Deathwatch/wing – Librarianism To Done!

I had the opportunity to catch up with some of my To Done! pics. Again a mixed bag of success on the photography, I’ve received some helpful comments, but if I’m going to rush through the picture taking process so I can get back to actually painting the figures then I have to be accept the results I get!

Most of these pics are actually off my phone anyway, so again there’s not much to justify any complaints. The Space Hulk Librarian was on my To Do List, so it was nice to actually just tick it off – a ‘quick win’ that had taken a long time to get done 😉

I’m pretty happy with the glow effects too, some of the lightning could be better  but for the most part I think I did a good job.

Not entirely sure if I’ll ever use him but if my Deathwing are deployed in force he’ll probably be a HQ option I might take.

I was very crude with removing the Blood Angel references, perhaps too crude as they’re still recognisable in some places but again the potential use out of the model is so limited it didn’t warrant any more effort than I actually put into it.

Happy with the lettering on the pages though.

Job done, so I gets me the Great Big Gamboge Stamp of Approval. More to come as I finish writing up some of my other successes so far this season.

Deathwatch Overkillin’

As the dust settles around the 40kaddict Terrain Competition and I try and marshall my thoughts, deal with my neck/arm pain and cope with the new IT regime I thought I’d just share the highlights of a couple of Deathwatch Overkill games PeteB and I played the other night.

It’s embarassing to admit that this is our first game since we played Dark Angels Vs his Daemonkin back in December and you may not be surprised to learn [given he’s had about seven or eight armies in the five years I’ve known him] that Pete has since offloaded much of his 40k in that time.

But he was well up for trying this game out and so I subbed in my painted Genestealer and Chaos Cultists for the Hybrids and swapped my painted Dark Angels for the Deathwatch characters.

We played the first mission which is really the Deathwatch have to kill 25 Broodkin, who in turn have to kill just two Deathwatch [those are the odds…]. I’d already seen Luke’s review [sorry can’t add a direct link due to the IT policy, grrr!] so I knew it heavily favoured the Deathwatch and you really needed to gang up your models

Luckily I had a couple of Ambush cards that allowed me to pick another 3 cards and deploy all ambushes so now I potentially had a lot of bodies to swamp the Marines.

Anyway you can see that didn;t work very well and as my Cultists with Autoguns have no armour save I quickly decided the 6+ save on assault cultists was better than nothing, not to mention they’re more likely to hit in short range.

I managed to get another card that helped speed up my brood and managed to get close up with the Astartes.

But it didn’t really do me any favours and Pete continued to rack up kill points.

I played a card that allowed me to ambush in any tile, bringing some Aberrants on to surroudn the Frag Cannon wielding Rodricus Grytt, I managed ot put a owund on Jensus Natorium, the Librarian.

Pete followed up by reaching his kill target of 25.

We then played out my last turn and I was able to bring down Jensus and Rodricus, so although I was outgunned it was only just. In a normal game of 40k where everyone gets their turn this would have been a draw. So, although the Genestealers are completely outclassed ultimately if you cna get them in close then their is a possibility to make things more equal.

We then swapped sides and it was obvious my 25mm bases did afford me an advantage compared with the 32mm bases the marines are now supplied with. It also made me start to consider options for rebasing… [incidentally the Watcher is the teleport homer for Garran Brannatar [the Terminator Salamander].

I managed to get forward quite quickly and make some quick early kills leaving the Cultists thin on the ground.

Mor earrived and I was able to continue to push forwards with Garran protecting the rear.

I was able to reach the final room and take the fight to the cultists. Thanks to the Space Marine ability to heal themselves by forgoing an attack any wound inflicted was quickly recouperated. This ended up feeling too easy so I then chose not to restore any wounds.

I went on to make the 25 kills and again we played on with Pete’s turn and without restoring any wounds he was able to kill Garran and Cassius. This confirmed that although it doesn’t seem balanced initially there clearly is a balance between the opposing factions. I thin k it’s marginally skewed in favour of the Marines and the restoring wounds is a bit much, at the least a roll to restore a wound would add some challenge, aside from the price of failing to attack. Even a 4+ would make it less easy for the Marines. We’ll definitely add a house rule in for this.

