Lucky 88th

To Battle Once More!!

2011-05-31T14:20:00.000-07:00

I've just got back from Triple Helix Wargames which is only down the road from me, they're open till 10 on tuesdays and thursdays, perfect for some wargaming after work.

I actually hadn't seen the guys for a few months, so it was great to catch up and make some wargaming related plans, and chat shizzle about all the new (and controversial) goings on at GW, and our other planned game systems (dystopian wars being one... we got our hands on some of the new dreadnoughts and the new FSA land ships due to one of the sculpters hanging around)

So onto the game!

We decided on a 4 v 4 game which the others had played at a shindig at TripleHelix before.

Essentially "Capture the Flag"

500 points per player

Each player deployed in a 12" square from the table corner.

A wheely bin objective was placed in the centre. This objective would join the first infantry unit which came into contact with it. and would move with the unit (including being loaded onto transports for no space taken up - it could be towed/stowed on the roof) before moving the unit must test for initiative (1D6) if failed, the wheely bin would sip from their grip, scattering 2D6 and stopping when it came into contact with any scenery/other units.

You score a victory point for moving the carrying unit off of your deployment table edge (12" from your corner) once this happens, your unit is then placed in reserve (available next turn) and the wheely bin appears suddenly at the centre of the board.

So this is the force I assembled, Its pretty much exactly what I took to calneage two years ago. I knew that it was going to be a 500 point game and figured, it was funny then so should be a laugh this time round.

Platoon Command: Power Sword, Missile Launcher, Grenade Launcher

Infantry Squad 1: Autocannon, Grenade Launcher

Infantry Squad 2: Missile Launcher, Grenade Launcher

Conscripts: 20 men

Heavy Bolter Weapons Team

Autocannon Weapons Team

Armoured Sentinel: Plasma Cannon

500 points Exactly

Deployment As you can see, a crowded start for my infantry heavy force, . I had Dark Eldar to my right, hence the heavy bolters placement, and many many many Attack bikes to my right, hence the plasma cannon.

I scored First deployment/turn, So elected to charge forwards without a single shot. the basic plan, stay in the trees and get the long range weapons in position, and of course....

CHARGE OF THE CONSCRIPTS!!!!!!

Heres the table in full, a defensive line between two forests, with a temple at the centre, housing the "Holy Wheely Bin"

Lees Three glass towers, or Dark Eldar vehicles if you will.

A Detachment of Khorn set up in the opposing forest

And the Many (Many) Attack bikes arrive from the open to my left.

Here it is, THE HOLY WHEELY BIN who knows what wonders are inside it.

Obviously the Dark Eldar have an advantage with insane movement capabilities. Though sitting a Raider on the objective does mean it will have to endure all the following firing.

With my right flank in tatters after a few Dark eldar strafing runs, my left flank advances at a rapid rate.

The Platoon Command made it into a busted bunker, ordering the conscripts to make the dash for the objective, and eyeing up targets for their missile launcher.

You can see the missile launcher team eyeing up lees raider, which had already claimed my heavy bolter team

The wheely bin however was making a dash for the board edge under the other raider which had escaped from the board centre untouched

The conscripts charge after the wheely bin

The marine bikers make it to the centre of the temple, pursuing the Dark eldar

The missile launcher Infantry squad hold base in my deployment zone, ready to give cover/aid to any returning units with the wheely bin

Lee's Dark Eldar manage to get the Wheely bin off of his table edge.

The Bin is reset, And now the slower armies are all over the centre

The bikes make contact,

The attack bike had obviously been a tad too enthusiastic when it reached the centre and dropped the wheely bin almost immediately

Originally the objective scattered 8" over the top of the chaos rhino, which is when we ammended the rules to stop the scatter when it comes into contact with objects/units

the wheely bin nearly coasted into the hands of some newly disembarked Khorn Berserkers, but was snatched away and back to the marine deployment zone. but the bikes were organised and had a second unit ready to pounce when the bin was reset a second time.

The bikers make second contact, under the conscripts' noses

The first successful hit by my sentinel paid off, if it had scattered anywhere my poor conscripts would have been badly injured... Luckily a Hit scored me 3 Berserker kills

You can see how close that shot was

My autocannon Infantry Squad make a daring move once the biker was dispatched, using the conscripts as a shield between them and the berserkers, they grab the objective

The conscripts "bravely" take on the berserkers

And unsurprisingly FLEE!!

The remaining 2 berserkers are dispatched by plasma cannon fire, and the champion is humiliated by a laspistol wound which kills him.

The wheely bin looks to be in guard control on turn 5

Although casualties are mounting

Turn 6, and my second infantry squad run out to help bring back the objective (which has mysteriously turned into a purple rock...)

The sentinel leaps out to hold off the chasing bike

With that being the 6th turn, and Lee needing to head off (hence the wheely bin dissapearing) the guys suggested i tested to see if i could get my guys off of the table in turn 7. (i had held up every enemy unit which could have impeded my movement)

With 11" to cover, I needed to roll a 5+ for my run...

Dark Eldar and Marines win with a point each. Proving that when it comes to capture the flag, bikes and tranports get it done quicker than marching your men like the grand old duke of york!

But which is more fun?

Cheers All!!

TSINI

New Models!!

2011-04-13T13:17:00.000-07:00

Yes I had a bit of a Wallet explosion at Forgeworld Open Day this year, but then, I've never walked anywhere near a Forgeworld stand without my bank account screaming in pain as a large part of it is ripped out in one go! Of course I pre reserved it for collection, which is ALWAYS the smarty thing to do at FW open day, the queue is always immense. (it wraps around the entire hall of warhammer world, and takes an age to get to the front) A second Vulture... I've got some Rapid Response force thing in mind for apocalypse games :D

A new command squad, the new Hostile Environment cadians just rock! I'm using them to represent any veterans in my force, making it easier to remember which squads have a higher ballistic skill (which I often forget in the heat of battle)

So the Regimental Command Squads and Veteran Squads will get these funky models. I've actually bought enough to make two 10 man veteran squads, a command squad with 2 plasmas, vox, medic, Master of Ordnance, and a bodyguard, with 4 spare guys for special weapon replacement options.

the plasma gun guys look great, even on the running legs which arent my favourite, the pose just looks cool.

I'm going to have to think how to make this guy into a medic, though he has plenty of kit pouches on his helmet which will be very "mediccy"

I think the scanner will make a good Master of Ordnance upgrade for the command squad, I don't have the imperial armour detailing the scanner rules, and I can't imagine they would fit the lucky 88th fluff.

the hostile environment command squad came with this powerfist wielding commander, who i think will make a great Lord Commissar to wander the battlefield with my other Lord Commissar, keeping a close watch on the lucky88th.

And a second Cyclops!! I love these so much, they really do fit the Urban fighting style of this army, and in games of cityfight will be fantastic as either mobile demo charges, or in strictly "no forgeworld" games could represent some cities of death strategems (though my regular opponents wouldn't deny me the opportunity to play forgeworld gear)

So my painting progress is at a 'limping snail' pace, I'm going to concentrate on building stuff for a while, then once I've got a load of models lined up on my desk, I can concentrate on factory batching a load of vehicles and troops out. after that I have my various projects, such as "Battery 401" an Ordnance Detachment of the Lucky 88th, which I can't wait to get into, but I'm going to make it my personal mission to get the blasted army into a state of completeness.

this basically involves painting up the ragged ends of my infantry, as the general troops are mostly done. (this doesnt include the new squads I want to add in the future.)

Adding tracks to my vehicles, (I'm so lazy...) then getting them finished

building a valkyrie/vendetta, and painting the 2 vultures and 2 vendettas

Once I've hit this point I can start on the Battery 401, finish my Nids, and then plan the next army.... oh yes, I'm thinking that far ahead, i have a rough idea of what to do next, but need an excuse not to buy any for a few months (read: as long as possible) hence the ambitious goal of getting "everything finished first"

Anyways, Cheers for dropping by guys.

Oh, I almost forgot, I've started a Youtube Channel!!

www.youtube.com/TSINIproductions

It's going to host all my battle reports and gaming videos, and possibly some other stuff, but I'm new to all this stuff so it may take a while before anything good appears, I'm currently browsing youtube for inspiration (was watching some amazing sculpting tutorials which have sparked some ideas in my head) so hopefully I'll think up some interesting uses for this medium - suggestions welcome!

Cheers again

TSINI

Lucky88th vs Brightwing Adaptive Tactics. Battle Report from Forgeworld Open Day

2011-04-10T05:41:00.000-07:00

I've finally got my laptop back from the shop. a new Hard drive, fingers crossed this one won't go belly up.

Time for some Battle reports

I apologise in advance for the "messyness" of these reports, in particular the video is patchy, shaky and without commentary.

I'm still getting used to my video camera, and these games were, as always, rushed through with little time to think about taking pictures and filming the particular events.

As fellow wargamers I'm sure you can appreciate the visuals of these games, Warhammer world really does take wargaming to another level with their gaming tables.

Game 1: 1 objective each, Spearhead Deployment (Table Quarters) Fought over a scrapyard full of tank hulls and ruined buildings.

I won deployment, and so set up around a building, placing all my heavy weapon teams in elevated positions, with the heavier leman russ tanks in front, surrounded by conscripts. I planned to flank the shifty TAU with a small reconnaissance force of a salamander and a plasma cannon toting armoured sentinel on the left, and a hard hitting Medusa, backed up by troops, a cyclops, and Winters' command squad to the right.

The Command Squad ended up bounding over a large scrap pile, heading for a couple of tau transports. The Medusa lost its main cannon before it had a chance to obliterate any xenos, so the cavalry appeared to lend a hand on the right flank. The Valkyrie entered the board, and was immobilised, bailing out the penal legionnaires

The salamander was immobilised immediately, leaving the sentinel to amble around on its own. the vulture sped overhead to replace it, and some plucky infantry were able to leg it to the left flank and set up a firing position in a ruined building

This building housed my objective, and would have taken a lot of TAU to clear it.

These heavy gun drones dropped in to work through the infantry holding my objective, but even if they were able to wipe out a unit a turn, they would have required 3 turns of shooting to clear them all.

Eventually the game was called a DRAW, due to neither side being able to get any troops to each others objectives within the remaing couple of turns. A particular moment I remember was a junior officer taking a direct hit from a rail cannon and surviving when it failed to wound. he required new commissar trousers afterwards, and a new cap badge.

Game 2: Capture The Bastion

After out lunch, Paul and i decided to squeeze in a VERY quick game in the last 30 mins of Warhammer world being open. we devised a simple scenario.

Get the most points onto the bastion.

if nothing esle we would get some nice shots of our models on another great board.

as you can see from the video, we both set up in straight lines on opposite table edges, the TAU lept onto the bastion by turn 2, and the lucky 88th. I decided that we had no time for me to finish my turn 2, but i could see that none of my infantry would make it, and with the TAU on the high ground already, the game was a bust. The massive building left only narrow firing alleys either side, which allowed units to creep out of the sides

These games were a great opportunity to see Warhammer world in action, we've definately learnt some lessons for the future.

Book tables in advance, some of the nicer tables were booked up with no shows all day, which was a bit of an eye opener

go for a weekend, 1 day isnt enough, and if we stayed nearby, we could have a few drinks the first day.

If you have any suggestions for my future videos, please do leave a comment. anything at all will be much apreciated.

Cheers for dropping by

TSINI

Forgeworld Open Day 2011 at Warhammer World, The Annual Pilgrimage!

2011-04-04T09:16:00.000-07:00

I have been unable to update my blog for some time now, mainly because of an extreme laptop failure, but also the non stopness of work and real life things. but I have commandeered a laptop and will update you on my annual pilgrimage to Warhammer World for the Forgeworld Open Day 2011

This year I was only in it for 3 things

Imperial Treadhead Pron (including the new Imperial Guard Transport)

To get my models onto some Forgeworld Gaming Tables (pics/vids + report when my laptop comes back from the shop...)

Pick up my reserved Forgeworld order (to be discussed in future posts)

I didnt go mad with the pics this year, I had a little chat with a couple of the designers, namely Phil Stutcinskas and Darren Parrwood, about the design of Imperial Vehicles, the design Process of the models in general and Phil helped me with my weathering powder question:

"Q: What do you use to hold it on the models? A: White spirit, you can mix in a bit of varnish if you want"

Onto the pics: I like the idea of the crassus, a mobile bunker for a platoon of men, my only concern was that my platoons tend to consist of 57 men, not the 25 this is built for... also if i had £80/90 to spend on it, i have a long list of other vehicles that would come 1st (thunderbolt, macharius heavy bolter, malcador defender, stormblade, possibly a gorgon...) so i'd have to come into a lot of money before i'd grab one of these armoured tortoises

the new eldar titan is just huge, even compared to the imperial ones.

Imperial Guard Pron...

This twin hulled dark eldar vehicle is only a concept, but does give an insight into some future xenos vehicles on route.

A few concept sketches

The eldar titan head/commander

Soon to come: The Lucky 88th take the helm of my blogging progress, and the nids get a lie down for a while.

Cheers,

TSINI

A trip down memory lane... hand me the paint stripper!!

2011-02-15T14:08:00.000-08:00

Welcome to a bit of a time machine post,

Firstly the future:

I have an absolutely insane amount of projects in the pipeline, so I will definately have to get on with them and get blogging! so the upside will be more regular posts... in theory

To cope with the said "ever increasing to-do list" I have had a re-organise of my room and set up a dedicated workbench. This SHOULD increase the workflow, by basically lining up projects and "conveyor belting" them through one at a time.

I mean, even just generally listing my projects you can imagine the workload (and this isnt even detailing the sheer numbers)

40k - Lucky88th

A ton of infantry, including all the command squads and some upcoming forgeworld goodness - I've naughtily gone and ordered some of the new gear (which i will leave for another post) and some older stuff which i will go into more detail later

TANKS - All of my tanks are unfinished, and ive increased the tank numbers because a local shop had a basilisk on offer for £15 (how am i supposed to not go in...)

