Space Marine

I just finished the new Space Marine video game, and it's one of the best uses of the Warhammer 40K IP that I've yet to see.  Certainly the best single player experience in a 40K video game.

Playing Captain Titus of the Ultramarines, I feel like I'm capable of accomplishing exactly what a Space Marine Captain should be able to accomplish according to the fluff of the 40K universe.  I can face hordes of orks and renegade guardsman with ease.  With skill, persistence, and a bit of luck, I can even take down an ork warboss solo.

However, even with the abilities and gear of a Space Marine Captain, if I fail to use proper tactics, then I will die.  As Captain Titus I am a super soldier, but I am not Superman.

The way the game plays supports this.  Throughout much of the mission I am accompanied by two fellow marines, my battle brothers in the parlance of the Space Marines.  They aren't very effective at taking down the enemies they face, but that doesn't break the immersion for me, because they are also invulnerable to taking damage.  This is important, because it allows me to stay immersed in the idea that I am a Space Marine fighting alongside fellow Space Marines.  I never have to make a tactically stupid choice in order to keep one of my battle brothers alive because those battle brothers can take care of themselves.  I can focus on my own goals without having to keep track of my companions at every moment.

The way weapons work also contribute to the proper feel of the setting.  A bolter feels like a powerful weapon, but it still takes a few hits to drop an ork.  Opponents take about as much punishment as you would think that they should according to the fluff.  Maybe a little more than you'd expect in some cases, but not excessively so.

While the story is linear, the little tactical choices you make in combat seem to matter.  This is because there are very few places where the enemy spawns continuously.  If you shoot an enemy, that enemy is gone.  It's not going to be replaced by another enemy until I reach some arbitrary trigger point that turns off the respawns.  This lets me use actual tactics, like sniping the enemy instead of rushing straight into the middle of them.

Where there are respawning enemies, there are usually a limited number of respawns, and they respawn in a way that is consistent with the setting, such as coming through a hole torn in the warp.

There are a few tropes of the shooter genre present that can break immersion, but they are relatively minor.  For example, the ability to swap out up to four different weapons, including heavy weapons, at will.  I'm not sure where I was keeping that lascannon while shooting my bolter, but it's a concession to game play that I think is both necessary to maximize the fun, and is easy to get used to.

The graphics and sound are appropriate.  Space Marines are big.  Imperial Guard troopers are tiny next to them.  Proportions are true to the fluff, not to the tabletop game miniatures, which is good. The scenery is appropriately gothic and war-torn, with jury-rigged defenses created by both orks and humans scattered around.  Nothing gets repeated so much as to become annoying or humorous, neither sounds nor graphics.

 All the vehicles and characters are from 40K designs, with nothing really original to the game itself.  I liked this, as you get to see some things animated that I don't think have ever been animated before.

Vehicles in general make few appearances in the game.  Most of it takes place in confined spaces where vehicles can't operate, but when they do appear, they tend to be impressive.  If there is a sequel, one thing they could do to differentiate it from the original would be to include more vehicles.

Overall, a very fun game, despite an ending that was a bit weak (probably to leave room for a sequel), and I strongly recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of the IP of Warhammer 40K.

Eldar Victory

I finally got in another win with my Eldar. Part of my victory was due to learning more about using the maneuverability of the army, but I think the bigger factors were upping the points to 1500 and playing something other than chaos and nidzilla tyranids.

The game was against Robert's Imperial Guard. The table had less terrain than I usually play with. This was a conscious decision on our part in an acknowledgment that we usually play with terrain heavy tables at the store. Three hills, two buildings and a central crater were all that was on the table. We rolled up a Capture and Control mission using Pitched Battle, and Robert won the roll to go first.

He set up six vehicles on the table. Three pairs of two, each pair consisting of a Russ and a Chimera. The tanks on the end had a battle cannon/lascannon combo, while the central tank had a demolisher cannon/lascannon combo. The Chimeras all had multilasers and heavy flamers. His right flank Chimera had a psyker squad, the central had his company command squad armed with plasma, and the left flank a veteran squad armed with plasma. He held two penal legion squads in reserve, along with a Vendetta carrying another plasma armed veteran squad, and Marbo. His objective had been placed behind a building on his left flank.

I was tempted to keep some stuff in reserve, but without an Autarch in the list I decided it wasn't worth it. Instead, I lined up my vehicles across the board, keeping them spaced out enough that a scattered template wouldn't just scatter onto another vehicle. I believe my order, from left to right, was Wave Serpent with Storm Guardians, Wave Serpent with Storm Guardians and Farseer, Wave Serpent with Fire Dragons, Fire Prism, Fire Prism, Wave Serpent with Fire Dragons, Fire Prism. All my Wave Serpents were armed with bright lances and shuriken catapults.

I won't try to do a turn by turn battle report, instead I'll try to hit some of the highlights. First turn shooting by the IG did some minor damage, but didn't blow up any vehicles. I think I lost a bright lance off of a Wave Serpent, and that was about it. This was one of my biggest worries during the game. A lucky round of shooting could have crippled me at this point thanks to the relatively open table, instead I was able to put my plans into motion on my part of the turn.

I moved my fire dragon transports toward the tanks in his center and right flank and disembarked them. They then blew up both tanks with concentrated melta fire. The ones in the center had no problem, but I got a bit lucky with the ones on the flank as I only got three shots and they were just within range, but my usually crappy penetration rolls evened themselves out a bit by getting a destroyed result. My Fire Prism fire was largely ineffective, something that would become a pattern for most of the game, although they still did their job by attracting fire.

