symbol, neck supports, and you can't see it, but the spine as well. I do a second coat of green to make it stand out more and then go once more with Bone to cover up any green that may have got onto the chest. I thought of making the legs Midnight Blue, but I like their current look more, so they may just stop there. The scarabs I'm particularly proud of. They are definitely something different looking with the contrasting orange and green and the blue legs. Destroyers are currently the same setup as the Warriors (you can peek at some in the army wide pictures above). I was also thinking of making their skimmer bodies blue, to be a big brother to the scarab look, but that may not happen. Finally, the Lord and Lith are unpainted as they will be done when I have better skills in painting as they will be center pieces and I don't want to mess them up.

So there you go, my first army exposé. Always feel bad when I have long posts, in case someone will comment "TL;DR". Either way, hope you enjoyed it and I'll update as I finish the army. Worst part of building a Necron force? Each warrior flayer is 5 parts to construct... times 40... plus the same for each Destroyer cannon times 6... ughhhhh! That's a lot of cleaning of mold flashings!

Blood Angels Codex Update

Well well, I don't know how I missed this, but bam: Bell of Lost Souls: Blood Angels Rumors

Looks like there will be a BA update coming soon™! This is why I've been holding off on building my BA successors. I have the bits, but been waiting for word on an upgrade sprue. I'll still use the normal marine bits for tactical squads, besides adding icons from both BA and DA (fluff reasons). Maybe even most of the normal assault marines will also be create with normal bits, but I'll be choosy with which bits I use. But the upgrade sprue will be heavily used for my sargents. Normal squad sarges, Veteran Squad sarges, ad Honor Guard would all be built with the fancy upgraded armor. I'm also hoping we just get tweaked correctly, like Dante getting Eternal Warrior, and upgrade choices and prices up to date with the regular marines. I always wanted to try a bunch of combat shields to make mini-terminators, but with the update they will probably go to a 6++ and that's not really worth upgrading to. Tycho was worthless, and dead, so he'll probably get replaced, and I hope they make Mephiston a bit more survivable as well, as he really is a powerhouse, but no invul save or Eternal Warrior means I'd never field him now (I'm not a big believer in FNP being awesomesauce).

I wanted to upload some more pictures I took, but can't find my memory card at the moment. :-\ But as general update, I got in a new Pred box and the 40k counter set. Still waiting on my magnets and Green Stuff (it's a big order, coming from Canada by normal post, so it's taking a while). But in the mean time I've decided to paint all the 40k counters so we don't have to stare at neon green all over the table (when my Necron aren't even on the board, haha). I'll take pictures as I complete those, which I already have some done!

Camera test and small update

(Click for more detail)

So there we go, my first picture with my friend's dinky Kodak camera. It's probably almost a decade old, but still can put out some good pictures if I get the focus just right. The pic above was taken at night with no real lighting around the table at all. The table is my gaming board that I "re-purposed" from my fraternity, which would explain the letters in the center. There's a mix of my terrain and the Necromunda cardboard stuff from my friend's set. You can spot his black-primed Tau littering the board, since he just leaves them at my place between games for ease of use. We have nice terrain, actual copies of the rule books and codexes, official templates, but all are units are still mostly just from the sprue or only base coated black, lol. I'll post my WIP Necrons in a day or so as those are coming together nicely. My friend is working on painting his Tau red and yellow like Soviet Russia, but obviously they are at my place and are on hiatus now.

My pin drill and bits came in the other day so I now can bore out my bolters and Rhino exhaust pipes. I also ordered some magnets, so I will be able to start drilling out those holes as well. No more excuses indeed! I'm also contemplating making custom Baal Preds instead of buying from GW direct. That will be the source of another post. I now have a good 3-4 blog posts lined up, but will space them out to keep people coming back. ;-)

Oh, and I tried my hand at washes and flocking for the first time on my bunker. The results did add a bit of character. I washed the building with Devlan Mud and that took out some of the shine of the gray. I then added Badab Black to around each window to add some soot from weapons fire from the inside. And then I did Thrakka green around the bottom mixed with some mossy flock along the bottom edges. Let me know what you think!

