Looking back on 2012…

The blog has been running for about 10 months now, much longer than I expected it to last! Just wanted to say a big thank you to anyone reading / commenting on it, as blog views are what make my day. Please feel free to share the link around among friends etc.

New BFG Terrain pieces

 

Hobby wise, I think this year has gone pretty well.

I have managed to finish:

Empire

A 2500pt WHFB Empire army (painted in two weeks in January, while my boyfriend was at work)

 

Charge!

A 15,000pt EPIC mixed Imperial Guard / Traitor IG / Siegemasters army

 

Eldar (Wraithships not shown)

A 3,000pt BFG Eldar fleet

 

Bakka

A 2,000pt BFG Bakka fleet

 

Rogue Trader Fleet

A 2,000-ish pt BFG Rogue Trader Fleet

 

Orkz – without Kroozers

A 1,000-ish pt BFG Ork Fleet

 

Space Marines – missing one Strike Cruiser

A 1,000pt BFG Space Marine Fleet

 

Defences – since painted

About 700pts worth of BFG Defences

 

Salvation’s Fire

A Necromunda Redemptionist Gang.

 

I have also painted, but not blogged about yet:

A 7,500pt EPIC Titan Legion army (quickly painted, still needs a little work)

A 7,000pt EPIC Daemon army

4k Ben’s Eldar vs. My Baran Siegemasters

4k Eldar vs. Siegemasters

 

Another set of battle pictures from a game played between Ben and I a while ago, a 4k game between his Eldar and my Baran Siegemasters.

From what I can remember the game was quite close, with an eventual win to the Siegemasters. I had set up with two defended positions, one in the centre of the board, the other was on the far left. The position on the left was overrun by Ben’s Aspects assaulting it over the trenches, while the centre position held out until eventually launching a counterattack which cut off Ben’s Wraithgate.

Dogfighting!

Rough Riders advance on an objective

My central position holds out

Ben’s Aspects ready themselves

Ragnaroks “race” at 15cm to support the left flank

My counter-attack outflanks the eldar webway gate, Hellhounds in the lead

Eldar centre stalls and is reduced

The left flank crumbles

 

The number one reason I hate playing Siegemasters against Eldar?

Skimmer Wave Serpents…

Scramble the fighters! (oh and some Chimeras tagged on the end…)

Thunderbolt Flight 1

Thunderbolt Flight 2

I have gotten on with a little bit more painting in the last couple of days – finishing up 2 flights of Thunderbolts and 7 Chimeras. The thunderbolts finish off the air forces for this army, making 2 Tbolt flights and the Marauder formation from last week, while the Chimeras mean I am able to mechanise one formation of troopers in the LatD army, or have a Supreme HQ in the Steel Legion list. I have stuck with the simple mid gray scheme for the Thunderbolts in line with the Marauders, but took the scary, scary step of painting on the little squadron markers on their tails. I think they came out a bit big – but am pretty pleased overall.

Chimera 1

Chimera 2

The Chimeras did not take as long as some of the other detailed E40k era tanks have done, I think I am getting into a pattern of painting them. I chose to keep them relatively simple again, but picked out the searchlights in that bright yellow to tie them more convinvingly to the army as a whole.

In game terms, I love Tbolts for the ability to strike anywhere on the battelfield especially harrying broken formations, and they are not too bad on the intercept either. Still the armour save kills me every time – unlike my friend Ben, whose ability to make 6+ saves is astonishing! The chimeras give infantry formations a little speed and a fair bit of firepower in the 30cm range. I like putting a LatD coven tooled up with daemon summoning upgrade in them and making a massive engagement move. The FF of the Chimeras, and the flamers, and the cultists tends to do quite nicely!

Thanks for reading guys.

Things starting with M…

Hi guys,

Sorry for the extended slow-down on the blog, I have been away and busy working so hobbytime has been cut to a minimum. However one of the joys of still being a student is lengthy summer holidays in which to pretend to be working!

I have managed to crack on with my Imperial Guard army, painting up a formation of Manticores and one of Marauder bombers.

Manticores 1

I have to say that Manticores are probably my favourite Imperial artillery piece, although they are only available in the Steel Legion List. The slow-fire is a bit annoying (meaning they can only fire alternate turns), but I tend to use the off-turn as an excuse to reposition them which is something I always feel bad about doing with other artillery pieces as it stops them from sustaining. The Disrupt and the 2 BP per weapon are really just gravy and mroe than make up for the fewer turns of firing – I tend to find that I have one or two targets that need a lot of firepower rather than lots needing a little.

Manticores 2

These are the forgeworld models, one of the few lines they are still producing as part of the Aeronautica Imperialis remnants (clicky!) and did not have too much flasy or moldlines. I bought these second hand and made the mistake of assuming that the previous owner would have washed off the mold-release agent – unfortunately they hadnt and some of the paint is only just adhering to the resin.

 

Marauder 1

 

Marauder 2

I have also been painting up some of the Marauder bomber models I own, and although in my experience they do not really perform in the game, they give me a few more air operation options. I decided to stick to the balck washed, mid-gray scheme for the air elements of the army to tie the different parts together and because it is a fairly neutral scheme they shouldnt look too silly standing in in a Titan Legion or Space Marine army.

 

 

Vultures and Supreme HQ

Vulture Flight

I have done a little more painting recently of the Vultures I have. These are the Games Workshop Specialist Games models and are not the greatest. Lots of flash and tiny little places to glue the downturned wingflaps on make them a real pain to assemble.

Poor photo I know…

I have gone for a dark red Inquisitorial theme so I can use them as Valkyries for Stormtrooper as well. I have only tried Vultures once and after partially damaging a Warhound titan they quickly died. I know that they have a fearsome reputation on the internet but they have never made their way into my lists since as they are too fragile.

Supreme Commander Stand

I have also painted up the stand I am going to use for my Supreme Commander – A psyker, a captain, the commander, a vox caster and a Commissar.

Apologies for the poor photos this week, I am not sure why they are any worse than normal…

Feel free to comment etc guys.

Deathstrikes and Bombard

 

Deathstrike Missile Battery

I have finished painting up one of the most hated formations in the Guard arsenal – Deathstrike missiles! Massive range, low profile and truly horrific damage to any titan they manage to hit (2 x TK(D6)) mean they are a very cheap formation that packs a massive punch. They are slightly less useful for me however, as I play against Eldar armies and thier titans seem to have an uncanny ability to dodge my deathstrikes.

Bombard 1

I have also finished up a Bombard battery. This is a formation that seems universally panned by the internet, but really works for me. The short range isn’t too much of an issue for me as I tend to wait until my enemy comes close, and with the amount of cover I tend to put down on the table the Ignore Cover really comes into its own. They fit particularly well into the Baran Siegemasters list!

Bombard 2

Another view of the Bombards. These are the old style E40k models so they have lots of the detail I have come to expect like excess baggage, strapped on ammo boxes, picks and shovels. Makes them very nice models, but a bit of a pain to paint.

 

Just as a heads up, I head down to London on the 10th June and then after that head off on the summer vacation until mid-September. I don’t usually take my models back home with me as they are difficult to transport and tend to distract me from the work I desperately need to do. Therefore, I imagine the regularity of blogging you may have come to expect will slacken, but I hope to keep it to at least once a week. I have been saving some pics for posts during the holidays but towards the end I will be blogging more about tactics and lists than things I have painted!

 

400 Green Guardsmen, sitting on a wall…

Hi guys,

Just a quick post to let you know that I have now painted my 400th EPIC Guardsman model. That is 80 stands of infantry which will allow me to field either:

8 Siege Infantry Companies

6 Steel Legion Infantry Companies and one Platoon upgrade

11 Stigmatus Covens – 8 formations of 10 cultists and 2 Big Mutants each and three wholly mutant covens.

Guard!

Guard

I have enough commander stands for each combination, and as you can see in one of the pics above I have a Supreme Commander stand ready to paint. I will confess that this guardmen total is slightly less than I had originally planned to paint – I have about 20 stands of shame currently hiding in my bitz box – and that I still have 16 stands of Ogryn to paint to go with them. However it feels like a pretty decent achievement, and I have a massive feeling of relief!

