Merry Chirstmas one and all

So a bit delayed but hoping everyone is having a great festive season.

A small update today,  I got some funds this Christmas from the family and the wife so I decided to invest in a intro airbrush kit as above.

The plan is to learn the ins and outs of the airbrush for modeling and then upgrade to Iwata down the track. I'm very excited and will be getting as much info as I can together.  The Painting Corp and awesomepaintjob.com have some great info but if anyone else has links and places to look id be really appreciative.

Till next time cheers

JP

Furioso Librarian

Well this is the culmination of some failed starts and and numerous attempts.

In the end I struck on the idea of using war machine parts in particular parts from the Cygnar Stormclad and the heavy warjack from the Protectors of Menoth.

In allot of ways I was a little nervous about the way the two product lines would combine but in the end I think personally this has resulted in a very good fit.

For the Force weapon and both arms a liberal use of Dragon forge pewter cables that has added that Imperial feel to the warmachine parts.  I also made the blood fist with Lightening claws with cut down power swords which is an idea I saw on the web.

So I haven't picked a name for him yet but here he is:

Cheers JP 

A change in approach

So after some consideration and based on the feedback I got, I changed my mind on the cloaks.  I owe it to my wife when she said why are you doing those guys different to your Lord Guy with the wings.  And it struck me, good point....... why am I?

So I dig out the Sanguinary Guard Wings ordered two more and here we are. Personally I'm allot happier with this as it ties in with the Lord character allot better. And adds a really nice dimension to the figures.  Terminators with wings? well they are assault Terminators so I guess its thier Jump wings.... or the symbolisim of the raven working through the elite unit. Either-way I love it :P

I also added the back banner from the death company sgt to my lord character as I really like the motif and think it will work well overall.  It does mean I need a suitable Terminator Librarian as I now think that the current one wont work with the rest of the unit.

Cheers JP

Feedback time

Ok guys I need some feedback I made a cloak of feathers for the Terminator Srgt and I was planning on making one for each terminator.

But I need opinions on it.

Whats the call lads do I keep it or Chuck it. Im still working on my sculpting skills and im not sold on it but i may not be seeing it right and im over thinking the process.

Opinions?

Dreadnaughts and Terminators WIP work

Today's update is a biggy.

The last week I've been working on two projects in tandem.  The terminator assault squad and the librarian dreadnought.


The key focus of the two project has been the shields for the thunder-hammer squad members and  the dreadnought hands.

1st up is the shields for the thunder hammer squaddies . Last post I discussed the fact I was making a green stuff mould for the handle for the shield off a standard storm shield from the assault terminator box set.

Well its worked a treat as you can see above the mould is a perfect fit, and completes the model nicely. Ive used from Dragon Forge pewter cables to complete the effect and I am very chuffed with the outcome.

I also completed the Raven Priest (Sanguinary Priest) model,  complete the head with some parts from max mini and the apothecary hand from the command set.  The Power Weapon is one of the Halberds from the Honour Guard set from Forgeworld that I picked up on eBay to keep consistency with the power Armour raven priests.    Again power cables finish off the model.

For all the terminators I'm working on using Dave Taylor's   technique on making feather capes, and ill have more on that in the coming days.

Next has been a major piece of work on the librarian dreadnought. I'm scratch building power fists for the model and then working on the posing of the force weapon.  So far so good but I'm not really happy with the fists casing which at the point is brass tube squashed and cut.  I'm thinking of building this to be closer to the example of the Pre-Heresy dread above and will do some work on the tomorrow. Below is the progress so far.

Anyway I am really excited about the progress of the projects I have some leave coming up soon so I will be aiming to put some paint down on these guys soon.  In the new year I start a new role at work which may inhibit my time at the hobby table so as much progress as I can make in the coming holidays ill make sure gets posted here for those following the blog.

Cheers

JP

Three times a charm...

So this sunday just gone saw me play three games at 1200 pts.With a total of 1 loss, 1 draw and 1 win, it was to be an average day of gaming and one I cant complain about.

I got to play 3 opponents however that auspicious day which in itself is unusual for me, as its usually the normal grudge match between myself and my bestest buddy JP, not to say I dont enjoy playing other people but as I work and study I find it hard to play at clubs when everyone else is playing.

