Alternate Fiend of Slaanesh and Flesh Hound Models from FFG

Fiends of Slaanesh are a really cool design and concept, but with only a single sculpt available, in resin, at US$25 each, they're kind of awkward to fit into an Army, and they look sort of wimpy next to their counterparts that have been updated to plastic kits, like the Beasts of Nurgle and Bloodcrushers. Flesh Hounds are in somewhat better shape, with 5 sculpts in the box, and a couple of plastic ones teased along with Korghos Khul and Magore's Fiends, but are still US$10 each on their own, in resin only.

A while ago, I stumbled across the Uthuk Y'llan for FFG's Runewars Miniatures Game, and was struck by the potential in some of their options for use as Chaos Daemons, particularly the ones I'm discussing here. It's not entirely surprising, as the Uthuk Y'llan make use of a great many summoned daemons (tho they call them other things), and almost certainly took inspiration from some of the same places GW did.

First up, we have the Spined Threshers, which feel pretty much perfect as an update for the Fiends of Slaanesh. Not as much of an improvement as I might like in terms of variety and price, since the two available sculpts are designed to be built one way, and the plastic used is very hard, but they are still an improvement in those regards, and their size and presence are vastly better.

Apparently in the Runewars fluff, they're made from multiple summoned daemons bound together into a single form, which is why they have multiple mouths all over the place. One mouth remains for each daemon that was bound into a given Thresher, I guess so they can individually feed or something. IDK, I haven't actually paid much attention to Runewars except for the Models.

Now, as I've mentioned, and as shown in the pic at the top of this post, they are much bigger than the current Fiends. But they are about the same size as the current Beasts of Nurgle, which were formerly close to the Fiends in size. So I feel like they'll make a pretty good alternate. I plan on knocking half an inch off any measurements where the larger base would benefit me, and since they have no shooting attacks, the greater height and profile are pure disadvantage. They can actually just barely squeeze onto 40mm bases, but it looked stupid, so I put them on 60s.

Flesh Hounds, as I said at the start, are in better shape, but can really suffer from lack of variety, especially when running multiple packs at once. I like to use a ton of them in minimum-sized packs, so I've made a practice of getting as many possible varieties as I can, to help keep them sorted out. The Flesh Rippers summoned by the Uthuk Y'llan seemed about perfect to form up another pack, since they have an aesthetic that's entirely compatible with Khornate stuff, but are distinctly different from any of the specific GW designs. They also cost about 60% of what the GW ones do.

Unfortunately, there are again only two sculpts, but they actually mix up fairly nicely when not ranked up, and it should be less noticeable when they're one of 8 Packs on the table. The other disadvantage is that they come attached to the rectangular bases you see here, but those are much softer plastic than the Models themselves, and so relatively easy to cut away. In terms of size, they match up quite nicely with GW Flesh Hounds.

Thinking about it just now, they'd probably also make good alternatives for Drukhari Khymerae as well. I'm looking forward to getting both lots of these painted up, but since (as usual) I have far too many projects going on, who knows when I'll get to them. When I do, I will put pics up here.

I have a couple more of the Heroes from Silver Tower ready to go, and several of the monsters very close to completion, so hopefully I'll get them wrapped up and photographed soon, and then I'll do another post of those to wrap up Neglected Model September. I'm also working on building and priming the stuff from the Rogue Trader boxed set and the Heresy Girls Kickstarter, so those are going to be my major goals for October. Until next time, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Killed by Death

I went up against the new Ynnari playing for first at a local store Tournament last weekend. They are very strong. My opponent hadn't optimized his list, just ported over his usual Craftworld list since it fit in their Detachment just fine. Between that and me doing a good job of picking on isolated Units or multi-Charging into everything that could Soulburst off of a given Unit's death, he only managed to Soulburst once, but that once completely changed the Game, taking down a dozen Flesh Hounds and my JuggerLord with a Soulburst on 10 Fire Dragons and then a cleanup assist from a handful of ScatBikes.