And in a flurry of effort I actually finsihed basing, rewashing the resin dust off the bases and priming all the cultists. I’m hopeful if the rest of my current projects progress as planned this hobby season I may get chance to do Red Planet BASE! on them all before the end of the season.

I’d be pretty chuffed if the Ravenwing, Imperial Knight, Genestealers and Cultists bases were my only remaining successes this year, although there’s still scope for more if I get a wiggle on. Anyway, hope you liked to see something a little different, I’ll probably get some more games on and I’m sure Pete will be up for more games.

1850pt battle report – Dark Angels v Orks

Ben asked me for a last minute game the other night so I took the opportunity to get some more practice in with the Dark Angels and this time borrowed his Cerastus so I could field my potential Blog Wars list

The low down:

• Hammer and Anvil
• Kill points
• Night fighting, won deployment, elected to deploy first and go first.
• Warlord Trait – Ezekiel – Fearless to all units within 12″
• Psychic powers:

1. Psychic Shriek
2. Terrify
3. Shrouding
4. Mental Fortitude

I had my Devastators in my Bastion, this time with an armorium cherub [the Watcher] which I never actually used.

I had Ezexiel taking cover in the wrecked Rhino from the blasted copse, we ‘Forged the Narrative’ that the Orks had blown up the tank prior to the game starting and the squad were abotu to leave it’s confines. The Cerastus had the lead, in front of the other Combat Squad and the scouts while the Plasma Cannon Tactical squad held the sacred shrine. There was only 7 in this squad as I had to drop a couple of member to fit the Cerastus in. One unit of Deathwing and the Techmarine were int he Land Raider the others were dee striking.

Ben’s set up, this time with a fair few tank busters.

I was able to wreck one of the Trukks thanks to the Devastators Missile Launchers but then was unable to use the Quad Gun because the target was no more. First strike to me.

Big Shootas managed to get some good field of fire from their vantage points but I’m not sure they did much damage in their first turn [certainly no First Strike] thanks to stupidly good cover saves helped by Ezekiel casting Shrouding and night fighting too. I think the Knight may have taken a Hull Point or two though.

My turn two and the Deathwing arrive and shoot up the back of one of the trukks but not sufficient to wreck it. Ezekiel leapt from cover and raced up behind the Land raider hoping to get in range for Psychic Scream, which he did but couldn’t hit!

The Painboys trukk had come down my left flank and the Scouts had not alternative but to assault. They were going to die in the Ork turn with only overwatch to reward their sacrifice, so I may as well assault and get twice my attacks at a better ‘to hit’ roll. Sadly they failed to do anything more than perhaps 1 wound and were promptly slaughtered.

My disembarked Terminators shot up the Orks nearest so I no longer could meet my charge roll. I also kept the Techmarine with them. which in Ben’s turn I realised was a mistake as he could have trekked over to the Knight and tried to fix his Hull Points. I think the Knight was able to wreck Ghazgkhull’s trukk though, but it may have taken far more fire than it should have done.

With their ride imobilised the Tank Busters set forth with a couple of Bomb Squigs adding a Hull Point or two to the Knight.

The Dakkajet turned up but I’m not sure he was particularly effective.

Which was irrelevant really as Ghazgkhull was bearing down on them.

Things were not going to end well.

Kommandos turned up and I immediately remembered their burners and just how useless that bolstered 3+ cover really was.

 

 But there was still plenty going on in the middle of the board.

 

Having killed the Scouts the Panboy and krew headed for the Tac squad

The get into Kombat and wreck face.

It seems the Dark Angels were sporting some Apprentice-crafted armour! So the four marines were chopped up with hardly a wound in return.

 

Orks consolidated onto the crashed Aquila.

Ghazgkhull got into combat having shot three of the Terminators. It’s one thing to have a full compliment of Deathwing in that assault but just three was never going to hold up against the Orks.