No more excuses

I have a workstation in my home to work on my models, like any good hobbyist, but I keep sitting down and making excuses why I can't finish a model or why I don't want to start a project. Usually I want to take pictures of my work, but no camera. Or I want to magnatize my Rhinos, so I can't do to much until those are put in. Or I don't have the right paints to paint my marines. Well no more! I'm borrowing a camera from a friend to document my projects and then I sat down at the miniwargaming website and started loading up on modeling supplies. I got over 200 magnets, 200g of Green Stuff, a razor saw for large builds and scaring Rhinos and terrain, the foundation paint set, a fan brush for painting my Rhinos, a Predator box set since I still need Baal Preds in my list, and the 40k counter set to make games go just a bit faster not having to remember what unit did what last turn.

The nice thing was this was during miniwargaming's 2-year anniversary sale, so much of this was at 20% off, a bulk deal, or free. The green stuff was 20 bucks for 2 tubes compared to 14 bucks for one. 40 of the magnets and the fan brush were free deals as part of the sale. Plus they give you points for everything you buy that turn into dollars off your next purchase plus when you buy anything they give you a 5 dollar off coupon. I split the order into two so I immediately used up the points I earned and coupon from the first order to knock another 10 bucks off my second order.

So, no more complaining and putting things off. Once everything comes in I'll start finishing up some stuff that can show results on the table. I'll also document the steps of my builds as I'm trying to mod up my Rhinos a bit more than usual to add some uniqueness. Also in the works will be my chapter background, organization, and an army list. Some of that won't be interesting for most, but the blog is not just about letting people know about what I'm up to, but as a record of my own thoughts and a sounding board for my ideas.

To steal an idea from Bell of Lost Souls blog, I'll try to pose a question at the end of my entries on the topic I wrote about.

» What holds you back from a project? Too daunting, too many ideas, or just not enough reasons to complete it? For those that blog, do you feel you need to produce content for your blog to keep readers interested, or is it more of a personal record and you're not concerned with page hits?

Down but not out

I haven't updated because I haven't been able to really work on anything. The whole town I live in has been passing around the flu so I've been curling up and staying warm. I'll start putting my BA tactical squad together as my guinea pigs for my posing and building of marines. My Necron force was basically a production line while these guys will be built individually, since I will have sargents, special weapon, and heavy weapon marines, etc that need to look different than the pack. I'll also magnetize these particular ones to switch out the weapon choices. My goal is also to make veteran's look more ornate and carry more seals, etc than the normal bolter carrying guy.

On a side note, the latest words from GW are Tyranids are the next to be updated. Boo to that, since they still seem quite capable. Nor have a lack of army builds like Necrons do. And a new 40k CGI movie will be coming out starring... the Ultramarines. Bleh to that too; wish it could be any other chapter. I do have hope that it will look good and do well, but ya know, that's what happens when you don't like the poster child of a company.

Anyway, I'll be posting some background and details to my BA build project. I'll try to get some pictures up of my current Necrons as well.

Adding paint to the palette

When I picked up my models and started painting I just got the Citadel starter kit of colors with all the extras and that's all I've had to work with for a while now. I slowly bought a color two like Bleached Bone and Codex Gray, but that still wasn't cutting it. So I checked out Ebay (which is were I get all my models, bits, etc) and found a lot that had about 13 paints, the whole citadel wash series, and a bottle of the citadel super glue. I placed my maximum bid on the last day of the bid, went out and did my own thing thinking I'd be out bid, since I wouldn't be home to try wrestle for it if it went over my max. But low and behold I actually won and got it in the mail the other day. So now I'm set to paint just about whatever I need. Plus I have two of some important ones like black, white, and red (for my Blood Angels, haha). Now all I need are the foundation paints for making super nice looking models, but that can wait.

I'll try to do some washing on my current models or terrain pieces to add some character and I'll post pictures as soon as I can.

