Guardsmen done quick.

I do not paint prettily. I'll be first to admit that. I won't be winning any contests with my painting anytime soon, not least because of my aversion to participating in competitions of any sort. That having been said, I do like the sight of a painted army on the board, and I've a lot of Guardsmen to paint. Here's a little thing about how I get my armies painted; I mostly pick my armies based on what convenient spray paint colour I can get my hands on. And this here is the core of my Imperial Guard:

Ah, Krylon, what would I do without you... So, here's how I paint up my grunts...

It isn't anything as pretty as my Blood Angels, but hell, it gets the job done. Flesh looks like flesh. The flak armour is clearly a different shade from the cloth, and there are shiny bits on the weapons to make it look pretty. Will post a pic of what this looks like with more Guardsmen as soon as I make them happen...

What a mess...

Word to the wise: This is NOT how to keep your hobby workbench...

What can I say, I'm enthusiastic about the expansion of my Imperial Guard force. Having pondered the matter for bloody ages, I've decided that I'm going to cap the number of my armies at 5 and leave it at that, ie.:

1. Blood Angels
2. Necrons
3. Chaos Space Marines
4. Deathwing
5. Imperial Guard

This pleases me. The Guard have a lot of potential to be a really characterful and satisfying army that will look quite spectacular on the game board. Just gotta have a little more discipline, lest I swamp myself and end up making far less progress than I could. So, yeah, as it stands, I can field the Armoured Battlegroup, but right now I'm working on putting together enough Guardsmen to function as a mechanized force, then as a mostly infantry force.

And of course, there's the lure of new codex awesomeness looming in a few months...

The Unkindness...

... of Stormravens! So, I've been slinging this list around a bit:

Librarian with plasma pistol
10 Sternguard Veterans, 2 with heavy flamers, 2 with combi flamers, 3 with combi plasma and 3 with combi melta
Furioso Dreadnought with Frag Cannon and heavy flamer in a Drop Pod
5 Assault Marines with meltagun and Infernus Pistol, in a Razorback with Lascannon and twin-linked plasmagun
5 Assault Marines with meltagun and Infernus Pistol, in a Razorback with Lascannon and twin-linked plasmagun
5 Scouts with camo cloaks, sniper rifles and a missile launcher
Stormraven Gunship with twin-linked assault cannon, twin-linked multimelta and hurricane bolters
Stormraven Gunship with twin-linked assault cannon, twin-linked multimelta and hurricane bolters
Stormraven Gunship with twin-linked assault cannon, twin-linked multimelta and hurricane bolters

This comes to 1,747 pts, because poor old Blood Angels still have to pay to install searchlights. Sheesh. This is a list that plays to the Blood Angel's strengths, notably:

• Cheap combi-weapons for Sternguard. The 10 Sternguard come to 310 pts, compared to 335 for an identical loadout for Space Marines in the current codex.
• Librarians with Divination. Prescience just goes far too well with combi-plasma and Vengeance rounds.
• Stormravens with Bloodstrike missiles. Hurray for AP 1!
• The Furioso Dreadnought. Because sometimes you just need a good, cheap-ish infantry eraser. 
• Assault Squads in Fast Razorbacks, getting the most out of the Lascannon + twin-linked plasmagun configuration.

I have inflicted this list in three games thus far. Here's a brief overview of how those games went:

Sternguard done!

Well, mostly. Here they are:

And here's a closer look at the sarge... 

It was a bit of a pain trying to persuade those arms to aim in the same direction, but I think I've more or less achieved the desired effect. Of course, on the battlefield, I'm going to have that plasma pistol count as something else, say, a power sword.

Also, after some thought, I've decided this is the list I'd like to try out:

Librarian
Furioso dreadnought with frag cannon and heavy flamer in a Drop Pod
10 Sternguard with 2 heavy flamers, 8 combiweapons (3 melta, 3 plasma, 2 flamer) and a power weapon
2 x 5-man Assault squads with an Infernus Pistol and a meltagun in a Razorback with Lascannon & twin-linked plasmagun
5 Scouts with sniper rifles, camo cloaks and a missile launcher
3 x Stormraven Gunships with Hurricane bolters

Just a couple of minor tweaks from the previous version. The Furioso can switch out with a combat squad of Sternguard as necessary. The idea is basically to drop a troublemaker unit to shake things up while the Razorbacks advance. In Turn 2, the Razorbacks and an estimated 2 Stormravens will come in and converge to brutalize a target with some silly amount of firepower. If possible, the Assault Squads can jump out to either add their firepower or start threatening objectives.

Man, I'm itching to try this out...

BURN heretic!

So, as I mentioned in the previous post, I got my grubby paws on the lovely new plastic Sternguard, and verily, I like how they're turning out:

The only one without the wing on his pauldron I use to mark my Sternguard, because Deathwatch. 

No, not using the Sternguard bodies or legs; I'm going to save those for something special... I've still got a couple more that I haven't started painting. Just waiting for some bits to come my way. Specifically, this one:

I've always had a soft spot for Sternguard, so I've decided to bulk out my collection to have a full squad of Sternguard and build a list around them. Blood Angels might be rolling with an old-ish Codex, but I don't think they're out of the game yet. They've still got some things going for them, notably:

- Stormravens with Bloodstrike missiles, coz AP1 can really sting in this edition.
- Librarians with Divination. Pricey, but Prescience is so full of win! Especially when you need to make those combi-plasma shots count...
- Multimelta attack bikes are 5 pts cheaper.
- A 5-man team of Marines geared for assault with a meltagun and Infernus pistol in a Razorback with Lascannon and twin-linked plasma is every bit as cheap as the 6th ed equivalent. AND the Razorback is Fast.
- Furioso Dreadnoughts are awesome.

