Preparing for Killcount!

Just a quick update today, I'm finishing off some details for a 1750 point 2 day tournament this weekend like the display board featured below and other minor details. (for some reason the blog software wont let me put this picture in upright... oh well)

Additionaly im painting up the objective markers for my mates army as he is running late and quite frankly I owe him one for the Daemon Prince he painted for me! (i'll post some pics of that tomorrow)

Anyway here is my 1750 army list im taking this weekend, its a solid list which seems to win more often than not but it has yet to face Eldar or Orkz but im confident I can bring the pain :D

HQ
Kharn the Betrayer
Daemon Prince (wings, mark of khorne)

Elite
Chosen (asp. champ, 3 Melta, 2 flamer, Icon Chaos Glory, Rhino)

Troop
10 CSM (asp champ, Power weapon, Melta, H.Bolter, Icon Chaos Glory, Rhino, Havoc Launcher)
9 Khorne Berzerkers (asp champ, Power fist, Rhino)
10 Lesser Daemons

Fast Attack
5 Raptors (asp champ, Lightning claws, Melta, Icon of Khorne)

Heavy Support
Defiler (+1 close combat arm, Heavy T/L Flamer)
2 Obliterators
Vindicator

Total of 48 Models, 13 killpoints, 3 scoring units and plenty of pie plates :D

Feel free to drop comments on what you think, Bearing in mind that its meant to be hard but no too hard. If I win at least 1 game i'll be happy!

Btw, if you like the display and want to know how it was made drop me a line, I may do a step by step for it later when I have the time but it was ridiculously easy in the end... !

Introducing the army; Part 4

Well in this instalment of the army showcase the vehicles finally get a spin :P These fine workhorse's of the army have seen their fair share of battle, those rolling coffins called Rhino's have time and time again delivered payloads of bloodthirsty troops while the Vindicator, well even in games when it hasn't fired a single shot it has been one of the most useful units on the table! Anyway onto the Vehicles!

This is just 1 of the 3 Rhino's I have running about, but they are all the same to a certain degree barring minor changes. For instance this one has the wolfs head logo on the front and a searchlight on the top, that I use for the Khorne berzerkers, The Rhino for the CSM has a detachable Havoc launcher (gotta love magnets, they are through the whole army!) and finally the Chosen's Rhino has an all red top hatch. All of the Rhino's also carry the Astral Wolves Blazon on top, the Baying Wolf!

This is the Vindicator I mentioned earlier, a nice little tank with a nasty big gun! Don't be fooled however that Demolisher cannon is a red herring, rare is the day it blows troops away... sometimes the occasional vehicle but more often than not its the damage soak of AV13 front armour and the shear threat it poses that draws fire away from softer targets... :D Why this guy has been immobilised in one game, but had a clear line of sight on two obejctives thus keeping the enemy to the other side of the board... needless to say it did not go well for him!

Now the Defiler is the newest vehicle to be added to the army, I'm not really sure how well he is going to work out for me (large threat with AV12) but I like it, its a nice model and was a real joy to paint.

The Landraider is a lie. Oh take a Landraider they say, it will be unstoppable... that it might be but at the cost... yeah maybe not. Look I wont lie, the Av14 with 2 T/L Lascannons and a heavy bolter PLUS assault ramps, sounds perfect right? Well unless I somehow get power of the machine spirit its not all that great. just imagine yourself driving one of these things and then someone told you that everyone is going to shoot you, you cant drive full speed if you want to fire a single one of the countless weapons you hold and that with all that range on those guns you need to drive right up to the enemy who just happens to have a whole bevy of Melta guns and Power fists... nice model though :)
 As a side note the Landraider isn't actually finished just yet, so some parts like the gun sponsons look a tad plain, needless to say it will get done but not until after the upcoming tournament!

Anyhow that wraps up the army to date, I will start posting up some WIP shots soon of some of my projects and I still have more CSM to paint... Also I may just throw some of my Blood Angel codex, Knights Templar inspired models into the mix aswell, until then Good gaming!