Valkyries/Vendettas - I have one built, but not finished. I have another still in the box...

Vulture - I have it built, not finished and plans to get another one :D

40k - Hive Splinter Borlin

15 hormagaunts to finish painting (9 done!)

36 hormagaunts to finish building, then paint

a few genestealers to finish up, possibly grab another box...

build a zoanthrope

build my recently aquired lictor count-as

buy a mawloc?

Dystopian Wars

Recieve parcel

Paint up fleet :D

Zomg

Paint nearly everyone - something like 50 minis

write rulebook....

A new gaming project thats working its way through my mind as we speak. details of this will come eventually... :D lets just say its going to be much more terrain friendly and wallet friendly.

okay, so now a little wander into the past

Welcome to the Mandreel VIIIth exploration force.

This army was my very first exploration into the world of 40k - and wargaming as a whole!

My friend wandered into the lunch hall and slapped a GW leaflet into my hands, we were instantly talking about which fantasy army we would get, and how many thousands of cavalry and archers we would line up...

flicking to the back of the leaflet, I spy some Tallarn desert raiders surrounding a basilisk.

That moment I was hooked.

My local GW store was out of desert raiders, so I grabbed a box of valhallans, and the mandreel force was born.

This is Captain Komazi (kamakazi... he was always running forward!)

This heroic senior commander had a full and vivid backstory (mainly about being demoted from a much higher rank for disobeying orders to send his men to their death - thus gaining his mens loyalty in battle), he had many memories of rediculous heroism on the gaming table, including killing things way above his station!

Here he is with his Commissar Advisor Ravenclaw

Platoon Command - me first work into converting (as opposed to the company command squad's kit bashing)

The infantry squads - you can see that every sergeant has a name

Armoured fist squad (note they are the plastic catachans - so wearing T-shirts in the snow isn't a problem when you have a transport...)

Speaking of vehicles... this kind of gives you an insight into my plans for this force, as you will notice, the infantry is mostly metal (easy to strip the paint from) and most of the following vehicles aren't too bad. with a bit of a tidy, removing of some trinkets and a change of paint scheme, they could easily join the ranks of the lucky88th, which is what I intend to do with them.

I'll leave the old command squad, and the bad conversions, but all the infantry and tanks will go down great... and i even have a theme for them, which I'll go into at the bottom

Just as an aside, check out the slogans on the side of the tanks... what fun it is to go through old momories :D

I love these old tank commanders, shown here with my first ever 40k vehicle!

The tank was adorned with all sorts of trinkets over the years, barbed wire and an orky totem and eventually the all important BUCKET, with which he would demonstrate the amazing suspension of the leman russ and the smoothness of it's ride

This exterminator would be a fantastic addition

I'm not sure if this hellhound is recoverable, if my memory serves me right it was painted twice, but if my cleaning agents are succesfull, then it would be a nice unit for gaming, possibly with newer track guards.

And check out some of these little gems, prime for a repaint!

Although this Yarrick has been sealed, so he might be a pain...
And a lord solar macharius, who wouldnt actually make a bad officer of the fleet or something equally pompous

These guys were put together just after the Armageddon codex came out, some militia, i figured they were a hardened bunch of draughted gangsters who brought along lots of strange weaponry

Like shotguns, crowbars, and a big spruey lascannon count as...

This was the boss guy, i figured he would have a big forklift for a hand (power fist)

And some veterans - i couldnt resist the steel legion troopers (i'm even considering getting a few of them - and reusing these heavy weapons

some more infantry (in bad shape) and a heavy bolter, which although this one looks a bit rubbish, it has inspired me to have a got at a few bits of scenery with hastily build defences, like all those sponsons i must have lying around...

Mortar teams, I was eyeing them up to see how easy it would be to drill them out... though to be fair i do have plenty of plastic ones too...

These are a few little gems too, 6 old style plastic stormtroopers, and 5 old ratlings. i'm not a fan of ratlings (or any abhumans... in 40k, how very imperial of me) but it would be a waste of such nice models to ignore them, so they will be made use of. and the stormtroopers just deserve some love for their berets!
Well I hope you had fun wandering through my old army, its not an army I'm proud of, being my very first its awfully painted, massively unfinished, and just extremely old and bashed. but I loved this army through all the hundreds of games it went through, all the times it beat my friend's ultramarines, the time 50 guardsmen attacked a single terminator sergeant, he did fall, but valiantly, when captain komazi would constantly roll for his bionics. all of these times.

so i think as a mark of honour and thanks for this fantastic army, the very least i can do is bring them bang up to date, and put them back on the battlefield where they should be.

My plan, which is already in action. is to strip the infantry, and give them a lucky88th esque colour scheme, still urban camo, but more greatcoat than cadian. the reason for their nice wooly clothing?

they will become the artillery company infantry detachment, defending my earthshaker emplacement, the refurbed basilisk, and the new basilisk from the many horrors that stalk the borlingrav city streets. all that standing around waiting for a fight will require good warm clothing, and plenty of defence based scenery...

its a challange im taking to with gusto, and have bought a few small forgeworld goodies to spice up the force.

well cheers for reading my aimless ramble! (those who didnt dissolve from boredom!)

and as an aside, i would like to thank all the blogs that have mentioned my blogsites without my knowing, i've been flicking around the net and was so suprised to see where all the pageviews were coming from, and extremely flattered by all the kind comments on my modelling/painting learning curves

Cheers for reading, and heres to a hobby filled 2011!

TSINI

First VBR!!

2011-01-01T13:41:00.000-08:00

Yes thats right, my first video battle report.

Be warned, it has cheesy music, and isn't very informative, but i'm currently sourcing more interesting video editing software to do a more decent one in the future!

So anyway, i hope you enjoy my first journey into online video

So some info on the game itself.

the lucky 88th called in reinforcements from a space marine and blood angel detachment.

opposing the lucky 88th and a few marines with dreadnaught reinforcements, an eldar and dark eldar combination stalked through the buildings. on the far right, a gibbering horde of tyranids was belting across the snowy plains towards the rest of the steadfast marines.

3 players a side, 1500 points a player.

1500 points a player

The shot with a double 1 is for the miraculous leadership test at the end of the assault between the conscripts and some eldar striking scorpions.

The game was drawn to a close with the tyranids being executed to a man/monster. The lucky 88th close to being overun by advancing eldar troops, but with both marine reinforcements on route to clear up the xenos.

Cheers for dropping by

TSINI

EDIT: just noticed the badly spliced in shot of a totally different game system that somehow made it in. thats for a future post - and possible new blog. WHOOPS! - its actually Dystopian Wars from Spartan Games. an excellent game i will be jumping into over the next few months.

Gentlemen, Start your engines!

2010-11-15T13:41:00.000-08:00

after a short spell getting down to real employment, holding down three jobs, and of course being obsessed with COD black ops the past week or so.

I finally got down to some 40king, you'll see a new addition on Hive splinter borlina, just the tip of the toothy iceburg.

With the sudden influx of money, I thought I'd splash out on some forgeworld goodies for the nids, but for my beloved guard?

i figured i'd try something special, something i've been planning for a while, but never had the extra dosh to try.

presenting, Biker veterans!

Rough rider count-as, with a twist!

Here you can see the size comparison shot with a badly splodged guardsman who just happened to be to hand

The Twist? A count-as Mogul Kamir on a quadbike

I figured these guys would represent a veteran squad of rough riders, as opposed to my prim and proper death riders (who i see as trainee commissars using steeds to wander the battlefield, and their spears to gain quick battlefield kills- accumulating medals), these guys would be rabid monsters in combat, almost mad max-esque from years of loning it in the war torn streets of borlina (where they probably found the bikes).

one of the bikes is very slightly different, but as a whole, I'm looking forward to creating a rag tag band of biker bullies. I'm thinking up some interesting weapon options already, some of you may be ahead of me already, please feel free to chuck some ideas my way!

Thanks for dropping by!

TSINI

Lacerta Campaign

2010-10-16T03:07:00.000-07:00

After calneage a few weeks back, I got the gaming bug again and have been thinking up some ideas to spice up our local gaming group's meets. I think a nice Map campaign is in order, this way we can gain some "overall" feel of all our little games, and have a visual representation of our progress.

I'm looking for some input on the scenarios and rewards, so let me know what you think.

Lacerta
This small planet is situated on a large eliptical orbit around Borlina, just off the cadian gate. believed to be an old hunting range used by the dignitaries of borlina, the planet is now overgrown and full of alien creatures, devoid of inteligent lifeforms because no smart creature would ever set foot upon its wild surface.

Contact
A transmission has been recieved from the planet, resembling the hallmarks of a space marine force in need of assistance. Greatly confused by this transmission, the grand Tsar of borlina has commisioned a recue force to locate and recover the stricken astartus.

The Campaign
Each game will represent the increasing presence of opposing forces, starting with small reconnaisance excursions, leading up to full scale wars.

This is a Map based campaign, with the map divided into hexagonal segments or "Sectors".

The aim of the game is to uncover secret objectives on the map, Each Sector has a corresponding envelope detailing any special rules that the segment awards the owning players. these are sealed until a player's force moves onto a new Sector.

Some sectors allow the player to modify the game rules, for example, allowing the player to seize the initiative on a 5+ instead of just a 6.

The opposing player may decline these modifications, but no map based gains can be gained by this player for winning this game, apart from moving his force onto an already owned sector.

Games 1 to 4 will determine players base camps and force locations.

Game 5 onwards is the players' choice to arrange games.

Moving around the map
Every game played gives you a "move" on the map (this is to encourage more gaming, and rewards players who game often, whilst not requiring everyone else to keep up)

If you won The game, a "move" allows your force to move 1 segement on the Map and pick up the corresponding envelope.

If you lost the game, you may only move onto an already owned sector.

Arranging games
You may challenge any opponent in the campaign, even if your forces are nowhere near each other. the game must be no larger than 2000 points a side however, representing transportation difficulties.

When 2 forces are in adjacent sectors, they may play a game up to 3000 points a side.

When 2 forces are on the same sector, an apocalypse game may be played.

Note these games can be played with as many players as you like, but total forces on each side must equal the game limits. (so 4 players in a 2000 point game, each player gets 1000points)
apocalypse games however, have no limits (obviously)

Stealing Sectors
To steal an opponent's sector (and the corresponding bonus) a 500 point combat patrol game must be played (calneage rules) The winner of this game may steal one envelope from his opponent.

aternatively you may agree before the game to "wager a sector" effectively betting a sector (or 2) each, with the winner taking them.

Making Planetfall and Setting up Base camp

before the map is presented, players need to pair up with an opposing commander, the first 4 games are played between these same players.

Game 1: Fog of War (200pts)

The forces have made planetfall and are performing routine recon operations

Played as Battle Mission's Kill team scenario. Night fight scenario for entire game. No HQ choices allowed.

Game 2: Seize Control (200+500pts)

A patrol force has been dispatched to aid the recon team and Seize control of the area to construct a forward command post.

players take a 500 point "Combat Patrol Force" (no special characters, no vehicles with more than total armour of 33, no 2+ saves, no wounds above 2 except for swarms) FO: 0HQ, 2E, 4T 1T mandatory, 2FA, 1HS

dawn of war deployment, Seize ground mission (2 objectives) once you have seized the enemy's objective, you gain your kill team force in reserve
Winner of Game 1 may deploy 1 unit from the original kill team force within 3" of the objective once it is held, this unit counts as deep striking.

Game 3: Base Camp (200+500+300)

1st Command has made planet fall and is heading to the unfinished forward command post.

Players must add 1 HQ to their existing force and make the force up to 1000points in total (i.e they may add/change upgrades to existing units or add more units - units may not be removed)

FO: (1HQ mandatory, 3E, 6T 1T mandatory, 3FA, 3HS)

Scenario: 1 large ruin in the centre of the table (around 12"x12") represents the unfinished comand post. Winner of Game 2 sets up inside the command post excepting the HQ which must start in reserve along with any other reserves. Other player may set up anywhere on the table keeping 18" away from the command post.

Player with the most victory points inside the command post at the end of the game wins. units with less than 50% of models inside of the building are counted but have their victroy points halved, as do units who are entirely on the outside of the building but are engaged with a unit which has models inside the building.

Game 4: First Strike

Having siezed the initiative, the command post brings in fresh troops and forges ahead, clearing the surrounding areas.

Winner of Game 3 may choose an entirely new force which uses the standard FO and totals 1500 points.
Other player may only add 500 points of new units. this must make the force conform to the standard FO (i.e some players may need to add an extra troops choice)

Spearhead deployment (table quarters) Anihilation scenario

The winners of game 3 have now set up a base camp on the planet, these are now placed on the campaign map.

if a player has won game 3 and 4, their base camp is considered "Safe". enemy forces may not deploy in the segments adjacent to this camp.

if a player lost game 3, but won game 4, they may deploy "in combat" with their last opponents base camp.

Game 5+
These games may be played with any forces of the player's choosing any mission type or deployment is allowed, as long as the points limits

Spearhead
Any spearhead game allows the winning players to move 2 spaces on the map.

Apocalypse
Any Apocalypse game gives the winning players a second "force" on the map, this starts on the same segment as your existing force.

Cityfight
In a Cityfight game, the losing player must move their force back a sector and lose the bonus for the segment they were last on.

Battle Missions
If you play an army specific mission as the correct army and win, you gain a strategic asset in future apocalypse games, this must be picked before the next apocalypse game, and will remain the same every apocalypse game.
If you win an army specific mission against the corresponding army, you gain preferred enemy against that player's forces in future apocalypse games.

Looking forward to hearing some more cool ideas from anyone else. the more fun and fluffy the better.

some new models to come on both here and hive splinter borlin, i'll try to get on it tonight.

Cheers!

TSINI

The Battle of Borlingrav

2010-08-03T10:27:00.000-07:00

A dull green hue filled the laboratory, lighting Servo skulls as they busied themselves welding and moving equipment.
"Lord Payne, the device nearss completion" A hunched servitor hissed as he scanned a large screen covered in readouts and displays.
"The machine's spirit is tainted" warned a tall cloaked figure silhouetted by yet another large screen. "It may prove too difficult to control"
The Inquisitor removed his hood revealing his white face bearing the branded inquisitorial seal upon his forehead, raw and red. His black eyes scowled in anger at the shadowed psycher. "If those hateful creatures could bend this power to their whim, the almighty will of the emperor can persuade it to do our bidding."
"It iss completed Ssire, we should make hasste to charge the capacitorss" The servitor made himself scarce.
"My thoughts become clouded sire, the hivemind draws near, I fear other evils lurk in its shadows"
"Make preparations to raise the device, It shall prove itself against mankind's enemies in battle this night. I will get the planetary defenced in order." With that the Inquisitor raised his hood and stormed up the laboratory stairway.

This weekend saw around 40,000 points of 40k clash over a lush gaming table. Day 1 saw the first wave of the invasion, the imperial forces were in abundance, Borlingrav Palace was prepared, but the Forces of disorder had many tricks up their sleeves.

Inquisitor Payne tries desperately to get the device under his control, aided by servitors, servo skulls and his most trusted associate "Inferno"
The lucky 88th man the Western walls of the Borlingrav palace.
The "Witch hunters" valiantly hold the airbase whilst a space marine armoured detachment speeds to their rescue. meanwhile the earthshaker battery clears a space in the tyranid swarm, before a Deathwind drop pod lands in it and makes an even bigger hole!
The Tyranid swarm approaches an earthshaker emplacement garissoned heavily.

Ready for a fight, the guard advance.
The rest of the space marine cruiser makes landfall.
The orks and Chaos have difficulty getting close to the palace gate, due to a serious imperial superheavy presence.
TAU battlesuits make it to the imperial lines.
Then the TAU superheavy, the "Man'o'War" makes planetfall, mounting a powerful particle lance beam.

Abaddon aids the tyranid invasion by dropping an orbital bombardment on the imperial defence lines.
50 Drones descend upon the battlefield.
these drones even set about inflicting wounds upon it's allied tyranids.
A lone warbike makes it into the front lines, whilst 3 trukks of boys disembark and set about ruining the superheavies with their special grenades
The Baneblade "Blade of Borlingrav" makes a particular effort to get into the fight, followed up by 20 conscripts.
Air support makes an appearance
The imperial defences on the hill make stirling progress against the tyranids, clearing them to theback table edge.

The moral victory for george, making it onto the imperial palace walls.

Whilst John P had made mincemeat out of the superheavies at the palace gates, despite having lost most of his army to the unweildy device.
Commissar Yarrick....'s twin brother makes a valiant effort as always, sporting his lovely pink hat
The doomsday device is left untouched on the evening of the first day.

The sound of the imperial guns became less frequent, Inquisitor Payne deduced that the battle outside was coming to an end. He scanned the palace walls as far as he could see, realising he had been so consumed in controlling the device he hadn't even checked to see if the palace had been breached. The only hint of the outside battle he had noticed was the insanely loud double explosions of the two superheavies going supernova.
"868, man the diagnostic displays and prepare for a readout!!"
"Ssire, the device is showing major malfunctionss in sseveral critical areass, it'ss sspirit iss fading fasst." With that, the main display on the control panel died, The machine was silent.

The first day was a steep learning curve for me. Being my first ever large game I found it tough keeping a balance between the two sides. on one hand I didn't want it to be a total wipeout for anyone, but conversely I didnt want it to seem like I was favouring any particular side.

My initial idea was for the imperial lines to attempt to stand fast against an unending horde of evil forces, overpowering numbers and enormeous war machines. unfortunately I didnt do a very good job of explaining this to some of the players who seemed to be annoyed (understandably) when the enemy models would just re-appear after they were killed. although In my defence, I wanted to see some terror in the imperial players' eyes, to make them less comfortable in their defensive lines.

Lessons learnt and with many players not able to make it the second day, and new players joining, we decided a slight change of scenario was in order to ensure a more enjoyable game for both sides.

The board was re-arranged slightly, moving the palace to the centre of the board, bulding a close quarters city scape to the right, and keeping the emplacement on the hill to the left.

My task was to stalk the city ruins and flush out the TAU flanking forces.

Leigh, with his huge imperial armoured force (when set out in neat ranks the tanks alone fill a 3 foot by 4 foot space) was ordered to hold the palace gate itself against a combined chaos and ork attack.He decided to hold most of his units in reserve and bring them on in small waves, to re-enforce the gate house in stages.
Tom with his combined guard and marines force was given the task of keeping the enormeous tyranid invasion at bay.

Enraged by the quiet doomsday device, Inquisitor Payne joins the Provost Squad (Commissar Yarrick, a commissar Lord and 2 commissars) Eager to get into the fight.

Three oblitorators materialize next to the Blade.

The lucky 88th are no stranger to the Urban landscape of Borlingrav. With a special hatred which only the 88th can muster, they took the fight to the TAU with bayonet and rifle butt.

The enemies meet in the confines of the alleyways

The Carnifex hands the Chaos marines some mints
The Chaos troops refuse them
The gun emplacement eyes up some juicy targets

The Inquisitor overlooked this modification when it resulted in a higher hit to miss ratio.
The provost squad meets the first ork wave into the palace.

Stompy earns a living doing adverts

The Blade of Borlingrav, missing its main cannons and only having a single structure point left, resorts to firing upon everything in sight.
Stormtroopers land, 2 squads are instantly maimed to a pulp by a stormlord, not before making an impact on the TAU back lines.

The killer kans make it to the guard front lines, signalling the beginning of the end.

Yarrick and Lord Payne die side by side.

A chaos sorceror walks in the front door of the palace

Whats left of the conscripts, led by commissar lord spears, challenge the farsight to fight

The Tyranids overun the defences on the hill.

The hovering Vulture and vendetta are the saving grace of the 88th.
The cool Shadowsword however, even with it's increased accuracy, fails to take out any of the approaching battlewagons.
Rooftop battles between the heavy weapon teams and the tau heavy guns raged on throughout the game.

the guard pitch a last ditch effort to clear the alien presence.
The Lord Commissar and conscripts continue their fight with the farsight, while Tsar Ivan (creed count as) rush through the buildings to clear more of the crafty xenos.

The vulture drops between some buildings, whilst the Master of Ordnance continues his wildly inacurate bombardments.
The battle wagons make it to the shadowsword, and begin the inevitable deathroller attacks.

Killing the Farsight, the commissar lord and his remaining conscripts take refuge in a small building, the other TAU commander makes it to the imperial front lines.

The Platoon Command Squad take on the remaining stealth suits.

The highest TAU commander meets Colonel Commissar Winters in close combat.

Yarrick...'s brother jumps back to his feet and leads the guard back out towards the enemy

Then it happened, the "cool" shadowsword went supernova!

Many guardsmen died, and so did many vehicles.

With the Fall of both flanks, the palace looked to be in great danger. the imperial defences would only be able to hold the invasion back for a short time, enough to evacuate the important commanders and the inquisitor himself, but not the Device.

The Second day was in my eyes, a triumph. although not without it's own difficulties.

The average age of the players had dropped from saturday, with some more of the younger players attending. this brings with it its own logistical nightmares, (in this case, too much trash talking and not enough dice rolling) but in general the kids had fun (especially the two lads who had spent all saturday being wiped from the board, who instead got to see their army overrun the defence guns) Tom was a little dissapointed in his armies' performance, being killed to a man is horrible for most players, but we explained to him he had done a fantastic job holding out as long as he had against such horrifying odds.

Me and george had a great time fighting in the confines of the city, generally TAU and guard are a fun army in close quarters, requiring "sniper" tactics with the big guns, and lots of close quarters encounters through the ruins - it definately brings out a confidence in assault for imperial guardsmen.

I would like to run a similar event again, but some main points I would like to see/do different are:

More painted models - especially the big stuff
more unified armies (especially the bad guys) - ie, all tyranid, or all chaos/renegades
more special characters (and by this i mean homebrewed stuff, we had our fair share over the weekend, but i would have preferred to have seen much more innovation)
more cityscape terrain - the city fighting was much more fun than an open ground scenario.
Evening gaming - early mornings didnt make the game enjoyable, it would be better played later in the day, as a relaxing evening with some drinks, as opposed to a 9-5 gaming "job"

All in all, plenty of lessons learnt for me, but a good weekend full of gaming.

a couple of quotes from the weekend:

"I came here to see big stuff blow holes in things, and I wasn't dissapointed" - John P after the first day.

"I know the rules better than you so I can command you about" - Dan (one of the younger lads) telling Tom (Another young lad) how it works in 40k... ;)

Cheers for dropping by

TSINI

Time for an unfeasably large Chainsaw!!

2010-07-28T08:33:00.000-07:00

I I thought I'd just share with you my latest model - ready for the upcoming

Lord Inquisitor Payne

He's still got a couple of details needing picking out, some bright lights, the screen on his auspex, and the gold writing all over his hood and clothing needs picking out.
His cloak is actually more blue than I intended, Its Codex Grey, with an Asurmen Blue Wash, followed by a Badab Black wash. so I'm considering giving it another Black wash or 2 to bring it down to a very dark blue like I intended, although I'm actually coming around to the blue. so maybe I won't lol.

Also for a bit of a laugh, i climbed into the loft to fish out my old Reaver Titan I'd built years and years ago. I figured if it was in a useable state i might bring him along to the Borlingrav game this weekend. Although as you can see, he isn't.
non of his limbs are attached, and his legs are looking pretty short (how youth makes things look amazing!)
For more thing's i've been working on, check out Hive Splinter Borlin

With Borlingrav so close, i've been in full painting mode

Vehicles, Terrain, Infantry

Yes it's all in various stages of painting... hopefully i'll get it all done by friday evening...

Cheers for dropping by.

TSINI

DDWG's Attack! 2010 - A Roving Report

2010-07-20T07:48:00.001-07:00

Hi All!

The weekend just gone was Attack! 2010 our local wargame group's convention.

As usual there were tons of traders, our bring and buy, competitions, demonstration games and participation games.

As a fully paid member of DDWG i couldn't take part in the 40k competition like i did last year, so this year I donned the club's "red Shirt" (one of us.... one of us....) grabbed a camera and became a roving reporter... sort of.

a demo game in the canteen

The lads tuck into some lunch after a hard morning's sell!

This game looked fun, based in the Weird War universe, various World war II tanks take on a single walker (I believe it only lost once or twice all weekend...)
Marking the 70th anniversary of the battle of britain, a large participation game was being demonstrated, based in the Solent.

The ever popular Wings Of War was being played in the canteen, this always proves to be crowd pleaser, in part because of the simple rules system and quick gameplay, but also the enthusiasm of the guys running it.

Lots of historical games were being fought over the weekend, including this absolutely huge gaming table

Day one:

Day 2:
Another historical game

This game certainly caught my eye, a skirmish game set in the wild west, trechery and gunfights were plentiful. In this picture you may notice one particularly evil character dragging a wounded opponent into the path of a stampeding wagon.

Heres a closer look :D

The 40k Competition Raged on, in this picture: a particularly nasty Double Punisher, Double Hydra, Manticore, mechanised IG list obliterates all the sisters of battle in its path.

one of our younger lad's tyranid army rampages around some open fields

towards some rather scary looking thunderwolves

Which I managed to grab a photo of later on. they are Rat-Ogre type thingies. after chatting with the owner, he said he's decided to change their colour to remove the "rat image" and make them more werewolfey, although personally I think they are inspired as is.

the game boards were 3 abreast, encouraging much chatting and a friendly atmosphere

Plenty of alcohol flowed at the competitions, many participants bought (4 pint) jugs of beer along to each game despite feeling slightly rough from the previous night out.

Another space wolf army (there were lots of them this year) takes residence in a building.

Some Alcoholic product placement!

These gorgeously painted Daemons couldn't be missed.

Flames of War was a popular entry this year

The Fog Of War Competition was definately busy.

This was a fun looking game, it encorperated all sorts of miniatures from various companies, fighting in a future apocalyptic universe against militant factions.

A Fantastical Skirmish demo game was heavily populated by terrain and monsters.

I personally had a great time chatting with everyone, both at the show and afterwards in the pub.

here's a handy PDF file detailing the winners of all the events and some more info about our club
http://www.ddwg.org.uk/pdfs/Attack_The%20follow%20throughWEB%20version.pdf

I took the opportunity to grab some discounted GW stuff - spray paints, templates, and of course, plenty of models! (coming to a hive splinter near you!) I also grabbed some terrain from some of the other traders, which I'm planning to use at the upcoming Borlingrav game.

Cheers for dropping by!

TSINI

Spearhead - our first venture

2010-07-12T03:26:00.000-07:00

a few months ago, the ddwg group decided to get a game of spearhead together.

apologies for the random picture quality, they are all camera phone pictures, and from 2 different people.

the scenario was simple.

5000 points per side (4 players, 2500points per player)

I'm not too sure on the name of the scenario, but one objective is worth 3 victory points (in this scenario a cross road) and the other 3 objectives are worth 1 victory point each.

Here is the imperial setup:

We were lined up ready to pounce on the 3point objective with a mechanised column of guard in chimeras. A long gunline stretching out to the right. Whilst a small armoured group flanked the orks from the rear, and a strike team of penal legionnaires was being ferried in by a vendetta with a supporting vulture. the plan literally was to keep the advancing orks at bay, then jump onto the objective towards the halfway point in the game and hold it. whilst the strike units would attempt to grab a single 1point objective, winning us the game.

