Guardian Defenders, T'au, Kroot, Cawdor Juves and a Really Big Rat...

A bit of an odd assortment of 40K related things rolling off the workbench today. A lot of this is actually for the kids. I've been experimenting with... well... other ways of painting. Not for me, I like the black undercoating and leaving that hard black line between things for contrast and deep shadow. When I got the kids painting I tried to teach them the same, but I've come to realize it requires a bit of finesse and attention to detail to pull it off and without that... well... it doesn't look good... So I thought I'd experiment with other things to see if I could help them find a different painting style that suits their needs and/or speeds up their production so they can get things DONE!

Some of these were started a couple weeks ago, but were then put on the back burner as I needed to push to finish the last often Drukhari that we needed for the Strange Bedfellows Team Tournament. Some are ones I tried spraying with coloured primer (purple) and then washed with either Nuln Oil or Druchii Violet (or sometimes both) then highlighted and/or dry brushed... and added some details...

Some of the more recent ones I actually tried out the fancy new Contrast® paints on. I was a little skeptical about these when they were announced, but seeing some of the stuff other people were pulling off with them, I thought I'd give it a try... and I have to say, it's a pretty slick system. I'm not going to change the way I paint overnight and incorporate them. But I think for the kids - and anyone else starting out - it might help get things started and doesn't look terrible. Honestly, if it means I get to play against more painted armies and less bare plastic at tournaments, then I'm ALL FOR IT!!!



Ten Asuryani Guardian Defenders for Keira's Thaestalyrdaes Craftworld force.

These models were from the Big Batch o'Eldar Keira and I bought and split back in May. There were, like, almost 90 of these plastic Guardians that neither of us really wanted. I picked out 30 of the best ones to use for myself - to put together a Battalion Detachment of Ulthwé Black Guardians to go with   the Eldrad Ulthran model I also got out of the lot. After that there were about two more squads worth of decent ones (not broken or missing the do-dads on the backpacks or whatever) that I set aside for Keira, the rest I gave or traded away to Other Tim or this other fellow from the Hunters of the Warp league (for some Fire dragons for Keira - which she was pretty excited about!)

These ones I originally sprayed with a purple basecoat/primer... Then I think I washed them with both Nuln Oil and Druchii Violet... I think I did two test ones one with each wash, and the Druchii Violet wasn't dark enough, so I did Nuln Oil, then Druchii Violet on the rest and then decided that was all too dark and ended up brushing the whole mess with the colour Keira was painting all her other Guardians with (Vallejo Blue Violet?)... and then we got the contrast paints and I wanted to try those, so I painted their Shuriken catapults and pants with white (or bone?) and used contrast paints on those... then did the same with their helmet face plates... and then, because they were all still looking rather plain, I did dots of white on a bunch of the bumps on the armour and did little bits of different contrast paints on top of those hoping it would look like gems or sprit stones...

I wasn't really concerned if they turned out crap, because we'd more or less gotten all these for free and Keira didn't really even care if she got any of them... but I think they turned out not TOO bad. I could have done some edge highlights to make them pop a bit... but I couldn't be bothered...

I also took five that she had assembled and sprayed them white and tried painting the two different purple Contrast® paints we'd picked up on those... the Magos Purple was WAAAAAY too light... and the Shyish Purple was just way too dark... so, more experimentation is needed. I'm going to try thinning the Shyish Purple to see how that works... otherwise, I could just do the straight Shyish Purple and then drybrish with the Blue Violet that she likes....?



Five T'au Fire Warriors for Finnegan.

These were also sprayed Purple to start. I did one sample a few weeks ago - I think I may have washed trying only to get the cracks and and then edge highlighted... the rest, when I got to them earlier this week, I did an all over wash with the Druchii and decided that was too dark and then did a heavy dry brush with the Blue Violet and then decided that was too light and did s second all-over wash with the Druchii... and then said "eff-it" and called it quits... the black was the same for all of them - I just blacked out everything that wasn't armour and picked out some detail with a dark grey and presto they were done.

I'm going to get him to assemble the rest of the T'au in the coming weeks and see if we can't knock off this force over the summer. I think I'll stick with spraying purple, try to just get some wash in the cracks (either Druchii or nun) I'll probably do the edge highlights for him, get him to do the black. Should basically work for everything... and should be quick!



