Construction ahead

WIP and flash, but a bad picture is better than no picture.

It took me a while, but I found my bag of modeling tools today.  With those in hand, plus EV calling out my "Winter Guard Deathstar" for motivation, I set about assembling a handful of minis today.  Irusk and two Rocketeers broke free of their blisters and stood on their own bases today, making my Deathstar fully operational with the full complement of Rocketeers.  Irusk is no slouch either.  I made a PK Nob and spied a bunch of bits for the next one which will be a replacement for the Nob currently intended to lead the 'Ard Boys.  The Nob joined the Big Mek, but not his force field, on the painting stick.  Finally I had a random Elven mage mini along with a pair of Dark Elf cheerleaders from Blood Bowl.  Everything got their bases plugged with green stuff, ballasting, and priming.  After that I varnished the latest batch of Shootas.  Next on the painting table will be the remainder of the 23 strong unit of Shootas: 5 regular lads, a big shoota, a rokkit launcha, and a PK Nob.  Having a whole squad done will be nice, plus I already have a start on the Slugga mob.  This initial batch of Orks is most of the infantry, so when I finish the 54th Ork I'll be halfway done with the first step.  In closing, I did up a couple of Grey Knight lists the other night, but didn't find anything I really liked.  I settled on a list with Psyflemen, Purifiers in Psybacks, regular Terminators, and a Librarian.  I like most of it except that it doesn't have many scoring units (3) or troops (15) and those units are walking.  I could swap the Purifiers for Strike Squads, but the savings in points don't match the loss in ability even considering that the Strike Squads are scoring units.  I still haven't found a list with a Dreadknight that I like, though I keep looking for one. 

Green, White, and Blue

The horde advances.

While I haven't had many painting sessions lately, and the ones I've had have been brief, I'm still making some good progress with the latest batch of Orks.  I just have blacks and metals left to do, plus red eyes and bases.  I'm happy with how the faces have turned out, but the other blue areas can look better.  What I'd like to do is add another layer between the basecoat and the highlight, but speed is a factor in this project.  It looks like EV will have his 500 points worth done in a week or two, so we'll probably give this thing an official start in May.  I have 15 Orks finished, save basing, plus these 10 and another 15-20 that are half painted as well.  I need to make another Nob still and the Big Mek needs priming, but everything else is primed or better.  I hope to finish this batch tomorrow and maybe get a start on another group, or perhaps build that Nob and maybe some boys and then prime the lot so everything I need for the first list is ready for painting.  I'm at 15/54 which means I'll need to average about a model per day, something I think I've pondered before.  The painting feels like it's going faster, plus most of the models have a start of some sort on them, so I think I should be fine to hit the end of May.  What I'd really like to do is paint up another mob of Dethskull Sluggas so I can keep with the one clan instead of mixing in Evil Suns.  This plan would involve using models intended to be 'Ard Boys as regular Slugga troops and I think I want to put a little more time into them, maybe with some checkers on their armor plates.  This approach will obviously take more time than painting regular boys, so I may plow ahead with the Evil Suns and then paint the Dethskulls if I have time left. 

The close-up example.

In various other news, hopefully my Warstore order arrived today or will tomorrow.  I'm looking at adding a pair of Dreads at 750 while maxing out the second boys squad, though Kans are also a consideration.  I have one Dread in the order and will see what that kit is like before I choose between the two walkers.  They'll all be part of the horde eventually, it's just a question of in what order.  I was reading a post at 3++ today where a commenter said that psybolt ammo didn't work on psycannons.  My first thought was "Of course it does," but I didn't see any counter-comments about it.  I grab my GK book and find that the comment is right, psycannons don't get to use psybolts.  At first I was bummed as I lost theoretical S8 psycannon shots, but I'm thinking maybe it's a good thing.  Now I'll save some points by not giving the squads the ammo, so I'm thinking about a list that has a Terminator core with Purifiers in Razorbacks and Riflemen Dreads.  This is the same idea as before except with Psybolted Razorbacks instead of Rhinos.  This also means the list will play different with the Razorbacks rushing to deploy their contents and then lending supporting fire, instead of a moving bunker approach.  Not having psybolted psycannons means the Riflemen are even more important as I'll lost a lot of theoretical S8 psycannon shots.  Fortunately psybolts work on autocannons and heavy bolters, bumping them both up a level in terms of Instant Death.  I'll have to see what such a list looks like.  I liked the one I had before, but it lacked the Dreads and had lots of Terminator Psycannons instead.  A new list is liable to have less Terminators, but it might also avoid the problem of Paladins having 2 psycannons per 5 troops, while the GK Terminators boxes only come with a single psycannon per 5.  Maybe I can squeeze in a Dreadknight too...

Green Tide Rolling In

Orkspeak is a problem, but not the problem.

Making Ork lists is an odd experience for me.  Orks are cheap by definition, yet I always seem to quickly run out of points.  Of course I'm hitting this wall with 100+ infantry in a list and my roadblocks are trying to fit lots of dreads and buggies and a big Nobz squad.  It's a problem that needs context, but a problem all the same.  There's another big problem as well, but I'll get to that after some lists.

Last night I had an idea for EV's proposed Combat Squad to Full Army exercise, one that injects a bit of narrative and helps make some sense out of the impending ork horde.  When I started collecting the current batch of orks way back when Codex: Armageddon was the new hotness.  Part of that codex was a Speed Freaks list, and it was with that list in mind that I started building.  The core of my horde, then and now, is boyz in trukks supported by bikers and fast, shooty vehicles.

Grey Knights lists: the first batch

Google's version of "Grey Knight"

Having banged around the GK codex for a day now, I've come up with a basic frame and many permutations.  The basic idea is two PA squads in Rhinos, three Terminator squads, two "Psyfleman" dreads (2 twin-linked autocannons and psybolt ammo), and a Librarian.  All the squads have psycannons with psybolt ammo.  The breakdown is such:

165 - Librarian w/ 3 powers (probably Sanctuary, Might of Titan, and Quicksilver)
245 - 5 Terminators w/ Psycannon and Psybolts

245 - 5 Terminators w/ Psycannon and Psybolts
245 - 5 Terminators w/ Psycannon and Psybolts
290 - 10 Strike Squaders w/ 2 Psycannons, Daemonhammer, Psybolts
290 - 10 Strike Squaders w/ 2 Psycannons, Daemonhammer, Psybolts
135 - Dreadnaught w/ 2 twin-linked Autocannons and Psybolts
135 - Dreadnaught w/ 2 twin-linked Autocannons and Psybolts
1750

Orks, Grey Knights, and growing slowly

Ponder powers engage!

EV is beating the slow-growth drum, a tune which I am all but helpless to answer.  While I'd love to do every army available, reality says there are four main options: Orks, Grey Knights, vanilla marines, and Blood Angels.

Vanilla marines would involve implementing the crackpot scheme I have to slowly swap out my existing BA troops with the new, detailed models.  While I love this idea, putting it into practice for this application would require me to paint twice as much stuff since I'd be doing the vanilla marines for the grower, plus I'd need to replace (and paint) the models taken out of my BA army to keep it usable.  This is the most appealing option in that it'd scratch an itch I've had for a while to do a non-standard marine army, one that could be used as a counts-as army but wouldn't necessarily be designed in that way.  I could even convert the models into recently turned Chaos marines, another itch I've had.  Unfortunately this plan would involve a significant investment of both time and money.  As such, vanilla marines are off the table.

T-minus 24(ish) hours

While I have not quite finished today, I should have little problem getting everything done tomorrow.  Decals and two more coats of varnish notwithstanding, the assault squad is finished.  I blutaced on the jump packs for the three marines needing decals and took a final pic of the squad to put up on the B&C.  Again not considering varnish, four Sanguinary Guards are done.  I have a head scroll and base skull to do, which I plan to finish tonight.  I also have two wings left to glue.  And then there's the banner.  I'm not so sure about the washes after further inspection of the box.  I think it will work in places, but I'm not sure it would look right doing the whole thing in that manner.  If things work right tonight, I'll only have the banner to do tomorrow, plus gluing a final wing and varnish.  The finish line, it is in sight.

Rampant speculation

Not quite what I meant...

I've been reading most everything that says "Grey Knight" on it lately in hopes of gleaning some idea of how things will work.  The codex doesn't come out until next month, yet somehow lists are popping up all over the place. The "black boxes" are no doubt to blame, and I'm sure I could find a pdf of the codex in the darker corners of these interwebs if I were inclined to look, but I actually enjoy this period of scrounging for information and trying to piece together a feel for the army.  I won't be able to do this in a couple weeks so I want to make the most of it while I can.

A painting hat trick

You know it, you love it: the group shot.

Three days in a row of painting is a pretty nice thing.  I got more done today than I thought I would.  I did the helmets, blacks, and whites finished, plus the armor up to the highlighting.  While highlighting the weapons it occurred to me that I should have done them like I did the chapter badges, meaning a grey base and Devlan Mud washes.  I want the squad to all look the same though, so the weapons got the usual treatment.  Even if I didn't use the idea this time, it'll be something to try on the next batch.  The painting has definitely been going quicker this round, though I am still uncertain if it's because of practice or feeling the time crunch.

Got some painting in

Group shot: day one.

I found a little time over the past two days to get some painting in.  Despite my earlier resolve to paint inside to outside, I have basecoated most of the models to allow me to do one big wash on the entire mini.  I'm not sure if this will save time or not, but this batch already looks further along than the others have after a similar amount of time (~2.5 hours).  I'll have more time tomorrow and hope to make plenty of progress.  Finishing them is probably too much to hope for, but if I can go back to inside-out and get through the armor done I think I'll be satisfied.