I Promised Pictures So Here Are Pictures

The weapons of the Dark Reapers are finished with their base coat. Now I'm on to black everywhere on the model followed by grey.

And here are the canopies I quickly did up Sunday evening. Looks much better, don't you think?
 

You still there?

I got the brown wash on the weapons last night. Wraithbone highlights tonight. Pictures tomorrow.

Still Kicking

Weekend was taken up by my parent's 25th anniversary and some board gaming with Andrew. Monsters Menace America (great fun) and Nexus Ops, both games which Andrew won this time.

I did get some warhammer action last night, taking out my Eldar to display on a shelf as the Eldar release gets closer and closer (Oct 26!). I noticed my two vypers and fire prism turret had canopies that had unpainted struts so I glued them shut and applied the paint. I think it makes them look less fake and more professional, even if the paint jobs are crappy from a few years back.

I current have 4 grav tanks: Uber Falcon (unpainted), 2 wave serpents (1 painted, 1 unpainted), Falcon (painted). I also have a wave serpent from Corey painted in his craftworld colours. In addition I have my Fire Prism turret for upgrading a falcon when I need to (and with the new rules, I will need to A LOT!). The army box includes another falcon but I plan to scavenge the wave serpent pieces from Corey's old tank and upgrade it to my third wave serpent.

In the end I will have two falcons and three wave serpents, with the option of upgrading one of the falcons to Fire Prism by swapping the turret.

Oh, BTW, I have seen the new wraithlord and it is AWESOME!!!!  They had model at Bayshore assembled and partially painted. I drooled.

I can't wait to October 26 baby!

Ouch Ouch Ouch

I had a quick 1500 pt game with Lawrence yesterday, my whatever-I-have-painted Eldar versus his well-tuned Space Marines.

Quick and brutal. I was savaged. I think I killed 8 assault marines and lost almost everything but my two tanks and seer council. Striking Scorpions? Both squads dead. War Spiders? Eviscerated. Dark Reapers? Ran off. Guardians? Smoked. Vypers? Crashed and burned.

I knew it was going to be a rough game when for the first three turns Lawrence used his Librarian with Fury of the Ancients to kill three dark reapers, 2 warp spiders, a guardian, and a vyper. All with a 9 pt psychic power. Holy *#*&@@&#! And that annoying psychic hood man, that's a drag. Regardless, I don't think I played my best game, too much epic lately has left me rusty, and Lawrence was on top of his. Those ~50 marines were going to own me FotA or not.

Ouch.

Ouch Ouch Ouch

I had a quick 1500 pt game with Lawrence yesterday, my whatever-I-have-painted Eldar versus his well-tuned Space Marines.

Quick and brutal. I was savaged. I think I killed 8 assault marines and lost almost everything but my two tanks and seer council. Striking Scorpions? Both squads dead. War Spiders? Eviscerated. Dark Reapers? Ran off. Guardians? Smoked. Vypers? Crashed and burned.

I knew it was going to be a rough game when for the first three turns Lawrence used his Librarian with Fury of the Ancients to kill three dark reapers, 2 warp spiders, a guardian, and a vyper. All with a 9 pt psychic power. Holy *#*&@@&#! And that annoying psychic hood man, that's a drag. Regardless, I don't think I played my best game, too much epic lately has left me rusty, and Lawrence was on top of his. Those ~50 marines were going to own me FotA or not.

Ouch.

Picture Update

Here is the latest of the Dark Reapers. Got the hands and forearms done, now on to the weapons.

Hands Are Done

Well, Kim was feeling under the weather so I didn't have as much time to paint as planned. However, I did finish the base coat of black followed by red gore on the arms and hands, and expect to finish the blood red and blazing orange tonight. Maybe even get the brown wash on the weapons.

Back On Track Tonight

Another weekend trip prevented any modeling or gaming. Back on track tonight. Later.

P.S. I'm still basking in the glow of that win over Adam. Aaaaahhhhh..... so nice.

Victory is MINE!

Adam and I had our Grudge Match last night, 5000 pts per side of Epic madness.