The orks (not shown deployed) lined up a large armoured column to punch through the middle of the crossroad, with support from dreds and killa kans who would break from the cover of the buildings and obliterate any troops on the 3point objective. a second column of battlewagons was sallying around our left flank, and some choppas were manouvering around our left.

The big guns - 2 basilisks and an earthshaker emplacement keep well behind an armoured line of leman russ' the infantry taking cover in the trees, and setting up the heavy weaponry on the hills.

An infantry squad garrisson the earthshaker emplacement.

The lucky 88th "trackless armoured column" prepare to break forwards.

The conscripts fill one building, infantry and heavy weapon squads fill the other, with the mechanised force in the centre ready to punch onto the objective. ogryns hold the left flank.

The ork armoured column, 4 battlewagons with various support vehicles.

2 of the 1point objectives, a T junction, and a clump of trees. Rokkit boys leap forwards, only to catch several ordnance shells from combined medusa and earthshaker fire. The smaller armoured column made up of buggies and killa kans recieve insane amounts of missile, autocannon, lascannon and battle cannon fire. many arms, shootas and wheels are lost.

The third 1 point objective, a destroyed mk1 rhino.

The orks' second battle wagon column bursts onto our rear. the guardsman change into more tactical "brown camo" trousers. the last vox from the hellhound crew cannot be repeated to the general public.

Ork choppas cause mayhem behind the trackless column, but are whittled down by mass infantry fire.
The imperial flanking armour had a brief moment of glory, but were more suited to the title "a mild annoyance" distracting the rearward orks and drawing them from their objecitves.

the airborne strike team had no effect on the battle field, massed ork AA fire blew both aircraft from the sky, the penal legion bailed out in the nick of time, only to be gunned down by the war hungry orks.

The game was a while ago, so the precise result escapes me, but as far as i can piece together, the imperium made a valiant attempt to hold the orks at bay, regardless, the orks burst through onto the crossroads, contesting the 3point objective.

imperial strike forces had made a decent attempt at taking an ork objective, which merely resulted in the removal of ork forces from those objectives by forcing them to re-locate. however the orks stil held at least one uncontested objective. winning them the game, and sending the imperium sulking away with their tails between their legs.

Some more assorted shots.

There will be another spearhead held on the 20th, which i intend to get some more detailed shots of, photography practice if you will for the Battle of Borlingrav weekend game at the end of the month.

All in all, there are some interesting new ideas and tactics which spearhead brings to the game.

for example, it gives an apocalypse feel, to a game which still requires standard Force organisation, meaning you still have to create a working army to fill out points, but you can go mental with the armoured columns - for "free"(FOC wise) which is fantastic fun, without being "too open" which basic apocalypse can be.

cheers

TSINI

Time for the BIG GUNS!!

2010-07-08T07:47:00.000-07:00

Hi guys, it's been a while.

some of you may have seen my latest project go up on hive splinter borlin

As for the Imperial guard... well i haven't been completely on target. instead of furvently painting the masses of models i intended to do. i got distracted.

here is the distraction:

Yes it's a baneblade. I do need some inspiration for this vehicle mind.

Colour scheme - I was going to paint this grey, to match the lucky 88th vehicles. but i've added a commissar to the top hatch, it's difficult to see but the driver just has his head exposed from the right hand hatch, and the commissar is weilding his sword from the left hatch. The lucky 88th are full of commissars, they are everywhere, so to take the "commissar crew" option was a no-brainer. it's just that you are supposed to paint commissar vehicles black, and i abhor the idea of leaving this tank an undercoated black. it just looks tacky and horrible, even with skull decoration and such. so my conunderum, do i paint it grey, possibly with black sections marked with the commissariat skulls, or do i try painting it black...
Naming the beast - what the hell do I call this vehicle? I originally had not planned to include a baneblade - therefore had only come up with names for the superheavies I did plan to buy. they were:

Winter's Sword - Shadowsword.
Reigning Fire - Stormblade.
Bastion of Borlingrav - Malcador Defender.
The Alamo - Stormlord.
"Razor +" - Macharius Vulcaniun.

So I could steal one of these names for the baneblade, or come up with something along similar lines. I was thinking of something along the lines of "injustice" or "redemption" "salvation" "deliverance" (daninang neng nang neng nang neng nang) "liberator"

these are all along the right lines

3. Modifications - One thing thats present in all of my vehicles is a slight modification. whether it's simply bolting on forgeworld parts, or building a little extra onto it. the aim of this army is to be interesting to look at. little extras that you can find on every model which make them individual. the only thing i've managed to do with the baneblade is slightly angle the antennae back. i want to do something more impressive. possbily a giant dozerblade or something of that sort. it just looks "out of the box" at the moment. i'm also considering stealing the Speaker system from my executioner and giving it to the baneblade. whilst this will take away some individuality from my executioner, it will definately give the commissar a nice loudhaler to shout his imperial doctrine from!

Any help at all with these points will be much appreciated!

_________________________________________________________________

This is what i've been working on the past few months:

Inquisitor Payne and Retinue

bear in mind I haven't read any 40k inquisition codex, I am simply building these in pure fluff'o'vision I'll most likely make an Apocalypse formation / Datasheet combo which incorporates everything as a special unit.

The Servo Skulls:

This servitor from the Inquisitor Soloman Loq model was a little bugger to get together, and ended in me snapping the supporting scroll, but as you can see he's together and looking studious!

I am totally astounded with the quality of the casts with these tiny models, especially when you look at the amount of correcting needed on my rough riders, these were perfect!
These servitors are a pack of 4 (bargain for such cool models) 2 with clamps and 2 with mini flamers - they came in 3(!!) parts; the "body", the gun/clamp arm and the second tiny teeny weeny arm which i must have dropped multiple times for each model, be warned, not for the easily frustrated :D

The servitor
A very nice model to put together, body, backpack and 1 hand to glue, and bam instant detailed companion for the inquisitor

Maverick "Inferno"

Inquisitor Payne dabbles in many diabolical and dark artifacts, needing the protection of a powerful psycher. This is the Inquisitor scale (54mm) version of "Inferno"

And here is my 40k scale version - a model from Anima Tactics, hes actually 30mm scale, so will look tall compared to a GW model, but due to his slender figure, he actually looks just that, like a tall person. Firsty I built him a staff from various GW bits.

Next up a bit of greenstuff to fill the gaps, and a cobbled together backpack

Since this picture was taken I found by pure chance (I have more than 5 bitz boxes and a whole rack of trays filled with bits) an Adeptus Mechanicus symbol. I didn't even know I had one (I think it must be a piece left from my Inquisitor "Krieger Crash Thrax" model), but it fits the front of the book perfectly

Inquisitor Payne
The main man himself, Here he is in Inqusitor 54mm scale:

And here he is in 40k scale

I have loved the Inquisitor Soloman Loq model since I first saw it, and for £10 (with servo skull) it was a must have.
As you can see I've given him his trademark "brutal" chainsword, made from 3 hacked apart space marine chainswords.

I've never based a model on a stone before, and seeing that Inferno is such a tall model, i decided to go for it for such a special character to prevent him having a "short guy complex" standing alongside his psycher friend.

and here you can see the chainsword with extra "engine parts"
As you can see i've given his sword some coverings, mainly to cover up the joints, but also to prevent him chopping off his own head when weilding such a large weapon in this manner.

I must confess here, I may have gone a little loco, I drilled a hole into the inquisitor's belt and glued in a magnet... I figured i'd start making some strange devices and weapons, magnetise them then I can pick and choose the loadout for themed 40k games or for 40k scale inquisitor games.

all that is needed now is a lick of paint!

The Secret Project

I will leave the main project a secret. Partly because I haven't started it yet, and partly because it will be fun to reveal it at the game at the end of the month.

The big game

Yep, it's not long now, I'm going to have to start a recruitment drive for it soon or it'll just be me and the usual suspects playing an extra long game of 40k.

it's been set for the 31st july and 1st august. I will be documenting the game fully on this blog so watch this space the following week.

Attack 2010

A local wargaming event in my hometown of Devizes (17th and 18th july) get in touch if you are interested in wandering around. If I remember rightly its a few quid to get in (like £3) and there are tons of traders, participation games. more info can be found here http://www.ddwg.org.uk/

Other projects

Some other things I've been working on

vendetta - my 1 built vendetta is getting there. the main fusilage needs finishing, but the wings, guns and engines are all painted up nicely. I am not looking forward to building the second one whenever i get around to it.
Command squad - I'm having massive problems fitting them with carapace armour. so far any attempt at "shinguards and elbow-to-wrist pads" have just looked awfull. I just don't have the greenstuff skills to pull it off nicely.

Next post will be a quick rundown of a humongous spearhead game we had a couple of weeks ago - assuming i can get the pictures off of my dodgy phone.

Right, back to "work" I guess!!

Cheers for dropping by

TSINI

Roll Call!!

2010-05-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd depress myself and get the entire Lucky 88th out to see its progress.

Man I'm behind Schedule! (if there was one)

With this giant game lumbering towards me, i thought i'd better get my skates on and set myself some targets.

Target 1, the biggy - I want all my infantry painted, washed and based. No mean feat, in total it includes: 20 more infantry, 2 platoon command squads, pretty much both of my main command squads, 4 heavy weapon squads (10 teams to go...), rough riders, retouching my stormtroopers and lots of bases(penal legion, stormtroopers, command squads, heavy weapon teams...)

each squad is detailed below

Command Squad 1 - need retouching, washing and basing.
Command Squad 2, needs finishing, washing and basing
Rough riders, need painting completely...
Platoon Command 1 - Commander and commissar need retouching then washing and basing. rest of squad needs painting washing and basing. heavy weapon team just needs static grass (yay! :D)
Infantry Squad 1 needs painting (apart from 2 finished guys) oh and flamer guy needs a head...
Infantry Squad 2, Heavy weapon team needs finishing washing and basing.
Platoon Command 2. needs painting...
Infantry Squad 3, needs painting...
Infantry Squad 4. heavy weapon team needs finishing, washing and basing.
Veterans need finishing washing and basing. Also i ought to think up a way of marking them out a bit more as veterans... at the moment they are all very individual looking troops, which is cool, but at a glance they may be mistaken for ordinary troops - which at the end of the day i suppose they are really.
Penal Legion. need basing, Custodian needs finishing washing and basing.
Storm troopers need retouching and washing and re-basing.
Cyclops and commander. need re-painting and washing. commander's controller needs more modelling. (it has been suggested to make it an xbox controller. i'm tempted.)
Conscripts. ARE FINISHED! hooray!
Heavy weapon teams. only 2 of these are finished... 9 pictured. i also have one built up that needs a new base, and i found 2 unbuilt ones in my sprue storage box. 3 more autocannons it is then!
Target 2 - 2 more sentinals to be repainted up to the same standard as my plasma sentinal.

Target 3 - Put the exhausts and other things onto all 3 of my leman russes, paint the not started battle tank to the same standard as my other 2. Finish all the tanks with details, add tracks, then wash them.
Targt 4 - Finish both the vulture and the vendetta/valkyrie

Target 5 - tidy up the earthshaker emplacement and wash.

Future projects have already been identified :D

they are:

An Imperial Strongpoint boxset has been ordered through a friend... although i havent heard anything further about this, but this will definately be a different one for me, lots of scenery, hopefully i will find a different shade of grey to paint it!!.

Re-painting my old Valhallans. This is going to be a different project for me, stripping the models will be an all out experiment, then trying to bring all my old tanks into a decent state will be interesting, hopefully the stripping will do most of the work for me. But I am looking forwards to nearly doubling my forces with these guys, it'll mean i have (at a guess) around 5000 points of imperial guard - without any big expensive stuff either.

A small space marine detachment. with all the rumours of the storm raven flitting about, I'm actually quite excited to get a small space marine force. think what you could put together with just 2 Assault on Black reach boxsets and 2 storm ravens... I'm actually planning to pick up my Dragon Marines idea i had a while back but i've never had the funds for it, though this isn't going to change, i've hit that bit where if i want to buy anything more for my guard it'll be big and expensive (more forgeworld and superheavies etc), so for cheaper alternatives i need to turn to smaller armies and wait until i have funds for bigger things. I also have an old Space wolf army (landraider, predator, 2 rhinos, 10 greyhunters, 10 bloodclaws, a few special characters) which i'm going to strip down and re-do as the dragon marines. add these to the AoBR box sets and 2 stormravens and thats actually quite a big force. using the blood angels codex to get the stormraven, unless the rumoured grey knights codex has any rules which will be easily changed to lizardy stylings.

Anywhoo, i'll catch you guys soon, hopefully with some painted models to show off.

Cheers. TSINI

Deadlines and Secret Projects

2010-05-11T11:56:00.000-07:00

I will apologise in advance for the lack of picture updates as of late. I am currently working on secret projects for the Humongous!!! game i'm putting on in a month or so.

I am however documenting these projects with photos, so after they have been unveiled for the game, they will be posted up as normal.

I will try to get around to doing some more painting, as i'd like some more models basicly painted up before the big game, Its a list that has been hanging over my head for a while now, but it reads something like this:

30/40 infantry need painting. most have not even been undercoated yet, so this is the biggest mission.
I would like to retouch my command squad and badab black wash them - instead of the brown ink they used to have.
The Tsar Ivan (Creed Count as) command squad needs working on, they are close to being finished but little details are slowing them down.
All my tanks (3 russes - 1 not even undercoated yet..., salamander scout, medusa, chimera) need tracks and gubbins attached - exhausts, stowage etc. then they need washes, and if i can hack it - weathering...
my Death Korps Rough riders still havent been painted. 1 has been started but i think i was daunted by the amount of detail (and colour selection) needed that they ground to a halt.
Vendetta number 1 needs finalising, and then the big wash over the main body. (By the way, I have now magnetised the vendetta options for this valk - I havent got around to magnetizing the valk options apart from the hull guns.)
Vendetta number 2 needs building... I think this one can wait till after the game - the first one took a lot out of me and is still not finished.