Turn two saw all of his reserves arrive except for Marbo. One penal legion squad was able to charge my Fire Dragons on the flank, while his shooting started to take a toll on my vehicles. I don't remember what went when, but I gradually lost most of my Wave Serpent weapons, and by the end of the game all but one was either wrecked or immobilized. Fortunately, I never had one blow up while troops were still inside. He unloaded his command squad to take some shots at me, but failed to do anything.

The melee with the penal legion and the Fire Dragons would end up lasting until turn 4 or 5 due to the 3+ armor save of the Exarch and no armor ignoring weapons in the penal legion squad. I couldn't decide whether or not this was a good or a bad thing as I had several opportunities to drop a template on the penal legion if they hadn't have been stuck in melee.

On my part of turn two I moved my Wave Serpent with my Farseer up to his command squad, disembarked, and wiped him out with concentrated fire from flamers and shuriken pistols. At some point I got a template on the other penal legion squad by tracing line of sight through an open doorway, but I don't remember if it was turn two or three. I didn't destroy the squad, but did knock it down to only four or five models. Unfortunately, the one remaining tank on that side of the table prevented me from exploiting the damage.

The events of turns three, four and five are a bit jumbled. On turn three I re-embarked the survivors of my storm guardian squad with my Farseer (they had been shot up by his Chimera on his turn). This was the first time I'd re-embarked a squad during a game. I then rammed the Chimera that had shot up my Storm Guardians with a weaponless Wave Serpent, destroying the Chimera. That Wave Serpent would then be immobilized by him on his turn.

By turn five he had dismounted all but his psykers, who had killed themselves with a Perils of the Warp on turn four leaving only their handler in the Chimera. I had broken one of his Chimera mounted veteran squad with a tank shock and then moved the Wave Serpent that did the shock close enough to contest his objective, although it immobilized itself due to a dangerous terrain check in the process. He had immobilized the Wave Serpent carrying my other Storm Guardian squad by disembarking his veteran squad from his Vendetta. My Storm Guardians then disembarked and wiped out the veterans with a little help from Doom and Guide from my Farseer that was close enough to help out. Meanwhile the Vendetta managed to get itself immobilized as well, from either a Fire Prism or my last remaining bright lance, I can't remember which. My Storm Guardians had to run around the front of the grounded Vendetta to try to get to my objective to control it (the Vendetta was too far away to contest). I also moved the Wave Serpent containing the remains of my other Storm Guardians and the Farseer to control the objective, just in case the first squad of Storm Guardians didn't roll high enough on their run roll to make it (which did indeed turn out to be the case).

The game then ended with me controlling one objective and contesting another. I would have found it difficult, but not impossible, to win if the game had continued. My Storm Guardians in the open would have taken some fire from the grounded Vendetta and the heavy flamer of the psyker's Chimera, but were spread out enough that they probably wouldn't have been hurt too badly. If he'd cleared his objective by destroying my immobilized Wave Serpent, I'm not sure how I'd be able to contest it again, so a draw would have been the likely outcome if the game ended on turn six unless I managed to get a shot at his penal legion squad on his objective and knock them off it, a possibility since I still had one Fire Prism left, but a long shot.

I think the odds would have shifted back to my favor on turn seven as long as my Storm Guardians survived, as I'd probably be able to get that long range shot with my Fire Prism and I don't think I'd have too much difficulty keeping Marbo and his penal legion squad from contesting my objective. Still, it would have been close no matter what.

Going back to my original claims about why I won, the 1500 point level lets me put in my Fire Dragons, which gives me an all but guaranteed kill on a vehicle if I can get them in range. That let me eliminate two out of three of his tanks on turn one. The bright lances and fire prisms are supposed to give me vehicle killing power, but it never seems to be very reliable. The other factor was playing against an army with units that weren't quite so tough. My Storm Guardians kicked butt against units without a 4+ armor save, completely wiping them out in one turn of shooting.

Learning with the Eldar

I've now had six games with my Eldar ranging from 500 to 750 points, and I have had four draws, one loss, and a win. My first game, was against 500 points of Orks. I had two squads of Storm Guardians with flamers, each in a Wave Serpent, and an Autarch as my HQ. One Wave Serpent was armed with a twin linked Bright Lance and the other with a twin linked Shuriken Cannon. This game was a true learning experience, mainly in a negative aspect as I learned what not to do.

My opponent fielded an Ork army with two 21 man mobz of boyz and a Warboss. My plan was to whittle down one mob to half strength using the Wave Serpents and then assault it with both squads of Storm Guardians. Unfortunately, that never happened, as I just wasn't able to do enough damage to a mob to bring them down to the level where I could think about disembarking from the Wave Serpents and assaulting them. As a result, I ended up just playing keep away for the entire game, which wasn't really that exciting for either of us.

I did get the opportunity to see how hard it is to assault moving vehicles, as my opponent attempted it against one of my Wave Serpents and I was able to just move on past after his unsuccessful attempt. This happened late in the game, and it taught me that I probably don't have to work quite so hard at playing keep away.

About that time I also figured out that what I should have been doing was trying to take out his warboss, as we were playing annihilation and he hadn't grouped his warboss. I might have been able to take it out and won if I hadn't been so focused on the mob of boyz.

The next week I got two games in, the first at 750 points. This let me add Warlocks to my Storm Guardian squads, have bright lances on both Wave Serpents, trade my Autarch for a Farseer, and add a Fire Prism. I was up against Space Marines this time. A Dreadnaught in a Drop Pod, a full Tactical Squad, and a half Tactical Squad in a Razorback with a Librarian. This list had a lot of melta weapons, and the Librarian had been tooled out to try to neutralize my Farseer (he changed his list when he heard he was playing Eldar).

This game was interesting, and was a learning experience, but was made slightly less fun by the fact that I had to be constantly watching my opponent. If I didn't then strange things would happen, like meltaguns transforming into multi-meltas.

I had decided to be more aggressive in this game, and while the end result was still a tie, I was more satisfied with my results. If I'd remembered to take +1 attack for assaulting, then I might have even won. My first experience using a Fire Prism has convinced me of its usefulness, and that I need to include multiples of them in my larger list. It proved key to whittling down my opponent's squads, and almost won the game for me by eliminating all but one last model from the Tactical Squad sitting on one of the objectives.

My Storm Guardians also proved their worth as I was able to bring the triple template attacks of the Warlock and two flamers into play. The result was impressive, and would have been even more so if I'd realized that they generated automatic hits. I was rolling to hit models under the template, which was not correct.

My Farseer would have been more useful if I'd remembered to use him more, but as it was his Doom ability helped a bit, and my opponent never got the chance to use the Librarian's Psychic Hood to nullify it.

In the end, I made some mistakes with the rules that hurt me, but I felt my tactics were fairly sound, and we ended the game each controlling one objective.

My third game was back to 500 points, and my opponent was again Space Marines, but run by a different player. I went back to my original list I played last week, and he brought two Tactical Squads and a Master of the Forge, which I felt was an interesting choice as an HQ. One Tactical squad had a Plasma Cannon and a Plasma Rifle, the other had a Flamer and was joined by the HQ.

My opponent made what I felt was a tactical error by not starting his Plasma squad on his objective. If he had, it would have made things more difficult for me. Instead, he started both squads away from his objective, and moved his close combat squad towards his while ignoring mine. I encouraged this by feinting towards his objective with both my Wave Serpents, only to reverse course with one of them in the fourth turn in order to rush back and garrison my objective.

Before doing this, I had spent the first three turns the same way I did in my first game, sniping at one of his squads. The difference was that my plan wasn't relying on me doing damage in the shooting phase. Anything I did manage to do was simply a bonus. I was really just maneuvering to keep him away from my objective while contesting his.

On the fourth turn I got more aggressive as I put my endgame into play. In addition to my already mentioned move towards my own objective, I unloaded my other squad hear his objective and then tank shocked his tactical squad that was approaching it from the other direction.

While they easily passed the morale check, they were moved a bit away from the objective, and my opponent became temporarily focused on my Wave Serpent instead of continuing to move on the objective. He still beat me to the objective, but only after I'd positioned my Storm Guardian squad to assault him on my next turn.

The pre-assault shooting was quite effective, the assault itself not so much. I barely lost the combat, but rolled terribly on my moral check and fled. If the game had ended, then I would have tied, but instead it went one more turn, and I realized that if I could guess the correct distance from my Wave Serpent to the objective, that I could Tank Shock him off of it. I guessed correctly, and then followed it up by shooting with my Storm Guardians that had recovered from their panic, and finished off the last of his Tactical Squad. The result was I controlled one objective, and he controlled none. Victory!

My next game didn't go so well. It was at 750 points and I was facing daemons. I decided to take a chance and hold my entire force in reserve, but poor reserve rolls led to my force coming on one unit at a time and getting defeated in detail. In retrospect, I would have done better if I'd just deployed normally, but given that it was a kill point mission I probably would have still lost.

The next game I again faced Space Marines, and again made a draw. My opponent made a couple mistakes in his list creation (he thought he took assault marines, but had selected devastators in Army Builder, and he decided to stick with what was on his sheet instead of changing it mid-game, which I was OK with), but I was unable to capitalize on them to force a win. If I'd been a bit more aggressive in moving my vehicles into difficult terrain, or if the game had gone on another turn, then I probably could have done it, but as it turned out it was another draw.

My most recent game was against Chaos again, this time Chaos Marines. Chaos just seems to be the bane of this list so far. I managed to pull out a draw, but I only had around four models left on the table, and I'm not sure what I could have done differently to have improved my situation. I actually got a bit lucky on some of my rolls. so I can't even blame the dice.

The one thing I did pull out of that game is that I probably need to learn to accept a turn five draw if it leaves me in a position to win on turn six. Odds are that most games will go to turn six, so risking it all to win on turn five isn't the smartest strategy if you know it's going to result in you getting your butt kicked if the game goes to turn six. I basically sacrificed a Wave Serpent and a squad of Storm Guardians in an attempt to win on turn five. If the game had ended on turn five I would have won, but it didn't, and as a result I had put myself into a position where I couldn't win on turns six or seven.

I do feel that I'm learning how to use the units I've fielded so far, and am looking forward now to getting some Fire Warriors on the table.

Assault on Evelyn Hive

We're going to be trying out a simple campaign for 40K at Castle House starting either this Sunday or next Sunday (just depends on feedback and if we have everything ready in time).

