Changing Sides

Still trying to work up the motivation to really get into fixing the Kytan. But I wanted to take some pics because I just got enough room cleared off to set up my new Light Box. It's a cheapo plastic one held together with velcro, theoretically collapsible, but looking at the creases in the plastic, I'm really not sure how many setups and takedowns it'll last, so I'm just leaving it up for now. As I've seen a couple of people note with others, the fact that there are only LEDs on the top creates kind of harsh lighting. I tried to use my swing-arm lamp to mitigate that, but I think I need to move it closer. I still like the results better than what I was getting just on the table tho.

I made a Land Speeder Storm, and took all the dudes who are normally hanging off the side and made them into a Scout Squad, filling them out with a conversion based on an old metal Heavy Bolter scout who was missing his weapon.

That's the dude who's normally loading his Bolter on the back seat. I swapped him up to Gunner on the Speeder because I wanted to use the normal Gunner on a base, where his cool kneeling pose would be more noticeable.

The Squad as a whole, and a rear shot of the Sarge, showing off his Combi-Grav. The one dude got some walls on his base because I needed something to justify his super-crouched pose. I chose to keep them on 25mm Bases both since GW hasn't actually switched Scouts over, last I checked, and because it magnifies the size difference between them and the full Marines in Power Armour.

A few more shots of my favorite one, converted from the Speeder's Gunner. Didn't come out great because I moved in closer to get a better position for a single Model, but didn't have anything there to brace my hands on.

And these guys were sitting around, so I tossed them in as well. Gue'vesa Kroot Counts-As for my Tau Army, converted from some Catachans I got for a song and Kroot Rifles I picked up at a bitz swap. I'm not really a huge fan of the Fire Warrior and Kroot Models, so I'm doing Human Auxiliaries for those Roles instead. Got some Cadians converted up to count as Fire Warriors too, but they're already primed, so they won't photograph well until I get them painted.

Hopefully either progress on the Kytan or something painted next time. Until then, y'all have a good one, 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.

Laid Low by Nurgle, but Russ Protects

At the end of January, I got hit by an absolutely vicious head cold. Like, messing with my inner ear so I couldn't even stand up, debilitating headaches, barely managed to leave my apartment for over two weeks vicious. As well as the obvious effects, that time resulted in me ending up way more out of shape than I even usually am, and it's been hard getting through even the stuff I absolutely need to, and gaming and blogging kind of fell by the wayside for a while. I'm finally starting to get myself back in some sort of condition and doing things again, lots of modeling, a few Games, but not really any painting yet.

Built a ton of Wulfen, mixing them with basic SW parts to stretch the kit and make them more distinctive, and converted a BaC Contemptor into a SW version, and right now I'm working on a Sicaran and a bunch of heavily converted Rapier Weapons Platforms.

EDIT: Photobucket screwed up somehow and killed all my linked images. Trying to figure out what's going on with that.

The Cyclone Launcher is painted on the Contemptor because it's a magnetized one from the WG Termies. I'm still working on the base, want to get something on there to make it look like he just ripped apart a Chaos Dread.


Hopefully more to come soon. Y'all have a good one now, y'hear!

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: