Thursday, November 24, 2016

Thankful

In many ways, things are pretty rough right now, but there are still plenty of things I'm thankful for. I'm thankful for my family and my various circles of friends, including those I've made through the 40K blogosphere. I'm thankful for my cat. I'm thankful I live in a state where Medicaid covers my HRT. I'm thankful for the Native protesters fighting to protect the millions of people who depend on the Missouri River for access to safe water. I'm thankful for the diversity and resilience of the human species, that we have created so many wonderful things, and somehow still haven't managed to wipe ourselves out.

Whether or not it's Thanksgiving where you live, I hope you all have things worth being thankful for, today and every day. Y'all have a good one now, y'hear!

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Dakka Dakka-Back: GW Provides House-Rules for a Great Kitbash

I've seen a few variants on this conversion/concept over the years, and always thought it was cool. So I was very happy to see that GW is starting to put out even unofficial Rules for stuff like this. Seeing them getting back into supporting functionalist kitbashing and converting, rather than just building stuff out of the box, or at most some purely aesthetic mods, is really great to see again.

I know I won't be able to use it in Tournaments, but since I have a set of StormRaven sponsons, sitting around, I'm totally going to be building them up some way that I can magnetize them on the side of one of my Razorbacks so I can run this in casual Games.

As might be expected, it's pretty badly overpriced for something on a Rhino chassis, but it's still cool just to have semi-official support for stuff like this. Check out the Datasheet here.

Saturday, October 29, 2016

DreadTober 4: Better Late than Never

I've been plugging along, but had trouble getting around to clearing off enough table space for my light box. Just did a photo-session this morning. I'm just short of ecstatic about how the IW Dreads came out, just wish the inks I blobbed all over the fleshy bits had blended in better. I want to eventually get around to glazing or stippling over with more Rakarth Flesh, but for now, it is what it is.




On the second one, I also wish I'd done a bit of turn on the torso or something to reinforce the motion of the hammer arm. I also meant to sculpt some flesh over onto part of the Melta, but forgot until after I was well into painting. I'm particularly happy with how well the work I put into painting the bases photographed, tho. I was worried it wasn't really going to show up, but the little spots of ink that I splattered around before highlighting did come through pretty nicely, giving the grimy appearance that I wanted.







I slapped some paint on this guy last week for the Pocket GT when I realized that I was 5 Points over if I took my MM/HF Dread, and I didn't have a MM/SB Dread painted for my SW. Just an AoBR Dread, so I'm still counting it even tho the assembly was done before DreadTober, since the assembly is pretty much trivial on those.

And last, but not least, the SW Contemptor. I'm not entirely satisfied with the Chaos Dread Power Claw on the base, but not sure what I want to do to kick it up a bit. Also just realized that I forgot to go back and hit a couple of spots on the trophy rack and do the highlights on the gems. Oh well.

Another big thanks to Joe for putting this together this year, and y'all have a good one, y'hear!


Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Pocket GT Report: DreadTober Style!

Last weekend, I went to a local "Pocket GT". 1000 Points, 5 Games, one day. Since I haven't been playing a whole lot lately, and I've wanted to run something like this for a while anyhow, and not least because it's DreadTober, I decided to take the following:

Company of the Great Wolf
HQ: Bjorn the Fell Handed, Hellfrost Cannon, Drop Pod
EL: Murderfang, Lucius Pattern Drop Pod
EL: Space Wolves Contemptor, Kheres Assault Cannon, Heavy Flamer, Saga of the Black Cull, Drop Pod
EL: Venerable Dread, Fenrisian Greataxe and Blizzard Shield, Drop Pod
EL: Dread, Drop Pod

If I'd really been pushing to win, I would have taken Chaos Daemons, but I wanted something that was just more relaxed and fun, and that would hopefully be quick enough to play that I'd actually finish all my Games on time for once.

The Missions were mostly Annihilation-style Maelstrom (The re-roll tokens were dropped since that post, but otherwise pretty much the same), and I was a bit surprised to find that we were going to be playing on 4x6 tables, despite the low Points value. I forgot to take many pictures, and many of the ones I did take weren't very good, because I didn't have my proper camera, and I'm getting used to the camera on my new phone, but I got a couple of decent ones for most of the Games.