So, here's an idea for a list:

Librarian in Terminator armour with Storm Shield
10 Sternguard, 2 with heavy flamers, 8 combiweapons (3 melta, 3 plasma, 2 flamer) and a power weapon
3 x 5-man Assault squads with an Infernus Pistol and a meltagun in a Razorback with Lascannon & twin-linked plasmagun
3 x Stormraven Gunships with Hurricane bolters
Attack Bike with multimelta

Right, the basics:
1) Dealing with hordes? 6 Hurricane bolters, Sternguard with lotsa flaming death, 3 TL Assault Cannons... Need I say more?
2) AP 2? Bloodstrike missiles, Lascannon and twin-linked plasma death, melta weapons in every flavour. Check, I think.
3) Dealing with Deathstars? Depends on the Deathstar, but a concerted strike from the 3 Ravens will most certainly get stuff done.
4) Scoring? 3 scoring units, zipping about in Fast vehicles. Not too bad.
5) Flyers? I have 3 Stormravens. It's going to take quite an investment in anti-air dakka to stop that.

That more or less covers most of the bases. I can't help but feel I need more gun...

Anyway, I need to test this. To this end, I just got my grubby paws on this:

2nd-hand, needs a little work. Here's where we are now...

Left, Newraven, right, Blackraven. 

Colour's a little different. That's Army Painter Pure Red with a coat of Mephiston Red, drybrushed with Trollslayer Orange. Blacklining with Agrax Earthshade. Soon.... soon....

Gaaaahplastic crack overdose!!

Sooo, a lovely new FLGS with exceedingly attractive prices opened veeery conveniently not 2 minutes walk from where I work. And the lovely new Codex Space Marines has finally turned up!

The majesty... 

After nearly 5 years of faithful service, the old 5th ed Space Marine Codex is making way for the lovely bundle of 176-page hardback awesome that will breathe new life into the good old Space Marine and his trusty bolter. Or will it? Whatever the case may be, the Blood Angels are coming back!

Ok, so I played Apocalypse....

... and I loved it. It was a most pleasant surprise, and I was proven very, very wrong about it. That having been said, there were quite a few things about this game that were drastically different from the previous time I'd played an Apocalypse scale game, most notably:

1) Scale - The last time I played, it was 6 players putting whatever the hell they could on the board. Frankly, it was a right, mess, and while it looked pretty cool to see such a ludicrous number of models in one place, it took an insane amount of time to set up and play a turn. Hell, that game didn't even really get very far past Turn 3. And despite the huge area we had available, the table was crowded as hell. It really didn't look like 2 skillfully wielded armies as much as 2 colourful mobs mashing together in a riot.

In this game, it was a 3 vs 3 battle, Chaos Marines vs Regular Marines + 2 Blood Angels (I was on the Chaos side), with each player fielding ~2,000pts, for a neat total of 6,000 pts a side. Big enough to be significantly bigger than a regular game, and small enough not to eat up an entire day. In fact, due to a cunning strategy from my team and a little luck, the game took about 5 hours, including lunch.

2) Organization - This event was planned flawlessly. Hats off to Wong for the insane amount of effort he'd put in to a game he wasn't even playing in. Over the course of a month, the players were briefed, army lists compiled, checked, strategies discussed, army lists checked again, minor battles affecting the main event were organized, strategies rethought, debated again, all contributing to an excellent buildup to an excellent event.

There was Photoshop and characterful trash talk, too. How awesome is that? 

When the day actually came, my team reviewed a plan that took several days in the making, deployed with military efficiency, and executed the plan magnificently. The result? By the end of Turn 4, the enemy was left with 3 models on the board, huddling in the crater where their Stormraven had crashed and burned, whereas the Chaos side had lost 4 units.

Soon...

I swear, it's going to be a long, LONG time before I even consider fielding a second drake...

Ah, the majesty... Still plenty of little details to fill in, though. Wait a minute...

Gadzooks, it's TROGDOOOOOOOR!!!

Crisis suit or Chibi Gundam?

So, I clapped eyes upon the useful bits of the Farsight Enclaves supplement. You know, the army bits, because who gives a toss about Farsight's fluff, eh? And here's my idea for a Tau list...

Man, Helldrakes are tedious...

Progress is slow, but it's still progress... I'm finally getting round to painting up my Helldrake. Started by spraying it black, then a band of Krylon Burgundy around the middle, followed by Army Painter Pure Red around the head and front tips of the wings. Why? Well, apart from the fact that I like red, there are just way too many black Helldrakes in my FLGS! So, here's how it's looking...

First stage of real painting: Blacking out everything that's not going to be red. I also dulled the red a bit with a wash of Carroburg Crimson. 

The tedious bit: Lots and lots and lots of gold banding... 

A closer look at the head. I put a little more effort into the business end of the drake, with a bit of brass to break the monotony of painting gold for hours and hours...