This wing and that wing and things...

Busy, busy, busy! Just got myself a copy of Limited Edition Dark Vengeance, meaning no new major additions until I catch up on a huge pile of painting!

Not much for me to say about the box that hasn't already been said a dozen times over on various other blogs. What I will point out is that I love the teeny tiny rulebook:

That, and man, GW's plastics just keep getting better and better. I've decided to get started painting the Ravenwing and Deathwing elements first, seeing as the job is already half done just on undercoating the models. I also put together the Dark Angel characters, since they just looked like fun. 

Most experienced painters will tell you that the most difficult colours to paint well are black and white. I suppose the difficulty lies is bringing depth to these two colours. I've gotten started on a Deathwing Terminator and here's a test model stood next to his evil, undercoated twin:

I'm rather pleased with the result. The technique is exactly the same as I've been using to paint white on my Menoth minis:

1. Start with white. Any white, as long as it's whitey white. What you see on the right hand Terminator is Krylon Flat White.
2. Wash Devlan Mud/Agrax Earthshade into all the recesses.
3. Layer and clean up the shading with Ulthuan Grey.
4. Pick out the edges with whatever white you've got. Ceramite. Whitescar. Whatever.

And that's that! I know it's not quite the boney, creamy white so often favoured by Deathwing as they appear in White Dwarf, but personally, I prefer this shade of white. Will post more pics when I've made more progress with my Deathwing. Until then, happy wargaming...

Widowmakers and Drakhun

... because what Khador player can do without them, eh?

Both are excellent additions to any army list, and they're pretty nice models as well, so here's what I've done with mine...

Updates on the 40k Front...

... because really, with all this Warmachine I've got going on, I haven't been neglecting 40k completely. Here's what I've been up to on 6' x 4' tables with 6th ed...

Fun list: The Butcher and his Brutes

Having played quite a few games of Warmachine using the most solid (read: boring) lists I could build (mostly centred around the dreaded Winter Guard Deathstar), I decided it was time for some fun. It was during a game against Ian's Scyrah that I witnessed the sheer brutality of a Berserker with 3 focus under the influence of the Butcher's feat and Full Throttle. Despite having lost an arm, said Berserker hurtled forward to charge a nearby Phoenix, pound it into scrap, then explode, killing a nearby Stormfall Archer.

I decided then that I really like Full Throttle and since I don't have a Karchev to hand, here's a list I threw together and had some good fun with.

It's simple enough, yes? The Destroyer hangs with the Kovnik and slowly advances, dumping double boosted (by which I mean attack and damage rolls are both boosted) Bombard shots into the foe, while the Butcher advances behind a wall of Khador's most vicious melee jacks. Full Throttle makes sure they hit stuff, and Fury will let one jack hit absurdly hard. The wee doggy is there... well, just because.

I had a game using this list against a beast-heavy Circle Orboros list, with eKaya using her feat to hit my lines really hard, then bugger off out of my reach. A fairly close-ish game, I thought, but when my Kovnik failed to Drive 2 turns in a row, well, that when I knew the dice gods had turned their back on me. But hey, I'm not letting a little bad luck stop me. I'm gonna have a couple more games with this list and see how it rolls.  Read on for a dissection of each element of the list...

WIP: Moar Warmachine!

Been a while since my last post. Here's what's been going on...

Multicase, round 2!

Got a couple more cases today. These 2 hold my Blood Angels Double Deathstar, with some space left over for a few more.

What am I gonna fill those gaps with now, eh? Thanks to Rage in 6th ed, I'm thinking Death Company! A word to the wise, though...

Khador players rejoice!

I knew it! I knew it! I looked at the Demolisher, Spriggan and Devastator and verily, I said to myself, THAT is a plastic kit waiting to happen, and lookie what just turned up on the Privateer Press website:

Hell, I'm grabbing at LEAST 2 of those, thank you very much! On a side note, I didn't realize it before, but with the shield arms locked in front like that, does the Devastator not look like a humongous helmet on legs?

The Butcher of Khardov marches...

... and all who march with him are painted!

... except for Kovnik Joe. There some bits of him that I've yet to decide how to paint, i.e. his gauntlets, cuffs, pauldrons, and weapons. I mentioned this list in the previous post, together with the breakdown of what does what, so I won't bore you by repeating myself. What I will say is that this list is fun, flexible and kicks HARD. And now it's just about tabletop ready, it's a joy to send into battle; 26 models of satisfying Warmachining fun. :-)

In other news, I've just gotten in my first game of 6th ed 40k, fielding Necrons against Chaos Space Marines at 1,000 pts. I think I like it! Of course, that's easy for me to say, when I have one unit which can roll 40 dice of BS4 gauss weapons and put pretty much any vehicle out of commission... I'll have a couple more games at 1750 pts and see how my Necrons fare. My Necron list is more or less identical to the one I've always used, with a small change: The Phaeron upgrade is now out, Sempiternal Weave is in. Woe betide the poor fool who engages my Overlord in a challenge alone! If the Mindshackle Scarabs don't get you, the Phase Shifter will keep the Overlord alive to deliver 3 attacks with the mighty Warscythe. Meanwhile, the Cryptek watching from the sidelines gives him a reroll, thanks to the Chronometron, and the moral support from the 20 Warriors gives another 4! This was used to devastating effect in a game last night where a winged Daemon Prince hurled himself at my Crimson King...

Anyway, that's it from me. Stay tuned and we'll see if we can't make a batrep happen...

My first games at 35 pts

I've been getting a couple of games in at 25 and notably 35 points over at Warpspace games lately and it has been most enlightening. I've been led to understand that 35 pts in Warmahordes (Hormachine?) is more or less the equivalent of a 1750 pt game of 40k. I was a little skeptical at first. After getting murdered a few times at 35 pts, this is the best I can muster with the models I have:

The Butcher
Juggernaut
Berserker
5 Man-O-War Shocktroopers
3 Man-O-War Bombardiers
10 Winter Guard Infantry + 2 Rocketeer + Unit attachment
Kovnik Josef Grigorovich

In retrospect, this isn't quite the best use of my points. Here's a dissection of the army.

Multicase!

No! Multicase! KR Multicase! I just ordered one from the website. Nothing fancy, just a tough cardboard box to keep my Warmachine army cheerfully encased in foam. I am pleased. Pics follow.