And the game begins... slowly

So anyway Game 1 saw me playing JP Blood Angel vs Blood Angel, Me with a fusion jump infantry/biker list and him with a drop pod/deep strike termi list. This game started very slowly, looking more like an exercise in manoeuvring on JP's part as I held my entire force in reserve and let him go first. With a pitched battle and sieze ground with 4 objectives it was going to be a game of last moment objective controls more than anything. Turn 2 saw almost my entire force come on to the table but the dice gods abandoned me with every melta gun at my disposal missing everything entirely (6 of the bloody things) and I swear its enough to make me think I am makign an army of frakin mexican bandidos, them firing wildly into the air and dancing around their hats...

This model played the part of a Terminator Librarian with storm shield quite well, About time you found a use for him JP

Needless to say his 2 dreadnoughts held my assault troops steady and a last minute charge of the light brigade saw my bikes get caught by his elite deathstar assault termi unit... needless to say with my dice rolls it did not fair well for me. Now with all that I could have still played this game out and perhaps scored myself a draw or maybe even a lucky win and if this was a tourny I would have but as I was fairing poorly for dice and had been outmanoeuvred at the time I conceded the victory to JP, which for all its forfeit was still a fair won game for him.

Charging the right flank

and there be dreadnoughts!

Click on this one for the full view, its a fantastic shot with a real sense of movement thanks to JP's forgewolrd obsession :)

In summary my thoughts are thus, My BA list especially at 1200pts really needs some work, the army just isnt feeling right and being without armour is a real handicap, I have been trying all sorts of different combinations out and to my conclusion as I said to JP it lacks anything really hard. JP's list however worked a treat, as we discussed he needed to harden his list up and the addition of assault terminators really proved his benefit, the dreads worked but at least 1 should have died (damn you vagrancies of fate), as we had both discussed and feared the termi's spent a bit of time footslogging before they got anywhere but were left untouched by my force as I was trying to roll up a flank and play keep away from them... mistakes were made and they got to play however. Good list JP, needs some more tweaking but it looks like the core is coming together!

"Him, I want him to die!"

the last thing my bikers saw was the backside of their brains... oh well, Death is the ultimate teacher!

My second game that day was against a fellow by the name of Brenton who fielded his Black Templar force vs my Astral Wolves. Pitched battle again but capture and control (or as Brenton so succinctly put it "draw hammer:"). the game saw First turn going to me, and my Vindicator do what it does best... miss. However at the end of the day we played out a full 6 turns and lo it was a draw, Both armies decimated and had it been kill points I was in the lead but for all that it was a close and fair game played against an awesome opponent! My thanks for the match dude, well done and never fear Kharn will be back for more skulls!

To all those who doubt my ability to throw what can only be described as the worst fucking dice ever... behold, 12 dice thrown, nine 1's. do the probability then do it every week when i repeat with different dice!

In summation, Black Templars are broken, the codex needs an update bad but for all that they aren't broken beyond being competitive. 

The third game this day saw me line up against Michael, one of the co-owners of Realm of Legends, and this was a game a long time coming. I have been meaning to to Michael for a long time now, he has always been to my understanding a very accomplished player and a consumate gentleman... oh and he fielded a CSM Khornate force... YAY!.

This is a dirty trick... but a worthwhile one and very legal. I hold no grudges for having this pulled on me and applaud it. Thanks dude for whowing me how :)

This game saw us playing on a very open river with bridge map, Spearhead deployment and for Killpoints. Again I got first turn and deployed everything bar 1 oblit and the Chosen on the table, Michael deploying only his Defiler in the far corner. To my incredible luck the one Oblit on the board was in the zone, he saw a big nasty thing took aim and rolled almost nothing but 6's to destroy it right of the bat! from there it was almost painful watching his reserve rolls force his army on in a slow trickle, to be bombarded by my entire force. Judicious use of available cover saw him keep a fair amount alive but not long into the game I had 2 killpoints to his none. Turn 5 however saw him use the surrounding trick on my chosen in rhino to blow them to kingdom come and force them to be removed, though had this been anything but a friendly I wouldnt have gotten that close! At end of turn 5 it was a draw and well fought one at that however the dice gods decreed a 6th turn be played to which I managed to score another several killpoints and securing the game to my victory.

Khorne and Nurgle, its all love baby!

In summary to this game, Michael was a fair and friendly player, Luck saw him get an all out tromping and had we a different table he may have forced me closer than I was. For all that we had a good game and I would happily play him again anytime, I leant things that game and would be happy to lose against such a polite player!

