Just a quick update with some pics showing the models I have been working on recently.

First up is a Large Steampunk Arachnid. I bought a Robogear boxed set several years ago back when I was doing my Ork army. It is a fantastic source of bits, and one of the kits is a multi-limbed walker. It fit quite well on a 50mm base, and once I added the buzzsaw piece I realised I had a fine Large Steampunk Arachnid.

I primed it black, and then airbrushed Iyanden Darksun on the armour plates, followed up with VGC Sunburst Yellow. I highlighted by adding some white to the yellow, and shaded with some Darksun. Then I re-blacked the rest of the model and painted the metallic parts in the usual way. Weathering was done with a sponge and some Adeptus Battle Grey Foundation paint.

Using the same Robogear kit I decided to make a ludicrously large Supply Wagon, for the Strategy of the same name.

Ramos and Colette du Bois are proud to present their fellow Arcanists with their new Supply Wagon, christened Zippy. Ramos’ suggestion of Steamstrider Thunderborg was veto’d by a gaggle of Showgirls, who all giggled until Ramos gave up and let Colette have her way.

Zippy was recently recovered from a disused mine, and has yet to receive a clean-up and a fresh coat of paint, but in the meantime Ramos ordered that the official Arcanist sigil be painted on its hull. At least, that’s what he insists he said. It is not, according to Cassandra, what she heard…

Here is how I made it:

1. One Robogear Spider set and some Urban War Bio-toxin Plant parts.
2. Prime black and then add rust. I used Deluxe Real Rust, and some pigments.
3. Gloss varnish (to stop the rust coming off at step 6)
4. Apply lots of liquid mask over the rust and allow to dry.
5. Airbrush blue. I used the airbrush to shade the panel lines and to highlight the middle of each panel.
6. Using a variety of brushes, remove the liquid mask.
7. Cut a circle in some paper and stick it onto the model with masking tape.
8. Airbrush a Foundation paint as a base (some Ochre colour) and then airbrush Sunburst Yellow. Highlight top of circle by adding some white to the yellow, and then shade the lower part with some Ochre.
9. Remove the stencil and freehand the black.
10. Apply powders to weather the whole hull and paint the metal parts silver (wash and highlight the metal parts as usual)
11. Go over edges with a graphite pencil, which gives a nice dull metallic look akin to exposed but unrusted metal.

Lastly, I ordered a set of 10 Cyber Beetles (Necron Scarabs) from Puppets War to serve as Steampunk Arachnids. I got 14! The casts are fine on the top, but some of the legs were miscast or missing. Apart from that, a good deal and a great price, and I don’t really notice the odd missing leg here or there.

Here they are on 30mm bases. Working on the 50mm bases for now. I will be doing 6 x 30mm and 2 x 50mm, and that leaves me 2 for spare parts/ bitz.

Painting was simple enough. Airbrush VAC Black all over. Airbrush the tops VAC Steel at an angle. Airbrush VGC Ice Blue around the glowy bit. Then add some white and airbrush a dot onto the glowy bit itself. Took about 20mins to do all 12.

It has been about three years since I uploaded my Youtube video showing my collection of 40k Cities of Death terrain. It has gotten (crikey!) over 10,000 views in that time, so I decided to update it with an HD version.

But it is not just the same old terrain – in the last three years I have made a few more bits of terrain (even though I said I had more than enough back then!). So this video has the landing pad, the two large Shrine of the Aquila kitbashes and the other ruin I completed for Patrick Crucible 2012.

Then I decided I wanted some roads to complete the city. I chose the roads from World Works Games “Streets of Titan” set, printed them on label paper and stuck them down to some black foamboard. Instant road! I tried making the pavements with some self-adhesive craft foam, but the brand of label paper I have won’t stick to the craft foam. I need to get some of the better label paper, again.

Best to watch it on the Youtube site so you can see it in HD. Enjoy:

I have had lots of sprues from Cities of Death, Shrine of the Aquila and Bastion sets lying around for a while. With Partick Crucible coming up tomorrow (40k, 4 games, 1000 pts) I decided to make an effort and get this last one finished.

I didn’t have any clear plan in mind beyong my usual; make sure the ground floor blocks line of sight, make sure there are ample surfaces to place models on and try and make it look interesting. So, with those vague aims in mind I just built as I went.