Battle Report - 1000pt Blood Angels vs Tau

So this is my first battle report on here and it was between my Blood Angel successor chapter (yet to be named or built... haha) vs my friend Dak's Tau themed around the Soviet Union. The battle as 1000pt as I couldn't proxy enough Rhino hulls, as my 1500pt list has 3 Rhinos and 2 Baal Preds but I only have 3 actual Rhino models. So, my forces were:

• Lord Dante
• Carbulo in Rhino with 3 DC
• 2x 5-man ASM in Rhinos
• Sargents had PW and Melta Bombs
• 10-man Tac Squad with Las-cannon
• 2x Landspeeders with MM

Tau forces where:

• 2x HQ Suits (Plasma/Missile)
  
• 1x Elite Suit (Plasma/Missile)
  
• 2x Firewarrior Squads with Devilfish transports
• Hammerhead with Rail Cannon
  
• Hammerhead with Ion Cannon

Deployment and mission were spearhead/annihilation, he won roll off and went first and chose his quadrant. He deployed everything near the center and I deployed my las-cannon team near the center as well, everything else of mine is in reserve. The center of the board is my bunker from earlier posts, so it's up for grabs. One DF runs up and unloads his troops near the door and the rest circle around the bunker to get LOS on my unit which brings his other DF and HH near my table edge. The squad take shots like a champ surviving the round of shooting. They didn't have a shot at the end of the turn so they move to cover for the incoming plasma shots next turn.

Top of 2, he pours more shots into them reducing them to just the lascannon, but the final failed save was from a pinning shot, which I of course fail so he can't shoot next turn. I roll for reserves and one Landspeeder, Dante, and a normal Rhino come on. The speeder rolls on behind his DF, penning his rear armor for an immobilize. Dante arrived behind his HH, penning rear armor with his melta-pistol, wrecking it, and the Rhino just moves up 12" but forgets to pop smoke. The key here was the Tau not knowing I can come in on the whole table edge and the skimmers were both near 12" of my edge so were in range of getting 2d6 pen rolls on rear armor. On his turn, I think a suit missile'd the side armor of my Rhino and it got wrecked, failing an area cover save. My ASM pile out into this cover to get saves vs any plasma or Ion cannons. Their mission is now to melta the downed DF to get the KP.

Top of 3, one of his HQs goes to rapid fire plasma and missiles into my lone lascannon who promptly sticks the cannon into the ground and hides behind it, as the HQ rolls 4 1s missing all shots! The HQ is forced to charge or he will open fire next turn, and he is finally cut down. The ASM squad on foot takes some wounds from the Ion cannon but live on. His other units maneuver around but not much else. My second 'speeder comes on and moves up 12" to get in MM range of the second DF which hits on side armor and immob that one as well. My DC Rhino comes on and moves up and pops smoke. The speeder that immob the 1st DF moves around to fire on the HQ with his MM, but fails to hit. Dante jumps forward and pops a suit with his pistol.

Top of 4, his HQ suit proceeds to score a weapon destroyed and an immob on my 1st speeder, but doesn't give up its KP. His two downed DF launch their 2 gun drones each to bring the fight to me. His suit and some FW in the bunker fire at Dante scoring 1 wound, but Carbulo was close enough to heal it. I can't remember how, but my 2nd speeder was destroyed by fire, probably the Ion cannon. My ASM go to meet his one squad of gun drones and shoot them from the sky on their way to the downed DF. Dante jumps past the other downed DF where a suit was hiding and preceded to kill him in CC, leaving just one suit left, which was an HQ. The DC rhino moves up to stay within range of Dante to give him a saved wound for the next shooting phase.

