Abaddon Kitbash Redux - Sword Envy

Abaddon has been sitting on my shelf for quite some time, collecting a good measure of dust. That was a shame, considering I thought I did a pretty banging job on a kitbash to represent him! Lately though, I was looking at the sword I gave him with a fair amount of disdain. Looked more like a butter knife than a fearsome Daemon weapon...

So I gave him an upgrade to appease his sword-envy. Using a left over Hellblade from the Bloodletters kit, I pulled out all the stops on my hot-glowy-flamey-sword effects. See for yourself... I think the result is pretty satisfactory!

Now that Traitor's Hate is out, I already have a few lists I wouldn't mind giving Abby another shot in. Ectomancy sorcerers and a unit of killy-termies sounds like a fun combo! Teleporting shenanigans... here I come!

First Crack at Traitor's Hate: Black Crusade Warband

So Swanky Tiger and I broke out the power armor so I could give some of the formations from Traitor's Hate a play through.

I played a Black Crusade detachment with a Chaos Warband, a Veterans of the Legion (Khorne Beserkers), and a Lord of the Black Crusade (a Sorceror). All-in-all, it included Kharn as my warlord (who rolled the ability to re-roll boons), 20 CSM with Mark of Khorne, 10 Bezerkers, 8 Chosen, 2 Helbrutes, 5 Raptors with a mark of khorne, and 2 Sorcerers.

Swanky played a bog-standard Dark Angels CAD, with 20 Tactical Marines, 15 Terminators, 2 flyers, a company commander, and a chaplain.

Chaos reigned supreme. The new Black Crusade detachment actually wasn't too shabby... the extra Boon rolls turned my champions into close-combat beasts, which in turn made them succeed in their challenges much more.

By far though, the most useful new tidbit out of Traitor's Hate is the Ectomancy discipline. It is a carbon-copy of the Fulmination discipline, just with spikey power names and descriptions. The powers are pretty useful, and in my opinion, the most useful of them is Soul Swap. With that power and some highly mobile units, you can teleport some of your slower footsloggers into combat range. It's surprisingly easy to manifest too, with the higher ML of Chaos Sorcerers and psychic familiars.


In the future, I'd probably use a Daemon prince with wings to catapult units into combat range, or take a unit of bikes to use as a leapfrog unit. The Raptors do in a pinch though.

Bezerkers are still pretty awesome in combat. I haven't had a chance to try a Maelstrom of Gore, but I imagine it is pretty potent with the extra running distance and the Red Rain rules. If only we had an equivalent of a Sanguinary Priest to drop in for some Feel No Pain shenanigans...

Another tactic being thrown around the net is using a unit of terminators and Abbadon, coupled with a couple sorcerers with Ectomancy (for soul swap), zipping around and causing a ruckus. I may look into that as well.

Well until next time,
Teun

Kharne Kitbash

There has been a lot of debate about Kharn's new model. Some love it, some hate it. I decided to go a different route and kitbash my own using a Beserker box and a spare barbarian arm I had, coupled with some chain. So far, so good!

Looking forward to using him in upcoming games.

On My Table: 09/07/2016

Made a proxy for a Warpsmith, since apparently a lot of the new Traitor's Hate formations use them. Good marketing by GW to get rid of overstocked models, probably.

On My Table: 3/20/2016

So first on my table is a daemon that I have decided would be an adequate proxy for a Daemon Prince. Since he was absolutely nude, I decided he needed some form of armor... enough to be considered to have Warpforged Armor but little enough that I can run him without it too. I am not the best at using greenstuff (in this case ProCreate), so the straps are a little thick but I think I managed well enough for my lackluster sculpting skills.

I figured the best use of a Daemon Prince in my CSM army is to keep him cheap, and to use him for Malefic summoning without having to worry about perils on doubles. I did throw some form of mace in his hand in case I decide to use a Black Mace in his build.

The Lil General got to work on his own army. Although he didn't like the building part (he found removing mold lines too tedious) he really enjoyed being able to paint his first model, the Ethereal. I am coaching him the best I know how, and for an 8 year old his work is coming out fantastic! I will be throwing up pictures when he is further along.

Aside from that, we are just taking some time off of games this week while I get some things sorted in my personal life. Now with that out of the way, I'll be back down at MJ's soon to try and get the hang of my new summoning CSM list...

