Further adventures in time-delay posting

When this post drops I should be up to my hips in Plague Marine parts as a marine on marine rematch rages between my Blood Angels and EV's Death Guard.  My list will be very different from our first clash, though it will probably be the same as the list I took against his Deathwing (aka my standard list).  I'm considering swapping out an assault squad for a tactical squad, mostly to hold objectives with in case we roll an objective heavy game, but also to keep my still unsealed assault squad from hitting the table.  While I want to play with the minis I've put so much time into, I'd rather not have them damaged in the process.  I doubt that will happen though, so I'll probably stick with the list as it stands.

As for strategy, I plan to turn my Devastators on the Plague Marines.  While I won't insta-gib them, thanks to that blasted toughness 5, I will negate their armor save and FNP along with it.  I have melta guns aplenty to deal with armor, though I'm likely to take a round of shooting from massed Vindicators.  Not a pleasant thought, but not one I have a counter for other than deep striking, which I'm not set up to do properly, or relying on 5+ rolls from any missiles that hit.  Neither plan fills me with confidence, so screaming across the field is what I'm going with unless terrain an EV's deployment offer me a more attractive alternative.  What I won't be doing is taking a roundabout route like I did last time, and I hopefully won't be getting charged all over the place either.

As tough a nut as the Plague Marines are to crack, it's the Demon Princes that worry me the most.  I have no good answer for them or effective counter.  They have high toughness, lots of wounds, an invulnerable save, and strike before anything I have in CC.  Oh, and they reroll nearly everything.  My best option would be to shoot them, but I doubt I'll have that luxury.  I guess I'll mostly try to stay away from them and take potshots, then attempt to finish them off with a charge.  Hopefully EV will keep them on different sides of the field so I can concentrate on one and ignore the other.

Something a little different

     I keep meaning to do a weekend-of-disappointment recap, but haven't quite mustered the drive for it yet.  I got out the camera intending to take a picture of my LPC group as it stands (perhaps 35% complete).  Instead I fished a wizard out of the Simple Green vat to see how it looked.  I was surprised in a couple of ways.  Initially I thought the plastic had started to melt, but it turns out that was just the paint waiting to slide off with a nudge.  Or so it seemed at first...

A bit of housecleaning

I went through past entries this morning to consolidate the (former) HMcT/EV split, changing all references to the former into the current tag.  I don't think I missed anything, but one never knows.  I also noticed a bunch of formatting and grammar/spelling issues.  While I corrected the ones that I saw, I'm sure there are many more that I didn't notice.  As the (theoretical, though actual in about a month) holder of a BA in English this pains me greatly.  I hope to go through and fix anything that I missed, but with hockey looming there isn't time to do so now, and honestly this is an off-the-cuff blog that I don't really edit, or even proofread that often.  While this lack of QA is deplorable, it is what it is.  At least the tags should all agree now, so there's that.

I also found the beginning of a post from a while back.  I thought I had finished it off and posted it, but clearly I forgot about it.  I'll look into incorporating it into my next real post.  I hope the edge of your seat is comfortable because I know that's the only place you'll be until this rediscovered gem drops.

Message to grasp: You have exceeded your reach

     So I kinda shot my mouth off yesterday with the whole "I want to nearly finish this batch" thing.  While not surprising, it's still disappointing.  In my defense I got a much later start on the painting day than I expected, and had less time to work with as well.  I managed to finish the helmets, if not the helmet's details, and got some black work done as well.

A day of accomplished goals

     I started painting the second batch of assault marines in earnest yesterday.  I had done the initial Bloody Red pass on 2.5 of them over the weekend, and with the LPC deadline coming closer every day I needed to start making some real progress.  With that in mind over in my LPC WIP thread on the Bolter & Chainsword I said that I wanted to get the red ready for highlighting, which was an ambitious but realistic goal.

Done, but not done done

     I think I'm calling the first three assault marines done, or at least almost done.  I still have to do the eyes, which I managed to forget, and chapter badge transfers.  And bits-n-bobs.  And jump packs.  But that aside, they're close enough to done that I'm going to start working on the next batch.  I've been very happy with the results, I just wish I could get them done faster.  I actually had a very nice moment earlier today while trolling some forum, looking at someone's minis and thinking "Man, I just want to be able to produce something like that."  When I kept looking, noticing details and approaches and whatnot, I realized that I had produced models just like the ones I was looking at.  I guess you're so familiar with the flaws in your own work that it's hard to see past them at times.  On to the pictures.

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.