Saturday, July 17, 2010

The Calm Before the Storm


The DED 'ARD Club is getting together for some 40K tomorrow at my house. We are going to be playing 1,000 point games with the following modified Force Organization Chart:
  • 0-1 HQ
  • 1+ Troops
  • 0-2 Elites
  • 0-2 Fast Attack
  • 0-2 Heavy Support
I'm going to be playing against Eldar, Sisters of Battle, Vanilla Marines, Space Wolves, and probably Chaos. I've really been wanting to get some Dreadnaughts on the table, but here is what I decided to go with.

HQ
Reclusiarch

Honor Guard w/ Jump Packs, Storm Shield, Power Weapon, Meltagun

TROOPS
6 Man Assault Squad w/ Power Weapon and Meltagun
Mounted in a Razorback w/ lasercannon and twin-linked plasmagun

6 Man Assault Squad w/ Power Weapon and Meltagun
Mounted in a Razorback w/ twin-linked assault cannon

5 Death Company w/ Power Weapon and Infernus Pistol
Mounted in a Razorback w/ twin-linked heavy flamer

FAST ATTACK
Landspeeder Tornado w/ multimelta and heavy flamer

This list is pretty straight forward like most of my lists. Reclusiarch and Death Company are the spear head and lead the assault. The Razorbacks get the Assault Squads into position while taking shots at any mechanized targets.

The Honor Guard Deep Strike and fill in where needed. The Landspeeder hopefully pops a tank or two. If it manages to stay alive, it can use the heavy flamer on infantry. I may have this deep strike so it doesn't get smoked on turn 1, but I haven't decided yet.

We'll see how it goes, it should be interesting. I did mention that I was going to show my new Death Company Rhino. That'll have to wait for the aftermath. Wish me luck brothers.

Enim Sangunius!

–The Harrower 

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The Aftermath, Painting Gold

So I did manage to get 1 game in with my 750 point list at The Unknown in Scranton last Monday. I played against Farseer Frank and his Eldar. We ended up playing Seize Ground and deploying as Spearhead. It was a close and really competitive game that came down to the wire.

Tactically, I made some really poor decisions (I didn't initiate a single assault) and I had some horrendous luck (I didn't roll one rend with my 2 Twin-linked Assault Cannons), but I did manage to pull out a draw.

I never realized how much staying power Eldar War Walkers have. Even my Reclusiarch leading my Death Company with a Powerfist couldn't take them out after 3 turns. I ended up losing everything I had with the exception of my Reclusiarch, a Veteran Sergeant, and a Razorback.

Frank could have made a push at the end of the game for the win, but like the typical alien scum he played for the sure draw which kept me from suffering my first loss with the new BA dex. No Guts, No Glory I always say! Next time Frank. Next time...

As to my Blood Angels Army, I've recently been working on getting my 2 Razorbacks closer to finished and I've been working on a new Death Company Rhino to replace my Golden Demon Honorable Mention entry from ages past.

For my Razorbacks, I wanted a way to show which one was toting around my Sanguinary Priest. I used the chalice and blood drop bit from the Baal Predator and I also wanted to try out a new technique for painting gold that I learned about on Bolter and Chainsword (B&C).

This is a really easy method and produces great results. You basically just paint the area that you want to be gold Mithril Silver and apply successive washes of Gryphonne Sepia. I had my doubts about how effective this was going to be, but someone did their Sanguinary Guard like this on B&C, and it looked great. Here's a brief tutorial. 


Step 1I started with a Mithril Silver base for the chalice and a Dheneb Stone base for the scroll.



Step 2: Apply the Gryphonne Sepia wash. I did this straight from the pot without watering it down.






Step 3: Wait until the wash is completely dry. This can take up to 30 minutes or so, but you need to wait of you will ruin the effect. Go and paint something else while you wait or grab a sandwich. Once dry, apply the wash again.




Step 4: Again, allow the wash to completely dry and apply it again. The camera doesn't pick up all of the subtle colors, but this does look a lot deeper in person. You could keep applying the wash until you are satisfied with the results. Just be careful not to go too crazy and fill in all your detail. I find 3 applications is sufficient for me.
 



Step 5: Clean up all your mistakes. I did the tear drop in Liche Purple and called it a day. Normally, I wouldn't call this done as I need to add lettering on the scroll, add some highlights with Bleached Bone, and do the shading on the gem.

Right now my army consists of two painted Razorback and 3 units that aren't even primed yet. With school taking so much of my hobby time, I'm calling this done for now. I'll revisit and add all of the other details later.

My plan is to paint my army in chunks of 750 points to a really good table top quality. Once I have the 750 done, I'll reward myself and go back to add all of the little details.

If you have been following my blog, you may remember the Twin-linked Assault Cannon conversion I was working on. Without further adieu, here she is all painted up.


Again, this isn't near completed as I need to add army badges, weathering, and additional highlights, but it suites me fine for now. Hope you like it.

Next time we'll take a look at my new Death Company Rhino and I'll have another brief tutorial on strengthening ForgeWorld Rhino doors.

Till then,

–The Harrower