Shark Week!

Shark Week inspired me to finish up some partially done Space Shark projects. I knocked out 2 Rhinos (which I minimally did since I do not enjoy vehicles), an Ironclad dreadnought, and the FW Carcharodon squad that I converted, the Red Brethern, which is a Lightning Claw troops choice, if taken with the named Carcharodon, Tyberos the Red Wake.

I admit that these are not going to win any Golden Demons, but I rather focus on making things look good in Malifaux, Infinity, or Warmahordes. 40k has too many similar sculpts and too many required models for me to keep my interest.

Poor Man's Grav-Gun, Chapter Master, and Ironclad - Sharking Around

     I have 15 bikers. Grav guns seem to be better and more entertaining fluffwise. Thus, I am chopping my own up out of meltas and Necron Warrior gun ends. This way I also get melta barrels for Stenguard conversions. Win-Win!

     An Ironclad out of a Venerable Dread that I traded with from my buddy, Viking Librarian. I bits ordered the Ironclad accessories, slapped on a fin for good measure, and converted a chainfist out of a Plasma cannon arm with a chopped up Ork Deff Dread weapon. Chose to repose the fist in a cheesy "Come at me, bro" pose.

     Also, I couldn't resist a Chapter Master on a bike. I love Orbital Bombardments. The fin is an Ork knife. The Relic Storm Shield is a Venerable Dread face plate that was trimmed down. The tooth part on the front wheel is the gob from an Ork killer kan. The back banner is from the Ironclad Dread kit. I went Powerfist over Thunder Hammer for cool looks.

Space Shark Whirlwinds WIP

     I have always wanted to shark up some Rhino chasis. Those negative spaces just scream for jaws. I plan on going back with some touch-ups and free-handing some tribal work like on the Carcharodon's Forge World transfer sheets.

     I have a lot of experience freehanding my chapter badge at this point. I accidentally used Cloudy Grey instead of Stormy Grey to clean up the edges, so I need to fix it. Doh!

     I have to include the goofy Rogue Trader logo as well. I can't forget my roots. I am going to run the Whirlwinds with stormbolters in an attempt to save the missile launcher from being shot off. I figure for 5 pts, it is a worthy upgrade. This puts each one at 70 points, which is pretty cheap for their utility at fighting off hordes, which tie up my terminators.

Sammael on JetBike Conversion Complete: Sharks for the Shark God, Chum for the Chum Throne

     Here is my plastic Sammael jetbike conversion from waaay back in February. He is mainly a Dark Vengeance bike with the front wheel chopped off and a Dark Eldar prow in its place. The blue streak and ork boots represent a kill by Sammael and his plasma cannon. You can see his buddies the heavy bolter scout and Chaplain hanging out in the background.

     Sammael was fun to paint while watching Sharknado. I decided to paint the goofy shark face since I like painting for my own enjoyment and do not want to take myself too seriously. I feel like that I finally have my own personal painting style and standard.

     On the other hand, this drop pod was a pain and I just wanted it done, but to look more interesting than solid grey.

     I have an 1850 40k tournament coming up in mid-August that I want to take the Space Sharks for a stroll. I want to add in 2 Whirlwinds since they are very cheap, and would give me something to deal with tons of guardsmen or fire warriors hunkered down behind an Aegis or Landing Pad.

My challenge is that I want to include Samael and a bunch of terminators. I should probably just bite the bullet and get a blob of guardsmen with Azrael for a blob with a 4++ to hunker on objectives. That plan doesn't seem fun or my style since I like to be more in your face than play safe and smart. Decisions, decisions.

Ravenwing, Scouts, and HQs: Space Shark Style

     I am slowly adding my reinforcements from the new Dark Angels book to my Space Shark terminators. Here are 2 squads of Melta and Multimelta bikes with 5 Scouts with a Missile Launcher.

     Here is a Sargent with a MicroArt Steam Knight head.

     Here is my bike librarian and techmarine, with a gun ol' gun for funsies.

     I messed up my Scout sarge's eyes, so he got professional wrestler style face paint.

     After doing it about 80 times, I can freehand a pretty mean shark.....

Converted Sammael Jetbike and Black Knights - Space Sharks Style

Time to update my Space Sharks for the new codex! I already have the army painted once, so I am going back to make changes, weapon swaps, and new additions.

Sammael here is a Dark Vegeance biker with the wheels and bolters chopped off. Replaced the front with a Dark Eldar Raider prow. The back is a chaos vehicle thingy-ma-bob with a random Imperial Guard tank main weapon as the engine.

Deathwing Knights seem to be the go-to for close combat. It also helps that they are cheaper than regular TH/SS guys, with some added juicy rules. I rarely fired any weapons with my beatstick command squad in the old book anyway, so the no ranged on the knights doesn't phase me.

Scouts need missile launchers to hold my objectives as the big boys play in the enemy deployment.

Black Knight bikers do plasma better than Ravenwing ones. Gotta have some of those. These just have their bolters cut off and replaced with Plasma Pistols. A head swap from Maxmini Steam Knight heads.

Techmarines can provide cool wargear options. Plus, I love them. Here is my take a on a Conversion Beamer, which will be my Servo-Harness upgrade in Dark Angels.

