Ultramarines Lieutenant with Combi-Weapon

 I'm thinking that this might be my first ever leap year post. 

What d'ya mean you can't see him?

This past Saturday evening I elected to not go out and game and instead I painted this guy up. I did a minor arm and head swap as I didn't like the chitinous, replacement, hillbilly armored pauldron and, well I just prefer for my marines to be helmeted. 

Zzzzz commented in our group chat that he couldn't wait to see the matching terrain that was to go with his armor's color scheme. 

As such, I put this guy in front of the Tennessee equivalent of Zzzzz's famous Brick of Scrutiny. Personally, I think this Lt. blends pretty well in a concrete environment.

In hindsight I ought to had added a few kill markings on the side of the combi-flamer.

At first I didn't quite know what to think of this model or its utility. However at some point it just clicked that he's basically a Space Wolves' Lone Wolf, albeit one for any chapter. Sure he lacks the customizability of kit, but most primaris marines suffer from that trait. 

Unlike the rest of my Camo-Smurfs, this guy's camo covers the pauldrons and helm as well. 

Come here bug, I'm gonna cut ya!

Given my Marines' repeated pummeling of Hivefleet Neverness, I was tempted to paint the 'nid gribbly under his foot in Neverness' nids' color scheme. Rather than add yet more bluish tones to this model, I opted for something with more of a visual contrast. Thus, I picked the colors on a whim, I have no idea if there's a known Hivefleet in these colors or not. 

Aside from simply 'a dead one', does anybody know what sort of 'nid gribbly it is that he's crushing underfoot?

Edit: Neverness brought to my attention a new (to me) painting challenge along the lines of Dreadtober, only for Smurf players called 'March for Macragge'. As such I guess this guy can kick that off for me as the Emprah knows that I have hordes of primed Smurfs awaiting paint. 

Singin' da bloos

 o/

Rememba yoo weedy gitz: Bloo iz a lucky color!

Well its been a minute since my last post, indeed February is almost over at this point! All forward progress ground to a halt due to an impromptu trip to Ft. Lauderdale to lay a dear friend to rest. As such, I've struggled a bit to get the creative juices flowing once again. 

Slugga & big choppa, da propa' weapons of a boss nob!

That said, just prior to getting the bad news, I got together with Neverness for a game of 40k in which Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop itself came out of seclusion and made it's 10th ed 40k debut. Neverness already has a battle report here. The TL;DR version is dat bugs iz not az gud at killin' az Da Orks iz! 

His holstered slugga is almost the size of a shoota!

In that battle report, this nob that you see pictured both above and below earned his paintjob following a glorious last stand in that game. After killing off my kommandos (who reduced the brood by about half) a Brood lord and its' remaining genestealers charged and obliterated the Nob's mob, leaving him alone and wounded. Furthermore, the broodlord subjected this Nob to its hypnotic gaze. 

I'm particularly pleased with how the gore came out on his big choppa.

Outraged and swinging his big choppa with all of his fury and might he rolled three 6's to hit which doubled to six hits due to the Get stuck in detachment rule! As such, he killed all of the lord's brood of remaining 'stealers, and when a second mob charged in to his rescue a turn later, the Broodlord (which always strikes first) was so incensed by this nob that it made sure to kill him before the charging nob tore it to pieces. 

Yes, that was worthy of a paint job I think.

He must've gone digging deep in the scrap pile to find a bit with the word 'Mordian' on it! Those guys haven't been seen on the tabletop in what, 4-5 editions of the game now?

My favorite Tankbustas missed the game as you have to have a tank hammer boy in your mob. Typical of GW's post-Chapterhouse lawsuit 'you can only field what mono-pose models we put in the box' bullshit. For a company that so once embraced variety and konvershuns, GW more or less treats such concepts as anathema nowadays. 

Da tankbustas iz back baby!

Well, fuck 'em! Needing a tank hammer which is more likely to kill it's user than a tank (okay, so that part is Orky), I managed to splice together a spare runtherd body with some Kommando breacher bitz and a standard boys' head for my own version of a tank hammer grunt. Since the big shootas largely suck (I may have killed a single termagaunt with them all game), the rest of da bustas will spread out to the uvver mobs to serve as mere rokkit boyz.

The Silver Drakes 40k debut!

 o/

This past weekend I masked up (lots of infectious Tyranid spores in the air out there ya know...), and went out for my semi-annual 40k game. Actually it was about as 'fluffy' as we could get with myself fielding my Silver Drakes vs. my buddy Matt and his Tyranids. We even used the ice world table and terrain which matched my marines'' bases! 

