Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Vacation

Dear Readers,

It is time to re-charge the batteries and take a bit of a winter vacation from blogging (yes you read correctly: it is winter ... if you're in Australia or the Southern Hemisphere).  This is no different to my earlier vacations: so rest-assured that I will be back in due course with fresh posts, ideas, painting schemes, conversions, and the rest.  Take care and I'll be back in a few week's time.

Cheers,
Jabberjabber.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Winner of the June 2011 Army List Challenge

And the winner of the June 2011 Army List Challenge is ... CodyJ!

Congratulations mate and to everyone else who helped us think about how to build competitive, but not too pricey armies this month!

Saturday, June 18, 2011

What Happened to Pvt. Smith? A simple guardsman conversion

This is a concept piece that underscores that even the most simple of conversions (a head swap) can dramatically alter the entire feel of a piece.  All that has been done here is to swap the head of a standard plastic Cadian Guardsman for a plastic warhammer fantasy Dryad.  Not only do the heads of the Dryads looks malevolent, but there's a distinct "daemon" feel to the guardsman now. 

The painting of the miniature is nothing particularly special: muted browns on the jacket and trousers with grey boots all washed down in brown and highlighted.  The carapace armour is ultramarine in approach: blues with light blue highlights around the edges.  The head is a vibrant yellow with brown lowlights and whiter highlights.  The eyes are dotted pure skull white with a steady hand and a triple zero brush.

In terms of what I'll use this unique piece for inside the game, I'm not too sure to be honest.  Perhaps as the result of a boon of mutation spell?

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Daemon Prince Painting Progress

The next step in the painting of this daemon prince involved a series of very dark washes on top of the mechrite red basecoat.  The washes serve to get in all the recessed cracks of the sculpt and provide a good degree of depth to the miniature's paint scheme.  After the washes, I have slowly built the reds back up again on the raised surfaces, one layer at a time.  The first layer is barely noticeable in the image below, being only just above the washed areas in tone.  However, subsequent layers progress through red gore, blood red to almost pure blazing orange on some of the raised surfaces. 

The black areas (especially the shoulder pad) have been highlighted in grey and edged in shining gold.  Meanwhile, the power claw arm has had silver applied over the edges which will be touched up at a later stage.  The overall vibe of this miniature is now coming through quite nicely and it shouldn't be too long before he's finished off.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Poll Open for the June 2011 Army List Challenge

There are 6 entries for the June 2011 Army List Challenge.  The idea was to create an effective / themed army list that doesn't cripple the finances / retirement plan of a newbie.  Have a read through the costed (double-entendre) lists and then vote for which you think is the most effective list that also best articulates the theme in the poll on the right.

Here's the lists...

---

Cody J (Dark Eldar)

Lelith- $18.25
One Raider- $33.00
2 Ravagers- $99.00
2 Battleforces- $190.00

Total: $340.25

Pretty cheap if you ask me!

Army List:

Lelith- 175pts

x9 Bloodbrides w/ Hekkatrix Agonizer, x2 Shardnets, x 1 Hydra Gauntlet, Haywire Grenades- raider w/ Flickerfields- 265pts

x10 Wyches, Hekkatrix w/ Agonizer, Haywire Grenades, Raider w/ Flickers- 220pts
x10 Wyches, Hekkatrix w/ Agonizer, Haywire Grenades, Raider w/ Flickers- 220pts
x10 Warriors w/ Dark Lance- 115pts
x10 Warriors w/ Dark Lance- 115pts

x6 Reavers w/ x2 Heat Lances- 156pts

Ravager w/ Flicker- 115pts
Ravager w/ Flicker- 115pts

Total: 1496

You may be asking your self, "Where did he get the Bloodbrides from?" Well How I converted mine was with the extra bodies you get from the Raider and Ravager kits. All of my Bloodbrides have giant spears and the dynamic poses that the people come with the Raider and Ravager sprues. The warrior sprues come with two female bodies each so you can swap those 4 bodies out for the male bodies you get that come off of the Sprue. The extra Agonizer needed for the Bloodbrides can be taken from the Warriors box.

Now I don't think this is super competitive, but I think it has a good base of firepower and could bring the hurt a little bit.

This army is fluffy to the point where Lelith has a bodyguard of her best wyches (Bloodbrides), a couple follower clans (the 2 other Wych squads), Reavers are of the Wych Cult also. Ravagers are needed for firepower and no Dark Eldar player can be without two of these bad boys. The warriors coem with the Battleforce but fit the theme as well. What do Wyches and Lelith do when they get bored? They, uhmmm... Well I guess I'll leave that up to your imagination about what they do with the warriors.

I just don't think you can beat under $350 for a SOLID start to an army. There is literally nothing in the above that a Dark Eldar player would not use.

Kraggi (Grey Knights)

This is a slightly modified list of a 1750 tournament list that I took and had great success with.

The Cost of Buying it is here:

Space Marine Librarian in Terminator Armour: £14.50
Grey Knights x 4 = £82.00
Grey Knight Terminators = £28.00
Grey Knight Nemesis Dreadknight x 2 = £66.00

In total: £190.50 Sterling
or $311.75 USD.

The Army List is as follows:

Librarian: 150
Grey Knight Strike Squad x 10 - 240
- Psybolt Ammo, Psycannon x 2
Grey Knight Terminator Squad x 5 - 245
- Psybolt Ammo, Psycannon
Interceptor Squad x 10 - 365
- Psybolt Ammo, Incinerator x 2, Force Halber x 7 & Daemonhammer
Nemesis Dreadknight - 235
Heavy Incinerator, Personal Teleporter
Nemesis Dreadknight - 235
Heavy Incinerator, Personal Teleporter

Total: 1470

This leaves you with 30 points to kit out your Librarian, or with dropping Psybolt ammo and the like you can have more points of kitting out.

With a little conversion work you could get the Librairin to play the dual role of Grandmaster or Librarian so it gives you a few options for making the list.

All in all a strong list, as few people have the firepower to deal with 3 Shunting squads in one turn, which means you can get into combat on turn 2 with minimal effort.

Grey Knights are easy to paint so they look good on the table, and can look phenominal when you know what your doing with a Paint brush.

The army model count is only 27 models so it isnt a daunting amount of models for someone new to the game to paint.

All in all it offers you a lot of options cause with a little bit of ingenuity you can have Interceptors, Purifiers or Strike Squads from your boxes of Grey Knights.

Also with a little tweak to the Army list, including dropping all the extra points spent on Psybolt ammo you could split the strike squad to two 5 mans (a bad idea maybe but its an option) to then upgrade your terminators to Paladins. This then leaves you with 20 points to spend on your Libby.

Anyway thats all my reasons and justificationns for why I think this is one of the cheaper armies to start up.

Tenzing (Chaos Space Marine)

Sorcerer Lord- Lash, Mark of Slaanesh, Meltabombs

10 Possessed- Chaos Glory, Champion

10 Chaos Space Marines- 2 Plasma Gun

20 Chaos Space Marines- 2 Plasma Gun

8 Khorne Berzerkers- 2 Plasma Pistol, Skull Champion, Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol,Meltabombs; Rhino- Extra Armour

8 Khorne Berzerkers- 2 Plasma Pistol, Skull Champion, Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol,Meltabombs; Rhino- Extra Armour

That's 1496 points. Lots of Troops, some anti-medium armour (only meltabombs to deal with AV 14 unfortunately) but crucially big squads which will be hard to completely wipe and ignore. Mobile assult from the Berzerkers might swing games, especially if they are accompanied by the Sorcerer Lord (who can lash their target into range)

Grand total? 2 Battleforce and a Sorcerer model. UK- £128.20 (US $233.25, Aus $382, Eur E191.50)

Real question I guess is how much are you going to loathe someone for fielding 57 infantry and 2 tanks for 1/2 to 1/3 the cost of your army ;)
Suneokun (Tau)
3 x Tau Battleforces supplies, 1 Hammerhead weapon sprue, giving you an Ion Cannon and Hammerhead Cannon @ £188.20 (GW website)

HQ: 2 Shas'O Commanders, 2xMissile Pod, Plasma Rifle, Multitracker, Target Lock, 1 Gundrone @ 216 pts
Elite: Shas'Ui Crisis Monat, TL Fusion Blasters, Iridium Armour, Targetting Array, Stimulant Injector, 2 x gun Drones @ 113 pts
Elite: 1x6 Stealth Squads (with 2 gundrones) @ 200pts
Troops: 4 squads of 9 Fire Warriors, including Shas'Ui @ 400pts
Troops: 2 Squads of 18 Kroot @ 252pts
1 Devilfish @ 80pts
1 Hammerhead Railgun @ 140pts
1 Hammerhead Ion Cannon @ 105pts

Total = 1501pts
The Monat is a suicide unit for killing Landraiders, against two you will struggle.

The Commander's escort the Kroot Squads and disengage before combat. The Fire warriors are maximised for Ld testing (9 is the perfect number).

The Stealth teams infiltrate and harrass the oncoming lines with S5 death.

Best value army - hands down! Buy them now before the new codex releases...


Karitas (Dark Angels)

Ravenwing army.
4x ravenwing army boxes
£240 if purchased direct from GW after the price hike.

I’d personally paint and model them to be White Scars, but that’s me 

List:
HQ : Sammael – on Landspeeder. Give him a white scarish name, paint him up proper Mongolian 

Troops:

4X Ravenwing attack squadron,

Sergeant, 5 bikes, 2 melta
1 attack bike multimelta

Fast:

2x speeder with MM

1495.

I know a lot of the other posters are coming in cheaper than this, but we wanted a noob to win as part of the remit too yeah? With this, it’s Tough, fast and not too spendy. Noobs should be okay here right?
Kaughnor (Blood Angels)
How about a Death Company Force?

2 Blood Angel Battle Boxes = $200 (USD)

1 Astorath the Grim = $20.75 (USD)

1 Lemartes - $17.00 (USD)

Total cost = $237.75 (USD)

The list would break down as follows:

HQ: Astorath - 220 points

Troops:

10 man assault squad - 2 melta guns, power fist - 235 points

9 Death Company - jump packs, Lemartes, power fist, infernus pistol - 505 points

9 Death Company - bolters, power fist, infernus pistol, rhino - 270 points

9 Death Company - bolters, power fist, infernus pistol, rhino - 270 points

Mix and mash all the bits so that all the death company squads has some death company regalia. Paint it up and call it good. Not a great list but probably a lot of fun to play.

Elbrun (Blood Angels)

Another take on the Blood Angels theme. A bit more expensive than the first list, but not excessive in cost.

1500 Pts - Blood Angels Roster

1 Commander Dante, 225 pts

1x Sanguinary Guard Squad (1x Infernus, 1x Pfist, Chapter Banner, Deathmasks) 275 pts

2x Assault Squad 255 pts (510pts)
8 Assault Squad, 159 pts = 8 * 18 (base cost 18) + Infernus Pistol 15
1 Assault Marine with Meltagun, 28 pts = (base cost 18 + Meltagun 10)
1 Sergeant, 68 pts = (base cost 28) + Infernus Pistol x1 15 + Power Fist x1 25

2x Tactical Squad 245 pts (490 pts)
9 Tactical Squad, 147 pts = 9 * 16 (base cost 16) + Sergeant 41
1 Sergeant, 38 pts = (base cost 23) + Power Weapon x1 15
1 Rhino, 60 pts = (base cost 50 + Hunter Killer Missile 10)

Costs: (USD)
Codex Blood Angels $33
Dante (Finecast) $18.25
Sanguinary Guard box $33
2x Blood Angel Battleforce $200
Total: (USD) $284.25 (no tax/shipping added)

This is a good starter Blood Angels army with plenty of flexibility. Using the Death Company bits in the Battleforce boxes allows you to make the standard tactical and assault marines into what I feel are true Blood Angels. The cost to purchase it all is under USD $300 even, so it's not the most expensive list to do by far. And it is quite easily a list that can be used to win at 1500 pts.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Dear Alpharius

Dear Alpharius,

I noticed that you have sent your agents to the outskirts of the Imperium to spread dissent.  Indeed, many of them appear to have been hugely successful.  Numerous worlds have converted to Horus' banner without the need for any valuable space marines to be sent to those world.  I congratulate you for this insidious endeavour.

But then in the Istvaan system, your marines interjected to prevent some of Angron's World Eaters from joining in the hunt for Corax.  Through this action, you effectively kept Corax and a small contingent of his Raven Guard legion alive and well.  

My dear Alpharius, why let Corax go when you sell entire worlds to Horus?  Surely Corax's quicker demise will bring about the defeat of chaos all the faster by allowing Horus to win?  

Your loyal servant,
Alpharius.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Planetary Empires: Old Shelled Tile

For this Planetary Empires tile, I've picked out the shelled portions in codex grey and washed them darker.  In the surrounding regions, a selection of browns and greens play out, suggestive of a once fertile but now abandoned region of the planet; accentuated by the old forgotten wall (top left).  This tile is unusual for me as I've added some static grass to the top right quadrant of the tile (brighter green).  Although it was a little bit of an experiment to see how it looked, I think the static grass has worked out very nicely. 

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Khorne Ork Boy

If you are fortunate enough to own an old copy of Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness or Lost and the Damned, you will see part of the chaos army lists contained therein include other races who have turned to the darker powers (e.g. chaos retinues can contain squats, orks, and so forth).  In today's post, I explore this idea a little bit by painting up an ork boy in the colours of Khorne: black, red and brass.

It is perhaps not too hard to imagine how an ork boy might turn to Khorne.  They already love the carnage and squabble over petty insults.  Perhaps even Gork and Mork are unsubtle plots by Khorne to get more followers even? 

This ork boy does not have any conversion work applied.  All that has been done is to paint it up a suitable Khorne scheme.  The reds are applied to the helmet, trousers and body plate, washed down with brown and black and highlighted with blood red and blazing orange.  The ork's skin tone is goblin green with a dark green ink applied to get the recesses looking alright.  The weapons are mostly picked out in brass and gold colours, with brown washes applied to create a duller finish.  Although the image is a little saturated, the teeth, runes, and eyes are two tone white.  Overall, the boy gives a vibe of Khorne, without losing anything of his orky origins. 



Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Reminder: June 2011 Army List Challenge

The June 2011 Army List Challenge is still open for entries.  Can you design an effective 1500 point army for the cheapest financial cost that a newbie could have success with?

Monday, June 6, 2011

Scenario: Secure the Homing Devices

Rough Background: The planet was once the forge world of an unknown xenos race who were wiped from the stars.  Their technology is impressive and should be collected and analyzed.  Moreover, there are multiple beacons or homing devices on the surface that are easy to tap in to and hack the frequencies of.  But rest assured, your enemy is able to do the same.

Set-up: Place 5 homing devices across the board.  Ideally, only a maximum of one device should be in each player's deployment zone.

Special Rules: Any unit is able to deep-stike (without scatter) off these homing devices from reserve, regardless of whether they are ordinarily able to deep-strike.  Only one device may be used in this way per player turn, but there is no limit on the number of units that can use said singular homing device.  Place units doing this within 6" of the homing devices when they arrive on the board.

If a homing device is controlled (i.e. NOT simply contested) by a player, the opposing player may not use it for deep-strike purposes as outlined above.

The winner is the player with the highest number of homing devices controlled when the game finishes.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Plastic Chaos Marine Las Cannon

One way in which the chaos player can circumvent the need to purchase expensive (metal / but eventually finecast??) versions of chaos havocs is to convert the loyalist devastator squads.  This is one of my first attempts at realizing this idea, using a las cannon devastator.  Realistically, not much effort has gone in to this conversion.  A simple head swap coupled with chaos shoulder pads is rounded off with a gargoyle's head being attached to the end of the las cannon to give it the chaos feeling.  This is a simple chop, file and replace job for the regular las cannon terminus.
The one thing that bothers me about this conversion is the backpack: it really doesn't look terribly chaos.  But, since I'm eventually intending for this guy to join my Sons of Malice ranks, I'm not sure this would be a problem.  The reason being is that the Sons of Malice turned way after the original chaos legions did and they probably had packs like this available to use.  That's my narrative and I'm sticking to it!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

June 2011 Army List Challenge

This month, I thought I'd deviate from the normal format for the Army List Challenge is issue a slightly different meta-army-list-challenge.  The task: design a themed and effective army that doesn't break the physical, real-world bank.  After the intense discussions that have been happening here in Australia over recent weeks, I think this kind of challenge could be helpful to folks looking to start out a new army but not wanting to spend the Earth in constructing it. 
Rules
(1) Design a 1500 points army list from any codex to take on this challenge.
(2) Post your army lists as a comment to this posting and why the army list is effective and is themed to the scenario.
(3) Detail the physical price of your army.  You can use UKP, USD, AUD, etc., for this.
(4) Entries close at 01:00 GMT on June 14th.
(5) On that same day, I'll open a poll for Warpstone Flux readers to judge which army list they consider to be the "most effective army list that also best articulates the theme" (whatever readers interpret that to mean) out of all entrants.
(6) The winner will be tallied and announced on June 21st (and entered in to the hall of fame!).  Extra kudos to folks who avoid Death Wing and similar.
(7) One entry per person please. 

Remember that there are no prizes for these contests, beyond kudos, honour and entry in to the hall of fame.

Good Luck!
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Facebook

Sequestered Industries