Field Artillery, Vostroyan Style.

Knocked these together Friday night,to use as Thudd Guns, though I guess since they're rockets, they should be called something else?

I plan on redoing these however, since I just went with materials that I had on hand; the tubes are only 5/32" which feels a tad small for 40K's typically over-sized scaling; I think that 3/16" or 7/32" would be a bit more 40K scale.  some of the parts on the frame are a bit over-scale for my tastes. 

Anyway here's the final product all painted up, with my Master of Ordnance overseeing operations:

I'll do more of a construction article when I do the rebuild and build some proper great-coat crew.

Your punishment will be more severe

I missed out on buying a punisher cannon when they could be easily obtained through the various
bits-sellers, now of course the damn things are as rare as hen's teeth.  Since I want to try out Pask in a Punisher, I decided to build my own to go on my Ragnarok/Russ.

The mantlet was a spare demolisher mantlet that I had lying around, I attached a piece of  3/8" ID tube to serve as a mount for the gatling gun.  The gatling gun itself is 6 pieces of 3/32" tubing around a 1/8" hexagonal rod.  I added a couple of slices of the hex rod on to the mantlet to add detail to the spots where I cut off the demolisher cannon shock absorbers.  I added a piece of round rod to the hex pieces to give the look of a bolt.

I plan to leave the gatling gun removable so that the mantlet can be used to mount a battle cannon or  a vanquisher cannon as well.

And all painted up:

Hobby Goals for 2015

It's a new year so it's a good time to set some goals for 2015:

Imperial Guard:

1.  Build 2 truck chassis for my Wyverns;  I currently use  a half-track for my Manticore based on Dave Taylor's awesome truck templates.  I have a pair of Katyushka-style missile packs that I mount on a pair of generic chassis that have been used for everything from a Hydra to a Death Strike.  Time to get with the WW II Russian theme and mount them on a 6x6 Truck.  I plan to use the Blood and Skulls industries large truck tires and a scratch built chassis.

2.  Build a couple of BA-10 inspired armored cars based on the same truck chassis to use as Tauroxes;  Kinda the same deal as above but putting a troop compartment and turret on the chassis to use as a Taurox.  I've built kind of the prototype here, it just needs to be a 6x6 and have a turret added.

3.  Build two more of the Ragnarok pattern Leman Russes to run around with Pask, because one of these isn't enough.

4.  Besides the above I might look at building a Russ that is not stock but not quite a Ragnarok, something that still says WW II Russian but will fit the 40K universe, like the Ragnarok.  Also looking at building some basilisks.

5.  Build a badass display board.

White Scars:

1. Repaint my Storm Raven for the scars.

2. Finish up a bike command squad with everything people love to hate:  Storm Shields, Apothecary, and two more Grav Guns.

Space Wolves:

Finish up two Iron Priests on Thunder Wolves.

CREEEEEEED!

I couldn't help myself when I saw the Scion Commander with the big coat; it just screamed "CREEEEEEEEEED !" to me.  So, I endeavored to make a sort of Vostroyan Creed (Creedokov? Creedin?", and of course a Kell to go with him.  Two of the Scion beret heads have nice mustaches (it's part of the Vostroyan uniform, you know) so I chose the most grandiose mustache to be Creed and the other to be Kell.

For Creed, I wanted to portray his being armed with two hotshot laspistols.  The dagger in the left-hand didn't really say Creed to me, so instead I went with a laspistol from a Cadian sprue; the coat hides the back of the pistol allowing it to pass for a hotshot.  The only real other modification for the model was to sculpt a fur hat over the beret.



Kell required a bit more modification, first off, to look a bit more Vostroyan, he needed a longer coat, courtesy of green stuff; here, I wanted to make the coat long enough to fit the Vostroyan look but short enough to keep all of the armor details on the leg visible

For Kell's left arm, I went with the Baton arm, and grafted the power sword to it.  The right arm holding the regimental standard is the power fist of course, with the thumb removed and replaced with green stuff to allow Kell to grip the standard. 

The nuclear option

"We got tactical smart missiles, phase plasma pulse rifles, RPGs. We got sonic, electronic ball breakers! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks."

I originally built this to run as a Vortex Missile in Apocalypse games, I think it has actually gotten a shot off once (it seems to draw a lot of fire for some reason)   I may start including this beast  as a Deathstrike in my lists for the lols if nothing else.

The missile came with a playset that my wife got for my kid, he outgrew it but then Apocalypse came along and re-purposing occurred.


The launcher is an insert that slides into a generic Chimera chassis that has been host to a Hydra and/or a Colossus Mortar, I used a combination of plastic tubing the mount from a dozer blade and some sheet styrene.  It tilts from travel position to launch position.

Getting back to the opening quote, I've got models for all of those goodies, except one... Guess I need to build some Sgts. with power-mauls.

Codex Inquisition: First impressions

Rules wise, first thing that I see is I can take a special detachment with an HQ and optionally another HQ and 3 elites, and still have a different allied detachment;  cool.  Now what can I do with that?  An Inquisitor upgraded to a psyker is a measly 55 pts,  half of what I'm paying for a generic Rune Priest and a Chooser, for a roll on the Divination table (e.g. Prescience). Now add 3 servo skulls to give a big bronx cheer to Scouts and Infiltrators and we're just under the points of a naked DA Librarian.... This has possibilities.

Lots of new fluff, some nice pictures of some female Witch Hunters, lots of inspiration for new conversion madness.  Valeria is gone, sadly (undoubtedly fallout of the Chapterhouse debacle)  Still have lots to go through for ideas.  Inquisitorial Chimeras can take Psybolt Ammo -- I may have to bring back my Black Mariah -- a conversion I did long ago with a Predator Turret and a heavy bolter. Fun times

NOVA Open 2013-Wrap Up

The NOVA's done now.  Overall I went 3 and 4 and finished 88th out of 223, which is pretty good for me. 

I'll give brief run-down of my games, with one rant about sportsmanship.

Game 1: Opponent: Chaos Demons with CSM allies:  Loss
This was a kill points game against the soon to be all to familiar lineup of Fate Weaver, and a various bunch of greater demons and plague bearers. Nuff said.

Game 2:  Opponent: Necrons :  Win
Objective game against a Crypek, Overlord with 20 warriors and 4 units of 20 of warriors with attached res-orb lords.  I won this game by distracting my worthy opponent with the Grey Hunters to pull him off an objective while getting grav-chuting troops on.

Game 3:  Opponent: Eldar/Dark Eldar: Loss
The Relic/Objective game that I should have won; One lucky bit of shooting with a Vendetta caused 3 Hqs

"Die, Xenos Scum!"

(including Eldrad) to run off the board, all I needed to do was to shoot one lousy ranger off an objective to tie on the objectives which would have given me the win on other mission points;  Poor tactical decisions on my part:

1. I had rolled a 7 for Njal's Weather effect: should have separated him from his blob to try to run him to within 12" of the hapless ranger to hit him with the Chain Lightning effect.

2. I should have used all available firepower on the ranger before worrying about a unit of jet-bikes on the other objective.

KNOW the rules!  I forgot that a hovering Vendetta can fire BOTH door guns if it moves 6" or less.

Great opponent who was able to laugh about it when several hundred points of his army hoofed it off the board.  Thanks for a great game, Lance.

"Fire for effect!"

Game 4: Opponent:  Tau:  Win
This was an objective game with vanguard deployment.  I faced this game with some trepidation when I saw

3 Riptides, then I looked at his list and saw only 2 units of Kroot as his troops. (Eradicator bait!)  Shadow Sun, and a Farsight bomb.  The NOVA terrain makes deep-striking that Farsight bomb a tricky proposition, I deployed first and I deployed my army in such a way he wouldn't have many good shots on my Manticore. As a result, he deployed Farsight and friends on the board using a sea of drones to shield them, near the table edge...very, very close to the table edge.  For a change, I let the generic Rune Priest keep his codex powers, Living Lightning and Jaws of the World Wolf, while Njal rolled on the Divination Table.

Turn 1:  I went first.  I shot the Manticore: 2 rounds centered on the sea of drones, 7 drones die triggering a pinning check and  a morale check;  pinning check; passed, morale check, failed.  Distance to board edge:  my opponent looks and says "I don't even need to roll it"  The rest of the game was spent whitlling down what was left of his army (the Rune Priest did not get a single Rip Tide with JOTW, but he did keep them distracted).  By the end of the game, all that he had left on the board was one heavily damaged Riptide.

Game 5: Opponent: Chaos Demons/CSM: Loss
OK here's where I rant a bit.  My opponent brought Fateweaver; Fateweaver can get powers from all of the disciplines, my opponent DID NOT bring a rule book or other reference such as the psychic power cards with him, nor did he bring a small blast template; he borrowed mine.  Mind you, this was day 2 of  a 3 day tournament; surely, he must have noticed by then that he might need these things.  If I ever play this guy again, I'm going to be a prick about this.  Anyway, he tabled me.  Also I must say that this guy had the FUGLIEST counts-as army my eyes have ever had the misfortune of seeing, and no I'm not talking about the fish army.

Sven Distractsson

Game 6:  Opponent:  Tyranids:  Win
Objective game vs Nids.  two flying Hive Tyrants, 3 tervigons and a bunch of gaunts.  Again I kept the codex powers on the generic RP while taking divination on Njal.  Again the JOTW RP kept my opponent distracted. Two of his Tervigons corked up on turn 1, the third on turn 2 or 3.  I managed to keep my opponent distracted while sneaking onto objectives. MVP of this game:  the HB gunners on the Eradicator rolled an improbable number of hits just about every turn.

Band of brothers

Game 7: Opponent: Chaos Demons: Loss
 Objective game.  Refreshingly, my opponent did not bring Fateweaver, just two Heralds of Khorne, a Herald of Slaanesh, lots of Flesh Hounds, Seekers, and plague-bearers;  Two high points of this game:  The first was slaying his warlord with the CCS plasma gunners after stripping away the accompanying flesh-hounds with Manticore and Vendetta shooting (improbable number of LOS and cover saves made)

 The second was an epic 3 turn melee between the other Herald of Khorne and his Flesh Hounds and Njal's 20-man blob fortified with a 4++ and prescience.  Khorne ultimately called the Herald and company back to the Warp for punishment, leaving Njal standing alone.  (My opponent rolled box-cars on his check after losing combat.)

This is another game probably could have won some simple moves that I didn't think of:  using Njal to grant 4++ to the other blob while using the generic RP to give a 4++ to the SWS, and attempting to charge a unit of plague bearers on another objective.  Oh well, it was a hell of a good fight!

Game 8:  Opponent Ringer:
Since I was out of contention for my bracket, I had no opponent, so I just watched some of the other games.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this year's NOVA Open, and will be back next year.  The staff does an outstanding job of making things work, and they have some of the best terrain I've ever seen at an event like this.  Congratulations and thank you to Mike Brandt and company to another great NOVA.  I think next year I'm going to enter the narrative event and also volunteer to help with terrain.

1850 RTT at Huzzah Hobbies (8/18/13)

I entered my NOVA list in an 1850 RTT this weekend at Huzzah Hobbies in Ashburn VA yesterday.  In prep for the NOVA, we were using terrain and missions from the NOVA primer.  I ended up going 1 and 2, vs Space Wolves, Demons and Eldar. I did however walk away with best painted! (I'll take that!  and a $25 gift certificate) 

First a bit of a plug for Huzzah; they're running the only regular 40K RTT series in Northern VA that I know of -- the third Sunday of every month.  Any given month they use the tournament packet for whichever is the next big GT coming which in addition to helping out folks who are planning to go to that GT get some practice, also gives folks a chance to test drive the next GT.  Huzzah gives a 10% discount on GW product.


The first game was 5 objectives Vanguard Strike deployment vs Drop-Podding Space Wolves with Logan, 2 Rune Priests, a unit of Long Fangs and Grey Hunters.  I won that one when my opponent lost mission focus and kept dropping his pods on my home objective, allowing my podding Grey Hunters,  and Vendetta-riding SWS and PCS to take the other two.

