daKINGSsays

Gearing up for Alamo

2012-02-24T20:50:00.001-06:00

So the Texas GT season is right around to corner starting off with Alamo in San Antonio, TX. This is a great event held in a beer hall of all places. The last two years I've brought my Mantis Warriors will middle of the road success. In my opinion the Alamo tournament is not a supper competitive event so I really want to bring something fun rather that overly powerful. At the end of the game I want to drink beer with my opponent and not worry about the win loss record. As a result I'd really like to brining my Nurgle Chaos Space Marines to a proper GT before the end of 5th edition and the new Chaos Codex!

2000pts
HQ
Daemon Prince; mark of nurgle, wings
Lord; mark of nurgle, wings, daemon weapon
Summoned Greater Daemon

TROOPS
Plague Marines*7; champion, power fist, melta*2, icon
Rhino

Plague Marines*7; champion, melta*2, icon

Rhino

Summoned Lesser Daemons*6

ELITES

Possessed*10; champion, icon of nurgle

Rhino; ex armor, dozer blade

HEAVY SUPPORT

Defiler

Obliterators*3

~the nice thing about this army is that even though the tournament is still 3 months away (May) I only have to build about 10 more models and another Rhino... of course if the Chaos book comes out before then it will be a whole different story!

Hanging About; Not being Idle...

2012-02-24T11:21:00.000-06:00

Last week Dragons Layer did something really cool; they hosted a "Mentor Tournament" to encourage new players to get into the tournament scene. To do this they paired someone who has never played in a tournament with someone who has played in a lot of them. Veteran teamed with Newbe.

I showed up having no idea who I would be teamed with and in the spirit of the fun tournament I took a 1000 point army with a lot of scouts and no special characters. Unfortunately for our opponents my 13 year old teammate Sam took Gaz and 6 Mega Nobz who carried us to victory in every game... At the the end of the tournament Dragons Layer gave a $20 gift certificate to each of the 18 new players.

Picture from game two: SM&Orks vs father and son team Necrons&Deathwing

Gearing up for the GT circuit means making terrain so a few weeks ago the locals gathered at Darkwyn's house to build BoLS terrain for WarGames Con. This was the first time I've made it to one of these terraing building days and I had a lot of fun and glue on my fingers.

AdamHarry blogging instead of helping... unlike me lol

Cutting foam hills... the spell of burning polystyrene traveled all the way inside.

Flames of War trees... can't have enough.

JWolf building the Wizard's Tower... over 4 hours and three different people working on it and it still wasn't done.

There was food and beer... did I mention it was fun?

Last night I went to Dragon's Layer to get my weekly game in. I really wanted to take the Eldar Corsairs but they just aren't ready yet so instead I built an interesting Chaos army using what Nurgle models I have and some old old old Legion of the Damned as Tzentch units. I played against Caldera's Dark Eldar; expect a BoLS Battle Report in a couple of weeks...

On the table next to us the fabled Leaf Blower faced off against BigRed's undefeated Tau army for another BoLS Battle Report... fun times.

WIP Eldar from Hotel Wisconsin

2012-01-26T19:48:00.000-06:00

Camera Phone; not the best but oh well.

FW order is in!

2012-01-20T14:52:00.000-06:00

A couple weeks ago a bunch of locals pooled their money and sent off for a FW order. In the States we have to do that so we can get free shipping, otherwise it adds like 30% on top of the 1.6 conversion rate (ouch). I threw in for the Eldar Corsair Conversion pack. FW conversion packs are always a bit pricy just for some bitz but I think they will add some character to my throw back Eldar army...

Here is the mock up of my first Eldar Corsair "Scourge".

I was surprised how well the Jet Pack fit to the Swooping Hawk model considering it was designed for a Guarding back.

~there are currently no plans to add Scourges to my Dark Eldar army but I suppose that will have to change... what do you think of the wing swap? Do you think it works and could be used as either a Scourge or a Swooping Hawk?

More WIP Eldar Pirates

2012-01-14T16:00:00.000-06:00

~this batch will get primed today and once they are finished I should almost have a 500pt playable army.

New Year's Resolution 2012

2012-01-07T17:01:00.000-06:00

Happy New Years fellow WH nerds. It is that time of year again to look back at last year's resolutions and make new ones!

First lets look at the resolutions I made last year concerning my three army projects and how close I came to completing them.
FIRST
paint 1500points of my new Dark Eldar army.
first was the worst, I only painted 300points for this army. I really didn't have much motivation to paint this army since I was starting it from scratch and only played one game with them all year. FAIL

SECOND
paint a further 1000points of Mantis Warriors and finally put decals on all the infantry and tanks. DONT BUY
ANYTHING NEW!
I far surpassed this goal. I painted almost 1500pts of Space Marines which has really expanded my range of models. I also don't think that I bought anything new for them so that was 1500pts of models I already owned; double score.

THIRD
paint 1000points of Plague Marines.
I hit this one right on the nose. My goal was to paint 1000pts of Nurgle for WARgames Con and I did it just in time!

2012 RESOLUTIONS
FIRST
Paint 1000pts of Dark Eldar for WarGames Con team tournament.
This goal seems a little more realistic than last year's. Eldar are very difficult to paint so I should shoot for a smaller army to get done. This goal also has a hard deadline; having to be finished in time for the Con mid Summer.

SECOND
Paint a further 1000pts of Space Marines without buying anything new!
This goal shouldn't be too hard to complete. I have so many unpainted SMs in my collection but with 6th edition on the horizon, buying new models will be hard to resist lol.

THIRD
Paint 500pts of Chaos Nurgle Marines, unless Codex Chaos Legions comes out, then 1000pts of Nurgle!
I think this will be the hardest to complete, simply because every model has to be sculpted fist and already made the fun units (possessed, raptors, Prince) which only leaves me basic Plague Marines. However if the codex comes out before the end of the year I'm sure that will be ample motivation to get the army complete, thus the additional points to paint.

FOURTH
At least one blog post a week with real content.
I am starting my second full year of blogging and I want to be more constant. I hope to have more than one a week.

CONTENT

alright; almost a minimum sized troop choice done!

Eldar Corsair Test Mini Complete!

2011-12-31T13:32:00.001-06:00

So here she is, my first Corsair model finally finished. I am still not sold on the helmet color but I think it will work. I also tried a new lighting source for the pictures, not sure that I like it either.

~I have 4 more of these Warriors on my table to paint before I try the test scheme on a Venom. What do you think? Does the Helmet color work as a contrast to the red?

Eldar Corsair Test Scheme

2011-12-06T22:56:00.000-06:00

Been having some trouble getting a scheme down for my Eldar Corsair army. Not sold on this yet but it is a start.

Donorian Clawed Fiend Thoughts

2011-12-05T12:59:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I played in a team tournament at Dragon's Layer back home in Austin with my long time gaming buddy Minus6. Minus6 played with his IG and I also used his Dark Eldar models coupled with the Exodites I've been slowly painting over the last year to make a Webway Portal list. My army included a very large Beast Master Unit with a very expensive Clawed Fiend.

The Beast Master unit is interesting because you buy 1-5 Masters (Dark Eldar on skyboards) and then buy different beasts as wargear for them. There are three different types of beasts, Khymera, Razorwing Flock, and Clawed Fiend and you can only buy one type per Master. The Clawed Fiend is by far the most expensive beast coming in at 40pts (the second most is 15pts) and you can only buy one Fiend per Beast Master so in total you spend 52pts.

The Fiend has a pretty good statline; S5 T5 W4 A4, and for every wound he takes he gets an extra attack. His T5 and the incentive to take wounds on him means that he can soak up any Power Fist attacks directed at the unit. Probably the best thing he did in my three games yesterday was get powered up to 7 attacks and killed a Chaplain.

So are the Fiends worth 52 points? The unit as a whole is terrible against vehicles and terrible against Terminators and because they are Beasts; they don't know how to climb stairs. The unit has at best Ld8 and T3, so what's the point of being able to soak wounds if as soon as you lose combat or get shot you run?

Battle Report 2000pts 11/27/11: IG vs Necrons

2011-11-28T15:35:00.000-06:00

Bully Mike from 40kology is a great opponent. We've been playing against each other mostly in tournaments for the last three years, but yesterday we met up for a friendly game to test out his Necrons. Before this game Bully had only played two games with the new book, the last of which he won against my Mantis Warriors at KPs 9-4. In reaction to how well the Monolith and Citan did last game, I decided to bust out the IG and see if the Necron shooting could match the hammer of the Imperium!

Imperial Guard List

Command HQ; plasma*4, chimera

Infantry Command; flamer*4, chimera
Infantry Squad; grenade, power weapon, commissar, power weapon
Infantry Squad; grenade, power weapon
Infantry Squad; grenade, power weapon
Special Weapon Squad; melta*3
Heavy Weapon Squad; missiles*3
Heavy Weapon Squad; autocannon*3

Veterans*10; melta*3, chimera
Veterans*10; melta*2, flamer, chimera

Vendetta (special weapon squad rides here)
Scout Sentinels*3; lascannon*2, autocannon
Hellhound; smoke launchers

Demolisher; lascannon
Demolisher; lascannon
Manticore; camo netting

Although this is not the most tailored IG army, it is far more powerful that something I would generally bring to a friendly match; especially against someone whose only played a few games with their own codex. In the last game Bully took a very similar army, but I took a more close combat oriented SM army. His Monolith and the Citan really did a number me. He Portaled several units away from my assault units which essentially took them out of the game and the Citan's Rising World Scape managed to Immobilize my Landraider, kill two TH termis and about 6 or 7 SMs by turn 3! In this game, with a shooty army, my goal was to mitigate those specific threats while taking a large number of armored vehicles to test the waters against mass amounts of Gauss and Scarab attacks.