The goal is to give a nice narrative without restricting anyone's ability to play the game the way they want to. With this in mind there are no required point sizes or special scenarios, or anything like that. You just show up at the store, sign up to join a side and find someone on the other side to play against.

The background is that some malevolent Power of Chaos has set its eyes on an Imperial Hive World and launched an assault on its capital. Nearby Imperial forces have responded to its defense, while opportunistic xenos forces have thrown in their lot with the forces of Chaos in attempt to take the Hive.

The campaign will be three weeks long and will be played out over a map made of the Planetary Empires tiles, with a Hive City tile in the middle, and three tiles extending out from it in all directions. This results in a hex shaped map of three rings around the central Hive. The Chaos side will start controlling the outer ring which contains three scoring hexes. The Imperial side will control the middle ring containing six scoring hexes, and the inner ring containing three scoring hexes.

The first week of the campaign, the Chaos side will hold the initiative. This means that prior to each game the Chaos player will choose a hex to attack that must be adjacent to a Chaos controlled hex. The Chaos and Imperial players will then play a game of 40K at whatever point value they agree on. If the Chaos player wins, he will get to place a flag on the board indicating that Chaos has taken that hex. If the Imperial player wins, they hold the line and keep the Chaos player from advancing, and will be able to place a marker in that hex indicating that it may not be attacked for the remainder of the current campaign turn. In the event of a draw, the hex does not change hands, but may be attacked again during the same campaign turn.

Starting with the second week of the campaign, the Imperial side will have recovered from the initial shock of the invasion, and both players will roll off before each game to determine who is the attacker. The attacker will then get to pick the hex they are attacking as described above. If the Chaos player is the attacker the game is played out exactly as described above. If the Imperial player is the attacker then the only difference is that you reverse the roles and if the Imperial player wins then rather than placing their own flag, they will be allowed to remove the Chaos flag from the tile to show that the Imperial forces have re-taken it.

The only rules in choosing hexes to attack is that you cannot attack into a hex that has already been successfully defended that campaign turn, and you cannot attack from a hex that cannot trace a path of friendly hexes back to a supply point. For the Chaos side the supply points are the three scoring hexes they start with. For the Imperial side the supply point is the Hive City.

At the end of each campaign turn (which will either be Saturday afternoon, or Sunday before any games are played), the campaign points will be totaled for each side. Each side gets one point for each scoring hex controlled. At the end of three campaign turns the side with the highest point total will be declared the winner.

An alternative victory condition for the Chaos side is to successfully take the Hive City.

An alternative victory condition for the Imperial side is to successfully take all three scoring hexes in the outer ring.

If people enjoy this style of play we may try for something more elaborate in the future, but I wanted to keep things very simple and easy to use for our first attempt at this.

I started thinking about this campaign several weeks ago, pretty much right after we saw the previews for the Planetary Empires tiles. Around that time we were regularly getting in six to ten players, and had as many as six games going on at once in the store. For some reason things have slowed up a bit and we haven't had to set up an extra table since the day we had to set up three, which was about a month ago now.

The campaign idea was planned as a way to simply add some fun to what people were already doing, but now I'm hoping that it might bring some people back in. Unfortunately, I spent so much time thinking about the rules that I didn't spend much time on the fluff, which is a lot of what campaigns are about.

As to the time spent thinking about the rules, it was mostly spent thinking up more complex systems and then discarding them. This campaign framework was mostly a result of pruning. I should also acknowledge that it was inspired by the Firestorm campaign system from Battlefront. I'm not sure any of the ideas from that system ended up in the final version of this system, but it provided a good starting point for brainstorming.

One final note, the campaign title comes from the Evelyn Hills Shopping Center, which is where Castle House Games is located. Yeah, that's how little time I spent thinking up the fluff.

Easiest Conversion Ever - Hydra Flak Tank

There's been a lot of talk about using the quad gun provided in the Aegis Defense Line for converting a Chimera into a Hydra Flak Tank. The Forge World version of the Hydra has a huge quad autocannon mounted onto the back of a Basilisk chassis. The quad autocannon in the Aegis box is only about half as big. This actually makes for an even easier conversion, although it doesn't look at all like the Forge World version. I'm calling it the Aegis pattern Hydra Flak Tank.

You start with the current Chimera kit, fully assembled, and an assembled quad autocannon from the Aegis kit. This assumes that you haven't somehow permanently attached either the turret on the Chimera or the quad gun to its Aegis base.

You're also going to need the bit of sprue from a flying stand, a 40mm, or a 60mm round base. The small cylindrical piece on the side that you have to clip off before using the base. Cut it from the base and use a file to make the piece entirely cylindrical, then glue it to the bottom of the round base of the quad gun. That's it.

Now you can simply remove the Chimera turret and replace it with the quad gun, and you can still put the quad gun back in its original base for use in the defense line, and the turret back on the Chimera for use as a regular Chimera.

Edit: I noticed shortly after posting this that I'd foolishly followed the directions in the box and assembled the barrels upside down. Fortunately, the glue hadn't set, so I was able to take the ammo canisters off and assemble it correctly. Something to be aware of in assembling the gun, but it has no bearing on the conversion.

40K Stuff

I had posted on Facebook that I got my order of rare earth magnets in and was planning on magnetizing my Valkyrie model this past weekend. That didn't happen as I was still on a roll with terrain painting, so instead I got most of the job done on a set of GW woods (I'll write up how I painted them once I get some pictures).

