Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Painting WIP - Skullcannons

After having this pair of delightful monstrosities base coated red since before last years NZTC, I thought I had better make some progress on them.

I re-undercoated the cannons with Vallejo Model Air Bright Brass then a wash of Agrax Earthshade.   The flesh was Bugman's Glow washed with the old Ogryn Flesh and then darkened with Druchii Violet.  The red was Mephiston Red with Earthshade in the recesses and highlighted with Fire Dragon Bright.

I applied some Nihilakh Oxide in sections to the brass as a bright contrast along with the highlighted bone.

I still have to add the crew.  It will be a Bloodletter and cultist conversion on each rig.  The cultists to fit in with ones I have in my Plaguebearer and Pink Horror units.

Monday, January 26, 2015

2015 - Game much so far?

So not even one month through the new year and it occurs to me that I have been doing very well so far in regards to gaming.

On the 2nd of January I hosted a massive game of 40K.  Using it as an excuse to wind up a city campaign we had been playing on and off for a while, I gathered the fellas.  The Xenos coalition(Aaron, Cody, Stu and Ryan) had hammered the Imperial forces(Conan, Evern, Mitch and I) in the campaign so with 4 a side and 2000 points per player we played a siege scenario from the Stronghold Assault book.  Several hours later and with the Imperial garrisons buildings left as smoking ruins the Xenos had well and truly cast the Imperium from the world.  Not bad for 16000 points going on the table.

Xenos Start your engines!
Those craters were buildings once upon a time...

Within the next week it was square based time and I had a 2400 point game of Fantasy with my Daemons.  It was against Wil and his NZTC Empire list.  It was a very good learning experience, it seems Empire cannons roll no where near as many misfires as my Skullcannons do!?  But seriously I did gain a few good pointers from the game, mainly around protecting valuable units from cannon fire with Beast walls.  Wil took out a pretty solid win.

Alex, Cody and I are heading north to Hamilton in February for Over the Top.  With an escalation format of 1000, 1500 and 2000 points we would need to try some lists out.  During the month I have taken my Eldar list to the table twice.  Stu tried the new Blood Angel codex out against me and then Alex played with his Deathwing.  Both games gave me solid wins and i am pretty confident with my list.  Cody was thinking about taking Orks for a change.  For a change of pace I worked out a 2000 point Grey Knight list from the painted collection.  4 turns later there wasn't an Ork left on the table and Cody proclaimed "I'm taking the Grey Knights!" Now I just need to finally finish painting his Imperial Knight, but wait Alex wants to borrow my Knight too!  Oh well at least they'll finally get done.

But its not just GW games being played.  I have played a couple 100 point games of X-wing with my friend Jake.  I own the Starter set, Tie Advanced, Tie Defender, Y-wing and A-wing.  Jake has played Empire in both games and managed to sneak victories both times against my Rebels.  Prior to this I had only played 'out of the box' games with Cody and Aaron so it has been good playing 'proper' lists. Last week I received an email saying Mighty Ape had finally restocked their range so I am now the happy owner of the Millennium Falcon.  Lets see how the next game goes!

In amongst all this wargaming, we have been playing Pathfinder rpg on Tuesday nights as well.  After many pre gen games I was ready to run my own thing again.  So with story points in my head and some NPC notes in a notebook we got into it.  Aaron's man witch Zebulon lasted about 3 sessions before suffering a messy end.  It was a goblin with an enchanted frost pick - x4 crit Sucka!  He is now playing a Dwarf Bard, I mean detective!  Which with permission is now being tweaked to a Sorcerer(I mean c'mon a Bard ffs!).  Cody has been playing a Half Elf Zen Archer(Monk) but as he becoming more criminal and undisciplined I have suggested he tweak it to a Rogue.  Stu is settled with his Tiefling Ranger/Rogue (because nothing says sneak attack like a Greatsword) and finally Alex is playing Grimlock the Burninator!  A Half Orc Barbarian with an obsession for obtaining enchanted bags.  They may need a bit of nudging in the right direction now and then but the game has been highly entertaining so far, mostly because of the dumb shit they've been up too.

Finally on Friday night I hosted another 4v4 team game of 40K, 1000 points per player.  Our good friend Emmett was visiting from London.  When he set off for the UK he gave me his substantial Thousand Sons Chaos Marine army, whenever he is back in NZ he tries to fit a game in.  So with Emmett running Ahriman and co he was joined by Aaron with Daemons, myself playing CSM and Stu with Necrons.  The Imperium team consisted of Wil with Sisters of Battle, Cody with Grey Knights, Wil's nephew Alex with Salamanders and Ryan with Astra Militarum.  With a Relic in the centre and tactical objective cards in play we slugged it out for a few hours.  We had the Relic and a few bonuses but the Imperium managed to take the victory with all the tactical objectives they had racked up.

So I managed to play all this and it's not even the end of the month.  Lets hope I can keep the trend going!

So what games have you managed to get in so far in 2015?