One year on! Comings, goings and Waaagh!

Holy moly, it's been a year to the day since my last post! Been majorly involved with a load of big changes in real life- moved house, new baby on the way and a new job role. These have all conspired one way or another to slow my hobby down, but no more! So without further ado, here's what's going down in hobby town... 

Gone!

The Dark Angels were sold off a few months back as I'd finally reached my tipping point with them- whilst my love for the First Legion continues, I wasn't enjoying them as an army anymore. A young fellow here in Canberra bought them, so maybe I'll see them around some time.

So long old friends!!

Orks 2.0! 

Yep, there's a new greenskin force in the works- it's sitting around 2300-odd points at the moment and slowly getting painted up. Looking to go Deathskulls clan again but with a slightly warmer set of complimentary colours (reds, purple, yellow/black hazard stripes). This new force has more infantry compared to the old walker-heavy roster, but you can better believe that I'll be including some Kans and Deffdreads soon. At least there's a Morkanaut in there for some stompy goodness...

Here's some of the Kommandos I converted up- greenstuff, backpacks and stikkbombs for all!

Fantasy! Warriors of Chaos

Yeah, so I finally got around to buying a Warhammer Fantasy army. Whilst they are still all sealed in boxes it's great to think I'll have a fantasy army up and running (hopefully) soon. Like the Orks, a close combat oriented army, although I've recently bought a lot of old early 90s metal sorcerers so there'll be some serious casting going on. Hope to get some updates for them up soon.

Gaming?

There's been a bit of sporadic battle recently- a large 40,000pt + Apocalypse game with the CNSG (Canberra Northern Suburbs Gaming) lads for the club's open day, and a smaller 12k team battle (pictured below). The Orks participated in both battles and acquitted themselves well- the new codex takes some getting used to but there's a lot to like!

Here's some pics from the 12k battle.

Oh and as a final note- got some colour put down on the Warlord Titan. He's looking pretty nifty in red.

Fifth Edition- the Final Hurrah + more Ork stuff

So today i'm going to rattle on about something that the rest of the 40K community is no doubt talking about themselves, the imminent release of 6th Edition. Its now been announced that the release date for this latest incarnation will be the 30th of June, with pre-orders having started yesterday (23rd) for most of the bits and pieces- normal rulebooks, collectors and gamers editions, and all the new tape measures, dice, psychic cards etc... all in all, its going to be a huge launch.

So what of the game itself? Well its interesting to see that a lot of the rumours were true, or at least partially true. Here's a small selection of the things i'm most looking forward to.

1. Close combat weapons now have an AP value. This is awesome. Ease of wounding is still handled by the strength of the attacker, but actually defeating armour is based on what is in their hands, as before, but- there is no on/off switch like the old power weapon rule. And if the rumours are true, power axes/ swords are AP3, and Powerfist/Klaws etc are AP2, meaning that whilst powerweapons are still around they represent the top of a scale that winds all the way back to AP6, though every CC weapon in the game. I'll be very interested to see what AP they give to Chainswords and Uge Choppas for my Dark Angel and ORk armies respectively. Oh, and i'm seeing Terminator survivability in close combat becoming pretty impressive against some armies.
2. Grenades are now thrown (or can be, as well as as CC against vehicles /entering combat?) This one harks back to 2nd edition, where the grenades had some of the wildest effects imaginable- I vividly recall the crazy results that Hallucinogen grenades used to inflict on my foes, or the smoke, plasma or blind grenades.. Whilst I'm not expecting the return of all these different grenade types, what I'm hearing is a return to offensive use of the humble hand grenade. Hey, if you can shoot em from a grenade launcher, you should be able to throw them at a target as well.
3. Wounds from shooting being taken from the front back. Thank you! One for realism- hit by a torrent of firepower, your troops at the front take the brunt of the attack. This is how it happens in real life!! No idea on whether the special, heavies or sgts (etc) fare, as normally these guys miraculously survive (or it represents their companions picking up their wargear?) with generic plebs taking the hits.And the general removal of the whole wound allocation shenangigans is a breath of fresh air, does one guy holding a different weapon to his teammate next to him make him more/less susceptible to being removed as a casualty? No, it does, and never should have. So chalk one up for a sense of 'realism' (if you can apply that to a game set 38,000 years in the future).
4. Psychic powers on the comeback!! To be honest, unless you've played Fantasy or can remember 2nd edition you may not really understand until the new edition hits. Psychic powers are some of the most fun elements to use on the battlefields of the future, and adds another element to the game. 5th edition kind of dulled it down to 'supporting powers' and 'shooting powers', but im hopeful of some more enviroment/game changing effects.
5. Psychology. Word on the street is that Terror (and maybe Fear?) are coming back, meaning certain actions against a Terror/Fear causing unit can only be accomplished after a succesful Ld test. Again, really really good. Guardsmen (or anyone else TBH) should not  be able to assault a Bloodthirster without some apprehension and the possibility of standing around wetting themselves. Prior editions only had you test after you lost combat, now the door swings both ways (again).

And thats all I can really think of just now for 6th Ed. Wont go into any negatives, as I have no real gripes so far, and its not really my style. If you want to go see what all the ranting is about, try any of the major 40K forums :)

Moar Dakka!!!

Its been a busy week for me here, with some illness and late nights with the baby, as well as some very slow/delayed progress on my Orks. I've now completed my Deff Dread build, and was able to set the bottom arm mounts up with magnets, so i can swap the weapons out as needed. For now its running with an extra CCW (3 total) and a Skorcha (heavy flamer). I've only just been able to start throwing some base colours and check patterns on, and TBH i think this is how it'll stay for a while.