Necron List

Storm Lord; Command Barge
Destroyer Lord; res orb, war scythe

Warriors*10
Warriors*10
Warriors*10
Warriors*10

Spiders*2 (different wargear)
Scarab Swarm*8

Wraiths*4

Regular Destroyers*5
Citan; rising world scape, dust one (i think=stealth and grenades)
Monolith

BullyMike bought this army prebuilt and painted a couple years ago when no one wanted Necrons. Besides the new vehicle and new Special Character he is pretty much using every model he bought back then, which is pretty cool that it still came out to 2000pts! Because he is essentially using ever model he owns, his list has not seen much change in the last three games played. Mostly all he's done is switched out special characters and alternated between Annihilation Barge and Command Barge. It should also be noted that he won against Daemons and SMs in the first two games...

Mission: Seize Ground 5 Objectives

Deployment: Pitched Battle

Necrons Deployed First and set up in the forest along the entire length of this board edge. Monolith in the middle with the Spiders and Scarabs. Destroyers, Command Barge, and Wraiths on the left flank.

Imperial Guard Deployed Second with Demolisher tanks on left flank opposite the majority of the Necron heavy hitters. Command HQ was straight in the middle with Heavy Weapon squads on either side. Two infinity squads combined with commissar also in the middle to advance on center objective. Manticore in far right building and beyond that, Hellhound, Infantry Command with flamers and the three Sentinels deployed on extreme right flank facing single Necron Warrior Squad. The two melt vet units were in reserve, as well as one 10man infantry unit and the Vendetta Out Flanked.

TURN 1

Top Turn 1 was Night Fight thanks to the Swarm Lord. His lighting only hit one unit but managed to kill all three Autocannon Weapon Teams. That sucked but it could have been worse. Apart from that he had really good run rolls so almost everything made it to center field. He also 'Portaled' his Wraiths through the Monolith.

Bottom Turn 1 was still night fight so I used a lot of search lights and since he was half way across the board already, most everything got to shoot. I failed my orders and most everything else missed or did no damage. Demolisher tank in center penetrated the Monolith but only stunned it, and the Demolisher on the left only glanced the Command Barge which shook it. On the far right flank my Hellhound did major damage to his Warriors and only three remained after Reanimating! In the center my Command HQ moved into range of the Wraiths and unleashed 8 plasma gun shots. All four guns overheated killing three while only doing one wound to the Necron snakes!

TURN 2

Top Turn 2 started with the Storm Ending (w00t) and a general advance. The three pitiful Necron Warriors on the Right Flank Portaled through the Monolith away from the armored advance; essentially conceding that objective to the Imperial Guard. The Wraiths assaulted the Command HQ Chimera; stunning it and popping off a gun. The Scarabs rolled all 6's for their movement for the second turn in a row and easily assaulted the Center Demolisher ever though it moved backwards. 40 attacks, 20 hits, 10 points of reduced armor... thank you back armor 11! The Destroyer Lord detached from the Destroyer Squad and made an attempt to attack the Left Demolisher on his own. He missed with all his attacks...

Bottom Turn 2 my Vendetta arrived on the left flank, and between it and the Melta Special Weapon squad inside, they were able to kill the Destroyer Lord who failed to reanimate. My center Demolisher, who now had Armor Value 4/3/1 (we called it "see through") moved backwards and dropped its shell on the Scarabs. The Swarm went to ground which saved two. My 10 man infantry unit came in from reserve in the center near the Wraiths and shot them up, doing no damage. My right flank units swung around the buildings and shot the Citan, only doing a single wound. My Infantry blob squad assaulted the center Warrior unit and brought it down to 4 with mass power weapon attacks.

TURN 3

Top Turn 3 the Storm Lord hopped off his Command Barge and assaulted the 10 man infantry unit that just arrived and murdered them. The Citan charged into the blob squad, and although killed three, the combined power weapons managed to take out the remaining 4 Warriors so the Citan took his second wound from fearless saves. The Monolith, now able to move, advanced to mid field and shot the "see through" Demolisher in the center and easily destroyed it. The Destroyers shot at the Vendetta but failed to roll and 6's. The Wraiths moved and assaulted the Hellhound, but because it had moved at Cruising Speed, they only Stunned it. On the far left, with a decent run roll, a Necron Warrior Unit advanced onto an objective near the Vendetta.

Bottom Turn 3 the two Melta Veteran units in Chimeras arrived up the middle and one of them destroyed the Command Barge. The Vendetta gathered up the Special weapon squad and moved to contest the left most objective and shot at the approaching Destroyers, killing one... oh wait, it reanimated! The stunned Hellhound popped smoke in anticipation for a point blank shot from the Manticore at the Wraiths who were still fighting it in combat. The Manticore did 9 hits on the 4 models and with bad armor save rolls, killed them all! On the far right flank the Infantry Command Squad in Chimera advanced onto an objective on that side of the board. The blob squad, unable to hurt toughness 7 Citan, lost a few more models, but held due to the Commissar.

TURN 4

Top Turn 4 the Storm Lord climbed up the ruined building where the Heavy Weapon Squad was missing with missiles all game and easily wiped them out. The Warrior Squad in the center of the Necron back field Portaled through the Monolith to escape the Hellhound that was now free of the Wraiths. After moving through the portal, only three Warriors were in range of the Vendetta, but one got a 6 which and immobilize it! Go Gauss Go! The Destroyers remained in cover and also shot at the Vendetta but were unable to damage it. The Spiders and remaining two Scarab bases charged into the IG blob squad. The Citan took out a couple but the power weapons all targeted the Spiders and Impressively did two wounds to each!

Bottom Turn 4 the Manticore unleashed its final salvo of missiles and took out a handful of Warriors that had come through the Monolith Portal. The Citan missed with all of his attacks, and the combined Spiders and Scarabs killed everyone but the Commissar who proudly held, meaning my right flank was safe for another turn as all other units had been Portaled away from that flank by the Monolith. The Deolisher and the Chimera with Melta Vets on the left advanced and shot at the Destroyers, but were only able to kill one after reanimation. At this point in the game, the IG held one objective and were contesting the only Necron held Objective.

TURN 5

Top Turn 5 the Destroyers moved and contested the objective near the Melta Vets on the left and Stunned their Chimera while the Storm Lord assaulted and destroyed the Command HQ Chimera which had until now been stunned the entire game. The Citan finished off the Commissar and consolidated with the Spiders and Scarabs towards the IG right flank. Combined Gauss fire from the remaining Warrior Squads on the left targeted the Vendetta but did not damage it not enough to destroy it.

Bottom Turn 5 the Melta Vets in the center moved to claim the center objective in the building but because the Citan was still rising my damn world scape, their Chimera immobilized itself just shot. Ugh. My Hellhound swung around the ruins that the blob squad combat had been occupying for the majority of the game and placed its template so that it was hitting both Spiders, both Scarabs and the Citan... Yatzee! 5 ones lol. The Sentinels and the Infantry Command Chimera all shot at the Citan but did nothing. However, after shooting at the Monolith all game, my remaining Demolisher Cannon penetrated and destroyed it. We rolled for the game to continue ended on turn 5.

Objective 1: Contested

Objective 2: Contested

Objective 3: so close, Unclaimed

Objective 4: Unclaimed

Objective 5: Imperial Guard Claimed

So this turned out to be a VERY close game at turn 5. We both had some really bad rolling during the first two turns. The Storm Lord's lightning clouds ended after only striking down one unit and hitting no tanks and the Destroyer Lord failed to reanimate after not even hitting the Demolisher tank in combat. The first three times I had Penetrating hits on the Monolith they rolled 1s or 2s and my Command HQ lost 3 out of 4 plasma guns in their first volley!

This game was a lot of fun and could have easily ended in the hands of the Necrons. Had the game gone an extra turn I might have been able to put models on one or two more objectives, but with the Storm Lord running around my back field and the Citan still with two wounds, it is unlikely that I would have been able to kill either of them and they would have easily contested any additional Objectives I might have tried to claim. I think any additional turns would have only helped the Necrons.

Personally I really enjoy playing against the Metal Undead. They have a lot of interesting units and nothing, initially, screams cheese except perhaps the Citan's Rising World Scape; but even that had little effect on a mostly static gun-line.

WIP: the Fly Lord

2011-11-27T11:49:00.000-06:00

This is my WIP model for the Bitz Box character conversion/painting contest. I don't have much left to do besides the base (not shown). This is a pretty crazy model with his entire chest and legs being sculpted from Green Stuff.

Scout Squad Ultis

2011-11-15T12:49:00.001-06:00

As the Badab War ground on and the number of casualties mounted, the Mantis Warriors were forced recruit an ever growing number of initiates to compensate for the Chapter's Battle companies inability to keep a full contingent of Tactical Squads. In an effort to ensure that the Chapter could still call upon full strength Battle companies to defend the Mantis Warriors home world, the chapter's Reserve and Scout Companies were dissolved and their numbers were added to the remaining Battle Companies. In doing so, several Scout Squads were permanently added to Captain Mantodea's second company, a shift from the Codex Astartes that has continued long after the the Mantis Warriors reunification with the Imperium.

Scout Squad Ultis was formed late in the Siege of Tranquility. Although their sniper rifles were poor use against the Carcharodon Terminator legions, they mainly attacked from the rear of the advance, taking out servitors, chapter surfs, and other non-combat personnel in an effort to slow down the Space Shark warmachine and ultimately make any time spent on Tranquility as miserable as possible for the invaders.

That was a bit of a long winded fluff piece but I hope you enjoyed it. To be honest I don't recall why I decided to paint up these scouts. I've played a few games with them and they are terrible. BS3 with sniper rifles is rubbish, not to mention the squad costs the same as 10 Eldar Rangers. Well they are painted now so I'm sure they will make their way into some future lists.

I'm in the Movies: Sisters vs Mantis Warriors

2011-10-26T14:49:00.000-05:00

Friendly game at Dragon's Lair a week ago. Apparently the last turn has been lost in the Warp, don't worry you didn't miss much.