My army was based around lots of small fast units with decent durability, and Adam's was much similar. Both of us had four scout titans and no other bigger war engines, and both of us had one squadron of aircraft for AA cover. That battle was going to be won up close and personal.

We used a 4'x7' table (sorry no pics, camera battery was dead) and proceeded to play the game. I decided to flank on the west side and drive to the blitz in the middle of his table edge, while Adam responded by driving on the east flank and attacking my blitz. Both of us sent forces into the middle of the table, looking for control of the quickest routes to either blitz.

Adam won the Initative in turn 2 (as well as turns 1 and 3, but we won't go there) and attempted to break my back in the middle theatre. He summoned the Avatar, advanced two scout titans, and prepared to move in an aspect warrior host to kill my raptors and a Feral titan.He failed the action test and the Autarch was not on the board yet. He chose to advance the aspect warriors as part of his Hold action anyways but was forced to turn play over to me.

I made him pay. In Spades. I advanced a feral titan and bathed the aspect warriors and wave serpents in Hellfire and cannon shots, killing a handful and breaking the squad. I then charged with daemons and raptors on the Revenants and brought down one, breaking and severely damaging the second. Adam struck back with the avatar and while he broke the raptors, they dragged the Avatar down first and threw praise to the sky in the name of Quintara. The streets were littered with bodies but chaos held the centre.

On the west flank I advanced agressively with 2 bike companies, 2 large platoons, and 2 deathwheels, pushing aside the rangers with ease and breaking the Falcons which promptly fled through rough terrain and destroyed themselves. But I was still ~60 cm from the BLitz and some rough terrain was in the way as well as a large guardian formation.

On the east flank Adam went for the win by driving at my flank with swooping hawks, jetbikes, more aspect warriors, more falcons, and the other Revenant titans. Defending the BLitz was my platoon with defilers, one forlorn hope detachments, and one damaged Feral Titan. Yikes!

The swooping hawks attacked first in turn 2 but were slaughtered by the platoon of marines. I marshalled and prepared for the second wave that was setting up for a turn 3 massacre. Desperate to stave off losing both my BTS and Blitz, I teleported in the two terminator formations to hold the line. Adam scoffed as he won Initative and blasted the terminator with the aspect warriors and revenants, decimating and breaking them. I howled in pain, Adam screamed in fury and battlelust. The Falcons and Jetbikes were ready to engage my poor platoon I could tell so I fired on the jetbikes causing a blast marker, and then called in air support. The Hellblades flew in and depsite losing one to the Revenant AA fire the remaining two hosed the jetbike detachment killing two and getting enough blast markers to break them. Adam flipped the table in uncontrollable rage and murdered two innocent bystanders.

Once the uproar settled down, he tried to break my platoon using the falcons alone but had no success and I held my blitz.

Going into the last few actions of turn 3, the score was zero-zero and the Eldar were all tapped out. Only one eldar Guardian formation in cover guarded the Blitz so I doubled one platoon to kill a stand and get some BMs. Then some Forlorn Hope doubled in to lay some fire, and then I doubled a Deathwheel in for more firepower, breaking the guardians! With my last activation on 2+ I sent in a second platoon on a march from far to the west to grab the blitz and secure the Blitz and Take and Hold goals, winning the game by the skin of my teeth, 2-0.

Analysis: This game could have went either way with the roll of a single die. That turn 2 misstep by Adam with his aspect warriors trying to retain broke his advance in the centre and gave me the room to both advance on his blitz and defend my own. Had he not rolled that fateful one, he could have broken my raptors and feral titan and forced me to consider how to defend my blitz as well as the nearby objective, putting him soundly in the driver's seat and me in defensive posture. The result would still have been up in the air though as I had a lot of marines advancing on the west flank.

Great game Adam! I fully expected a turn 4 and sneaking in turn 3 to win it was pure luck for me.

Oops

I tried to be fancy with these dark reapers. I primed the models themselves black as usual, but to save time and coats of wraithbone, I primed the launchers in white. That worked great when I put the ivory paint on the weapons, but the hands and forearms connected to the weapons did not look right when I put the red gore paint on them. Too light and bright. Sigh.