Conversely, i've finished the construction of a second Rokkit-equipped Buggy/Trakk, once again piloted by a Rokkit-boy with a packpack full of ammo. I've almost got enough spare parts kicking around for a third, except i need another 6 tank wheels- a full 'skwadron' of three is my goal.  For now these guys are running basic colours, and the drivers havent been painted up yet- they're just blu-tacked in place.

      
And i've also gotten round to adding magnets to all my Ork infantry- they can now be transported quickly and safely on a metal serving or baking tray, instead of jumble up in a box like they've had to endure previously. This took quite a while to do, as I had to cut small sqaures of plasticard (about 1.5mm thick) to space the magnets close enough to the bottom of the base so they'd grab solidly. Im pretty impressed at how strong they are, none of them move at all, even with the tray inverted or hanging sideways. Eventually all the Orks will be magnetised, and i'll move them around on a custom built wooden carrier tray, using a 1mm sheetmetal surface, but this will do for now.

Next up will be a small Bat-rep from a 'Final Fifth' tourney on the 30th at one of the LGS's, which will be my last game of 5th edition- its 4 games at 1200pts, with the emphasis on fun, i'm really looking forward to it. I've also pre-paid for my copy of the 6th edition rulebook, which i'm picking up there as well. All in all, its gonna be a very exciting weekend!!

Cheers,
Tempest

Persistence pays off

Welcome back for another update!

I've been steadily plugging away at both my Deathskulls and Dark Angels for the last couple of weeks, getting between half and hour and three hours painting in most evenings, and its really paying dividends. I've now got 10 Boyz painted up to a nice standard (see previous posts), and have completed all the basic green power armour on my two Tactical squads and one Devastator squad. Its hard to see at the start of a painting task exactly how you will make it to the end- the job in front of you can look insurmountable, but with discipline any job can be completed. And so it is with all these previously untouched minis that they are now starting to come along really well!

So for the Orks thats 10 from 60 boyz done- exactly 1/6th, or a third of a full mob. Its taken a bit longer than expected, as I think my initial "45 mins to an hour" projection per boy was at the very least highly optimistic. The extended paint time come from me now using four different browns for the clothing and straps and three washes for the skin, being Devlan and Gryphonne all over, then Badab applied into the deepest recesses of the face and arm muscles. I couldnt be happier with the result I have a really good rich green skin tone going on, the colours all over the orks interact well and they all have random armour plating damage and checks/dags in blue and white. And, to be honest i'm getting quicker at painting, and finding new techniques and colour/wash combos that speed things up. The three boys in the picture above are part of the first batch of ten (which includes a nob and big shoota boy)

Just to show you how overkill I've gone, here's the selection of paints i'm using for the boyz mob (and will use on the rest of the army as well), and I'm even missing Gryphonne Sepia from the shot as well.... so its easily 20+ colours, but im 'only' (ha!) using about 12-13 per mini so they maintain a random colouring.

Speaking of which, im enjoying the yellows, reds, oranges and other 'spot' colours that draw the eye, they contrast nicely with the blue/white panoply on the rest of the armour, and realyl brings out that "looted" look to show that the lads will steal anything that isnt nailed down! Hoping to go a bit further with the Kans, Vehicles and the Stompa, with some partial Imperial insignia showing on larger plates of sheet metal to show that they've been looted to effect battle repairs.

Will try to get some progress pics up of the Dark Angel Squads, although they still aren't much to look at just yet- dark green and  black power armoured marines!

Next up: things are going to get a little bit 'Epic'!! Yep, we are going to go small small small scale!

Until then, cheers!
Tempest :) 

Abbadon: The Resurrection, and Ork Boyz paint scheme

Abbadon Returns!

Prior to our last weekend's 4K per side stoush at Adam's place I was required to remove Abbadon from the murky green bath of Simple Green concentrate that he's been living in for a while now, so that Ash could use him to lead his army. With him pulled out it could be seen that his old paintjob was lifting off everywhere, just what we want! I then placed him in a rigid plastic container, grabbed my garden hose and set the nozzle to 'jet'- a really sharp narrow high pressure stream of water (can bruise skin at close range), and blasted the Despoiler for about a minute. I think the following picture shows the results best- back to base metal :)

The slight "grey textured" look was just discolouration of the metal, its all smooth and even and hadn't done anything to the details at all. I then submerged Abbadon in a jar of straight tap water for an hour, emptied it and then gave him another hit with the jet. This wasnt to remove any more paint- it was already completely gone- but to remove any remaining traces of Simple Green. With this concluded i left him out in the sun for an hour, then brought him inside and reassembled him and when he was at room temp I re-undercoated him with 3 nice thin coats of Chaos Black undercoat spray. He then hit the tabletop the very next day and celebrated by carving his way through numerous Imperial Guard and Space Wolves squads and even destroyed a Land Raider Redeemer. Bat rep coming on that one really soon!

So in summary I'm very happy with how well he came up, Pedro Kantor is next on the cleanup list and should return the same results- his paint appears even more loose, I think the majority will just peel off all in one go!

Waaaagh!!! Paintjob now decided for the boyz
Sat down last night with the normal tuesday night animated show marathon on 7 Mate and decided to pull my finger out and work out a scheme for the 60 Ork boys I have. As always, this was preceded by a huge amount of google searching to see what others have done, what colour combos work and what id need to buy. Thankfully I was able to settle on a scheme that I have all the paints for, looks good and is easy to paint (within reason- I do tend to make things hard for myself). So behold, a not-so-good photo of what I came up with (i'll try to get a better pic later), this is actually a lot darker than the mini looks- all the colours are muted looking where in real life they are lot richer.

The main basis for the scheme is several differing shades of brown for the fatigues, pants, boots and straps that hold the armour on. The armour plating, guns, choppa blade and haft, rivets, buckles and boot toecaps are all boltgun metal. And the skin is Knarloc Green with a liberal Thraka Green wash, with a Devlan mud wash in the deepest arm muscle and face features recesses, then Knarloc Green reapplied on the raised areas and a final thinned highlight of camo green.

Everything gets a Devlan mud wash to shade and tie the colours together, especially the creases on the pants. A great tip to remember when using large all over thick washes is to hang the model upside down, this way the washes pool up "under" the areas that should be shadowed naturally. I then go back over most of the areas that i've washed and reapply the base colour again on the most raised sections, and a thin highlight if appropriate.



The boyz will also have a bit of battle-damage on their armour plating as can be seen in the picture, with the blue/white paint giving way to a black undercoat which then gives way to the bare metal underneath- this is best represented on the choppa. I also gave the choppa blade some dried blood on its edge, this is just very watered down dark flesh applied in a random fashion.

The spot colours for the boyz will be randomly applied red, orange, purple, bright green here and there- hair, gun pieces, wrist or arm bandages, straps, belts or whatnot. Im also looking to add some fluffy flavour- pieces of armour, clothing or weaponry lifted from other clans, primarily the Evil Sunz, Blood Axes or Bad Moons, due to the different colours and patterns they have. I'm not going to bother with anything looted from the Goffs- i've got enough white checked stuff in my army already, and anything with black and white checks is mainly just going to look like I've left something unfinished!!

This initial paintup took about 1.5 hours when you factor out the drying time for the two washes, including umming and ahhing about what colours to use. Im fairly hopeful that the next bunch of boyz will only take 45 minutes to an hour tops to get to the same standard now that all the hard decisions have been made.        

So, I'm done for now- hope you liked this small update!

Cheers,
Tempest  

Second Sphere competition entry- Deathskull Looted Wagon

Wow, talk about being busy! I've had nearly no time to sit down and paint or do anything hobby related since the week before the last big Apoc game as we've been getting stuck into some major home renovations and landscaping upgrades. While this is all well and good it does mean that I've felt bad about neglecting the hobby, and in turn my Blog. I'm hoping to pick up the pace again over the Xmas-New Year's break as i'm not going anywhere or doing anything major, so unless something appears straight out of left field then I should get some more painting and posts completed.

so, on to the topic at hand. I was trawling through a few of my favourite 40K-centric forums the other day and saw that entries for the Second Sphere Heavy Support contest was ending very soon. With my Deathskull Orks recently base coloured I thought it might be best to complete one of the mini/s from their as a submission, however there was a few issues...

The first was time- i'd glanced at this contest ageeeees ago when the rules and details were first put up online, and in the back of my mind had locked in the 22nd of December as the submission deadline. Lucky I looked at the rules post again, because the submission date was actually the 21st, with the voting starting from the 22nd! So I was trying to complete my entry on the last day for submissions to be accepted!! I wish I could say this was the only time this has happened but I'd be lying through my teeth. However, as history shows this is usually when I'm at my most productive- nothing like a looming deadline to get tasks out of the way!!

The second issue I had was with choice- in my current Ork army I have 3 Killa Kans, 2 Battlewagons and a Looted Wagon (with Boomgun) as possible HS choices, all of which were done up in their base colouring- Hawk Turquoise blue, Devlan Mud washed, Boltgun Metal drybrushed, with a nice Blazing orange "rust effect", with random white checks and dags. But which of these to do up?

• Battlewagons- although super cool and imposing, I opted against finishing one of these as there was way too many small details remaining to be painted, and to look good enough to stand a chance of winning I'd have to paint up the crew in their gun cupolas, grabbin claw hatch and the two ladz in the tray manning the big shootas. Im thinking that once both Bwagons are completed i'll be happy to chuck one into the "Transports" competition which comes up early on 2S every year.
• Killa Kans- I literally had a Kan in hand last night about to apply paint to model when I decided against it- whilst i've used Devlan Mud wash to highlight all the hydraulics of the engines, legs and arms/weapons of these models I feel that i'd regret rushing their paintjobs to make a competition deadline. All in all the Kans are my favourite models in the armym, and this persuaded me to work on them with a bit more care and to take my time. Sorry ladz- i'll get to you soon though!
• Looted Wagon- so yes, eventually the Wagon got the go-ahead for a quick completion job to make the competition deadline. The blue was touchup up with some more stippling in the middle of the panels to brighten it up and make the paintjob "pop". When doing this I stayed away from panel edges, joins and 'damaged' parts of the tank where the Devlan wash and Blazing Orange "rust" was found. I also gave the tracks and wheels a quick hit of Boltgun Metal (they were still in black undercoat), folowed by a single heavy wash of Devlan. The majority of the time spent was on the twin pistols (with leather holsters), banner pole and icon strapped to the back of the turret- ironically, when I ended up taking the photos and picking out the three to submit you really cant see any of tthe detail or time that went into this work. I also went back and applied a second hit of thinned/semi-wash Blazing Orange to the current rusty parts of the tank where I felt the colour should be more pronounced, with pure dots of the colour applied where large orange bubbles of rust should show through.

With all my painting done, it was time to get some photos. Some people like to photograph outside in natural light, but if you're like me then you'll want more control- for this reason I use what is commonly referred to as a 'light box". Put simply, a lightbox is a box (OMG no way!) with a bright colour on some or all of its internal walls to reflect light around the object placed in the middle of the box. My lightbox is a carboard carton originally used to hold reams of A4 printer paper- i've cut one side out so its now two side walls, a back wall and floor, all of which have had white A4 paper glued into place. I've then used a pure white energy saving globe (i've found these to provide excellect illumination with almost no colour distortion) positioned just above the camera that i've used for the photos. As for that Camera? Its simply just my iPhone 4 camera sitting on a small wooden block, with the "HDR" photo setting turned on. All I do is get some focus on the model, move the light source around until i'm happy with what I see and start snapping off shots- sometimes the HDR gives better detail shots, other times it might wash some colour out, so it gives two photo versions to select from.

Anyhow, less talk more pics- here's the comp entry photos that I ran with.  You may note that I painted a small 'kill marking' on the turret, as the Looted Wagon has so far been able to destroy a Leman Russ Battletank (a few months back at ANUCON), I thought it only fitting that the crew would mark this somewhere. Its not exactly Orky in how it looks but I reckon it looks cool!

I love how the triangular dags on the turret blastshielding look three-dimensional, even though its just painted on.

A closeup of the turret, showing the Killa Kan "pogo" legs that I used as recoil suppressors.

The competition entry thread will be up a day or two's time (competition committee are generally all UK-Europe based), so make sure to have a look and cast a vote if something takes your fancy!

Thanks for looking!

Tempest :)

 

   

40,000 points of devastation! Apoc Battle Report

Well, it finally happened- on the 26th of last month we finally ran the Apocalypse I’ve been talking about for a while now with seven players in total and a thrown together Ork army being run by Adam and I to even things up. The players and their respective armies were as follows:

Colin- Daemons

Ash- Necrons/Chaos/Renegade Marines

Ross- Hawk Marines

Alan- Imperial Guard/ Space Wolves

And on the other side of the table-

Adam- Imperial Guard (Armoured Company)

Brendan- Grey Knights and Eldar

Me- Dark Angels

Shared Army- Goff and Deathskull Orks

The game was run without any objectives to capture, as we were using straight up Victory Points which proved to be relatively painless as everyone was required to provide two half-point costs listed against each and every unit on their list (including vehicles and transports) so that points could be given to the player that earned them for taking a squad to less than half starting models/ immobilised for vehicles, and also for wiping out/destroying the unit.

Terrain was laid out in a relatively open manner, with Adam’s landing pad being the centrepiece for the game right in between both forces. The table deployment line was set with standard Apoc rules using the scatter dice and a line to the diagonal opposite table edge, with the ping-pong table side having a very large deployment area and the grey table side a much smaller and more compact area- my team bid 30 minutes for deployment vs 4 minutes for the other boys. They decided to take the larger deployment zone and they put down what they could in four very frantic minutes, with the exception of Ash who was on his way and would deploy in the second turn. On his behalf though, his allies had placed his (made by me!) Doomsday Device up on the deployment line where it could cause havoc. Never let it be said that a flickering LED candle inserted into a ping-pong ball, inserted into a plastic screw container is not threatening...

Our team put down everything except for my Dark Angels (sniper scouts did deploy though), all our flyers and Brendan’s Eldar grav-tanks. The main battleline was comprised of two Stompas- each with a Kustom Force Field Big Mek- being placed 2 feet apart, with a full 111- strong Ork “Green Tide” Apocalypse Formation in between them- being infantry they were covered by the KFF bubble giving them a 5+ cover save from ranged attacks! In front of each Stompa was a mob of Kanz, Nob-filled Battlewagons beside them, and a Deff Dread in front of the left Stompa. Behind this front line was row upon row of Leman Russ Battletanks and Demolishers, Chimeras, Heavy Weapons Squads and two Shokk Attack Meks- one in the bamboo trees, the other on the extreme right in the stone fortress with a bunch of Burna boys, and backing all these units up was two Baneblades on the right and a formation of Basilisks on the very back table edge.

Our opposition had a full complement of Daemons on the left side of their deployment line, in a “Tetragon of Darkness” Apoc Formation, Daemon meaning that whilst the key Greater still lived, all units in this Formation were extremely hard to see/hit, as all our shooting at them would be using the Night- Fighting rules. Ross’s Hawk Marines anchored the middle and the right flank with Tactical-Squad- filled Rhinos, and several Land Raiders, with a small Assortment of Space Wolves, Leman Russ’s and a Baneblade, with a scary back-line made of Basilisks and a single Deathstrike Vortex Missile Formation (Alan plays for keeps in Apoc!)

And so without further ado, here is the turn by turn rundown of the incredible destruction, heroics and sacrifice that made this such a phenomenal battle!

Turn 1:

•With all launch protocols satisfied and with the Lord Commisar’s approval the mighty Vortex Missile flies skywards on a trail of fire. Arcing downwards it explodes next to an Ork Stompa, destroys an IG Command Squad in their Chimera as well as vacuuming up a Battlewagon with its full complement of “Deathstar” Nobs and their Warboss! The resulting Vortex template that remains spends the rest of the game wandering around randomly eating Leman Russ tanks, scaring famed Chaos Warlords and blocking unit movement.