So for now, back to the Secret projects - Its a whole lotta fiddly "dropping very small things on the floor" frustrating project at the moment, but it will definately be worth it. soon a larger project will begin. then onto final planning for the event.

I'll grab any photos of any normal projects as i go.

Cheers for dropping by

TSINI

Battle of Borlingrav

2010-05-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

I have been asked by my gaming group to put together a large 40k game, to be held over a weekend at a local pub (which handily I work in)

So far, i've put together a rough idea of the game scenario (most of it will be revealed on the day)

I just wanted to ask everyone if they had any hints or tips for me for running a LARGE apocalypse game, any on board (scenarios/special rules etc), and off board (hosting a large game) suggestions will be greatly appreciated

____________________________________________________________________

so far I have outlined:

The Battle of Borlingrav is a large scale game of warhammer 40,000 which will take place on the ******* of june at the ************** pub in ******** (dates and location yet to be confirmed)

A huge board will be liberally spread with scenery, depicting a large scale invasion of Borlingrav.

A beach-head assault against fortified and well dug in defenders, an airborne assault on a spaceport/airfield and the last stand of the Borlingrav palace... amongst others. Each objective held will have a "real time" effect on other parts of the board, be prepared to take heavy casualties!

game special rules will be revealed on the day, a booklet will be supplied to each participant detailing their armies' objectives for the mission, and what dastardly tricks they have up their sleeves.

The event will be over 2 days, starting between 11 and 12 saturday afternoon, and continuing until late (as late as we can stand :D). The board will remain set-up overnight, and the game will come to a finish at around 4/5 sunday

You will not need to be around the whole day, simply hand control of your forces to a friend by passing on your booklet detailing your plans - but be carefull not to let your opponents see!

The pub will be open for business as usual, some casual gaming and access to drinks spells fun in my books. Hopefully I will wrangle up some food too!

Along with your RSVP, please state your affiliation (Imperial, Forces of Disorder, Neutral) which you intend to play, how many points you can muster - to the nearest 250points (for example I can muster 3022points - 3000points for simplicity) and if you have any other armies which you can bring along to aid your own, or the opposing side, list them also.

Cheers, TSINI

On my Workbench + blood angels game

2010-04-06T06:44:00.000-07:00

Well, I thought i'd drop some pics of my current WIPs

Firstly, my Death riders, they are being sprayed at the moment ready to be painted up.

You can see the extensive greenstuffing needed to make joins invisible

This picture shows some of the main moulding issues with these models, the canal joining the pistol handle to the saddle, this often required re-attaching the pistol handle as it snapped off, and carving the saddle/coat back into shape. This particular horse had issues with the reigns, whilst cutting them back into shape, i hacked a chunk off, and had to GS it back in - which was lovely...

And secondly, look who's joined the party - my first hive tyrant

I've sculpted a tongue for him, the mouth was a bit of a dodgy sculpt, and i didn't fancy the "Alien" tongue supplied, i figured something more in keeping with the other monsters would be more fitting.
I can't think what to do about the base. as far as i can remember, hive tyrants are normally on 60mm bases, but the base on this monster is already wider than that, so i could grind the resin base to 60mm, and build up a 60mm base to the same height with greenstuff, or make a nice wooden plinth stylebase and just make it 75mm the same width as the resin piece, or simply leave him as he is.

__________________________________________________________________

In other news, I played a game against some blood angels on sunday. 1500 points seize ground game.

It was certainly ineresting - i wish i'd had my camera. Death company Tycho is a real monster, he just doesnt die!!!

Jokingly we all made comments about how GW must have simply said "what if we made a character with all the USRs"

He managed to single handedly kill

20 conscripts (killing 4, then catching them when they fail their leadership test of 2)
10 infantry
10 stormtroopers
colonel commissar winters + command squad

thats about 600 points worth of gear!

before succumbing to his wounds, and eventually an executioner blast.

Unit of the match on my side was definately the Medusa, with a librarian dreadnought, a whole squad of assault infantry and most of corbulo's body guard all chalked up in 3 shooting phases!

The game ended in a technical draw (george moved his only remaining troops to 4" away from the objective - but because there was no reason for this other than an honest mistake i concluded it would still be his objective) My remaining troops (2 autocannon teams) held an objective also, making it 1:1 Draw.

Things to take away from the game:

always take a medusa against marines.
always take the executioner against marines
always assault tycho - he's going to do it anyway
use conscripts and other squads to make enemy units subject to the "Rage" USR move around against their will. - this worked well for me, making tycho wander around in front of my gunline.
Baal predators are mobile! 12" and still firing is usefull for harrassing my men!

Anyway, cheers for dropping by, next to come, some painted images of death riders and over on hive splinte borlina - some painted hive tyrant images, once his tongue has set.

Cheers, TSINI

Character Design Competition entry

2010-03-31T17:05:00.000-07:00

Atratos, over at the Rules Manufactorum is hosting a Character Desing Contest.

The entries are in, and the voting is open for a couple of weeks.

Jumping at the chance to get some feedback from a character rules set i've been toying around with (and a shot at a prize) I thought I'd give it a go.

I decided to look at the lucky 88th's military commander - Colonel Commissar Winters

This Forgeworld model single-handedly inspired the Lucky 88th's Fluff. His gas mask was the reason for the virus bombing background, and because of how amazing the model looked, i wanted him as my commander - rather than a commissar advisor - hence the over use of commissar models in my army representing platoon commanders etc.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Colonel Commissar Winters

One Company Command Squad in your army may replace its company commander with Colonel Commissar Winters for 120 points

WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	LD	SV
4(5)	4	3	3	3	3	3	10	4+/5+

Army: Lucky 88th

Affiliation: Imperial Guard
Planet: Borlina – near the cadian gate

Born and raised on Raye, a commissariat training planet, young Commissar Winters was destined for great things. Upon hearing the distress signals from neighbouring Borlina’s 88th PDF force, their planet virus bombed for corruption, Winters cut short his Training and took it upon himself to gather the remnants of the Borlina PDF and piece together a fighting force under the watchful eye of the commissariat. After a harsh campaign, the “Lucky 88th” was born; a rag-tag, war torn and broken army forced into military excellence by a harsh regime of summary executions by the commissars and a large conscription from neighbouring systems.

Leading with fear and inspiration, Winters commonly places himself at the head of any advancing force, his mastery of swordplay proving invaluable in the field of battle.

Unit Type:

Infantry (Unique)

Wargear:

Carapace Armour
Plasma Pistol
Ceremonial Power Sword
Frag Grenades
Refractor Field

Special Rules:

Stubborn
Colonel Commissar: Winters Functions exactly the same as a Regimental commander with 2 orders, and has the following special rules, as detailed in the Lord Commissar entry of Codex: Imperial Guard.

Summary Execution
Aura of discipline

Body Guard: Winters Company Command Squad Must take the Carapace Option (already included in Winters’ Points cost)

Ceremonial Power Sword: Winters’ WS is boosted to 5 on the first turn of combat, whether his squad initiated the assault or were assaulted themselves.

Gas Mask: Winters dons his gas mask in battle, instilling an anger into the men for the great injustice caused to them, every strike of their weapons in combat becomes revenge for a fallen comrade.
Any friendly unit (with the exception of conscripts) assaulting the same enemy unit as the colonel commissar gains thePreferred Enemy rule. (note this does not effect Winters himself, but does affect his command squad)

_______________________________________________________________________________

Please feel free to give any feedback or criticisms.

If you do like the character, head on over to the competition and read through some of the other entries - vote for whichever you feel is the best all round.

And a Big thank you to Atratos for hosting the competition, I might have to do something similar myself one day, maybe when I finally get around to organising this campaign at warhammer world.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In other news, i'm getting there with the building of my new Death Riders, 4 down, 2 to go. they are a pig to get together, the hind legs slot in beautifully, but the front legs not so much. then theres a few gates which meld to the body of the model, these need carving back into shape, and i've also had a mishap with the reigns on one horse, they had completely melded back to the horse's neck, and whilst cutting them down (to look less like a cobrahorse hybrid) i hacked a large chunk of the reign off. this has meanta hefty amount of econstructive surgery, and i'm no greenstuff expert. pictures to come tommorrow.

Cheers, TSINI - Vote for Colonel Commissar Winters :D

My Holy Land!! - Forgeworld Open Day

2010-03-29T05:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my friend Paul and I made it to the Forgeworld Open day 2010.

I only had one mission, to obtain a Death Korps of Krieg Commissar on Horseback - last year's even only model.

secondary motives were:

to get a glimps at the upcoming models
to scope out warhammer world for a campaign I intend to run in the future
have a look at the effects possible with the new weathering powders and how to apply them, then pick some up.

Here are the pictures I took throughout the day, theres not much "sneak peaking" in these photo's, but i did get close to some of the unreleased and WIP models on the stands. They are also in no particular order - you would have thought my camera had the ability to keep them in order of when they were taken, but apparently not.

An Excavation team on one of the gaming boards

Warhammer World's sense of humour presented with a "Heres a piece of scenery you can't afford" gaming table

The raging Titan vs stompa board

A thoroughly amazing Orky diorama

The upcoming Ork War Kopta - a chinook style weapons platform
The chaos monstrocities
The entries for the Painting Competition
A selection of models from the Warhammer world gallery

This valhallan army takes me right back when I first started the hobby, its been a staple army featured in white dwarves and codexes since 3rd edition (and probably before then) It inspired my first every army - valhallan IG

The new Blood angels on display

This Death Korps Battle Diorama was just stunning, every tiny detail is beautifully painted and modelled

The War kopta without crew
I'm not an ork player, but i love these new Grot Tanks!

Well there we have it.

All I have left to tell you is what I bought

I set out to buy the following

Salamander HQ - for the coming up 500 point games
Vendetta upgrades (mainly for the searchlight sensor arrays, much cooler then the supplied plastic ones)
Death Korps Commissar on horseback

I came back with

Vendetta upgrades
Deat Korps Commissar on horseback
Death Korps Death Riders
Weathering powders (set of 6 for £15)

so i'm at this very moment putting together my first death rider, (going to have to see if i can re-do my list to include them for the upcoming 500point game :D)

Next post, My forces are slowly but surely being properly based, my colonel commissar Winters (company commander) has bee re-painted, this time with a wash instead of ink, he looks much crisper and nicer all round now.

Cheers for reading.

TSINI

Roll Call!! 500 point Patrol Force List

2010-03-23T07:12:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I got carried away last night with planning for this 500 point combat patrol, and immediately re-wrote my list (something I didn't intend to do till later this week...)

I decided my Calneage list wasnt all that bad, it had guns, many many guns, and men, many many many many many men. but it did need beefing up as before it was part of a doubles tournament, this time it would be a stand alone force.

My old Calneage list was as follows:

Platoon Command - power weapon, missile launcher, 2x grenade launchers - 65 points
Infantry squad 1 - autocannon, grenade launcher - 65 points
Infantry squad 2 - autocannon, grenade launcher - 65 points
Heavy Weapon Squad 1 - 3x heavy bolters - 75 points
Heavy Weapon Squad 1 - 3x autocannons - 75 points
Conscripts (20) - 80 points
Armoured Sentinal - Plasma Cannon - 75 points

Total 500 points, 7 kill points, 57 men, 4 grenade launchers, 1 plasma cannon, 1 missile launcher, 5 autocannons and 3 heavy bolters.

Although this was a cracking list, mobs of men, and plasma melty death. I doubt it will stand up on its own without John H's suicidal armoured sentinals and suicidal men to distract the opponents.

So I looked into ways of beefing it up with armour and more heavy guns.

By dropping the sentinal, and a heavy weapon squad, I saved myself 150 points, knowing my chimera was only 60, and my salamander was only 55, I still had 35 points left.
By replacing the missile launcher from the command squad with a heavy bolter, I could save a further 5 points, giving me 40 points to spend on a scout sentinal with an autocannon.

Making the list:

Platoon Command - Power Weapon, Heavy Bolter, 2x Grenade Launchers - 60points
Infantry squad 1 - autocannon, grenade launcher - 65 points
Infantry squad 2 - autocannon, grenade launcher - 65 points
Heavy Weapon Squad 1 - 3x autocannons - 75 points
Conscripts (20) - 80 points
Chimera - Autocannon, hull Heavy Bolter - 60 points
Salamander Scout - Autocannon, Hull Heavy Bolter - 55 points
Scout Sentinal - Autocannon - 40 points

Total: 500 points, 8 kill points, 51 men, 4 grenade launchers, 8 autocannons and 3 heavy bolters.

There's a couple of modifications that could be made to this list.

I'm weighing up swapping the platoon command's heavy bolter with one of the infantry squad's autocannon - making the platoon command more anti tank, and the infantry squad more anti infantry.

or in fact just swapping out both infantry squad's autocannons for heavy bolters - more fire against closer units might tighten up the focus of this army.

Also the Chimera. which unit do I give it to? do I load up the platoon command, giving them a bit of armour to protect the order giving commander? or do i give it to an infantry squad to allow them to race up to objectives?
- I'm swayed to the platoon command simply because they have 2 grenade launchers, and I can experiment with these famous "drive by" lists that seem so popular these days, plus the order may prove useful so protecting the command squad may be smart.