500 points, I forget the scenario name, but basically there were 5 objectives to hold, for secondaries I had thin them out (or something like that) and abhor the witch vs. Matt had the Slay the Warlord and Line breaker secondaries. 

Here's how it all went down:

Our forces as deployed. The Nids occupied the forest opposite, whereas my Drakes were more or less grouped together for mutual support, aside from the forlorn hope assault intercessors who were sheltered behind the ruins of the Chateau du Neverness. 

Going first I can assure that my turn one shooting was more or less a big fat whiff (as usual), killing nothing. In response, Matt's Zoey ( smited? smitten? smote?...yeah let's go with smote) smote a lone intercessor. There was also considerable movement amongst the nids and my assault intercessors.

Speaking of, said intercessors prepared to go out valiantly...

Charging in with a gazillion attacks, I have to say that despite not liking the whole strategem/CP game mechanic, when marines are charging a carnifex, gene wrought physiology (to-hit rolls of 6 auto wound) combined with preferred enemy and trans human physiology (marines ignoring incoming to-wound rolls of 1-3) are collectively the shit! I didn't kill it, but despite catalyst the monster suffered 4 wounds for the loss of only 2 marines!

Matt's hivefleet (kraken I think?) could fallback and charge in the same turn, needless to say, the aforementioned wounded carny did just that in order to get the hell away from the assault intercessors! It also regenerated most all of it's wounds much to my annoyance.

Aww hell! Thinking of past experiences, I figured that this was going to be it for me! Instead however the Drake's line miraculously held (in part to transhuman physiology again) and both combats were more or less a draw. 

The little gribblies tried to overwhelm my assault intercessors to no avail, and things went much that other way. Irritated, in the following turn the Zoey smote them out of existence. 

Everybody was stuck in by this point, even my Ordo Xenos Inquisitor who isn't seen here as he was too busy plunging his power maul up the left side carny's ass! 

As you can imagine, that was enough to finally finish off the beastie, and I turned my attention to the other one. However it would fall back, and then charge my Lt., barely squeezing into range! Despite Iron Will and artificer armor, my Looey went splat, garnering Matt a secondary. Sad face.

Suffering from Loss of Lieutenant, unlike in the game of Infinity where that throws an army into disarray, in 40k it sent my marines into a rage, and they quickly dispatched the second carny. Huzzah!

An aerial view of the bottom of turn 4, it looks grim all around with a mere victory point separating both sides. 

...and that's where it went all to hell. Matt smote my lead squad of intercessors with an impressive 6 mortal wounds! The inquisitor went off and dispatched the 2 lone gaunts on the flank, however my other intercessors were apparently disheartened by the sudden loss of their comrades and failed to wound any gaunts with their shooting. Worse yet they failed their charge and were not able to drag the gaunts off of the objective via a last ditch effort of HTH combat. 

That was pretty much it. 

In the end, total VP's were something 20-34, in Matt's favor. Still the game more or less came down to the wire, as we were just a single point apart going into turn 5. His Zoey was definitely the the MVP, as smiting two wounded units out of existence really hurt me at the end, leaving little in any way to recover. Still, I killed 2 Carnifexes in close combat and survived to tell the tale, so I'm a happy man! 

Notta bad start for the Silver Drakes non-Kill Team career. Honestly I thought I'd be toast on turn two and not even live to see the bottom of turn three, but GW's love of all things primaris meant that even in an army bereft of heavy support, they can still hold their own!

I fielded 'Nids for the 1st time in my 24 years of gaming!

Ya know, after gaming for so many years, you'd expect that even with an entirely new force, my opponent could still expect me to field a kill team that executes it's mission with skill and finesse right? Right...to that end, my strategy was as simple as it was elegant: Get 'em!

As you're about to see, my mastery of the hive mind is meagre. However I was playing vs. WaaarghPug's orks who employed a similar strategy which I'm pretty sure also equated to: WAAAAARGH!!!

Orks vs. Nids...yeah you know where this is going. No mission. No objectives (well, kill points), and to have as much fun as possible! Its been too long since seeing, much less playing vs. WaaarghPug (years really) and we were both looking forward to the coming slugfest.

lol, can you tell where my deployment zone was?

WaaarghPug's characterfuly converted Orks, all chanting 'We're all gonna die'
at the sight of the horde in front of them...

The AWESOME is strong wiv deez boyz!

Da boss, the only sensible Ork in da bunch, bellowing orders whilst safely in the rear.

