Assault Marines update 25 September

More progress here on my Assault Marines- i've now got 16 assembled, with 6 base coated and washed, the rest are still sitting around in black undercoat waiting. Once the red + wash goes on i've been painting the raised areas of the collar and small sections you can't get to easily and then gluing the helmet heads in place.

The 6 red amigos so far. Even in base colours they look swanky. The urban bases certainly help!

I'll be very happy once i've got all 30 Jump Marines assembled and red basecoated, even though there'll be quite a lot left to do to get the army completed. Still, continuous progress and getting an hour here and there in is making things happen!

Oh, and I played a game with my mate Alan last weekend, still trying to learn the game. Learnt several valuable lessons here:

1. Imperial Guard can rapid fire 24". In a blob squad this means unbeleveable casualties if a poor marine squad deepstrikes scatters into range. There is only so many rolls you can make before the ones appear. The marine adage of "look to your wargear brothers!" wont protect you from 40+ hits from a lasgun...
2. Wound allocation in 6th edition (assuming no insane variations in armour types per squad) is easy to get your head around, and is reflective of exactly 'how it happens' in real life combat. Death comes swiftly from the direction of fire OR the front line of the melee.
3. Be careful who stands closest to your Sgt or other IC, they're the one who gets to take the Look Out Sir! bullet, not some pleb at the back. Once again, as it should be.
4. Feel No Pain may circumvent AP2, but its useless against twice toughness (ID)... damn you Leman Russ battletank!
5. Rolling 1s and 2s for Reserves is fine when you have men on the board, but when you start turn 4, fail to bring in a Stormraven with Terminators and Librarian AGAIN, and you are down to 4 men, you hope for the best.... However these guys were staring down the barrel of a Leman Russ, a Grey Hunter Squad, several squads of Tallarn Desert Raiders and a Hydra AA tank. Long story short, I lost all my infantry, my Dread and his Drop pod were both gone and I ended up with no models on the board. Instant Game Loss!!



At least the urban city boards are painted LOL




Alan's Wolves array for battle, covered by his newly assembled (but still WIP) Hydra and the Leman Russ that caused me so much pain!! A solid list at 1500pts.


I think my own 1500pt list is useable, but I need to work on where I drop my Furioso, and how to deploy and take action with my jump squads. Ive never had a lot of jump troops to use before, so the coordination of three full squads is something i'm yet to work out- maybe some Internet tactic searching will help.

Thats enough for now! Any comments or feedback is welcome as always!

Babies, Birthday presents and Boyz

Hey everyone! My first post in almost a month, it feels like forever- i've been off looking after my daughter, who was born on the 2nd May. Honestly, she's the best thing ever, I absolutely adore her! Sleep can be hard to come by, and its all a bit of a learning curve, but hey that's what we signed up for! So the updates may be a bit more sporadic compared to before, but I'll keep moving forward with everything.

Moving along to the hobby side of things- I've learned to paint in the small windows of opportunity that are given to me in between changing nappies/clothes and other baby tasks, and to be honest I think I'm getting quicker at painting.

Ulrik The Slayer- James' B'day present

I picked up Ulrik earlier in the year from an eBay seller, with the intent of rejuvenating him as a birthday present for my mate James as he has a Space Wolf army and also as something a bit different to try. This is the 'mystery guest' i hinted at a while ago. When I received the mini I found that the prior paint-job was extremely thick- most of the detail was obscured with a black/grey/gold scheme from a long time ago. Ulrik took a bath in the Simple Green for a while before being rinsed off and then had his mold lines cleaned up. I then spray undercoated him black and over the last few nights I gave him this quasi-retro paintjob. Its about 50% faithful to the GW 'Eavy Metal incarnation and the other half is what i wanted to try. For example, his grenade is painted green- the majority of 2nd edition marines had green grenades, and he's a 40k 2nd edition mini ('94 or '95 i think?) so thats what he got.


Although I gave him some shiny armour highlights and a glow for his Plas pistol I tried to limit his colour palette and use washes for the gold and the helmet and skulls as James' own army is done with a limited palette (which looks really good!) and I wanted him to tie in with them- this is also why his base isn't done as James is yet to decide on how to base his army.

So anyways, happy (belated) birthday mate, I hope to see Ulrik across the tabletop sometime soon...









Ork Rokkit Wartrakk/Buggy!!

As is the case from time to time, I stumble across some inspiring Ork scratchbuilds on the net, but I've never been taken with a mini quite like this. Its one guy's take on the Wartrakk/buggy from the PC game "Dawn of War", and the instructions for building it can be found at the following link: Irondog Studios- Wartrakk Tutorial. I'd also recommend that you check the rest of the website out, there is some unreal projects and commission works that really fire off the imagination.

Its actually quite simple to construct, provided you've got the parts and some patience, but the results are awesome. My first assembled trakk here is going to have a rokkit boy driver- he reloads the rokkits from his backpack supply- and I feel its a decent use for the three rokkit boyz I bought recently- I could pay the 16pts for a boy with Rokkit Launcha in an Ork Mob, and he may never get close enough to a viable target, however for 40pts I get a rokkit equipped buggy which is a fast vehicle, the rokkits are twinlinked and as a vehicle its fearless. I think a skwadron of 3 for 120pts is great- cheaper than the 45pts for a similarly armed Deffkopta (although I'll most likely run a few of these as well in the same list). I also have the option of giving them the "wartrakk" option which limits them to 12" only but allows for re-rolls on failed terrain tests- I'll possibly use this for city/urban games. These guys will be tasked with popping transports, hitting enemy MCs, or swoop in to contest objectives on the last turn, whereas the Koptas will be used more to alpha-strike or tie up heavy weapons squads.
 
Progress on "Da Ladz"

In the small windows of opportunity I get some days I've been getting some painting done on my Deathskull Boyz. I was always resigned to the fact that I wasnt going to make it to Wintercon this year due to my Daughter's birth as well as my Orks not being painted enough. However I'm thinking that ANUCON in mid-late October will be achievable, being that its 4 and a half months away and only 1500pts (compared to Wintercon's 1850). While 350 points isnt much, consider that my 30strong boyz mobs only come to 245pts- 350pts is a huge amount where horde armies are concerned.

So this is where I stand so far- 16 boyz done (a few need some washes and small details done), from a total of 60 for the two mobz- at least I'm now over a quarter done. Once these guys are sorted I then have 9 Killa Kans to complete as well as a Deffdread (who is currently en-route from the USA), 2 Deffkoptas, a KFF Big Mek and a full 15 Burna Boyz. So I've got a fairly busy 4 months ahead of me...