Monday, May 31, 2010

Istvaan 5 Terrain for Cowcon, Part 1

So, the plan is as follows for this table:
2 pieces of area terrain.
4 Wall sections ~1ft tall x 1 ft wide. This is the bastion that the Death Guard set up.
1 Titan to anchor the centre of the board.

This is the general plan of the table.




RED: Area Terrain.
GREY: Walls
GREEN: Titan
WHITE, open space

Its a little unusual, but remember that the walls are 100% LOS blocking, even for Valks (they are that tall).

Right, onto some more pics:

Titan, Updated, weapons painted, good colour, and the base @ 60% (just needs the rubble picked out).



So, thats the centrepiece.



Now for my 2 centre (flanking) wall sections.


Sons of Horus Logo on the wall
 
Khorne Logo on the wall, and some models for size comparison

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Ork Army List Review

So I have been asked to review a list by Damien from http://40kinthegaps.blogspot.com/
He is relatively new to Orks and as I have been thrashing around since the 3rd Ed codex, I have some idea, or claim to.

Mek kff kombiskorcha
Warboss pk

Kommandos(7) with 2 scorchas & snikrot (warboss joins)
Tankhuntas (6) with 2 tankhammers and 3 squigbombs

2 x 12 boyz in trukk w nob pk bosspole
1 x 19 boyz in w nob pk bosspole
14 x gretchin w Runtherder
1 x Deffdred scorcha & DCCW


2 x 2 Deffcopta w tl-rl
1 x 1 Deffcopta w tl-rl


3x Killakans w grotzookas
2 x Battlewagons w deathrolla etc 1 for boyz 1 for tankbustas


First: HQs

You need to look at what you intend for them to do.

Warboss: with a powerklaw, he hits at S10 which means he krushes most characters and vehicles in close combat. As such, he will spend time hitting things hard in CC and everyone will try to kill him. I suggest Cybork Body and Attack Squig upgrades are almost mandatory on a PK Warboss. If you intend him to hit vehicles, giving him a bike is a good idea for speed.
Big Mek: THE support character in the codex. As he is support, and VERY squishy when compared to any other T4 character in almost any other codex, he should never be getting into the fighting. With that combi skorcha, you will make the mistake of thinking he can do something and put him on a place where his KFF won't help. So, buy him a Battlewagon upgrade and don't ever get him out, until the BW is a pile of steaming slag underneath him.

Right, Elites.

Kommandos, good. Snikrot, better. Attached warboss, BAD.
Snikrot will lose his infiltrate ability when stuck with the warboss (that's my read on the rules anyway. Correct me if it has been FAQ'd). Snikky does a good job of being a threat to their backlines. The warboss should be charging the front. Apart from that, it works. Could use more bodies but that's a theme to this list.

Tankbustas. Well well well. The underrated appear in a list. Tough choice. It all depends on how you run them. As 6 guys, too fragile. I get the idea, but they are 4 bolt pistol shots from running and not coming back. For ork shooting to work you need lots of shots and 4 doesn't cut it, unless you intend them to be the Anti-Tank to anchor your lines and be a scare more than effective - "this whole squad have S8 AP3 *evil laugh*" etc.

Troops:

Trukk boys x 2. Fine, fairly standard.

Ork Boys: 1x19 boys, obviously in wagon, good

Grots, if you plan on hiding them in cover, then that's fine. Go to ground, make them hard to shift. Remember they are L7 at best, so pray they get ignored.

Dredd - will be a points sink probably, but a good target to shoot at

Fast:
DeffKoptas: Just one thing, 1 squad of 3. Too many KPs to give up for a throwaway unit otherwise. Good as a hinderance, but sub-par for most uses unless you get lucky, or need a tarpit. 2W and 4+ means they will hold up a Dev Squad well. Dont expect them to win though.

Heavy:

Good, good, good.
God I love Ork HS Choices.



Improvements:

This is what I would do: Remember, your mileage may vary depending on your playstyle.

