Tournament short story winning entry

The story that I entered in the tournament that won the 'best story' award.

Golden sunlight bathed Governor Jarmal’s private stateroom. The sun just starting to dip lower in the sky was casting long shadows across the room. Kiervan Jarmal stood, letting the warmth of the sun fall across his face. A great many things troubled him, the arrival of the Ork fleet most of all, with the woeful weakness in numbers of his PDF adding to his worries. He reached down and picked up his cigar from the ashtray, raising it to his lips and breathing in the wonderful taste deep into his chest. The heady aroma and the almost sensual caress of the smoke going a little way to easing the fears he harbored. True, Forlorn Hope’s own defense would not hold against such a mighty foe but the impending arrival of the Emperor’s own warriors, the astartes, made his hopes soar and his determination galvanize. Though he had never seen any in action personally, he had heard many tales of their heroics and deeds in battle. It would be the greatest honour of his life to be in the presence of such mighty weapons of the Emperor’s might.

Local game store tournament 2012

Just a quick post to congratulate everyone who went to the tournament at our LGS this year. Specially to Sam and his Grey Knights/Henchmen list that placed 3rd and Caz and his Nurgle daemons/plague marines army that won 'best army'. I won 'best background/story' but that's by the by.

It was a great weekend of games that was marred only by one person that brought loaded dice and engineered two wins before being called out and asked not to return. He didn't really seem to argue his case and just took his dice with him and left.

Lastly, this was the final time the old chaos codex was being used as it was too soon between tournament and release of the 6th ed. chaos codex to use the new one. So, fair well 4th ed. chaos codex you served us well!

Louis' 1st Legion: 3rd Company

Army shot of what I've painted so far, borrowing the cool piece of terrain from FA's collection.... enjoy!

Ethrion - please help me stick this to the Army section, thanks mate!

Campaign Day: Sunday 14th October

The Myrddin Crusade

Start time is 10:00am so be there for 9:30am - 9:45am
Points limit of 1500
Named characters are allowed
Allies are allowed

What was initially a small scale operation by the Dark Angels to oust the corrupted planetary governor turned sorcerer Myrddin Wyllt quickly escalated into full blown crusade.

As the war progressed, the extent of the corruption and influence that Myrddin had over the local systems and surrounding sectors of space became clear. The situation was dire indeed and soon other Adeptus Astartes chapters and Imperial forces started to gather to the Dark Angels banner.

Under the overall command of Chapter Master Azrael, planet after planet was recaptured or purged. The crusade force began what would ultimately become a 20 year campaign to cleanse the region of Myrddin's evil.

Ravenwing Attack Squadron

Finally, after weeks of procrastination and excuses, I managed to finish my Ravenwing attack squadron.  I used a couple of old school Ravenwing pewter parts, see if you can pick them out.

Pretty happy with the way this squadron turned out.  Now thinking if I should work on a 2nd Tactical squad (armed exactly as my other squad - Plasma Cannon, Plasma Gun & Sergeant w/ Plasma Pistol and chain- sword) using the pieces from DV.  I'm going to take mess around and maybe try to convert the Sergeant so he's holding a Power Maul instead of just the chain-sword.

Or is that a so-so upgrade?

Anyway... comments and criticism appreciated.

Remnants of the Atramentar

Five of the few remaining Night Lord terminators from the legion's 1st company.

Night Lord Daemon Prince

Not sure what character this is yet but at the moment it is just evidently a Night Lord legionary that has fully embraced the glory of chaos and has risen to the exalted rank of a daemon prince. Perhaps and alternate timeline Vandred...

Cultists of the Drawn Blade

Former manufactorum workers and members of the mechanicum now indentured servants of the VIII legion.

Typhus

Since he's such a beast in 6th edition I just had to honour him and finally got around to painting him after I think about 5 years of owning the model...but I guess Typhus is used to getting lost in the warp!

Mission 55 Theta - clearance of space hulk 'Revenant of Despair'

So we decided to play a game of Zone Mortalis where 700 points of ordo xenos inquisition would attempt to purge a sector of the space hulk 'Revenant of Despair' clear of 700 points worth of tyranid infestation. The primary objective being the hive queen or 'tervigon' to give it it's correct designation. The queen would birth 2D6 plus 3 broods of termagants per turn and would not 'burn out' as per the standard codex tervigon rules. The aim being that the hulk is infested with tons of little gribblies and it is up to the inquisition to blast their way through to reach the hive nest and torch the queen.

