Break radio silence

Painting progress has been in short supply lately, hence the lack of posts.  What I have been doing this week is looking into Empire stuff, but more on that later.  I got the paints out yesterday and put in some more work on the Blood Angels.  The minis are getting into that perilous. almost-finished stage where I start to worry about messing up what I've done so far, but I'm attempting to forge on anyway.  I did the green and base coated the silver.

List thoughts, plus more painting

I was thinking today that perhaps I could trim some fat out of the devastator squads and bring in something else.  Running two full squads and combat squading to four groups lets me shoot at lots of targets, but I wonder what those points look like against three squads of 6-7 with 3-4 missile launchers.  Number of targets per turn would drop from four to three, but those three would get hit harder.  I also thought about bringing in a Baal or dread, but then I got to thinking that if I bring one I should bring a bunch which would alter the basic concept of the list.  I didn't have my codex handy, so it was all idle speculation.  I also got to thinking about an army with Astorath and Death Company coming out of a Storm Raven with a DC dread.  Happy thoughts.

Painting in an unfamiliar, regular setting

Got some more painting in this morning.  I've been a nomadic painter for the last couple weeks, having finally gotten my traveling painting kit working properly, but today I was at home.  It was strange, yet familiar, an altogether odd sensation.  I had originally intended to break my squads up into five marine chunks, but I was getting a bit antsy doing the pre-wash red the other day, so I decided to take the three marines I had base coated to completion before starting in on another batch.  No in-progress pics this time, just "final" shots of where I stopped for the day.

Progress and perplexion

First, I've picked up a couple new followers since the last time I checked that part of Blogger, so howdy to the new folks.  God only knows what you find interesting here, but I hope you continue to like whatever it is.

Second, I got some painting in yesterday, though not as much as I would have liked.  I had a rare opportunity to pick up some extra hours at work and took advantage of it.  I got the initial red done on one assault marine and started in on a second.

A Triumphant Return Indeed

Brief post here as hockey looms.  The game with EV went well and was entertaining, at least for me.  Turns out he had a pair of drop pod dreads instead of Land Raiders, but other than that I was right on.  He had one CC Terminator squad and four shooty squads.  I was worried about the dreads, as I assumed EV would drop them into my Devastator fire base and clear it out.  Instead he dropped them midfield, but perhaps I should provide a bit more narrative for context.

We played an objective mission that I don't know the name of, basically a take the opponent's base while defending your own sort of thing.  Deployment was in opposing quarters.  We both had ruins in our zones, and both put our objectives in the ruins.  I set up my Devs and their babysitter on mine, while EV put a shooty squad on his.  There were a few hills and a woods down the middle providing cover for most of the long-range shooting.  I ran my jumpers more or less as I intended to, allowing for terrain.

The game was mostly decided by a big melee in the center.  We each had a counter-puncher unit, my Sanguinary Guard and EV's CC termies.  My first turn of shooting went mostly into those termies to try and whittle their numbers down, which worked well enough.  I sent one RAS squad in, along with the SG, into a shooty squad and wiped them out.  Turns out sweeping advances don't work like they did in 3rd edition, go figure, so I couldn't continue the assault but had to stand there and look pretty.  I tried to string the remnants of the RAS out between the SG and EV's CCers, but I didn't manage to string them far enough and in the following turn EV piled in with said squad and another shooty squad.  I ended up sending another RAS in the next turn, and when the dust cleared 3-4 of my marines were still standing.  The remaining RAS cleared out another shooty squad with little loss, so the endgame was my fire base and a RAS against EV's fire base (and two drop pods).  The dreads got dealt with quickly when they landed and mostly served to provide cover saves with their drop pods, though the explosions caused by their demise may have taken out a marine or two.

It took me a turn or two to cross the board with my remained RAS, so in the intermission I fired many missiles at EV's fire base.  Turns out Terminators in cover are remarkably hardy.  In the end I assaulted them and cleared them out, securing EV's objective while holding my own with a lone assault marine left over from the bloodbath in the middle.

In the end I was pleased with the results.  I played more or less like I wanted to, and I was satisfied with how quickly the Terminators went down under the flurry of blows from assaults, but somewhat disappointed how well they stood up to repeated missiles to the face.  I tried a couple frags at the start, but couldn't hit enough bodies to make it seem worthwhile.  I also let my priests get a little disordered in the middle of the game, but those couple things aside things went more or less according to plan.  I would have some pictures, but I forgot my camera in the scramble to make it (close to) on time for the game.

Also, before I forget, EV has a blog up of his own now, so huzzah for more gaming blogs.  