I would have had that Game solidly in hand if he'd just had Battle Focus instead. Once people really get some experimentation in, these guys are just going to be disgustingly good. Which is a shame, really, because I love the way they play. It was the most interesting and tactical Game of 40K I've had in a while. But Craftworld Eldar are just about the last Faction in the Game that needed a buff at all, and they definitely got one here.

Until next time, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Machines that Kill 2: Kill You Harder

Tomorrow morning (OK, technically later this morning), I'm heading down to Portland as Captain of Team Dice Hard 2: Dice Harder for the 2016 Ordo Fanaticus Club Challenge. Despite the name hanging on, the competitive level of the event has been progressively emphasized less and less over the years, and at this point, they're not even making a Best General award, and it's very heavily, if informally, comped, with a List Rating Committee looking over everyone's lists to try to keep it all under a certain power level.

Given the name of our team (We were just Dice Hard last year), I felt compelled to pull out my KDK, which I had originally put together as a CSM/CD Allied Force for the 2014 OFCC, before the Faction even existed, with a theme of bio-mechanical hybrids, and called Machines that Kill, after an old SF/Horror anthology I had as a kid. The sequel name combo was just too much of a draw, and they are fun as hell to play.

The rest of this is basically just a PicSpam. Most of them behind a cut, because it really is a ton of pics. Not everything is where I want it to be, but everything is better than it was previously, and in particular, I finally got around to doing all the Daemonic Flesh in BftBG, with the theory being that the Summoned Khornate Daemons are literally made out of blood. There are some pics of the Kytan at the very end, too, but they're not that great, as I didn't have time to mess around with the supplemental lighting that something that tall needs in my lightbox. Anyhow, I'm gonna let the pics take it from here:

My JuggerLord, now more painted, and with a newly-added Power Maul

Kytan Reborn

No gift of exile in my fate
I'll get no amnesty
You can't control my destiny
There is no habitual need
Proclaim my death, to end my wrath
It takes more than one try
Indulge your ineffective curse
I will never die

 I was hoping to get this up before Mike put up my Better Know a Blogger interview, but it's been stupidly hot and muggy here the last couple of days, and, well, pretty much nothing requiring more effort or focus than sitting in front of the fan and drinking water happened :P

Anyhow, I managed to more or less rescue my Kytan from its partial melting, and started in on painting it.

These next shots, from the rear, give a good look at what happened. I straightened the left leg back out again with some boiling water, but left the right warped, as it let me break apart the hip joints and get the whole thing together in a slightly better pose. Plus, being warped is par for the course for a Daemon Engine, right?

This bit really reminds me of some of the fluff descriptions of possessed people in 40K, walking on ruined legs that shouldn't be able to support their weight, still standing because the sheer force of the Daemon's will is overriding the laws of physics.

And a couple of shots of it magged over into Chaos Knight Errant mode.

I realized afterward that I really should have done some of the red first in areas that are harder to reach without messing up the trim and would have been protected from the 1" brush, particularly on the right shoulder and the smaller round plates just inside of the shoulder guards. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.

This is my basic start to pretty much all of my Khornate Models. Grab a Bigass Brush™, lay down a very heavy coat of Warplock Bronze, and then an only slightly lighter overbrushing of Brass Scorpion. Gives a really nice effect for very little effort, especially once I touch up the areas that aren't going to be brass.

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

Kytanfall

I primed my Kytan on Friday, and then this morning, went out on the balcony to bring it in (I tend to leave things out there for a while, so the primer completely cures and stops smelling bad before I bring it in. It's covered and all, so stuff won't get rained on or have branches fall on it or anything.), hoping to quickly slap a couple of colours on it to use it in a Game this afternoon. I found this:

Apparently, between the strong west facing and the reflection off the glass door to the balcony, it got hot enough to soften FW resin, and the weight was enough to bring the whole thing down. I've got a couple of ideas about how to go about fixing it, but I'm not sure which I want to go with.

It's also a bummer because I'd been getting some pretty good momentum up on my 40K hobbying, and this, not exactly killed, but at least took a big chunk out of my motivation and energy for that. I even ended up bailing on the Game today, just couldn't deal right then. I'm just gonna leave it for the moment, sleep on it and see how I feel about dealing with it in the morning.

