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.

 

Land Raider WIP

I started repainting the second Land Raider trying to use the airbrush to a better effect.  I picked up some more Vallejo Model air colors and can do a decent shading effect now.  I'm pleased with how it turned out and it ends up being a more true yellow versus my prior scheme.  Still need to do all the detail work and black lining, but it's moving in the right direction and my quality is improving.

Lamenter's Land Raider

Top View

Side View

Lamenters versus Tyranids

Michael and I played an 1850 point game today that was a lot of fun.  We played the Relic Mission and Dawn of War deployment.   Michael had first turn and hid everything behind ruins (which with his Warlod trait gave him 3+ saves) and infiltrated the genestealers.  I put my Land Raider center and flanked it with predators with all my marines hiding behind.

First turn we had a bit of wait and see as neither of us wanted to be stuck in the center giving the other player easy charge lanes.  We both moved up a little and positioned.  I did kill a couple hormaguants with the Vindicator, but FNP genestealers from pyschic powers and also 5+ invuls prevented too much damage on the first turn.

Second turn both mawlocs deepstruck, destroyed the Vindicator and killed a couple marines.  His Tyrant dropped down to try and bust the land raider.  He did pen, but only managed to shake it.  My turn I unload everything in the mawlocs behind my line and manage with the charge to kill both.  I also brought the Tyrant down to 1 wound and charged the hormagaunts that were approaching the relic with the death company.   50 re-roll to hit and wound attacks later they were gone.  I also flamed and assaulted the genestealers on my flank Though FNP saved them big time.  In the end we both killed about half our units there.

My warlord had possession of the Relic (thanks to his Warlord trait making him Scoring, but the unit had a Trygon on one side and 12 Genestealers on the other.  The 10 death company were wiped out, but the Reclusiarch in a challenge with the Brood lord stayed up thanks to his invul save.  They were finished off by the Trygon but managed to thin a couple out on their way.

The rest of the game was a big scrum in the middle.  I still had a few shooting vehicles with nothing interesting to shoot, and I poored all my infantry into the middle to try and keep his troops from picking up the relic.  In the end all my troops were wiped out, he had 3 genestealers left on  a flank, too far away to get the relic, but giving him linebreaker.  We both killed each others warlords, but he had first blood.  So the Tyranids won 3-2.  The game was a blast and really close.  We each had fun moments and it was a particularly bloody match.  One of the best games we've played together and we both had a lot of fun.

Lamenters:
Reclusiarch
10x Death Company
1x Land Raider Crusader
10x Assault Marines (PF, Plasma guns)
10x Assault Marines (PS, Flamers)
5x Sanguinary Guard with banner
1x Priest with Jump Pack
1x Vindicator
1x Predator w/ HB
1x Baal Predator w/ Flamestorm
3x Bikes with plasma guns

Tyranids:
Hive Tyrant w/ Wings and Lash Whip
12x Genestealers Broodlord and Toxin Sacs
12x Genestealers Broodlord and Toxin Sacs
20x Hormagaunts w/ Toxin Sacs and Adrenal Glands
3x Hive Guard
1x Zoanthrope
1x Zoanthrope
1x Mawloc
1x Mawloc
1x Trygon Prime

Death Company WIP

What do you do when you can't sleep at night?  Build models!  I recently used pieces from two Death Company box to build some Vanguard Veterans and had quite a few left over bits.  Combining those plus some bits from the bits box, I was able to put together this unit of ten DC.  Two are armed with power fists while the rest are chainswords and bolt pistols.  I will probably pick another box up eventually and build a few of the other options out, like infernus pistols and such, and the kit has tons of great bits for conversions and special characters.  The backpacks will be magnetized and have the option for jump packs as well.  I'm going to paint my DC in a white color scheme rather than the black that is traditionally in Blood Angels armies.

Battle of Epsilon Corvi

Battle of Epsilon Corvi - Mission 2.

Initial board setup

Lamenters Deployment

Tyranids Deployment

Additional Deployment

Flying Hive Tyrant moving forward first turn

Assault Squad getting assaulted after flaming Genestealers

Lamenters advancing forward

Mephiston taking on last Zoanthrope and two Genestealers

Mission: The Scouring (6 random objectives, fast attack scoring)

Deployment: Vanguard Strike (Diagonal)
Points: 1750 (kind of)

Lamenters list is here.

The Tyranid list is below.  Sadly there was a mistake on the expected points value, and the Tyranids were only 1500 points.  This definitely skewed the game in my favor.

HQ:
Hive Tyrand (wings)

Troops:
8 Genestealers (toxin sacs)
1 Broodlord

8 Genestealers  (toxin sacs)
1 Broodlord

24 Hormaguants (adrenal glands, toxin sacs)

Fast:
12 Gargoyles (adrenal glands, toxin sacs)

1 Harpy

Elite:
2 Zoanthropes
2 Zoanthropes

Heavy:
Trygon Prime

Tyranids had first turn and they slowly advanced up the middle.  Nervous about the flamers in the front of my army, they tried to stay back a little, but not far enough, as the flamers were able to move in and wipe out one of the units of Genestealers.  A couple marines got killed by the force dome psychic power as there shots  bounced back.

The next turn the Gargoyles, Hormaguants and Trygon wiped out the two squads.  The free overwatch hits with the flamer managed to thin out the Gargoyles pretty well, but didn't do much to the larger creatures.  The other unit of Genestealers assaulted an assault marine squad in cover, and with the lack of grenades, were fairly ineffective.  The Vanguard Vets came in and assaulted a unit of Zoanthropes and killed one, while Mephiston made a huge 10" charge and killed the Trygon, Mephiston with Iron Arm and Warp Speed made him super nasty in combat.

Third turn the Hormaguants charged into Mephiston and managed to bring him down to one wound but the Sanguinary Guard joined in and wiped the unit out.  The flyrant charged into the vanguard veterans and killed two, but the return attacks finished off the big bug.  The genestealers lost combat and ran, though they managed to get into cover.

Fourth turn was mostly re-positioning and the movement toward objectives.  While a few smaller combats finished up.  Going into the last turn the Tyranids were down to the Harpy, one Zoanthropes, and a couple Genestealers.  Mephiston was stuck in combat with the Zoanthrope and genestealers, and an assault squad managed to ground the Harpy and the TH/SS Terminators pounced on it out of the Land Raider.  The game ended on turn 5 with a great victory to the Lamenters.  They of course had a huge upper hand since they were playing with 250 more points!  Always check lists before you start a game.

The game was a blast, and we have two more missions in our mini-campaign.  Learned a bunch of stuff about 6th edition and the army, and I'm really enjoying the new mechanics and play-style.  We played with mysterious objectives this game, and they really didn't have any impact on the game.  Even the sabotaged one never blew up the entire game.  We never remembered challenges, and I keep forgetting to throw grenades, something I've been wanting to try and always forget!  Can't wait for another game.

Painted Lamenters Army

 

After finishing some stuff up this afternoon I figured I would put the army together to see what I have finished to see what kind of army I could run.  To my surprise I have 2500+ points done!  While not the most effective army in the world, I can run a nice fully painted army at a variety of point values now!

HQ's:

1x Mephiston

1x Reclusiarch in Power Armor

1x Reclusiarch in Terminator Armor

Elites:

5x TH/SS Terminators

1x Sanguniary Priest w/ Jumppack

5x Sanguinary Guard

1x Furioso Dreadnought

Troops:

20x Assault Marines

Fast:

1x Baal Predator

5x Vanguard Vetarans (could be run as DC or Honor Guard)

Heavy:

1x Storm Raven

1x Vindicator

Land Raider Finished!

I finished up the Land Raider last night and put the matte varnish down this morning.  There are areas that could be improved, but I'm happy with it so far and I think it makes a nice center piece to the army.  Really happy with adding more black to it to break up the yellow.  I'll probably be doing this for other vehicles in the army as well.  Still need to come up with a good name for it though.

Lamenters Land Raider WIP

 

 

 

A few pictures of the Land Raider I'm working on and the guys who ride inside.  I've been enjoying jumping back and forth between my two armies and working on terrain, it keeps me from burning out on painting particular color.  Really happy with how the Land Raider is coming, just need to do some touch ups and do the black-lining.  Most everything is magnetized so it can be run as a Crusader or Redeemer.  

I am also building another LR that I got for my birthday as well.  I imagine a list where I run two of them, one with TH/SS Terminators and the other full of Death Company.  Shove that down the middle and it should pretty much take care of anything.  Also armor 14 seems like it could be a little more survivable in this edition, but we will see.

Vanguard Veterans

 

I uploaded a picture of these guys a while ago, but blogger ate it at some point so here is a new pic.  I plan on using these guys as a unit of vanguard vets, who can also be substituted out for death company or just sergeants for the various squads.  The modeling options in the death company box are just amazing and there is a ton of detail, too much in some cases.  After painting 15 blood drops on a model it starts to get tedious.  Almost as bad as painting all the gems on Eldar models.

I will soon be posting some rules for a mini-campaign Michael and I will be playing soon.  It will be a Tyranid invasion of a planet that the Lamenters and Eldar will defend against.  I'm really excited considering how the new rules really push towards a strong narrative experience. 

Death Company Chaplain

Painted up a chaplain/reclusiarch for the Lamenters tonight.  With death company getting a whole lot better with 6th edition, I figured chaplains might be getting a bit better as well.  He's built out of a couple different bits: torso is from the death company, bolt pistol from chaos space marine, and the power maul (I figure now that crozius counts as a power maul I might as well use one) from a Chaos Terminator.  The back is magnetized for the normal backpack or the jump pack.  Overall I'm pretty happy with how he turned out.

Vanguard Veterans WIP

After a late meeting this evening I finally had some time for some hobby work.  I got a box of Death Company for my birthday and picked some jump packs from Chapter House Studio.  I combined the two to make some VV to go with the army.  I armed all with power weapons and the Sargent with a thunder hammer.  I figure with their ability to assault out if deep strike I can use them to really mess a unit up.

I plan on basing them tomorrow and if weather permits, get them primed as well.

Vindicator WIP

So tonight after the little man went to sleep, I had some time to do a little hobby work.  I had assembled and primed this Vindicator a week or two ago, and managed to get a base coat down with the airbrush a few days ago.  I spent some time blacking out all the area that would be metallic, getting the metals down (though not washed yet) and getting the checks laid out.  Really happy with how it's looking and it shouldn't take too much longer to finish up.  I'm going to use the black oil paint to black line it after I've finished with the details.

I did managed to play a game with it yesterday, and it performed admirably in that it never got to shoot with my opponent being nervous about it.  Probably need to take at least 2 of them if they are going to be effective, or maybe hold it in reserve and bring it out later since it can move and shoot being a fast vehicle.

Lamenters Paint Scheme Part 1 - Assault Marine

Just wanted to document the process I am currently using to paint my Lamenters.  First up, yellow is hard.  It's a major pain to get right.  I have gone for a browner/darker yellow rather than a bright yellow.  Second, I'm not the greatest painter as I haven't been doing this for very long, but you might find something useful. My goal is to get a nice looking army on the tabletop and nothing more.

A few things on assembly and preparation. I would definitely magnetize the jump packs, or at least paint them separately.  They make the shoulder pads really tricky to get right and doing seperate would make this a lot easier.  My first 20 or so models were all glued on before hand they take a lot longer to paint.  as a bonus for Blood Angels codex armies, you can run them on foot (though personally the reason I chose to run a BA codex army is the jump infantry.

Step 1:  Prime the models.  I do a two part prime, first with black to get into the shadows and then white from above.  I would definately recommend a white primer when painting yellow.  It takes just too many coats to get a decent coverage over black, though the new GW base colors might work if you want to go that way.

Step 2: Base Coat yellow.  I used my airbrush to put down the base coat using Vallejo GC Heavy Ochre.  You really need to water these down to put them through an airbrush as they are similar to the foundation line of paints from GW.

Step 3:  Paint the base with Charadon Granite.

Step 4: Base coat everything that will be metallic with black.  No need to be very neat here as we will be fixing all the messy brushing later in the process.

Step 5:  Base coat white.  I'm using the new GW base paint Ceramite White.  It only takes 2-3 coats rather than 4-5 that most whites took.  I had good luck in the past with using Vallejo off-white and then bringing it up to white, but this seems to work fairly well.

Step 6:  Eyes.  I do mine green starting with P3 Gnarls Green and then highlighting that with GW Scorpian Green.  A wash of Thraka green wash brings it together nicely (not pictured here).  Also note that I'm still being messy as this will get cleaned up later.

Step 7:  Paint purity seals, aquila, etc with P3 Menoth White Base.

Step 8:  Wash armor and aquila with Gryphonne Sepia wash.  I apply this liberally, but you want to make sure you get a good coat in the cracks and recesses.  Pictured here still wet.  I generally would do this step last in a painting session to let dry overnight.  You can do some of the later steps pictured here before this wash is done.

Step 9:  Paint metallic areas with Boltgun Metal followed with a wash of Badab Black.  Again not being too careful here, we can clean up still.

Step 10:  Checks!  This is where things get difficult.  I use a 0.3mm drafting pencil to draw my lines in and then go in with black first.  This will be tricky and I am still not super neat and tidy about it.  Follow up with the Ceramite White to cleanup as best you can.

I will continue this later with part 2 where I go and finish up with highlights and cleanup the mess made so far.

Lamenters vs Tyranids

So I managed to get a game in today after a month and half or so of not playing.  I played Mark from The Overlords Podcast and we played all three mission types in Bay Area Open style.  We did do a few things wrong, in that we did all five objectives for Seize Ground rather than just three, and we did an even distribution Nova style instead.  I would be interested to play the "correct" way in the future.

HQ: Librarian in Terminator Armour - Epistolary, Unleash Rage, Sanguine Sword

Elite:
Furioso Dreadnought - Heavy Flamer, Talons
2x Sanguinary Priest - Jump Pack, Power Sword
Terminator Assault Squad - 5x Lightening Claw, 5x Thunder Hammer
      1 Land Raider Crusader - Multi-Melta

Troops:
Assault Squad - 2x Melta, 1 Power Fist, 1 Infernus Pistol
Assault Squad - 2x Melta, 1 Power Fist, 1 Infernus Pistol

Fast Attack:
Baal Predator - Flamestorm Cannon

Heavy Support: 
Stormraven Gunship - Lascannon, Multi-Melta

Tyranids List (from what I remember):

HQ:

Swarmlord with Tyrant Guard Attached

Elite:

3x Hive Guard

3x Hive Guard

Troop:

30x Termagants with Devourer

10x Termagants plain

1xTervigon

8x Genestealers w/ Broodlord

Fast:

3x Shrikes w/ Lashwhip and Bonesword

3x Shrikes w/ Lashwhip and Bonesword

Heavy:

Trygon

Trygon

We had spearhead deployment and I won the roll, but elected for Mark to go first.  He deployed everything except his Trygons.  I deployed everything, but the Storm Raven full of Terminators plus Dreadnought and outflanked the Baal.

On his first turn he moved most everything up, and shot a few marines dead with the Hive Guard.  On mine I moved up, skirting to the side away from his infiltrated Genestealers on my right with the Assualt marines and moved the Land Raider up to let the Terminators get an Assault on the Hive Guard and giant Devourer termagant group.  I managed to kill on the Hive Guard with shooting and then multi-assaulted the HG and termagants with the terminators plus Librarian.  They managed to wipe out the Hive Guard and put a bunch of wounds on the gants as well.  The fearless wounds killed off the last wound on the Hive Guard and took a few more of the little bugs out as well.

On turn two both of his Trygons came in, one on each side of my Assault Marines and had some ineffectual shooting.  He brought a unit of Shrikes into the Terminators, but was just short of getting the Swarmlord into the Terminators.  He did kill the Librarian rather easily and another of the Terminators.  On my turn the termagants were finished off, as well as the Shrikes, but he was able to position his Swarmlord to charge them on the next turn.  I unloaded both assault squads into one of the Trygons and then assaulted it.  One of the squads was at BS/WS: 1 because of a psychic power but actually managed to hit more than the unaffected squad.  They did just enough wounds to kill it and consolidated in opposite directions towards different objectives.

On turn three he wiped out both of my troop squads, one with a Trygon, the other with the remaining Shrikes.  His Swarmlord charged into my Terminators and killed two, leaving one lone Terminator to fend for himself.  It was looking nasty for the Lamenters but both the Storm Raven and the Baal managed to come-in from reserves.  The predator outflanked into his deployment zone and roasted the 5 termagants the Tervigon has pooped out on the first turn.  The Storm Raven moved on and split the Terminators off to one side and the Dreadnought off to the other.  The Furioso toasted the Genestealers with a heavy flamer and then assaulted, and I got to see the magic of the Blood Talons which chewed through the entire squad.  The Terminators charged the Trygon and brought it down, while the Land Raider zoomed up to shoot at some Termagants that were running away to grab an objective.

At this point my only hope for even a tie, would be to kill off his troops remaining: 3 termagants on the other side of the board, and the Tervigon on the other side that was down a couple wounds from pot shots.  He charged in and immobilized the Land Raider, while I made a desperate gamble and jumped out the Sanguinary Priest inside to shoot and charge the Tervigon.  Brought him down to one wound, which he then destroyed the Land Raider and priest in retaliation.  The Baal zoomed up and flamed the Tervigon as well bringing him down to a single wound.  He immobilized the Storm Raven and killed off all but one Terminator as well.  On turn five I was down to one Sanguinary Priest, One TH/SS terminator, and an immobilized Storm Raven.  I shot and killed the Tervigon from across the board with the Storm Raven's Lascannon and then made  a beline across the board with the Sanguinary Priest in the hopes of catching the two termagants still alive to kill of his last troop.  It went to turn 6 and I managed to shoot and kill one gaunt who fled off the board bringing the game down to kill points.  After counting up KP's I had killed 10, while Mark had killed 9.  Victory was mine.  Though at a horrible cost.  Only a lone Sanguinary Priest was alive!  He will definitely be getting his paint job improved as a reward!

I had a ton of fun playing, and Mark really helped me play better.  He had a bunch of suggestions as we played and helped me understand the army much better.  He's a real stand up guy and a ton of fun to play against.