Four Kroot Warriors - I had him assemble these around the same time as the fire warriors. I'd sprayed one purple along with the first five fire warriors (with no intention of painting it purple - just wanted a quick primer). I think this was the darker guy, second from the left... I'd painted it all over with a light green and then washed with Agrax Earthshade... and then picked out their "webbing" with Vallejo Khaki Grey and then washed THAT with Agrax Earthshade as well... then painted the gun black and picked out details with metal and washed that with Nuln Oil and then some brown for the rear stock and more Khaki Grey for the leather wrapping on the barrel and washed that all with Agrax Earthshade... a bit of a process to figure out... In the future I'd probably do all the green and khaki grey and brown at once and THEN wash the whole mess with Agrax Earthshade... then pick out the metal bits and call it done. But I probably won't suggest he do them that way...

The remaining three I sprayed with white primer and washed with some Contrast® paints (Militarum Green?). They were a bit on the light side, so I tried washing one with Agrax Earthshade, but wasn't happy with that, and left the other two as they were. the Khaki and rifle I used the same process as above - which could be streamlined a bit... I got him to start assembling the rest, because these didn't take long at all - and I was figuring things out as I went. now that I have it sorted, the rest should be a snap - and then he'd have enough for a straight Kroot Kill Team - which would be cool. I mean, they could be working for the T'au... or.. ANYONE! I mean, the Kroot are mercenaries, right?



Kroot Hounds.

I basically used the same process as the warriors above (one was sprayed purple, painted green and washed, the rest white and sloshed with Contrast®, etc, etc...) the darkest one, up front, was one I did with Contrast® paint and decided it was too like and did a second coat of contrast... and then it was a bit dark, so left the other two with one coat.

This is all the Kroot he had, so these are DONE!



Finnegan's entire T'au force, so far (all painted by me!?). Probably enough for a mixed T'au Empire Kill Team.

We should be able to expand this into a small 40K force over the summer. He has another five Fire Warriors and twelve Kroot to finish up. then there are some battlesuit warriors three XV-25 Stealth Suits, three Crisis Suits and a Commander in... some kind of battle suit... Then a small swarm of drones and an Etherial. I think it's about 35-38 Power Level (or 700-750 points) - enough for a decent sized skirmish!

I DID get some Necromunda stuff painted!!

 Two Cawdor Juves!

I have another pile of Cawdor in the works... should be done soonish.



The gang so far...

The leader came with his gun cut off, so I'd replaced it with an inferno pistol I had in the pits box, thinking it would be rad (y'know, BEFORE I was actually thinking I'd use them for Necromunda)... but Inferno pistols aren't really an option, so I think I will call it a "hand flamer"...

I have another Champion/leader with chainsword and "auto pistol" (I guess that's what I'll call it... it's a submachine gun like an Uzi or a Mac-10... but there aren't really rules for those... just "stub pistols" - which is what I'm calling the revolver, and "Autopistols" which I'm calling all other single-handed projectile-throwing devices...

There's also a Heavy (Champion) with a Heavy Stubber, and half dozen regular gangers with a mix of Autoguns and Lasguns... none of the fancy pole-arm combo-weapons the NEW Cawdor gangers come with... but whatevs... Oh, and a couple more Juves...



My friend John picked up a box of Mantic Ver-Myn (Space Rats) for me to assemble and paint for him to use as "Chaos Cultists" in Kill Team... as Chaos Cultists can also be used in Necromunda, they'll also see use there, no doubt. I also happened to have this old Citadel Rat Over having about so I cut off his front fist and replaced it with an orc fist grasping a slugga and figured it could be used as an Cultist Champion with an auto pistol and "Brutal Assault Weapon". that's a 40mm base he (she?) is on... hard to tell without a reference point...



Here it is with the Juves. S/he's a Big 'un....

I'm almost done assembling the rest of the space rat cultists... I've ended up using a lot of Ork weapons (as I think the weapons the Vermyn come with look silly...)


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More Necromunda!

(and probably a few more Eldar and T'au as I help the kids sort out a quicker way to paint their own minis!)

I should also post a picture of Keira's complete Eldar force - she's got quite a few now - including a Wraithknight!!! I should do battle with that beastie - throw some Russ' up against it and watch them get cleaved by the Gigantic Freaking Wraithblade!!

Maybe some Shadespire stuff as well - I have more of those back on my workbench for John (Rats and Dwarves) and they seem like they should be easy to knock off and then he has two more complete factions to use in the game...

Well... Now What...?

Well now that the Drukhari are painted (well... enough to play with) and Strange Bedfellows is out of the way it’s time to start re-assessing and figuring out what I’m going to do for the next few months – or even the rest of the year…? And Beyond?!)