So there you have it, 3 games played. 3 results and a good day was had, I might mention that all of these games were played in air conditioned comfort at was is turning into the best venue I have seen to date, If your in Melbourne and havent made the trip to Realm of Legends yet I highly suggest you do so now... buy stuff too, we dont have so many gaming centres of this calibre to see this one go!

In other news I leave for O/S in a few days, While I hope to get 1 last night of gaming in and perhaps another blog post only time will tell, for soon I fly to the land of the rising sun, Japan!

As always,
Good Gaming!

The Beatings Have Improved Moral ! Thank-you

Yes the moral has improved!

As usual the regular weekend games ensued against my wascal wabbit of an opponent the Astral Wolves and their Imperial Thralls the Foresaken.

2nd Company suited up for another 1200 point game this time against the Foresaken, a jump/bike army that scared me allot with its pure amount of nastiness.

That being said 2nd Company has been on a soul searching bender since last weeks disastrous entry into the operational zone.  So as I continued to work on the basic army structure of 1200 points and base for the rest of the army, I called on the internetz and my own gut to flesh out what I needed to do.

My last post indicated that I was going to go down the terminator route and that i did but not tactical terminators but assault terminators. I will do tactical terminators for lager games be thinks, but the real gap I saw from last week was the real lack of any significant punch or as Harley would put it the FU (F**K You) factor.

So a couple of changes ensued.  The honour Guard/Sternguard have been reserved for larger game sizes, the Furioso Dread found out he has psychic powers and large guys with big hammers and shields showed up.

So in this unit Im working on 2 with lightening claws and Sang Priest in termiantor armour and 3 thunder hammers backed up with the libby with the storm shield.

Its a death star unit by all accounts but I figure the army needs its.  Interestingly along with a Furioso Libby It gives me 2 close combat hard hitters who also have some ranged anti tank power (Blood Lance).

So the game:
Lets say I was nervous at 1st given my experience from last week and started my game with the expectation of taking a pounding again.  But terminators proved their worth by eliminating a whole bike squad and the Libby dread while not kicking off gave me confidence. Harley seeded victory after the heavy lads waded in and started to cause mayhem.


So with that in view I bought them some new shields from the Scibor range as well as some pewter power cables from Dragon Forge from the good lads at Realm of Legends.

To be honest the shields while I like the design I'm not impressed at all.  The casting from Scibor is not really great and I am hesitant to buy such a product again. As I said the casting is less than desirable with a large chunk of resin being attached to the top of the shields across the whole width. Plus there is allot of flash showing a poor mold fit.  It took some hacking to get them out and even then I need to grey stuff the top of a shield as it was so brittle that it snapped. 

Ive begun to add purity seals to them and because they don't have a connecting piece for the hand I'm making a green stuff mold for the back of a GW storm shield so they match up nicely.  Ill post pictures probably Tuesday to show how the two pieces work together.

 So after that game I got a chance to fight the Dark Eldar for the 1st time !

Scary Buggers that they are the 1st "Wolf" Company was deployed to take these Xeno's on and teach them a thing or two.

The game started out with me not knowing really what to expect, I was facing 4 raiders of differnt types of kit outs as well some ground troops who had a really nasty anti-tank capability. Sorry next time ill take note of what they are called. Suffice to say though 1st turn was Seized me from and I found out the hard way how dark eldar deal with tanks.

My predator was hit with this weapon that is like a Haywire Grenade with range he rolled to hit which he did (damn high BS) then proceeded to role a 6 and a 6 to send the tank to its maker.

Seeing that happen, I realized my armour was in serious threat unless I dealt some damage quickly and effecitvly to the dark Lance carring raiders and make his low toughness troops walk to my Gun line.

So turns 1, 2 and 3 saw me to use the long fangs the Lasplas Razorbacks and the Assault Cannon Razorback to elimiate all his raiders, cause hos infantry to take and fail pinning tests while George the Unstoppable (my dread) tied up an infantry squad till turn 5.

In the end while people around me went on about the assault power of space wolves my firing line ripped him apart from afar.  I did see how nasty these eldar can be in close combat when the rune-priest and grey hunters drop podded into close range near one of his hq's and that nasty bugger rolled all these attacks then rolled for thier ap and rolled a 2, Pain ensued.

But by then the rest of his army was running or in a smoking ruin so it was a last hurrah so to speak and a warning on what could have done had he got amongst my lines. 

As it stands two wins from two very different games and my confidence in my army for Arcannacon this January was confirmed with the Dark Eldar game. 1st Company will be defending the Chapters Honour in that esteemed competition.

Till Next time.

Cheers  Jon-Paul