intro

A random series of articles on war gaming in 40K, FOW and other systems. The headings are, WiP; Conversions and models in various states of assembly. PiP; Paint works on various models. Mission Critical; scenarios or missions to bring a bit of a twist to a normal game. MiA; rules for units and characters that could/should/might appear in a game. Dig In; How to guides on making various types of terrain for different game systems. Sit Rep; Battle reports and after action reports on games played

Friday, May 28, 2010

PIP (40K); Tauros and Tauros Venator

Hot on the heels of the release of IA8, the Tauros and Tauros Venator join the ranks of the Old Breed.

Tauros and Tauros Venator painted but still needing assemble and weathering.

Method;
- Both vehicles were partially assembled.
- They were undercoated army painter desert yellow.
- they were base coated Vallejo middle stone (yellow green)
-Patches of green (vallejo reflective green) and brown (vallejo German camo brown) where applied.
- They were dry brushed middle stone again to blend in the camo.
- The wheels were painted brown (GW grave yard earth) then dry brushed black (GW chaos black)
- The weapons, tool boxes were painted green (Vallejo Russian green)
- The dashboard and seats were painted grey (GW fortress grey).
- the cables and wires were painted red (GW blood red)
-The crew overall were painted khaki (Vallejo Khaki).,their armour was painted green (Vallejo Russian green), their faces were painted flesh (Vallejo flat flesh), boots and shades were painted black (GW chaos Black) and finally their webbing was painted brown (GW snake bite leather)
- The engine and suspension was painted GW tin bits followed by a Vallejo gunmetal dry brush.
- The lower half of the vehicles was given a dry brush of mud (GW graveyard earth).
- The individual parts were varnished using Army painter medium dip before being sprayed with a Matt Varnish.

Tauros (bull)

Tauros Venator (bull hunter)

Look at that, Microart's Iron brotherhood are joining the skitarii.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

MIA (40K); The Death Stalker and the Skull Reaper

The Death Stalker

(edit; this guy is big, the gaurdsman in the bottom left give you some idea of the size)


Name; Death Stalker

Cost; 400


Description;

The Death Stalker super heavy walker is intended to be used in built up areas to stalk and destroy enemy super heavy operating in the area.

profile;

Death Stalker WS;3 BS;3 S;10 F;13 S;13 R;13 I;2 A;4

Composition; 1 (1 death stalker can be used by loyal or disloyal humans)


Unit type; Super heavy - walker

Structure points; 2

Wargear;1 turret Widow maker cannon (R;48" S;D 5" blast)
1 hull mounted twin-linked heavy bolter

Special Rules; Awesome, Energy shield

Transport capacity; 0

Options; none

Special rules;
Awesome;
Any enemy units wishing to assault the Death stalker must first pass a morale test. If they pass they can assault as normal. If they fail then the units cannot assault this turn.

Energy shield
The Death Stalker is protected by a energy field. The Death Stalker has a 6+ invulnerable save from shoots from more than 6" away.

Source; the Death Stalker is the huntsman basic kit from ramshackle games. Worth a look for big equipement for 40K.

Skull Reaper

Name; Skull Reaper

Cost; 170 points

Description;
A Skull Reaper battle tank is the weapon of choice for nefarious powers when faced by the might of the imperial guard. The Skull Reaper is a dedicated anti personnel tank intended to deliver a devastating volume of fire to clear the objective of numerous lightly armoured opposition. There are rumours that the tank originates from the Adeptus Mechanicus and several have been sighted when the Mechanicus has been forced to defend one of its planets from the Tyranid threat. But to date there has been no confirmation that the Skull Reaper is on the Adeptus Mechanicus orders of battle.


Profile;
BS F S R
Skull Reaper BS;3 F;13 S;12 R;12

Composition; 1 (1 Skull Reaper takes up a single heavy support choice in a CSM or renegade guard army)

Unit type; vehicle-tank

Structure points; 0

Wargear; 1 twin-linked punisher cannon

Special Rules; Advanced weapons system

Transport capacity; 0

Options;
-A Skull Reaper can be upgrade with daemonic possession for 25 points. Possessed Skull Reapers have BS of 2 and ignore stunned and shaken results.
- A Skull Reaper can be upgraded with a dirge caster for 25 points. Any unit’s tank shocked by a Skull Reaper with dirge caster suffers a -1 modifier when testing for tank shock.