NECROMUNDA

Necromunda has captured my imagination for the time being, and I have gone ALL IN! In addition to picking up all the cure rulebooks at my FLGS, I went back and bought the base box game – for all the cards and tokens and terrain bits and boards… and I know Keira would want the Esher gang… and the Goliaths… well… they’ll get used for SOMETHING!?

I also scoured eBay for a number of items I needed to for special characters and stuff to finish up a few gangs of my own.

To kick things off I thought I’d start a small summer campaign. Seven weeks as per the suggested length for a Dominion Campaign. Try and find a half-dozen friends to play. Probably start that around 13 July and end on 31 August. This will be to try out the system with a manageable number of reasonable human beings.

In September, I might try running a second campaign it might just be a re-run of the first, or I might open it up to a few more people.  We’ll see. I might run a slightly shorter one so that it’s wrapped up before the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.

On the Canadian Thanksgiving Weekend. I’m planning to host a narrative campaign weekend of sorts. This will be a bit of a departure from my recent campaign weekends which were less like campaigns and more like swiss-draw tournaments. This will likely involve a small number of close family and friends and they’ll be run more like the Savage World games I used to run, which were GMed affairs where all the players had small gangs of their own and the scenarios were semi-co-operative – in that there was generally a foe they had to deal with, but then were competing for the treasure left behind… could involve separate sub-plots for each gang… We shall see.


WRATH & GLORY

I was excited to see the news from Cubicle 7 that they will be picking up Wrath & Glory and that there will be new books for it… but not until next year… I’m still pretty excited to run a campaign – or multiple campaigns – I have SO MANY ideas for this!

I’d love to run a Dark Heresy/Inquisition campaign – where the player characters are acolytes of an Imperial Inquisitor and sent off on missions to root out Heresy within the Imperium. I have a bunch of old Dark Heresy books that could be easily coverted…

I’d also love to run an Only War/Imperial Guard Campaign. Again, I have ALL of the FFG Only War books and have a soft spot for military based RPGs (Twilight: 2000, Revised Recon, Behind Enemy Lines) – it always takes out the “Why are we here?” of any campaign and gives the Player characters missions and purpose…

Same goes for Rogue Trader…

I could also get behind running a campaign just set on a hive world where players are local enforcers (police)…? Or a campaign with Aeldari Player Characters (I know Keira would LOVE this)…

Do I bother waiting for books from Cubicle 7, or just forge ahead and make up my own shit as I go?

I still have Dark Tides, which I’ve never properly run through… Do I bother trying to do that…?

I might not do anything with this over the summer and try to get a campaign going in the fall. Getting people to commit is difficult. It seems weird. People are so willing to commit to other things and those things always seem to trump role-playing.


KILL TEAM

Still interested in this. Hopefully we’ll find some time over the summer (in between games of Necromunda) or maybe in the fall. I feel like I haven’t played for-EVAR! Haven’t even tried out Commanders or Elites!


TERRAIN

I do want to get some terrain going on over the summer and into the fall. Part of is is just getting the rest of the Sector Mechanicus, Sector Imperialis, and Sector Munitorum terrain I got with all the different Kill Team boxes.

I’d also like to build a bunch of new terrain for Necromunda – similar to the Cavern Terrain that I built a coupel years ago. It would be 3-D and modular and used for Zone Mortalis secnarios in Necromunda. I would also make it so it could be used with the existing cavern terrain – which could represent the deeper darker parts of the underhive - down in the sump... below the very foundations of the hive – or where stuff has simple collapsed and crushed to the point of no longer looking like something that was built by man.


40K

Taking a break for the summer… but I would still like to finish up my Asuryani this year – as well as take a chunk out of the remaining Drukhari to be painted. Might also be fun to work on some of my Impeiral Guard that still have stuff to be painting (Tallarn, Valhallans)


OTHER MINIATURE GAME STUFF

I do have a bunch of stuff to paint for my friend John – Shadespire rats and dwarves, space rats, pi-rats, assorted Frosstgraviness… I’d like to get that done sooner rather than later. Expecially the Space Rats – as they could be used as a gang in Necromunda!

Then there all the Hellboy miniatuers I’d like to get painted by Xmas, and all the Mice & Mystics and Super Dungeon Explore I’ve been promising Keira I’d help her paint forever…


BOARD GAMES

Still lot of board games on our 10x10 Challenge list to play. Amanda’s been away in the states this last week – and doesn’t get back until the first of July – and really wasn’t available for the few weeks before she went away – just busy at work with a lot of stuff, plus getting a lot of things dealt with BEFORE she went on vacation so there isn’t so much to do when she gets back…


THE GAME ROOM

I did promise Amanda that this would be the summer I’d get that part of the basement renovated… and it would be nice to have a dedicated space for gaming again – instead of having to haul stuff up and set up stuff on the dining room table…


Well… one things for certain... I can’t imagine finding myself being bored at any point in the foreseeable future!



Coming Soon to Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Necromunda!!!

Drukhari Wych Cult

A little over a year ago, Amanda and I bought a used (mostly assembled, but entirely unpainted) Dukhari force of a local dude that wanted to offload them. From this I did paint up a Kill Team for her to use last fall, but very little movement had been made since then... Until now...

This weekend was the Strange Bedfellows 40K Team Tournament, and we decided to enter a FAMILY team. Unfortunately, Amanda was away in the U.S. at a Yoga thing, but she said it would be okay for Finnegan to make use of her Drukhari so we could field an all Aeldari team. (If she hadn't been away, it might have been me and Keira with Asuryani, Amanda with the Drukhari and Finnegan with his ORKS!!). Instead we teamed up with our friend Other Tim and his Alaitoc Asuryani.

Over the last six weeks I cranked out this entire 1000 point Drukhari force. I've previously posted the Reavers and Hellions (and Lelith Hespirax, even though she wasn't needed for the force). Here, for the first time, is the ENTIRE 1000 point Drukhari force - including the Succubus and three Wych squads I've painted in the last few weeks.



This is the entire Crimson Wave Wych Cult force Finnegan used in the tournament. It was lead by a solitary Succubus and included three units of 10 Wyches, one unit of 20 Hellions, and one unit of 12 Reavers. The unit sizes were not ideal.. but there were very specific detachments that were to be used and this is what we had available that could fill those spots.



The Succubus leading the force.



Wych Cult Unit Number One. These weren't assembled by me. I think the Hekatrix (the unit leader) may have been converted from a kabalite figure...?



Wych Cult Unit Number Two - same deal with the Hekatrix here...



Wych Cult Unit Number Three. Now that's a regular Wych Cult Hekatrix!



The entire Drukhari force so far. This could be fielded as a "Battalion" Detachment with Lelith Hesperix and a Sucubus as HQ requirements, the three Wych units as the Troops Requirements, and the Reavers and Hellions fielded as two to three Fast Attack options.

I'll need to paint up another Helliarch to lead the second unit of Hellions if we decided to split them up into smaller (more manageable!) groups.

Still to do are another nine Reavers, ten Hellions, a Venom, an Archon, and a couple dozen Kabalite Warriors. I might try to convince Amanda she needs a Ravager (or two) for some more hard-hitting, anti-armour capability. Or maybe a flier like the Voidraven Bomber or a Razorwing fighter...?



An objective marker I made up with spare Drukhari bitz. I have a couple more in the works. Ideally I'd like to put together four - each with a different number of skulls on the base to indicate the objective number.


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog: 

NECROMUNDA!!!

Planning to run a short trial campaign over the summer and maybe a larger extended campaign in the fall - along with a narrative campaign weekend in October!!

Strange Bedfellows 40K Team Tournament

This weekend I attended the Strange Bedfellows Team Tournament in Saskatoon with The Kids and Other Tim. It was a long tiring day - made longer and more tiring by the fact that I was up stupid late trying to put last minute touches on Amanda's Drukhari that Finnegan was taking to the tournament and only got about an hour of sleep before getting up again to get ready to get out to the tournament. All that aside, though, it was a pretty damned good day...

There were TEN teams participating, each with four players - each player bringing a force of 1000 points. Each round a team would be matched up against another team and they would then play two concurrent games, each with two members of one team facing off against two members of the other team.

There were specific Detachments that we were required to use and I found them to be a little restrictive and difficult to put a force together for. Probably because it seemed to favour a style of play  totally counter to my own. To me, it seemed to give preference to smaller forces of high-point units, which I don't have much of - other than a few Lords of War.... but no Lords of War were allowed in this...

Before the games got underway everyone set up their armies for display. they were, in theory to be judged at this point... but I'm not sure that happened. I did take the chance to wander around and take pictures of as many as I could. Though there were a few that were plain grey plastic or spray primed on colour or has a rather uninspiring "minimum three colour" job, it was wonderful to see SO MANY really, REALLY well painted armies!