I ended up with an open ground floor that has three wide entrances, but which blocks line of sight completely from all four compass points. You have to approach it at an angle to get sight through it and out the other side. The first floor has a lot of floor space – more than any other model I have made with these kits. That is largely because I had two Shrine of the Aquila sets and used none of the floor panels from them at all, so I had loads left over. Adding the much larger rear wall (also from the Shrine kit) creates a large open space on the first floor, while walkways to the front provide great firing positions with cover. This walkway has the only ladder up from the ground floor. There is another walkway on the second floor, reached by another ladder, again with lots of cover. The last floor is a tiny sniper’s perch on the third floor. It has a bare minimum of cover, but with the angle created by the height, anything up there will be in cover from most other models in the game anyway.

For details I added some pieces from the Battlefield Accessories set, putting some barrels at the rear, a tank trap at the side and a crate, fuel can and radio set on the first floor. I had some plasticard with a corrugated iron texture, so used that to seal up a hole in the wall and to stand around the barrels, as if someone was trying to protect them from stray fire (or even hide them).

The whole ruin was then glued onto an MDF baseboard (5mm or so thick) with a hot glue gun. Bits of tread-pattern plasticard and other flooring tiles from non-GW kits were also hot glued in place on the ground floor for some variety.

Rubble was added with sand and cat litter. I painted watered down PVA glue around the bottoms of the walls and added the cat litter. Then I painted the whole ground floor and sprinkled loads of sand over it. I then added more watered down PVA glue to selected places on the ruin levels and added sand there as well. This step is very messy, and by doing it all in my spray booth I managed to stop most of the excess from spilling all over my garage floor. After that was done I loaded up my GW spray gun with watered down PVA and gave the cat-litter and sand a good soaking.

Once this was dry (I waited 24 hours) I primed it black. This took a few passes, as the sand soaks up the primer like a sponge. After that, I went over the whole ruin with rust primer, getting the coating quite heavy in places. This is a key step, as it basically pre-weathers the entire terrain piece. If you look at the pics you can clearly see the rust coat in all sorts of recesses and crevices.

After that, I drybrushed the stonework in three stages. Paynes grey, a 50:50 mix of Paynes Grey and White, and then a 20:80 mix of Paynes Grey and White as the final highlight. I used cheap acrylic colours for this – almost every range you can find has a Paynes Grey if you are looking for one. It is a very common colour. A very dark bluish-grey.

The floors and metals were drybrushed Boltgun Metal, with a highlight of Shining Silver, while the ground floor was drybrushed brown and then a highlight of a light sandy colour.

Then I went around adding spot colours here and there, the barrels, the crate etc, as well as the bone for the skulls and the gold parts.

Lastly, I cut some translucent blue plasticard into slivers and glued the pieces into the large windows at the back. I used PVA glue, as superglue will frost the plasticard.

Just a heads up that this army I fought against (here) is up on Games Workshop’s blog. And rightly so – go check out the photos – look! A link!

More of Jamie’s work here (Iron Warriors)

Me and my gaming mates have been working on something pretty awesome. So awesome, in fact, that it needs a patent agent, so I am going to see one next week and show him what we’ve come up with.

What amazes me most is how quickly this has all come about. 2 weeks ago I had a brainwave, sketched out some ideas and said, “wouldn’t this be cool?” Usually, matters would have ended there, but since these days people on the internet use lasers to turn ideas into working prototypes, it didn’t. That very evening I saw my idea turned into reality. Last night, after a couple of weeks of brainstorming and hard work, the four of us goggled at something pretty special indeed, and played with it for ages.

I love living in the future

After Forgeworld released updated Imperial Armour 3 rules for certain units, and managed to include Heavy Gun Drones without actually updating them, I figured I would have a go, and here it is (Word doc).

Heavy Gun Drones

It merges Heavy Gun Drones and Sniper Drone Teams, to hopefully provide a worthwhile use of a precious FOC slot. Let me know what you think.

Oh, and here is a guide to making your own.

Now that I have got the whole “how good does this army look?” thing out of the way, let’s get down to it – how do you go about dismantling these foul Chaos scum on the battlefield? How do you show Perturabo’s whelps just what 10,000 years of Heresy means to a Thunder Hammer?

With a batrep, naturally. And look, here comes one now.

Jamie and I agreed on a 1500 point game to let him test out his new Tournament army:

Iron Warriors 5th Grand Company
1500pts Chaos Space Marine army list

HQ:
Warsmith Abhorred Riddick
Daemon Prince 110, Close Combat weapon, Fearless, 5+ Invulnerable save,
Eternal Warriors, Wings 20 – 130

Elites:

Terminators squad 7: Tormentia
4 Chaos Terminators 120, Terminator Armour, Power Weapon, 4 Combi Plasma 20 – 140

Terminators squad 8: Proeliator
4 Chaos Terminators 120, Terminator Armour, Power Weapon, 4 Combi Plasma 20 – 140

Troops:

Chaos Space Marine squad 1: Iupatus Proeliator
9 Chaos Space Marines 135, Bolter, Bolt Pistol, Close Combat Weapon, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, 1 Melta Gun 10, 1 Autocannon 10, Icon of Glory 10
Champion 30, Bolter, Bolt Pistol, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Power Weapon 15 – 210

Rhino 35, Smoke Launcher, Search light, Combi Bolter, Extra Armour – 50

Chaos Space Marine squad 2: Be Graphicus
9 Chaos Space Marines 135, Bolter, Bolt Pistol, Close Combat Weapon, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, 1 Melta Gun 10, 1 Autocannon 10, Icon of Glory 10
Champion 30, Bolter, Bolt Pistol, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Power Weapon 15 – 210

Rhino 35, Smoke Launcher, Search light, Combi Bolter, Extra Armour – 50

Chaos Space Marine squad 3: Apocalypse
9 Chaos Space Marines 135, Bolter, Bolt Pistol, Close Combat Weapon, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, 1 Melta Gun 10, 1 Autocannon 10, Icon of Glory 10
Champion 30, Bolter, Bolt Pistol, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Power Fist 25 – 220

Rhino 35, Smoke Launcher, Search light, Combi Bolter, Extra Armour – 50

Heavy Support

Obliterators squad 5: Excessus Fillius
2 Obliterators 225, Power Fist, Obliterator weapon, Fearless, 5+ Invulnerable save,
Slow & Purposeful, Deep Strike – 150

Obliterators squad 4: Oburo
1 Obliterators 150, Power Fist, Obliterator weapon, Fearless, 5+ Invulnerable save,
Slow & Purposeful, Deep Strike – 75

Obliterators squad 6: Hydra Infensus
1 Obliterators 150, Power Fist, Obliterator weapon, Fearless, 5+ Invulnerable save,
Slow & Purposeful, Deep Strike – 75

Total: 1500 points

HQ: 130
Elites: 280
Troops: 790
Fast Attack: 0
Heavy Support: 300

12 Kill Points
3 Tanks
43 Models

I already had a 1000pt Ravenwing list I had played against Robert’s Orks not too long ago (got some pics of that somewhere), so I added on 500pts of Deathwing to get this:

Dark Angels Army List 1500

HQ – Master of the Deathwing, Belial (130)
• Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
Total: 130
HQ – Master of the Ravenwing, Sammael (205)
• Landspeeder
• Twin-linked Heavy Bolter
• Twin-linked Assault Cannon
Total: 205

Elites – Dreadnought Kaelen (125)
• Venerable (+20)
• Assault Cannon
• Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon
• Heavy Flamer (+5)
• Smoke Launcher
• Searchlight
Total: 150

Troops – Deathwing Terminator Squad Agares (215)
• 5 x Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
• Cyclone Missile Launcher (+20)
Total: 235
Troops – Deathwing Terminator Squad Butator (215)
• 5 x Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
• Cyclone Missile Launcher (+20)
Total: 235
Troops – Ravenwing Attack Squadron Raven’s Beak (120)
• 1 Ravenwing Sergeant with Plasma Pistol (+15)
• 2 Ravenwing Bikers with Meltaguns (+20)
• Attack Bike with Multimelta (+50)
Total: 205
Troops – Ravenwing Attack Squadron Raven’s Eye (120)
• 1 Ravenwing Sergeant
• 2 Ravenwing Bikers with Meltaguns (+20)
• Attack Bike with Multimelta (+50)
Total: 190

Fast Attack – Ravenwing LandSpeeder Talon’s Edge (65)
• Multi-melta
• Typhoon Missile Launcher (+10)
Total: 75
Fast Attack – Ravenwing LandSpeeder Raptor’s Claw (65)
• Multi-melta
• Typhoon Missile Launcher (+10)
Total: 75

Total: 1500

I took the Dreadnought because (a) they look awesome and (b) I wanted a good excuse to get my Forgeworld Dark Angels Venerable Dread painted up. In the end I didn’t have enough time to finish painting it, but it was good enough to field. I spent the majority of my painting time ahead of the game getting six Ravenwing bikers painted. Two nights it took. For me, that is epic quick. The results are a trifle sloppy, but they meet my new 40k gaming standard – Good Enough.