Introducing the Army; Part 3

Ok, so far I've shown off the HQ units and the Troops of my army. Today Im going to showcase the specialist units I field on any given day, some of them are steadfast bastions in my army... others not so much :)

So I present first off the bat my Chaos Terminators, these guys are a hit and miss unit at times and usually I find not worth the points in a match but are fun to throw at the enemy :D
As you may have noticed I'm running a Terminator Lord in this squad but I count him as just regular Terminator for the most part! In this squad is the lightning claws up front there, 2 regular power weapon/bolter Terminators, a chainfist plus combi melta, a Power weapon and combi melta and lastly the Heavy flamer and power weapon. I tend to run a mark of Khorne on these boys lending to an impressive amount of init 4 powerweapon strikes!

Next up on the Elites is my squad of chosen, seen here in the usual dark angel robed model that seems to not only be a popular choice for this unit but I feel very fitting too! Unlike the Terminators the chosen are worth their weight in gold as far as I'm concerned, armed with 3 melta guns plus 2 flamers they are and have been extremely dangerous in almost every game I field them! These guys are fielded with a rhino and with the ability to outflank they can come on a short table edge (not always the right one unfortunately) and make what or who ever they find there miserable! (these squad has a bevy of little conversions and addons tweaked into the unit to numerous to count but my favorite is still the cigar!)

Next up for the showcase is my Raptors. I have owned these models almost since I began the 40k hobby but never got around to painting them untill recently, and then they have only been based properly in the last week in line with the tourny I'm attending next weekend. So far I've been pleasantly surprised by what the raptors can achieve but I feel I'm yet to see the full potential of the unit!

Last but not least for todays post is my Obliterators! with a mixture of Chaos termi parts, Marine termi parts and a devastator box set I was able to create what I feel to be a solid model unlike most Oblits I see out there. Some of you may be thinking they seem a little loyalist but my fluff for these guys are they are recently turned to the Chaos banner and have armed themselves with the biggest guns they could! All told I do owe a debt of gratitude to my mate Jon-Paul for helping to construct them and furnishing me with the parts. You may or may not notice that there is a monumental amount of ye olde green stuff on these guys, from the gun joins to the power cable being made mostly of that magic material!

When next I update I will include photos of the vehicles of the Astral Wolves, until then good gaming!

Introducing the army; Part 2

So to introduce the troops of the Astral Wolves, the fighting men (and dogs) who do all the hard work!

These boys are my Khorne Berzerkers, they usually ride with Lukas (much to their detriment at times) and fair reasonably well in combat. I created them by kitbashing Chaos Space Marine parts, Space Wolf parts (the heads) and Khorne berzerker parts (the weapons)

The next lot up are my Chaos space marines, these models were the very first thing i painted, and have undergone only the one minor touchup. Yet with all that being said im still happy with them as gaming quality models!

Last in my list of troops are the Lesser Daemons, Made from a chaos warhounds box and liberal applications of ye olde green stuff they have a raw feel to them. I have another box of these im planning to make up in the future and when i do i may revisit these guys for another touchup!

All my troops seem to fair reasonably well on the battlefield, the biggest surprise however is how well the lesser daemons fair! With only a 5+ invulnerable, no armour save and a standard marine stat line I would never have guessed how effective they really are, and cheap... for Chaos that is :P

Both the Khorne berzerkers and the Marines have rhino's and i will showcase these later when i list the vehicles i field in the army!

Introducing the Army; Part 1...

Well i thought it a good idea to start introducing the existing models from my collection today. I have painted well over 2000 points of CSM to date, and have slowly started work on a Blood Angels based chapter (which im guessing i'll post up here too ;) ), So before I get around to showing off work in progress shots here is a taste of some of the works already complete!