Both sides would be using blip markers to represent their different units and squads (only themselves knowing what was under each one). Interspersed amongst the blips representing termagant broods were the 700 points worth of tyranid elite units which comprised of genestealers both ymgarl and standard, a brood of two lictors and a brood of venomthropes. We also decided that the lictors and the inquisitions eversor assassin could traverse the map via the airducts which we represented using the tops of the walls.

Finally, we agreed that the game would last the full seven turns and the unstable void ship damage table would be in effect. (My apologies for the use of the same blip markers to represent the tyranids and the inquisition. It might be confusing for readers but we knew what was going on).

The layout of the hulk - tyranid blips appear throughout the hulk with blips to represent the breaching ordo xenos troops in the foreground
 

Ethrion's Night Lords

At the moment just a work in progress as I change the colour of my army to the 'new' colour scheme. Many more to follow in the coming weeks and months... The idea is to make them as spikey and "evil" as possible and have them adorned with skulls, helms and other battle trophies. Plenty of Dark Angel and Blood Angel helmets I think!


Krieg Acerbus 'The Axemaster'

A narrative battle report (1K Sons & DA)

My first attempt at trying out a narrative battle report.  Inspiration came after my game with Ethrion's Thousand Sons.  We played a 1,750pt game, pitched battle deployment, mission being the Relic and my Dark Angels got first turn.

Let me know what you think, and do comment & criticize as much as you can.  I'm a big boy, I can take it.

Ethrion, hope this will form the basis of our next match up... great game btw.

As the last remnants of the Imperial defenders were cut down, the mortally wounded Lord Commissar Marcus Valerius laid face up, the grip on his power sword slowly relaxing.  All around him was the relentless harmony of war playing out; the steady thumping sound of mass-reactive bolter rounds punching through the bodies of fleeing soldiers, chunks of masonry collapsing, blown off by auto-cannon shells and krak missiles, the moans of pain coming from his men and the sound of his own dying, but still beating heart.  In his last moments, Valerius replayed the event that had unfolded.  However, despite the different strategic alternatives he thought of, the outcome, he knew in truth, would have been all but the same.  He simply had lacked the resource and the ability to muster sufficient heavy artilleries as the call to arms was rushed and his men ill-prepared.  As the noise around him began to dwindle out, he knew that death was coming to embrace him.  Before blacking out into unconsciousness, the commissar picked out a distant sound which was not there a moment ago.  It was the sound of engines roaring.  Not the sound of lumbering battle-tanks or transport vehicles but the noise Valerius heard was higher pitched, like the sound of bikes.

Yes, death was indeed coming now, of that Valerius was sure.

New Chaos Rumours

Quote from B&C:

First off, I want to say that it just doesn’t make any sense for GW to release the new Starter Set with models that doesn’t have a codex, so we have to assume that CSM codex will be out before the starter set. The only way they don’t (would be a big slap in the face) would be they add a mini update like Daemons and still put off the CSM codex release.

Anyway on to more rumors/leaks.

Remember I might just repeat other rumors floating around and debunk others.

–Special Characters–

Ahriman: Mastery Level 4, Same Stats as before, Access to Biomancy, Pryomancy, Telepathy, and Tzeentch. He is the master of witch ire spells, he can cast three spells that are witchfire in the same phase. He can also give up to three units infiltrate ability.

Huron: Same Stats as before, Mastery Level 1, Spells are randomly determined at the start of each turn.

Typhus: Same Stats as before, Mastery Level 2 can only take Nurgle powers, Destroyer Hive has been changed to be a Nurgle Holocaust Str4 AP2 ignores cover. Has Fear

Kharn: Same Stats as before, Him and his Unit get 2+ to deny witch and is completely immune to force weapons. Still attacks random people, but now a sneaky way around it. Always hits on 2+ in Assualt. Best part is he has Hatred that he can give to the rest of his unit.

Fabius Bile: Same Stats as before. Enhanced Warriors can only ever kill one model gives them Str and Fearless.

Lucius: Same Stats as before. His attacks are the same number as your opponent WS (Avatar vs Lucius fun times). Re-rolls all Wounds, Armor saves made by Lucius inflict str 4 ap2 hits back.

Aegis Defence Line

The Kit: I was pleasantly surprised when I opened up the Aegis Defence line by the fact that apart from the gun emplacement, all the sections were just singular solid pieces of plastic, so no need for assembly and very little chance of breakage. The downside is that you only get the quad gun. If you wanted to build an icarus lascannon you'll have to carv it out of plasticard or give up and throw the kit back at your LGS manager's face while howling in dispair.

Painting: Do you have a pot of Leadbelcher silver and a big fat brush? Then you're pretty much there already. To give it a little bit more variance of colour I coated it in devlan mud (or whatever it's called now) and then splotchily dabbed red, blue and green wash over different bits of it. Finally I slapped black soot weathering powder on it and the bottom edges had muddy-brown weathering powder applied to make it look like it had got shit all over it from the battlefield.

Lastly I got various bits of green vegetation looking stuff (I think the stuff I bought is really supposed to be used for scenery on model train sets or something) and glued them into the nooks and crannies to make it look like the defence line had been sat in a warzone of a long grinding campaign and so stuff had started to grow on it.

Gaming: I measured the defence line to be slightly over 28" long when you stretch it out. It seems you'll be able to get the required 25% of an infantry model obscured by it, even from a flyer's point of view as long as the model is in base contact with it. Terminator sized models may find it problematic to get cover saves reliably from it, but from a level view they will be fine.

However, it's difficult to get a rhino sized model a cover save from it and pretty much impossible from an elevated POV (i.e. a flyer's POV). The situation is even worse for dreadnoughts, though again, still possible.

Finally, it's worth mentioning the effectiveness of the 50pt quad-gun. My shaky mathhammer tells me that if fired by a BS 4 model, it should strip around 1 hullpoint from an armour 12 flyer or around 0.8 hullpoints if the flyer takes a jink save. The chances of it getting an explodes result on such a model are less than 1 in 10.

Chaos Rumours

Quote:

–What will be Released–

We will know if GW has changed policy. This codex will reveal if GW has abandoned the wave method to model release with a new codex or if they have stopped caring and show you all the new models even if they don’t come out right away.

Finecast: Dark Apostle, Warsmith, New Lord, Oblits, All Old Special Characters not updated already

New Plastic: Dragon, Raptors, Dreadnaught, Demon Engine, Assault Oblits, Chosen

Upgrade Packs: Plague Marines, 1k Sons, Emperor’s Children

–General Changes–

Almost all of the old units are either the same point cost or have gotten cheaper. With the notable exceptions of Chosen, Terminators, Defilers getting more expensive. The notable cheaper ones being basic CSM, Oblits, Zerkers, The CSM is really an upgrade codex, while things have gotten cheaper you will be hard pressed to keep your units inexpensive with all the wargear you can add. The cheaper units doesn’t come without a cost as well, almost all units saw a LD drop. Also you will start to see a lot of the new USRs in the CSM book.

–What has stayed the Same–

The Cult units are the same in stats and basic wargear. No new Spacial Characters. Abbadon is still the only one with Eternal Warrior. Demon Weapons still can kill you. The Dreadnaught is still Crazy. The unit sizes have stayed the same as well as the wargear options found in the old codex; e.g. Chosen can still get a butt load special weapons.

Interesting points from the GW Open Day

Quote:

· 6th Edition was actually finished 6 months ago

· They thought long and hard about using a points system similar to WHFB instead of FOC’s but it would have been to difficult as there was so much emphasis on FOC's in the Codex’s. New players would have found it too confusing.

· The reason that charges are not allowed on Deep Strike is to prevent the utter predictability of mega-hard units appearing anywhere and destroying whatever they want every game. There was a possible hint about Genestealers being able to do this at some point in the future!

· The new edition nerf’s some units and provides buff’s to others. The new Codex’s will rebalance incidents where this is too extreme.

· One guy complained that the new rules were adding unnecessary complexity (e.g loads of new universal special rules). Ward argued that it’s best to keep lots of the rules universal in the main rulebook. New codex’s can then have units with a variety of the SR’s and opponents will know exactly what to expect. He did caveat this though by saying that USR’s would still apply to certain characters in Codex’s.

I spoke to Matt Ward in person after the seminar and I really must emphasise that he’s a really nice, polite and engaging fellow who doesn't deserve the flak he gets from some members of the community. He deserves praise for his role in bringing us 6th edition. He explained that rule setting is always going to be ‘a moving target’ and what works for one person is going to upset another. He said that there were many things that were out of his hands because business decisions have to be taken into account when developing game systems and rules. A couple of key points that came out of that conversation:

· Flak Missiles are currently unavailable to all armies, but we’ll soon see them filtering through into the game.

· We can expect a new FAQ before the end of the summer.

· He spoke about Tyranids being a tad difficult to work with as they have (in the past) been a little one dimensional (i.e charge everyone into CC). He made a point about there being no vehicle rules in the Tyranid army and that its monsterous creatures need to be able to kill Daemon Princes so how do you balance it out? We shall see!

I spoke to Jervis for a long time about ‘associative and disassocaitive’ rules but I think I’ve covered that off.

