Painting Challenge Failed! Also, The Curse of Painted Models

Args! I failed to complete my Hierodule in time for the game. All I had left was to highlight the black and the blue. Of course, if I didn't have a family I totally would have got it done.

Anyway, we played a 6,000 pt apoc game today. Here is a brief batrep: It was me and Dark Angels versus Wolves, Guard, and Orks. Two of the most underwhelming codices versus three of the best. The first unit of mine to die was the Hierodule. He was in cover. Out of 7 missile launcher and lascannon shots that wounded him, I only passed one cover save. So the dice struck me down on the first turn. The second model of mine to die was my Malanthrope. So my two Forgeworld goodies were the first gone. Then a few Genestealers died, an the next guy to go was my Broodlord! Why do all the painted guys go first?

The Ork guy told me that in the first game he used his completed Stompa it got wasted on the first turn. Has anyone else had this curse?

Oh yeah, we ended up losing the battle by 100 points. The central objective was contested and when we totaled up the points we were found wanting.

A funny moment from the battle was a lone surviving Genestealer who charged some Long Fangs. In over three full game turns of combat, neither side inflicted any wounds on the other.

Finally, here's some pictures of my WIP Hierodule. It is past this stage now, but here's what I've got going on.

Post-Apocalypse Thoughts

Yesterday's game was a lot of fun. While I wait for my friend to give me the pictures, here's a recap and thoughts on how various units and strategies performed.

First off, my Cobra: It did exactly how I thought it would. Devastated a lot of things on the first turn, and spent the rest of the game with weapon shaken results. On the first turn it took two structure points off a Hellhammer, took a structure point off a Warhound Titan and exploded a nearby bunker, exposing the troops within. For the rest of the game my opponents concentrated their firepower on it, but a combination of holo-fields and cover saves (from a nearby Tower of Tzeentch) kept it from losing any structure points, though it did take a lot of driver stunned/weapon shaken results.

The Revenant Titan: On the first turn destroyed a Vindicator squadron that was threatening a nearby bunker. It is a devastating formation and I decided that it should go away quickly. It took some shots, but the holo-fields really saved the day. I did lose one structure point and had a couple of weapon shaken results.

Shining Spears: They attacked some terminators, but even after two rounds of charges (hit and run) couldn't kill all 5. They just don't have enough attacks, and their extra toughness and armor save just aren't enough to stop powerfists. They are pure Marine killers (who have to be in the open as Spears don't have grenades).

Windrider Host: Due to a Disruptor Beacon, they were quite scattered but took a backline objective. I wasn't going to take the formation because it is really expensive for not getting too much, but as objective claimers they're excellent.

Fire Dragons: In one round of shooting, they took out a Baneblade without even needing to charge in with Meltabombs (3 died in the explosion). They survived a lot longer than I thought, even with a marine squad double tapping and a squad of terminators pumping them full of depleted uranium. They all died eventually, but wiped out more than their points cost. Their Wave Serpent lost its weapons, but survived the game and took an objective.

Howling Banshees: Led by Jain Zar, once they moved the distance to charge a squad of marines (the same squad that nearly wiped out the Fire Dragons) my opponent simply removed the marines without bothering to roll. How's that for reputation?

Genestealers: Did well, Feeder Tendrils on a Broodlord gets the whole unit twice as deadly. If Flesh Hooks and Acid Maw could be taken on the same unit, you would have a unit who could reroll to hit and to wound. With rending, that becomes extra deadly. Unfortunately to do that you have to lose Flesh Hooks, which is very much required.

Malanthrope: For some reason was a big target. It's tough for a husky floater like him to get a cover save, and he took a lot of shots. His supporting Carnifex did well, the extra wound was very helpful. The other fex got taken down by a powerfist rather quickly.

A couple of words on the strategic asset Disruptor Beacon: This changed the game entirely. My ally had the Chaos Conclave which makes all members of the Conclave have a Disruptor Beacon, and my opponents took one and placed it in the center of the board. Since no objectives were in the corners, both sides were throwing reserves into the forested corners. They rapidly became hotspots of combat, but all of it was meaningless as no one could reach any objectives.

Memorable points in the game: The Hellhammer's apocalyptic explosion which immobilized a nearby Warhound Titan, the Dragons cooking a Baneblade, and the surprising appearance of 5 scratch-built Lightning Fighters. When those appeared they used the Precision Strike asset, firing all their missles and weapons at the Cobra. That's 20 missiles, 10 twin-linked autocannons, and 5 lascannons for those of you keeping score at home. Furthermore, a couple of devastator squads joined in the fun of getting a 2+ to hit on my Cobra. Because part of the time it was shielded by a Silver Tower of Tzeentch (which blew up after just a couple shots) the Cobra survived the entire thing unharmed. Granted, it couldn't move or shoot, but no structure points were gone and no weapon destroyed. On the next turn because it got neither a holo-field save nor a cover save it lost the D-cannon. I tried to repair it the next turn but failed. Finally, the last memorable moment was when my Banshees had to take 9 cover saves against a Vulcan Mega-Bolter. I passed all 9. I will admit it, the dice were with me this game. I rolled lots of chain reactions and made lots of saves.