It will probably be another few days yet until I get to the Valkyrie. Today I started back on a couple of Eldar models I'm hoping to have ready by Sunday. Why Sunday? It looks like Sunday is going to be 40K day at Castle House, and this Sunday we're starting our 'non-league escalation league.' Since most of the players are either new, or new to 5th Edition, most of us think it would be a good idea to start small with some 500 point forces to get things going, like in an escalation league, but without the actual league part.

I've already played a 500 point game with my IG, so I figure I'll switch to Eldar for this coming game. The main thing I need to do is put together another flying stand as I intend to use two Wave Serpents in my force, but I'd also like to get my Autarch painted in case I choose to use him as my HQ. That's what I worked on today, getting the base colors and wash done. Tomorrow I hope to finish it up and then hopefully do the basing on Friday.

I'm also expecting my Pig Iron heads to get here tomorrow, so I may end up getting distracted by IG, but I'll probably be able to stick with the Eldar for now.

My one concern about the 500 point 40K games is that they're talking about keeping it at that level for a couple of months, and I really need to boost it to 750 or 1000 to get a feel for what units I need to add to my Imperial Guard army. I just don't have very many options at 500, and feel like I'll be getting bored at that level, and not really learning a lot about my army. If they really want to keep it at 500 then I may have to put together a Space Marine list at that level in order to keep things interesting for me.

Terrain Projects

I finally got around to diagnosing and fixing the problem with the fluorescent lights in my garage (a bad ballast). Normally, that would have nothing whatsoever to do with gaming, but the light in question is the one that illuminates the part of the garage that doesn't actually contain automobiles. Instead, it currently contains a bunch of stuff that still hasn't been fully unpacked from our move, a bunch of scrap and junk that was there from before we moved, and a couple of tables that I hope will become my gaming space.

That last bit is the important part for my current project: terrain. I need more of it to have some decent games. I've got a couple of green flocked mats for most games, plus a blue felt one for air and sea battles. I also have a decent, but not overwhelming, supply of terrain for 15mm games (mainly Flames of War), but I lack much in the way of terrain for larger scales (mainly 40K).

I've been slowly trying to fix that problem by buying the occasional piece of GW terrain. So far, I've got a hill, a woods, an arcane ruins, the moonscape craters, and the new temple of skulls, but some have needed assembly, and they all need to be painted. Since my normal painting area is a Citadel Paint Station, and some of my terrain is as big as the paint station, I haven't been able to get to it before now. Now that I've got a couple of big tables with decent lighting, I've started to fix that.

My first project has been the simplest one: painting the Citadel Gaming Hill. A while back, in preparation for this, I purchased a Citadel Scenery Painting Pack. I'm sure it would have been significantly cheaper to just buy some brown and ochre craft paints at a hobby store, but I basically decided to pay for the convenience of getting everything in one package. In theory, there's enough paint, flock, and glue here to cover a 4'x6' Citadel Realm of Battle Gameboard, so I figured it would suffice to do several pieces of terrain.

There are some good and bad points to the pack. You do get a good size jar of brown paint, and a lot of scorched grass flock. The problem with both of them is how they come packaged. The pack comes with a 2" wide paint brush. The bottle of paint comes with a mouth that's smaller than 2". That means you're going to need a palette. The flock comes in a tightly sealed bag that is not re-sealable. You're going to spill some, and you're going to have to find another container to store what's left over. This would have been OK, if I were getting some sort of bulk deal on all of this, but I'm actually paying a premium over what I'd pay at the craft store, so it's a bit disappointing.

Still, the results aren't bad. The colors work well together. The included brush is going to get worn out fast when using it for drybrushing, but 2" brushes are cheap to buy at the hardware store. I haven't actually used the included flock, but it's the same as the flock you get in the Citadel tubs, which is what I'm using now (I'm just going to refill the tubs from the bags when they run out). Leaving out the time it took for the various stages to dry, it probably took less than an hour to finish.

Next up, I'm going to do the moonscape craters using the same method. I'm also going to head to the craft store to get some different colors for doing the arcane ruins and the temple of skulls.

Longer term, I want to do some complete tables. Flocked mats are OK, but I've been wanting to do a full table for Flames of War for a while now. In preparation for that, I ordered a hot knife for cutting foam. After it gets here, I'll be heading to one of the DiY stores to get some foam board. I don't know that I'll start by doing a complete table, I may just do some smaller pieces first, but I want to eventually do three 2'x4' sections that will form a 6'x4' table representing the area around Kharkov in the summer of 1942. Mostly rolling hills with some wooded areas. I'll probably just model the rolling hills into the table, and maybe a road or two, while leaving room for the Battlefield in a Box river to be placed, or for some movable trees to be put down.

If that works out well, then I'll probably work on some other terrain tables as well, but that would be much further down the road.

Imperial Guard vs. Space Marines

I had my first game of 5th Edition 40K this past Tuesday, taking 500 points of my Imperial Guard vs. Chris' 500 points of Space Marines.

The lists were necessarily pretty basic. I had Yarrick as my HQ, three squads of Penal Legionnaires, and one Armored Sentinel with a lascannon. Chris took a Captain as his HQ, a Rhino, and two squads of Tac marines, both with a flamer and missile launcher. For my Penal Legion abilities I rolled one squad of Knife Figters and two of Psychopaths. This meant that I had an assaulty IG force going against a fairly shooty Marine force.

We rolled up a Capture and Control mission with a Spearhead deployment, and things did not go well for my IG at the beginning. I left my Knife Fighters on my objective and moved my other two squds forward with Yarrick in charge of one of them while my Sentinel stayed back to snipe the Rhino while trying to avoid taking fire from any missile launchers. Chris moved one of his squads forward in the Rhino while keeping his other squad and Captain back as a fire base protecting his objective.

First blood was to me in the second turn when I destroyed the Rhino with my Sentinel. I had hit the Rhino in the first turn, but then had an "anything but a one" moment and naturally rolled a one for penetration. The destruction of the Rhino was the last bit of luck I had for a while as the Marines bailed out and proceeded to shoot up the entire squad that Yarrick was leading, leaving only Yarrick and the squad sergeant. Yarrick fell back to join the other squad of Psychopaths and was able to charge them into the Marines which went a bit better for me.

I still lost a couple men to shooting before I got the charge, but once in assault Yarrick and his men were able to win the combat and then run down the survivors, wiping out the Marines. Then the Marine Captain, who hadn't been involved in the first assault, charged me and wiped out everyone that was left, including Yarrick. I figured the best I could hope for at this point was a draw, even if Yarrick got up again due to Iron Will. Then I noticed something.

Chris had strung out his squad through the woods in front of his objective, leaving only a couple of Marines on the end actually controlling the objective. I realized that if I charged that unit on the end away from the objective that he'd have to pull his troops off the objective in order to react to my assault. Even if I was wiped out he wouldn't be able to consolidate back onto the objective that turn. Given that it was Turn 5 and that I went second, this gave me a chance to actually pull out a win if the game ended that turn.

Yarrick did get up thanks to Iron Will and I was able to charge him and that lone sergeant from the first squad into the Marines, pulling them off the objective. Through incredibly bad rolling on Chris' part, both of them actually survived the assault, which was nice since that would probably let me keep them off the objective for another turn if the game went to turn 6. That brought us to the end of turn 5 and the roll for the end of the game. Chris told me to make the roll, and I rolled a 1... game over, IG wins!

Imperial Guard

I've had the beginnings of an Imperial Guard army since shortly after they first released the Steel Legion miniatures back during the Third Battle for Armageddon promotional campaign. I bought the Steel Legion army deal off someone on Waryammer who didn't want it anymore, and built on that.

The main thing keeping me from fielding an IG army on the table has always been the numbers of troops I've had available. Under the previous codex you had two troop options: Infantry Platoon and Armored Fist Squad. The problem was that for every Armored Fist that you took, you had to also take an Infantry Platoon. I barely had enough infantry models to field a minimum size Infantry Platoon with an an Armored Fist Squad, so my options were always extremely limited. Combine that with many of my other models butting up against each other in the force organization chart, and I was lucky to be able to put 750 points on the table.

The reviews of the new codex I'd seen all talked about how guardsmen had dropped in cost, and made it sound like you were going to need even more troops to field an effective IG army. I figured that meant no IG for me in 5th Edition 40K, but then I actually read a copy of the book and discovered that in addition to the old Infantry Platoon, there are now two other Troops choices, neither of which requires that you first have an Infantry Platoon, and both of which only require ten models. This gives me a lot more options to construct viable lists using only my existing models.

In addition to new Troops choices, there are also new HQ choices, including the Lord Commisar and Commisar Yarrick, which mean I can take single model HQs, instead of the five model count Company Command Squad. Sure, my lists are likely to be far from optimized, but they will let me put up to 1900 points on the table without assembling a single new model! I see my Eldar staying on hiatus for the time being, and some 40K games with my IG in the near future.

Eldar Storm Guardians part deux

This picture isn't quite so dark as the other one. This pic is a better representation of what the minis look like in person.

Yme Loc Eldar Storm Guardians

This is just a quick post to show a new pic of my Storm Guardians and to test out the 'blog this' feature on flickr.

Podcast Goodness

I'm using my new iPhone a lot. Not as a phone though. Instead, I'm using it far more often as an iPod and a pocket computer. My most common activities are checking email and listening to podcasts.

I've found myself with about eight hours each week behind the wheel taking my wife to work, so listening to podcasts has helped me to keep my sanity when she's not in the car.

I started with some World of Warcraft podcasts, with my favorite being The Instance. These guys seem to know what they're doing while still acknowledging the existence of casual players, and it's an entertaining listen, although it's fallen off the top of my list since I entered the post 70 blues.

After listening to some WoW podcasts, I decided to branch out into some podcasts for my other hobbies. Specifically, I started checking out some D&D/D20 podcasts and some Warhammer podcasts. My favorites right now are Radio Free Hommlet for D&D and 40k Radio for Warhammer 40K. I'm also interested in RFH's sister Star Wars Saga Edition podcast Order 66, and the Warhammer Fantasy Podcast Podhammer, but I've only listened to one episode of each of those so far.

I'm also going to add 40k Warcasting to my list. They do complete army book breakdowns, and their recent Eldar breakdown was impressive, even if it did miss a few points I've gotten from other sources. Also, one of the guys appears to be a retailer, which adds some extra insight into an area I have some interest in. Unfortunately, their posting is a bit more sporadic than the other podcasts I've mentioned.