My first Game was against the new Stealer Cult, massively MSU and played by the store's ringer, since there was an odd number of Players, and I was the last to check in. They are very effective in this format, being able to bounce around to score Maelstrom with ease, and the large table gave them lots of room to stay away from my relatively slow Units. I was still almost able to pull a draw, but Murderfang took a Rending Claw to the knee while trying to use a CC to slingshot to an Objective and got Immobilized a couple of inches too far away. This one was also a bit of a disappointment, since I failed at my goal of finishing all of my Games ahead of the time limit, but in fairness, it totally wasn't my fault. Stealer Cult takes a lot of time to play, especially when someone's still a bit new to it (as everyone is right now). I did manage to pick up a point when he underestimated Bjorn's ability to carve through the Unit guarding his Warlord, but still a 9-1 loss.
The initial drop. Bjorn was trying to take the Objective on the lower left, but managed a 12" scatter directly away from it

Bjorn braces for the counter-attack after slaying the Cult's Magus

Murderfang, Immobilized only a couple of inches outside of claiming distance from the Objective I needed to win the Turn

Second Game was against an old-school Ork army. A bit of a mis-match for him, since he had a bunch of Units that could barely hurt my Dreads, and it was the one non-Maelstrom Mission: Kill Points. There were still some great moments, like Murderfang Charging through the wreckage of his Drop Pod to wipe out a Mob of Boyz, only to get taken out by the Nob's Klaw, and in turn take out half another Mob when he exploded, and the time when the Warboss managed to beat the odds and take out my Contemptor, only to fall to my Axe Dread. 9-1 win for me, he got a point for his Lobbaz slogging across the board to get Linebreaker, since they literally couldn't hurt any of my stuff.
Even with his PowerFist crushed into uselessness, the Contemptor battles against the Ork Warboss

Kvedulf Ironhand avenges the Contemptor

Bjorn oversees the destruction of the last enemy from the very center of their stronghold

Round three was another odd one, against a dude who I'm pretty sure was very, very stoned, with a mostly bare-bones Ultramarine Gladius Strike Force, with the Points spent on Sicarius and an Armoured Task force instead of Special Weapons for the Tacs or Bikes. Ended up being a much closer game than I expected, because his mass Obsec let him score a lot of Maelstrom points, even tho he couldn't do much damage to me. It could have been a draw if I'd failed a 7" Charge in the last Turn, but I pulled it out. He did drag down Bjorn as well, but I still got a 9-1 win. My stock Dread finally redeemed himself, rolling something other than a 1 to Hit with his Multi-Melta for the first time of the day, and single-handedly scoring me First Blood and enough Maelstrom to win Turn 1.
The only pic I got of this Game. Behind the regular Pod is the Multi-Melta Dread, who just redeemed himself by taking out the other Vindicator

Round 4 was against a RavenWing Player who had been on the next table in Round 2, and said at the time that he thought my Army was pretty cool, and he wanted to play against it. I was worried, going into this, because his mobility could be a big advantage, but he had a ton of his Points sunk into a Command Squad and HQs, and I was able to clear out all his MSU stuff, assisted by a Sabotaged Mysterious Objective that took out a lone Attack Bike for First Blood :D We volleyed back and forth, but once I cleared out his little stuff, he pretty much couldn't score more than one Point per Turn, and I was able to pull out another 9-1 win.
I was going for that Speeder for First Blood, but couldn't quite pull it off

Kvedulf bunkers in the ruins of the building where his Pod landed. If I had remembered the re-roll on the damage chart for Venerable, it might have been enough to save him

I scored most of my VPs over here. Murderfang wasn't very happy about that, as few of them involved The Murderin'

Going in to round 5, I was honestly kind of astonished to be at 3-1. As an even better surprise, my Opponent was a guy I used to play all the time back in the 90s, who had moved away for years, and just moved back to town. Great dude, always a blast to play against, and equally surprised to be at 3-1. Unfortunately for him, his fantastic-looking Tallarn Guard also had few answers to my Dreads, and I was able to wrap it up for an 8-1 win.
Bjorn tries to wipe out the Ratlings for First Strike, but one survives. In the background, the Contemptor is barely visible securing the center of the field

The Tallarn Deployment. Unfortunately for them, they didn't advance aggressively enough, and I was able to keep them penned in

So yeah, I took a joke list, and managed to submarine my way to something like 5-6th place out of 30-ish Players over the course of a very fun, if extremely draining day. My knees are still feeling it. As a side note, there were a ton of Draws among the top players in a couple of early rounds, so the winner (Stealer Cult!) was actually 4-0-1 after beating the only 4-0 Player (Orks!!!) in Round 5.

Thursday, October 13, 2016

DreadTober 3: A New Challenger Approaches!

Yep, taking it up another notch with a callback to my project from last year. I remembered I had this BaC SW Contemptor sitting around half-painted, and since I want to use it in a Tournament on the 22nd, decided I might as well add it in with the Ironclads, get some rivalry going on ;)




My camera seems to have a Loyalist bent, since it took much better pics of the Contemptor than the Ironclads this time. Kinda OK with that, tho, since the Ironclads need a lot more work. Especially the one built around the Helbrute torso. So much flesh on that, and so entwined with the metal. I love the look, but it's a major pain to paint.