Pictures coming soon!

Upcoming Apocalypse Game!

Saturday I'm going down to the L.A. Battle Bunker for a massive Apocalypse game! It's going to be Eldar (for story purposes, my Eldar are pirate mercenaries) and Chaos versus Dark Angels. We're taking 6k points each. We've divided the board in half with seven objectives, three on each side and one in the middle. Here are some pictures from the last game we played (lots of unpainted minis, sorry!).

Some of the awesome selection of terrain at the L.A. Battle Bunker

A devastating bombing run from a Fighta-Bomma

My Fire Dragons and some marines join in assaulting this hastily constructed scratch-built stompa.

The view from the Ork side, you can see the back of my friend's massively, massively oversized stompa. It's probably bigger than a gargant. You can see my titan off in the distance.

The view from our side. Almost every single ork you see here died. In the end, it was only a drop in a bucket. Notice the line of grots in the background? They're from the boxed set back in 2nd edition. But besides that, my opponents had enough grots to line the board edge completely. They were afraid that we would flank march, and so blocked their entire board edge. The only reserves they had were flying things, or infiltrators.

I think I've hosted these pictures before, but here's our front line defense.

In an unrelated note, I built 10 craters out of clay today. They're drying right now, but once they're done I will post pictures. They took about 10 minutes to make, at most. The smaller ones took about 5 minutes. Really simple and they look great.

The Tragic Breaking of a Titan

Here is a picture of my titan in action at a 12,000 pt game down at the LA Battle Bunker. My Eldar and a friend's Dark Angels versus the Orks, controlled by two other friends. This picture was taken before the game started, as we deployed our heavy armor up front, right on the line.

My friend needs to paint his stuff. I need to finish painting mine. The titan's paint job is not complete and his basing is certainly not done. I would be finished painting it by now, but tragedy befell.

Anyone who has driven on the 405 in LA knows how the road is bumpy and uneven. I had my titan on my lap (my Dark Angels friend was driving), guns facing up because I didn't have a case for it. I was reading the Apocalypse book (pictured in the background) when we hit a big bump, and the inertia of the book dropped it straight down on the tip of the right gun. Because it is slanted, it twisted and snapped the arm right off.

When we got to the bunker, I whipped out the superglue and managed to get it stuck back on temporarily. I'm still not sure how I did it, clay doesn't normally work well with superglue. The game began. On the first bit of movement, my friend reached past the Titan to move his stuff. He hit the barrel of the left pulsar and the side jets, knocking them right off. This time I couldn't get it glued back on. We continued the game though I was upset that my ally was destroying my own Titan!

On the second turn, he reached for some dice near my Titan, and broke the other pulsar off, in a different place than it originally broke! My now armless Titan was a mess. We finished the game and I plotted how to fix it.

It took me a while, but it's fixed now. I braced the arms with bronze rods, and put large rare-earth magnets on the ends, as well as on the guns so they're detachable now for transportation and clumsy hands. I braced all the protruding parts with tons of epoxy. It's a lot tougher now, but now I'm beginning to regret building it in clay, in case some other accidental brushings occur.

When I finish painting it, I'll post the pictures. Might be a while. I've got an autarch to paint.

Scratch-Built Revenant Titan, Part 2

Here's what it looked like totally put together. I used heavy epoxy to glue everything together. Looking back, I should have drilled holes in the wet clay so I could pin the joints.







I spray painted it roughly black before gluing, to make sure that black got in all the hard to reach areas. I used a lot of spray paint, because fired clay is so absorbent. This lets the nice acryllic paint coat the surfaces easier.




Next up is the semi-finished product, and the tragic story of its debut.

Scratch-built Revenant Titan

I made this a while ago, but here's my scratch built Revenant Titan. I'd love to own the actual Forgeworld model, but this will do. It was quite the undertaking. I started building it in February of 2008, after playing my first Apocalypse game. My friend had two scratch built Stompas which wreaked havoc, and I wanted to join the fun and show him up.

I have a lot of experience working with clay, so I built it out of that. Clay is wonderful but has some limitations. Once it has been fired, it is very very difficult to drill or do any other post-construction. Also, when it breaks there's not a lot you can do to fix it. No pinning, only glue and you'd better hope it's in a glueable spot. This came back to haunt me after the first game I used it in, but more on that story later.

Here's the starting stages:



You can see that I started out with a round clay base, but I abandoned that idea after I realized I wouldn't be able to drill holes in it after the fact, so I'd have to know exactly where the feet would go, so I bought a 7" round base at Michael's. I messed up on a few parts, after the fact it was obvious. I used printed out pictures for my references, but they messed up the detail slightly because some were so light. I should have referenced the computer more often for accuracy, but ah well. Next update will be the construction of the titan.