Saturday 26 February 2011

250 Painting Across the Pond - Drax Edition Pt II

Hey, Folks.
It's the belated second installment of 'Painting Across the Pond', my transatlantic painting collaboration with The Inner Geek.

I've failed to make any progress, alas, on the female Guardsman, but I have put base coats on the Ogryn Bone'ead. I know it looks ropey at the moment, but it'll get better yet, I promise! Not helped in any way by the fact that the weather was so dire the autoflash went off even though I was outside!
This is really going to be an exercise in me practising some new techniques: I'm going to have a play with flesh tones (especially the musculature) and stubble...but for now I know it looks pretty damned basic. One thing I did want to have a play with was a different camouflage pattern on the trousers, but having done so, then checked the style of The Inner Geek's Guardsmen, I realised that (a) he goes in for a lot of light brown leather accoutrements, and (b) the orangey colour of the pattern I'd chosen would clash too much.
So, I added dashes of black to the pattern, and it'll be darkened more yet with some shading. I'm also adjusting the brown of the leather straps a bit more.
I've also made a tentative start on edge-highlighting the armour plates like the Geek does, but mine look rather too stark at the moment.
I will, of course, add a couple of Draxian touches in due course...
Be sure to check out the (doubtless awesome) stuff that The Inner Geek's been doing to the miniature I sent him: I'm almost salivating at the prospect! He'll be posting at some point today too.
Cheers,
Drax.

Friday 25 February 2011

249 'From The Warp' Flag - A Tribute

So long, Ron, and thanks for all the fish.
For those of you who remember it, I've updated my FTW Dice Flag (above) with a bit of crude cut-and-paste on MS 'Paint'.


- Chris.

Monday 14 February 2011

248 Radio Silence

Hey Dudes,

Sorry for the lack of updates and comments of late: alas, Real Life has been getting in the way.

Grrrr.

Here's a pic of a bunch of my ol' mates piling on a 105 Light Gun to cheer you up. Well...to cheer me up, really:
Hope all's well in Blogland...

- D.

Sunday 6 February 2011

247 Dusting-Off Unloved Units...and Why

Hullo, Faithful Readers!

I played Jay at the club t'other day. Regardless of the result, the fun thing here is that I used a whole bunch of units just for the sake of it!
We played 2000pts. I knew he'd be taking his Blood Angels and I was properly affrighted, but I'd already decided beforehand that I just fancied a giggle with some unloved units and all my AV12 vehicles, and I knew that he's the kind of opponent who really appreciates a fun game, so this is what I fielded:

HQ: Primaris Psyker
HQ: Techpriest w. 2 tech servitors(!)

EL: 5 Stormtroopers (2 melta)
EL: 10 Battle Psykers in a chimera
EL: 5 non-Ratling snipers

TP: Armoured Fist Platoon as follows:
-- HQ Sect w. plas, 2 gren, flamer, chimera
-- 1 Sect w. plas, m/launcher, chimera
-- 2 Sect w. melta, m/launcher, chimera
-- 3 Sect w. gren, m/launcher, chimera
TP: Hardened Vets w. Harker, demo, las, 2 plas, gren
TP: Penal Legion
FA: Hellhound
FA: Devil Dog w. multimelta
FA: Banewolf
+ I thought I was a little under-points, so Jay kindly allowed me a Scout Sentinel too

HS: 2 Griffon Bty
HS: Hydra
HS: Medusa

This actually totalled 2010pts, I think, (sorry, Jay: last-minute tweaks threw my maths) but it was a true delight to field units just for the hell of it. From my perspective, these included the following:

The Techpriest and Servitors. Were it not for games like this, such an awesome-looking unit would never get to play. As it was, they didn't attempt to fix anything, and despite charging Jay's landraider their servo arms didn't even dent it.

The Stormtroopers. They did what they were designed for, I guess: dropped in (accurately) and shot the landraider...but only managed to blow off its assault cannon before being slaughtered wholesale the following turn.

The Snipers. They did something cool which I'll discuss below.

Armoured Fist Platoon. I could easily have fielded a bunch of chimera-mounted veterans, but instead I really wanted to play my normal A/F Platoon. No-one in their right mind would waste missile launchers on transported troops who are supposed to be moving, but I like the models!

G/Sgt Harker's Vets. For his 55pts I could've given them a chimera...but that's boring (and I'd run out!) so having blown 55pts on him(!) I then decided to give them a demo charge and a lascannon too...just for the hell of it. A ludicrously overpriced unit.

The Griffons. I have three and I'm keen to play the three of them together, but in this game I also wanted to try out my new medusa conversion, so I just had the two. They weren't only fun to play with (as barrage weapons always are) but they were surprisingly effective, too - their re-roll is great!

AV12-only vehicles. Naturally, I could've fielded a few Leman Russes, but again, I wanted to have a bit of fun. To be honest, when almost everything is AV10 in the inevitable close assault, it doesn't really matter much!

Well, the story goes like this: I chose Jay to deploy and move first, which he did...and after a spiffingly good game which ran very close right upto the wire, he had only a damaged Landraider left at the end of 6 turns, and I had 2/4 objectives. I'm ashamed to note that had the game continued I probably would've been unable to damage the Landraider after another turn!

Here (for those of you still reading) are my post-game notes:

  • Jay is an sporting, fun and generous opponent
  • I was very lucky with my reserve rolls and scatter rolls throughout
  • I did less well with morale checks, and at least three units ran off the board
  • Astorath the Grim and 4-5 assault marines were killed by the Vets' demo charge
  • The Reclusiarch was finished off by a point-blank krak missile to the face
  • All the psykers did well and the griffons were superbly reliable throughout
  • The snipers stared death in the face when on their first turn the Landraider thundered towards them and from it poured forth five TH/SS and LC terminators...who then proceeded to fail their charge range into terrain! Having breathed a thankful sigh of relief for their already-brown trousers, the snipers then calmly ignored the impending brutes in order to pick off an assault marine on their left flank
  • 2 Section finished off the last of the terminators with a stirring bayonet charge...in the next turn their immobilised transport destroyed the vindicator with a lucky flank shot from the multilaser!
  • The deepstriking Stormtroopers ought really to have gone for the vindicator
  • The Banewolf (which I've fancied having a play with for a while now) wiped out almost an entire squad of tactical marines, after coming on from reserve
  • I've decided that I now dislike 'fast' vindicators and Power of the Machine Spirit. Grrrr.

That is all. Thanks for reading, All!

- Drax.