I'm Back...

... and should start painting again soon.

Painting Progress

Haven't made huge amounts of progress last couple of days. Working on the leman russ wreck on the base of the Ravager, guardians, and the Epic buildings. Slow but steady wins the race.

I'm going on a business trip from Sunday until late Wednesday, so expect nothing in this space during that time.

Bill's Revenge

Yesterday I got my desired rematch against Dave and his IG and the result could not have been more different. Everything that failed to gel last time seemed to click right away this time.

Dave used much the same army with Warlord and Shadowswords, opting to trade the Lunar cruiser for more Hydras. I choose to forsake the Deathwheels and add a Devestation cruiser and have platoon #2 dreadclaw drop. I beefed up my terminator formations as well.

Dave deployed his Warlord on the Blitz objectives supported by 2 infantry platoons and 2 shadowsowrds and hydras. On turn 2 I teleported both terminators and dropped the infantry right beside the blitz and began mopping up the flank.

Although Dave's Warlord stood tall and prevented my from taking the blitz on turn 3, the rest of the battlefield was controlled by me and I pushed the enemy back to secure the They Shall Not Pass goal and Defend the Flag goal for a 2-0 victory.

* * * * *
I was able get take on Jeff in a second game, using my same list. But whereas Dave traded mobility for Firepower, Jeff went the other direction and had a very mobile and flexible force.

All the good luck I used in the first game left me in the second and I never really got my mojo going. Jeff on the other hand was in the game and took advantage of every inch of field he had. From my drop podding troops getting decimated by an IG Infantry platoon (who were decimated in return its true) to my orbital barrage hitting 7 units and killing one (!), it was a comedy of frustration. Bright notes were few and far between. Perhaps winning the Initiative on turn 2 might have helped my cause, but it was not to be and Jeff won a convincing victory.

Analysis:

My drop pod force worked wonders in the first game and not in the second. What happened? For one thing, I deployed the terminators too far away to lend support to the assault that the marines made. Heck, I should have positioned the terminators to do the assault, but I think scouting vultures were annoying me IIRC.
Regardless, the combined attack was less coordinated and therefore had less impact. PLus Jeff won init and ran like a sneaky git.

Elsewhere, I was taken totally off guard by Jeff mechanized infantry marching to get within assault range of my 3rd platoon. When he won the init on turn 2 he smashed that formation to itty-bitty parts and secured a direct path to the blitz. Nice move, but I wonder what I could have done had I won init there.

Overall I think I would opt for a different approach in army selection when facing Jeff's proclivities for mobility. Defilers were not much use, at least not one unit of them. A Banelord could have been entertainly, or at least a Ravager. Deathwheels would have been useful as well. More range or more speed is what my army needed.

Next time Mr Jeff !

Monday is Picture Day

Well, Friday was a lazy day so I got a lot of little stuff done. Finished the Havocs and Obliterators (except basing):

Made excellent progress on the Ravager titan:

The cleaned buildings got primed and then painted black, and I started drybrushing grey.
 

And on the Eldar front, significant progress was made on the Guardians:
    

And finally here's some pics from last weeks loss to Dave.

Monday is Picture Day

Well, Friday was a lazy day so I got a lot of little stuff done. Finished the Havocs and Obliterators (except basing):

Made excellent progress on the Ravager titan:

The cleaned buildings got primed and then painted black, and I started drybrushing grey.
 

And on the Eldar front, significant progress was made on the Guardians:
    

And finally here's some pics from last weeks loss to Dave.

Oh Yeah, Almost Forgot...

My new chaos thunderers arrived in the mail last night. Muhahahah! I'm not going to bother coverting them at this time, I'm just gonna paint them up and add them to my artillery barrage. Muhahahahahaha!

Battle Report

 Well, Dave (DragonsBane) and I played a quick 3000 pt game last night, my Chaos and his IG.

His army was based on three individual shadowswords and a Warlord titan, as well as a Lunar Cruiser. My army was led by two deathwheels and contained the usual suspects of infantry.

My plan was to see where the warlord was and attack anywhere he wasn't. The plan was good, but my execution just didn't click. I planned to send two deathwheels, two infantry platoons, two forlorn hope, and two terminator formations towards a flank held by two plain infantry platoons and a single shadowsword. After four turns, the two IG Infantry platoons had been removed, but my deathwheels were dead, one infantry platoon down to three stands and the other broken, one terminator formation dead and the other broken. And the Forlorn Hope formations weren't in great shape either.