A Trio of More Scouts

2011-10-15T18:27:00.000-05:00

Painted up three more scouts today. Two more to add to my Sniper squad and a Combat scout to round out the other unit to 10.

View of the cam.

For some reason I want three 10 man units of scouts... still have a few wholes to fill still.

Sniper Scouts

2011-10-12T22:27:00.000-05:00

Made more progress on the sniper scouts tonight while watching Baseball.

Will do a little fluff bit when I have a ten man squad is complete.

Tranquility Camo

2011-10-12T16:06:00.000-05:00

Been working on some Sniper Scouts for the Shrike list lately and here are their Camo Cloaks on display. I'd say they are still a bit WIP as some of the black "leaves" are a bit wispy for my taste.

1500 point Shrike Thoughts

2011-10-05T14:12:00.000-05:00

The local gaming community in Austin has been talking about reducing the size of standard pick-up games from 2000 points to a smaller number between 1850 and 1500. It has been a long time since 1500 points was the normal around town; 10 years maybe? Anyway it got me thinking about the differences in army list construction between 1500 and 2000.

After being used to 2000 for so long, 1500pts created quite a dilemma for me during army list construction. There is just not enough points to fill out two HQ slots, all the scoring units necessary for a 5 objective game, and the necessary Elite/Fast/Heavy slots to do the heavy lifting/killing.

Recently I've been toying around with a Shrike list, with heavy component of scouts, as a change of pace from Khan or Sicarius. I am hoping that the reduced price of my scoring units will leave me enough points left over to still bring a strong army at 1500pts.

HQ
Captain Shrike
Chaplain; jump pack, digi-lasers, melta bombs

TROOPS
Tactical Squad*10; power fist, combi-melta, melta gun, multi-melta
Drop Pod; locator beacon

Scouts*10; sniper rifles, combi-plasma, heavy bolter
Scouts*10; power fist, teleport homer

ELITES
Assault Terminators*5; thunder hammers*3, lightning claws*2

FAST ATTACK
Assault Marines*8; power first
Attack Bike; multi-melta

HEAVY SUPPORT
Devastators*5; missile launcher*4

~the idea is pretty simple. Infiltrate as close as possible with the assault scouts and assault marines+characters and hope for a first turn assault with both. Tac squad drops in first turn, combined with decent weight of fire from the sniper scouts and devs to weaken enemy before termis deep strike ASAP. It is a very aggressive army with a fairly major weak link: 20 scouts making up the majority of my scoring models. After a few games I'll post how it does. Any thoughts or words of wisdom for using Shrike or Scouts?

Scout Sergeants; the only good thing in the unit

2011-10-01T17:03:00.000-05:00

I've been messing around with a Shriek list in my last couple of games. I lost both of them but got me thinking about what I would need to add to my collection to make a Shriek list work for me... solution; more scouts?

not the best pics but it was done quicly

plasma gun/sniper sergeant, never seen one so we'll see how it goes

Back slung Sniper Rifle.

I always thought that SM power fists looked awkwardly large on scout arms.

Teleport Homer.

This is an old old Catachan power fist with a Cadian flamer hose and some putty.

Mobile Support Part 2

2011-09-30T12:59:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've posted finished models on here, and to make matters worse I painted this guy 2 weeks ago... jeeze.

This gives me a squadron of three, and I've got my eye on adding a fourth before I'm through.

WarGames Con Narrative Tract Review: PART 2

2011-08-18T23:28:00.000-05:00

Hello again folks, this is the second post in a series detailing my experience playing in the WarGames Con Narrative Tract. In this article I will talk about my preparation for the NT, what army I took and which table I decided to fight on and for which side.

The Narrative Tract is unique to WarGames Con and instead of 7 competitive games, it is comprised of four really big Apocalypse games! The past three years BigRed has run the Narrative show; not only has he been in charge of choosing awesome setting from the Warhammer Universe to stage the Apocalypse battles and written the missions for the games, he has also been the head judge/arbiter (more on that later). Because of the popularity of this event there have been enough participants to fill multiple NTs each year, so players can choose which battle to play in.

BoLS Con 2009 had three NT tables, each for one of the Campaign Books BoLS had released to date: Horus Heresy, Macharian Crusade, and Badab War and in 2010 the three themes were taken from FW books. This year there was a lot of discussion as to where to draw the themes from. 13th Black Crusade and Macrage were both discussed but when FW announced that they would be releasing their own version of the Badab War (EDIT: unofficially inspired by the BoLS book) we decided that had to be one of the tables again. Since Badab is essentially SM on SM, the Third Armageddon War seemed like a perfect theme that could accommodate pretty much everything else army wise.

The choice of table was a no brainer for me since I built my Mantis Warriors army specifically for the BoLS Badab campaign book; however deciding what to take in my army was somewhat more difficult. The NT calls for a 3000 point army and I certainly wasn't going to bring any unpainted models. I don't have any Super Heavies in my collection, and although there were PDF that fought on the side of the Separatists during the Badab War, I knew I wanted to take an exclusively Mantis Warrior army.

I had never fielded 3000pts of Mantis Warriors at one time before, so although I had that many points painted in my collection, I didn't have a good Apoc army. With still several months to go until WarGames Con I set to work expanding my collection of painted Space Marines. In the end there were still a couple more units I would have liked to add to the Apoc army but simply ran out of time. It also did not help that at the same time I was building from scratch a 1000pt chaos army for the team tournament. The army I ended up bringing was as follows...

Captain Mantodea

Chaplain

Assault Terminators

Landraider Redeemer

Jump Captain

Jump Chaplain

Assault Marines

Tranquility Snipers

Razorback

Tactical Squad; Rhino

Scouts Squad; Landspeeder Storm

Attack Bikes

Devestator Squad

Thunder Fire Cannon

I've noticed in big Apoc games most people over look scoring units and go for the big Super Heavies and lots and lots of tanks. Apoc games are also usually really close and come down to just one objective; which is insane considering how many models are on the board! What few infantry units there are on the table are usually pretty fragile and left unsupported on objectives. With this in mind I designed my Apoc list to be really infantry heavy with lots of scoring units to hold the few objectives on the board. I also stacked both a Captain and a Chaplain in my two combat units so that they could actually do some damage quickly on the charge without bogged down.

So there you have it guys, another chapter in my review of the Narrative Tract at WarGames Con. Next time I'll talk about the missions and the people I played with. Good times!

WarGames Con Narrative Tract Review: PART 1

2011-08-15T15:09:00.002-05:00

WarGames Con was loads of fun this year and I played (officially) for first time in the Narrative Tract; opposed to the GT. The NT is unique to WarGames Con, and labels its self as an "Anti-Tournament". This was a non-competitive event for players who did not want to throw down in the ultra-competitive GT that included over 150 people. Opposed to the GT, which consited of 7 two hour games, the NT was a two day event that included THREE 180 minute Apocalypse games and a single SIX HOUR Apocalypse game! blah :)

This was the third year of WarGames/BoLS Con. The first two years I played in the GT tournament with over 100 players each time. Both years I took IG, and although in 2009 I managed to pull out 2nd Best General, a couple bad games both years left a sour taste in my mouth. This year I vowed to BigRed that I would put my money where my mouth was and I played in the Narrative.

Durring the next couple of posts I will detail what I liked and didn't like about the Narrative Tract. I will talk about what I took to the fight and how our games played out. I will also make suggestions about what could be done to make the NT better for future WarGames Cons, because the NT is an absolutely excellent alternative to the main GT! The last three years in Austin it has been obvious that the guys playing with Titans, Flighers and Superheavies on historical battlefields were having WAY more fun than the guys stressing over seven competitive games!

...and I hope after these articles you will see why.

~if you have any questions about the Narrative Tract leave a comment and I'll include it in the next article, ENJOY!

So Long Ferro, See You In 6th

2011-08-14T17:35:00.001-05:00

My buddy FerroMike just had his second baby and will be absent from the hobby for a while.

Here is a pic form WarGames Con Narrative game. My Wantis Warrior Tactical Marines were fending off Ferro's Red Scorpion Dreadnaught while my Scouts scaled the temple ruins for the objective! I'm pretty sure his Dread routed my Tac Marines and his Interceptor Squad Heroically Intervened and knocked my Scouts off the roof! oh well at least it was epic.

Congrats Ferro!

Hope to see you again when 6th edition comes out.

Retrofitting Guard Tanks

2011-08-05T19:12:00.000-05:00

While I plan to update my Imperial Guard army to become more competitive, I also would like to add some off beat units to the collection so I can have some fun with them too. Probably the main reason the Guard have been on the shelf so long is because I could tell my opponents weren't having any fun playing against them either.

Here is the beginnings of my Eradicator Nova Cannon turret. I used this tank recently against an Eldar army. I deployed it horribly out of position, but still managed to let loose a shot that killed almost an entire Seer Council!

Yes that is triple heavy flamers! Such a terrible choice.

I picked up a broken Hellhound off a friend of mine recently and have been working on turning it into yet another Chimera... that puts me up to 5! Yeah not really a good thing...

Gone but Not Idle!

2011-08-04T18:06:00.000-05:00

It has been about a month since my last post which sucks but I am back to show off a few WIP pics of what I've been up to lately. For about three months leading up to WarGames Con I was very motivated to work on Mantis Warriors for the Narrative Track and Death Guard for the Team Tournament. Once that rapped up I lost all motivation to continue with those projects (even though I fell short with my ultimate goals) and have only played one game in the last month.

For the remainder or the year I plan on putting the majority of my attention towards Dark Eldar and updating my IG with a few new units I've had laying around unpainted.

Onto the pics

Was a Valkyie. Now a Vendeta!

Rounding out the last few models in my Beast Master unit.

Nurgle basing theme.