The Knight was charged by the Tank Busters who managed to get another 2 Hull Points on him through various means.

My other Deathwing were surrounded also with one Terminator being lost before the charge. The Techmarine was trapped in the assault too

Ghazgkhull finishes the Deathwing off with ease and moves back up the field.

The Tank Busters blow the Knight up which takes out all but two of their number.

With most everyone dead I decided to call it.

Even with a Knight I feel utterly out-classed with the Dark Angels. I’m not sure if it’s early days getting to know them, the fact I have units that are sub-optimal, the wrong tactics or a tough opponent going up against hordes. Bottom line is that although this was a fun game, and we had a right old laugh, the fact it suddenly fell apart so spectacularly was not fun and the army is just painful to use at the moment.

Therefore, I cannot anticipate with any joy taking this current army list to BWX. Sure it’s a ‘non-competitive’ tournament so sub-optimal is fine but if it needs to be sub-optimal it will have to look cool and right now it’s neither. So, following this I’ve abandoned the Dangles for BWX, it will be nids again. I’m hoping to try a different list with more Monstrous Creatures but we’ll have to see.

1500pt battle report – Dark Angels v Orks, Game 3

The low down:

• Vanguard strike
• Emperor’s Relice – 3 Objectives, your own [worth 5pts], centre [worth 10], opponents [worth 15]
• No night fighting, lost deployment, deployed second, failed to steal the initiative.
• Warlord Trait – Ezekiel – Fearless to all units within 12″
• Psychic powers:

1. Psychic Shriek
2. Terrify
3. Hallucination
4. Shrouding

I know, I see it too, the absolute lack of cover on my side of the table, which is why I bring my own bastion! To be fair though I’d been on Ferron Proxima for the first two games and I had offered more terrain for this table [even though they had some] but everyone else had played on it and I really didn’t think terrain would affect the outcome.

Ben had tonnes of Orks and I was pretty certain I was never going to be able to kill enough to pull a win out of this so I was resigned to sending the First legion out to their doom. I did however get to sneak my scouts behind the Ork enemy lines.

But as Ben took his first turn it would appear the Orks new exactly where they were, backed their trukk up to the edge of the building and jumped out, managing to shoot two of the squad with a third covering himself in his camo cloak to evade the incoming fire.

But by then it was too late, the Boyz had seen the scouts and charged in with a 12″ charge, Hammer of Wrath killing the scout taking cover in his cloak as they rolled over him and the Ork boss butchering the remainder on his own.

With whoops of glee they promptly left the corpses before they’d even hit ground, turned back and got back to the trukk ready to drive off next turn to find more victims [oh we laughed!]. Ben scored First Strike for this.

With the other trukks holding the centre objective I used the opportunity to pour fire into their flanks.

Ghazghkull’s trukk got wrecked and the other trukk lost it’s gunner, so I made my First Strike but the impending shock of Orks on the WAAAAAGH! was less comforting.

I think one of the Tactical squads Bolters were responsible for the penetrating shot that killed the gunner. The Dark Angels really are blessed with some quality ammo – first Typhus, now an Ork Trukk!

Ben’s Kommandos arrived behind me, Ghazghkull and his mob headed towards the Tactical squad in the lava crater and the other Nobz leapt from the trukk and went for the Tactical Squad in the centre of the board.

The Kommandos were kitted out with Burners and a Power Klaw. It was almost as if they’d known from the start they’d have to deal guys in cover and a Bastion. Suddenly the only thing I had some confidence in their durability was lost.

Ghazghkull’s mob were keen to get to grips with my Dark Angels.

Which they managed to do.

Leaving only one Marine alive to hold the line.

Ghazghkull himself wanted to take on the biggest thing on the board, even if it wasn’t moving…

and charged the Bastion.

With so many Power Klaw attacks the Bastion just couldn’t stand and was destroyed

To make matters worse I then had to roll to try and save the five Devastators atop the battlements, the explosive debris was just sufficient to kill every last one of them.