  1. Drop 1 Trukk Boys Squad, all DeffCoptas.
  2. With the points, add in a 6-7 Man Nobs Squad in Battlewagon as troops.
    • Arm them with: Painboy, Cybork Bodies, Big Choppas, a Bosspole and a Waaagh Banner. Add Warboss for win.
  3. Change the upgrades on the Battle wagon for the TankBustas.
    • They cannot shoot from a Wagon which moved > 6 (or 7) inches. So lets make the WAGON then viable at that range.
    • KillKannon, RPJ. Or even better (and my favourite), 4 Rokkits, Kannon. Add Big Mek here and use this as an anchor point for your army. Even better, model it as a Stompa for real effect on the board. Nothing scarier than a modelled Super-Heavy on a normal gaming table, with a AV14 4+ KFF Save to boot.
This is my shooty BW - a Russbot. It has only died to shooting once in normal 40k (in like 2 years), from a Lance Spam army. It died to LOADS of railguns one Apoc match, and to a Warlord in another. Nothing draws fire like a cool model.



So you have:

HQ

Warboss pk, cybork Body, Attack Squig (with Nobs)
Mek kff, cybork Body

Elites
Kommandos(7) with 2 scorchas & snikrot
Tankhuntas (6) with 2 tankhammers and 2 squigbombs

Troops
1 x 5 Nobs w/ Cybork Body, Big Choppas, Waaagh Banner, Bosspole + Painboy w/ Cybork
with Battlewagon, Deffrolla, Red Paint Job, Grot Riggers, Armour Plates, Big Shoota x 1 (stops Weapon destroyed being immobilised)
1 x 12 boyz in trukk w nob pk bosspole
1 x 20 boyz in w nob pk bosspole
14 x gretchin w Runtherder
1 x Deffdred dual scorchas (not twinlinked, 2)

Heavy Support
3x Killakans w grotzookas
Battlewagon, Deffrolla, Red Paint Job, Grot Riggers, Armour Plates, Big Shoota x 1 for boys
Battlewagon, Killkannon, Red Paint Job w/ TankBustas (RPJ = 7" a turn and unload)

Total: 1739. You have 11 points to burn. Go buy yourself a combi-skorcha for your Mek after all :D

8 Vehicles/Walkers:
AV14 x 3
AV12 x 1
AV11 x 3
AV10 x 1
67 infantry.


And do you know the coolest thing about this: On Dawn-of-War deployment, you drop down a battlewagon full of Nobs + warboss. Try stopping that with your average 2 Troops + HQ.
HAH!

fester out.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Remember kids, this is just terrain.

... Even in Apocalypse battles. Don't shoot at it, please.

Honestly

Got some more paint on the Titan. Dodgy photos, I know, but I dont have any better lighting to work with at this point. Feel free to cry at me if you dont like it.

On a side note, thinking of abandoning tumblr and getting on the google blogger bandwagon, more 40k there, and I can probably get followers :)



My 1750 Sons of Horus for the 2010 Aussie Tournament season.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Fallen Angels

So, I have just finished reading Fallen Angels by Mike Lee.

Overall, a good read. Nothing in the book was particular amazing writing, but all round enjoyable all the same. Like all the HH novels, something you can read in a day and enjoy, but not feel that you want to reread to get all the little plot points sorted out.

I have to say that the twist at the end was enjoyable, and the whole daemonic incursion thing a little sque-iff for my tastes. I preferred the story from Angels of Darkness, and I hope that it still ends up similar to that, even after Luther turned like he did.

Anywho, hopefully get my new (card) table set up for painting tonight and get some work done on the warhound and some pictures uploaded.

Until then…

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Whats on the workbench ...

So... This is what is on my workbench, and also the deadlines for each (if applicable).

By the last weekend of June 2010:
  • Paint the Autocannons on Dreadnaught 
  • Paint Scratch-built Autocannon Turret for 2nd Ed Predator 
  • Finish Painting the Scratch built Warhound 
  • Build 'Battle for Istvaan 5' Terrain for Tournament Table 
  • Finish 'Cheap-Ass-Trenches' Table's terrain and boards

Now, for my second trick - no ETA:

I approached one of the local guys - who has something like 36,000 points of Eldar, to paint some of his almost completely unpainted army. He said "sure" and flicked my the following list


  • Farseer on Bike
  • 18 Jetbike Guardians
  • 10 Fire Dragons
  • 4 Vypers
  • 2 Falcons
  • And a Forgeworld Nightspinner in a pear tree.

I have most of these in my possession, and he has outlined the paint scheme for them. Time to hit the grindstone.