Two HQs in 1500 points (esp two named characters) is silly, but so are men in armour riding bikes. I learned to live with it

We rolled and got KP with Pitched Battle deployment (I would have preferred something from Battle Missions, but Jamie wanted to practice for some tournament). I won the roll and elected to go first.

I opted to put one Deathwing squad in normal reserve (not Deathwing Assault, as I didn’t want them coming down first Turn) as well as one squad of Ravenwing. The Deathwing would deepstrike and the bikes opted to outflank.

The Iron Warriors kept both units of Terminators in reserve, to deepstrike.

Deployment

Here is my deployment, although my bikes have already made their Scout Move. You can see the Iron Warriors deployed in response opposite, and behind the ruins on my right.

My plan was to run up and kill ‘em all Not too subtle, perhaps. I knew I had to take care of the Obliterators, as they would be deadly unless I got up close with some Melta. I was trusting to my Attack Bikes to take care of them. Everything else would pop open the Rhinos and the Terminators would hit the contents with hammers until the battlefield was studded with Iron Warriors, driven into the ground like pegs! Meanwhile, the Dreadnought would try not to die without killing anything…

Turn 1

My bikes and Attack Bike moved up and exploded the nearest Rhino. I shot at the Iron Warriors, put a Wound on the Daemon Prince (softening him up for later), and the Terminators and Dread ran.

In reply, the de-meched Iron Warriors charged my Ravenwing and killed all but one. The Obliterators’ shooting put a Plasma Cannon wound on Belial, but nothing else. The others Rhinos moved up and popped smoke.

Turn 2

Both my reserves came in. My Ravenwing arrived on the wrong side of the table and turbo-boosted 24″. The Terminators came down courtesy of the Ravenwing’s Teleport Homers, and ran 5″ to split up.

I couldn’t shoot at the melee, so everything (literally) fired at the lead Rhino, but despite three penetrating hits getting through, all I could roll was 1s and 2s. Bleh.

The Venerable Dread charged, and wiffed his attacks. I think that if I could have opened up that Rhino and charged with the Dread things might have turned out differently – it certainly had the feeling of a pivotal moment as shot after shot failed to do anything.

The other two Rhinos moved up, but the Iron Warriors inside did not get out.

The Iron Warriors finished off my last bike in melee, and then charged the deep-striking Terminators and the Attack Bike, helped out by the two Obliterators who also charged in.

Four of my five Terminators died in a shocking display of 1s being rolled, but the last one and the Attack Bike made their Fearless saves. The Terminators did manage to kill both Obliterators before they died, however.

The Daemon Prince charged my Dreadnought

and managed to kill him before he swung.

Turn 3

I shot at the lead Rhino and, without smoke up this time, managed to blow it up easily. I then put another Wound on the Daemon Prince with a Landspeeder. Everything else shot at the contents of the exploded Rhino, killing a few, and then Belial and chums charged in and wiped out the remainder, before consolidating back 5″. I was lucky with this consolidation move, as I really wanted to get out of charge range of the Iron Warriors in the third Rhino and the Daemon Prince. I figured I could handle one, but not both.

The Attack Bike in the back field killed an Obliterator.

The mid-field melee carried on, but the last Terminator died, and the Attack Bike was on one wound.

Both squads of Terminators arrived from reserve. Both Deep Striking off of Icons, one landed right in front of my Ravenwing, and the other dropped in terrain right next to Belial’s squad. The third Rhino disgorged its passengers, who moved up assault Belial.

In shooting, the first group of Chaos Terminators wiped out the Ravenwing squad with their Plasma. The second group tried the same thing on Belial’s squad, but only succeeded in hurting Belial (aka The Plasma Sponge).

The Iron Warriors who had disembarked and the second unit of Chaos Terminators were blocking the Daemon Prince from getting within charge range of Belial – exactly as I had hoped. Then the Iron Warriors failed to get enough on their Difficult Terrain roll to make the charge, and Belial’s squad were left with no-one charging them.