Pre-game Report: I'm fething tired

Ever pull an all-nighter to work on your models before a big event? So today is my 40k Escalation tournament that I've been looking forward to. I haven't been to a tournament in literally years, not since 5th edition at least, and I am relishing the idea of getting back into the mix.

Having a painted army is a big part of my motivation to get my stuff done. I like to have every piece I am taking painted to a minimum standard of quality. Today, that will not be the case. I spent too much time fooling around over the last two weeks to get as much done as I wanted to have done. However, I have most of my army painted to a 3 color minimum, so I suppose it is at least "tournament-legal" even if it is not to my personal standard.

In other news, the "Little General" got his birthday present a week early last night, for being such a good sport at a long practice game I had. He was pretty excited, in case that wasn't evident by the look on his face. I knew he'd like mecha suits ;)

What's On My Table: 03/10/2016

So a lot of things going on for me this week. I have a practice game tomorrow, in preparation for this weekend. On Saturday, I plan on attending my first tournament since 5th edition... a 40k Escalation tournament (in which we gradually increase the points limits over the rounds). First and foremost in my list is my CSM lord with a "jump pack" which I made sure to be fully painted and ready to go. You may recognize him, though I used some new colors to brush up his paint job and bring him into line with other models I have painted more recently!

Next up is my Forgefiend. Being one of the only models I have that can provide me with any sort of anti-aircraft cover outside of Bloodthirsters, I put this guy in every level of the list (also because we have to... we are required to take the same units in the 1850 list as we did during the 1250 list. And the 1250 list must contain units chosen in the 750 list... and the Forgefiend was an early take for me.)

He's coming along nicely, much better than the giant lump of red plastic he was before today. Still a long way to go on that one, but he's tournament legal already with a 3-color standard.

Third for today, and probably the biggest undertaking, I have somewhere around 30 cultists being made table-top ready. Ideally, I want them to match the previous batch of 10 I completed, but that was years ago and I have a different set of paints now. I will try to replicate it as close as I can, and bring the other unit to match with the new colors if I have time.


I was going to post the lists I planned on taking to the tournament, but I think I'll wait and do more of an "After Action Report" type summary, and I'll include it there. This is the last time I am likely to update before Saturday, as I have a lot of painting to do so that my force is up to minimum standards! I don't even know if there is a standard of painting at this tournament, but I'll be darn sure to exceed it. Call it a personal challenge.

-Teun135

Khorne Daemonkin: How To Paint Red (In Batches)

So you want to paint some Daemonkin (or otherwise Khorney) CSM? The biggest problem is getting the reds to pop. You want something that stands out on the battlefield, but you don't want to have to paint all those CSM individually with highlights? I have got the solution for you.

1) Black Primer
2) Khorne Red base coat
3) Agrax Earthshade wash
4) Wazdaka Red drybrush
5) Squig Orange zenith drybrush (top down)
6) Baal Red (or whatever the new equivalent is) wash to finish it up

Bam! Now you can put your brass on, pick out some black details, metal up the guns... give those bits a wash and call your CSM finished. And they really pop with that red color too! This method allows for batches, without spending all that time highlighting and blending each model. The 4 CSM above were completed in 2 sessions, approximately 4 hours of work. An hour a model ain't too bad, huh?

It's actually probably less than that... I have already applied base coats and the first wash to the remainder of two whole squads (16 models). So I am on course to having these two squads done by Friday, when I have a game with them.

Crunch time!
--Teun135

On MyTable: 2/8/2016 - Daemonkin and Nids Showdown!

So after looking at the Khorne Daemonkin rules for CSM and Daemons, I decided that I wanted to give them a go. I've always liked painting red anyway. So I found some proxies for the daemons and enlisted my fiance in a 2000 point game.

Someday I'll have enough space for a full-size game table. But for now, this one had to do. It's a 4'x4' table, primarily set up for Cities of Death battles.

My fiance had picked up a roughly 2000 point army of tyranids from a local guy for about 200 bucks. Quite a steal. So since she has had them for several months, it was time to test them out in battle. So we blocked off a time slot in the weekend and had a several-hour long battle to test out our new armies.

I trounced the poor girl pretty well. I robbed her of charges, and did not give her very good targets for her mid-range shooting models. Highlights of the game included:

• A 5-model Bloodcrushers squad chewing through 22 termagaunts over the course of 2 turns
• My Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage going toe-to-toe with not only her Flyrant, but also 3 carnifex and a unit of hormagaunts (killing the tyrant, along with 1 carnifex and 8 of the hormaguants)
• A squad of Gargoyles swooping in to assault my Possessed, but then receiving a charge from a 20 man cultist squad and drowning in a wave of angry minion attacks.