The second game was vs Demons; Fateweaver, 2 Flying DP's, screamers and pink horrors, ignominious loss.   Very nicely painted army -- probably my main competition for best appearance, from what I saw.  It was the highly converted nature of my army (the Manticore and the KV-2 Russ) though, that made the difference.

The third game was Iyanden Eldar with a Wraithknight as his Warlord and another Wraithknight, Wave Serpent spam and Warp Spiders, lost this one, did manage to down one Wraith Knight (not the Warlord) with Missiles (the RPG's will not be denied!) and all but one of the Wave Serpents.  I don't know which I hate more, Wraith Knights or Wave Serpents.  Having faced those damn things now, I don't want to hear any complaints if Faeit's rumor about Baneblades being in the IG codex turn out to be true.

All in all a good tournament, my opponents were generally cool, and learning (on my part) did occur.

NOVA bound

 After getting my employment situation straightened out (found out in May that I was due to get laid-off in

July, ended up being un-employed for all of 2 days -- whew!) I've decided to attend the NOVA open this year.  Now what to take?

Well, I'm not the type to FOTM so it will be IG and SW.  Yeah, I know, that's so early 6th ed.  I'll probably get rolled by all the Tau, Eldar, Tau-Dar, but what the hell; I can laugh at all the Tau players next month once Sternguard start crushing Riptides under their own weight with combi-grav guns.

So here's what I'm thinking about:

IG (Primary Detachment)

     CCS, 3x Plasma, Chimera

     Vet Squad, 3x Plasma

     Infantry Platoon

         PCS with 3x Flamers

         4 x  Infantry Squad with Missile Launcher
          (because RPG-7's look cool)

         SWS with 3x Flamers

     Vendetta with HB Sponsons

     Vendetta with HB Sponsons


     Manticore

     Leman Russ Eradicator with HB Sponsons

SW (Allied Detachment)

     Njal in Runic Armor

     Rune Priest (Living Lightning, JOTW)

     10 GH with 2x Melta in a Pod

Fortification:

     Aegis Defense Line with Comms Relay

Njal is of course there to make the weather lousy for my opponent.  The other Rune Priest is there to either cast JOTW if I keep his codex powers or to cast Prescience if I go for Divination.  The lone squad of Grey Hunters is there to pod in if the opportunity presents, or just to add some resilient troops.    I decided to go with a Manticore since rocket artillery is cool (and very Russian).  The Eradicator is there to ruin the day of anything relying on cover (like Pathfinders).

The nice thing about this list is that it really doesn't require me to do any major building, just a bit of touch-up on some existing models, convert up a Nova Cannon for my Ragnarok Russ and paint up the ADL and the comms relay.

Of course, knowing me, I'll get an 'inspired' idea the weekend before which will require major 11th hour hobbying.

THIS is Apocalypse

A few pics from an Apocalypse game I played in last weekend.  Actually, I think that this was the first real Apoc game I've ever played -- up to 10K points per person.  As you can see, all the cool stuff was on the board:  Thunderhawks, Titans, SuperHeavy Tanks.  Some things could of gone smoother of course, we only ended up playing 3 turns over two days, but it was still very cool and fun.   This game has inspired me to start a new project; a very BIG project :).   Enjoy the pics

 

 

Staging

More Staging

Traffic jam coming in from reserves

 

 

 

.

Grey Hunters wrecking the artillery park

Up-Gunning

Previously, I'd always used my Baneblade as a Hellhammer; now that I've had my first game with the

new book, I've decided that the doubled range and the bigger pie-plate size of the Baneblade is more important than the S10 and AP1 of the Hellhammer.


Fortunately, I'd planned ahead when I orginally built it and magnetized the barrel and the sponson weapons.  Unfortunately, I never painted the barrel, so I had a bit of a challenge in matching the paint to the previously painted turret.  The good news is that a good soot effect hides many sins.

And side-by-side with my Shadow Sword.

Ready just in time for my next Apocalypse game.