Adventures in time delay posting

I'm sitting here writing approximately 3 hours before this post should appear.  I'll be trying out a 5th edition list for the first time today, having shoe-horned in a 3rd edition style list the last time, and I think EV will be trying out his new Deathwing army for the first time as well.  It should be a good learning experience for us both.  The (shortened)  list I'll be running is:

JP Libby w/ Blood Lance and Shield of Sanguinius
Sanguinary Guard w/ 2 fists, infernus pistol, plasma pistol, and chapter banner
3 Sanguinary Priests, 2 w/ JP and power weapon
3 * 10 Assault w/ 2 melta guns and power fist
2 * 10 Devastators w/ 4 missile launchers

I'm going to combat squad the devs so I can split fire if necessary, though I don't expect the missiles to be too effective against Land Raiders and Terminators.  The jumpers I plan to run as a brick in a formation something like:

                                     P A A A A A A A A A A

A A A A A A A A A A        L G G G G G P      A A A A A A A A A A

Obviously trying to cover everyone with the priests and using the SG as a counter-punch/second wave unit.  I'm hoping to pop the Land Raiders on the way in, then send in a RAS to tie up the termies, then use the SG to mop up.  We'll see how it works out.  The third priest will be back with the devs to give them FNP, which combined with the cover I hope to place them in should make them a tough nut to crack.

From EV I expect 4-5 squads and a pair of Land Raiders.  While he shouldn't have too many bodies, they will all be resilient, so I need to focus my assaults on a small front to maximize the force I apply.  Hopefully it's a good game.

Interesting morning

At approximately 9:30 this morning, I bought a pistol case and a six pack of Mike's Hard Margaritas at Walmart.  It was quite the experience.  I also got out the components of my army list and found that I do have everything I need, which was nice.  I found an assault sergeant that needed to be based and primed, plus two missile launcher marines who will be wearing the alternate Blood Angels livery of dark green for a bit, but other than that everything was some shade of red.  I'm fighting the urge to throw some paint on them so they're past just the primer stage as I intend to take some time with them.  As noted last time, I think I have a decent approach to doing the red and that'll be 90% of the painting, so it would be silly to start scrambling just as I get a plan into place.  In the meantime, I have another batch of models in the drying studio.

Plenty of progress (plus pictures)

As the title implies, I got a lot done today.  I built the meltagunners and Sanguinary Priest, their jump packs, and am in the process of basing them for a potential priming in the morning.  I also did the test mini and think I've decided on an approach to painting the red for these troops.  Plus I primed the Sanguinary Guard this morning, so it's been a good day.

Yet more priming

Looks like the outside conditions are fairly easy to overcome, since I've now primed in cold and humidity with little problem.  The key seems to be where the minis dry, and with the trusty bathroom fan at my side drying is reliable.  Having secured a can of black primer, I got the Sanguinary Guard primed this morning.

Caption goes here.

I'm on the lookout for better methods of painting gold as I've never tried to do a whole model in gold before and my current method is not as good as I think it could be.  So now the easy "painting" is complete, for the most part, and it's on the the actual brush-on-model stuff.  I'll get some testing in today on the AoBR marine, and hopefully some work in on the assault squad as well.  I also hope to build the other meltagunners and Sanguinary Priest so I can get them primed tomorrow and ready for Friday, which is looking like game day at this point.  To-do list:

5 Sanguinary Guard - primed
Full assault squad - primed
3 jump pack meltagunners - box (one torso assembled)
Jump Pack Sanguinary Priest - box
various arms/backpacks/bits -box

Primed and ready

Despite cold temperatures and snow looming for the afternoon, I got the assault squad (and a test model) primed this morning.  I've been using the bathroom as a drying room, thanks to the fan, to combat humidity, but this is the first time I've tried priming in the cold.  I used an AoBR bolter marine to make sure things would work, and when he looked ok I went ahead with the rest of the squad.

Another Squad Bites the Dust

Today I made good on my intentions to build an assault squad.  I used the assault squad and Death Company boxes with some bits from the Command Squad bow mixed in.  I wanted to get them finished today because I have plenty of stuff to put together for this coming week, but also so I could prime them in the morning.  Weather allowing of course, as it's been pretty cold here the last couple days.  I botched one of the Death Company jump packs, two really.  One of the packs has a cord running around the exhausts, two halves that definitely go together.  The first time I made this pack, for another assault sergeant, I got the halves matched up, but in the batch cleaning and assembling I did today that small detail got missed.  Other than that I'm very happy with them.

Building progress

I do love painting challenges, so when I saw one over at The Bolter and Chainsword while trawling I had to hop on.  It dovetails nicely with my to-do list anyway, and a little extra motivation never hurt anyone.  I (mostly) assembled my Sanguinary Guard yesterday.  I had to change some equipment, swapping a plasma pistol for an infernus pistol, because the box didn't have everything that I had expected, but I made it work all the same.  The models are very nice, rivaling the Death Company box.  The amount of detail in these new plastics is just amazing.

Interlude Without Ludes

In lieu of a picture, I offer listening music: Interlude With Ludes by Them Crooked Vultures.  The band features Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), Dave Grohl (Nirvana/Foo Fighters), and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin).  They rock.

Quality packing

There was a box on my front step yesterday, a box from GW.  It was, as expected, the meltaguns I ordered last week.  They arrived a little sooner than I anticipated, but nothing surprising.  What was surprising was the box itself.