She played her Nids very passively, which is a generalship thing that she will have to improve upon. Both these armies are clearly designed for high-aggression (especially Daemonkin with their Blood Tithe rules).

I never got to use my Blood Tithe rules. We both ran standard CAD lists, to make it easy, and so I didn't run the Daemonkin Blood Host formation which adds a Tithe point every turn. Since I had pretty much tabled her at the bottom of turn 3, we called it at that point.

Next weekend, she wants to play again, enlisting the aid of the Little General to help her play. Before that, I will further test the Daemonkin in battle against a local player's Ork army.

Until that game, I am working on painting a lot more red.

So until next time,

Teun135

First time painting in a long time, I need new paints...

Worked on some of the DV Chaos Marines I had sitting around... man am I rusty.

A New Year's resolution... better late than never!

After a nearly year-long hiatus from the hobby to pursue more electronic-oriented forms of entertainment (yes... I was an mmo addict...), I have returned to the hobby that I love, if only in part. I have sold off and downsized much, but somehow I managed to hold onto my Flames of War miniatures, along with a smallish Nurgle CSM army.

After playing the fantastic MMO "World of Tanks," I find myself being drawn back to the miniature game that started it all for me. I've been playing FoW off-and-on for five years now (coincidentally the same number of years I will have been married to my beautiful wife on the 26th of this month!) and I typically find myself gravitating back towards its more mature theme, basis in history and realism, and lower price-point (since I still own much of the game rules and material).

Now with the arrival of companies like Plastic Soldier Company reducing the cost of 15mm game pieces, and price-point-positive www.gamodls.com providing miniatures that even I can afford, it should be easier than ever for me to get back into the Flames of War scene.

I'll be starting with Mid-war battles, which have always been a favorite of mine. The battles of the desert and Mediterranean have always been pleasing to me. This is probably due in large part to the lack of a Pacific theater, as well as the tendency of Hollywood and game producers to over-glorify the battles of France and Germany during the late war period. Tunisia and Sicily allow me to play in environments more interesting to me than the over-done beaches, bocage, and villages of the Normandy countryside.

In the meantime, I'll be working on small modeling projects to prepare myself for larger projects. Time to get to it.

My resolution: to finish painting both my FoW armies and my Nurgle CSM. The nurgles might be just for selling but maybe I'll hold onto them... we'll see.

Until next time,
--FP135

Discussion: Nurgle CSM Pt. 2

Continuing the discussion began in Part 1.

To continue my justification of my units, we move on to the Troops section.

Plague Marines-
Plague marines have been hailed as the single most worthy Troops choice in the CSM codex, and I am inclined to agree. Though I think they are a bit overcosted currently, Plague Marines have a few notable benefits over their standard CSM brethren:
A) They have increased toughness, as well as Feel No Pain. This makes them tanks to small arms fire.
B) They have access to 2 special weapons per squad, which allows small fire-teams to pack a vicious wallop.
C) They are troop choices, and thus are a scoring unit.
D) They have blight grenades, which allow them to take some of the punch out of units assaulting them.

However, for all these benefits, there are several notable drawbacks to Plague Marines:

A) Feel no Pain is negated by anything AP 1 or 2, or that would cause Instant-death (I.e. force weapons, weapons with double the strength of the model's toughness, etc), and power weapons. With no invulnerable save, this means that Plague Marines are especially vulnerable to high-strength or low AP weapons like Demolisher cannons, Lascannons, and Plasma. Since they cost a lot of points, a few heavy weapons can ruin a squad of Plague Marines. Close combat can also ruin them if they are up against Power Weapon wielders of any type.
B) Without some form of transportation, they are quite slow (as foot-troops are oft to be). With the amount of mechanization in 5th, they really need a transport to get them across the field faster.
C) They lack access to heavy weapons, instead having to rely on shorter-ranged special weapons such as the meltagun and plasmagun. This isn't a severe drawback, but without transports, armies like Tau and IG can outrange them and destroy them before they can close the distance.