•A squad of screamers breaches the disruption field and destroys 3 artillery vehicles on their next turn.

•The Dark Angel Sniper Scouts joined up with the Ratlings when infiltrating deep in the enemy backline to harass the Deathstrike and Basilik artillery guns and the squads guarding them, with an unofficial contest starting up to see who would make the most kills.

•The Goff stompa poured out more than 70 shots from the psycho-dakka blasta, killing Ku’gath Plaguefather and nullifying the tetragon of darkness. The Deathskull Stompa followed suit with 60 plus shots into the tactical squads in front of it, wiping out two of the three and sending the surviving Sgt fleeing in his Rhino in the next turn.

•Seeing the main landing pad in front of them as a hindrance, the Linebreaker Formation of Vindicators annihilate the installation, leaving only a smoking flaming set of craters, opening up lines of fire and setting the stage for the most brutal of close combats.

•Commissar Yarrick and an entire platoon hid away inside their tanks for an entire game! What a Hero...

•A unit of Deathwing teleports deep behind enemy lines to shoot up the basilisks, blowing up one.

•Due to limitations on deployment space, the Marine Hawk Landraiders (particularly the Terminus Ultra) and the Razorback were all out of range in the first turn – a tactical disadvantage as the first turn was theirs to fire away. This meant that five twin-linked lascannons and three single lascannons missed a turn of firing with a large mechanised Ork horde closing in.

Turn 2:

•The Marauder Bomber lines up its run but is forced to disengage due to the heavy screen of AA fire streaming up in its sector.

•The Deathknell Orbital Strikforce lands to the right of the Goff Stompa, a full complement of 50 Terminators and a Dreadnought.  They were initially targeting the middle of hte Green Tide, but were sent off course by the Disruptor Beacon just behind the Ork lines.

•The Last member of the Platoon Command squad guarding the artillery up the back takes a Rending shot through each eye from the Ratlings.

•Sly Marbo appears to deliver some C4 pizza to the Deathwing, killing four of them. He is then shot into pieces of dogmeat by the Stormbolter of a vengeful DA Terminator Chaplain.

•An IG Veteran squad wander out of their Valkyrie, fail to hit anything except TKing half their own squad with a demo charge, but finally manage to destroy a Leman Russ in assault before being virtually wiped out.

•A lone Dark Angel Predator Annihilator rolls up on the right side table edge to engage Abbadon’s Land Raider but fails to penetrate with its main lascannon turret. It was then swiftly destroyed by a swarm of scarabs that ate through its armour and reduced it to a smoking hole-riddled hulk.

•The DOOMSDAY DEVICE (must be capitalised!) becomes “active” but doesn’t bring any effect out just yet. Unreasonable demands are made that our team hands over all our Blue Cheese or the Chaos Lord will visit ruin upon our world. We resolve to just destroy the DD and hang onto our delicious dairy products... 

•The Orks start laughing and pointing to the sky, where several massive flaming shapes can be seen- giant asteroids pulled into orbit by tracktor beams. However the massive Roks miss the battlefield by a wide margin, denying the greenskins the devastating strike they were hoping for.

•The Ravenwing Landspeeder deepstrikes next to a Baneblade and opens up with its Multi-Melta, destroying the super-heavy’s main gun before being destroyed by retaliatory Leman Russ fire.

•Azrael, Belial, the Terminator Chaplain and a Squad of Deathwing engage the Bloodcrushers, supported by a mob of Stormboyz and a Dark Angel Assault Squad led by a Company Master. The  Bloodcrushers are wiped out with only a few casualties from the Assault Marine squad

•The 100+ strong Green Tide Ork mob smashes into the daemons in the cratered ruins of the landing pad, dealing out over 350 attacks on the charge to the three units they engage, as all of them are in range to get their attacks and only a few boyz are lost in to the Daemons first strikes! The Daemons are severely depleted but there are more queuing up behind them for a go... the ladz care not- WAAAGH!!!

•Another swarm of scarabs eat through the armour of one of the Baneblades, reducing it to 0 AV and the tank is destroyed.

•The Dark Angel Assault Marines are caught in a blast from the nearby Baneblade’s Demolisher cannon, wiping them all out except for the Jump-pack Company Master who survives thanks to his Iron Halo. Realising that the warmachine is out of his league he goes hunting infantry instead.

•The Daemon Prince and Greater Daemon assault one of the Shokk attack Meks and his burna boyz, turning the mek into a Chaos Spawn in the process. They are only destroyed later on by the timely intervention of two Grey Knight Dreadknights. 

Turn 3:

•The Dark Angel Company Master leaps into the central bunker to assault and wipeout a squad of Long Fangs, but only just survives with one wound remaining.

•The techpriest enginseer charges in against the scarabs to save the second baneblade, but gets eaten. Its all those delicious augmetics... nom nom nom. Thats 1000VPs earnt by the one small swarm alone!

•The DOOMSDAY DEVICE sends out two giant beams of death, striking both Stompas like hammer-blows- the Deathskull machine is immobilised and has its Deathcannon destroyed, and the Goff Stompa is reduced to two structure points. In the Ork’s turn the Deathskull Mek waltzes out onto the arm and beats it with his wrench until it powers up again.

•The Dark Angel Devastators and Whirlwind were deployed in a position behind the main Ork battleline waiting for the expected Daemon breakthrough, but never had any chance to hit enemy units as the swirling combat in the centre continued on for three full turns as the Orks refused to break and just continued crushing everything thrown at them.