 Ghazghkull was left hoping that Gork or Mork were pleased he’d destoyed the biggest Green thing on the board because it wasn’t ‘Orky’!

A Pain Boy and War Boss managed to charge the Plasma Cannon Combat Squad and would ultimately wipe them out.

The remaining Nobz multi-assaulted one Combat Squad of Tacticals and my Land Raider.

The Pain Boy was nigh unstoppable, partly because of his FnP and partly because my Marines were pretty ineffective.

I’m not sure this situation lasted for long, I think the Dark Angels were squashed eventually.

The Deathwing arrived, technically they mishapped and all died [they deviated within 1″ of  Ghazghkull] but Ben was feeling generous [or just wanted more ‘ummies to kill] and allowed them to teleport in anyways.

The other Terminators appeared in his Deployment Zone but that was not good news as due to the dodgy way artillery rules work all those Gretchin are technically T7, so I was never going to shift them off his objective, instead I had the boyz back up their trukk and surge forth.

Ezekiel and the Techmarine entered the fray. I’ve found Ezekiel to be quite handy in a fight, definitely a better choice than Asmodai but I really need to find a better way to work with him as the Land Raider doesn’t allow him to cast any powers until he gets out. I also need to get the Techmarine’s rules down so I can play him correctly.

The Mob in the crater finished off the last of the Tctical Squad and headed for the newly appeared Terminators.

Ghazghkull got there first though with the Kommandos a close second, so the mob stood and watched jeering on support from the sidelines.

All the Orks bundled in

Despite being the Dark Angels finest there was only one inevitable outcome

 

The same would hold true for the other Deathwing, but as it would have taken too long to play out the inevitable we decided to call it.

Ezekiel and the Techmarine wouldn’t have broken their deadlock either.

The final score was something ridiculous like 22-2 although I’m pretty sure it would have been 33-2 because despite Ezekiel contesting that centre objective, he would not have survived losing me Slay the Warlord and the objective.

So, what have I learned? The Bastion didn’t survived in only 1 game, the Land Raider was equally unlucky. Whether adding in a Knight will take pressure off those units I don’t know but as I’ve already observed it only take one penetrating hit to be unlucky and lose a pivotal part of my army. I’m pretty sure a Knight will take a lot of fire, perhaps leaving the Land Raider, and more likely the Bastion unmolested. 

I was impressed with Ezekiel, he’s a much better choice, even without an invul save, but the 2+ armour is quite good and it matches up nicely with the Techmarine and other Terminators. How I better utilise his prodigious psychig ability is the greater mystery. I also went solely Telepathy which gave me a lot of options, sadly most of the powers I rolled were pretty dire. Psychic Scream is awesome as a Primaris, it’s just of little use when he’s locked in a box for a turn or two!

Ultimately I was just as torn between taking these to Blog Wars or nids as I was before. I still have to paint my Knight, still have to finish the Tactical Squad. The Bastion and Land Raider ‘will do’ but I’ll have to find a way to fit the Terminators in and currently that looks pretty tough without removing yet more upgrades from my units. I may have enjoyed the games more than I expected and managed to win one but I don’t imagine my BW opponents will be as kind. That’s not to say their uber competitive, but it’s a tournament afterall, even if it’s supposed to be fun first and foremost. Bottom line is given my army choices and the sacrifices I’ll have to make – paring down units etc. It wouldn’t take a beardy cheese list to do me over, any old opponent is going to make my day difficult. So the question is – am I comfortable with that or do I at least want fighting chance with a fully painted army I’m happy with?

We’ll have to see…

1500pt battle report – Dark Angels v Nurgle Chaos Space Marines, Game 1

Ben suggested we have a mini tournament the other week, using Blog Wars rules. I managed to get it down to 1500pts for convenience and Ben, Liam, PeteB and myself rocked up to see what we could do.We randomly rolled starting match ups and I got Liam

The low down:

• Hammer and Anvil
• Kill points
• No night fighting, won deployment, elected to deploy second and stole the initiative.
• Warlord Trait – Ezekiel – Fearless to all units within 12″
• Psychic powers:

1. Psychic Shriek
2. Terrify
3. Hallucination
4. Dominate

I set up diagonally opposite Liam, using plenty of cover for my Bastion. This was the first time he’d played the Nurgle marines since our pairing at Throne of Skulls but I wasn’t about to lose my Bastion turn one like last time! I did cruise the Land Raider forward, with Ezekiel, Techmarine and Deathwing squad inside.