Kytan Build Complete plus Half-Painted House Phantos Imperial Knight

Got the Kytan built. Had to get kinda creative in a couple of places, since I was working from the feet up, with fixed positioning on them due to the basing, and ended up a bit beyond the limits of the posing FW intended, largely thanks to screwing up the angle of one of the ankles. Still looks pretty good overall, if I do say so myself:

Blood Claw to display futile bravery. Also scale.

This is pretty pic heavy, so I'm putting the rest below a cut. Click for more:

Kytan Rising and other WiP

Some recent posts by Rob and Thor have inspired me to start kicking my basing up a notch or two, and the biggest beneficiary has been the Kytan Daemon Engine that I got a little while back. That said, it's also been slowing down building the thing considerably, because I couldn't just build it flat and then put it on the base later. Also, this is another place where I get sort of frustrated by FW. There are so many parts to the legs on this thing, and having to use super glue instead of plastic cement means that I have way less working time, so I'm having to do them in stages, checking the remaining bits with blu-tac as I do each one, to make sure that they'll actually both meet up at the hips when I'm done.

You can also see an Ironclad, some old Chaos Hounds that I'm rebasing to use as Flesh Hounds, and my attempt at getting something decent out of the awful Champion pose from the Wulfen boxed set. The Ironclad and Kytan have had cork used to build up some areas of the base, and then all of them had extra variation added by pouring/spreading on various consistencies of fine sand/Mod Podge (thanks for introducing me to that stuff btw, Thor!) slurry, since I hate working with spackling paste, which is the other cheap and easily available option I know of. Then I added coarser sand to parts, trying to break up the different areas of slurry, and once they're painted, they'll get either snow or grass powder and static grass added to break it up further. I'm also going to try to do a little stream across the middle of the Kytan's base.

TSHFT After Action Review

I'm thinking about what direction I want to go in from here, as far as competitive 40K goes. I'm well on my way to having a Battle Company together, just need some painting to run a War Convocation, and could also do a few different variations on Tau, Necrons, or some combination of them. On the other hand, while DK probably won't get me to the top, I expect they'll be able to get me some pretty respectable placings once I get them better tuned, and they are a whole lot of fun. So I'm looking over what I took to TSHFT, thinking about how I might take this up another level for the Storm of Souls if I don't come up with a TauCron thing or Convocation I like, or a Battle Company that I like enough to overcome the logistical issues.

KDK CAD
- Lord, Juggernaut, Gorethirster, Power Sword, 4++, Meltabombs
Fairly solid. Didn't do a whole lot of damage, but only gave up Warlord once. Should probably start running him with one of the second-line Flesh Hound Packs, as he tended to get caught up in fights that weren't really suited to his strengths when he was going off the front with the big Pack.

- Lord, Bike, Axe of Ruin
Meh. In my first three Games, I didn't even manage to get him killed off to bring in the Bloodthirster. In the other three, he went down like a chump, the 'Thirster killed off the Unit that killed him, and then it got pancaked by Grav. Definitely getting replaced for serious Games.

- 2x8 Bloodletters
- 2x1 Chaos Spawn
Solid. Mostly just Objective Holders, but when they got a chance to pitch in on fights, they carried their weight. Not crucial, tho, so if I need to trim Points, the Spawn can go.

- 3 MaulerFiends
OK. As much as I love them, they're really vulnerable to Grav, and only having 2 Attacks on the profile at I3, WS3 is pretty lame. Much as I hate to do it, these guys may be getting dropped for a Chaos Knight or something else with similar speed, but better durability and hitting power.

- Void Shield Generator, 2 extra Shields
Solid gold. I ran up against 5/6 Armies that were heavy on Grav, and even against the Tau, it shielded Culties from Pulse Rifle/Carbine fire, and soaked up quite a lot of Ion and Heavy Burst Cannon fire.

CSM Allied Detachment
- Chaos Lord, Mark of Khorne, Juggernaut, Axe of Blind Fury, 4++
Total rock star. Occasionally he gets carried away and hits himself in the face, but most of the time, this guy is great. If he just had BftBG, so I didn't have to worry about keeping his companion Unit alive, and he generated extra BT in Challenges instead of turning into a Daemon Prince and getting wasted by Grav, he'd be perfect.

- 10 Culties
Great. Given how aggressive the rest of the list is, these guys pretty much always got ignored, and just sat back and camped an Objective. They only died once, and that was mostly because they were stuck as the closest thing when a SkyHammer Assault Squad scattered like 11" from where it was supposed to hit.

Gorepack
- 3 Bikers, 2xMelta, Combi-Melta, Meltabombs
- 3 Bikers, 2xMelta, Meltabombs
OK. I need to work more on how I use these guys, since they almost never actually got to shoot their Meltas. They'd end up hanging back too much and then by the time they got in range, everything was locked in Combat, and I ended up just Charging them in. Either that, or I ditch all the Meltas and just run them as light Combat Units and Meltabomb caddies.

- 2x5 Flesh Hounds
- 12 Flesh Hounds
More rockstars. These guys have been the backbone of the Army since day 1, and that didn't change here.

Depending on what all I take out, that's gonna leave me with something like 550-650 Points to fool around with. Definitely room for a Chaos Knight there, and then probably bulk up the Gorepack a bit. Maybe even another Bike Squad, to give me someone else who can carry Meltabombs, since multiple Knights are pretty much a hard counter to this list as it stands.

I would also note that there wasn't a single moment when I wished I'd brought my Helldrake. Dudes with 3+ Svs camping in hard-to-reach places with good Cover Saves aren't really nearly as much of a thing anymore.

Heart of Fire!

So, as I mentioned last week, this past weekend was TSHFT, The Seattle Heart of Fire Tournament. I finally managed to attend for the first time since 2007. I took my DaemonKin, which I've been running as my competitive list since I first took them to a tournament as a goofy fun list since I didn't know the power level at that store and then accidentally the whole thing. I've got them fairly well tuned at this point, I think, tho I am running a few things (like the Biker Lord with the Axe of Ruin) just for fun and/or because I just got that BloodThirster painted. The quick version is that I had 6 really fun games and a great time over the weekend.  Read on for more detail:

Off to TSHFT!

Got the whole thing more or less ready to head off to Bellevue in search of Victory and Glory. My actual camera is already packed up, so it's just a cellphone pic, but I think the overall effect comes through. Some of the stuff in the back isn't actually in the list, it's just there to summon with the Blood Tithe and/or the Axe of Ruin.

Y'all have a good one, and hopefully I will remember to take pics and get at least a rough after-action report up.

The Road to TSHFT

These are the last few plastic Models I need to paint (plus an old-ass Ordo Malleus Inquisitor who I've been meaning to prime for ages, and it seemed amusing to include him with this lot) for my TSHFT list for next weekend. I also still need to build and paint my "Void Shield Generator", but that's going to be pretty easy. I'm just doing a big monolith-type thing with chaos symbols all over it that roughly fits the footprint and silhouette of a VSG. Most of the time needed for that is just going to be waiting for sealant and primer to dry. Should be doable over the next 8 days, given that I don't have much else putting demands on me in that time.

I've been kicking around and trying out a bunch of variations on the list since the Elvensword Ambassador Tournament (I never did get around to doing up a write-up. I ended up taking 5th in my bracket, narrowly losing two games to the clock (one of them, I literally only needed another 45 seconds), and roflstomping my other two opponents). I've finally decided on this:

Daemonkin CAD
190/190  -  Lord, Juggernaut, Gorethirster, Power Sword, 4++ (Warlord)
155/345  -  Lord, Bike, Axe of Ruin
160/505  -  2x8 Bloodletters
064/569  -  2x1 Chaos Spawn
390/959  -  3 MaulerFiends
125/1084  -  Void Shield Generator, 2 extra Shields


CSM Allied Detachment
170/1254  -  Chaos Lord, Mark of Khorne, Juggernaut, Axe of Blind Fury, 4++
050/1304  -  10 Culties

GorePack
111/1415  -  3 Bikers, 2xMelta, Combi-Melta, Meltabombs
096/1511  -  3 Bikers, 2xMelta
160/1671  -  2x5 Flesh Hounds
176/1847  -  11 Flesh Hounds

My Warlord goes with the big Unit of Flesh Hounds, the CSM Lord goes with the smaller one (As long as he's part of a DK Unit, his Unit kills count toward the Blood Tithe, tho he doesn't generate the extra points for kills in Challenges or his own death), the Biker Lord goes with the Bikers without the Champion gear.