Well thats all from me, as you can see from the pic above, theres work to be done, tracks need attaching to the salamander and chimera, the sentinal needs work done, and theres plenty of flock needing to be applied to the bases to make them look more pretty. not to mention the paintwork needed on the salamander and chimera, i haven't really tried to weatherthem, or wash them, or anything like that :S

Anyway, Catch you soon.

TSINI

Things to come...

2010-03-22T10:48:00.000-07:00

Well, its the forgeworld open day this weekend, I've decided to head on up to it this weekend, despite having to work in the evening (nottingham is around 3 hours away from my little town)

My intention is to grab one of the stunning (and event only) Death Korps Commissar on horseback

I'm not sure what he will be used as on the tabletop, my first thoughts are the following

Another Lord Commissar (he'll be a bit large and can't really be used as cavalry - maybe a note saying his horse never gallops - ever lol)
A rough rider sergeant - it fits right in with my "excessive commissar presence" theme which my army follows and i will eventually be buying the dkok rough riders giving me a squad of 6 for 80points of battlefield fast attack.
A special character for friendly or apocalypse games - basically a Lord Commissar with cavalry as his unit type - maybe he could issue an order or something.

Other upcoming plans include:

John has offered me his Forgeworld Double Scythed Hive Tyrant, so expect to see him pop up at Hive Splinter Borlin

Tanks!! - finally, the lucky 88th armoured division will get their tracks attached, and some serious paintwork to bring them into line with the infantry. expect to see some learning curves with forgeworld weathering powders - if I'm that brave.

Infantry - after fielding some (larger than 500 point) forces, I've remembered how much of my army isn't actually finished, and i've noticed my command squads - my pride and joy, are actually put to shame by some of the mere infantry. the conscripts and infantry squads look much better with their washes opposed to the regimental command and platoon commanders who were inked, so these are next on my list for re-painting...

A small tourney-esque day at DDWG - 4 games of 500 point Combat Patrol. So i'll probably just re-use my Calneage List, but will put more thought to this over the next week.

Inspired by the great Admiral Drax, I decided to do a bit of work on the title for the blog, and will probably come up with some nifty things to add in - any sugestions welcome.

Cheers,

TSINI

The Dice Were Against Me I Tells Ya!

2010-03-15T12:10:00.001-07:00

Another Battle report, as promised. Paul and I had a friendly game which had a two fold purpose.

to get paul used to the rules system as this would be his second game.
to re-ignite my gaming.

_________________________________________________________________

Firstly, the Army Lists.

Sean's Tactically Terrible Flounder Force ;)

"The Lucky 88th"

HQ:

Regimental Command

Regimental Commander (Colonel Commissar Winters) with Power sword & Plasma Pistol
Commissar Advisor "Spears" with Power sword & Plasma Pistol
Vox
Medic
Meltagun

Troops:

Platoon Command

Platoon Commander with bolt pistol and close combat weapon
Commissar Advisor with Power sword and Plasma Pistol
Vox
Medic
Missile Launcher

Infantry Squad 1

Grenade Launcher
Missile Launcher

Infantry Squad 2

Grenade Launcher
Missile Launcher

Conscripts (20)

Heavy Weapon Squad 1 - 3x Heavy Bolters

Heavy Weapon Squad 2 - 3x Autocannons

Troops:

Penal Legion

Fast Attack:

Armoured Sentinal - Plasma Cannon

Salamander Scout - hull heavy bolter

Heavy Support:

Leman Russ Executioner - hull lascannon

Medusa - hull heavy bolter

_________________________________________________________________

Pauls "TAU-Tastic Tactical Detachment" :D

Tau B'orkan Sept Rapid Response Force Tactical Combined Arms Detatchment (1214 Points)

HQ:

Commander Firejade Shas'0 Fielding airburst fragmentation launcher plasma rifle and command and control node
Ethereal Ai'va

Troops:

6 Firewarriors including Shas'vre supported by two gun drones and a markerlight
6 Firewarriors including Shas'vre supported by two gun drones and a markerlight

Elites:

Stealth Team with marker drone
Shas'vre Crisis Suit fielding plasma-rifle, missile-pod and shield generator. Failsafe Detonator, Irridium armour

Fast attack:

1 Piranha light skimmer with disruption-pod, decoy-launcher and 2 seeker missiles
Pathfinder team with 2 rail-rifles and shield drone mounted in devilfish equipped with 2 seeker missiles, decoy launcher, disruption pod and sensor spines

Heavy support:

1 Broadside Shas'vre with railguns, smart-missiles and shield generator

_________________________________________________________________

The Game Setup:

We did this game "by the book" rolling for scenario and deployment.

Scenario: Seize Ground
Deployment: Dawn of War

Having only 3 objctive markers, I ask John (my opponent from last weekend) to place the objectives on the board.

I win the roll off for first go, and decide that paul could have the first turn and therefore he could choose which half of the board to deploy in.

_________________________________________________________________

The Board

The Board, liberally spread with terrain, a small ruined town nestled in the trees.

_________________________________________________________________

Paul starts off setting up his 2 troops and 1 HQ, taking the middle objective (nestled in the trees to the right of the picture)

I decided to split my forces between the two unclaimed objectives, an infantry squad holds the objective to the right, covered by the 3 autocannons and supported by the Regimental Command and Penal Legionnaires.
And for the left objective, i decided to march the conscripts (mainly for comedic effect :D) supported by the heavy bolters, the platoon command, with a sneaky infantry squad further left behind the rock.

_________________________________________________________________

The Objectives

The famous dead guardsman (in my half of the table, to the left)
The TAU hold imperial hostages (centre table, in paul's half)

The (still unfinished) fuel dump is secured under a mob of men. (my right, my half of the table)
_________________________________________________________________

Turn 1:

Commander Firejade Shas'o surveys the battlefield from atop the "K-wolf" building (apparently). The remainder of Paul's force emerges at once as per the dawn of war scenario.

Under the cover of darkness the conscripts advance towards the objective. The medusa enters play.
The executioner enters dead centre and rocks up next to some trees. The sentinal stalks towards the centre. _________________________________________________________________

Turn 2 (to 4)
The conscripts begin to take the inevitable deaths.

Seans Lesson for the Day: CARBINES CAUSE PINNING AAARGH!!!The Penal Custodian, with orders from above (Run Run Run!) kicks the penal legionnaires halfway up the board
the sneaky medusa creeps up to the left flank, it is promptly immobilised here

The Penal Legionnaires (psycopaths) catch the Shas'vre Crisis Suit in their sights. Tunnel Vision ensues.
The Shas'vre accepts the challenge, leaping into combat. in turn drawing in the Regimental Command.

The left flank is slowly being whittled away
the penal legionnaires are slaughtered to a man, enraged by this (i don't know why- they were the scum of the imperium...), the commander commits his command squad to stick it out.
The salamander (trying to sneakily outflank the TAU held objective) is immobilised, pointing in a nearly useless direction.
the salamander explodes...
A bitter Sentinal is obsessed with trying to kill the Shas'o, but failes consistantly. the Shas'o however, is enjoying destroying my platoon command in the opposing building.

Somewhere in here (and somehow) I managed to miss the, quite frankly, EPIC battle between the leman russ executioner and the tau force. after melting the entire stealth suit team in one go, the executioner then finds itself targetted by many marker lights and a seeker missile flying its way. the exectuioner is destroyed outright. - this did not make me happy.
_________________________________________________________________

Turn 5

With the conscripts all dead, the heavy bolter squad dive onto the objective - assuming the game would end here (2 objectives Imperial, 1 TAU)
It doesn't...

_________________________________________________________________

Turn 6

Ethereal Ai'va joins the fire warriors on the TAU objective.

_________________________________________________________________

Turn 7

(I seem to have missed this photo) the Regimental Command gives their life to kill the Shas'vre. Colonel Commissar Winters, ignoring his single wound, makes it to the TAU objective in an attempt to force them from it.
The heavy bolter team are removed by massed TAU gunfire
The """"Fuel Dump"""" is safely under imperial control.
Ethereal Ai'va kills Colonel Commissar Winters, Securing the Hostages for the TAU
_________________________________________________________________

The End

Tau 1
Imperial 1

DRAW!!

_________________________________________________________________

Memorial + Awards

"The Lucky 88th"

Regimental Command (Killed In Action - Post humous award for bravery)

Platoon Command (Killed in Action)

Infantry Squad 1 (Survived with honours)

Infantry Squad 2 (Killed in action)

Conscripts (20) (Killed in action - no suprise there then :D)

Heavy Weapon Squad 1 - 3x Heavy Bolters (killed in action, post humous award)

Heavy Weapon Squad 2 - 3x Autocannons (survived with an after battle ticking off for not obeying orders)

Penal Legion (Killed in action post humous forgiveness from the emperor)

Armoured Sentinal (survived)

Salamander Scout (destroyed)

Leman Russ Executioner (destroyed - most deadly)

Medusa (Immobilised, abandoned for later recovery)

Tau B'orkan Sept Rapid Response Force Tactical Combined Arms Detatchment (1214 Points)

Commander Firejade Shas'0 (Survived, Most deadly)

Ethereal Ai'va (Survived with Valour)

Firewarriors (Killed In Action)

Firewarriors (All but Shas'vre Killed In Action)

Stealth Team (Melted In Action)

Shas'vre Crisis Suit (Killed in Action) (the failsafe detonator failed...)

Piranha (1 Tank Kill, Immobilised)

Pathfinder team (Survived with Honours, 1 Tank Kill)

Broadside Shas'vre (Survived With Honours)

_________________________________________________________________

Things I'll take away with me from ths game.

Movement: given enough terrain, movement can really liven up the game, outflanking is rife!
TAU CARBINES CAUSE PINNING!!!!
I HATE DICE - sometimes you just can't make the rolls you need, i think i failed every roll that had a pivotal effect on the game. In pauls case, sometimes you can't fail those pesky four plusses!! luck was obviously with the beginner for this game :D
TAU vehicles with disruption pods are JAMMY especially when your opponent never fails a 4+ roll :D

All in all, a great game, thanks to paul for bringing a lot of laughs to the game and for being a great sport.

And a massive thanks to John "the walking rulebook" not only did he place the objectives down, but he also stayed for the duration of the game helping paul with his VAST KNOWLEDGE of all things 40k, and providing much amusement :D

Cheers for tuning in

TSINI

How To Be Eaten Alive... A Guardsman's Tale.

2010-03-08T11:02:00.000-08:00

Continuing my "How to be a terrible tactician" series of battle reports, I thought I'd fill my blog in today, with a rundown of sunday's game. unfortunately I didnt take any pictures of the game itself, I was far too busy being destroyed, but I think it was such an eye opener I should post it up regardless. I didnt really get a chance to glance up the table much to see what everyone else was doing, so this report will concentrate on my end of the table and as luck would have it, me and John were pretty much left to battle it out.

Apologies for the quickly done diagrams, Damn battle chronicler for being so slow on my laptop... it took me an age just to get these up.

Army Lists:
Lucky 88th

Regimental Command - master of ordnance

Stormtroopers

Platoon Command

Infantry Squad 1

Infantry Squad 2

Heavy weapons team 1 (Autocannons)

Heavy weapons team 2 (Heavy bolters)

Conscripts (20)

Penal Legion

Veterans - Chimera

Salamander Scout

Armoured Sentinal

Cyclops Demo Tank

Leman Russ Executioner

Leman Russ Vanquisher

Leman Russ Battle Tank

Medusa

Vuture Gunship

total 2000odd

John P's Nids

1 Tyrant (Venom cannon & Hive commander)

1 warrior alpha (or is it prime?)

2 Zoanthropes (1 brood)

Ymgarl stealers (10)

4 Warriors Death spitters 1 Venom cannon

A big swarm of H Gaunts (20)

A bigger swarm of T Gaunts (30)

A big swarm of gargoyles (20)

3 Regenerating fex's (1 Venom cannon, 1 with pinchy claws 1 with 2 sets of talons)

Mawlock

Around 2000 points also

Game Setup:

3 vs 3,
2 Imperial guard armies allied with a TAU force, versus the Hive mind.
Me and Greg were the imperial guard players, allied with a newcomer to the hobby, Paul, who had never played a game before, but owned a 1200 point TAU force. John, John and Lee were commanding the gribblies.

for sheer simplicity the "Allies" set up first, with the nids rolling for the initiative.

I was appointed "Commander of the Allies" and my first decree as commander was to appoint Greg "Blame Boy"

And as for tactics, I figured simplicity would be key, so "stand and shoot" seemed a good idea :D Greg concurred, and Paul was briefed to hold a building in the centre of out deployment zone, a simple task for a beginner player.

I setup on the left hand side of the board, greg on the right, with pauls smaller TAU force in the middle. We were facing off against John P, John H and Lee respectively (luckily Lee was up to speed with the TAU codex, unlike myself)

My Deployment:

My first mistake was expecting a surrounding enemy force, my deployment centred around my tanks, giving them a full few ranks of troops as meatshields and a wide angle of LOS, whilst bringing all my heavy weapons into play. a heavy bolter team and infantry squad held the left flank, whilst my gunslinger penal legion stalked into the forest on my right flank - I figured their assault 2 lasguns would be good at killing gribblies passing by or entering the trees.

I also kept back a few units, something I'm trying to force myself to do more often. The salamander, veterans in the chimera and armoured sentinal would act as reinforcing heavy guns to reacti to the enemy deployment. the vulture gunship and stormtroopers would be my "special forces" reaction force, the vulture would be used to blow holes in the gribbly swarms, whilst the stormtroopers would deepstrike to any presented flank and harrass the sides of the advancing monsters.
Tyranid Deployment:

John had set up 3 carnifexes to my right, a large swarm of gargoyles surrounded them, a pair of zoanthropes floated in the centre, with a hive tyrant and Alpha Warrior behind and a large brood of Temagants in the forest straight in front of me.