They're pretty close to having all the base coating and some of the highlights done. Since the basing is mostly done on the Contemptor, and I'm using premade bases on the Ironclads, I'm OK with being a little behind the official timetable at this point. Y'all have a good one now, y'hear!

Monday, October 10, 2016

Taurox with Blood and Skulls Industry 6x6 Wheel Conversion Kit Review

Quite some time ago, I picked up a couple of Longhorn 6x6 Wheel Conversion Kits from Blood and Skulls Industry and a couple of Tauroxes to put them on. I finally got around to putting them together, and I'm very happy with the results.


The kit isn't perfect. You have to be careful with the front wheel mounts, as it's entirely possible to put them on upside down, which will put the wheels at a wonky angle. (That's not actually the issue with the picture above. That was just the result of me not getting things lined up right and the short working time of superglue.) There's also a mold line going around the center of the tires, which is kind of a pain to scrape off without also damaging all the detail on the treads. That's really it as far as issues go, tho. They look fantastic, and go together really well.


The Taurox just looks so much better with wheels on than the weird track units that GW designed for it. They've also got an 8x8 kit and a half-track kit, both of which look pretty cool, but I like the 6x6 best.

In addition, I don't know if these were a new customer bonus or a packing error or what, but they sent me 8 of their Medium Skulls 1, which are even better quality than the wheels. I scrubbed them a bit just to make sure there'd be no issues with mold release agent, but there was no other cleanup needed. No mold lines, no sprue points, nothing. I've been using them as Blood Tithe tokens and Wound Counters, and have gotten several compliments on them.
They've got a ton of other cool stuff, too, including turret mods that look like they'd be compatible with the Chimera, Predator, or various Super-Heavy Kits, and little detail pieces like the skulls and sets of spikes, giving a great way to personalize your Vehicles. I'm definitely gonna be picking up more from them at some point here, very pleased with my purchase. Y'all have a good one now, y'hear!

Friday, October 7, 2016

Dreadtober 2: The Dreadening

Building the Dreads is mostly done. Just need a little more filling and touch-up work. No problem, since I'm just using Sector Imperialis bases, so I've got some extra time compared to everyone who's doing actual basing work.
I kind of wish I'd built at least one of the Helbrute kit before starting this. I didn't think about the possibilities of giving the head a bit of directional shift, since no other Dread kit has had that option.





I can't really find a good angle to show the Meltagun I kitbashed together to go along with his Siege Hammer. It was clearly the right place to put it when I was just working on the arm, but then when I went for the smashy pose, it kind of ended up in an awkward place.
Did get some cool use out of some of the semi-organic hoses. There are enough different ones in there that it's pretty easy to find one that's at least close to what you want.

Y'all have a good one now, y'hear!

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Three May Keep a Secret...


I've had the idea for this in my head ever since the new Verminlord kit dropped. I figure that, the way things usually seem to go, Slaanesh would be the last one to get a plastic Greater Daemon kit, and there seemed to be a lot of potential in the Verminlord as a base for a conversion. Picked one up a while back, but didn't get around to doing anything with it until very recently. Finally started a while ago, and got the modeling finished the other day.
She's still mostly Verminlord parts. I shaved down all the raised Skaven detail as best I could, and then worked on covering up all the sunken detail. The other two arms are made from Soul Grinder claws and the back vents that are left over from the Daemon Prince kit (because who builds it without wings?), and then there are a few Slaaneshi icons from various kits and I sculpted a single breast on there, since that used to be a pretty major Slaaneshi theme.
The basing is my new usual, building up with cork and then trying to blend it together a bit with a paste of Mod Podge and fine sand, then adding on some pebbles from Woodland Scenics and some coarser sand over parts of it.
It took a ton of putty to get her extra arms blended in, but I think I managed a pretty good job of it. I was actually able to get a really good fit with the vents/arms, didn't even need to pin them. The only pinning is on the feet, one into the base and one sideways into the little hill there.
I added a coat of Mod Podge over all the greenstuff work once I was done, because it flows pretty nicely and does a great job of filling in the little rough spots that I'm not good enough to get out of the greenstuff.

Even tho she's not painted yet, I'm taking her along for a game of AoS at my buddy's place in a few here. Here's hoping she doesn't get hit too hard by New Model Syndrome. Y'all have a good one now, y'hear!

EDIT: I won the game, despite forgetting a bunch of Rules (Chaos Daemons all have a ton of unique Rules, half of which only kick in if there's a relevant Hero nearby, and then there were Faction abilities and stuff) that would have benefited me, and she took out a Treeman Ancient, taking only one Wound in the process. No New Model Syndrome here!