Turn 1 and my horde advances! Had I realized ahead of time that flesh borers are assault weapons, they all would have made advance moves, but oh well, one lesson among many learned. 

Skittering forward on the flank...

...and up the middle.

A lucky fleshborer round felled Pug's rokkit toting boy, but the first turn was otherwise uneventful. Here on turn 2 I've flanked him (for what little that turned out to be worth).

In the excitement to get into hand-to-claw combat, we kinda forgot about the shooting phase. Oh well, I wasn't hitting anything anyways. We also forgot that Orks can shoot their pistols in close combat, but as it turned out, they didn't need the extra firepower anyways...

Turn 3 and the Orks, had weathered the initial charge. Both sides refusing to back down, the nids and Orks continue to get stuck in...

With my dice failing me on nearly all front, little gribblies start to die in droves whilst inflicting next to nothing in return. However as my Tyranid Warrior, ineffectively sprays the ruins with living ammo (he certainly wasn't hitting any Orks or grots) he telepathically wills them onward!

Just as my genestealer grabs an ork by the throat, it takes a stikkbomb to the head from behind! Befuddled and confused by the unexpected blow, it is summarily cut down by the ork in front of it.

The bodies are piling up amongst the dice that have betrayed them.

An Ork charged my warrior, and the two proceed to
flail ineffectually at one another...

With every model fighting in close combat, the Orks start to tire, dishing out flesh wounds instead of simply killing their foes!

In a last desperate gasp of effort, the little gribblies manage to take this one boy down before the game ends on turn five.

...and in the end it was Orks: 9, Nids: 2. Ouch.

 Oh well, it was fun and despite my abysmal rolling, my team wasn't broken due to  sheer numbers rather than any actual skill on my part. Better luck next time I suppose. Still, much fun was had which is all that really matters. 

Speaking of Kill Team, our league is 'done'. Everyone's tired of fielding the same force, game after game. I would say that at least I know the rules now, but as WaaarghPug proved on turn one of our game above, he has a better grasp of the rules from one read thru of the book than I do after the whole league, lol. Yeah well, rules were never my thing...

My Tyranid Warrior leader for KT is complete!

o/

The title says it all really. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, and even found an old sabol tray in which to transport it (in a space that once held a space marine dreadnought).

I had hoped to pop one of my last 40k cherries by fielding Tyranids for the 1st time ever in my gaming career on Saturday. However that plan was thwarted by a lack of KT opponents despite a good turn out. Oh well, it'll happen soon enough I guess. Anyways, here it is:

The last thing that anyone wants to come face-to-face with!

Profile view

The ass-end (if such a term applies to the Nids)

I wanted the snow to look as though it had only just started again
and was beginning to accumulate on/in the surfaces of the pod.

Escape Pod close up.

Here's a better look at the pod's former occupant, now only a
partial skeleton, half buried in the snow. 

The Fate of the Lions of Harlech?

All this needs now is it's completed Nid, and then snow flock.

The 3rd part of my Base for a bug series has taken a tragic turn I'm afraid. The Lions of Harlech, a both storied and highly honorable space marine chapter, has been curiously silent for quite sometime now. Indeed, they've been absent from both the blogosphere as well as local gaming tables since the end of last April, and I think I know why. 

As true loyal sons of the Almighty God-Emperor of Mankind, I've discovered a piece of evidence revealing their possible fate. The Lions, were apparently attempting to link up with the Silver Drakes, bringing desperately needed assistance in the Drakes' grueling war against the Tyranid menace. Sadly, the Lions never made it. 

Instead, the only evidence of their valiant attempt to reach their Primaris brethren has been an abandoned escape pod bearing their colors and heraldry. Nearby lay the skeletal remains of what appears to be perhaps a crew member or possibly chapter serf from this now missing in action chapter. On Holy Terra, the Bell of Lost Souls (no, not the clickbait site) has yet to toll for these lost battle brothers in hopes that some survivors may yet be found still fighting the Emperor's enemies!

Yes indeed, those icons match those adorning the Doom of Neverness!

As for the Tyranid warrior who is slated to grace this base, whilst it has been base coated (mostly), the process of painting it has been a bit of a struggle. Mainly because our kitty Baxter has now largely thwarted my last two painting sessions by deciding to sleep in the midst of my desk/painting menagerie. Indeed, its difficult painting anything when you're clinging to a mere 2 inch strip of desk at best, praying the the next kitty-stretch doesn't send everything tumbling into the abyss, again...

...sigh...
Seriously Bax? Isn't there somewhere more comfortable that you would rather sleep?