Recently I hosted my chapter of the Super Blog Chain Giveaway and gave out a Razerback to Zero from Hive Zero. He is currently hosting his on chapter now and giving away some awesome 'Nid models to the winner. Lets keep the love going and enter his contest found at the link above.

Drop Pods... They're So Bloody Expensive!

I already own three, one of which is a Dread Claw conversion... But they're sitting in the middle east with no hope of reaching me untill long after I move to Austria come August. Bummer. I need four for my 'Ard Boyz Semis list...

Solution?

Paper Pods!

Found some nice templates on the interwebs at the yahoo group BWC. Gonna construct four basic pods with slight alterations to the template to make 'em Claws... Should cost me under 10 bucks total and easily pass for playable models. Paper board seems thick enough to do, but if not I've got plenty of GW boxes that I can chop up to make work.

Still gonna have to buy two more Dreadnoughts for my list though... Then it's back to painting.
Hopefully I place well at the Semis to make all the expenses worth while. Wish me luck.

Fun Quiz

Alright, I actually do have worth while content to post... but I'm a tad lazy right now. Gotta scratch together four Drop Pods before Semi's (I recently got switched from 7th to 3rd as one of my opponents graciously forfeited a week after)... Also finally decided on a paint scheme for my Sang Preists. Or should I say.... Blood Priests. :P

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

You are a d4: You are bright, perceptive, and driven. You would be considered a blessing to mankind, if you didn't insist on using your powers for evil. You are devious, deceitful, doubtful, and downright dangerous. Assassins can learn a lot from you. If your fellow party members knew how rotten you were, they'd go over and join the bad guys. Justified or not, you are meticulous in your ways: A poison for every person, and a dagger for every back. Much of your day is spent scheming or plotting. The rest of your time is spent trying to convince others that you're simply misunderstood.



Anyways, fun quiz. Give it a look.

We Have a Winner!

After much careful and deliberation concerning the three contestants for my chapter of the Super Blog Chain Giveaway, I've elected Zero has the winner. He will be receiving a brand new Razerback in the mail shortly. You can find his blog which documents the work on his beautiful Nid army over here. He'll now be giving away in turn a Lictor, new in blister, and a Zoanthrope, also new in blister. If you're a bug player and looking for some goodies, I highly reckon you head on over and enter now. Otherwise I suggest you head over anyways and subscribe to his blog.

Congrats Zero. I'll be needed you to get in touch with me at schnitzel2540 (at) yahoo (dot) com so that we can work out the shipping and everything.

Also be sure to check out the other two contestants who have wonderful blogs as well: Griffit over at http://griffitscorner.blogspot.com/, and Capitano at The Ultra Templar.

The Horror of Painting White

Made a trip up to GW today and picked up painting again. I've decided for my paint scheme that normal marines will be Pre-Heresy World Eaters while my Death Co will be Khorne Berserker color scheme. As I've never painted white before and thought the Pre-Heresy would look cooler, I started with them... Ugh.
Painting white is a long and drawn out process! I'm painting my "junk" squad that I bartered off a fellow local gamer as they were already primed and not the best looking. Good for testing out how to paint white. Its been pretty rough and time consuming so far.
I basecoated with Astronomican Grey and after trial and error testing have come to 1:3:1 Astro Grey/ Skull White/ Water mix for the first coating of white. I then follow up with a 1:1 mix of Skull White / Water. Time consuming, but it doesn't look bad. In fact, as I'm now on my third mini it's looking pretty good. Definitely going to stick with this method for the rest.
I also went with a 1:1 Foundation Blue / Water for the shoulder pads, "bunny ear" trim and power pack. I'll need to pick up some Asuruman Blue wash to give it the dark blue look that they should have. I'll be highlighting with Enchanted Blue.
I might also work in some silver in places as well as the usual Boltgun Metal on the weapons. Both paints I forgot to buy of course. :P

I've also decided for my Sanguinary Priests to paint them in the manner of Khorne Berserkers, however one shoulder pad will be solid white in the manner of a Apothecary.

Over all I must say I'm pretty excited to be starting on this project.

Let LOS Be Damned! Incoming Terrain.

Just spent a bit of time over at TerrainScapes looking for cheap, LoS blocking terrain that I can bring to the table for my weekly gaming addiction. As it stand, my gaming group lacks LoS blocking terrain for every one to have a suitable playing field on Tuesdays, so I've decided to go the route and get some of my own. One play who did the same recommended a website for me, but I forgot it and so went with googling around instead. He had a decent set of terrain that costed 'bout $100, so I figure that'd be the price I'd search for as well. Well, lo and behold I found some!

I decided to go with the Martian Buttes set, two of 'em and an Arch. Costs $110, plus $20 shipping. Not bad, I'm very pleased to be honest.

Swing by their site by clicking the link I posted above and give it a look. They've got some great stuff and at reasonable pricing too.

FREE RAZERBACK! Enter Now for You're Chance to Win: Super Blog Chain Give Away.

As those who came before me, it is now my time to give away a prize as my part of the super Blog Chain Give Away. I won a box of Khorne Berserkers from Lord Shaper over at Tales from the Warzone, thus now leading me to give away one Loyalist Razerback.

What is the Super Blog Chain Giveaway?
The fellows over at Santa Cruz Warhammer got the ball rolling in an effort to foster folks in our community reaching out and seeing what other blogs have to offer as well extending a helping hand to fellow gamers.
Want to participate?
If you want to win a prize of your own and join this Give-Away, go comment on this blog. The rules of the give-away are as follows:

1. you must have a blog.
2. you must have something worthwhile to offer up to give away for free.
3. if you win, you must hold your own blogsite give away using the same rules to pay it forward.
4. you must contact us with a link to your give away so we can send bloggers to your site.
5. you may only enter once per give away.

To Enter:

1. leave a comment to this post as follows.
2. 1st sentence, why you need the prize.
3. 2nd sentence what you will give away on your blog to pay it forward.

I will choose the winner based on how convincing they are and what they offer to the next winner.

What’s in it for you?
The winner will receive one unopened Loyalist Razerback shipped to them free of charge. Tell me the reason why you want it and how you plan to put it to use. I will choose a winner based on a combination of what you are offering and how convincing you were on Monday, May 31st.

'Ard Boyz Round One BatRep W/ Pictures!

I actually remembered that I had my camera in my game bag this time around. This was my second 'Ard Boyz in two days, the first being Game Parlor Woodbridge and this one being at Game Vault in Fredricksburg. Awesome store btw. I finished mid-ranks at GPW and seventh at Game Vault. A one BP loss in round three cost me third place! :O

Anyways... Round one, Objectives! Five on the field of course, I win first turn and place three objectives on the center and towards my deployment. My opponent places two towards his deployment zone.
I place three Stormravens for my deployment, reserve my plasma tac squad and my opponent deploys his entire gunline Guard army. :D

Turn one I manuever my birds around, unleash a torrent of fire and pop a vehicle or two and move one Death Co Stormraven up close to his platoon mob. I drop a dread out, fleet it up withing 6 inches and assault! Dun dun dun! Carnage ensues as the only model that can harm the dread is the Old Man.

 On his turn he does a bunch of shooting, accomplishing near to nothing. :P
I finish off his mob and only the Old Man is left standing. Blood Talons rule.

My turn two, I move a bird and drop a Death Co which do some killing and work on popping more tanks. I also kill off the Old Man and consolidate my Dread.
His turn two he drops some Vets behind my mob, blows up a bird and unleashes a torrent of AP3 fire into my Death Co. Rules debate ensued about me not getting FNP as there is no armor save, I win out and get FNP. Still lost a couple bodies though.

I don't remember much of the rest of the game, only that I dropped more dreads that mopped up his troops left and right. I pop a couple more tanks, kill more guard and claim three objectives as my combat squaded tac squad came on. I more or less lost a dread to Straken, but Straken dies (although his squad lived), and a tank hides one objective underneath it. He moves a squad to claim said objective, contests one of mine with his Russ and Old Man comes back alive repeatedly and assault a two man combat squad to contest one of my objectives, he dies yet again and I claim it. I also claim a second with my assault squad.

Game finishes with my opponent missing the majority of his army, me claiming two objectives, him contesting one and claiming one. Minor victory. Bah. After I outplayed the hell out of him I should have managed better. Oh well.


Don't forget to comment in my Blog Give Away for you're chance to win a Razerback!

Super Blog Chain Give Away – Free Razerback!

As those who came before me, it is now my time to give away a prize as my part of the super Blog Chain Give Away. I won a box of Khorne Berserkers from Lord Shaper over at Tales from the Warzone, thus now leading me to give away one Loyalist Razerback.

What is the Super Blog Chain Giveaway?
The fellows over at Santa Cruz Warhammer got the ball rolling in an effort to foster folks in our community reaching out and seeing what other blogs have to offer as well extending a helping hand to fellow gamers.
Want to participate?
If you want to win a prize of your own and join this Give-Away, go comment on this blog. The rules of the give-away are as follows:

1. you must have a blog.
2. you must have something worthwhile to offer up to give away for free.
3. if you win, you must hold your own blogsite give away using the same rules to pay it forward.
4. you must contact us with a link to your give away so we can send bloggers to your site.
5. you may only enter once per give away.

To Enter:

1. leave a comment to this post as follows.
2. 1st sentence, why you need the prize.
3. 2nd sentence what you will give away on your blog to pay it forward.

I will choose the winner based on how convincing they are and what they offer to the next winner.

What’s in it for you?
The winner will receive one unopened Loyalist Razerback shipped to them free of charge. Tell me the reason why you want it and how you plan to put it to use. I will choose a winner based on a combination of what you are offering and how convincing you were on Monday, May 31st.




-Thanks again to Lord Shaper as I copied the above block of text from his giveaway page. :O

As Dawn Approaches We Make Ready For War...

The final night before the 'Ard Boyz Preliminaries. My list is fine tuned at this point and I'm feeling confident. I'll need to buy some new dice when I get to the store for speed rolling, and I pray they are blessed by mighty Khorne. I need to put together one last Priest before bed for my army to be completely WYSIWYG.

Are you ready?

The First Heretic

Aaron Dembski-Bowden of the Black Library just released a small excert from his upcoming HH Novel: The First Heretic. I highly recomend you go take a peak at his blog here. I can't wait for this to come out.

Argh! Nurgles Rot Has Infected My Room!?

Short rant here, and an annoying one at that. See here, I live in a barracks. This implies two things, I've got Sgt's and such in charge of me and that I must keep my room clean. Well, I do keep a clean and rather tidy room, yet however my Sgt constantly accuses me of stinking because she's under the impression my room smells bad. Hell, I just moved into a new room last night and she's already complained that it reeks when she walks by. WTF?

Well, thing is, I cut and glue plastic like its cool. I've got a work desk that I bought to dedicate completely to my plastic army endevours. I use plastic cement and super glue frequently. What smells strong? Plastic glue? What could this stench she complains about be? Probably the plastic glue. Considering I bath once to twice a day, and that I've only lived in this room for one night (however have been working on models for a week in it), I know this is what it is! Yet my Sgt will have none of it. How frustrating!

I suspect that when she finally gets with the program and realized that plastic cement smells kinda funky (I like it actually), she'll tell me I can't put together models anymore. That will PISS me off severely. It's bad enough I can't paint in here and have to drive through DC traffic for half a freaking hour to GW to paint, but to be disallowed to build models? Bollocks! I won't have none of that.

*end rant*

High Hopes for 'Ard Boyz

Any one else notice that putting the "H" in 'Ard Boyz makes it sound completely wrong?:P

So, I just got back from 40k nights at my FLGS and am feeling pretty good. Only played one game as I was playing 2500pt only, and by time the first finished every one was either already playing or didn't think we had time. Oh well, I was pretty tired anyways.

So I played against this fellow who runs 'Nids. Same guy I beat two weeks ago, slightly tweaked list for him and totally revamped list for me. Rolled for scenarios and got scenario one. Bummer, I really wanted to try out either two or three, but I got a taste of both anyways.

On the objective placement we situated them all on one quarter of the board. In my deployment zone too for the most part. Haha. I won the roll to go first btw. Strarted off with two Stormravens moving 6 inches and unloading a total of 8 missiles into some MCs. Managed to down one of 'em right off the bat to my opponents dismay. My third Stormraven jetted across the table and unloaded the Death Dread on some unsuspecting Termigaunts who were promptly slaughtered.

Honestly, every turn afterwards was me jetting around and running Dreads out of Stormravens and into assault. I tabled the guy by turn five... well, he had a squad of Ymgarl Genestealers in reserve, a Tervigon and Carnifex left, but he conceded at this point. I on the other hand had only lost one Death Dread, five Tac Marines (of ten), and 6 Death Company Marines (of a squad of eight). I scored well over 1000 victory points, claimed two (woulda been three) objective and gave him near nothing.

My thoughts.... Stormravens ROCK!
Think about it.... Alpha strike capabilities with four 72" missiles, anti-melta armor, fast skimmer, PotMS, free twin linked melta and your choice of either TL Lascan, Plascan or Asscan. Throw in twelve passengers and a dread along with it being an assault vehicle... Its worth every point. Manuever them around a bit, pop transports and pick and choose who, where and when you want to assault. These things are beasts!

My list looked something like this:

HQ
-Astaroth

Elites
-Chaplain (with Assault Squad)
-Sang Priest x2  Power Weapon//Combi-Plas (one with Assault Squad, one with Tac Squad)
-Furioso Dread w/ Hvy Flamer and Blood Talons (in Stormraven with Assault Squad)

Troops
-Death Co w/ Lemartes (2 PWps, 1 Inferno Pistol, 1 PFist) in Stormraven
-Death Dread w/ Hvy Flame and Blood Talons in Stormraven
-Death Co w/ Astaroth (2 Pwps, 1 Inferno, 1 Pfist) in Stormraven
-Death Dread w/ Hvy Flame and Blood Talons in Stormraven
-Assault Squad (8 man, PWpn Sgt w/ Pwpn Sang Priest and Chappy) in Stormraven
-Tac Squad (Plascan, Plasma, Combi-plas Sgt w/ Combi-plas Sang Priest)

Tac squad was reserved and walked onto the board. Their concentrated plasma fire, especially at rapid fire range (nabbed a squad of genestealers with 'em) is deadly! FNP makes them great. Papa Nurgle would be pleased.

Over all, very satisfying game. For me at least. My opponent was cool as always and helped me out with punching the numbers as thats my one weak point in this game still. I always struggle to remember what rolls to hit and wound are unless I have the WS and S/T chart in front of me. Great guy.
Having performed so well in what I expected to be my weakest scenario I am rather confident that I'll do fairly well this weekend. Only time will tell.

Korlictus, Daemon Hound of Armegedon!

When Angron the Daemon Primarch of the World Eaters invaded Armegedon, Korlictus was a champion of the Skull Takers that partook. He fought valiantly against the Wolves of Russ and whatever pitiful defense that the world could muster and collected skulls by the dozen for his master. It was when the Grey Knights arrived that Korlictus was cut down. Khorne however was not done with Korlictus yet and spared his life for another day... Korlictus lived, by only through interment of a dreadnaught sarcophagus. He continues to wage war and collect skulls til this very day.


When I decided to expand my 'Ard Boyz list to three Stormravens and Dreads, I realized I needed to make one of the Dreads a Furiouso as I had no troop slots available. With it being a Furiouso, I wanted to give it a unique look to seperate it from the Death Co Dreads... This one had to be a Chaotic equivelant of a Venerable, and fortunately that was the only Dread my FLGS had available.

I also had the daemonic mount left over from the WHFB Khorne lord. Originally I was only going to place the head over the sarcophogus, however I later decided to incorporate the legs as well. I then made sure to add plenty of spikey bits and skulls to cover up any loyalist nonsense.

I made the Blood Talons from the sword scabbards from the Khorne Berserkers box. I was tempted to file them all down at first, but decided to leave it as decoration. The skulls all over the chest are from the skulls bitz collection off GW's website and the chains bit and spikes on top came from the Chaos Vehicle sprue.

I'm tempted to add a tail similar to the Trygon to this model as it looks a little top heavy at the moment. I'm a little hesitant to make it using wires and green stuff, however I'm more hesitant to buy a Trygon just for its tail. I love the model and would be delighted to have one, but I don't know what use I'd put it to...

Comments and critiques are of course welcome.