Summoned Lesser Daemons-
My list, with the models on hand, was severely lacking in the troops department. I needed something to capture and hold the objectives, so I turned to Summoned Lesser Daemons to fill the gap. They aren't too bad, surprisingly, and can even turn the tide for some objective-based battles! They have a few things going for them:
A) They have a +5 invul save. This means that they can sometimes withstand attacks that would have wiped out whole squads of Plague Marines, such as Demolisher cannons and the like.
B) They are fairly inexpensive compared to other choices in the codex.
C) With personal icons, they can bail out some of your other units with a precision deep-strike. They can also Assault the same turn they arrive, a huge bonus.

The downside to them is that they HAVE to be held in reserve. You don't get a choice. This means that you cannot use them for screening your other units at the start of the game or similar uses. The other downside is that they lack offensive punch, having only regular CCWs and 2 attacks at strength 4, so they are no better in assaults than regular CSMs but they have no shooting attacks either.


Summoned Greater Daemon-
To help fill the heavy anti-tank gap, I put in a Summoned Greater Daemon. This is a hit-or-miss strategy for me. On the plus side, if I successfully summon a Daemon by sacrificing a champion from elsewhere in the list, I get another Monstrous Creature that can chew through tank armor in assaults. Not so great is that I have to sacrifice a perfectly good model on the table to get him, and there is no guarantee of when the Daemon will arrive. Still, an extra MC in this list helps give the opponent another target to split his fire on, helping take some of the heat off the Daemon Princes. During my last game, a Summoned Greater Daemon pinned a squad inside their Chimera by standing at the rear of the vehicle and wrecking it. Only the sergeant had enough room to deploy, and he was quickly killed by lesser daemons backing up the larger Greater Daemon. Use his base size to your advantage.

I will go on to Army tactics and tips in part 3.

Discussion: Nurgle CSM

Followers of Papa Nurgle have been around for a while, but how are we faring against the ever-rising trend of Mechanization in 5th?

To be clear: I am new to CSM, especially Nurgle. However, I have trouble finding any relevant tactics on the Internet outside of Kirby's blog: "3++ is the New Black", and I don't know when that was written or how relevant it is to the times. On the other hand, I have played a few games with them recently, so I would like to discuss some of my recent observations on CSM and Nurgle-followers in particular.

Here is a list of what I currently run (until I can get more models anyway):
1 Daemon Prince with Lash
1 Sorceror with wings, plasma pistol, Mark of Nurgle, personal icon and Warptime
3 Chaos Terminators plus 1 Champion, Icon of Nurgle, 3 powerfists, 1 Reaper Autocannon
3 Chaos Terminators, Icon of Nurgle, 3 powerfists, 1 Reaper Autocannon
4 Plague Marines plus one Champion, 2 Meltaguns, powerfist, plasma pistol, personal icon
4 Plague Marines plus one Champion, 2 Meltaguns, powerfist, plasma pistol, personal icon
10 Summoned Lesser Daemons
10 Summoned Lesser Daemons
1 Summoned Greater Daemon

Now, I didnt intend this post to be about my list. I am well aware that it is a sub-optimal list, and I'm ok with that. I would, however, like to discuss some of the benefits and uses to some of the units in my list.

Daemon Princes-
I have found that the Lash Prince has long been lauded as the best HQ choice in the CSM codex. I have seen the benefit of Lash of Submission, though now I find it's use limited in the current trend of mechanized forces. Though limited more so now than in the early days of 5th, that does not mean useless! There are common situations that Lash comes in handy for still; such as IG bubblewrap situations. Being able to pull a squad away to leave a Leman Russ vulnerable can be a great use of Lash. Really though, I think the best use for Princes is to use them as vehicle killers and general bullet soaks. Lash really is the best choice if you decide to mark a DP, as the cost is quite low and it gives you some versatility.

Sorcerers-
Sorcerers are a matter of taste. Most people prefer to go the route of Daemon Princes as their HQs to reap the benefits of a Monstrous Creature at an affordable cost. I chose to put a Sorcerer in for a couple reasons: A) I had Built a model for it from bits already B) Mobility is something Nurgle CSM struggle with without rhinos C) I needed a redundant personal Icon to summon daemons with, in case my Plague Marines died. With his wings, I could fly further up the table and drop a squad of lesser daemons into an assault. I gave mine a mark of Nurgle for the added toughness, and a plasma pistol for some light anti-vehicular punch. Warptime can help against squads in close combat, scoring more wounds in the hopes of inflicting a failed morale check. Again, this is not for everyone. In our current meta-trend of more and more vehicles, you are well advised to stick with the Daemon Prince as your 2nd HQ option.