Next I spoke to Phil Kelly (the dude) who again is a really sound guy (and by the way - he isn't leaving GW).

Phil said that there are currently 6 ‘projects’ on the go for 40k. I think he was referring to Codex’s. I asked him about Tyranids too and he said (rather excitedly) that he has ‘some really great ideas up his sleeve’ for the Nids. Sounds encouraging! It's worth noting that everyone I spoke to in the design team understands the need for Nids to get a boost.

He also shared his personal opinion on 5th edition and said (with the greatest of respect) that Alessio Cavorte seemed to want to make the game more competitive and simplified. He thought that this made the game a little to flat and generic in its function (which I personally agreed with). His words were that it ‘lost its craziness’. 6th has therefore moved to address this and give more feel and character to the units and the game as a whole. It does seem to be a consensus amongst GW staff that 2nd was a great edition in many ways (although obviously broken in others).

One other exciting thing that he mentioned was the release of expansions. He said that one example of an idea floating around is the introduction of relic’s which could be (for example) wargear from the Horus Heresry era, usable in today's battles. Possibly a new book or expansion but still just an idea at the moment.

Phil said that the quality of the new Codex’s far surpasses the paperback’s of 5th and beyond (I wonder how many are finished!?)

Lastly I spoke to Robin Cruddace. I asked him about GW’s release schedule and to my utter amazement, he said that they were aiming for some sort of release each month. Be it a codex or some sort of expansion. I would be surprised if this were true!

He said that there would most likely need to be a larger number of expansions between now and 4 years time so that you don’t reach a point where all codex’s for 6th are released with 2 years still to go before the next cycle. Take that how you will!

So there we have it folks. A very enjoyable day indeed – and most insightful!

Deathwing Storm Eagle Kit-bash/Conversion for 6th Edition Dark Angels

My storm eagle project has been on hold for a couple of months. I think at that time, I wanted my conversion to be all encompassing filling the roles of both storm raven and storm eagle. After studying the design of the thunder hawk, I wanted my storm eagle to derive of the same design as much as possible. Obviously the hull has been extended to match the forgeworld version. Since the air intake has been moved towards the rear, I used the forgeworld Damocles pattern rhino’s top hatch/sensors to bridge in the gap. I’ve always thought the servitor mounted turret from the storm raven made the flyer appear a bit bulbous for my liking. The boom of the aircraft has been placed on top of the rear hull to connect the profile lines of the vengeance missile launcher. The main wings have also been reversed to give it a sleeker feel. The lascannons from my storm talons have been modified to fit into the missile housings from the original storm raven kit. Also, the front wings under the cockpit have been added to mimic those found on the thunder hawk predecessor. The front light housings have been left unassembled as those will be embedded with LED’s. All major structural mods have been done. I will continue to add dark angels details and bling as I paint. The storm eagle was base coated black followed by an airbrushed layer of hull red as a foundation tone. Bleached bone was then airbrushed on top as the mid-tone. Panel lines were than picked out with devlan mud wash. I will proceed with highlights, other primary colors and battle damage soon. Thanks for viewing guys!

Ravenwing Bikers

Hi again.... so before my trip to Toronto, I wanted to paint two more regular Ravenwing bikers to complete my two squadrons of six bikers + Attack Bike. The original bikers were painted in 2000 and given the cooler RW upgrade sprues and simply better technique... I'm quite proud of these dudes... hope you like!

Final 40K 5th edition battle... in Toronto

Hi folks.... was back in Toronto for the last two weeks for my cousin's wedding so brought my Dark Angels for a game w/ the manager at GW Langstaff. Great guy, he fielded a very nicely painted IG army.... we played pitched battle and kill points.... managed to pull off a 7-5 win at the end of the 6th.... here's so pictures of the BR.... enjoy!

Ethrion's Thousand Sons

 

  

6th Ed, The friendly gamers edition???

So as some of you know I seem to have broken 6th ed already with my flying Necron army... sorry about that (details of the list and a tactica to follow after the tournament ;-).
However it got me thinking.  Last night I arranged a battle with a friend and the first thing he said was, "You aren't bringing any fliers right?"  I laughed, agreed and everything seems cool, but I realised that although 6th ed is in its infancy, already IG and Necron flier builds are very strong as very little else can field as many fliers as we can or mount any kind of genuinely effect form of defence against them.  That means we have to discuss the battle before we fight it.  Certainly I wouldn't bring the flying croissants of doom against a friend without warning them. 