So now I'm repainting the hands and forearms black, then putting the red gore on top of that. A bit of a detour, but these things happen.

Gasp! Painting!

I actually got some time last night to sit down and paint. I finished the blazing orange highlight of the dark reapers and now I move on to the weapons.

Eldar Planning Continued

As the date of the new Eldar codex approaches, more details are getting firmed up and a better picture of the subsequent rules is being formed. In turn, the concept of what I want my army to look like takes shape even more.

Here's what I've got:
2 Farseers and numerous Warlocks
2 Striking Scorpion squads
2 Dark Reaper squads
1 Guardian squad
1 Ranger squad
1 Support Weapon Battery
1 Warp Spider squad
1 Jetbike Squad
2 Vypers
2 Wave Serpents
2 Falcons

Quiet the mix I know. Here is what I'm definitely adding:
Autarch (or two)
Warwalkers
Wraithlord
2 Dire Avenger sqauds

In the category of "So Tempting" I find:
Howling Banshees
Fire Dragons
Fire Prism or two
Another guardian squad

And finally, stuff I'm not sure if I want to add or not, but they sound interesting due to the rumoured rule changes:
Swooping Hawks
Shining Spears
Avatar

All of which leaves the units I have no intention whatsoever of getting (until they produce new sexier models for them):
Wraithguard

I'm pathetic. LOL

I knew it was going to bite me in the ass sooner or later

I got tired of trying to sort out where my warhammer computer files were so I bought a nice 2GB USB for my key chain and carried it all around with me, despite the feeling in the back of my head that it was a bad idea.

Yesterday morning, everything worked fine. This morning, dead as a doornail. F*CK!

Nothing catastrophic fortunately, just supremely annoying. Not sure what I'm going to do going forward, but since I seem to do almost all of my warhammering work at work *cough*, I think I'll go back to the folder on the D Drive of my computer and perhaps backup to network.

Sigh.

The good news is, mostly everything I kept on there is either backed up at home a few months ago, or uploaded to the internet at some point in time. So the data loss should be minor.

Victory!

The Black Storm pushed back the Imperial forces under General David Von Perth, aka The Dragon's Bane, despite the help of the Warlord titan's firepower.

As the regiment advanced, the green glow of teleporting terminators appeared on the east flank, disrupting the advance and breaking the mechanized infantry formation where the Dragon's Bane was leading the assault. His life was threatened by bolter fire from three directions, but his loyal comissar companion Meghan Carlyle saved his life and saw him to safety.

With the supreme commander out of action, the Imperial forces slowly unravelled under the rapid chaos assault. Rallying around the titan, they found they were losing control of the field and ordered a slow withdrawal to Ridge 871 where a regrouping action was taking place. The Black Storm secured the battlefield and moved in its artillery to prepare for sustained bombardment.

Pictures!

Epic Game Today

I've got a 4000 pt game of Epic planned against Dave (theDragonsBane) this afternoon, so packing took up some time last night. As well, I was finishing the campaign of DOW: Winter Assault finally last night (well, the Order campaign at least) and that took up more time. I will paint again, just working up to it.

Progress Pics

Here's the chaos terminator lord with magnetized arm:

The new black storm chaos rhino with option of havoc launcher or bolter-flamer:
 

And I forgot to take a picture of the new transport case, but here are the trays with all my minis of my chaos army excepting one dreadnought, 10 more furies, the Hell Talon and the drop pod.
 

Later, perhaps some actual painting!

I'm back!

Over two weeks off... ask me how much painting I got done?

NONE!

That's right, I avoided anything associated with work including thinking about warhammer.

Ok, I didn't completely avoid the hobby, but its true I did not get any painting done. I did however, finish assembling the new chaos rhino, put magnets on the chaos lord so I could go with Lightning claw or bolter-melta arm, and ripped apart a zillion foam squares to fit almost all of my chaos army in a new Army Battalion Transport. Pictures forthcoming this week.

And I will start painting again.

And another thing...

MAN that new Autarch kit is sweet. Can't wait to get my hands on those new Eldar models. October can't come soon enough!