What happened?

Well, in turn 1 he used a Lunar Cruiser lance strike to kill a shield on a deathwheel, and followed that with a doubling shadowsword which managed to get three hits. One absorbed by the sheild, I was like "ok, deathwheel has two hits and two DC left" but then BOOM! He rolled a six for critical. One deathwheel down and the other broken. Before they had even done anything! Crap. Then, to make matters worse, at the end of the turn I had two tries at 3+ to rally the remaining deathwheel and I rolled a one both times. ^%^#&*^$^&#^%@!%

Turn two I still had hope. Or rather, two teleporting terminator formations that didn't get any blast markers on the way in. I brought them down right behind the naughty shadowsword and an infantry platoon on the flank I was attacking. And then promptly lost the initiative roll.

Well, Dave wisely moved the shadowsword away from the terminators and turned to put a blast marker on them and kill one, and retained to put another BM on them from the infantry platoon to break them.

I then launched my attack by moving up one infantry platoon (the other infantry platoon was in the process of getting hammered by the warlord titan. Damn those 60 cm ranges!) and then retained to engage with the terminators. I think I won combat but the terminators got broke in the process as they lost two stands.

Or something like that. I'm a little foggy on the details, but the main thing is that my attack was going poorly on the flank.

Later on at the beginning of turn 4 I tried two assaults. First one was rallyed Deathwheel on lone shadowsword. I thought with one void shield, 4 attacks at 3+ compared to 3 at 4+, and more DC I could take him. But I had a blast and he had a commisar (which I forgot about) and damn him if he armour saves weren't on tonight. Regardless, I lost combat and the shadowsword laughed evillly as it pursured later and nuked the deathwheel to accomplish BTS.

On the other flank my second assault was a 90% undamaged infantry platoon on another lone shadowsword. This time I had no blastmarkers! And apparently, no tank busters. Despite 7 x 4+ attacks, 4 x 6+ attacks, and one 4+ MW attack, the war engine took only one pt of damage (damn RA!). So of course, I ended up losing the assault and my second largest undamaged formation was sent packing with its tail between its legs.

At this point I surrendered. My advance was destroyed, my BTS deathwheels down, and it looked like he was going to be able to keep me out of his half of the table.

Again, what happened?

I think my plan was solid. After all, only one 400pt infantry platoon really took any damage from the warlord titan.

I think my army selection was ok, although not inspired. I had two other lists that would have been better but forgot them at work and had to go with a generic list instead. But still, I should have done better.

What I think broke my back was losing the 550 pt deathwheels for effectively two turns, and failing to kill any shadowswords to give the remaining DW a chance to do anything. By the time I was launching my desperate assaults in turn 4 I think the game was already lost and I was looking for a grand slam to turn things around.

On the upside, my defiler formation worked brilliantly and succeeded in killing lots of infantry and taking a basilisk formation out of the game. And Dave was due for a victory against me.

I'll get you next time you foul loyalist!

Minor Update

Got some painting done last night, getting the codex grey on the havocs and oblits and putting the silver trim on the ravager titan. Also primed the epic buildings, we'll see if it sticks this time.

Next, finish those havocs and oblits and get them into action!

I'm Back

Last week was "recover from megabattle" week so I didn't make much progress. The past weekend I did get some free time on Sunday so was able to do up a couple things.

First off, I finished a Thunderhawk:
  

Then I continued on the Havocs and Mark II Obliterators, finishing the red and silver, started working on the grey.

I'm trying to decide if I need more MkII Oblits or not, but if I do, the models are ready to go:

Elsewhere, the forge world buildings have been spending the last month in the Simple Green dip, and finally I took the out and scrubbed them. What the debacle looked like on Feb 28:

And today:

I swear the primer better stick this time or someone dies.

Anyway, into the dip solution went some vindicators and land speeders. Not sure if I'm going to convert the Vindies to Defilers or not. Might leave them alone for use with my experimental evil-Loyalist list.

One last picture. Since everyone else is posting pics of their basement and work areas, here is a recent one of my disaster zone. Enjoy!
    

P.S. Paint of eldar will resume shortly.

End of the Guardian Majority?

Looking at my old models needing to be repainted, I dread the thought of painting 50-60 guardians yet again. Especially since they will need to be stripped first.

This has led me to thinking about perhaps going a new approach and having only a handful of guardians, say 20-30, and the rest of the army based on Aspect warriors. This has appeal since the number of Aspect Warriors I need to repaint doesn't change, and I only need to strip a few of them.