The Tyranid players failed to sieze the initiaive, despite us handing it over to greg, the unlucky player. so our turn 1 began.

I firstly had to re-adjust my frontline, to bring my left flank to bear forwards, then just got on with the shooting. This was quite a fun affair, none of my orders were recieved, such as "Bring it down" to my autocannon team. but the 3 russes and medusa had fun blasting holes into the smaller beasties.

Nid Turn 1: A fairly simple affair, everything wandered forwards, the tyranid guns barely scratching the paint of the medusa and battle tank causing them to be shaken and killing 2 conscripts and a single guardsman.

Ally Turn 2: The vulture and stormtroopers both arrive this turn, flying in on my left flank, to tie up the ends of the tyranid waves. I'd riddled the gargoyles down to a couple and made a mess of the termagants on my left with multiple rocket pod fire and hellgun fire, but not much else.

Nid Turn 2: The first supprise, the brood of Ymgarl stealers was hiding in the forest on my right flank - and the penal legion had abviously disturbed them. The zoanthropes turn their attention to the vulture and in-keeping with tradition the vulture is slain the turn it arrives - by being immobilised, continuing its descent from the skies into the ground.

The ground then erupts under my left flank, the heavy bolter squad and an infantry squad are forced apart (losing a few men) to make space for the Mawloc - in my gaming group we had discussed before the game, that the mawloc can intentionally deep strike onto enemy models and that once the mawloc is placed down, it is already in base to base contant with any enemy units which had to be moved to make room for the model. this may not be how other people play it, but we are always in the game for the fun of it, similarly we allow vox's to be used at any distance (as they bleedin should be!)

Also, as if things weren't bad enough, I come back from buying a drink to overhear John saying "I'm just concerned of having a bit too much overkill over here" You know you're in trouble when your opponent has to reign in his army to not 'kill you too much'

I had lent Lee my trygon to give it a go, but he and John H had no use for it, so naturally it was thrown into my deployment zone lol!

A trygon erupts from the ground right next to my medusa. pretty much spelling the end of my defensive forces.

The tyranids get into H2H, termagants dive into my stormtroopers, the ymgarl stealers take on the penal legion, spreading thin to contact the conscripts, joining a carnifex and the last few gargoyles. - the front line was decimated as the conscripts were forced to leg it, although the penal legion stood their ground, only taking a small number of casualties (despite fighting genestealers!!)
The mawloc made short work of the heavy bolter team and infantry squad, who were slaughtered to the man.
The stormtroopers however only lost a single man, and exacted revenge killing all but 1 termagant. I can't believe I'd forgot (until john reminded me) stormtroopers had combat weapons and pistols aswell as their normal HSlasguns, they are seriously good in combat against basic gribblies.

Ally Turn 3: a few more reserves join the table, the salamander and the Armoured Sentinal wander in on my left flank, with the new monstrous threat, I decided to keep these as heavy weapon relief, firing upon the trygon and mawloc as it was no longer in combat. this had very little affect - apart from the sentinal's plasma cannon which scattered onto my other infantry squad, melting 4 guardsmen in plasma death. My command squad dive into combat against the trygon, with the platoon command going for the mawloc, along with any other infantry nearby.

For simplicity I'll just round out what happened over Turn 4:

A Hormagaunt Brood arrives on my left flank and ruins the stormtroopers over 2 turns of combat.

The Mawloc and Trygon have a lovely picnic in my deplyment zone eating everything between them.

The veterans in their chimera arrive on the left behind the sentinal and salamander and instantly deploy ready to fill the trygon and mawloc with autocannon fire.

the three leman russ' are destroyed

The Hive mind Rejoices after having a nice meal.

You can see above, I had barely slowed down the monstrous assault, causing mere flesh wounds on the carnifex's, and only decimating the gargoyles and termagants. meanwhile the monstrous creatures had made it to all the big things in my force, the only reason some of my force survived was down to them being reserves, and simply coming on out of the way of the rampaging behemoth.

The game was called to an end at turn 4, the tyranids had decimated mine and Greg's forces, leaving Paul's TAU relatively untouched - obviously TAU wasn't on the menu that day.

So what can I take away from this game?:

Firstly, Deployment. I really need to think up a more flexible - possibly more inventive deployment pattern
Secondly, Reserves. These were a great success, I need to remember to make use of these in future.
Thirdly, Trygons and Mawlocs are awesome!! I was going to field these anyway in my Hive Splinter Borlin, but it's great to see them in action. Lee was pretty unimpressed with his Tyranid army's first outing (so much so I think its already been sold) His reaction was - a Tyranid force lacking many guns is pretty boring, all you do is walk forwards until you get to combat. While this is not fun for lee, I can see how bunging in a lot of mycetic spores and burrowing monsters will really liven up the enemy deployment zone, so lessons learnt all round.

Finally, Mistakes!:

One glaring mistake i made was not doing anything of note to the larger monsters. Turn 1 I should have concentrated every gun on the biggermonsters, leaving the gribblies to FRFSRF Conscripts and infantry squads.
Another mistake I will note is the placement of my stormtroopers. I should have droped them on my right flank, awaiting the carnifexes, I believe that their overwhelming number of attacks would have delivered much more damage to a single Fex than any of my normal troops.
The Zoanthropes, these should have died early, preferably before the vulture arrived, with them gone, not much else had the ability to take out my vehicles out of h2h.

This ends my rambling post.

I should be playing a small game against Paul this weekend, so will remember my camera, and will have some new pics up.

Cheers for now.

TSINI

The Nids are on the move!

2010-01-28T07:47:00.000-08:00

This will be the last Tyranid related post on the Lucky 88th Blog,

you will see a link on the right hand side of the page to Hive Splinter Borlin, a secondary blog which will concentrate on all things Hive mind related.

This small splinter fleet has been wandering around unnoticed, until dragged towards the cadian gate by some unknown attraction. The already war torn planet of Borlina is the first to feel the wrath of the Tyranid invasion.

So I experimented with an orange scythe, but in the end I decided the bone coloured scythe was exactly the scheme I initially had in mind. i may darken the base end of the scythes on larger creatures, but for the smaller gaunts I'll keep it simple.

So here they are, looking gribbly.

So if you're a fan of all things scything writhing and gribby, head on over to my secondary blog in the next few days where I shall be kicking things off with a bang, or more like a subterrainean thud!

The Lucky 88th blog will return to usual programming soon (and by that I mean some IG related modelling) but this will remain my main blog, for battle reports and general 40k thoughts.

Scythes, change of colour?

2010-01-21T10:36:00.000-08:00

After a bit of a chat on BOLSlounge, I've had a go with a red scythe on another gaunt. I can't decide which looks best. the subtle bone colour was just too subtle, it needed to "pop" a bit more, the red certainly pops.

g
My only concern is whether the red scythes will look out of place on the larger monsters, especially with the green carapace right next to the red of the scythe. We'll see when it comes to paint up something big I guess :D

for now. TSINI

Say Hello To the Gribblies!

2010-01-20T18:27:00.000-08:00

My first EVER non-Imperial model and I think he's looking pretty sharp

After my steep learning curve with the88th, it's all about the Washes with this army.

Spray Black undercoat, coated once in Khemri Brown foundation. body painted in Bleached Bone, and carapace in camo green. Then wash the armour in Thraka green and the body in Devlan mud. paint up the scythes, claws and teeth in skull white and wash those bits with Gryphonne Sepia. Finally, paint tongue in elf flesh.

Colour scheme inspired by the forgeworld team's Scythed Hierodule which is in these colours, i liked it so much its going on all the army. it also gives a really nice contrast to my 88th, the green and the grey-blue should look nice opposing each other on a war torn cityfight board.

I'm pretty chuffed with this model, it was a tester for the whole army and so far looks as good as I could expect. Still need to come up with some more colours for this model - in particular I think the tongue will need a purple wash to pink it up a bit, and then I might use that colour for all the "poking out piping" on the legs

I'm considering moving all nid related posts to another blog, which will be linked from this one, (along with removing some others that are not really doing anything) to keep it simple to read and separate from the 88th, which will return soon once I get back into the modelling swing.

Cheers, TSINI

Oh yes, Hello and Happy holidays, Merry christmas and a happy new year etc etc etc.

2010-01-19T04:51:00.000-08:00

Ok, so i kind of dissapeared for a few months...

october was a busy month for me, what with Forza 3 being released on xbox 360, and then followed shortly by Modern Warfare 2. Then Christmas and new year happened.

So i put aside my 40k for a while, the creative juices had just stopped flowing, so i took a break.

When word of the confirmed Tyranid release schedule reached my ears, it started to get the thoughts flowing, and with the new codex being released last saturday, i got right in, a box of hormagaunts and a trygon are now in my posession, as I begin my slide into gribbly territory.

The Plan

Make an entirely "no guns" themed Tyranid Army - Scythes, teeth and claws all the way!
Paint it up to look really nice opposing my Lucky 88th Imperial Guard
Experiment with some new painting techniques
Improve my basing skills - transfer these skills over to my Lucky 88th, in effect bringing my lucky 88th onto the same bases as my new tyranids will be on.

2000 points standard army - 2500/3000 Apocalypse force
Forgeworld Aplenty (Again!! - poor wallet)

The Army

HQ:

Hive Tyrant: Wings, 2x Scything Talons.
Hive Tyrant: Thorax Swarm, 2x Scything Talons

Elites:

Venomthrope

Troops:

Hormagaunts (20)
Hormagaunts (20)
Hormagaunts (20)
Ripper Swarm (3)
Ripper Swarm (3)
Genestealers (8)

Fast Attack:

Raveners
Flying Rippers
"Scythed Gargoyles" (an upcoming conversion project)

Heavy Support:

Trygon
Trygon Prime
2x Carnifex: 2x Scything Talons

Apocalypse Extras

Malanthrope
Scythed Hierodule
More gribblies

Thats the Rough plan for this army anywho (£450 odd). the lack of guns makes this a one trick pony force, but it does mean i will have no distractions. its just run and eat, i don't have to worry about standing around and line of sight, i should be on the enemy by turn 2, with all the fast moving, and hopefully i will have enough units to bear the brunt of a single enemy shooting phase...

The trygons also add a new twist, by being able to deep strike into enemy lines, And bring on further forces from the same point, my general idea was to simply pop the trygons from the ground, then follow them up with ripper swarms and other gribblies.

The interesting parts will come in at smaller game sizes, i have no idea what a 500point tyranid army will look like, or how it will function (you need at least 2 Synapse creatures to allow you to coordinate your forces, otherwise the enemy simply targets the synapse creature and bam, your army is useless) And whether this force will even be competitive at 1000 points. we will see.

Until next time - i'll hopefully have some pictures up by then.

Cheers, TSINI

To Battle! Hold The Line! Run Away!! (Incomplete)

2009-10-12T05:22:00.000-07:00

A HUGE post today, pics aplenty (damn blogger for the slow picture upload) and stories of bravery and extreme destuction - on my behalf :D

This post is not finished! I'm simply publishing it early to let the guys have access to all the photos I took. I will be updating the post as and when I start hearing more about what actually happened on the extremities of the board

Setting

A large game of 40k, using planetstrike. No Superheavies or Flyers. An imperial Guard Defence line is attacked by a space marine force - (don't ask for the fluffy reason for this, I'm assuming the guardsmen did something really bad to annoy the local astartas...)

9 players, on the Guard side, we have Greg, Mark and Leigh, Myself and a young lad who decided to join in with his small guard force

On the Marine side, George, Lee, John and Craig

Setup
The Guard could set up anywhere behind the defensive line, the marines would then setup on the opposing edge, or drop from orbit. The marines would get the first turn also.

The mission

Space Marines Objective: Kill the 4 Highest Ranking Commanders

Imperial Guard Objective: Try not to die too much. Or more specifically: protect the Commanders

House Rules

Some house rules were agreed on before the game started

Imperial Guard Vox Casters allowed Orders to be given accross any distance

Imperial Guard Orders could be given to any friendy Infantry (not just our own armies as is normaly played)

Special weapons teams containing 3 sniper rifles could be split up into 3 2-man teams of a sniper and a spotter.

Deployment

The board was around 6 foot by 12. A single defence line spanning the long table edge, some buildings scattered around, among some woodland areas.

some of the force had already been deployed when I arrived (damn car battery)

A large "sally forth" force had been deployed on our left flank Courtesy of Mark and Leigh, sentinals, chimeras full of troops, rough riders (lots of), a hellhound and a salamander

moving along the table, we had a full defensive line, troops supported by russes and a couple of basilisks and a griffon. the building on the right of the photo housed some pretorian guard, with an exterminator out front, I decided to aid this section with my penal legion and a vanquisher.

My main deployment area was a nice gap left in the centre of the board. I spread myself thin along the front, using my conscripts to complete the defence line

You can see my vanquisher and penal legion in the distance, then the young lad's force behind the powered laser defence wall, then my own "mini Sally forth" force led by my conscripts and salamander followed by an empty chimera, a medusa and joined by my ever present cyclops demo tank

I placed my infantry squads to my right, to surround my command sections and backed them up with a line of tanks.

and finishing our defence line, Greg's catachan force on the right flank.

Starting from the left of the Marine deployment (opposing our right flank) somemarines hide out in the woods, (ignore the drop pod, it was just being held in reserve on a blank bit of board)

opposing me, an ad-hoc defence line formed along a bridge (4 plasma cannons on the bridge alone!!!) and a tall building (4 lascannons on the roof, 4 missile launchers on the middle floor). aided by a whirlwind

and on the right flank, opposing our defence line and Sally forth force, some pockets of vehicles, predators protecting a whirlwind with some attack bikes.

and a landraider with attackbikes alongside a predator annihilator (just off the left of the photo)
Just to show you my battlefied view, I took this photo from my deployment zone.

the Infiltrators deployed, a large squad of ratlings took hold of this oil refinery for a commanding view of the battlefield. 3 sniper teams set up along the defence line.