Top of 5, he turns everything around and labels Dante the threat. The FW in the bunker come out so all can rapid fire into him, the other FW in the immob DF pile out and move to get into RF as well, the last suit comes around the bunker and the Ion HH take aim. Both squads of FW fail to wound, as Carbulo heals the only one they inflict. The suit inflicts one wound, and finally 2 Ion blasts aren't saved so he is knocked out. This allows my ASM squad to stroll over to the other DF and melta it and wreck it. My 3 DC unload and hop the nearby wall and charge his closest FW squad, winning combat but they only fall back a few inches, which sets me up to charge them on turn 6 and sweep them. Speaking of turn 6 my last rhino that came in on turn 5 rolls up and shoots the other gun drone squad from the air with help from bolt pistols inside. The other FW squad ran back in the bunker but couldn't shoot much. The game ends there as a win for me 7 to 4.

Some questions that came up, that I pose to anyone that plays and is reading this are: Can foot infantry go thru walls that are tall enough to cover a rhino and are gun drone squads that disembark from a Devilfish count as a squad that create a KP? For the first, I figured it was just a difficult terrain test, like they blow a hole thru the wall with explosives. We just played it as 1d6 difficult terrain, instead of 2d6 picking the highest. And for the second, I counted the drones as KP as they have an entry in the codex as an actual fast attack choice with a unit stat line, they just happened to start on the DF. My opponent said they shouldn't as they are more like a wargear choice for the DF. Lemme know what you think of this post as well, if it was too long or what. It was long as I don't have a way to recording it and making it like a 5-7 min post on YouTube like Jawaballs and the other bloggers. Thoughts?

Ruined Terrain 3 - Tips

This will close out the Ruined Terrain project for now. I got some ideas from others that checked out my work and I'll go back to these to add some age to the concrete and maybe some detail like mossy build up at the bottom. Some tips I wanted to share are:

• Spray paint put on thick will break down the styrofoam. Pull back so it's lightly coated on and it will be fine and quicker than painting with a brush from the pot.
• Pull your blade backwards across the surface to get rough, more natural looking edges instead of cutting away and making it smooth.
  
• Super glue is useful in creating damage marks. A drop with eat a hole into the side of the wall. I like to dip a toothpick with glue after placing a drop on and poke it down to a good depth and then pull it out. This will provide a channel down into the foam and create a larger hole. You can also drip it down the side of a building for different effects. It leaves the crater made a bit glossy and easy to paint.
• Flames from a lighter also make for a quick way to add damage. The disclaimer here is that foam will burn on its own, so do it in a safe location. Hold the flame far away and slowly inch it in and the foam will shrink a bit and wallah, damage from a heavy flamer on your bunker.
• Everything can be used for the next project. I cut out the center of that bunker, looked at it and said, hey, I can build something from that. That's what I created my destroyed bunker from, which is below. Also, the cut out windows make a good start for a brick pile I can add to my bunker, or pile up to make a destroyed wall for more cover. The list goes on.
  

 

On the second picture I carved out a door way to the right, painted it black, and filled it with foam bubble scraps, brushing on watered down PVA glue to stick them together. Then more bubbles and another coat or two of watered PVA glue so it would flow on its own, otherwise the thickness would just pull the foam away with each stroke. This makes it look like the bunker entry point is caved in and unusable. I preceded to hit it with super glue, flame, and my razor and piled on the damage. It will just serve as a terrain piece to block LOS and look more appropriate. It will also get some touch ups with an aged wash and some moss eventually.

 

Ruined Terrain 2 - The Bunker

This post will detail my creation of a 40k bunker, with removable roof, so you can keep your units on the table when you occupy it. Oddly enough the styrofoam block I used for this was perfect in scale and size in that it can easily fit 10-15 men squads inside, and is tall enough to place the roof on top and clear the heads of marine sized models, and it just came out of an electronics box ready to be trashed! The first thing was measuring out the inside cut, which was 1" away from the edges. Any less and it would be unstable walls and any thicker and you could fit a max of 10 models, tightly. I measured the windows to be 1" wide and .5" tall, plenty big to place a lascannon or HB through the window. I also traced out two Rhino doors, one on either side, as entry points. Per the buildings rule, you could claim the doors to be open and gain an extra "firing point" but risk a +1 on the damage table.