Plasma Cutter, Flamer, and 2 servo-arms. I guess he just melees with the huge gun?

Scouts can't take shotguns, so time to make more snipers from Ork boss poles.

Autocannon Dreads are finally in the book. Sign me up. This is a missile launcher with a chopped up Imperial Guard autocannon turret chopped up (seeing a theme here?).

Gorken Morkann, Rambork, and Khal Drogork: Ork Update

     I finally mustered up the courage to paint up my baby, Gorken Morkann. Painting ork armor is fun because if you make a mistake with the brush. Meh.

I tried to stay true to the source material.

Drill, drill, drill!

The new leader of my WHFB Waaaagh, Khal Drogork.

Finally, Marbork for my Imperial Guard Allies.

Oh yeah, I painted up this Space Shark Dreadnought to kill lots of MEQ infantry, which is lousy all over the shop.

Also, look at all of these boys....

Space Shark Terminator Chaplain - Holy Diver

     I am growing bored of the Terminator TH/SS parade that is my current count-as Deathwing Space Sharks list. Thus, I am trying to branch out the force. With my Librarian, I am always shooting for re-roll to hit, so why not run a Chaplain?!

     I haven't been super impressed with the Libby anyway. I am also hoping that Chaplains and Plasma gets better with the new Dark Angels Codex due soonish (Hopefully). I also converted my bikes into squads of 5 with 2 plasma, plus multi-melta attack bike. In my experience, the attack bike is the melta workhorse, so why not use the plasma's extra range to shoot-and-scoot away from things for the normal bikers?

     I am also tempted to try out a dual Land Raider list to spice things up. My gut tells me that is too many points spent on non-scoring elements of an army sub-2000, but the Raiders aren't so desireable as Battlewagons either for 2 reasons.
     1) You can take Cover saves off the Deff Rolla.
     2) You can't assault after Tank-Shocking.

Epic Caine has been lonely on my desk, so I tried priming white and black to see if I get a lighting effect. He came out a tad fuzzy, but nothing beyond fixing.

Space Sharks (Deathwing) 1000 pt for 6th Edition

     The FLGS had its first 6th edition even for 1000 pts. I decided to let the Space Sharks swim since they are my only fully painted army. We had 16 players show up and we had 3 rounds of play to allow us to grow used to the changes.

HQ

• Beliel - Master of the Deathwing
  Twin Lightning Claws
• Librarian
  • Terminator Armour
    Storm Bolter

Troops

• Deathwing Command Squad (Troops)
  Deathwing Apothocary, 4x Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
  • Sergeant
    Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
• Deathwing Terminator Squad (Troops)
  Cyclone Missile Launcher, Storm Bolter and Chainfist, 3x Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
  • Sergeant
    Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
• Deathwing Terminator Squad (Troops)
  Cyclone Missile Launcher, Storm Bolter and Chainfist, 3x Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
  • Sergeant
    Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield

1000 points on the dot. I could substitute the Librarian for a squad of 3 bikes with 2 melta, but I am happy that I stuck with the Libby. Prescience rerolls are no joke.

Round 1 - Dark Eldar - 3 Objectives - Crushing Loss
Round 2 - Jumper Blood Angels - 2 Objectives - Crushing Victory
Round 3 - 2 Tervigon, Trygon Nids - Killpoints Hammer and Anvil - Crushing Victory

Props
- The Librarian with the Divination signature spell was more useful than originally thought. Re-rolling Thunder hammers can be huge on the Command squad.
- Hammer and Anvil allowed me to kill a Trygon with Cyclone shots before it could get into combat. Again, rerolls from Divination's Prescience helped immensely.
- My opponents being great and fun
- Mysterious Objectives aren't game breaking at all. The Exploding one was rolled twice and didn't kill a single model in either my or my opponents armies.
- Getting Best Overall! Very unexpected after being crushed Game 1.

Slops
- Round 1 - my command squad deepstriked and scattered 9 inches into a unit of Pathfinders. I rolled a "1" on the Deepstrike Mishap table. Fuuuuuuuu.........Bye-Bye 515 points before the game even begins. By the graces of Odin, I wasn't tabled as I had one Terminator on the field, Captain Ahab the Sargent.

In the end, I won Best Overall and got to take home a sweet medal. Many players loved the Space Sharks and they won Best Painted as well, but one player cannot win multiple categories. The love needs to be shared around. My medal is the gold. My partner-in-crime got Sportsmanship and $20.

The final standings. It's me at the top. Tyler Watts. Gigawatts. Easy right?

I didn't get battle pictures, so here are glamor shots of the sharks.

The butt-kicking Command Squad minus Librarian Dhalsim.

Apothecary bit from Fabius Bile.

Here is the famous Captain Ahab, who has solely survived Tyranids and Dark Eldar now.

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Squad markings allow me to tell which unit is which with minimal distraction to the base rim.

No army is complete without custom objective markers. A simple finishing touch.

Next tournament is 1500 in a month, so I need to decide to bring more Space Sharks, Kan Wall orks, or Shooty Tyranids. The choices.....

Class Dismissed.