I wasn’t able to score First Strike [kill a unit in your first turn] but I did kill 1 Chaos Spawn.

I also killed a zombie cultist.

But forgot to move my Scouts who were too well hidden in Liam’s back field that I didn’t see them at all!

Not much happened in Liam’s turn. I think he managed to kill a marine, but that was pretty much it.

My turn 2 and my second unit of Terminators teleported in. Unfortunately they deviated back towards my own lines instead of within cover of the trees, still, at least they didn’t mishap on the cultists who had somehow become aware of the well camouflaged Scouts in the wood – maybe they could smell BRAINS! The Deathwing were pretty rubbish shooting, even with twin-linked ‘to hit’ on Deep Strike. I must have kille donly one or two, it was pitiful.

Tactical squad in the tower managed to Kill and wound another couple of spawn.

Hell-flies both turned up which would result in a classic display of Liam’s ‘bad luck’. I intercepted this Hell-fly with my Quad Gun, hit twice, got one penetrating hit of a 6, then rolled and got another 6 for damage! He is cursed, and then I suggested it might have some daemonic save but if it did it failed and then the only thing that would keep it in the sky was a 3+ roll on the imobilised flyer table which he failed, of course! The only silver lining was the fly was punched out of the air backwards and landed on top of my Deathwing and killed one of them.

The other Hell-fly took revenge by burning out the Tactical squad in the tower.

Meanwhile Typhus and his retinue disembarked from the corrupt Land Raider and would set their sights on the Land Raider. The Terminators who’d just lost one of their number were targeted by the Obliterators and promptly obliterated, even sheathed in Tactical Dreadnought Armour.

Armed with melta weaponry the chaos Terminators made short work of Deathwing Land Raider, reducing it to molten slag.

Luckily all the occupants were too well protected to suffer any harm from the explosion.

With Dark Vengeance™ in their eyes they faced their traitorous foes.

 

What followed was an epic confrontation with Chaos terminators doing little to no damage on the Deathwing, who responded with killing most of them, the Techmarine finishing them off while Typhus and Ezekiel faced each other. As his traitorous bretheren fell one by one to the Dark Angel powerfists he fueled all his hatred into a might attack, killing Ezekiel, the Techmarine and all the remaining Terminators ro become last man standing but not without taking two wounds from Ezekiel as he crushed him underfoot.

The Chaos Spawn attempted to eat the tower but the remainign combat squad of Tactical marines had properly barricaded themselves in, preparing to seek flaming retribution from the firing ports int he door.

Tyrphus stood over the gore-soaked remains of his guard and the might of the First Legion.

But failed to notice the nearby Tactical Squad who managed to find a chink in his corrupt armour with a sanctified and blessed holy bolt shell. He succumbed to this one wound and fell where he stood, his traitorous endeavours forever to be expunged from Imperial records.

The zombies finally managed to catch the Scouts, killing the sergeant as he tried in vain to defend the corpses of his squad from the cannibalistic hunger of the appproaching horde.

 

The game came to a close. I’d lost 1,030 points and only managed 300-500 in return. Liam also got Slay the Warlord and Line Breaker so it was a pretty comprehensive win. However, I had to love those defining moment in the game: 

• stealing the initiative – always makes Liam sad
• one penetrating hit, one immobilised vehicle, one failed crash test on the Hell-fly
• Tyhpus losing his last wound to a bolter round

 So, on to game 2…

1500pt battle report – Dark Angels v Craftworld Eldar

Having promised to take my Dark Angels to BWX I created a list that had most of what I’ve got painted, plus some other bits that will ‘make do’ and some I can hopefully achieve in the intervening period. However I found myself in the unpleasant position of having a new army/codex to get to grips with and I need to do it now and I can only achieve that with some part-painted models. So I arranged a game with PeteB and he was actually shocked [as you, good reader will too] to see me turn up with figures that weren’t painted.

So I have 2 tactical squads with a Rhino, 5 Scouts with Sniper Rifles and one Missile Launcher. Asmodai as my Warlord with a Techmarine and 5 Deathwing in a Land Raider Redeemer, a Ravenwing bike squad, and a Missile Devastator Squad in a bastion with Quad Guns.

The low down:

• Hammer and Anvil
• Some Maelstrom mission, we only ended up drawing an objective or two per turn, I think we messed the rules up a bit
• Warlord Trait – Asmodai – 3 VPs if I kill the opposing Warlord in a Challenge.
• No night fighting, lost deployment, deployed second and failed to steal the initiative.

Pete B

Missile Devs, in the Bastion.

Combat squadded Tacticals, there’s an objective the other side of the tower.

Two Wave Serpents filled with Fire Dragons, Striking Scorpions, Dark Reapers in the watchtower a Fire Prism, some Swooping Hawks amongst other things

Pete’s first turn and he manages to wipe out one of the Tactical Combat Squads for First Blood. Typically I fail just enough cover saves to lose all five. He surges the Wave Serpents forwards to pressure the Land Raider.

With the Wave Serpents in my face I had to deal with them. Not having any experience and this being a learning game my immediate thought was just to ram the Wave Serpent in front but Pete gave me some advice, the plan was to hopefully wreck one or both of the Serpents with the Devs, Quad Gun Plasma Cannon and Krak Grenades on the bikers and potentially mop up the contents with the Flamestorm Cannons. However, thanks to Jink only one Hull point was taken off it and I lost my Plasma Gun Tactical to ‘Get’s Hot’ when he fires from the top hatch of the Rhino 😦 We did discuss later on the merits of the Terminators charging out of the Land Raider and and breaking a Wave Serpent apart, with the view to starting the turn again, to achieve that as a learning experience but I decide to press on with my original tactical choices.

Swooping Hawks arrived in my Deployment Zone in the newly vacated watchtower.

Their grenades targeting the Dev squad in the Bastion, not sure how effective it was.

After quite a while trying to find the Ravenwing special rule in my electronic Codex and being super stoked for re-rollable Jink saves I was then immediately deflated by having my tiny biker squad obliterated.

Matters made worse by the now de-bussed Fire Dragons destroying my Land Raider. It survive the initial fusillade from the Dragons on the right, only one pen, but the second squad melted it and one of the terminators in the process.

I’m now left with only the two Devastators, which became none! At this point I realise I’ve made no mention of objective, well in fact it doesn’t really matter, most of mine ended up being unobtainable, Pet was scoring with objectives in his deployment zone and I think the Land Raider scored him a point so he was well up on me at this stage.

I get an objective to destroy a unit outright but if I destroy 3 I get more VPs. I split Asmodai and the Techmarine from the Terminators. The Deathwing head for the Fire Dragons on the right they shoot them and assault losing one of their member but killing the dragons outright. I take a gamble to get my three units, the Techmarine assaults the Wave Serpent, I take two hull points, but fail to destroy it with my pens. Meanwhile Asmodai assaults the remaining Fire Dragons, which are down to just two thanks to some lucky shots but he fails abysmally in assault, but thankfully so too do the Dragons.

Pete’s War Walkers turn up.

I’d had the Scouts in the really tall tower on the right but moved them towards my deployment zone and the central tower. There were actually quite effective with some shooting, or did they capture the objective in front of the tower? I can’t quite recall what it is that they did, I think they wrecked the Wave Serpent but they became a target for Pete this turn and I was happiest with their performance, which says a lot as they didn’t really do much else!

As the War Walkers finished their movement  my Quad Gun Intercepts and kills one.