2000 point Hybrid SM list thought

2011-07-02T16:42:00.000-05:00

Although I have been having success locally with my Sicarius list, it didn't preform as well as I would have hoped at the Alamo IGT. Aventine sudgested that I combine the Death Star unit from my Kahn list with the heavy shooting elements from my Sicarius list. The main issue with taking dedicated shooting units in a Kahn list is that I wont be able to outflank the whole army without leaving the Devs on their own to be shot up from the enemy's entire army.

Tomorrow is a local tournament where I can only imagine people will be testing out WarGames Con armies. Although I plan on playing narrative, I don't think I've played in a tournament since Alamo so this will be a good opportunity to try out this list. NTM I don't even remember the last time I took Kahn out...

Mantis Warriors
HQ
(160) Kahn

(100) Chaplain

ELITES
(200) Assault Terminators*5; thunder hammers*3, lightning claws*2
(265) Landraider Redeemer; ex armor, multi-melta

TROOPS
(215) Tactical Squad*10; power fist, combi-melta, plasma gun, multi-melta

(35) Rhino

(215) Tactical Squad*10; power fist, combi-melta, plasma gun, multi-melta

(35) Rhino

(200) Tactical Squad*10; power fist, melta gun, multi-melta
(35) Rhino

FAST ATTACK
(100) Attack Bikes*2; multi-melta*2

HEAVY SUPPORT

(170) Devastators*5; missile launcher*3, lascannon

(170) Devastators*5; missile launcher*3, lascannon

(100) Thunderfire Cannon

Nurgle Daemon Prince (and friends)

2011-06-25T15:16:00.001-05:00

So this guy might not be as fat as I would have liked but I gave myself one week to sculpt him and one week to paint him. Considering the time frame I am quite pleased with the results. If anything I really want to buy a second plastic Daemon Prince and take another crack at it!

This is my Nurgle army as it currently stands. I still need to build and paint one more Rhino and two more Oblits to be ready for WarGames Con Team tournament with Aventine.

Wish me pus!

WIP Nurgle Marines

2011-06-13T22:05:00.001-05:00

I apologize for the bad picture but here are some almost finished "Raptors" which will be used as Plague Marines at WarGames Con. Below is the DP I picked up this week... He looks so naked without all the putty he is about to receive...

Nurgle Oblits! now with paint

2011-06-11T16:04:00.001-05:00

Finally paint on my two Oblits! I still have two more to build and paint before WarGames Con but progress is being made, and these two are still not 100%, still with some highlighting and on their guns and the smoke stacks on their backs.

Imperial Guard List Thoughts: 2000pts

2011-06-07T15:17:00.000-05:00

I've been out of town a lot lately for work which has kept me from making a proper post, but I've been making good progress on my Nurgle Army for WarGames Con-Team Tournament next month. Look for pictures this weekend!

After WarGames Con is over I plan on putting the Mantis Warriors aside for the rest of the year and instead concentrate of making my IG army competitive and (more importantly) fun to play with again. I had a lot of success with my IG back when the 5th edition codex came out, but eventually they became boring and difficult to win with against the speed to Blood Angels.

Below is a hybrid mech/swarm list I would like to try out. It has a lot of scoring units, with plenty of mobility and a couple of decent tar pit units (30 man blob squad w/ commissar and an Armored sentinel). Normally my lists have a lot of outflanking units but this army takes the enemy straight on will hopefully hold out.

HQ

(120) Command HQ; plasma gun*4, plasma pistol

(55) Chimera

TROOPS

(50) Platoon Command; flamer*4
(55) Chimera

(110) Infantry Squad; power weapon, grenade launcher, commissar; power weapon

(65) Infantry Squad; power weapon, grenade launcher
(65) Infantry Squad; power weapon, grenade launcher

(55) Infantry Squad; flamer

(55) Chimera

(75) Heavy Weapon Squad; auto cannon*3

(90) Heavy Weapon Squad; missile launcher*3

(125) Veterans*10; plasma gun*3, plasma pistol

(125) Veterans*10; plasma gun*3, plasma pistol
(110) Veterans*10; melta*3, plasma pistol

(55) Chimera

FAST ATTACK

(100) Valkyrie

(100) Valkyrie
(80) Armored Sentinel; lascannon, camo netting

HEAVY SUPPORT

(170) Battle Tank; heavy bolter*3

(180) Demolisher Tank; las cannon

(160) Manticore

I know this list is pretty typical of IG with nothing too crazy but any thoughts would be helpful.

I'm in the Movies!

2011-05-17T22:02:00.000-05:00

All the way back in the second month of 2011 Aventine and I had a little grudge match between his Nid and my Marines and made a video battle report to go onto the BoLS website. Unfortunetly the camera broke and the video was lost to the warp until some tech adepts figured out how to change the batteries...

Alamo 40K IGT Coverage

2011-05-16T02:12:00.000-05:00

About Wednesday I decided to go to the Alamo 40K tournament in San Antonio, TX this weekend. Despite being last minute, I grabbed one of the last five slots and drove down Saturday morning bright and early to play in this two day, 5 round, 2000 point tournament. Before I begin the coverage I would like to say this was one of the most fun tournaments I've ever been to. There was literally a bar in the gaming hall with $2 beers on tap! However as a result my attention was given up to drinking and my tournament coverage suffered...

Here are some of the models and armies that caught my eye this weekend...

Like I said, I spent much more time drinking this weekend than taking pics for tournament coverage so I'll skim my results. My record was 2 wins/2 loses/1 draw and almost in that order. My list can be found a few posts down but was basically a gun line SM army with Sicarius, Librarian with Null Zone and 10 Termis on foot as far as close combat. READ GAME THREE that "internet" guy

Game: 1

Mission: Seize Ground/Pitched Battle

Opponent: IG... Sid from Dallas (not the guy from Pulpfiction)

Results: Win 20/20

Sid was an excellent first round opponent with a cool steal legion IG army. His list was a lot like one I took to last year's WarGames Con: Lots of vets in chimeras and Vendetas with Russes and 50 infantry on foot combined into two big blog squads. Like a lot of IG lists he started out pounding me with shooting but by the time it got to turn 7 his army had lost a lot of steam and didn't advance enough to contest my objectives. The Scouts were definetly the men of the match... outflanked and killed a chimer and vets inside, then threw krak grenades onto a Russ until it died, then scored an objective AND a table quarter nice work for a 150 pt squad with transport!

Sid's Vendeta had an excellent airbrush job that the picture fails to show unfortunately.

Game:2

Mission: Capture and Control/Spear Head

Opponent: Black Templars... Matt (from Austin who I play almost every tournament locally)

Results: Win 20/20

Matt had Termis in LR, a couple min las/plas squads, cyclone termis on foot, a vindi, a typhoon and a couple rhinos with crusader squads each with an IC. Oh poor Matt, despite seizing the initiative on me he only managed to shake a single transport in his shooting phase and in return my Landspeeder Storm popped the Vindi and the Scouts inside popped the LR. The game pretty much went downhill from there... we met in the middle and had it out shown in pic two below, leaving just a handful of my models to go contest his objective in pic three.

Game: 3

Mission: KPs/Dawn of War

Opponent: an internet celebrity (his words)

Results: Effectively Tabled in 2 Turns 4/20

Dark Eldar Army... 5 Venoms with 5 models inside (one blaster each), 3 Venoms with 4 models inside (4 blasters each), 3 Ravegers, one Raider with witches, and a small unit of Beast Masters. In conclusion 16 Splinter Cannons and 10 Dark Lances on Vehicles and 17 Blasters inside said vehicles.

Instead of detailing what happened in the game, I will just relay some of the more memorable quotes from out conversation after the game...

"I think you should consider what it takes for a competitive build".

"I wouldn't expect your army to be on the top table in round three".

"There is only one person [in the game] having fun because one person is winning and the other person is losing, that is what the game is about".

And only because he claimed to be an "internet celebrity" I was able to find some of his posts on Daka and pulled these gems...

"My 40k gaming is nothing but a search for people who are better than me. Finding them is a nettle in a hay stack".

"I think that I am the winningest 40k player in the world. I've traveled coast to coast in the US".

Game: 4

Mission: Capture and Control/Pitched

Opponent: Tyranids... Kenny from Dallas

Results: Draw 8/20 (game ended turn 5 to both our disappointment)

Wish I grabbed a picture of his army because he was a great opponent with a cool list. He actually took a brood of 3 Fexes and attached a Prime to them, nice. I got a fairly major rule wrong early on (that he let me slide on anyway) which let to his 8 man Warrior unit dying so I gave him best game because I felt like a douche.

Game: 5

Mission: Seize Ground/ Dawn of War

Opponent: Blood Angels... Philip

(again from Dallas lol at least I didn't have to play anyone from Houston!)

Results: Loss 4/20

Opponent had two Land Raiders and two Las/Plas razorbacks all with 5 Assault Marines inside, Mephiston, 2 Baal Preds, 2 Daka Preds and a Furioso in a Pod. Game summary: at the end of turn 7, I still had 10 out of 11 heavy weapons alive and on the board and yet not a single one of his 8 tanks was even immobilized, let alone destroyed... damn you dice!

Again had an awesome time, just wish I did a better job with the pix. June is A-Con in Dallas and July in WarGames Con in Austin... the Texas IGT circuit has begun!

About a third of the crew from Austin enjoying some San Antonio Tex Mex during the lunch break day one.

Mark III Lascannon

2011-05-04T00:16:00.000-05:00

Mark III Lascannon

Although a relic of the past, much like the Mark 1 "Stronos" pattern Razorback, the Mark III Lascannon is still a potent anti-vehicle weapon and the Techmarines of the Mantis Warriors still maintain a limited number of these ancient weapons.

I converted this lascannon on a whim a few months ago out of a really old plastic missile launcher and the newer plastic lascannon out of the dev box. I am just glad I was finally able to paint it.

Quick Nurgle Update

2011-05-02T18:22:00.001-05:00

An escalation league has started locally which has given me the motivation to finally get my Nurgle army painted (been sitting in a box since the "newest" codex came out)...

