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.

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 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.

More of Jamie’s work here (Iron Warriors)

Lo, it came to pass that on the last Saturday of the month of March, men of great beards and men of no beards gathered to test their mettle, one agin the other. Mighty were the deeds, cold was the Irn Bru and pretty spiffing was the terrain.

Malifaux Henchman David Kerr-Smith had organised Through The Breach, a 30SS, three Round, single Master tournament, to be held at Worlds At War in Livingston.

I have been to a few 40k tournaments, but this was my first Malifaux one. I knew that most of the local players had been playing in a slow-grow league, so while they were not new to the game they had not been playing that long. So, in the interests of not bumming people out, I decided to take a simple Master instead of someone tricky and potentially annoying to new players like Colette or Hamelin. I settled on the Viks, as I have been playing them a bit recently, and it would give me a good reason to order the Ten Thunders Brothers, as well as one of my favourite Wyrd minis of all time – the female Desperate Mercenary (aka Zephyr Gray from Book 3).

I ordered them from Maelstrom ten days before the tournament, but they only turned up the day before. I managed to get them assembled, based and primed the night before – I hate playing with bare metal.

Quick review – the Ten Thunders Brothers are among the best minis Wyrd have ever released. The detail and posing is flawless, and the design is second to none. I am going to love painting these guys. Assembling them, however, is tricky, as there are hands, weapons and arms that need to be pinned.

Onto the action:

Game 1

Deployment: Standard (all games had standard deployment)
Strategy: Shared Treasure Hunt (the Strategies for all three Rounds were published in advance)

Opponents for this round were drawn at random, and I was matched with Archie. He had a Freikorps crew:

Von Schill (2 cache)
Librarian
Taelor
Specialist
2 x Freikorps

For this game I had already picked this crew:

Viks (8 cache)
Von Schill
Librarian
Ronin

This was my first try at this version of the Viks crew. The idea is fairly simple – keep one of the Viks within 8” of the Librarian, and she can use Furious Casting to cast Healing Energies on her. That lets both Viks make a Healing Flip, thus keeping them alive much longer.

My plan was to use the Viks’ movement tricks to get one of them in base contact with the Treasure Marker on Turn 1. Then, on Turn 2, pick it up while throwing the other crew a distraction to deal with. Then, on Turn 3, hand it off to Von Schill, who should be able to keep it safe with his 5” move, immunity to disengaging Strikes and (+1) Nimble.

I decided to take two Schemes I had never tried – Eye For An Eye and Gather Soulstones. Archie took two Schemes but did not announce them.

Archie’s Von Schill moved up behind terrain, hiding the whole game. Was he waiting to pounce? Was he going for my Librarian? Was he planning to ambush whomever on my crew got the Treasure? He never took part in any of the combat, and it turned out he was angling for Breakthrough and Stake A Claim. Obviously, this left the mid-field heavy lifting to Taelor and the Freikorps minions.

My plan went to, well, plan, and as usual in Malifaux it all turned on Initiative in Turn 3. Taelor and Sword Vik facing off in the exact centre of the board, with Sword Vik holding the Treasure and badly wounded and Taelor on 1 Wound. We both burned Soulstones for Initiative and Archie flipped lower than I did. Sword Vik cut down Taelor, moved back and handed off the Treasure to my Von Schill. From there the 4 VP for the Strategy were all but secure, and I had to focus on Schemes.

I had stupidly discarded my only Ram in three Turns of card drawing, so had to burn SS like crazy to keep the Viks alive and Turn 4 started with them both badly wounded. Turn 4 brought me another Ram, and I was able to use the Librarian’s spell to heal both Viks up to full. They went on a killing spree, Whirlwinding all over the place.

With Archie having burned both his SS on Initiative flips I had Gather Soulstones in the bag, which meant I had to manage Eye For An Eye. Archie revealed that he was never going to give me this one, since his Specialist could self-destruct, killing himself and his last remaining Freikorpsman. That would leave him with only Von Schill on the table against my four remaining models. Last Turn was called and the game ended on Turn 5. If it had gone to Turn 6, I was planning to use Von Schill to Drain Souls on both Viks to get me Eye For An Eye as well, but I never got the chance. Instead, I moved him back into my deployment zone, netting 4VP for me and denying Archie 1VP for Breakthrough. He got Stake a Claim, though.

Result: 6VP to 1VP

Lessons Learned: If you get a Ram for the Librarian’s Healing spell, don’t bloomin’ well use it for something else! Also, Freikorpsmen have Flurry. I didn’t know that, so me running my Ronin into the middle of them was not the roadblock/ distraction I had expected it to be!

Game 2

Strategy: Shared Claim Jump

Having done rather well in Game 1, I wound up on Table 1, facing off against Steve Clark and his Guild crew:

Sonnia
Francisco
Witchling Handler
Witchling Stalker
Death Marshall
Watcher

This was in intriguing Guild selection, with models from all four Guild crews brought together. It was great to see a painted Witchling Handler (aka Belaventine Thorpe) on the table, but I did wonder why Steve took that model and only one Witchling Stalker to buff. The Watcher was obviously going to either go after a Scheme or make a last minute run to the centre for the Claim Jump Strat.

Earlier on I had been chatting to Steve and he said his preferred Sonnia playstyle was to throw her into the enemy’s lines and cause as much explosive damage as possible. Fine, I thought, I’ll take Assassinate on Sonnia! Looking at the terrain on the table, I saw that there were ruins on either side of the Claim Jump marker, and both were within 3”. Whichever table side I deployed on, there would be a ruin wholly within the opponent’s table half and also within 3” of the Claim Jump marker. I took Stake a Claim as my other Scheme.

Steve announced Sonnia’s specific Scheme (to make two enemy models into Witchlings) as well as Stake a Claim.

I had already decided my crew going into this (I decided my crews a couple of weeks before the tournament, trying to use as many different models as possible):

Viks (8 cache)
Misaki
3 x Ten Thunders Brothers

I had never played with the Ten Thunders Brothers before, so I hoped I wouldn’t find them too hard. The idea was to pile forward and then hold them in cover while the Viks and Misaki raised hell. Hopefully, I would have enough board control through durable models and simply killing off nearby threats to get Claim Jump and Stake a Claim would be easy, which just left Assassinate. Would Sonnia charge recklessly into the middle of the Viks’ killzone?

Answer: Yes

Cover and Super Defensive Stance on a Df6 made the 10T Brothers very hard to wound at range, and the Guild stayed at range. Sonnia made a run for the middle and I took the opportunity to throw the Viks at her as soon as I could. They got good placement between Sonnia and a Witchling Stalker and Whirlwinded. Both sides discarded Soulstones like overripe fruit, and Sonnia survived, but only just. She got up her ring of fire spell and disengaged, and a 10T Brother took the opportunity to get a hit, getting a Red Joker on the damage! Sonnia died and took the 10T Brother with her, but also dropped Misaki to one wound.

Ah, Misaki. I had stuck her behind a wall, planning to use her Earth spell to charge through it (probably on Turn 3) and hit something unexpectedly, but could I get the right suit in my hand? Not until Turn 5 I couldn’t, so she sat out the whole game, almost. On one wound.

The Guild stayed back, so I moved up to engage. The Witchling Stalker killed a 10T Brother with some help from tricky movement shenanigans from the Handler, and the other 10T Brother finally died to shooting. At last I got the suit I needed for Misaki, and she ran through the wall, got her 6” melee spell off as well, and killed the Witchling Stalker. With her melee reach, his death blast failed to kill her.

She also killed Francisco with the Red Joker right before the game ended.

At the end, I had one Vik and Misaki on the Claim Jump marker, with the other Vik in contact with the ruin for Stake a Claim. Having also killed Sonnia, I got Assassinate too.

Steve’s Watcher zipped over to my side of the table to also nab Stake a Claim.

Result: 8VP to 2VP

Lessons Learned: Not taking my easiest Schemes in my first game paid off, as I was able to tailor my Schemes perfectly for this game, taking the opponent, the Strategy and the terrain into account. I also should remember that Hard Cover gives you Armour +1, since my 10T Brothers would have lasted even longer against Guild shooting. I was also reminded that with the Viks, the best strategy seems to be that if you get an opening, take it. Holding back for a better hand might be a good idea some of the time, but usually they do best when you strike immediately, and trust to your Soulstones to keep them alive and help them out.

Game 3

Strategy: Shared Destroy The Evidence

I stayed on Table 1, and played against David Reekie’s Resser crew. This crew was beautifully painted and converted (I love the dog with the hat in its mouth), and the Summonable Rogue Necromancy and two Flesh Constructs give you an idea of what those dogs are going to be turned into as the game progresses!

Doug McMourning
Grave Spirit
Mortimer
2 x Undead Dogs
Dead Rider
3 x Night Terrors

I have never faced Night Terrors, but I knew their reputation as objective grabbers par excellence. They would be aiming to get VPs from Turn 1. The Dead Rider would be the initial beatstick, and the dogs would be chopped up for much larger nasties from Turn 2 onwards. That, plus Doug can kill just about anything in melee himself. Mortimer was an unknown.

Again, I had decided on my crew in advance:

Viks (6 cache)
Von Schill
Killjoy
2 x Desperate Mercenaries

The idea here was simple: get Killjoy out somewhere troublesome (sacrificing a DM to do so) and see what four monstrously dangerous models could do to the enemy! It really has nothing in the way of Objective grabbing, bar Von Schill, so he would have to focus on that. Taking two DMs should ensure that one would live long enough to deliver Killjoy somewhere useful. If both lived, then the death of the other would give Killjoy a useful Healing Flip at some point.

I declared Kill Protege on the Dead Rider, since that would either keep him at bay or gain me VPs, since although I didn’t know the model’s rules at all I was fairly sure my Masters and Von Schill could handle him if he came charging in. I also took Bodyguard on the Viks (save the easy Schemes for last!).

I cannot remember what David’s Schemes were.

I did make sure David was aware of Von Schill’s anti-Resser capabilities, as I thought that was only sporting.

I deployed Von Schill as close to the neutral Evidence Marker as possible. I thought the Night Terrors might go for it, but when they did not I jumped Von Schill forward and stood him on it, ready for a Turn 2 Interact action with him.

On Turn 2, Von Schill did just that and then moved towards the Dead Rider and gave him Slow. The Dead Rider took some Wounds to gain Fast and used Mounted Combat to get a Charge off on Von Schill and drag him along. That activation ended with the Dead Rider within 1” of a Viktoria…

The sisters did their thing, cutting down the Linked Grave Spirit to remove the Dead Rider’s armour (once again I Red Joker’d a negative damage flip, and did 14 points of Magical Damage to a 3 wound model!). Both sisters easily made their Terrifying checks with the boost from Von Schill’s aura. I then killed the Dead Rider and spread out the Viks towards the Evidence Markers as blockers.

While all this was going on, McMourning was cutting things up way back in his deployment zone and gaining body parts counters (hilariously, David flipped the Red Joker for defence on one of his dogs, failed to hit it, and then next AP flipped the Black Joker for Mortimer to hit the same dog! Well, it wasn’t hilarious to David, but you know what I mean). Although this is the essence of a grow list (I assume; never run one) I did feel that McMourning was too far back. Whatever he made would take at least a Turn to threaten me, and McMourning himself was too far away to be a melee threat.

A Rogue Necromancy was the first to be summoned, but the nearest model of mine was a Desperate Mercenary on one of my own Evidence Markers. The RN charged the DM and killed her easily, but with the RN having activated I was able to move up my second DM and sacrifice him to bring out Killjoy – who was placed in melee range of the RN!

Killjoy went on a spree, killing the RN as well as a Summoned Flesh Construct, before using 2AP to destroy the Evidence Marker. He finally went down to some nasty ranged stuff from McMourning. Good job, Killjoy!

At the other end of the table, the Night Terrors got an Evidence Marker. They should have got two, and I am not sure why David moved them the way he did. I did suggest he might want to take his move back, but he declined. Could have netted 2VP right there, so I don’t understand his thinking. Maybe he wanted to get them as far away from the Viks as he could – that is probably it, actually. He moved all three to get the +1VP marker near the Viks and then moved them all back to the +2VP marker, which was further away. However, the Viks are fast, and I managed to get Sword Vik into melee with all three. She Whirlwinded and I could not stop flipping high Masks! She killed two and left the third on one Wound. It dashed into cover, but on the next Turn Gun Vik Focused a shot and killed it.

Von Schill mopped up the last easy VP for me, destroying the 2nd of the 3 Evidence Markers and we ended the game there.

I had taken the neutral Evidence Marker, two of the Evidence Markers outside McMourning’s deployment zone and gotten both Schemes.

David had a Scheme, although I cannot remember what it was. He got no VPs for the Strategy, though.

Result: 6VP to 2VP

Lessons Learned: Night Terrors are not Terrifying. They are very quick, but if you can catch them with a magical weapon, they won’t last. Killjoy is awesome. Von Schill is peppered awesome against Ressers (like Ressers needed another anti-Resser model in the game!). The Viks have only one trick but it’s so good they don’t need another.

Tournament Result: I wound up winning! And I got a big golden trophy, which was pretty impressive (my kids were overjoyed – I had to remind them I hadn’t actually won the Olympics or anything). I also got a prize of some store credit, which I immediately spent on some Vallejo paints (their equivalent to the Foundation range. Looking forward to trying them out).

In a complete travesty of a sham of a fix of a wind-up I failed to also win Best Painted! Some guy called Mark won it instead, but I have it on good authority that he only uses two paints and they’re both the same colour. He probably licks his brushes as well.

The full results can be seen here, as well as a picture of me trying to look suitably serious (and instead just looking troubled by wind!). You can see Archie (2nd place) and Mark (3rd place) also. Yes, yes he probably does lick his brushes.

The gallery of pics taken by David K-S can be seen here.

It was a great tournament, and if they’ll have me back I would love to take part in another. Gremlins, I think. I really want to finish painting that crew.

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

Malifaux and beer. Like poker and whisky, these two things just seem to go together. Two other things that go together are the Showgirls crew and Killjoy, because…because…hey, look – an obvious distraction hiding behind a bush!

Anyway, where were we? Oh, yes. I had painted some more models and wanted to throw them into a game. Mark had offered to host (and also provide pizza and beer, which are grounds for beatification in certain Christian sub-sects) and we agreed on 35ss, Avatars if you were so inclined and a vague desire to flip some cards in between drinking and talking about comic books.

The Guild

• Lady Justice
o Avatar Lady J
• The Judge
• The Executioner
• Exorcist
• 3 Death Marshalls
• Starting Cache of 5

The Arcanists

• Colette
• Cassandra
• Killjoy
• Johan
• Performer
• Mannequin
• Starting Cache of 6

Why this crew? I wanted to use my newly painted Killjoy and Johan models. It would also give me a chance to try Colette without the Duet, which I have never done.

Strategies were Distract for the Guild and Contain Power for the Arcanists. Not a great one for Colette, but I had a bunch of hard-hitting models. If any Colette crew could stick it to Lady J, it might just be this one. On the other hand, Colette is almost impossible to beat with Distract because of her survivability and mad movement shenanigans.

Since I had to defeat Distract I went all-in and took Breakthrough. I knew Killjoy was going to be dropped in harm’s way, so I took Frame for Murder on him, and announced both. There was a good chance Mark would think I had selected Cassy for Frame for Murder, so he might try and avoid killing her with Lady J.

Mark announced Hold Out and Raid. Raid he would almost certainly get given our respective model counts, and if he got Hold Out as well then it would be a complete Guild whitewash, since I would have failed my Strategy and one of my Schemes. So for me it was going to be all about getting through the Guild’s defensive line, but stopping to kill Lady J on the way

I won’t do a Turn by Turn breakdown. One reason is I didn’t take any pictures. Another reason is that the beer mounted up as the game went on, so some recollections may not be 100% accurate. Also, at some point in the 4th Turn I shuffled my Control Hand into my Discard Pile for no apparent reason…

Some key points of the game:

• I got the Red Joker in my hand on Turn 1, and knew then that this was my best shot at Contain Power. If I could Red Joker Lady J on a damage flip, I stood a chance of killing her.
• I had to force the Guild to split up, since en masse they would crush my fewer and relatively more fragile models. I knew how much Cassandra irked Mark from previous games, so I threw her out to the right flank on her own. A Performer headed to the left flank and Colette and Johan headed up the middle. Colette can easily switch her crew around (provided they are Showgirls), so if I could make Mark commit some serious models to one side, then I would reposition to the other side. This worked quite well, and he sent The Judge, a Death Marshall and the Exorcist to head off Cassandra – who disappeared on Turn 2. This kept them out of the main melee on Turns 2 & 3, which helped enormously. In a crew like this, if you want to know where Colette is going, follow slow-and-steady Johan
• I made a dove and Killjoy popped out from it on Turn 2. He took a pounding, reminding me how much I hate Critical Strike and Slow To Die when I am on the receiving end! He wound up killing two Death Marshalls, and half way through Turn 2 was in melee with the Executioner and on 8wds (having already healed himself fully once). Cassandra then borrowed the Performer’s Siren Call spell to lure Killjoy out of melee and try and take him out of Lady J’s charge range. He got away, but I had forgotten just how far that blind nuisance can charge! She waded in and settled his hash good. +2VP for Frame for Murder, though.
• I had set up an attack run with Colette by moving the Performer up, and Colette popped in with Illusionist and went to work with Magician’s Duel. I got a straight flip, cheated in the Red Joker and flipped another Severe for a total of 10Wds on Lady J! That was enough to kill her outright, but a Damage Reduction flip left her on 2Wds – boo!
• Lady J promptly Avatared and all sorts of broken shit started happening (only kidding) She gives all kinds of buffs to her crew, and can hit like a truck. Johan tried to Flurry on her, but after one failed hit she just pushed him 4″ away and he was left swinging wildly at thin air. Poor Johan – he died to the Executioner not long after that. Lady J also killed Colette, who used a Healing Flip to avoid dying. I had the Black Joker in my hand at this point, and a healthy cache of SS to boot, so Colette was not in any real danger.
• Lady J also tried to Bury Cassandra, scoring very high on the Cast. If she had succeeded I think that would have completely altered the game, so I burned a Soulstone and kept her in play.
• Cassandra used her combos to good effect – getting within 1″ of several enemy models and putting up her Southern Charm aura to put them all on a negative flip for Defense. She then cast Breathe Fire on the one with the lowest Defence and put the blast onto the one with the higher Defence. She did this three times in the game, and each time caused Wds to Lady J or forced her to cheat or burn a soulstone. Unfortunately, she did too much damage to the Executioner and killed him – he promptly Slow To Die killed Johan and came back on full wounds. Lesson – don’t kill him unless there is no-one else around, and don’t even bother to try unless you know you can finish him off.
• Cassandra killed Lady J using the Southern Charm/ Breathe Fire trick, netting me +2VP.
• Everyone ignores the Performer and the Mannequin when Colette and Cassandra are around. So much so I managed to run the Performer up close to the Guild deployment zone, setting up some nice movement options for Colette.
• The end-game saw Colette Bury the Judge and then bounce around to (a) get Cassy out of melee with the Executioner and (b) swap with the Performer to get close to the Guild deployment zone. If you don’t kill the Showgirls, Colette will just keep doing this shit all game long!
• The Performer, who got left in melee, died. And so Cassandra got Re-activate! Yay! I finally got to use her Grand Finale ability and the game ended with Cassandra activating, re-activating and then activating after the game had ended! With three full activations in essentially the last Turn of the game it was not surprising that she killed the last Guild model still in the deployment zone (the Exorcist) and also helped get Colette away from the unburied Judge.

The game ended with Colette and Cassandra having a picnic in the Guild deployment zone (+2VP for Breakthrough), while the Judge glowered at them from just outside it, and the melee in the mid-table ended with the Executioner and Death Marshall swatting at nothing but a couple of Doves.

Result: 6VP for the Arcanists and 2VP for the Guild, who succeeded in their Raid Scheme with three Significant models alive to my two.

Thoughts: The Guild can hit extremely hard, and Slow To Die is horrible when your 4SS models can do a minimum 4Dg to you as they die. I want to play my Guild crews next game!

The Exorcist and the Judge would have killed Killjoy even quicker than Lady J did – fortunately they were on the other side of the table. The Exorcist seems a must-have vs Ressers and Neverborn, but another Death Marshall might be better against anyone else.

Avatar Lady J probably works best as a close support model that can counter-charge to help her minions out. She has some nasty tricks, esp that Bury spell that doesn’t cost a Soulstone to use, and that Even The Odds spell has some wicked potential.

Johan is not much use when your crew need to get places. He probably shines best in Strategies where ground needs holding, and where things that need hitting will come to him. Love that 3″ melee range, though.

I left Killjoy out on his own, and he got chopped up. I was just eager to get him into action, but next time I will probably hold off a bit longer. That way I might be able to out-activate an opponent, which will let me Summon a Dove, have it Sacrifice to bring out Killjoy and then let him Activate straightaway without taking hits. Siren Call and Disappearing Act are useful ways to move him around, esp to set up those free Blood Price charges he gets from Turn 3 onwards.

I didn’t care for this sculpt when it first came out, and even now I think the left arm is the wrong side of clunky and the gun is too cartoonish, but I really enjoyed painting it. It has a lot of different surfaces and details, and I decided to go for a high contrast style. In addition I tried to make the colours a bit more interesting, so the skin is shaded with greys, for example, and the trousers shaded with purple.

The metals are done with Dr Faust’s Weathered Metals technique, which you can see here

You can see a brief Youtube video of this guy here

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.

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.