Chaos Terminators-
These elite choice troops are likely to be one of the most valuable transport-popping squads in the codex. Though they cannot go toe-to-toe with imperial Terminators in assault, chaos have cheap and easy access to the reliable Reaver autocannon. The Heavy 2, twin-linked strength 7 shots can reach vehicles up to 36" away, which is pretty darn good for popping light transports. Add a mark of Nurgle to the unit, and these beasts become much more resistant to small arms. Here's a tip: do not deep strike these types of units unless you have a really good reason to. You want these guys at medium range, picking apart transports, MCs, and other targets of opportunity. Outfitting them for CC is costly, and should be avoided if you have better options.

I will continue my dissemination in part 2.

Bits Box Delve Part 2: Followers of Nurgle

After a long Sunday of building marines from spare bits, I decided to make a Nurgle-themed chaos army. I attempted to sculpt boils, blisters, and entrails from graystuff, and applied them over loyalist bits to cover up the Imperial iconography. Here is a status shot so far, showing a portion of my current army. I have built approximately 1000-1200 points of Nurgle-blessed CSM goodness! Pretty impressive for what started off as a bits box delve out of boredom!

Bits Box Delve: Chaos-Wolves WIPs and Medusa

Ever have those days where you are just sick of painting, and have the itch to go digging through your bitbox? I do. Sometimes, the results are better than I thought they would be!

You know your bit box is getting too big when...

... you can create an entire legal army out of bits.

... You can create an entire vehicle that doesn't look half bad.

... You create an HQ character, that actually looks quite badass, completely from bits.

... You consider selling your bits box as an "army deal".


You get the idea.

So, I hobbled together the above models. I decided to go with a chaos theme, defiling some standard terminators I had laying around. Some of the terminators were so old, they were mounted on 1" bases with plastic tabs! Some of you might be going "Is that supposed to be old?" but it's old to me.



This guy above is my stand-in for Logan Grimnar in a Chaos-Wolves list. Yeah, the wing on the axe is probably a no-go, but the axe was too good to let settle back into the bottom of my bits. I might chaos-ify it later, as I already plan to nurgle-ize (making up all sorts of words today) most of them so they don't look so Imperial. I finally found a good use for the resin 1.5" bases from the 40k basing kit, which I also used on the following model:




This guy is supposed to be my ultra-badass Wolf Priest (equivalent of a Chaplain for the rest of you marine players). Count the wings as a jump pack, and give him runic armor (because I plan to give him the gray-stuff treatment), and just for extra ridiculousness, I gave him a plasma-pistol to complement his oversized (soon-to-be-daemon) weapon. I especially like the head, which simply consists of a Khorn beserker's head after I shaved down the crests. This guy is my favorite that I built today.

All in all, about 800 points of counts-as-Space-Wolves, if I'm stretching it. At least 750 though.



The last pic is of a Medusa I cobbled together out of pieces from my bits box, as well as a few bits I was given over Christmas (Thank you Brandon for the chassis and gunshield!).

I had a super-heavy vehicle cannon left over from the Stormlord kit, and it made a perfect main gun. I prettied it up with other various bits, but it came out better than I expected! Now my Death Korps of Kremlin have some supporting fire!



Do you ever surprise yourself with the things you create from your bits boxes?

Setting My Goal

This is what my new workstation currently looks like. With a single CSM Battleforce boxed set, I have been busily constucting a rough-shod Black Legion 1500 point list just in case I can make it to a 40k tournaments in the near future. As you may already know, I auctioned off my IG army on EBay to raise some emergency money to pay some bills. Now that PFDs came, and we're in the clear, I needed a replacement 40k force to use instead of my dearly departed 907th Alascadians.

So here is the basics of my cobbled-together list:
Chaos Sorceror w/ MoS and Lash
Chaos Lord w/ wings
2 ten-man squads of CSM, both have 1 missile launcher, one has a plasmagun, one has a meltagun
2 rhinos
8 khorne beserkers
1 land raider
1 predator with TL lascannons and possession
5 possessed

By using some loyalist parts I was able to expand the size of my starter CSM force considerably. Now I am trying to get it painted! Once I do, I'll look at optimizing my list and expanding my model collection.

Progress pics coming soon!

--FP135 via IPhone