The mid-field melee ended, with the plucky Attack Bike finally succumbing to the massed Iron Warriors, who consolidated into terrain to my left.

Turn 4

Not much left on the table. I did a KP calculation, and realised that I might still win, as the Iron Warriors had some juicy KP units on the table – a Rhino, a lone Obliterator and a Daemon Prince on 1 Wound. Belial could not really reach any of these apart from the Daemon Prince, but he died to shooting from a Landspeeder, so I charged Belial’s squad into the Chaos Terminators, and killed them all, losing two. The consolidation dice were not as kind this time, and his squad stayed well within charge range of the Iron Warriors. The speeders (inc Sammael) moved back 6″.

The Iron Warriors Stunned one of my Landspeeders and Shook the other. They then charged what was left of Belial’s squad, killing all of them.

Turn 5

One Landspeeder was Stunned, and it would die to assault this Turn easily. All I had left to shoot with was Sammael, so the other Landspeeder moved out of Line of Sight. Sammael’s shooting did not kill anything.

The Iron Warriors destroyed the Stunned Landspeeder, and the game was over.

Result: Iron Warriors took the victory 9KP to 7KP.

Comments: It was a very good game, as both sides committed themselves to mid-field, with reserves swinging the action this way and that, and plenty of movement and assaults to keep things exciting.

One thing this game taught me is just how fragile at 1500 points a Ravenwing Biker Squad is. Three T5 guys with a 3+ save cannot do anything in assault, and when using their meltas they put themselves close enough to be wiped out on the next Turn. Actually, due to being T5 there is a decent chance they will survive and the melee will only end on my Turn, losing me a Turn of shooting at the enemy assaulters.

I could make them better in melee with (i) more bodies (the squad goes up to six) (ii) close combat upgrades on the Sergeant (iii) a Banner and/ or an Apothecary or (iv) a Biker Chaplain. As a command squad, a 6-bike unit with all those upgrades is still not a dedicated close combat unit, as most of them will just be swinging at S4 with no power weapons, but the unit itself will be very expensive. So, I can make them better in melee, but not good enough to be worth the cost. I guess I just have to pick and choose better where I deploy them and what I use them to kill. If I can work it so they can open up a transport and then a unit of Deathwing can run to give them cover or – better yet – assault the contents, that is definitely the best of both worlds.

You can get it here – http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/t/Tauupdate.pdf – and highlights include:

1. All the units in it are 40k-legal
2. Tetra Markerlights are Heavy 4! Tetras come with Marker Beacons, and something called Forward Observer. What is that?
3. Remote Sensor Towers now get TL Markerlights, can grant one unit per Turn re-rolls to hit and have Positional Relays! No more loading up your IC with one of those.
4. The Hammerhead Turrets have all changed, apart from the Fusion turret. They are all cheaper; Burst Cannon turret gets 2x the shots it used to have, Missile Pod turrets gain Blast, but only Assault 2, and Plasma Cannons basically become Ion Cannons, but with +1 shot and TL for the same price as an Ion Cannon. Err, why would you ever take an Ion Cannon?
5. Drone Sentry Turrets are now Troops and 20pts cheaper each! Woohoo. And they come with Marker Beacons for free, meaning they get re-rolls on the deepstrike if a Pathfinder’s Devilfish can see their landing spot.
6. Heavy Gun Drones haven’t changed so far as I can see.
7. The Great Knarlocs are all Monstrous Creatures now
8. Knarloc Riders are -10pts, but lose Fleet. Still failing badly.
9. No TX-42s. At all

I played a 1500 point game the other night against Jamie Farquhar’s latest creation, his Iron Warriors army. Now, I have played against some beautiful and creative armies before, but I have to rank this one as simply the best I have seen across a table. It is amazing how much detail Jamie (Insane Psycopath on Warseer and B&C) has managed to work into these figures, as well as the conversions and basing, which are just spot on.

Note that this army is not finished yet, so some things like the sacrifices on the front of the Rhinos and some bases need to be finished. But even so, wow. Just wow. Wish my Iron Warriors looked 1/10th as good

Army lists and batreps later, guys, but for now some eye candy (click to enbiggen):

By which I mean, Brian and Robert seem to have taken “terrain making” pills and gone on a creative bender.

Here is Brian’s Youtube video of his scratchbuilt video ad-hoarding, for use as scatter terrain:

And then Robert made this, which is only a freakin’ monorail: