Thursday, December 12, 2013

About a year now....

About a year ago I lost the most important man in my life. He was the rock I could go to for support, the best advice and a great friend. I miss you dad. Rest in peace, we are doing better every day thanks to you and a lifetime of hard work on our behalf.



Adepticon buildout list

Well, with my PC in the shop I'm doing a ton more reading and theory hammer for 40k, so I thought I would share a full 2k list for the Star Phantoms I am building for Adepticon in April.


So I started with the idea of an alpha strike drop pod list. 

Ordo Malleus Inquisitor in terminator armor with 3 skulls and psycannon. And tome of Vethric
Librarian psyker 2
Librarian terminator psyker 2
5 assault terminators, 2 hammers
8 sternguard veterans, 2 combi flamers, combi plasma, combi grav, fist, pod
4x 10 man tactical, flamer, combi flamer, missile, pod
3 death storm pods
Hyperios defense battery
2 land speeder storms
Landspeeder w/multimelta

This lands squarely on 2000 points. Remember this is designed to split the tacticals and drop the flamers in the pod with the missiles on foot to start. The terminator librarian and inquisitor drop with the assault termies. Landspeeders flank one or both sides of the table and servo skills stop infiltrators and outflankers for two turns. By then the cavalry has arrived to threaten the main enemy force. Combine the star phantoms trick of twin linking all shooting for one turn with the inquisitor's book and the alpha can be quite nasty I think. Thoughts?

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Daemon Prince Be'Lakor WOW

Ok so I saw GW released digital rules for this bad boy again today. I own the model and I have been using it as a generic prince for years. His rules were last outdated when 5th edition released. The new rules are just over the top, in an over the top, Holy Crap, O no They Didnt!, SH*******T!!! kinda way.

per lexicanum


For 120pts MORE than a landraider you get:

always shrouded
eternal warrior
mastery 3 psyker that knows all of the Telepathy discipline....always
fearless and makes any fear checks be taken a -1
whenever anyone on the table breaks from combat he gets d3 warpcharge points the next phase....
his sword make him s7, has fleshbane and armorbane, and is ap2...O and its mastercrafted....


Now for all this shenanigans I'm still not sold on the cost....that is a LOT of points in a T5 monster. Now he does fly and can buff the crap out of his units with an extra d3 warp charge....(he could have 6 a turn here people!), but really he is a combat monster with a ws9 s7 ap2 in combat, so im not sold on his split personality yet, given his cost. Thoughts?

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Happy Turkey Day! and SOOO much to do!

Ok, so I am NOT going shopping in that crazy mess called black friday....unless I can sneak away to GTA for a game of Malifaux in the morning.

In any case a final descision has been made regarding my Adepticon force. It will be the Star Phantoms marines from the Imperial armour chapter tactics update. These are 6th edition updates of the chapters that took part in the Badab Wars. The Star phantoms are pretty straight forward.

They can reroll any roll of a 1 when arriving from reserve, and one turn per game they count their guns as twin linked....all assault, salvo, heavy and rapid fire....so imagine a drop pod assault with about 10 flamers....twin linked.....yeah you get the idea.....

My list looks like this now:

Librarian with Auspex
9 Sternguard, 2 combi-flamers, combi-plasma, and a power axe in a pod
5 marines, flamer, vet sarge with combi-flamer in pod
5 marines, flamer, vet sarge with combi-flamer in pod
8 marines with rocket launcher in pod
2 typhoon landspeeders
Hunter


Possible list tuning to come, like dropping one or both speeders for more bodies in pods, but this list lacks mobility after the drop. Remember it part of a team, so it only needs to fulfill its function while a team mate fills in gaps. Play testing will wait until after the first of the year, but in the mean time this is where I am heading.

Now the Star Phantoms are like nothing I have ever painted before, all white with black markings. That is a TOUGH combo to paint. They look like this:


Images thanks to 40k wiki
Then there is the issue of that Chapter symbol.....OUCH. That will need to be a custom decal methinks, because I'm not sure I could freehand that.Right now it looks like a grey primer, followed by a zenithal of white from directly overhead, then black inks and washes to fill in the recesses and define armor plates. It's all detail from there though. Thoughts?

Thursday, November 21, 2013

These Ideas Are KILLING me!!!

Hey again!

Two army ideas bouncing around...on oldy moldy:

Imotek
Court   Cryptek of destruction with lance and  solar pulse
            Cryptek of despair with a veil of darkness
            Lord with a warscythe and mindshackle scarabs
10 scarabs
10 scarabs

20 flayed ones
20 flayed ones
20 flayed ones

5 immortals
5 immortals

6 warriors

2 Canoptek Spyders with a single gloom prism
2 Doomsday Arks (in a game using Imperial Armour these would be replaced with Tomb Stalkers)


This one needs an update with 6th edition and IA 12 out. The new sentry pylons are SICK walking artillery pieces with a s9 ap2 heavy 2 gun that has skyfire AND interceptor....I'll pause to let that sink in....did I mention 120" range? At 40pts cheaper than the Arks, is allows for some wiggle room and updates the list to 6th edition nicely with air cover and HUGE tank-busting. Since it is artillery it has a toughness value, and a 3+ save. Put that in area terrain and WOW. Since you have 80 more points play with There will be more warriors in the backfield to strengthen it up too.




And a newer one...


Iyanden Eldar


5 spirit seer council
Wraithseer
10 wraithguard
10 wraithguard
10 wraithguard
2 wraithlords scatterlaser and lance or shield
wraithknight, shield/gun combo
fill with warpspiders or guardians to taste.


Escalation work, and the road to Adepticon 2014

Wow, I have SUCKED at keeping this thing up and running! I have not narrowed my project scope at all since my last post. I still have WAAAY too much in the works at once. My focus right now is on the 3 easiest projects to clear.

Priority 1 is my 40k team tournament army for Adepticon 2014. While it looks like we are going marines again, there is a new codex in play and that helps a ton! We are all taking a marine army of our own choosing with a deathwatch team slotted in somewhere in the army. I am planning (for now) to do the Black Dragons with a single Strike Team Leading the way.

As of now, the list looks like this:

Libby with auspex mastery 2
5 vanguard vets
Land Raider Helios
10 tactical Marines, plasma and lascannon
5 tactical marines, plasma, razorback with assaultcannons
Landspeeder with melta and heavy flamer

Priority 2 is the Malifaux team entry. This one might not happen, if we get locked out of the tournament, but the models are on hand and WIP just in case.

50stone crew Of Neverborn
Lilith
Barbaros
2 Young Nephelim
Adult Nephelim
Cherub
3 Terror Tot Nephelim


Priority 3 is my own escalation League army. The bugs are moving slowly. With a new codex coming in a month or so, I have kept this one slow on purpose. I decided on a purple carapace with pink accents. These things look like bright floral colors in the jungle setting I am putting them in. So far the Tyrant is just base colors, no detail or highlight/wash. The pinks will tone down and get a bunch of detail. The warrior is about half way, with the purples just needing a final highlight, and the pinks need a wash and highlight.


Priority 4 is our display table for Adepticon. This thing is a 2'x4' Launch bay on a Space Marine Strike cruiser....or it will be anyway. I have the Plans in my head, but this is slated for January/February build.

Then there is Origins....I have a table to make, and 4 strike teams to paint for that. That effort will wait until after Adepticon in April, with the weather warming It will be easier to work on the table outside.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Escalation test paint scheme 1

Here is the first basic color layout. I have 2 more to work up before I settle on a scheme for work over the Holidays.




This is a mid process WIP. I plan on doing all three basic ideas up to this stage and then making the decision at that point. I will say that I like the green, and the purple pops against the green really well.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

A Tale of four....

Well I would tell you to fill in the blank but that would to all sorts of internet troll shenanigans, so we'll just stop right there. I mentioned yesterday that a group of my friends were starting an escalation league to give us all a secondary hobby project to fall back on. We all have a passion for the Hobby portion of miniatures games and we all bring different experiences and skills to this little experiment.

With that said, here are the guidelines as I see them so far. Now these are loose, no concrete anything, simply a guide to give a general direction to go in. In general we want to acheive the following with this league:

1. A new 2000 point (or more) army that is painted as close as we can get to the apex of our ability
2. Stretch our abilities and challenge each other with new ideas and techniques for painting and converting our chosen armies.
3. Incrementally create an army that can expand in steps to our intended goal, but still be played at several different levels, 500-2000 points and beyond.
4. Get in games with our new armies that lack the tension we often feel around a competitive environment we often run into in this hobby. We should be adding the models and units we WANT, not what the internet says we should have. More importantly bring the fun back into the hobby by focusing on ENJOYING our efforts, not the competition itself.

There are four of us along for this crazy ride. We have all been involved in the minis hobby for a long time in different aspects, and we all came to it through different channels.

I started in about 5th grade with old-school D&D. My cousin would come over and we would use minis to help visualize a battle. I always just went along with what he did until I was in Highschool. I went into the Comic Shop Plus in Newark Ohio, and I was HOOKED. I walked out that day with a 40k box set thanks to a few characters in the store at the time, Mark Loughman, Damon Jenkins, Craig Witten and others. That was 20 years ago now and it has been one hell of a ride!

In 20 years of 40k I have learned a couple of things about the competitive game....I enjoy it, but it isn't the best part. Also, I can't seem to beat a good tyranid player....So with that said here is my tentative breakdown for this whole cluster:

Stage 1 500 points painted in the chosen army. Must have 1 HQ and 2 troops, anything else is gravy. We can start now, but the tentative deadline for this batch is 12/15, (read as January 1 due to holidays). At that point we should meet and get in a few games with the new batches. We should all post WIP pics and ideas, as well as an intro for yourselves here.

Stage 2 1000 points painted. Now we need at least one unit from the others force slots (Elite, Fast Attack, Heavy) to fill out a reasonable small army. More games and fun ensue by March 1st.

Stage 3 Convention season is in full swing so 1500 points by June. Whatever models you want at this point, just keep it in the point guidelines, and we should be meeting monthly by now for games and hobby nights.

Stage 4 2000 points and the campaign begins. I am working on ideas for a campaign we can be tracking here. Games can be reported here, full batreps if we can. This should begin around the 1000 point mark, but be in full swing by now.


In the end we want to have grown in our hobby and friendship, and added a few more models to the display case.


I have chosen to take on the army that is farthest from my comfort zone...Tyranids. The alien devouring hunger and hive mind make an intimidating force visually, and that appeals to me. With that said, I am starting with Hive Fleet Nephilim.

Larry Tyranids
Damon is Eldar
Jeff is Imperial Guard
Chris is Black Templars

Monday, September 30, 2013

wow 10 weeks huh?

Has it really been ten weeks since my last post? yup....

Sigh. Life has really been crazy for a few months, but as always I find a few hours here and there to get in some Hobby time. Recently it has been mostly online with Mech Warrior Online. I normally don't go for First Person shooters, let alone free to play like this, but this one is hitting all the marks for nostalgia and fun. If anyone is interested in a clan to assist in making this game or one of several others more social, check out The Windbourne Highlanders.

Boltgun's Battle 6 is coming in a few weeks on October 26. For a change, my army is Long done and no scrambling to finish! I still have fine details on the two main characters, but otherwise all set.

Believe it or not Adepticon registration is opening within days of Boltgun, and I am in for at least two major events there, 40k team and Malifaux team. Now I'm a noob with Malifaux, but this should give me some good exposure to the system and let's face it Adepticon is a good time, win or lose! The thing is, that's two small army projects that need to be done at the same time. I own the vast majority of my Malifaux crew already, but I had to order updated cards and the new rulebook. I'll take a more serious look once those arrive, likely right after Boltgun. The 40k list is written and should do fine, but I'm starting from scratch there. Lots of expensive kits and conversions to do before I can even paint.

I also have a small escalation league a few friends are working on with me. We aren't starting again until after Boltgun (sound familiar?) but it is a slow paced paint first group, so that should be a ball. I am looking at Tyranids for a total change of pace. 500pts of bugs is a lot of models, no matter how you slice it.

I am working on a serious expansion for my (n my own mind)famous Necromunda board from Origins two years ago. Dan and Damon down at GTA have asked me to do a 2x4 expansion for the board that can be set on any side of the board to expand it to 4x6 from 4x4. I have two ideas, and I just need to decide which wat to go with it. Either will be seriously cool!

Last but certainly not least is (and yes I am already worried about it) Origins, and my new Zone Mortalis board. The base is hopefully arriving two weeks from now, and will go into storage until after the first of the year. I already have a head start on materials for it, so it should build in a couple of weekends.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Buckeye Battles 40k recap

Ok, so you figured out I was at Buckeye Battles this year...and I made it all the way through! WooT!

I need to start by saying thanks to Dan Corbett from GTA and all of the Buckeye Battles crew for another excellent event. I had three awesome games against 3 fully painted armies and 3 awesome guys!! I took an unusual mixed list for a change, allied Daemons from every power except Khorne.

Ahriman
3x 9 thousand sons
2x obliterators
Heldrake
Chaos Storm Eagle
Keeper of Secrets
10 pink horrors
3 plague-drones with rot

In round one I played Zach and his Necron/Chaos alliance. Zach has been playing Necrons for a longtime, but was totally new to Chaos. His list used 2 squads of chaos marines in Rhinos with a flying Daemon prince as his allied group. The Necrons were three units each with a twin.

He had 2x destroyer lords with warscythes and mindshackle scarabs each in a unit of 6 wraiths with 3 whip coils. He also had 2 9 man units of Immortals with Tesla as well. His plan was essentially to split into two forces and run a pincer. Those destroyer lords are powerhouses and they did a number on a couple of my units. I shot one down (warlord) and then tied the other up with Ahriman and a unit of sons. My horrors and the keeper tied down the right side and Ahriman the other. Everyone else went into the middle and held him there.

In the end I contested the middle, held the right and he held the left, but I had Firstblood from his prince, and his warlord was down. Minor win for me. I Look back now and I should have been casting invisibility on Ahriman instead of, or concert with Iron Arm as this would have slowed is damage on me and I could have lasted a turn or two longer than I did on the left. That would have left me free and clear in the middle for a much stronger win.

Game 2 was an exercise in frustration against Joe and his Tau. He had a Riptide and 3 sets of battlesuits with Aun'Va and fire warriors in a ruin. I lost the keeper and the Storm eagle before either was able to act, and almost 600 points of my army with them. Even so I fought back to a real squeaker of a loss. I had two models moving in to contest his home objectives only to lose them on the last turn.

Round three was against Wes with a Tau?Space Wolves allied force. Wes used a unit of Thunderwolf cav as a hammer, and Aun'Va with missile based suits and fire warriors to hold home base. I learned from my mistakes against Joe in round 2 and held back until round 3 to shoot down 30 marines 2 vindicators, and the cav before jumping on his Tau contingent. In the end his broadsides were all that was left, with a total of 3 wounds remaining....win for me. 

I had a great day and 3 incredible games. Looking forward to next year already!

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Buckeye Battles recap.....hopefully later today

Hello all. I went to Buckeye Battles 40k tournament yesterday. It was another great tournament. I  have a ton of things to get accomplished today, but I will try to have pics and a round by round breakdown up in the next day or so.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Origins 2013 post event thoughts

Well today is the last hurrah for another great year at Origins. We had some great attendance again and we thank all of you for coming out and gaming with us! We had a few speed bumps, but those are always associtaed with events of this size and complexity. We are now growing very quickly, and look forward to adding some new faces, events and fun for next year!

The Tau genetics farm table drew quite a bit of interest! The scenario worked itself out well, but we still have terrain and model tweaks to make. This will be back next year with more tension and excitment (and new models) for you to see and experience.


The Dwarven forge Fantasy game has grown and will see even more refinement next year as attention to this little gem adds up.

The Necromunda game was a huge hit again, and we plan on a few surprises there. (hint:there might be some more terrain in the works)





The 3D spacehulk game has done well but we have deicded to remove it in favor of the more modern Zone Mortalis rules. These are published for free from Forge World and can be found HERE. These rules really allow us to open up the game and I have HUGE plans for a really cool terrain set for it....(hidden tunnels, line of sight limits, moving rooms....my list of ideas is almost infinite). I will need to modify them a bit to work with our planned terrain, and 6th edition, but the core will stay intact.  Plan on seeing a new terrain piece for this in 2014 on par with our Necromunda table!

The Blackwater Gulch table did incredibly well, and has a super fun system, but that little burg needs some sprucing up! Look for table updates and more games next year!




All of our intro games have continued to expand, we are making only minor tweaks and fixes to those.

The Warhammer 40k team, RTT, 8 army challenge, and flyer battles remain unchanged going into next year!




We havea zany fun, and crazy event planned for next year, as well as the return of the apocalypse mega game!