•The Goff Stompa charges in and carves a Chaos Fellblade in half, the explosion taking out several nearby renegades and Necron warriors. It is finally destroyed by a squad of Terminators, its own explosion taking one of them out.

•The three armoured sentinels behind the Deathskull Stompa open fire on the Linebreaker Vindicator squadron, destroying one and stunning the others with one round of shooting, achieving a result where the rest of their comrades had failed previously.

Turn 4 (Last Turn- time constraints):

• The demon princes that got scattered on deepstrike arrival end up killing the chapter master of the Grey Knights and destroying a Stormraven.

• Azrael, Belial and the remaining Deathwing engaged Logan Grimnar and his Wolfguard, with both sides fighting to a draw as the game ended.

•A Squad of Veterans jump from their valkyrie, shooting the baneblade with three meltas and destroying it, stealing the VPs from the Fire Dragons who were too busy reloading their guns!

•The Dark Angel jump-pack Chapter Master attacks a nearby Landraider, strapping a meltabomb onto its hull and immobilising it in the explosion.

•Massed Leman Russ, Demolisher, Conqueror and Chimera firepower finally wipes out the last of the Deathknell-Formation Terminators

•Abaddon and his squad deigned to grace the pitiful mortals with his presence, leaving his Landraider finally! However, a Shokk Attack gun and some IG heavy weapons teams culled his entire squad and knocked him down to just one wound. He also spent a nervous turn watching the Vortex template disappear and then reappear beside him.

•Changeling saving Ku’ros Fateweaver from being charged by some nobs by making them shoot a Killa Kan instead.

•The deff dread in the centre loses a combat arm and its skorcha, then advancing between two burning vehicles to destroy a necron squad in close combat.

•The Marauder finally makes an appearance, having previously turned back due to long-range Ack Ack fire, it drops its full complement of bombs on a squad of Necrons Warriors and some Daemons, blowing them into small pieces.

•One lone Tzeentch Flamer survives two rounds of combat with the grey knights squad that killed the rest of its squad, beating all the odds!

The Result:

So, the final result was a win for my team, with 11,220 VPs, and the opposing team ran up 8271 VPs, a very decisive victory no matter how you look at it! 

Photos!

Here’s an assortment of pictures from the day, showing the insane scale and destruction that a 40,000pt battle entails:



Our team's deployment line

110 Boyz and a Warboss- Greentide!

The Linebreaker Formation annihilates the landing pad!

Deathknell Orbital Strikeforce teleports and drops in after a massive lance strike to clear the ground.

Da Ladz suss out the competition, but ultimately decide to go Daemon bashing! 

Necrons and Chaos deploy after being initially delayed.

Abbadon declares his intentions to all and sundry, presses the big red button and the Doomsday Device powers up! The Bloodthirster appears impressed!

New-codex scarabs vs Baneblade- 600VPs to the small metal swarm after eating the superheavy to pieces.

The Greentide about to crash into the Daemons, with the two Stompas hosing everything with their Supa Gatlers

Flyers strike deep behind our lines

the Kan decides to destroy a Drop pod as a last act of defiance before the Terminator's crush it to bits! (My flaming wreckage markers worked so good- flickering LED candle hot-glued inside pillow stuffing, with black spray on the outside!) 

The stompa scythes the Chaos Baneblade "Storm Of Chaos" into ruin! 

The Bloodcrushers are assaulted by the Dark Angels and a small unit of Stormboyz, whilst the Wraithlords and Deff Dread advance on the Doomsday Device.

The Assault Marines, Dark Angel Lords and Deathwing plan their next move.

The Marauder finally appears, weaving through the smoke-filled skies to deliver a huge payload to the Necrons and Daemons below. The very left flaming wreckage is the remains of the Linebreaker squadron.

The raw numbers...

And a couple of graphs showing the end VP results- the battle for MVP on the other team went down to the wire and was only won by Alan by a margin of 39 points!! And its obvious to see why my team won this battle- the Orks came storming out of the gate from the start and kept pouring on the death, culminating in a massive 1700+ VPs haul on the third turn alone (which is more than my Dark Angels scored all day!)

So what next?

Well, seeing how a lot of people are going to be tied up over the next 4-6 weeks with Christmas, New Years and things like Cancon its looking unlikely that there will be another Apoc until at least mid- to - late February. This in itself isnt a bad thing, as a few more people should be available to participate in the next game, and the returning players should have that extra time to complete new units or paint up what they have. It also gives me some time to build a nice shiny centrepiece terrain structure for the next game, i'm thinking of a large Manufactorum or Ork Fortress.

ANUCON 2011 wrap-up and Ork list thoughts

ANUCON 2011 has been run and won, and from what i could gather everyone had a great time- me included! My Deathskull Orks acquitted themselves quite well in their first ever tournament outing, and where things went against me I gained invaluable experience and insight into my choices, tactics and what i should do next time. For the record, my list looked like this:

• Warboss with Pklaw, Cybork, Bosspole, t/l shoota
• Big Mek with a Shokk Attack Gun
• 5 Nobz, with Waagh Banner, all with eavy armour and uge choppas, mounted in a Battlewagon with reinforced ram, 3 big shootas, grabbin klaw, extra armour, grot riggers. Counted as Troops.
• Boyz x30, with a Nob (Pklaw, bosspole), 3 big shootas.
• Boyz x30, with a Nob (Pklaw, bosspole), 3 big shootas.
• Deffkopta with t/l rokkit launcha, buzzsaw (pklaw)
• Deffkopta with t/l rokkit launcha
• 3x Killa Kanz- grotzooka, rokkit launcha, big shoota
• Looted Wagon with ard case, boomgun
• Battlewagon with ard case, killcannon 

So, the things i learnt were:

Warboss is hard as nails! 5 Powerklaw attacks on the charge is messy for anyone, and the Boss sliced through everything thrown at him, the only time he copped a beating was a Wraithlord hitting him with a Wraithsword Str10 attack which i failed the Cybork invulnerable roll for. Otherwise, the pansy walker would have been cactus! In a mob of Nobz with a Waaagh! banner he's WS6, and the Nobz keep him alive long enough to do serious damage. Very pleased with how he turned out!