We need to discuss limitations, list builds and strategies before we begin a fight.  I like that, its almost as though Games Workshop have built an edition that pushes you towards that communal wargamers attitude that they seem to want to cultivate in us and away from WAAC players with erectile dysfunction (a little wargamer social engineering if you will!)

Down with competitive play and hurrah for two guys hanging out and having fun together (stop sniggering at the back!)

I know it is early to make a statement like that and I'm sure some you will scream about me excusing bad balance in the game but here we are...
and I like where we are...
but then I would, I play broken Necrons :-D

What do you guys think?
Early thoughts on the edition, better or worse?  All discussion is welcome...

Bridging Painting Standards for 6th edition 40k - Dark Angels Ravenwing

A few years ago I bought some painted ravenwing from a friend. At that time, I had first really seriously gotten into warhammer and had no conceptualization of how to paint minis. After I learned a few new tricks, I decided to "update" the existing paintjob to the standard I normally do my models for a coherent look. Since these models are pre-painted to the primary colors already, its a perfect canvas to begin with! I appled hightlights to define the black contours, picked out the red weapons/casings to match my army along with the boltun metal pauldron edges also to match the existing look. I've got to say with the already great detail which emphasized on display screens and buttons. Wear and tear damage also added, I wanted these bikes to look dirtied and put to use. I think the newly added paint-job update brought out a depth of field for these models. Thanks for viewing!

40K starter set leaked

From Warseer:

Dark Angels:

Captain Balthasar: w/ Power Armour, Power sword, Combi-Plasma, Frag & Krak grenades

Librarian Termiel(?): w/ Power Armour, Bolt Pistol, Force Weapon, Frag & Krak grenades

Deathwing Squad Balachar(?): Sergeant w/ Storm Bolter & Power Sword, 1 w/ Assault Cannon & Power Fist, 1 w/ Storm Bolter & Chainfist and 2 w/ Storm Bolter & Power Fist

Tactical Squad Raphael: Sergeant w/ Plasma Pistol & Chainsword and 9 Marines, 1 w/ Plasma Cannon, 1 w/ Plasma Gun, 7 w/ Bolters. All with Bolt Pistol and Frag & Krak grenades

Ravenwing Squad Allian(?): Sergeant w/ Chainsword, 1 w/ Plasma Gun and 1 w/ Bolt Pistol. All with twin-linked bolters and Frag & Krak grenades



Chaos:

Chaos Lord: Power Armour, Power Sword, Plasma Pistol, Frag & Krak grenades

Dreadnought (Seems to be named as "Hellbeast"): Multi Melta and Power Fist

Chosen: Sergeant w/ Power Maul, Bolt Pistol & Bolter. One with a lightning claw, one with Power Axe, Bolt Pistol & Bolter, one with Power Fist, Bolt Pistol & Bolter, two with Close Combat Weapons, Bolters & Bolt Pistols. All have Power Armour, Frag & Krak grenades

Cultist squad 1: Cultist leader w/ two Close Combat Weapons and 9 Cultists, one w/ Flamer, 8 w/ Close Combat Weapons & Autopistols

Cultist squad 2: Cultist leader w/ Close Combat Weapon & (possibly) Shotgun and 9 Cultist, 1 w/ (possibly) Heavy Stubber and 8 w/ Autoguns

Dark Angels Command Squad WIP

Here's a command squad I've been working on for my dark angels. I've tried to do some directional highlighting and given them extra attention than I would normally spend on troop type units. Some of the poses have been inspired heavily from the space marine 3rd person shooter game. I was experimenting with the army painter in the game as the ability to test colors is truly more worthwhile than the game itself. The banner dark angels emblem was first penciled in with a draftsman's mechanical pencil and then painted over. Not truly a freehand as I still lack the confidence. This will be cleaned up later. Anyhow, most of the primary colors have been applied. Details & basing will be followed after. Thanks for viewing!

Ethrion's Tyranids

As it says on the tin.

Dark Angels - 40k 6th edition ready

There's a certain complexity of painting tactical marines which I dread. Not that its hard but just very very repetitive and all of them need the same treatment to look uniformed. I finally finished basing the models and painting the gold emblems on the bolters. The larger stones on the base are actually foam board bits. I ran out of stones and realized foam boards broken down make pretty believable concrete bits... Below are a few of my favorite ones. I've tried to make them life-like by tilting the head angles to create a stronger dynamic sense in their poses. Thanks for viewing!

Dark Angels for 6th edition

I've been focusing heavily on my Dark Angels for 6th edition and the upcoming codex. These marines are over 11 years old and some of the first minis I've painted seriously. Since then they've been repainted 4 times as I improve my technique.