Other stuff on the painting table at the moment are the Regimental HQ stand, some Bombards and a pair of the old Deathstrike Missile Launchers. Also check out Jaded Gamercast, a podcast that I often listen to while painting or skiing.

Siegemasters Support – Howitzers, Thudds & Rapiers

Gottardammerung Howitzers x 9

I have been down in London over the weekend, but before going I quickly painted up some of the support formations for the Siegemasters list. They are three 3-gun formations of howitzers, three 3-gun Thudd Gun batteries and three 3-gun Rapier batteries. I love the Siegemasters howitzer support, it is simply and basic but remarkably cheap! When compared to Basilisks (see the post lower down the blog) they have a shorter range and cannot move – but come in at just over half the price of a 3 gun battery. Three batteries of three make it into all of my lists at 3k and I am thinking about possibly buying another set.

3 Rapier Batteries

Rapiers are the in-universe, old-fashioned integral anti-tank to the Siegemasters guard formations. Each battery has three Rapiers in it, putting out 3 x 45cm AT4+/AP6+, which is great in an army like the Baran Siegemasters where reliable AT fire is lacking. As infantry, the guns can garrison and use trenchworks / bunkers, but they do limit the infantry movement to 10cm, rather than the usual 15cm. I find putting some of the infantry formations containing Rapiers on Overwatch at the start of the game, garrisoned relatively far forward, a useful strategy against the lightly armoured eldar skimmer tanks I most often play against.

3 Thudd Gun Batteries

Three Thudd Gun batteries here. When I play my Siegemasters, I tend to go for a layered defence made up of two trench lines. the forward line tends to have Infantry Companies with Rapiers and /or Hellhounds manning it ready to hammer enemy formations at short range. Behind that line and protecting my static artillery and AA guns, my second defensive line is made up of Infantry Companies with the Thudd Gun upgrade. The range of the Thudd Guns ( 90cm with Indirect Fire) mean that these Infantry companies can still influence the game even while remaining static close to my board edge. I have found them particularly useful for laying that final blast marker to cause the enemy to break, or for taking cheeky pot-shots at smaller formations.

The models are from the Exodus Wars range – the Guild Support Centuria – which contains 5 Howitzer proxies, 5 Rapier proxies and 5 Thudd Gun proxies for the low, low price of £5.95.

 

PS – 48 stands of Guard painted!

Rough Riders

Rough Riders 1

I have been doing a little more painting recently, concentrating mostly on painting up some of the smaller IG formations I need to do. These are two formations of Rough Riders, who work great as scouts for all of the IG lists. I have had them do great things for me in game – charging a mob of gun and battle wagons, winning the fight and running them down – and they have become some of my favourite models.

Rough Riders 2

In non-EPIC news I am starting up a Mighty Empires campaign at my local gaming club ( http://warforge.co.uk/index.php ) for Warhammer Fantasy. It looks like it should have 6 or so players and run for about 2 months. In a similar vein, I help run the Bugmans Brewery online campaigns. The Shadow Games has just started witht he first turn scheduled for the 30th April – lots of work and lots of fun to come! Registration is open for all the factions at the moment and background to it can be found here – http://www.bugmansbrewery.com/forum/50-shadow-games-campaign/

Hellhounds

I have had the last week off work before the university term starts again and have been a busy beaver painting masses of EPIC Guard which should all make an appearance on this blog soon enough.

2 Hellhound Formations

I have painted six hellhounds out of the twelve I own. I have left the big fuel tanks off the roof of the models for a reason, they cover up so much of the back that I think they look better without the tanks, although I am thinking of possibly putting just one fuel tank on each Hellhound mouted horizontally at the very back of the tank. I love my Hellhounds in the game, especially in the Baran Siegemasters list where they give the Infantry companies some good, cover-ignoring, short range firepower without costing the earth.

Can you see the plasma cannons in the hulls?

While I was painting them up I cam across something a bit strange. Two of the models have plasma cannons mounted in thier hulls, where normally a heavy bolter or heavy flamer would go. I am pretty sure a hull-mounted plasma cannon has never been an option in EPIC or 40k. Does anyone know if these are normal Hellhound hulls, or have they come from elsewhere?