Shokk Attack Gun Mek- the one thing i will never do again is deploy my forces or based a strategy with any reliance on the Mek to hold the flank, pin an enemy unit or otherwise. First time i ever used him, he teleported himself and the gun directly into combat with the target he was shooting at, this unfortunately turned out to be a Commisar Lord with a power fist. He got a few punches in but the commisar and friends beat the Mek to a green pulp in short order. Further games saw him miss everything that he shot at (when generating high strength shots), hitting with low strength and generally being useless. I actually blame the terrain available to me in these games, I think on a few of the other boards out there he would have dominated, but most of the ones i got were restrictive and had crappy lines of sight. In his last two games, both of his first shots were his last- double 1s meant the shokk attack gun exploded and "removed from play" everything within 6 inches- what are the odds!! However, for his points, he adds so much flavour and randomness to the game that its hard to say no to him :) If anything, he can still be useful as an area denial weapon/psychological advantage, but its no fun if you dont shoot it now is it?

The Nobz dealt massive punishment to everything they came up against, and while their 'Uge Choppa attacks arent power weapons, they are Str7 on the charge, and a full squad punches out 20 of these on the charge at WS5 (yeah, that Waaagh banner is worth it!). Best moment was the Nobz and Boss annihilating an 8 man squad of Khorne Bezerkers without losing a single man, then casually waltzing back to cap an objective (as they are troops as per the Warboss). Only adjustment i'd make for future games is to throw Stikkbomb launchers onto their Battlewagon, as its cheaper to outfit this once, instead of paying loads for for stikkbombs on each nob and the boss.

The Ork Boyz- as is to be expected, they are the heart and soul of my army, and they worked a treat at the full capacity of 30 boyz. Previously i'd run with 3x 20 boyz mobz, but this only allowed for 10 casualties per mob before the Ork 'Mob Rule' couldnt be used (any mob of 11 or more models is counted as fearless). The larger mobz allowed for up to 20 casualties before i had to go anywhere near a leadership test, and even then I had the bosspole on each Nob for the all important re-rolls when I got below this point.

I have fond memories of one of the mobz charging a squad of Khorne Bezerkers, getting 90 standard and 3 powerklaw attacks- the bezerkers ending up as a fine mist of blood and some tattered rags of flesh, then the boyz swung round to shoot Kharn the Betrayer with 20+ slugga pistol shots, he dropped dead. A Greater Daemon of Khorne then engaged the boyz, who hacked it into pieces with 60+ attacks (didnt even need the pklaw), then they turned around to face the Chaos Dread that had assualted them from behind, the Nob tore it to pieces and the boyz were victorious! WAAAGH!!! < < < Sorry, I couldnt help it :)

Deffkoptas, i had two of these- one with a Buzzsaw (Pklaw) and one without, both had t/l rokkit launchas though. I ran them as seperate units, and to outflank to hit rear armour and assault or tie up artillery, nasty tanks etc. This worked in a few games, but not enough for me to be happy with them used only this way, i'm thinking of running 3-4 in squadrons (as even reduced to one, they can regroup because they are still 25% of original size). Definately more development needed with these units, although im sure they can be useful.

Killa Kanz- lesson learnt: Kanz will not survive close encounters with monstrous creatures!! AV11 gets carved to pieces quickly, and only through sheer luck will they get some hits back, as they are still just WS2. Against standard infantry they can be great, i'd even rate them against a terminator squad, but MCs are jsut a no go zone. In saying that though, the Kanz did end up dropping a Wraithlord in my last game, but it was already wounded and on its way out. When i get more kanz and can tailor the weapons loadouts i feel they'll be more uselful in a specific role, as opposed to the jack-of-all trades approach i had going on for this tourney.

Looted Wagon- my love for this unit increased tenfold. 1 in 6 chance of zooming forwards and losing shooting for a turn is offset by the Boomgun's profile, I obliterated a lot of pricey infantry with this tank (and scoring some great scatter results!). Wont change a thing, excellent value for its points. A second one will be coming up soon, with a boomgun as well, although i'm making Skorcha turrets for both using the weapons found in the Killa Kanz box. Being Deathskulls, i dont need to justify another piece of 'orkified' Imperial technology...

Battlewagons- the big rumbling monsters were the Rooks of my green and blue chess pieces, with the "gunwagon" and its Killcannon dependably slowly crawling 6" per turn and hammering away with its Ordinance gun. The transport Bwagon as used by the Nobz + Warboss was equally as potent, getting its cargo of frothing maniacs into close combat time and again without fail. AV14 front is very dependable, and the 12 side armour really isnt as bad as people might make out. Im still working out how best to use the Gunwagon, as its 24" Killcannon is a bit limited, but the transport wagon is great. Only changes there will be to swap out to a Dethrolla and maybe drop a couple of big shootas.