The first month is 500 point lists:

Lord; MoN, wings, pf

Raptors*7; icon of nurgle, champion, melta bomb

Plague Marines*5; melta*2

Quick 2000 point SM List (Sicarius)

2011-04-22T12:04:00.003-05:00

Mantis Warriors
HQ
(200) Sicarius

(125) Librarian; terminator armor, gate of infinity, null zone

ELITES
(200) Assault Terminators*5; thunder hammers*3, lightning claws*2

(200) Assault Terminators*5; thunder hammers*3, lightning claws*2

TROOPS
(220) Tactical Squad*10; power fist, combi-melta, melta gun, las cannon
(75) Razorback; las cannon & twin plasma gun

(220) Tactical Squad*10; power fist, combi-melta, melta gun, las cannon

(75) Razorback; twin-assault cannon

(200) Tactical Squad*10; power fist, melta gun, multi-melta

(35) Rhino

(85) Scouts*5; combi-melta

FAST ATTACK

(65) Land Speeder Storm; multi-melta

HEAVY SUPPORT

(150) Devastators*5; missile launcher*3, multi-melta*1

~In Austin we are moving back up to 2000 points and since I had success with Sicarius at 1500 points I thought I would try my hand at 2000 with him. The army is pretty straight forward mech list with lots of shooting (something I never had in a Khan list). I played a similar army to this against Aventine's double Storm Raven army this week and we tied at 9 KPs a piece; very bloody!

Lucius Ruber-2nd Company Standard Bearer

2011-04-16T00:15:00.000-05:00

Lucius Ruber- 2nd Company Standard Bearer

On the planet of Endymion, Lucius Ruber picked up the fallen company standard and ran through the Ork War Boss Black Eyez who had just killed the entire 2nd Company command squad and captain. Even with the loss of his left arm, Lucius did not drop the banner. Upon being promoted to Captain, Mantodea assigned Lucius Ruber to Banner Bearer in his newly formed command squad in honor of his heroic deeds.

I was stuck trying to figure out how to paint the banner but props where props are due I totally copied Silar over at Fallen Princes. My spacing on the letters isn't the best but considering this is my biggest free hand ever attempted, I am pleased with the result.

the Mandible Claw

2011-04-07T19:44:00.000-05:00

the Mandible Claw

The Mantis Warrior doctrine is to see but remain unseen and to attack and disappear before the enemy knows what hit them. It is a rare occasion indeed when the Mantis Warriors engage a prepared enemy head on, but when they do they hold nothing back.

In Central Texas we normally play 2000 points so it is quite easy to include an entourage of this size and power. Khan coupled with a Chaplain (normally Cassius) gives the Terminators Furious Charge and Hit and Run and reroll to hit, not to mention Kahn can instant kill... Tyranid Monstrous Creatures are a specialty.

Nurgle Oblits WIP part 2

2011-04-05T22:55:00.000-05:00

Apart from some minor touch ups these two Oblits are ready for paint. I am happy with the way they turned out, obviously Nurgle and I think passible as Oblits. Right now I am sticking with two but will likely make more as my army expands. Comments are greatly appreciated as I am treding on new territory here. Hope you enjoy.

Playing with New Toys

2011-04-03T18:26:00.000-05:00

I've been hard at work today building some Nurgle Oblits. The one on the left is more than a little out of control. They are still far from being complete (their arms aren't even glued on yet...)

4/2/2010 FLAGS Tournament- Results

2011-04-03T02:56:00.001-05:00

While most of the more competitive players from ATX were at Adepticon yesterday, there was a FLAGS tournament that I participated in. The list I used can be found here, unfortunately I forgot my camera but will make do...

Round 1: Seize Ground (5 objectives), Pitched Battle, Bonus: +3pts for killing an HQ & +3pts if you kill player's choice unit.
Opponenet: Crusher Joe: Star Phantoms!!! (SM w/ Vulkan)
List: Vulkan, 7 TH/SS termis in Crusader, 10 Tacticals in HB Razorback, 10 Tacticals in HB Razorback, 5 Scouts in Storm, 5 Sternguard in Rhino

With 5 objectives spread out all over the place I combat squaded the las cannon and threw the 5 bros and Sicarius in the Assault Cannon Razorback and gave the 10 man tac unit in Rhino outflank. I deep struck the shooty termis and deployed Assault Termis with Librarian. Devs set up in open with clear line of site to all 5 objectives.
Joe set up 5 tac on objective, 5 in razorback and sterguard on one flank opposite sicarius while the other tac set up the same way next to Crusaider on the other side of the board oposite las-plas razorback, devs and assault termis and outflanked storm w/ scouts.

I took the first turn and had excelent shooting phase taking out two transports and 6 marines across the board while Joe rolled 5-2's in a row despite twin-linked meltas doing nothing. During the game I knew I couldn't take a charge from his terminators and Vulken so I used both terminator units to bait and draw his Crusaider w/ termis back and forth while only conceding the shooty terminators to assault. While on the other side, with a little help from my las cannon and twin assault cannon razorback, Sicarius and his 5 man combat squad took out 10 marines and 5 sternguard and scored my only two objectives. The game only lasted 5 turns, and when it ended the majority of both our armies were within 12" of one objective which he scored. I killed his chosen unit and no HQs died.
Result: 2-1 objectives (minor victory+3 bonus pts)

Round 2: Kill Points, Dawn of War, Bonus: 5 objectives, anyone can score, +1 bonus for each one scored

Opponenet: Wes: Flesh Terrors

List: Seth w/ Assault Terminators in Storm Raven, 2*Assault Squad in Rhino, missile devs, 2*Baals w/ Flame storm cannon, 2*MM Attack Bikes

Since the game was kill points and DoW I decided to combat squad the Las Cannon tac squad and give them tank hunters. Everything else came on first turn. We traded shots for a few turns and I got super lucky with killing both Baals turn 2 after they dropped their smoke. My St10 Las also took down the Storm Raven while my Shooty Terminators ran across the board to take out his Devs. Seth was taken out by a thunder hammer, Sicarius ran off the board, and my Librarian periled the first time he used a power for the second game in a row! In the end Wes had nine assault marines left straddled across two objectives while I had 4 shooty termis, a lone las cannon, and a pf sergeant left... bloody indeed.

Result: 9KP to 7KP (major victory+2 bonus pts)

Round: 3 Capture and Control/Spear Head, Bonus:+3pts for most expensive unit, +3pts for least expensive unit
Opponent: Crazy Red Pretorian: Space Wolves
List: Thunder Wolf Lord w/ storm shield, pf, and runic armor w/ 4 Thunder Wolves w/ gear, 1 Wolf Lord w/ storm shield and frost blade w/ 15 baby wolves, 5 missile Long Fangs, 8 man Hunters in Rhino, 7 Hunters in Rhino, 5 Hunters on foot.

Going into round three I was a little worried. Despite winning both games up until this point there were still 4 players with higher scores than me. Also the (according to the FLAGS rules) the only way to get max points is to wipe the opponent, otherwise it is a minor for getting one objective or a major for two. Crazy Red Praetorian also had the most competitive list on the day so my work was cut out for me... that is, if we rolled average.

This game was over in a hurry so I wont go into all the details of deployment. He got first turn and drove both rhinos up, one behind cover, one with smoke. I shoot 5 heavy weapons at the covered Rhino, all hit, all penned, all saved... ouch. Next he moves from cover but pops smoke... again all shots saved. At this point we started to joke about his awesome rolling which must have jinksed him cuz what happened next was horrible...
bottom turn 2: Librarian drops in with Assault Terminators
top turn 3: Lord and 4 Thunder wolves charge terminators, I pass all storm shields, I do three wounds which get spread around (none die), he looses by three, fails Ld and runs off the board (700points gone without losing a model).
bottom turn 3: shoot terminators deep strike next to 15 baby wolves and thunder wolf lord, heavy flamer and bolters kill 7 wolves (wolf lord unharmed), failed Ld and ran off the board (300points gone without losing a wound).
After that it was just a matter of mopping up the last 500points of his army uncontested.
Result: Opponent Tabled (Massacre+ 6 bonus points)

With a Minor, Major and a Massacre on the day I came in with 67 battle points awarding me 2nd place. My buddy Bully Mike edged me out by 2 points, and to think, he texted me this morning unsure if he was going to come...

Over all a great tournament, 1500 points was a refreshingly easy size and all three of my games ended early. I really enjoyed using Sicarius, especially at such a small points level, where the Veteran Skills and Ld10 across the army came in handy every game. As a prize I grabbed some Chaos Terminators which I hope to Nurgle up in the near future.

Mantis Warriors Devastators & FLAGS Tournament 4/2/2011

2011-04-02T09:48:00.001-05:00

2nd Company Devastators

Due to the hit and run and gorilla tactics employed by the Mantis Warriors, the chapter rarely took up defensive positions or utilized massed heavy weapon squads. It was only at the closing of the Badab war, when the Mantis Warriors had their backs against the wall, with no where else to go, that they began fielding Devastator units in mass. The Second Company even had to take the heavy weapon troopers out of multiple Tactical squads to form Devastator units, as there were no standing Devastator squads in the company.

Today might be Adepticon for some, but I'm going to a FLAGS tournament!!! The last couple of weeks I've been testing out lists with Sicarius so I can use my new Captain Hoenir model and Devastators for the first time in a tournament.

Mantis Warriors
HQ
(200) (Captain Hoenir) Sicarius
(125) Librarian; terminator armor, gate of infinity, null zone

ELITES
(200) Assault Terminators*5; thunder hammers*3, lightning claws*2
(210) Terminators*5; heavy flamer, chain fist

TROOPS
(220) Tactical Squad*10; power fist, combi-melta, melta gun, las cannon
(75) Razorback; las cannon & twin plasma gun

(210) Tactical Squad*10; power fist, combi-melta, melta gun, multi-melta

(35) Rhino

HEAVY SUPPORT

(150) Devastators*5; missile launcher*4

(75) Razorback; twin-assault cannon

Mantis Warriors vs Hive Fleet Chupacobra

2011-03-30T10:25:00.000-05:00

My buddy Aventine, who normally plays Lamenters, busted out his Hive Fleet Chupacabra for a small 1500 point Spear Head/Annihilation game in preparation for the FLAGS tournament this Saturday.

