THE Challenge Game Approaches

So I begged and pleaded and got permission to head out Sunday morning and face Dave (aka Fallenangel_864) in a 3000 pts Battle Royale for all the cookies on the challenge board. Win or lose I'll be out of the Warmaster spot for players able to play more often as we made the game worth 2 tokens. See it live at the Battle Bunker starting at 10am.

In other news, I finished the Epic bikers except for basing and I started the Helltalons and Hellblades. Booya, they look sweet. Maybe have some pics by the weekend.

 

Hellblades!

Yesterday my Hellblade fighters arrived from Forge World. The first thing I noted was that they sure were small! Here they are primed and on stands beside the two finished Helltalon fighter-bombers:
 

You can't see awesome detail but its there. They are tiny compared to the Helltalons and Lighting attack fighters but I love the style. They look so perfect and make the Helltalon look even more menacing somehow in its sheer size. My plan is to finish the bikes and then paint up these six fighters and the other two Helltalons for 1000 pts of air power goodness.

After all that, I might even get to the Tank Factory! Here is it primed and assembled.
 

Better Pictures

Here are some better pictures of the completed farseer. The side shots are a little blurry, but the front and back are decent.
   

Now that I'm finished with the Farseer, I can get back to finishing the Chaos Epic army. New bikes were called for as I don't think I can recover the old plastic ones I have.

And then I'm working on the tank factory I got from Forge World as a centrepiece for battles. This thing is huge! Here it is beside my Banelord titan.

Farseer is Done

Presenting Farseer Ianthus on'Eld Canathiel, Seer of the True Path:

The lighting for these shots was not perfect, I'll try again tonight.

Smacked Upside the Head

I had game of Epic last night with Andy H and his Orks. With 3000 pts per side, I fielded:

Ravager Titan
Feral Titan
Platoon with havocs in rhinos
2 x Platoon in rhinos
Raptors (4) with 4 lesser daemons in daemon pool
2 x Forlorn Hope in rhinos
Terminators (6)

Orks:
Big Mob in battlewagons
2 x Mobs on foot
2 x tank formation
Stormboyz
Speed Freakz
Fightabombers (6)

I was slightly cocky with my massive marines so advanced them on the left flank to forward positions. The orks responded with lots of doubling and shooting and murdered several rhino transports before breaking my big platoon! Ouch! I underestimated his firepower. On the other side I took a quick lesson in Titan Killer weapons as the Feral titan took a Supa Zzap gun and lost two out of three damage points.

On turn two I withdrew from the killing field on the left flank hoping the orks would follow but Andy didn't bite and instead redeployed to the right flank where the Battle Titan and terminators were making an advance. The terminators broke under the fire of the Big Motorized Mob. Turn three the hustle for objectives began with both sides mostly maneuvuring and little damage being done (althought the fightabombers finished off the broken feral titan). Neither side had any goals accomplished so we went into turn 4.

The Terminators were assaulted by the big mob but their armoured held out leading to an even roll off... which I lost by 1. Drat! The Orks won the initiative for the first time this game and quickly choose to sustain fire their tank formation on the ravager. Since the Battle Titan only had one void shield the Supa Zzap guns and regular firepower took him down five damage points and got a critical. Broken, I tried to get away to survive and keep that one Objective out of his hands but the fightabombers swooped in for that last point of damage.

Still, after four turns we were tied 1 -1 . He had the Break Their Spirit objective with the downing of the Titan, while I had the They Shall Not Pass objective since Andy wisely protected his Blitz instead of mad-dashing into my half of the table. Darn orks are getting smarter!

We added up victory points and saw the Orks had an unsurprising and commanding lead: ~1700 to ~900.

Analysis:

Andy played a very strategic game with his orks this time and his timidity almost cost him. He had to pass a -1 init test for the speed freaks to just barely get back in time to prevent me from getting the blitz objective. Still, in the end his army was mostly intact while mine was not so happy.

For my part, I got overconfident with the power of my marines and rushed them into a killing zone in turn 1. Who knew orks could shoot? Although I still had the majority of my marines, their rhinos were mostly gone and the centre of the board belonged to orks. This allowed Andy to wisely re-deploy to take on the Ravager titan and Terminators and prevent my easy Blitz victory.