Okay so you're possibly bored from all that, so here's some shiny pics from the weekend.

Shokk Attack Mek opens his career with a teleport into Alan's Commisar Lord. Not a good opener...

Kanz v Kharn. the Kanz didnt make it :'( as Kharn hits like a MC... doh.

From another angle- the Bezerkers are moments away from their doom... 

The mob that beat down everyone! 

The Warboss and his entourage moved back towards the Battlewagon, waiting for the Wraithlord so they'd hopefully get the charge. Prior to this, they and the Kanz had decimated 10 Wraithguard and a Warlock in single round of combat!!  

As well as the photos shown here, i invite you to take a look at Luke's blog (he was the the tourney organiser). A great selection of pics can be found there, including a couple of my boys which i've included above. The link to the pics can be found here:

ANUCON 2011 Photos

As always, i'd love to hear from you if you have any feedback or thoughts on any of the above!

Cheers,
Tempest :)         

Scenery- the difference between a good game, and a great game

Okay, so the above is a bit of a opinionated statement but one that I personally think rings true. The scenery pieces and the table they sit upon is what can turn your game of "plastic men shooting each other from behind book piles" to "a bloody encounter between two heavily armed forces on the Imperial Forgeworld of XYZ etc". Simply put, scenery is what sets the scene.

I understand that the above paragraph may have some of you nodding your head in disagreement, but for me the lure of the game is the fact that we arent just rolling dice and using tactics to beat an opponent's forces- there is plenty more simplistic games out there that cover this requirement off without needing the spend the time and effort required for 40K. No, we are creating (or re-creating) a battle in the 41st millenium, in one of the richest sci-fi backgrounds thus created, so I feel that games should strive to be as immersive as possible- you aren't just looming over the table all god-like and omnipotent, you are down there with the men at ground level, seeing whats going on. And at eye level, thats when you want to see the nice stuff.

Whilst I can forgive unpainted minis (or even just base-coated/undercoated), a lack of simple terrain is a no-no for me. It really takes no time, effort or expenditure to cut out some different size carboard into boxes and glue together to create buildings. Or, to glue some cheap aquarium plants to a rounded wooden base to make clumps of vegetation. I've used both of the above examples to create terrain for my own games and
they help to set the scene.

Speaking of setting the scene, i went to a 3 per side team game last weekend at a friend's place. Whilst the majority of his terrain and scenery is GW store-bought, some pieces like the landing pad were scratchbuilt- all of them were fully painted and detailed though, and it was great. Playing on a table with flocked grasslands on one side and cratered wastelands on the other was great- we augmented this with some of my hills, trees and buildings that i brought along. We also had an Ork settlement in one corner, the aforementioned landing pad as our central objective and a river running through the green side of the board- this all added up to a great setting for our battle.

The game specifics were 1200pts per player, and comprised of "team evil" with the Deathskull Orks (Me), Goff Orks (Adam) and Daemons (Colin). "Team Good" was comprised of Salamanders (Ash), Grey Knights (Brendan) and Imperial Guard (Claire). Although the first few turns were decidedly in Team Evil's favour, it balanced out in the end with one objective a piece and the last one contested. Was a hugely enjoyable game, with no hassles, no powergaming and no arguements. Playing 40K on a table like this, with beautiful themed terrain pieces-thats what the hobby is about for me.

The board- nice terrain and tertured game surface pieces!

Da Boss decides to prune some trees, as well as the Salamanders camped in them...

The Battlewagon drove up the river the whole game, ploughing onwards with its reinforced ram!

Adam's Goff Orks, at deployment.

WAAAAGHH!!!

More Ork Progress- blue blue and more (rusty) blue...

Due to several tournaments looming i’ve decided to get moving quickly on my Orks. I’ve settled on the “Deathskulls” clan colours, which is a blue paintup of  the face/arm/hand/ random clothing of weapon, this appears to borrow from the Scots as immortalised in the film “Braveheart”. It doesn’t hurt that the original concept for the Orks was as a “rabble of wild warriors” as based on the historic Scottish Clansmen, so this colour and theme works extremely well. I also ran with this clan as I came up with an effective paintscheme for armour and vehicles.

The following is the process I used for all the blue that isn’t painted onto Ork skin. It appears convoluted, but once i got it sorted out it was very quick and easy- washes and drybrushing speed everything up.

Basecoat: Chaos Black Spray (Always!!!!) > single, even coating of Hawk Turquoise> thinned, watered down Blazing Orange (1:1 water to paint) run along all panel joins, dabbed around rivets etc > very light drybrush of Boltgun Metal> wash of Devlan Mud > stipple Hawk Turquoise back onto middle sections of armour, leaving rusty/washed/metal areas near the edges of the panel. The close ups of the Killa Kanz shows the end result best.

The Orks themselves had the blue painted onto their skin randomly, this will be washed over soon with Devlan Mud and then (like the skin) re-highlighted with the same blue again. Simple but striking!

The Battlewagon and Looted Wagon have both turned out great, the Looted Wagon actually exceeding my expectations- the welded on metal struts and spikes have given it a really Orky feel that I’m happy with. The big bad “boomgun” needs painting up and im thinking of throwing some razorwire around it, but aside from that its done.

My next post will be up soon as well, will be my new urban ruins terrain pieces- check in the next few days for an update!  (I figure that being a terrain and Minatures blog I should actually put some terrain up hey...)

Comments most welcome!