The game was really close with each side only being up by one or two KPs at a time. Aventine managed to tie the game going into the final combat phase where Sicarius delivered his Coup de Gras attack on the DOOM who finally failed a save, insta killing him, which put me ahead by one KP.

Aventine's full repot can be found here.

1st Company Captain Hoenir-Hero of Tranquility

2011-03-29T14:25:00.004-05:00

1st Company Captain Hoenir

Captain Hoenir was the most highly decorated Sternguard Sergeant in the chapter's history, so it was no surprise when he was promoted to 1st Company Captain in the midst of the Badab war. During the siege of Tranquility Hoenir shed his Tactical Dreadnought Armor, which is typically recognized as a badge of office for Captains of the 1st Company, and donned a specially made suit of Artificer armor so he could personally lead units of Sternguard snipers in ambushes against the Carcharodon chapter.

This is the last bright yellow model in my Mantis Warriors! They are such a headache. I plan on using Captain Hoenir as a counts as Cato Sicarius in an upcoming tournament. I am currently trying to expand my Mantis Warriors collection so I can field competitive lists without Kahn, which means I'll be fielding Sicarius a lot more in the near future.

1500 Mantis Warriors List for FLAGS Tournament

2011-03-25T02:13:00.003-05:00

Every first Saturday of the month Dragon's Lair in Austin, TX hosts a free 40k tournament. Most months it is a straight up three round tournament using the three missions and deployments out of the rule book with a few bonus points thrown in. The fourth tournament of the year is coming up and I am getting ready to take my Mantis Warriors to battle.

A couple of interesting things to note about the tournament in April is that it's 1500pts (what is this, England?!) and it's the same weekend as Adepticon. This means a lot of the usual (and honestly more competitive) subjects wont be around so I'm hoping I can place and grab some free loot!

Mantis Warriors
HQ
(200) Sicarius

(125) Librarian; terminator armor, gate of infinity, avenger

ELITES
(135) Sternguard*5; combi-plasma*2
(80) Razorback; las cannon & twin plasma gun, dozer blaze

(200) Assault Terminators*5; thunder hammers*3, lightning claws*2

(210) Terminators*5; heavy flamer, chain fist

TROOPS
(210) Tactical Squad*10; power fist, combi-melta, melta gun, missile launcher
(35) Rhino

(220) Tactical Squad*10; power fist, combi-melta, melta gun, las cannon

(35) Rhino

FAST ATTACK

(50) Attack Bike; multi-melta

This is a different list than I have been running recently. Dropping down to 1500pts I really couldn't bring myself to include the Land Raider, and if I wasn't going to take that then Kahn had to go too. I've tried Sicarius a few times in the past and found him to be a lot of fun and his ability to improve one of my Tactical Squads should come in handy since I've only taken two scoring units.

Land Raider Redeemer "Scyther"

2011-03-23T09:04:00.002-05:00

Land Raider Redeemer "Scyther"

During the Badab War, Land Raider Redeemer "Scyther" acted as Captain Mantodea's personal escort vehicle and was rightfully feared. Although Sycther was eventually destroyed with all crew lost, the company's Techmarines was able to rescue the vehicle's Machine Spirit which was fitted to a new Land Raider after the war's conclusion.

Ever since I added this model to my army it has been the corner stone of every list I have used. Filled with Assault Terminators, Kahn and a Chaplain; there isn't much the payload can't tackle.

Nurgle Raptor Takes Flight!

2011-03-22T23:29:00.000-05:00

An escalation league is hitting the FLAGS in Austin which has given me motivation to redo my Nurgle army in time for WAR Games Con. This is the test mini for the color scheme.

Talos Pain Dragon: WIP Part 4

2011-03-12T15:49:00.001-06:00

This guy has taken forever but he is almost done. Just have to finished his head and the weapon mount and a few other minor details...

Two Down, One to Go!

2011-03-10T16:57:00.000-06:00

Finished these two guys today. I just need one more to round out the unit for the army I plan on taking to the Alamo IGT in May. Since my SM army is pretty much done as far as that tournament goes, I think I will switch gears for a little while and go back to painting my Exodite army. Look forward to seeing my Talos Pain Dragon finished soon!

Tranquility Sniper Squad "Silent Sting"

2011-03-08T15:58:00.001-06:00

Tranquility Sniper Squad "Silent Sting"

During the siege of Tranquility, Sniper Squad"Silent Sting" racked up an impressive tally of confirmed kills on Carcharodon Terminator units. Using the naturally yellow camouflage of the Jungles of Tranquility, Silent Sting would lay in ambush along with their uniquely designed Razorback that could move at combat speed through the dense jungles where normally even infantry would be reduced to a crawl.

This is one of my favorite units to use, and in normal games they are simply 6 Sternguard with two Combi-Plasmas in a Las-Plas Razorback (with dozer blade). People often times underestimate the amount damage these few models can dish out. Six wound TMC, Command Squads, Lysander and Dante are just a few of the units this squad and transport have taken out in a single volley!

Mobility!

2011-03-03T15:16:00.001-06:00

Just a quick update before I go out of town to New Orleans for Mardi Gras this weekend!

Third Rhino and a WIP Attack Bike; I plan on having a squadron of three of these painted in time for the Alamo Tournament in May.

Chaplain Thoughts

2011-02-25T01:43:00.000-06:00

Everyone in Austin seems to be getting ready for Adepticon but I've got my eyes set on a tournament just a little further down the road. Alamo 40K May 14-15th in San Antonio, Texas. I played there last year and had a blast (tournament held in a drinking hall, nice), although I went 1W-2L-2D on the weekend with my Mantis Warriors. This year I hope to fair a little better which has got me pondering over which Chaplain to take...?

The signature of my Mantis Warriors is a Death Star comprising of a Land Raider Redeemer filled with Assault Terminators led by Kahn. That makes Terminators with Furious Charge and Hit and Run with a character that causes Instant Death on a roll of a 6 to wound in combat. To top the unit off I throw in a Chaplain for fearless and to make sure Kahn hits enough times to land a 6 to wound on the charge.

Cassius has been my go to man for a while because he makes an outstanding body guard with T6 and FNP. Often times I put him in contact with a hidden power fist to suck up any would be instant kill attacks on Kahn. He is also a steal at only +25 points over a standard Chaplain. The problem is that Chaplains only have 3 Attacks when not charging, which leaves something to be desired from an offensive point of view.

Lately however I've considered running a normal Chaplain with Digital Lasers. When Codex: SM first came out I scoffed at this upgrade. +10 points to only re-roll once to wound a turn. Why take that when Lightning Claws can re-roll all to wounds? Well obviously Chaplains can't take LCs and with so few attacks, being able to re-roll once to wound often times turns no kills into one kill, which makes it easily worth the points for a model with S4!

So the question is; do I go for defensive power or offensive power in my Death Star unit? Both have proved to be well worth the investment but I can only choose one.

Special Options

2011-02-23T16:10:00.000-06:00

About a month ago I had the idea to switch out the melta guns in my two Tactical Squads for plasma guns. To make sure they still had the ability to pop a tank or dreadnought in a tight spot I gave the Sergeants combi-meltas too. This made the squads 15 points more expensive but they offer some impressive fire power if needed on the turn they arrive from reserve!

I even remembered to paint their tactical markings this time!

Mantis Warriors Painting Tutorial

2011-02-21T14:05:00.002-06:00

A couple of weeks ago Rath of Un asked if I could post a tutorial on how I paint my Mantis Warriors. Most recently on my painting table I've been trying to finish a 10 man Assault Squad so here we go!

Step 1:

Over a black prime I apply GW Knarloc Green Foundation as the base coat, being careful to leave a black line around and edges within the armor. Any areas what will be gold later (such as the breast plate eagle and skulls on the helmet, weapons or backpack) as well as the leather pouches and pistol holster are painted Calthan Brown. The metal on the gun and chain sword are painted Boltgun Metal.

Step 2:
I removed the jump pack for easier access to paint the shoulder pads for later on. The helmet lenses are painted Mechrite Red. All the metal areas are Badab Black Washed. The breast plate eagle, as well as all the skulls that were painted brown are now painted Dwarf Bronze. Be sure to leave the inner edges of the eagle brown to give it a shadowed look. Finally all the leather and gold details are given a Devlan Mud Wash.

Step 3:
On to the Highlighting stage, almost done! The helmet lenses are highlighted with Blazing Orange. The metal areas are highlighted with Chainmail. The black edges on the chain sword and the pistol are highlighted with Adeptus Battlegrey. The brown details are highlighted with Vermin Brown.

Step 4:

Before gluing the jump pack back on I painted the Assault Marine X onto the shoulder. First I used Iyanden Darksun Foundation for a base coat. On top of the base coat I brighten the Yellow up with Sunburst Yellow. It is important to use the foundation paint first because it would otherwise take a ridiculous number of Sunburst coats over the green.

Step 5:
Finally I highlighted the armor with Scorpion Green before making any final touch ups to the model.

~Can anyone guess what metal model this Assault Marine was before he got a green coat? If you have any other requests for posts please let me know!

2/12/2011 Tournament 2500pts

2011-02-14T12:23:00.000-06:00

In my last post I talked about the army list I would be taking to the 2500pt hobby tournament at my FLAGS over the weekend; well here is how it shook down.

Tournament Rules:

2500pts

max two Heavy Support

min 1 Fast Attack

max 4 Fast Attack

if you take only one Heavy Support and none as Dedicated Transports you get a single re-roll per game turn!

