Blog Moving

I've decided to move this blog to WordPress and host it on it's own domain.  The new site is http://magnumdanger.com/ and all of the content from here will be imported over there.  The scope of the site is going to expand including all of my different armies and games.  I have a few terrain articles in the work where I attempt to build a cheap Zone Mortalis board and will be showing miniatures from other games specifically Warmachine Convergence of Cyriss models, and Bolt Action British.

Terrain Inspiration - Gas Works Park

I like to keep my eyes open for cool idea for creating terrain from.  Today I took my son to Gas Works Park today to look at boats (his favorite thing in the world), and took a couple pictures of the old refinery equipment still at the park.  The park was once a natural gas refinery in the early 1900's and has been converted to a park since it shut down.  A lot of inspiration here, with lots of platforms and pipes coming out. Looks pretty easy to build with pipe and other cheap materials.

Farseer on Jetbike

So after my game on Saturday, I decided that I need to model up a Farseer on a jetbike as that seems to be a nice option. I have a bunch of old jetbikes that need to be refurbished, so I took the bike and cut off the wings on the back.  The body was taken from a guardian model (a female one at that), the head and right arm are from a Dire Avenger Exarch, the shield vein thing on the back is from the Wraithblades, and the wings on the bike are from the Crimson Hunter.  Pretty happy with how it came out.  If I were to do it again I would try and find another head that looks more farseerish as my conversion only looks alright.

Farseer on Jetbike

Farseer on Jetbike

Batrep: Eldar vs Tyranids

Played my game with Michael today.  We played at a newer game store near his house Gameshire.  It's got some real nice tables and is well lit and clean.  Seems like a friendly place to play.  We ended up rolling mission 5, Elrdad's Will and Hammer and Anvil deployment.  He took first turn and hid most of his army.  He was playing his  Tyranids and didn't have the tools to really take care of all of my skimmers.  He really struggled to do much of anything the first few turns of the game, as he was scared to run his little bugs out into my fire lanes.  I managed to kill off a lot of his stuff by the end, leaving only a couple Genestealers, a single Hormogaunt and a couple Hive Guard at the end of turn 5.  He did bring down two of my Wave Serpents, the Nightspinner, the Rangers, a squad of Dire Avengers and all but one Wraithguard (who would have died had we opted to continue on).

The stand out units of the game were definitely the Wave Serpents.  Loading them out with Scatter Lasers and Shuriken Cannon is just disgusting the amount of firepower they put out.  I managed to roll two 6's for finding out how many shots the Serpent Shield would have and just managed to tear units apart, I think it's probably the best transport in the game with how survivable, fast, and damaging it is.  It's kind of sad that it vastly overshoots the Falcon and doesn't take up a slot being a dedicated transport.  The jetbikes were also awesome, but only because they were able to turbo boost across the table and take his objective.  I liked the Dire Avengers over the Guardians as I found that extra 6" and the 4+ armor save really helped to keep them alive.  The Wraithguard with D-Sythes were also very nasty, instant killing a Mawloc, though they were brought down by Genestealers, but required a multi-assault were one unit was all but wiped out on over-watch so the second could get into close combat.

It was fun to play, but I did feel a little bad for the Tyranids, as they are really showing their age/bad codex writing.  It doesn't help that Michael doesn't like Tervigon's which seem to be the real useful unit in codex.

Eldar Warhost

Mymeara Warhost

So this my army I'm taking to play a game with a friend tomorrow.  I'm trying a few new things from last game.  Mostly putting the troops into Wave Serpents to see if I can get them to last beyond the first turn.  Also dropped the War Walkers to fit a Night Spinner and a unit of 5 Wraithguard with D-Scythes in a Wave Serpent.  This is going to be my, don't get anywhere near me or you die unit.  I'm also playing the guardians as Dire Avengers to give me that extra bit of range, and the better 4+ save.

Here's the list below:

1850
HQ: Farseer - Spirit Stone, Jetbike
Troop: 10x Dire Avengers - Wave Serpent - Scatter Lasers - Cannon
Troop: 10x Dire Avengers - Wave Serpent - Scatter Lasers - Cannon
Troop: 5x Rangers
Troop: 3x Jetbikes - Cannon
Elite: 5x Wraithguard - D-Scythes - Wave Serpent - Scatter Lasers - Cannon
Fast: Crimson Hunter - Exarch - Star Cannons
Heavy: Fire Prism - Cannon
Heavy: Night Spinner - Cannon
Heavy: Wraithknight - Suncannon - Scatter Laser

Wraithknight WIP

A few WIP shots of the Wraithknight. Still lots of detail work to do, but it's coming along nicely.

 

Finished Wave Serpents

Two Eldar Mymeara Wave Serpents

I finished up two more Wave Serpents last night.  I did a little conversion to side mount the turret weapons rather than have one on each side.  They are also magnetized to switch out and I will make more of the options in the future.  This gives me three painted Wave Serpents in total and I would like to convert one of my Falcon hulls as well as the Wave Serpents are really good in the new codex.

First Game with New Eldar

A few pictures from my first game with the new Eldar codex. It was an odd game, as there was a new player in the store who had just assembled a couple Tyranid models so he took 500 points of Tyranids and I took 1500 Eldar and we fought a Dark Angels player with 2000 points.  My list was just made to try a couple different things and isn't really optimized in any way:

Eldar 1500
HQ: Farseer with spirit stone
Troop: 10 Guardians w/ scatter lasers
Troop: 10 Guardians w/ scatter lasers
Troop: 5 Rangers
Troop: 4 Jetbikes
Elite: 5 Fire Dragons in Wave Serpent w/ scatter lasers
Heavy: Wraithknight with suncannon and scatter laser
Heavy: 3 War Walkers with scatter lasers
Heavy: 1 Fire Prism

Tyranids:
1x Tervigon w/ some upgrades
10x termagaunts
1x Trigon Prime

Dark Angels Double Wing:
2x 10 man Terminator Squads
2x Full Bikes with Attack Bikes
3 Whirlwinds

Things were looking pretty terrible after first turn.  I've never played Dark Angels before and didn't realize what deepstriking Terminators could do, not scouting bikes.  Everything was right in our face turn 1 and he obliterated most of our troops and my Farseer turn 1.  The whirlwinds all ignored cover and each hit deleted my crappy troops that were needing cover.  By the end of the turn the only troops we had alive were about 3 guardians and the Tervigon.

We decided to at least play a turn or two to see if we could do anything, and it turned out we could!  The Wraithknight showed his value when he obliterated 6 of the Terminators with his 3 TL plasma cannon blasts on terminators which were bunched up from deepstriking.  The War Walkers, Fire Prism, Wave Serpent and Fire Dragons then unloaded into Belials terminators and brought them down by half.  Everything that could assault at that point did assault to try and be locked in combat to take cover from the Whirlwinds.  The Trigon and Wraithknight charged the remained 4 Terminators at wiped them out and only taking a single wound back.  It's pretty awesome for Terminators to need 4's to wound.

Turn 2 was very little shooting for the Dark Angels as most everything was hidden or locked in combat.  The bikes did manage to shoot and then assault the Tervigon to death and put a wound or two on the Trigon.  On the Eldar turn, the suncannon obliterated the other bike unit, while the Trigon and Fire prism whittled down Belials terminators.  The Crimson Hunter came on and killed a whirlwind, but just barely.  The Exarch upgrade saved it as he rolled 1,2,2,4 to hit and managed to strip the hull points off.  The Trigon charged in and killed Belial, but the last two terminators managed to take his last two wounds.  We ended up calling the game at that point as we were both pretty much out of troops and the new guy had to run.  It was fun, and the parts that did survive the beginning were really fun and effective.  Sadly I didn't get to try a bunch of things as they all died early on.

A few observations.  I think we are going to see a return of mechanized Eldar.  Wave Serpents are really good, and the troops are just to squishy to be out.  The Wraithknight is amazing, and while there are some bad match-ups (poison) it is just extremely hard to kill.  Plasma guns need 5's to wound!  I like the suncannon upgrade, but it runs 300 points to kit it like that.  I can see a place for the stock models though at 240 and it seems a fair price for the incredible toughness.  Guardians were pretty lackluster.  There is too much cover ignoring weapons and I wouldn't count on them as my soul troops choice.  I think a unit or two of Wraithguard might be needed to provide some survivability along with Jetbikes for mobility.  The crimson hunter is pretty nice, but I really think it needs to exarch upgrade to make sure it can fill it's roll.  Finally the Heavy slot is just amazing.  Pretty much everything in the slot will be effective.

To close, the game was a blast to play, and it really seems like the codex will have a lot of different builds that will be fun to play.  I can't wait to explore it more as I get more games in.

Eldar Mymeara Crimson Hunter Finished

Eldar Crimson Hunter Exarch

Eldar Crimson Hunter Exarch

Eldar Wraithfighter and Crimson Hunter

Building and Magnetizing a Wraithknight

Here are some work in progress pictures of the magnetizing efforts for the Wraithknight. I can build any of the primary weapon systems and will be finishing the secondary weapons up this week. I will also add magnets to where the torso connects to the legs to allow it to break down but still have a solid base. The legs are also only partially glued for ease of painting and putting on a nice base.

Finished Hemlock Wraithfighter

I finished up the Wraithfighter and I just love how it turned out.  I can't wait to paint the rest of the new models now.  I don't know how well they were perform, but this is my favorite looking model in the army now.

Eldar Hemlock Wraithfighter

Eldar Hemlock Wraithfighter

Hemlock Wraithfighter

So I picked some new Eldar stuff up yesterday. The models I'm most excited about are the two flyers. I'm going to build one of each for now and see if it's worth picking up a second of either later on. Still not done with all the detail work, but it's coming along wonderfully.  An excellent kit and I can't wait to build the Crimson Hunter as well.

Hemlock Wraithfighter Side

Hemlock Wraithfighter Side

Hemlock Wraithfighter Front

Hemlock Wraithfighter Top

High Elves WIP

A few work in progress shots of the High Elves. Going to work on these some more this week, and then get ready for the new Eldar release. I'm really excited for a new book, and I really like a bunch of the new models.

High Elf Swordmasters

Loremaster of Hoeth

Loremaster of Hoeth

Prince on Griffon

Prince on Griffon

Flamespyre Phoenix

Swordmasters of Hoeth

Swordmasters

Swordmasters test paint scheme

I got some High Elf models for my birthday and I'm working on my test scheme for how I want to paint them.  I'm pretty happy with how they are turning out, though there are a few things to finish/change.  I'm going to highlight the purple up to a lighter color and work on the whites a little bit.  Also need to figure out what I want to do for bases.  I kind of want to try and sculpt and cast some temple bases, but that will probably be out in the future.

Birthday loot and new game

For my birthday this year I asked for and got some Warhammer Fantasy models.  This is my first foray into the game and I'm really excited to paint some High Elves up.  At this point I don't know enough to really build an effective army, I'm just going for cool looking models at this point.  The stuff I got: 

1 - Island of Blood Starter

1 - Flamespyre Phoenix

1 - Phoenix Guard

1 - Loremaster of Hoeth

Earth Reborn

Earth Reborn

I've been getting burnout from painting all of the 40k lately and decided to do a quick mental cleanser by working on another project.  Yesterday I did a quick paint up of the Miniature from Earth Reborn a cool looking post apocalyptic board game with some nice miniatures.  Took me an evening and afternoon to finish up.  My favorite is the guy with the buzz-saw and green goo flowing into his brain.

Night Spinner WIP

Mymeara Night Spinner

Mymeara Night Spinner

I really enjoy painting the vehicles for this army and so after working on the Harlequins, decided to take a break and paint the Night Spinner up.  I absolutely love both the rules and look of this model.  Strength 6 large blast with rending, barrage, and causes hit units to treat next move as difficult and dangerous.  In 5th edition this was awesome as you had a 1/6 change of killing any model since no armor saves were allowed.  While not as powerful in 6th edition, the barrage rules got better and with the increase in infantry the large blast is really nice.  It's also fairly cheap for an Eldar unit at 115.

I still need to do more detail work, including the pilot and gunner, and I need to find a windshield which I couldn't find.  I'm also going to try and do a grey highlight on the black intakes to give it a little more depth.

Harlequins

Harlequin Troop

I decided to do the Harlequins in the Mymeara colors rather than in the traditional patterns.  Mostly because I don't think I'm good enough of a painter to do the patterns, but also to let the army have a cohesive look.  I did use a lot of red and purple to have them stand out.

100th Post - Two Painted Armies

Too celebrate my 100th post on the blog, I figured I would get both of my armies out on the table I built and get some pictures. This is less than two years worth of painting. I'm really proud of what I've accomplished and it's great to have a couple decently painted armies. I still have a lot of Eldar to finish, and have a bunch of detail work left on the Lamenters, but I'm pleased with my progress.