Advanced weapons system;
When a Skull reaper suffers a weapon destroyed damage the twin linked punisher cannon is reduced to a single punisher cannon. A second weapons destroyed result will destroy all the weapons on the Skull Reaper.

source; The skuller Reaper is based on a T100 from the Terminator 3 movie

Saturday, May 22, 2010

MIA (40K); Skull Reaper

With a lull in the tournament scene for a month or so I can get back to the hobby side of things. Including making up rules units I would like to see in 40K. Below is a pic of an intend Khorne heavy support choice designation the Skull Reaper.

Skull Reaper with Worldeater marines in support
(edit; someone has been playing with photoshop)

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Sit Rep (40K); Tides of War (tournament)

Sit Rep (40K); Tides of War (tournament)
Another month another 40K event. This time up North at the tabletopnorth club. The plan was to bring the Sisters again. They have been doing well so far with a 1st, 2nd and 4th finish from their three tournament to date.

Round one:
Opponent James Jennings (space marines)
Mission- objective grab with five objective; arranged in a X shape one in the centre and one in each quadrant.
deployment- pitched battle
battlefield; The main table feature was a hedge which ran across the table splitting the deployment zones. The rest of the table was made up of hills, woods and for some reason one small rock which counted as difficult terrain.

Space marine right flank (two tac squads supported by a Vindicator).
Sister's right flank (Sisters squad support by two Exorcists).
The Canoness and celestians assault the stern guard on the hill screening the marine held objective.
The canonness gets some support from a nearby sisters squad to take the marine held objective.
In the centre the Celestians assault the Marine second tactical squad.
Sister rhino escorts the last marine of the table.

While a third celestains squad supported by Exorcists finally destroy the last marine vehicle.

Result; win sisters

Round Two:
Opponent Johnny Fisher (twin lash CSM)
Mission- objective grab with five objective; arranged in a X shape one in the centre and one in each quadrant.
deployment- Dawn of war
battlefield; A nice city fight table (which succeed in immobilising a third of the sisters vehicles during the game)


Sisters arrived in castle formation.

Most of CSM force awaited in the warp to be summoned.

CSM tried cover to avoid exorcist fire (anything in the open tended to die quickly).

Summoned reinforcements arrived, killed something then died, in counter fire.

Result; win sisters
Round three:
Opponent; Scott Nelson's Tau
Mission- objective grab with five objective; arranged in a + shape one in the centre and one in either deployment zone and one on either flank.
deployment- Spearhead
battlefield; A nice city fight table (which again succeeded in immobilising a third of the sisters vehicles during the game).


The Sisters opted to go first and rushed the Tau lines. Pathfinders were early casualties and without marker light support the tau tanks had a hard time damaging sisters vehicles.
Wading through the sewers the sister finally reached the tau lines

At last minute dash by the surviving tau contested the objectives by the end of the game on turn five.

Result; draw

The Aftermath;
After the armies were packed away and the dust had settle the Sisters had done enough damage to win their second event. Overall the tournament was worth a day trip the scenery was nice and the opponent were all good craic. below are sone of the photos from the event more can be found here


Scott Neilson's Tau stalk a Space Wolf Landraider

Johnny Fisher's summoon great deamon bites of a more then he can chew when an Avatar wades in to support embattled dire avengers.

Friday, May 14, 2010

PIP (40K); Defiant and Nemesis

Finally got round to posting pics of the the Defiant and Nemesis which were done for the last DGG apoc game.

The Defiant;
Main body- was undercoated brown (army painter bestial brown) then basecoated with a water down blue grey (Vallejo german grey)
tracks- was base coated red brown (vallejo cavalry red) then dry brushed gun metal (vallejo gun metal)
Eagles - were highlighted light grey (Vallejo blue grey).
Wiring- was hi lighted grey (GW space wolf grey).
Guns and decking - was hilighted gun metal (vallejo)
engine exhaust - coated bronze (GW dwarf Bronze) followed by a watered turquoise blue (GW swooping hawk blue).
Decorations - coated in GW bleached bone with black line (GW Chaos Black) for text.
Barrels- were highlighted in green (Vallejo Russian green)
Once the above was done the whole tank was given a wash of GW Deneb stone.