GAME 1

Deployment: Spear Head

Mission: Sieze Ground (5 objectives)

Special Rules: Night Fight for 6 Turns

Bonus: None

Opponent: Stoneychavez (Chaos SM)

My opponent's army had...

Abadon with 4 Khorn terminators riding in Landraider, Summoned Greater Daemon, Khorn Lord with Daemon weapon, 2 rhinos with Khorn Bezerkers, 1 rhino with Plague Marines, 6 MoN bikes and a Defiler. He did not get the special reroll because he had two heavies.

The mission was a lot like the old 3rd and 4th edition night fight mission. Set up in table quarters and then spread out over the whole board going after objectives. Out two armies smashed into each other and took a ton of casualties. On the last turn his Landraider was able to punch through my lines and contest one of my two objectives while my Assault Marines failed to dislodge a unit of Plague Marines off one of his two objectives so game ended in tie. Awesome game against someone I had never played before.

Game Lows and Highs

Low: Sicarius gave one Tactical Squad tank hunters and despite three close range melta shots in the game did not even scratch the land raider! >:(

High: Same Tactical Squad with tank hunters was able to lay low a Defiler with S7 krak grenade!

GAME 2

Deployment: Pitched Battle

Mission: Kill Points

Special Rules: Everything is difficult ground for movement.

Bonus: +3 points for killing an HQ, +1 for killing most expensive unit

Opponent: Wes (Blood Angels)

My opponent had...

Dante, Librarian, 2 jump pack Assault Squads, 1 Assault Squad in Land Raider, death company in razorback, 2 attack bike w/ multi-melta, baal pread, 10 shooty terminators, and vindicator. Again opponent did not have the reroll.

I was pretty upset at the mission of this round. We were encourage to take lots of Fast Attack but in this game those became a liability with all the dangerous terrain checks... oh well. Early on I was up quite a few KPs but soon Dante came to bear and killed Sicarius and about three other KPs. I ended up losing by 3 KPs, ouch.

Game Lows and Highs

Low: I hate Dante; I charged him with Sicarius and my command squad. Sicarius dead and Dante hit and ran away! errrr

High: His Vindicator immobilized its self first turn, unable to get in range for the entire game.

GAME 3

Deployment: Spear Head

Mission: One Objective

Special Rules: Single objective in center of board can be picked up by Troops and moved towards own table corner. All models have Fleet for this game, but cannot run with objective nor ride in a transport.

Bonus: +1 for each FA choice you kill

Opponent: Nathan (Chaos SM)

My opponent had...

Karn the Betrayer, Summoned Greater Daemon, winged Daemon Prince, 5 oblits, three MoCG chaos marine units, two Bezerker units in rhinos, 3! chosen loaded with melta and plasma in rhinos and... a single SPAWN!

This was another great game but really, due to my trickery, he had no chance. I managed to pull the objective 24" towards my corner of the board in 6 turns.

Game Lows and Highs

Low: non, awesome game

High: Sicarius gave one tac squad scout. Before the game started I scouted them onto the objective and since I had first turn, I was able to begin moving it towards my side before he even could move. Since his Daemon Prince had fleet now he was able to assault them first turn which was cool but my assault squad made short work of him.

all in all was a great tournament with three really fun games. Even though I sucked it up over all, I had a good time.

Up Coming Tournament List Thoughts

2011-02-09T13:10:00.000-06:00

The FLAGS tournament scene in Austin this month promises to be a little more interesting with the edition of a second event, a "hobby tournament". In hopes of inspiring less traditional tournament lists; the following special Force Organizational restrictions will be in place...

2500 pt "hobby tournament"
1) max one Special Character
2) max two Heavy Support
3) minimum one Fast Attack
4) max four Fast Attack
5) Special Rule: if you only take one Heavy Support and none taken as a Dedicated Transport, you gain a free re-roll to be taken at any point each full turn!

I play tested an IG army for the tournament today against Aventine's Lamenters... after nearly being tabled I decided to switch to Space Marines. As far back as I can remember I've been taking Kahn in a Land Raider with an Assault Terminator squad and a large portion of the force out flanking. In hopes of inspiring something new and interesting for myself; Sicarius will be my single special character and I am dropping the Land Raider for the first time since I painted the damn thing.

LIST

2500pts
Space Marines; Mantis Warriors

HQ
(200) Captain Sicarius

(200) Command Squad*5 (115); apothecary, company champion (15), power fist (25), lightning claw (15), storm shield*2 (30)
(75) Razorback (40); assault cannon (35)

(125) Chaplain (100); jump pack (15), digi-lasers (10)

ELITES
(200) Assault Terminators*5 (200); thunder hammer*3, lightning claws*2

(210) Terminators*5 (200); heavy flamer (5), chain fist (5)

(160) Sternguard Veterans*6 (150); combi-plasma*2 (10)
(80) Razorback (40); twin-plasma, lascannon (35), dozer blade (5)

TROOPS
(210) Tactical Squad*10 (170); power fist (25), combi-melta (10), melta gun (5), missile launcher
(35) Rhino

(210) Tactical Squad*10 (170); power fist (25), combi-melta (10), melta gun (5), missile launcher
(35) Rhino

(215) Tactical Squad*10 (170); power fist (25), plasma gun (10), lascannon (10)
(45) Drop Pod; locator beacon (10)

(95) Scouts (75); combi-melta (10), heavy bolter (10)

FAST ATTACK
(65) Land Speeder Storm (50); multi-melta (10)

(240) Assault Marines*10 (190); twin lightning claws (30), flamer*2 (20)

HEAVY SUPPORT
(100) Thunderfire Cannon

I am very interested to see how this army plays, especially the special rules form Sicarius. I've never used a command squad before and the only times I've used an Assault Squad it performed terribly. But hell, taking a ton of Space Marines is never bad...

Landspeeder Storm... and other WIP fun.

2011-02-02T13:25:00.000-06:00

I've taken a break from painting Exodite Dragons to get a few models finished in time for a couple local tournaments. This model is done, but still needs its back passengers painted and magnetized.

Added a Wolf Scout head for a little extra flavor for the crazed scout pilot.

The weapon is removable so I can switch it out with the other options (assault cannon, heavy bolter, or heavy flamer). The gunner's foot is also magnetized so he can shift depending on the size of the gun.

The Mantis Warrior Special Character in the IA:10 Badab book gives the army Chapter Tactics: Infiltrate so I figure an on foot command squad would be fun to use. I look forward to painting these soon.

Talos Pain Dragon WIP: part 3

2011-01-18T21:41:00.000-06:00

Dragon done, time for the rider and weapon mount.

Talos Pain Dragon WIP: part 2

2011-01-17T00:54:00.000-06:00

Got the next layer painted on the skin and scales. I am really looking forward to getting this guy on the table top. Anyone know if Talos are any good? haha

Talos Pain Dragon WIP

2011-01-16T17:58:00.000-06:00

Work in progress on my counts as Exodite Talos. Still two more layers for the skin, scales, and bone... before starting on the rider.

Unpainted Progress

2011-01-10T00:13:00.000-06:00

It is raining here in central Texas which has unfortunately kept me from priming my Talos Pain Dragon. Instead here are some of the counts as Wracks that will be in my Exodite army. Toughness 4 and FNP might be a stretch for their Dragon Cloaks but the Corsairs at least look the part of Exodite warriors on foot.

Pirates with lasguns will play the part of the Warriors and Witches in my army. I've combined CW Guardian, DE Warrior, DE Witch and High Elf kits to create a non uniform look for the Pirates.

Talos Pain Dragon

2011-01-05T00:14:00.000-06:00

My girlfriend surprised me today with a late Christmas present in the mail; a Carnosaur! Well it was a Carnosaur until it got folded into my Exodite army as a counts as Talos. I used the old Metal High Elf Dragon rider legs, a Dark Elf Coldone Knight torso, a couple random Eldar arms and a DE Witch head for the rider. The weapon and mounting are bitz from an Eldar Viper. Still work in progress at the moment with lots of mold lines to putty over.

It is raining here in Texas so I hope to have it ready to be sprayed by the time it dries up because I'd really like to get this guy painted up ASAP!

Thoughts about the viability of a giant lizard as a Talos would be appreciated...

Razorwing Flock

2011-01-04T03:09:00.000-06:00

Normally I do not like mixing non GW models into my army but after scouring the Cittadel miniature range I could not find any suitable swarms that would match my Exodite themed Beastmaster unit. I settled on Reaper: Bat Swarms and painted them to match my other Dragons.

Bad lighting on the photo but you can see that they are supposed to match.

New Year's Resolution

2011-01-03T12:10:00.000-06:00

Well it is the time of the year that everyone is making their resolutions to stop smoking and start exorcising. As a raging Warhammer nerd my resolutions will all be miniature painting related.

FIRST
paint 1500points of my new Dark Eldar army.
~this should be fun, it has been a long time since I have started an army from scratch. I kept the goal low because I still have lots of other half finished projects I'd like to see finished this year too.

SECOND
paint a further 1000points of Mantis Warriors and finally put decals on all the infantry and tanks. DONT BUY ANYTHING NEW!
~I have far more than 1000points of Space Marines unpainted. This goal is mostly to motivate me to finally paint all the Space Hulk Terminators and make all the models I do have painted look legit with the decals FerroMike made for me off the BolterandChainsword site.

THIRD
paint 1000points of Plague Marines.
~I sold off 40 hand sculpted Plague Marines that I made back in 2003 for a GT in Dallas to buy the beginnings of my Dark Eldar army. The Nurgle pretty much never saw table top play unless it was an Apocalypse game or a team tournament with Aventine. I would really like to remake a small force in time for the BoLS Con team tournament this summer.

If I can get this much completed before the next year it will be by far my most productive year of warhammer hobbying that I have ever had. I am generally a very slow painter so I hope this motivates me to pick up the brush with greater speed.