All this assumes that:
1) I can make a balanced army using only a few guardian units or
2) The Biel Tann version of the codex is balanced and interesting

If they don't offer the Seer Council as a standard choice for all Eldar craftworlds, then I'll damn the torpedoes and go straight Ulthwe. I love the Warlocks and can't stand not using them.

Man, I wish the Eldar codex would hurry up so I can start planning for real.

Ebay is Wonderful

More artillery fun for my chaos. Combine this with the old vindicators I got last week and my shooting is slowly being upgraded.

What Next?

Now that the Eldar Megabattle is on the books, the question arises what next? Well, I'm still hooked on Epic but I admit my disdain for 40K has lessened in light of breaking out the Eldar and having an awesome game. The Deep Space Campaign is coming up at the end of the month, and this summer Games Workshop is running their campaign. But my Eldar are far from being ready for these events as my old guardians looked uniformly tired and amaturish compared to the work of my comtemporaries and my latest efforts. So I expect to maintain the Epic Chaos binge through the summer, although I plan to get a periodic game of 40K in here and there to keep sharp.

Painting-wise, I have my havocs, Thunderhawks, obliterators, and Ravager titan to finish for Epic, and I've considered putting together another Deathwheel. And I will continue to beaver away on the Eldar redux. My next scheduled game is a rematch with Al on April 12th. Things should be quiet until then.

Megabattle Report

First off, if you haven't read the details from Corey:
Eldar Judgement Day
Eldar Judgement Day: The Rules & Mission
Eldar Judgement Day: My Perspective
Eldar Judgement Day: Full Galleries
Eldar Judgement Day: The Players

Here is the 1825 pt list I finally settled on.

Seer Council of Canathius
Farseer Ianthus – Ghosthelm, Runes of Witnessing, Spirit Stones, Fortune, Mind War
Farseer Kirith – Runes of Witnessing, Guide
Warlock Master Elryth – Singing Spear, Enhance
Warlock Champion Musallia – Witchblade, Pistol, Embolden
Warlock Champion Helroyija – Witchblade, Pistol, Augment
= 322 pts
Falcon Grav Tank Sword of Starlight – Scatterlaser, Holofield, Spirit Stone
= 180 pts

Striking Scorpions – 10 Scorpions including Exarch Whuylthreds with Stealth, Scorpion Claw
= 207 pts

Striking Scorpions – 6 Scorpions including Exarch Miscittu with Stealth, Crushing Blow, Biting Blade
= 143 pts

Night Guardians – 15 guardians including AGP Starcannon
= 154 pts

Night Guardians – 15 guardians including AGP Starcannon
= 154 pts

Storm Guardians – 9 Guardians with 2 flamers
+ Warlock Bithwelyiia – Singing Spear, Pistol, Destructor
= 123 pts
Wave Serpent Fang of Fjir – Twin Brightlance
= 125 pts

Jetbikes – 5 Guardian Jetbikes, 1 Shuricannon
= 195 pts

Vyper Squadron – 2 Vypers, 2 Scatterlasers
= 110 pts

Support Battery – 4 Guardians with 2 Shadow Weavers
= 90 pts

And here are my 100 pictures from the event, some great, some good, some crappy: Megabattle Pictures

My brief report: I deployed mostly on the west flank, with my smaller Scorpion Squad hanging out near the Scoprion Shrine near Corey's parking lot of warwalkers. Storm Guardians and one Defender squad deployed in the middle with Keith, but everyone else was on the west side of the Fire Dragon shrine. Facing me was a number of wave serpents filled with aspect warriors and Falcons. Those Black and Purple-flamed grav tanks of Nick's terrified me.

With a bit of luck and a whole lot of shooting, we managed to stall the enemy advance long enough for the Avatar and Keith's Seer Council to punch through to the Dire Avenger Shrine and split the enemy line. With his Aspect Warriors facing a couldron of shooting, I whittled Nick's Banshees and Scoprions a bit and charged the Scoprions with my Seer Council. Although I broke Nick's western advance by defeating the Scoprions soundly, I lost my main Farseer in the exchange giving hope to the enemy for a draw.

Fortunately, their turn 6 efforts fizzled and we scored a narrow 2-1 victory. Credit goes to Keith for his awesome Disruption rolls that screwed over multiple Dark Reaper units, and to Corey for taking one on the chin for the team and scaring Benoit out of his Rune Armour Underwear. And killing this guy.