An honorable mention goes to the Penny Arcade/PvP/WotC D&D play sessions featuring Tycho and Gabe from Penny Arcade and Scott Kurtz from PvP running through portions of Keep on the Shadowfell. A couple of guys from WotC serve as DMs (the first session has Chris Perkins, and James Wyatt takes over for the second session). Tycho and Kurtz are veteran RPGers, and Gabe is a longtime video game geek, but new to RPGs. All three of them are new to 4th edition, so the dynamics are interesting. Listening to them play really made me want to play myself. You can tell they were having a blast despite having some of the crappiest luck with the dice ever in the second session. You can currently find them here, but the WotC site still pretty much sucks, so who knows how long that link will work. There are eight episodes and the guys added a couple of pieces of artwork to each episode featuring memorable quotes or scenes from the episode.

More Eldar

I got in the rest of what I need to make the first 1000 points of my eldar army... or so I thought. It turns out that storm guardians come 8 to a box instead of 10 to a box like I thought they did. Oops.

As I expected, the storm guardians only come with one each of the two special weapons. Fortunately the weapons are identical except for the positioning of the ammo "globule" that the eldar weapons use. Given this similarity it's rather difficult to tell the two apart from any distance, and if anyone gives me a hard time about not being 100% WYSIWYG I think I will be quite justified in smacking them upside the head with a metal dreadnaught (which I have, and may take with me to games solely for this purpose). Mind you, if GW still sold bitz I'd go ahead and buy the extra 3 flamers that I'll need to make things completely WYSIWYG, but since they don't I'm not going to spend the $90 it would cost me in order to buy three extra boxes of storm guardians just to get the flamers.

Despite my miscalculation with the Storm Guardians, I still have plenty to keep me busy. Three vehicles, and over 20 infantry models, plus conversion work on my autarchs.

Those autarchs are my two HQ choices in my full 2500 point list, although I probably won't be using both of them until I get up to 1850 or 2000 points. They are identically equipped (in my fluff for the army they are brothers), and the plan right now is to model one using a slightly modified dire avenger exarch, and the other using a conversion of the Yriel model, swapping his weapons out for a dire avenger's shuriken cannon. The only tricky bit on the Yriel conversion should be the right arm, and it shouldn't be too hard, although it will probably end up needing a little green stuff work to fill in the gaps.

The only problem I've seen with my original plan for using Yriel is that his banners have an Iyanden symbol sculpted into them. I didn't notice this when I was looking at the blister in the store because the sculpted portions face towards the back when they're in the package. I'm not looking forward to filing them off, and am thinking about using green stuff to cover them up instead. This shouldn't be a big deal in the end, but it will probably result in my doing my exarch based autarch first, instead of my Yriel based one as I'd originally planned.

As for the fire dragon squad I was working on, it's finished except for the application of some static grass to the bases and the protective clear coats. I'll try to post some pics once they're completely done. I'm pretty pleased with the results and am looking forward to painting some guardians in a similar scheme.

Fire Dragons

I got impatient waiting for the rest of my first 1000 points of Eldar to arrive after finishing my first Wave Serpent, so I went out and bought a box of Fire Dragons to work on. While my final 2500 point list calls for three minimum size squads of Fire Dragons, my intermediate lists will probably feature larger squads to use up any extra points, so having a few extra at the beginning won't be a waste.

I've been struggling over how I was going to paint my Fire Dragons. I went with a list that used mostly Guardians for infantry because, as I've mentioned before, I don't like painting aspect warriors in their official colors. I prefer a more unified scheme featuring craftworld colors. For some reason I have had a mental block that has prevented me from seriously considering painting aspect warriors in non-traditional colors. Possibly because seeing aspect warriors painted differently is so incredibly rare.

Fortunately, while browsing the web for more ideas I stumbled across an Eldar project where the painter had decided to do his entire army in a unified color scheme, including his aspect warriors. Actually seeing someone else doing it managed to free me from the silly mental block that I had and I'm now in the process of painting a squad of Fire Dragons in the standard orange and gray colors of Yme-Loc. The only nod to the fact that they are aspect warriors is a few red details, including the facemask of the helmet, which will instead be a light gray on my guardians.

The result seems fairly easy to paint, and should let me paint up my Fire Dragons quickly.

Paint list for Fire Dragons:
Base coat/primer: Krylon Gray Primer
Touch up color for base coat / layer over wash: Model Color 869 Basalt Grey
Helmet, chest and sash base color: Citadel Foundation Mecharius Solar Orange
Facemask and ribbon base color: Citadel Foundation Mechrite Red
Gun /equipment: Model Color 995 German Grey
Gun barrel tip: Game Color 51 Chaos Black
Gun barrel tip drybrush: Game Color 60 Tinny Tin
Wash: Citadel Wash Bedab Black
Eye basecoat: Citadel Foundation Orkhide Shade
Eye highlight: Game Color 29 Sick Green
Gray highlight drybrush: Game Color 49 Stonewall Grey
Orange highlight drybrush: Game Color 6 Sunblast Yellow
Red overcoat: Game Color 10 Bloody Red

The procedure is basically to block out the orange, red and dark gray colors then cover everything in black wash. Then go back and paint the orange, red and light gray areas again, leaving the wash in the crevices and around details. After that comes the drybrushing of the gray and orange areas and application of a brighter red coat over the red areas. Then the final details, the eyes and the tip of the gun barrels.

I haven't yet decided how I'm going to do the bases.

Wave Serpent

I'm satisfied with the way my Wave Serpent has turned out, so I'm going ahead with my plans to do 1000 points worth of Eldar. If I manage to finish that then I'll keep adding 500 point chunks until I'm at the 2500 point army I have planned.