High Command

Here is the pretorian building containing the Pink Hat sporting Commissar Yarrick (objective number 1)

Colonel Straken (objective number 2)

Colonel Commissar Winters (objective number 3)

Objective number 4 was obviously pointed out while I wasnt paying attention, but i am told he was deployed behind the defence line near the main sally forth force.

The Game

The space marines went first, dropping all kinds of hell into my deployment zone!
A furioso Dreadnought and around 40 marines drop pod in to say hello, making quick work of my heavy weapon teams.

My command squad and section retalliate a little, but even the medic's mad patching up skills (that must have saved each squad member at least twice) eventually ran out. the squad was decimated, leaving Colonel Commissar Winters to eventually succombe to 2 drop pod stormbolters lol

My executioner was torn apart by a close range meltagun, exploding and taking out troops on both sides.

In a last ditch effort to cause some havoc while my "mini sally forth" force made a run for it, i drove my cyclops demo tank around the building and straight up the drop pod's ramp towards some green marines - lousy dice rolling meant only 2 out of the 4 hit actually died (I rolled two 1s!!)

Ignoring the objective markes in the building, (a little joke between my neighbouring forces) you can see the devastation caused by the marine force that simply "plopped" into my defence lines

The Marines Aproach the frontlines by disgorging assault Terminators from the Crusader, and deepstriking 2 more squads nearby.

Here you can see My forces Fleeing the devastation, although the medusa didnt make it very far. (presumably squashed under those new drop pods!)

Two Imperial guard stormtroopers made an attempt to cause some damage by dropping behind the marine lines.

Assault squads and yet more drop pods make planetfall to further screw up the guards hopes of defence. The marines sweep through the backlines with a methodical thoroughness.

The Marines, done forcing the lucky 88th out of cover, change their attentions to the young lad's forces.

Time for a bit of "Spot the Difference"

Thats right! Where did the stormtroopres go? both squads totalled by the two whirlwinds!

The young lad's forces were starting to feel the brunt of Lee's assault

The penal legion, after suffering 4 casualties from sporadic gunfire, were ordered to leap from cover and take the fight to the terminators - and thanks to John's god awfull dice rolling skills, they gunned down (using their gunslinger assault 2 lasguns) a single terminator.

Finally, on turn 2, my Vulture makes an appearance, to give covering fire to the stormtroopers which landed a few inches away

The vanquisher was unable to fire until turn 3, but when it did KABLAM the red predator anihilator was totalled, after causing so much havoc with the frontline tanks.

Now, Check out this little fella, its turn 4, and the cyclops operator is still there, hiding away

Suprise Suprise, the Vulture is blasted out of the sky, failing to do anything productive.

And the stormtroopers fared no better, after killing a few tactical marines, they get whirlwinded to pieces, leaving a pinned sergeant.

Making short work of the penal legion (Terminators: "penal legion, what penal legion?") the Assault continues past the defence lines.

Yarrick is taken out by assault marines, the guardsmen obviously posing no threat / and not noticing the death of their glorious comander.

not a trace of the 88th is left in their original deployment zone (apart from the cyclops controller)

*crackle* "the Marines, they control the base, abandon all stations!"

Here is the last stand of the lucky 88th, the chimera and salamander take on the entirety of George's Devastator gunline, Craigs green marines and Lee's whirlwind.

The Headless Leman Russ (an early stage WIP of mine) rams into the nearest combat squad.

here, bits of the Sallying army finally make contact with the enemy.

the roughriders pile into a Baal predator

Yarrick leaps back to his feet and gives chase to the assault marines.

The Baal Predator is unhappy about its new friends

Despite the loss of its commanding officers, the main defence line remains pretty solid

(I didnt notice this at the time, but George was trying out whirlwind conversions on all the Imprial guard vehicles)

The combat squad sinply sidesteps the rampaging pillbox.

the terminators break far through the now non-existant defenses, and start picking targets

Tycho gets real mad (probably from all the standing still), and leaps from his hiding place heading for my last few vehicles.

the young lad is still holding in there (the strange plastic toy tank thingy is his, we counted it as an exterminator with a hunter killer missile)

yarrick is toast, yet again

The marines circle the broken Leman Russ, while tycho launches closer to the remnants of the 88th.

due to a technical error, involving my camera battery dying (what is it with batteries!) there are no more photos.

Basically, over the last few minutes before I had to pack up and dissapear off to work, i spent runing around getting marine players to resolve any shooting at my vehicles, in the hope they would all blow up.

my prayers were answered with George's Devastator volleys blowing all my vehicles apart. the Leman Russ exploded taking out 3 marines.

Finally, my Leman Russ vanquisher was taken out by the rampaging thunderhammers. leaving my cyclops controller to slink away and warn the other 1500 points of the lucky 88th that didnt show up to this game to get the hell away from that particular system :D

Give me yo' hands bowss!

2009-10-01T03:36:00.000-07:00

A BIG post today, rather than show you my WIP over the past few days, I thought I'd spring the whole lot on you in one go.

Can you guess what these guys is?

Thats Right! Headless Orange Men... or some Penal Legionnaires, below you can see the Washers I found for the Explosive Collars

Ok, here is the first unlucky soul I put together, after posting a quick "Help me" on BOLSlounge, I got some advice on improving him

And here he is again, but this time with a little detonator attached. Its from the vehicle accessories sprue - the mounts from the spade

And here is the Penal Custodian, wearing his executioner style face mask and ordering them on to their doom! obvously he's very unfinished and I'm not too sure on the triangle decor on his coat, I may get rid of them altogether, although I was hoping more orange would tie him in with the squad a bit better.

Here's a family mug-shot of the 4 I've put together so far, the others are awaiting detailing, washing, Collars and 4 of their heads came without ears unfortunately, so I have to learn to sculpt very quickly indeed before I can finish them.

Gentlemen, Welcome to Death Row!

Well thats as far as I got with them. Next week I may be starting another squad entirely, but that will be another suprise, assuming they go together that is, Until then, stay outta trouble.

TSINI

These Boots were made for - surviving!

2009-09-23T12:25:00.001-07:00

Yes, the guy with indestructible boots is pretty much finished, I've just got to glue the pieces down, but I think I'm happy with the layout.

There it is, a Sacred Ground Strategem / Objective Marker.

Medivac - painted

2009-09-23T04:54:00.000-07:00

I finished my "Guardsmen in need of assistance" objective marker - all but glued in place.

Actually I've just noticed the injured guardman needs some blood effects on him, but that can wait for now.

i'm quite suprised how well the wood effect came through, it was really hard to get a contrast between the mud and the wooden boards - especially with my limited palette

for those interested, I used "snakebite leather" on the wood, and "graveyard earth" on the mud, the upright wooden stakes were painted with bestial brown to give a contrast to the duckboards. I then washed the whole thing in "brown ink" (i'm not even sure if GW still do their inks...)

to bring the mud down to a darker tone, I washed that heavily with "badab black wash" making sure not to get any on the wooden parts.

ive just started painting up my "skeleton guardsman", pics to come soon - he's lookin very green

TSINI

Objective Markers! 2 and how to have a laugh at guardsmen!

2009-09-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

For those of a nervous disposition or with weak hearts, I warn you that what lies ahead, is pictures of disturbing and hilarious nature.

I started to paint up my "guardsmen in need" and the creative instinct took a hold, I caught myself staring backwards and forwards between a guardsman, and that lying down skeleton.

"Wouldn't it be great if i hollowed out some armour, and put it on the skeleton... and what if his boots were untouched too :D"

So here he is!!

Honest to god, I'm still laughing now, I have been all day. The boots just look hilarious!!

I actually had to remodel the spine - neck end, because the original cuves into the body armour, and I wanted the head to be on the floor nearby.

Anyway, back to painting, I just thougth I'd share my pics.

Cheers

Objectives Markers!

2009-09-21T11:31:00.000-07:00

Well, My To-Do list for Calneage this saturday goes as follows

5 autocannon teams to tidy up and badab wash
2 sergeants to detail and badab wash
Model and paint 2 objectives

So I sat down with my new Iron Halo bases and got on with making my objectives.

Heres the first one, "soldiers in need of assistance"

its hard to make out while the base is still undercoated, but its a Trenches of Agin base, which i thought would be perfect for some infantry dug in, in need of a med-evac (medivac?)

the poor sap with the injuries was a nice simple conversion, it turned ot beter than I imagined. I simply chopped off his leg, shoved some greenstuff in there and re-positioned it. I also did some extensive work on the torso/leg joint to get him into a sort of "slightly sat up" position, to show he was alive not dead - this was also aided by the other guy, giving covering fire, it keeps the objective alive, rather than scattered dead Guardsmen (which would mean nothing to the imperium :D)

The second objective I started putting together, will double up as a "sacred ground" strategem for Cities of Death. Ive chosen a nice "ornate looking ruin" base and intend to place a recently deceased soldier, alongside a decomposing or skeletal one. I havent decided which to go with, or whether to make the skeleton a recent "plasma" or "viral corrosion" death.

and my last objective marker, which will be the simplist to do, doubling up as a fuel dump strategem

I'm not sure how far i'll get on all 3 this week, but as long as I can get 2 finished it'll all be gravy for Calneage.

All I have to do now is finalise my tactics to garuntee myself last place Bwahaha!

Cheers for now

TSINI

Field Command - COD strategem extreme!

2009-09-05T07:39:00.000-07:00

after BOLS had a thread discussing game expansions, Cities of Death, Apocalypse, Planetstrike. i fetched my Cities of Death book, and quickly remembered my army was supposed to be a cityfighting force, a hard bitten force of urban warfare specialists.
after a good rummage through my massive box of sprues, and a thorough look through the modelling section of the book, i stated to concoct some strategem modelling projects.
this one may have gotten out of hand, but it cerainly struck a chord with me when i saw the vostroyan Command stretegem.

so here it is, a WIP, Command "Key Building" Strategem for Cities of Death.

here you can see the setup without the guys in place. a table, chair, antenae setup and generator

the generator/antenae is looking quite simple at the mo, i want to add a speaker, but not sure where to get one from, i could nick them from vox casters i guess.

the table is really simple, as you can see

The seat is made up from an ejector seat taken from a Forgeworld Lightning fighter (my friend gave me the empty one years ago, i always had a feeling it would end up a field command seat) i figure it would have been found in the rubble and the commander would have laid claim to it.

i leant it up against some sandbags, its how i'd imagine a scratch built command chair

and some minor detailing on the back fleshes out the boring flat bit.

here the crew are shown in place, a commander pointing at a place on the map, steadying himself against the table, and a comms officer checking an auspex.

now for the fun bits!, the table top equipment

firstly, an angle poise desk lamp

made from the new sentinal searchlight, and the head of a spade(shovel) on the tank sprue

and below, the map, aerial photos, letter and "lucky ace - naked lady" cards

i have also made, but not pictured as it would be impossible to make out at the moment, a little stopwatch/compass, i ahvent decided which it will be, but it looks liek a pocket watch at the mo, pictures to come when its finished.

and because this picture dissapeared from mylast post, i thought id tack it on the end here, it shows the Iron halo base used for my vulture gunship.

on this note, i have to go to work, and will pick up my command strategem later on tonight.

im also currently awaiting my next delivery of iron halo bases, which i will be making into objective markers for the calneage tournement - i think they will also double up as COD strategem markers.

Cheers for now

TSINI

Is It A Bird? Is It A Plane?!... pretty much, and yes!

2009-09-01T17:34:00.000-07:00

one walks like a bird, and the other is indeed a plane, albeit a VTOL one

i thought i'd show you guys my recent painting projects, as i havent been posting for a while, no real excuse, just didnt have anything cool to show off! :D

firstly, ive basically finished my sentinel for calneage (its still puzzling people why ive taken a plasma cannon to a small arms fight, but all will be revealed)

i think the paint scheme works well, it transferres between my troops and tanks nicely, with small patches of blue/grey breaking up the mainly dark grey. keeps a steady theme, whilst not overdoing it wit the blue (the original camo scheme i intended to do was so utterly busy and not very effective)

i havent decided yet quite what to place in the compartment space at the back of the sentinal, the box supplied looks a little simple, i'll have a rummage around in the bitz box tommorrow.

you can't see from this angle but the pilot of the sentinal has a "Horizon" view inspired by current aircraft on his joystick (its so simple to do, bottom half bestial brown, top half ice blue)

and onto my favourite vehicle (despite its unnervingly short lifespan on the table, every game it shows up in, its destroyed the turn it arrives! - i hate hydras... on the other team of course!)

THE VULTURE, or in my roster as "Green Eagle 1"

ive changed the colour scheme since it was last pictured, its now a lighter shade of grey all over (ive decided to do all aircraft and aircrew fortress grey rather than white) and have the 88th blue/grey nose

the eagle eyed readers will notice the "Iron Halo" flying base i think it looks sweet! although its nowhere near finished. i will inform you that this is in fact the original forgeworld vulture, so it took me and afternoon with a dremel to make the damn thing sit on a new flying stand... i also have to order another flying stand for my second valkyrie yet to be built.

the green bands on the tail designate the squadron as Green squadron, as will my valkyries, and stormtroopers (Borlina Air Servicemen)

and here you can see the pilot is also given a green band to tie him in

all i have to do now, is lighten the skin tone of my pilots (they dont need sun tans anymore!) check over the craft for any missed details (i imagine there are lots!!) finish off the cockpit, and wash over the vehicle in badab black. it may need some highlighting after that to make it look nice.

nextpost, i will probably showcase the interior of my valkyrie, along with some progress shots of my conscripts (WOOOOOOOOOOOO!! they love to die!! and look good doing it) and possibly some other squads that are coming together.

cheers for now!

TSINI