Exodite Dragon Friends!

2010-12-29T11:35:00.000-06:00

Using the Lizardmen painting guide on the GW website I painted up my first three "counts as" Khymeras. Goatboy pointed out that there are cheaper ways of doing it, and that these models are a bit big for what they reprosent, but fielding an army of Exodites is about being cool so I am very happy with the way they tuned out.

Next up are a couple of Razorwing Flocks before going back and painting the remainder of the Beastmasters. Wish me motivation because this single 208 point unit is going to take me all of January to paint...

Exodite Beastmaster

2010-12-12T22:22:00.000-06:00

I am very excited to finally have my first Dark Eldar model painted. Well it is an Exodite but it is for my upcoming Dark Eldar army. Since they don't really have models for the beasts I decided it would be fun to use Exodite Dragon Riders as the masters and use various dinosaurs as the beasts. So far I've got Lizaedmen Salamanders and Razordons as my Khymeras and am working over ideas for the other monsters.

Mantis Warrior List Thoughts

2010-10-25T21:25:00.000-05:00

I've been running my Mantis Warriors as a bike free Kahn list for as long as I can remember with enough success to keep at it. At some point I hope to do an article about the finer points of an entire army that has the option of outflanking and which units are best at it, but tonight I am pondering a more specific army list question: what use is a Tac Squad Drop Poding with double Melta in an outflanking army? And even though the Thunderfire Cannon is unmatched against xenos, is it justifiable to drop it when faced with so many Mech Marine opponents?

Below is the list I took to a tournament in Long Island, NY and placed 2nd out of 40 players. A lot of the success could be contributed to the Drop Pod squad in rounds 1 and 2 where they claimed a Storm Raven and a Land Raider respectfully (each with assault terminators inside). However in the third round they only managed to immobilize a daka Dreadnought and conceded two kill points. A perfect trade for this unit is 10 Assault Marines with a flamer and sgt w/ twin lightning claws.

DROP POD PROS

can knock out a major vehicle first turn

counts double if it holds a major assault unit

is a scoring unit

DROP POD NEGATIVES

not good against armies without an expensive vehicle

not good against an army in reserve

only works in Dawn of War if you go second

two easy kill points right into enemy deployment zone

the unit NEVER lives to score

Although I have not used the Assault Squad with jump packs yet (briefly used the squad in a rhino but no good) I feel outflanking with an 18"charge range could be great, especially if I find 115pt to add a jump Chaplain.

So what about the Thunderfire Cannon? That thing is awesome but I might just have to drop it in favor of a jump chaplain for the soon to be outflanking Assault Squad.

LAST TOURNAMENT LIST 1850pts

Khan (160)

Terminators*5 (200); thunderhammers*3, lightning claws*2
Land Raider Redeemer (240); ex armor (15), multi-melta (10)

Terminators*5 (200); chain fist (5), heavy flamer (5)

Sternguard Veterans*5 (125); combi-plasma*2 (10)
Razorback (40); twin-plasma & lascannon (35), dozer blade (5)

Tactical Squad*10 (170)
power fist (25), melta gun (5), missile launcher
Rhino (35)

Tactical Squad*10 (170)
power fist, melta gun (5), missile launcher
Rhino (35)

Tactical Squad*10 (170)
combi-melta (10), melta gun (5), lascannon (10)
Drop Pod (35)

HEAVY SUPPORT
Thunderfire Cannon (100)

~so what do you think I should do? There is a tournament coming up in three weeks in Grapevine, TX which I will bring one of the two lists.

MORDHEIM CAMPAIGN WEEK: 1

2010-10-20T21:51:00.000-05:00

Got my first Mordheim game under my belt and although my warband faired well in combat against the men of Middenheim, my post game rolling was pretty crappy...

Kagan Witch Burner's Devoted enter the City of the Damned to face the unclean.

A band of men from Middenheim are spotted looting a portion of the evil city and a challenge is issued.

Old Man Lex and Benny the Red take aim with Snipey the Tillian Marksmen on the approaching Wolf Men.

Only Snipey's aim is true enough to catch one of the enemy in the open, but most of the bolt's velocity was lost at such long range and only knocked a Swordsman down.

The rest of the Warband follow Kegan behind a burnt out building while another volley of crossbow bolts are sent into the Middenheimers. This being the boy's first battle, the poor Youngblood hadn't learnt the finer points of evasion when running in the open and was taken out by the Tillian. Boy will have that Old Battle Wound for the rest of his days...

The Middenheimers learn to hide behind buildings...

... and ambush the Warhounds Toothy and James! Both pups are taken out along with the Flagellants Ivan and Dieter. Now on the second story of the building, the Snipey the Tillian took careful aim and shot one of the Champions in the arm before being charged by the other. Drawing his Sword Snipey showed the Middenheimer how it's done in Tillia and knocked him from the second story before jumping down after him easily taking him out of action!

Fierce fighting in the street sees the Zealot crawl away.

Ganging up on the Swordsmen does nothing.

... but Kegan shoots the Middenheim Captain in the eye!

Post battle: although my Tillian Marksmen took out three enemies in the game (two from shooting and one in combat) his level up only and got him Leadership 8!!! ugh. To make matters worse both Flagellants died; only 110 gc lost there. I was able to buy back one Flagellant with my earnings but I feel I took a step back after with battle.

GAME TWO: Chance Encounter

WITCH HUNTER FLAGELLANTS

2010-10-12T23:37:00.000-05:00

Made some progress tonight while I watched the Texas Rangers shut down the Tampa Bay Rays in game 5 of the American League playoffs! Not at all happy with the quality of the photo but what-evs.

PLASTIC HEROES

2010-10-04T22:29:00.000-05:00

Made some progress on my two plastic Witch Hunter Heroes this evening. Neither are ready for paint, but both are getting close. The one on the right got a chain mail shirt with sleeves and bottom showing under his breast plate. The one of the left had work done to his peg leg but isn't quite finished and a cobble stone base. Eventually all the members of the warband will have their bases done like this.

I generally don't like using plastic models for Heroes in Mordheim but these two are coming along nicely.

WITCH HUNTER HEROES

2010-10-03T23:25:00.000-05:00

I made some progress on getting my Mordheim warband together for our upcoming campaign in Austin. Still not sure when it will start so I am not in a huge rush to get it done. Above is my captain and his trusted Warhounds. The captain still needs some work. I have a cross bow pistol I still need to add and his paint job needs some touch ups.

Here are all my Heroes that I worked on today. On the Right is my Warrior Priest armed with shield and hammer. Second from the Right is a Witch Hunter with pistol sword and buckler. Middle is Captain. The two on the Left are my WIP Witch Hunters with Cross Bows. They were totally bitz box bashes. The one of the right was missing a foot, and I couldn't find it. He will have a putty peg leg and both will have putty chain mail sleeves and other equipment.

I've never played with Witch Hunters so I am pretty excited. Anyone else out there ever used them?

MANTIS SCOUTS

2010-10-02T19:32:00.000-05:00

I just finished painting a 10 man unit of scouts (minus the bases) this week for my goal of just painting models I already own before buying any new SM models. Even though I have over 2000pts painted of Mantis Warriors I easily have more than that unpainted.

Here are some close ups of the members of the unit. The yellow pants are a little bold to say the least but I like the way they turned out, and honestly I could not come up with a more suitable color for them.

Below is a WIP Space Hulk Terminator. I haven't quite decided what to paint next; either four more Space Hulk Terminators, a Landraider, or a Landspeeder Storm... any thoughts?

Witch Hunter Warband

2010-09-29T22:27:00.000-05:00

Mordheim; possibly my favorite spinoff game that GW made. Aventine over at Zen40k and I have been talking about starting up another campaign. He posted a picture of a painted Ghoul for his new warband, and that has inspired me to start a new warband as well. Above is a picture of a Bounty Hunter Hired Sword that I made, but will be my Witch Hunter Captain. I already had a Warrior Priest Hired Sword and some Warhounds from another warband and I converted a couple of Reiklander Youngbloods into Zealots. Recently I won a box of Flagellants at a 40k tournament which rounded out the rest of the models I will need.

Witch Hunter Warband

Heroes

Captain; cross bow, pistol, sword

Witch Hunter; cross bow, axe

Witch Hunter; cross bow, mace

Witch Hunter; pistol, sword

Warrior Priest; hammer, shield, light armor

Henchment

Flagellant; flail

Flagellant; great weapon

Zealot; spear, shield, short bow

Warhound*2

Tactics wise the group in Austin plays with shields giving +2 save in combat and armor is half priced. This will allow the Zealot to be a decent body guard to receive charges and will also protect the expensive Warrior Priest. The two Witch Hunters with Crossbows will sit back and snipe while the rest of the Heroes will advance forward with the Henchmen in front.

Post Game: I'd like the Captain to get Nimble so he can shoot while he advances with the rest of his band. I can also hope that one of my Flagellants gets 'Lads got Talent' and Strong Man with a great sword.

I want this warband to have a mix of shooting and combat without Crossbow spam. There are also a lot of Hired Swords I would like to add, but that is for another article.

NEW @ BLOGGING

2010-09-28T18:36:00.000-05:00

All my warhammer friends are doing it so I finally felt it was time to jump on the bandwagon and have a go. I look forward to posting on my new blog at least once a week with pictures of my current projects, battle reports, tacticas or anything else to do with miniature wargaming. My main two 40K armies are Imperial Guard and Space Marines. The IG have been shelved for the time being while I pursue armies that are more fun to play with and against and I look forward to starting Dark Eldar like every other jackass in November. My favorite GW Specialist Game is Mordheim, and I hope to post pictures of Warbands and Campaigns to come.
Hope you all enjoy.

~kings

To kick things off, here is a picture of my...
Mantis Warrior Tranquility Veterans Camo Scheme.

Scout Veteran Sergeant

Mantis Warrior Terminator