The second War Walker wrecks my Rhino which had been moving round the back to get away from the Swooping Hawks and deploy my combat squad of tacticals.

Warp Spiders move up, into the position previously occupied by my Deathwing so I’m guessing they ate them or something.

My Tac squad assaults the War Walker.

The Techmarine joins Asmodai who was only able to kill one Fire Dragon in the previous assault phase, seriously if you can kill a Warlord with this guy then you deserve more than just 3VPs, he is absolute rubbish and I’m thinking Ezekiel for 5pts more may be a better choice for BWX, although my Librarian is a proxy whereas this is the proper character model..

The central tower gets wrecked but my scouts stand fast in it’s smoking ruins.

The Scouts prepare to go down fighting, which is more can be said of the slightly more experienced units that have fallen like dad leaves around them.

The last Fire Dragon succumbs to Asmodai and the Techmarine [well probably the Techmarine] and they consolidate.

My Tactical Squad manages to destroy the War Walker, they really are quite vulnerable to almost anything.

And the final insult – Pete ‘claims’ my Bastion for his own, no VPs awarded, just bragging rights.

I think the final score was 5:1 to Pete, but I only had the Scouts, 4 Tacticals Asmodai and the Techmarine. I’m thinking back to when Dawn of War II came out and they said that reduction in unit numbers was to give you the impression that every Marine matters, a single loss is a huge loss. Of course no one wanted that sort of game and ultimately the expansion increased the numbers significantly to levels similar to the original DoW. Well I certainly mourned every lost Marine here. I was genuinely disappointed about how fragile things were. I expected Power Armour to shrug off all sorts but it was the cover saves I was reliant on. The Land Raider was more vulnerable to the Fire Dragons some of my Tyranid MCs, just one Pen will kill a Land Raider but it takes 6 to kill a Tervigon!

In all honesty when I see the amount of figure I’m putting on the board then this is actually how I imagine the outcome is going to be but I know on paper they should be more durable and effective but I actually felt my nids are superior and that’s despite me often bemoaning their ineffectiveness. It’s early days though so I shouldn’t throw in the towel just yet. I am thinking though that the Dark Angels will be more a show army, that is unless I go Ravenwing which really do look quite durable and effective, that is if I can actually paint up some bikers to deploy.

But it does make me appreciate my nids a little more, I did have an epiphany a few months back when seeing my MCs all aligned about how chuffed I was not to have space men in vehicles, even if it did have a Tervigon or two transporting  gaunt embryos. I was just pleased just to have an army of creatures, no tanks or giant robots to cover weaknesses Anyway, I’ve a game with Otty coming up where I’ll take the nids because as a fellow nid player it’s nice for him to see how I approach them, maybe share tactics and theres a chance he may take nids too which is always an interesting match up. Then my next game against Ben will be Dangles again so I can get in some more experience.

Dark Angels – Dark Vengeance Deathwing Terminator conversion

Another micro-blog. PeteB gave me some left-over bitz from his Space Wolf army so I was finally able to complete my Dark Vengeance Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield conversion.

I removed the head from this guy ages ago and slotted in a hooded Dark Angel Veteran head.

His Storm Shield also came from the upgrade sprue and the Thunder Hammer just had a couple of wolves on the side and a wolf tail to remove. There’s also a rune on the back hammer head, I’ll try and fill that in with liquid green stuff.

I’m going to consider putting this guy on some slate because if there’s one thing he needs to be is taller! I’m already struggling to work out how to transport these but no doubt I’ll find a solution – takeaway tubs?!

Dark Angels – Dark Vengeance and Assault on Black Reach Deathwing Hobby Porn

One could argue I’m scraping the barrel with this post but having photographed the completed Dark Vengeance Deathwing I thought it only fair to put them on my Honored Imperium broken aquila terrain piece and then share the limelight with their Assault on Black Reach bretheren. So enjoy the ‘atmospheric’ shots

Here old and new are mixed together with only the lightly darker AoBR colour scheme and higher contrast DV models being the noticeable differences.