As I mentioned before, I'm doing a Yme-Loc army (I've decided it's either pronounced eye-meh-lock or im-eh-lock, leaning towards the former). If you look at the photo that inspired me, you'll see that my scheme is quite a bit simpler, but it's still the same basic gray and orange overall. The exact paints I've chosen are as follows:

Interior base coat/primer: Krylon White Primer (for the inside of the transport compartment)
Exeterior base coat/primer: Krylon Gray Primer
Touch up color for base coat: Model Color 869 Basalt Grey (not an exact match, but close enough to do the job)
Light gray panel color: Game Color 50 Cold Grey
Orange panel color: Citadel Foundation Mecharius Solar Orange
Gun barrels/control panel: Model Color 995 German Grey
Engines/intakes: Game Color 51 Chaos Black
Engines/intakes drybrush: Game Color 60 Tinny Tin
Eldar skin: Game Color 4 Elf Skintone
Driver wash: Citadel Wash Bedab Black
Sensors basecoat: Citadel Foundation Orkhide Shade
Sensors highlight: Game Color 29 Sick Green
Sensors midcoat: Game Color 28 Dark Green (only used first time, probably not necessary)
Highlight drybrush: Game Color 49 Stonewall Grey
Blacklining of panels: micron pens
Sealer: Testors Gloss Cote

Using the primer as my base coat cuts down the time on this model a great deal. The only drawback to such a method is finding a good touch up paint, fortunately I had a Model Color that is almost, but not quite, an exact match. It's close enough that I can use it to fix mistakes if I'm careful. This made the whole project possible.

I experimented a bit with the blacklining, trying to use a wash first before breaking down and buying some micron pens which did the job wonderfully. It's one of those things that once I used them I couldn't believe I hadn't been using them all along.

Building the model, about the only way I deviated from the GW instructions was that I glued the bottom half to the top half before painting, leaving the canopy off. This means that my canopy doesn't open up, instead I glued it on after applying the gloss cote, using Testors clear parts cement. This solves two problems for me. First, it allows me to prime the interior, assemble the model, and then prime the exterior without worrying about bleed through to the interior. Second, it allows me to not have to worry about damaging my paint job while assembling the model; a process that involves strapping it together with rubber bands until the glue dries. The drawbacks are that the engines and intakes are a bit trickier to paint, and the canopy won't open and close. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to try the official method with the next one, but probably not.

The plan is to keep the paint scheme the same for all five wave serpents transporting my storm guardians, varying only the placement of orange on the force shield vanes to differentiate them from each other. The three vehicles carrying my fire dragons will be the same as well, but slightly changing the arrangement of light gray and orange panels to differentiate them from the guardian wave serpents. Probably changing the pattern only on the panels around the rear intake, changing the orange panels to light grey and making the top panel orange instead of the base color.

I don't plan on applying any decals or Yme-Loc symbols. The latter would require freehanding, and while I think I could do an ok job, it would add too much time to the project. The same goes for adding any generic eldar decals to the vehicles. The only models I plan to put that kind of effort into will be my autarchs.

One of the biggest experiments for me is leaving the models with a gloss finish. I feel it suits the nature of the eldar vehicles. It also saves a step, but one that's pretty insignificant in terms of time and effort. If I do decide to add a matte finish later I'll have to put some putty on the canopy first.

Eventually I'll try to take some better photos. The one above I took with my phone.

My New 40K Project (Maybe)

I've been wanting to finish up my Imperial Guard army, but have really been lacking in the motivation department. I really keep hoping that the rumored plastic Imperial Guard figures in great coats will materialize because I'm tired of messing with the Steel Legion metal miniatures. I've also come up with a new idea for both a list and paint scheme that wouldn't use any of my existing models. If I went back and worked on my old scheme I'd just be disappointed I wasn't using my new one. The end result is that I've decided to just keep the entire project on hold for now.

Instead I've started looking at armies that use fewer miniatures than Imperial Guard. Space Marines are an obvious choice, and I already have a ton of models, but I wouldn't want to start a new Space Marines army until the new codes is out. Instead I'm now looking at Eldar.

I've always liked the Eldar, but I've always hated the paint schemes, especially for the aspect warriors. You always see them painted exactly the same, just with different levels of skill. I've always wanted to do a list without a lot of aspect warriors, and instead filled with plain old Eldar guardians, but that's always seemed like a good way to build a crappy Eldar list in game terms. Now, with the 5th edition rules, an army with a lot of guardians doesn't look so bad.

Two things I found on the net have got me seriously looking at an Eldar army, the first was finding a list on dakka dakka for an eldar mechanized army that looked effective and was absolutely full of storm guardians. The second thing was finding a picture of an eldar vehicle painted up in Yme-Loc colors.




I like the paint scheme because it features a lot of fairly easy to paint gray with some really bright orange highlights. Too many of my painting projects feature dull colors because they're easy to paint. I want this one to have some bright colors, but I don't want to deal with the pain of painting the entire scheme in bright colors.

What clinches it is that what little fluff there is for the Yme-Loc says that they are a craftworld full of artisans that use a lot of vehicles in their army. A great match for the force that I'm planning!

I'm now working on a test model of a wave serpent to see if I really want to paint an army in these colors. If that goes well then the next step will be to buy the first 1000pt chunk of models and go from there.