The Void Shields should help a lot to mitigate some of the issues I've had with Alpha Strikes, while cutting the Spawn down to just solo Objective Grabbers and ditching the DK Culties and Possessed cuts down the model count and the number of extra steps dealing with random Attacks, random abilities, and extra Initiative steps, so that should save me some time. I also dropped the Helldrake, because it's really only proved great in one Game out of my last 10 with it. The limited fire arc makes it really awkward to use, and a couple of times it's ended up stuck in Reserves until Turn 4, which sucks.

I'm not in good enough practice to win the thing, but fast Assault MSU gives a lot of common Armies trouble, and there's a surprising amount of durability here, so I'm hoping to be able to go 4-2 for the weekend.

Modeling Monday: WiP DaemonKin Bikes and JuggerLord

Got some substantial work done this past week, getting the two Bike Squads for my GorePack, and my new, even more ludicrously over the top JuggerLord together and ready to prime. I'll definitely have pics of the Bikes at least basically painted by next week, since I need them for a Tournament on Saturday. I may or may not get to the JuggerLord, since I have another I can use if necessary.

I'm disappointed that I couldn't manage better pics of this Squad, and particularly the Champion. Hopefully I'll be able to get some better ones once they're painted.

Better pics on these ones, but they're not as cool. The greenstuff on the dude on the left is a bit of an experiment, I'm going to try to make it look like he and the bike are gradually melding.

 And the JuggerLord. Based on the AoS Chaos Lord, with a Juggernaut body I picked up cheap somewhere, a Fex head because why not, and a few random bits to make him more Chaos Marine-ish. Really happy with this guy, hope I can do him justice when it comes to getting paint on.

Y'all have a good one!

The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good

I had been planning to start this off with a BatRep featuring an old gaming buddy of mine who just moved back to town, but I keep stalling out on writing that up, and I figured it would be better to get something going here than to just sit around waiting until everything magically came together. So, instead, I'm going to kick this off with a bit of a ramble about perfectionism and trying not to get paralyzed by it.

I'm representing Khorne DaemonKin in the Elvensword Ambassadorial Tournament on October 10th. I just locked in my list last week, going with the following:
Combined Arms Detachment
55        Herald
58    8 Cultists
58    8 Cultists
170    Heldrake (BaleFlamer)
130    MaulerFiend
130    MaulerFiend
130    MaulerFiend

Blood Host (1 extra Blood Tithe per Turn) 
* SlaughterCult (Units benefit from an extra Blood Tithe effect less than the paid for effect)
205    Chaos Lord (Juggernaut, Goredrinker, Axe of Khorne, Sigil of Corruption, Meltabombs)
80    8 Bloodletters
80    8 Bloodletters
185    5 Possessed, Rhino
160    5 Chaos Spawn 
* Gorepack (Flesh Hounds gain Hammer of Wrath. Bikers gain Shred on their Hammer of Wrath Hits)
111    3 Chaos Bikers (2 Meltaguns, Champion with Combi-Melta & Meltabombs)
111    3 Chaos Bikers (2 Meltaguns, Champion with Combi-Melta & Meltabombs)
256    16 Flesh Hounds
80    5 Flesh Hounds

Is this perfect? Far from it. Is it even what I would ideally run within the Tournament's restrictions? Nope. But due to a bunch of Metagame factors, it's what I'm running.

"Metagame" is usually used these days to refer to the Armies and Units one is likely to see in a given setting, or as a shorthand for how casual or competitive a given setting is. In its broadest sense, however, it refers to all factors outside the Rules of the Game itself, and it's these factors that have pushed the list into this form.