As you can see ive used the Lukas the Trickster model as a counts as Kharn the Betrayer, and now he is known as Lukas the Betrayer :D

The next piece is Skoll Sunchaser, named after one of the wolves of norse mythology and with the release of the new Demon Prince plastic box I think i will also add Hati Moonchaser into the army :) I would like to add that my Best friend painted this piece for me as I was running behind schedule for a tournament and that the photo does it no justice.
Last but not least in the triumvirate of HQ's that i field is the Greater Daemon, Fenrir the Wolf at Worlds End. This piece is lovely i will admit and usually garners it fair sure of oohhs and ahhs when im out gaming! to answer your question (the same everyone asks) no, this is not a Games Workshop model, Yes i know that means i cant play it at some tournaments, no i dont care and the model was made by a company known as Rackham :P

I will update soon with the Troops of the army and maybe some others!

Von Drakin.

The Astral Wolves arrive on the net!

With the advent of blogs and the perspicacity of my best friend to have leveraged this medium as a font to track the progress of his Warhammer 40k army, The Ulhfen Templars (formerly known as the Arctic Templars). As such I decided to start my own blog of work on my rival Army, The Astral Wolves (formerly known as my savings).

Its been an interesting journey to date, With us both starting our respective forces late 2009, Jon-Paul with some respectable years of model painting behind him and little old me with almost none bar a brief foray as a very young man, its needless to say that not only have our collections grown but our skills as well.

So without further ado let me introduce you to the Astral Wolves, Bane of the Space wolves, Hunted by the Wolf Templars and altogether nasty fellows to be around!
(A better picture will be uploaded soon)

As of the moment my Force utilises the Chaos Space Marine codex with a focus on Khorn, In the future however I may just switch to using the Space wolf codex (aka as the Doggie 'Dex) as its becoming very clear that they can do Chaos better than chaos can... go figure huh!

Anyway as you can see the force is predomintly Black with Red and Gold, As my fluff states that these traitors were turned by none other than Huron Blackheart from the capture of the Wolf of Fenris Battle Barge, I thought it only fitting then that they adopt the reverse of the Red Corsairs colour scheme and the iconography of the Space Wolves with a name that blends both characteristics. With out further delay I shall leave you with my fluff written so far (it is as always a work in progress) and I shall hopefully be posting again soon.

"After the end of the battle of the Wolf of Fenris, huron Blackheart gifted control of the mighty battle barge to the traitors who turned during the battle to Chaos, While few in number they had been harbouring a primal instinct deep inside them for a long time, to hunt, to kill and to taste blood. They had heard the whispering of Khorn.

Meanwhile Lukas the Trickster also heard the call of the Blood God, the years of being passed over for promotion from the ranks of the blood claws had left a bitter seed of hate, Finally he left the Space Wolves. The Traitors found him and after proving himself to be the fiercest he became their leader.

However the Astral Wolves were but few, While more chaos marines flocked to the banner of the Howling wolf every day they sought to bolster their numbers with the forces from the warp. With the patronage of the Daemon Prince, Skoll they summoned fel beasts in the form of mishapen wolves to aid them and in times of great need they have even been known to summon the great daemon wolf Fenrir."

Master of the Hunt Lord Haldor Uhlfrahen

This guy is a Count as for Ragnar Blackmane.   I Usually use him for 1500-1750 point games, though he has been benched for the last 8 games while I run the Terminator lord.

I personally like Ragnar, he's a force multiplier on several levels.

This model is from the Master of the chapter box set i like the pose, the head is a straight swap from the commander box set  and the halberd is from the grey knight champion model.

All in all a simple conversion but to me creates a striking pose.

So far he has been devastating  in combat and makes the wolf guard around him machines in combat.

Lord Haldor has gained the scalps of Kharn as well as allot of Eldar, and he will be leading the Uhlfen into combat in an up and coming tournament.

Today is a small post.

I have some shots of a few recent games , of note where Lord Harkon destroyed 2 BA dreadnoughts all on his own with melta grenades.

Cheers

JP