In the end, I seriously think taking a large titan when your opponent has none is a handicap. While the Ravager was fun, it was too many points in something fairly easy to take down. Turth be told, I didn't help my case by putting the darn thing off on a flank alone but I didn't expect the Feral titan to die so easily nor the terminators to break. Ah well, lesson learned.

Great game and I'll get my revenge on Andy next time!

How Cool is GW? I'll tell you...

I ordered an Epic Reaver battle titan from GW Mail Order a couple weeks back and the package arrived today. I opened it to find to my dismay that they sent me a Warlord battle titan instead.

I emailed them explaining the mixup and offering to mail the warlord back to them in exchange for a reaver. They responded quickly saying the Reaver titan was on its way and I could keep the Warlord! Wow, that is a class act. Love those guys.

No pics yet

Got some gravel on the base in a patch. Now to paint, and then apply the static grass. Pics on Tuesday most likely.

Started to work on the base

I finished as best I can at this point the farseer model itself and I started last night on the base with some long grass. I plan to put some patches of static grass and some sandy/rocky patches as well. Should take me into next week.

Weekend Wars

No warhammer or painting accomplished this weekend, but I did fight a war at the shopping mall to do some christmas shopping. Made some excellent progress too. And then on Sunday got a couple games of Horus Heresy in with Andrew in the afternoon. (He won).

I'm feeling a little under the weather today so don't expect painting progress tonight unless I start feeling much better. Meh.

Dear Corey.... Suck this!

 

Mr Farseer is coming right along. Got some runes on the sash, started the red sword hilt, highlighted the brown, got some more shades of blue on the eyes. Man, I'm loving the way this guy is turning out.

Victory!

A hollow one, but a victory nonetheless. Pictures and some details here.

The drop podding was fun and successful and I plan to integrate it into my normal lineup of tactics. The Feral titan was amazing at clearing out infantry with its short ranged decimator cannon, and even had some serious luck taking on the Revenant Titan and killing it. Woot. Definitely will make more appearances.

I'm sad I didn't get to use the Archangel of Despair very much. Failing that activation turn 1 where I wanted to marshal really sucked, but in hindsight choosing to move over regroup was a bad choice. Ah well, live and learn.

I also took the farseer model in and asked redshirt Jim about the sword hilt. He suggested red to tie in with the robes and I was pleased as that was a possibility I was considering. Expect to start the hilt tonight and post pics tomorrow (just for you Corey).

 

 

Bust!

Well, my weekend of warhammer fizzled. I did get a quick 1000 pt game of 40K against Lawrence aka Aarhus on Friday after work where I successfully defended my challenge board spot (booya!) but Saturday and Sunday were busts. I couldn't get anybody to come out to Carleton Place on Saturday, and Andrew cancelled for Sunday due to real life getting in the way. I was too despondant to work on the farseer, so spent the weekend alternating between doing house work, watching movies, and playing on the computer.

The good news is I've got a 3000 pt Epic game scheduled for Tuesday evening. And I plan to work on the farseer some more tonight.

A Spontaneous Warhammer Weekend / Farseer Update

Eariler this week (Tuesday) Kim informs me her mother invited her and her sister up for a girl's night on Saturday. It took a couple days, but Kim finally worked out the details last night and I immediately began looking for willing travellers to Carleton Place for some Epic ass kickings.

Adam Stephens has stepped up to the plate, with Dave Overholt looking to grab a ride with him. Also, another Dave (can't remember last name) from Perth wants to drop in. Expect loads of pictures from Saturday next week.

Now, some farseer pictures. Progress is going well, with the wraithbone at a point I like and most of the red gems near done. Still have to highlight the brown a tad, and start on the runes on the sash. The green jewel in the sword hilt and the eye pieces still need some glassifying effects.

Front (with and without flash):
 

Back:

Wraithbone

I did the wraithbone last night. I watered down some brown and then washed the ivory areas. Then, I dabbed some ivory on my brush and highlighted the areas I wanted to. The effect is not too bad and is close to what I was envisioning. I'll take some pics tonight.