Nemesis
Under coated black.
Then the top was recoated in desert yellow (Army painter desert yellow spray).
Green (Flames of war British green) was sprayed in patches on to the top.
The under carriage was painted blue grey (Vallejo German grey).
The cockpit instruments and the punisher cannons were dry brushed gun metal (Vallejo gun metal).
The pilots flesh was painted Vallejo flesh with their overalls painted light grey (Vallejo blue grey).
The mouth was painted drawing a circle in pencil which was filled in in red (GW blood red). Once dried, teeth triangles were drawn in pencil then filled in in white (GW white).
The engine was painted in GW tin bitz followed by a dry bursh of gun metal (Vallejo gun metal)
The transfer were added.
Once every thing was dry the whole vehicle was coated in wash (Army painter dark wash).



Incidentally Defiant suffered the ignominy of being the first super heavy destroyed in the apoc game. It was destroyed on turn two by a stray asteroid fired by the orks. More of the apoc photos can be found here.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Sit Rep (40K); badab campaign; battle for Salem's world

Huzzah, the DGG 40K campaign finally kicks off. Technically it started two weeks ago but that doesn’t count since I was not playing. The backdrop is the Badab campaign using the bell of lost souls campaign guide. For the campaign my army is the Badab PDF here after called the bad-ass PDF. Their first mission garrison the daemon world of Salem. To make life interesting the flunkies of the inquisition, the Minotaur’s space marine chapter, have decide to capture the planet.

The mission is planet strike, with some bells and whistles, the objective was kill points. The bells an whistles being each player getting D3 free artillery strike per turn as well as various demonic effects appearing raining blood, rivers of eyeballs etc.

The Salem Garrison was 1500 points strong. The plan is to use the Varks defenders list and at the start of the campaign use just PDF type units like guard squads and tanks. But as the campaign progress introduce more chaotic units as the army tries to stop the march on the inquisition

The garrison consists of,
-command (company command squad with two attached anti tank lascannon teams)
-1 st platoon (platoon command squad with two infantry squads)
-2nd platoon ((platoon command squad with four infantry squads)
-1 executioner leman russ battle tank
-6 possible mine fields
-1 off table artillery strike
View of the base from the east.

View of the base from the West.
3rd squad manning one of the bunkers.

The entire minotaur force, bar one unit arrives on turn one and walks on from their drop zone.
By turn two the minotaurs succeed in destorying the company command squad bastion.

Some of the Minotaur units sought shelter in the outer redoubt to avoid off table artillery strikes.
3rd squad bunker was destoryed by turn five.

3rd squad surivive were then attacked by he last grey hunter on the table. which they took out before consolidating into another near by bunker.

Final score; 5 V 5 killpoints with only a three orfour of the attackers left standing.

Friday, May 7, 2010

PiP (40K); Ork Shanty town

finally got round to painting the Ork shanty town.

- Undercoat Rat brown, aka red brown.
- followed by a fine spray of silver. Well army painter sprays tends to spray in blobs so you get fine spray followed by the occasional blob of paint. The silver over brown gives a nice rusted metal effect.
-Next some of the panels were painted with water down blue (GW ultramarine blue) or green ( Vallejo Russian uniforms). The water down paints allow the rusted brown to show through plus if you use water without a thinner the paint tends to clump into blobs. The mixed colors adds to the shanty look.
-Next the some the wooden doors and planking was painted brown (PP bestial brown).
- Finally the window mesh was painted black (GW chaos black) followed by a dry brush of metal (Vallejo gun metal). and the chimney stacks were painted dull metal (GW tin bitz)




Canvas roof made from tissue paper soaked in watered down PVA glue

Felt roof made with sand paper. The chimney sacks are made from straws.

Windows made from artists mesh.

Door handles made from the spotlight handles on the IG vehicle sprue.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

WiP (40K); The Defiant, super heavy tank

There is an Apoc game on Sunday and my imperials need reinforcements, something big.

Hence, work in progress on their new super heavy, the Defiant. There are several minor conversions done to give it a bit of personality. I would like to do more but time is tight.

First filled in the seams of the oil barrels.

Then added some brackets to hold spare tracks and wheels.

Added some battle damage.

Stuck on some manuscripts for war citations.

Cut out the mounting block on the gun mount so the weapons can be changed depending on the game.

Replaced the flimsy plastic aerials with some solid metal ones made of florist wire.

A shot on another super heavy, in his own special way, that is also work in progress