Thanks again to everyone who came and gamed with us! We had a ball and hope did too. Come and see us in 2014, we have BIG plans! We will have the tournament results and a few big picture dumps incoming as soon as we can get some sleep and get our families to forgive us for disappearing for 5 days! See you next year!

Monday, June 10, 2013

Terrain prep for this year's Tau Genetics farm game.

Last year we brought our "A" game with the Necromunda events, this year we are bringing another new event with us. The Tau genetics farm is a scenario designed to test your teamwork. Get in. Get the genetics data the Tau have collected, and get out alive!

These are some Work in progress pictures that should give you a good sneak peek at what this table should look like. Come see it in person at the 40k Origins area of the Miniatures hall, and throw down. Can you survive the Tau's automated defenses and get out alive?

Base-coat started

Finished base-coat




details, details



Tuesday, May 21, 2013

GW and Forge World to attend Origins 2013!

Yep, that's right, you read it here! Forge World and GW are both in attendance at Origins this year! Forge World has confirmed on their events calendar, so start saving now and come join us at Games Workshop's return to the independent convention circuit!

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Robotech Kickstarter

I watched the Anime TV show when I was growing up, and the whole look and feel of this skirnish game has really struck a chord in me. I played a demogame at Adepticon and that really got the juices flowing for the robotech universe.

 I bought into the kickstarter at the "battlecry" level. As you can see it comes with a TON of stuff! Only 2 days left to get in on this one, go check it out here.


Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Adepticon Day 4

Team tournament day two....all pressure is off and the fun just keeps coming!

Round 4 saw the ravenguard square off against the dark angels first and second companies.  Nick and I faced down the first company with Azreal AND Ezekiel! That and somewhere north of 30 terminators!

We deployed in a corner building, and I had my techmarine fortify it. The scouts acted like a screen from the small incoming fire. For some reason the Dark Angels dropped in midfield and walked across the board. Nick and I let them come, and then deployed all of Nicks Elysians into the objectives on the opposite side of the board while my marines held onto the original building. In the end we pulled a primary win with linebreaker for the guard in their deployment zone. One of these guys is a painter for GW so you can imagine how beutiful the army was.

Allan and Nick faced off against the Second company and pulled a draw against what looked like more than 60 bikes!!

As tired as I was I didnt think to get any pics (sorry guys, awesome armies!!!!).

Round 5 put us against sisters and home-brew marines. While we won this round we learned just how SICK twin hand flamers on seraphim can be....ouch 47 wounds on a 10 man tactical. Nice guys and good game with no pressure what so ever!

Allan and Nick took a draw against the eldar/marine combo on the other table.

The awards were next, and we waited anxiously for the raffle winners to be announced. None of uf won anything but a good time, thing is we don't care, the good time was what we went for.

After the awards we went back to Portillo's for dinner (garbage salad, YUM!), and then off to the Fantasy Flight Games after con mixer. Allan did an excellent impersonation of a dying colonial marine trying to fit in a gym locker (if you know Allan you know how funny this is) to win a free copy of Sedition wars. We got a good two hours of Relic in as well. Great time and new friends made.

Is it bad that we spent the entire trip home hammering out our lists and ideas for next year?

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Adepticon video



Robotech Skirmish demo. I tried this and LOVE the way it flows.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Adepticon day 3 Team tournament

We are light on pictures due having an AWESOME time! Round one was versus Da Boyz from New York.






LOSE...but to a crazy nice team of guys and a really nice Tau army.

Round two against "I heart crabs", or as we call them the Swedes. Seriously cool guys from, wait for it.....Sweden.  they were offering shots and beer, having a rockin time and enjoying the day like no-one else.They were playing Necron Air mixed with IG blob squads defending the ground. They had some crazy blue and green flyers, but seriously clean and good looking paint. Solid strategy and a mistake or two were the only reason Allan and I could crack them. Allan and I drew and so did Nick and Wolf.



The third game was against "2 inch Charge" and their chaos marines/traitor guard combo. 4 drakes and a blight drone, plus a flying prince, my half tabled them, and the other team drew.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Adepticon Day 2

Crystal Brush Entries



Warhammer Team tournament entries



Thursday, April 18, 2013

Day one wrap up

Exciting first day at Adepticon. Allan played in a Warhammer Fantasy 1000 point tournament. The went 50/50 and had a blast. I played in a Necromunda tournament and came in third overall. I did manage a few pics of some armies.