 

 The roof was an additional piece of styrofoam, also the perfect size right out of the box. I decided to add a radio tower out of a plastic mounting arm from a hamster cage I have. Odd I know, but it also looked pretty good as is, but I added a Landspeeder antenna to it and a Dark Angels Icon as a sort of radar dish. I also added a small "electrical box." I smoothed down the Rhino door area so it would be flush with the walls, and not just sticking out like a sore thumb. I just used some PVA glue to secure it to the surface.

I also added Rhino head lights next to the two entrances and added two lamps from the Landspeeder sprue to either side of the bunker with no doors, to act as spot lamps. Since they were just lamps with no mounting, I took actual sprue bits to act as a arm from the bunker wall and glued the lamp to that. I base coated it in black spray paint, being very careful with that, and then watered down some Codex Gray and brushed it on. I used some of the styrofoam shavings dipped in paint to give the surface a rough look. Sand would be better, but I didn't have a source of that at the time.

 

I use the same technique as on the walls to wear down the edges of the building and the roof, to take off the sharp edges. The little pipes in the foreground were my test bed for painting rust and it came out well. Plus I now have a stack of rusty pipes to place anywhere to add a bit of flavor. Finally, I added some Dark Angels icons to the doors, including a Dreadnought face plate. I painted the rust on the doors, lights, and roof stuff by starting with watered down Blood Red, followed by watery Snake Bite Leather. I focused on the edges of things, hinges, and rivets.

 

And here are some close up shots for details.

 So, let me know what you think. I'm quite happy with it for being a simple job. More detailed people might put more layers and highlights of paint, but I think it looks fine the way it is. Much better than cardboard buildings we've been using so far and our first actual bunker that units can occupy. Next up will be my tips and tricks I picked up while doing this project, as well as pics of my destroyed bunker.

Ruined Terrain 1 - Walls

So I ran across some styrofoam blocks while throwing out some electronics boxes and they screamed out to be turned into terrain. Currently my friends and I only use some Necromunda buildings and low walls for our games, that are usually just treated as blocking and impassible terrain, only using the roofs if we have jump packs or are skimmers, etc and having to take a dangerous terrain test for them. So I thought I'd spruce it up a bit. With the various size pieces I decided to make 4 walls and two bunkers initially. Two of the walls would be for infantry cover but still get shots off and the other would be for vehicle cover, which we severely lacked.

And here they are (click for a larger image). They started off as perfect rectangles of course, so I worked them down with my straight utility razor that I also use for cleaning my models down in the same fashion, pulling the blade back across it, not pushing against it. This pulled up the foam bubbles individually and gave it an uneven surface on the edges. Next I added the holes on the large walls to show off some ordnance hits. I primed them black and then used watered down Codex Gray, then went back and filled the blast holes with black to give them a shadow on the inside, finally going around the holes with a 1:1 mix of black and gray for scorch marks. Both long sides have these effects and I even did each short side so it didn't look untouched there. All told, done in about an hour or so, including paint drying time and the like.

I left the infantry cover mostly untouched, except the surface of each has a rough top, like piled rocks on top of it. And there we have it, my first set of ruined terrain. I also completed a functional bunker with roof as well as a ruined bunker that is just impassible terrain, but will look more authentic on the battlefield. I'll have more pics of that project in my next post as well as post some tips I picked up while doing all this.

...we ride into battle!

Hello world! This is my very own 40k/nerd blog following me, Haunter. I was inspired by Jawaballs and his circle of friends that blog to do the same. He also inspired me to pick up Blood Angels as my secondary army after Necrons. They will actually be my main after they are built, but both will be represented on the blog equally as my Necron are a WIP as well. I'll also try my hand at battle reports if I get my hands on a camera of some sort. This will also keep me motivated to keep working on my guys and also share my findings.

I only started a few months ago, egged on by a friend, and I'm doing alright so far, but I still need more time and battles under my belt. So I look forward to what this will bring and welcome constructive comments.