First off, there are the additional Rules imposed by the specific event. The Ambassadorial Tournament has a couple of twists. The core restriction is that each Player may only use a single Codex, and each Codex may only be used by a single Player in each bracket. So it's gotta be pure DaemonKin. The next biggest impact on what I took was that no Forge World Units are allowed. If that hadn't been in place, you'd better believe there'd be a Brass Scorpion in there. The third big factor here is the Detachment limits. Three total Detachments are allowed, one of them must be a CAD. The overall Detachment in a Decurion-Class Detachment doesn't count, but each Choice within that does count as a Detachment, whether it's actually a Formation or just a single Unit. Without those requirements, I might well choose to ditch the CAD entirely, and just run the Blood Host, using the extra Points freed up to add more MaulerFiends, Flesh Hounds, Spawn, or Bikers, and trusting entirely to my ground game to hold out against Flyers.

Other restrictions are based on what Models I have available, or can get by the 10th. I only have a single Heldrake, and given what a nightmare it was to build and that I still haven't finished painting it, getting another ready to go by the 10th would be difficult at best. I also don't own a BloodThirster. I probably wouldn't use one as a basic Choice in the List anyhow, but a Biker Lord with the Axe of Ruin (Bearer turns into a BloodThirster when slain) is a great cheap Unit to fling at the Opponent to make difficult choices for them, and would give me far more utility than the Herald. But I don't have a Thirster for him to turn into, so that's not an option. I also only have three MaulerFiends, and none of them have Lasher Tendrils. A fourth would have strongly pushed me toward a double CAD build so I could run all of them, and probably just folding the Flesh Hounds into the CADs and ditching the Bikers as well.

The last big factor was time. I'm really not sure if the Blood Host is worth taking the Possessed and BloodLetters for. The extra Blood Tithe is great, but that's 345 Points worth of Tax Units, on top of the 171 for the Herald and Culties in the CAD. I'd been going back and forth on that, and if there had been more time, I might well have ended up with something more like:

CAD
JuggerLord
Biker Lord with Axe of Ruin
2x8 Culties
2 HelDrakes
5 Spawn
3 MaulerFiends
GorePack
2x3 Melta Bikers
15 Flesh Hounds
2x5 Flesh Hounds

Some sloppy shorthand there because I didn't have this one handy in a nice form to copy and paste, but you get the point. Basically only the Culties are chaff here, and even they can do some good by hiding in Reserves and holding Backfield Objectives in the late Game. But I didn't get enough testing in, and when the deadline hit, the first list is as far as my evolution had got to. This is also true on a smaller level, too. I've been constantly going back and forth on whether or not the Axe of Khorne is really worth the extra 15 Points over a Power Sword for the JuggerLord, which would also give him an extra Attack (and also let me get the big pack of Flesh Hounds back up to 16 for the sacred number), but wouldn't give him any at-Initiative AP2. Again, that's just where my thought was when the deadline rolled around.

Add in the option for Forge World stuff, and removing limits on Models I don't have, and the picture changes again, to maybe something like:

CAD
JuggerLord
2x8 Culties
HelDrake
4 MaulerFiends, 2 with Lasher Tendrils
16 Flesh Hounds
Brass Scorpion

There's actually one more class of Metagame considerations in play, which I didn't really give enough thought to when working on the list, which is the Scenarios that are being used. I generally play Maelstrom, but all of the Scenarios used for this Tournament are based on end-of-Game scoring. These lists all have a bunch of fast stuff that can run around and capture Objectives Turn-by-Turn, but not much that's good at just sitting and camping them, and the aggressive CC Playstyle the list demands doesn't always leave me with a whole lot left at the end to jump on things then.

The third Scenario has another twist as well: The Primary Objective is to clear out FOC sections, so if you wipe all your Opponent's Troops, that's 9 Points, if you wipe all their FA, that's another 9 Points, and so on. The catch is that any FOC area that you leave empty (except for LoW), your Opponent automatically scores. This was another factor that pushed me toward the Blood Host, because none of the KDK Elites are worth taking on their own merits, and I didn't want to leave any slots empty. On further reflection, I've gone back and forth on that, thinking that perhaps the free 9 Points I'd give up there would be worth it to make another slot that much harder to wipe out. But again, the deadline came down, and that's what I had.