'Ard Boyz Scenarios Out

GW just released the scenarios for this years 'Ard Boyz, which can be found here.

Mission one is a five objective counter sort, which bodes ill for me with my two scoring units. Best I can manage is a Major Victory, but that's only if I slaughter my opponent off the objectives and claim two to zero.
Mission two is Victory Points, which could bode very will with me as my units are all very killy... Or very bad as my death stars are pretty expensive. :O
Mission three is KPs, but units than can move more than 6 inches in a single phase of a turn are worth 6. Yikes! Very bad for me despite my low model count. I think I can manage it while keeping my scoring units out of harms way though... Trying to figure out what changes to make to cut down the KPs I bring to the table though.
Over all I'd say I'm running a good 30% to 50% chance of performing well... Tomorrow's test runs will see...

Also, learned that the Stormraven has some nice alpha strike capabilites. The four bloodstrike missiles count as seperate weapons! That means so long as I move 6 inches or less, I can fire 4 missiles and everything else! With a 72 inch range on 'em, S8 and PotMS, I can hopefully drop 3 tanks on turn one and cripple my opponents mech abilities. If I manage that I think moving flat out and creating a double envelopment shouldn't be too hard and I can just mop 'em up. Seventy two inces is the entire length of the board after all... on a 4'x6' board anyways.

Halo Reach... I Think I'd Rather Snort Glue

Super glue at that. >:O

Anyways, with Monday came the dawn of the Halo Reach open Beta. Like a little Catholic school kid on the night before Christmas, I could not get a wink of sleep the night before. All the promises and hype of how AWESOME the beta would be, it was too much to bear.
Then came Monday.... And it continued.... I still waiting... Till after lunch. Then w00t w00t, beta's out! 1.15 gigs or so, easy 10 minute download and off I go! It was relatively fun at first, then the servers died from the onslaught of nubs bumrushing them. Monday ended in disapointment.

The next two days the servers were in a much more stable condition and gaming was once again possible. I had a blast playing in a stacked party with 7 other gaming buddies. But then myself and another ventured out on our owns to play some competition... And got matched up against parties of 6's repeatedly... which of course for a 4v4 game, that means 2 of the 6 opponents are on our team.... FAIL!

Now this wouldn't be too bad if 90% of the players weren't f***tard t**t children, but unfortunately they were and the two dumb s**ts that were on my team would spend the whole game chasing me and my buddy around spraying bullets at us. Amazingly, we still won a few such games, but that's cause we're just hard core like that. :P

One more gripe before I move on to why Reach fails. Trash talking pre-pubescent children. And angsty teens as well. Is the trash talking necessary? Let the fact you won be the trash talking, you don't have to run your mouth. If this is the only way you can get your rocks off, you're one sad pitiful individual.

Trash talking when you've got a stacked team of 6v2 is also about the most damn retarded thing ever. Seriously.

Its for stupid crap like this that I advocate the disciplining of children with the rod. Through pain comes obedience, and children these days don't get that learning experience. Fail society, fail.

Anyways, here are my reasons Halo Reach fails so far....

• 
  
  
  
  Slow Spartans
• 
  
  
  
  Low Jump Spartans
• 
  
  
  
  CoD imitation movement style
• 
  
  
  
  Uber frag grenades
• 
  
  
  
  Lack of straffing in “BR” battles due to low speed
• 
  
  
  
  More sensitive aim than H3, but slower turn around speed
• 
  
  
  
  Shields and health bar
• 
  
  
  
  AR + Beatdown no longer works... unless you AR forever and a day first
• 
  
  
  
  DRM shot spread blows
• 
  
  
  
  Needle Rifle too weak
• 
  
  
  
  Maps are a mix of too open and too cluttered.
• 
  
  
  
  Map and player movement speeds encourage camping
• 
  
  
  
  Proximity voice overpowered
• 
  
  
  
  Shield lock is a fail.
• 
  
  
  
  Crouching Invisible Spartans are annoying as piss
• 
  
  
  
  Switching between Bumper Jump and Default for Swat/Normal Games.

Now here's a short list of what I actually like about Reach.

• 
  
  
  
  Jump Packs are cool
• 
  
  
  
  Elites that roll around and dodge
• 
  
  
  
  Reticle bloom
• 
  
  
  
  Pro Slayer game type
• 
  
  
  
  No visible rank skill level system
• 
  
  
  
  Vote for map and game type as opposed to the veto system
• 
  
  
  
  Active Roster
• Uber Halo 2 style Rocket Launcher

As you might notice, Reach doesn't have a whole lot going for it at the moment. The biggest factor that drives me away is that annoying children. I can't go in a play by myself and actually enjoy the game, its retarded. I have to come in with at least 3 friends of mine, which limits my ability to play during down time during working hours. Lame.

Astaroth, Champion of Khorne!

Got my Astaroth and Khorne Lord models today and got straight to work on my army's HQ. Taking the head, shield and axe from the Khorne Lord and the legs, wings and backpack from Astaroth, along with greenstuff and a Berserker torso, I met the image I had set out to create. Behold, my Champion of Khorne!

Its a little hard to distinguish the details as it's all shiny and metal like, but just wait till its painted.
You might notice something in the background as well...

This is my Abaddon the Despoiler WIP. All thats left really is to make some pre-heresy shoulder pads and minor detail work on his daemon sword. Made it from shaving down a spare sprue bit btw.

25mm Warrior Rocks!

Doing a bit of pre-bed blog browsing before bed and I swing by 25mm Warriors page to check out his Sunday Top 5 Blogs That Need Follows for the week and what do I find? My blog! *Jaw hits floor*

Anyways, big shout out to 25mm here as he's been a regular commenter on my posts and overall good guy. Swing over to his page here and check out what he's got. And don't forget to check his blog recommendations.

It's Like Plucking the Heads Off Dandalions

Made my way out to my FLGS today for some more 'Ard Boyz practice and paired off against a fairly nasty looking Nids list. Not entirely sure what all was in the list, I just know it had 24 deep striking elite choice genestealers, a tun of termagaunts, a tervigon, and some really big bugs that shot large templates at me. Tyranofexes maybe? Not really important in the long run, they're skulls grace the throne of Khorne now. :P

Anyways, as I forget the majority of the game's details there will be no bat rep today. Just know I slipped by with a last turn objective grab and contest with my fast rhino and razerback. Highlights of course were my Death Co Dreads slaughtering termagaunts and genestealers in mass. My Lemartes Death Co also performed well, but Astaroth and his Death Co were unfortunately cut down as their transport was surrounded by two mobs of genestealers and blown up.

My Vindicator actually accomplished a bit today too as my opponant was graciouos enough to concede to my belief that the Demolisher Cannon is intended to be a Large Blast weapon. Managed to blow away a hand full of Gaunts and Warriors with it. Yay boom stick!

And that brings us to the next bit.... Rule bending power gamers. There's a discussion going on my gaming groups forum about the rules for the BA Vindicator. The big wigs of the gaming group, who come off as WAAC players to me, all side that the D Cannon is a S10 direct shot weapon. This couldn't have anything to do with them playing IG platoon mobs or Nid swarm lists could it? Very irritating. Below is my response in the forum.

I'm a late comer to this, but I gotta throw in my two cents.
It's obviously a misprint. Who in their right mind will take a 140ish point tank thats a one trick pony? Yeah its S10 and Fast, but it's just not worth it. Would it really surprise you if it was meant to be a Large Blast? Seriously, take a look at other "broken" things, Blood Talon Death Dreads and re-rolling Death Co for example.
Also, while I was at the Springfield GW yesterday they insisted on the ruling being a Large Blast and that I play it that way. Unfortunately for me, a direct shot would have benefited me greatly, but I'm definitely going to side with them on that one. Heck, even one of my friends from Wien (currently working at Germany's GW HQ) claims this is a misprint in the ruling and will be faq'd.

Essentially, to deny your opponent the Blast template when he's shooting at your blob of models is cheese. Its a load of rubbish rule bending and power gaming. Personally, I don't care what any one would think of me for doing this but if another player were to refuse me the blast template I'm going to pack up my plastic soldiers and move on. If winning is so important to you that you're going to bend the rules in your favor then I have no desire to play with you. Period.

And there you have it, my stance on the matter.
Thanks for reading.