Helmet lenses were a little more subtle in the light cast off them on the AoBR models.

Roman numerals were neater too.

Purity Seal is still the ‘gift’ that keeps on giving – it’s like they’ve been covered in dust for ages compared to the bright bases of the DV Deathwing. Just goes to show that spray varnish is cursed. I continue to paint on Army Painter Anti Shine. It’s a pain and if you manhandle it too soon after painting it can still be tacky, I’ve stripped paint off base edges with impatience recently. But that at least convinces me that it’s actually drying as a protective coating and however tedious it is to apply I’m never again going to ruin another model with spray.

A quick coating off the AoBR base edges with Vallejo Heavy Red should at least bring them in line with the current models. I’ve noticed alot of old Mechrite Red bases have faded a bit, I think this is more to do with me watering down some applications.

Heavy Red doesn’t have the greatest coverage [despite the name] but after a few coats it’s super-vibrant. Usually I apply a coat of my dwindling supply of Mechrite Red for coverage and then overcoat it with Heavy Red for vibrancy.

Anywa I hope you don’t mind me indulging these images

Dark Angels – Dark Vengeance Deathwing

Just a quick update as the alternative is no update. I’ve actually completed my Interrogator Chaplain Seraphicus but haven’t taken any decent pics to showcase. Truth be known I’m a little disappointed with the gloss varnish I’ve added to his power armour as it’s a bit thick in places so it plays merry hell with the sense of scale on the model, but I’ll cover that in detail when I take the pics.

Meanwhile, I’ve got back onto doing the Deathwing and I’ve managed to go from two models with completed Bonwehite highlights to four. I’m really happy with how they’ve come along, they’re lighter than my original AoBR models but that’s down to how I’m highlighting the ‘nids. It’s slow going though, it takes about 60-90 minutes for me to do just one! Still it’s the bulk of the model. I am however less impressed with some other colour choices. The black feathers still don’t ring true to me but I’ll see what a very fine grey highlight will do to differentiate the feathers. Also some of the reds are getting a bit samey, when I need different shades to represent different materials.

I still have a lot of detaill work to do, the odd skull, studs, helmet lenses and some more highlights on the Crux Terminatus to represent the Ferron stone it’s mined from. I’m sure these will add quite a few more hours to the process but I’m getting there. With only one model to highlight I’m beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I’ve also realised something in that i started to add litanies to the AoBR Tactical squad but did not do any of that on the AoBR Terminators. That’s not a problem, I can add them on at any time. I also want to include some of the native American elements as illustrated in the Space Hulk Deathwing supplement. Lame Bear’s chevrons look particularly effective. I want a mix of both histories – feudal and native as Ferron Proxima is based firmly in this era of the Dark Angel histories and yet those prospective applicants to the Dark Angels will have been drawn from the Natives then trained in the Feudal ways of Caliban

I’m not so sure I’ll include Totemic names but I’ll be doing litanies at the least, I just want some opinions on choice of colour –

1. Black
2. Dark/rusty brown
3. Red
4. Caliban green

There’s no right answer on this as I’ll no doubt do units with different colours. Red I think is the obvious choice but opinions are most welcome.

Dark Angels – Dark Vengeance Deathwing

Quick Micro Blog of my Dark Vengeance Deathwing. I’d teased some pics of this on my last ‘confession’ so thought I’d share the remaining WIPs

Lots of red on these, I may regret not sticking closely to the standard GW colour scheme but I need them to tie in but also look different to my Assault on Black Reach Terminators.

With the red done I’ll now Army painter Strong Tone the lot to bring out the shadows in the red and the metallics, which will then be ready for my Turquoise verdigris.

I’m pretty sure I can do a good job on the Bonewhite, its not like I don’t get the practice on the nids, it’s just all the other bits. I’m also looking forward to playing with that Chaos Space marine helm on the Sergeants base. I know which chapter it’s going to be but I wonder if you can guess?

I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned but it’s one I think will tie in nicely with some existing and future fluff for Ferron Proxima so get your thinking/guessing hats on.