I apologize for the quality of the photos, the light in the convention hall wasn't great...



This was Keira's Asuryani force from the Thaestalyrdaes Craftworld (using Biel-Tan rules). Lead by Jain Zar, it included a unit of Dire Avengers, a unit of Rangers, two squads of Howling Banshees, a squad of Swooping Hawks, a troop of Wraithblades and a Wraithlord.



Other Tim's Alaitoc Force. He had an Autarch, three squads of five Rangers, a squad of Striking Scorpions, two Wraithlords, three jet bikes, and two Wave Serpants.



My own Warhost of the Biel-Tim Fleet - an offshoot of the Biel-Tan Craftworld. It was lead by Farseer Thymiltelyir and his most trusted aide, Broelwyn the Warlock. Escorting them on their journeys were a pair of Dire Avenger squads, a team of Rangers, a unit of Warp Spiders, a small host of Wraithguard and a Wraithlord.



Space Wolf force belonging to Cody Martinka.



Chaos Marines!



Some pretty sweet-looking T'au.



MOAR Chaos Marines!



Marines.



Black Legion Chaos Marines belonging to Randy Smytaniuk, who Keira and I played in the second round. He had a Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour, a Slaaneshi Daemon Prince (much to the horror of our Aeldari!), 27 Cultists, a squad of Chaos Space Marines, a Helbrute, two Obliterators, and a Rhino.



Chado Jordan's Nurggly Death Guard.



Chad's really cool display board which he brought, but wasn't using, but I took a picture of it anyway, just because it looks so rad!



I think this was Orion Croteau's Space Wolves... which were allied with Chad and Randy's Chaos forces... it was called "Strange Bedfellows", I guess...?



Another Drukhari force! Looks like a Kabbalite force with Scourges, three Venoms, a Raider, and a freaking Void Raven Bomber!?

 

More T'au



Necrons

 

 Still More T'au.

 

Dave Greenley's Raven Guard - which included an Eversore Assassin.



Chris Cloud's Marines

 

Finnegan setting up the Drukhari he was playing. I didn't get a picture of them all set up, for some reason. I'll probably post pictures of the entire force tomorrow, as it included some newly painted WYCHES!



Thousand Sons... I'm guessing that's Ahriman or some kind of sorcerer, some Thousand Sons, and a horde of Tzaangors...?



Tyranids the kids faced in the last round.

 

Son of STILL MORE T'au. Other Tim and I faced these in the last round. It included a Cadre Fireblade and a Commander in an XV86 Coldstar Battlesuit, A unit of Kroot and two Fire Warrior Strike Teams, a unit of XV8 Crisis Battlesuits, a unit of Vespids, a unit of XV** Broadside Battlesuits and a pile of Drones.



The Other Aeldari force. Another Alaitoc force led by Maugan Ra. I was kind of surprised to find an Alaitoc force that DIDN'T have piles of Rangers... I mean, that's kind of their THING, isn't it? There was one squad of Rangers and a squad of Dire Avengers and a squad of Guardians, along with a squad of Striking Scorpions, a squad of Swooping Hawks and TWO squads of Dark Reapers.



Grey Knights. And another Assassin. Looked like two Characters in Terminator armour, two squads of Terminators and a Dreadknight.



Jeremy Kuffner's Space Marines. Ten Bikers, ten Scouts, two Speeders... I'm guessing the Warlord was on a bike as well...? not a lot of boots on the ground for holding objectives...?



ULTRAMARINES!



More Necrons



WAAAAAAAAGGGGH!



MOAR WAAAAAAAAGGGGH! With a super-cool-looking... Gorkanot? Morkanot? I have no idea which is which! Fun to see it out.



Swarm o'Genestealers.



MORE Deathguard.



Some cool-looking Slaanesh Daemons!



Some Blood-for-the-Blood-God Khorne-types. So many Bloodletters!



An epic team of Imperial guard that drove up from Regina. Sure glad we didn't have to face these....


ROUND ONE

In the first round I played with Finnegan and his Drukhari (Well... they're AMANDA's Drukhari... that I painted... that he was using for this tournament)



We were playing against Chris Cloud and Dave Greenley - a couple of super fun dudes, with some awful, awful Marines... Seriously, it was like bringing a butter knife to a gun fight...

 

Finnegan set up his unit of twelve reavers ready to rocket off into some first-turn charge action... only to be blown completely away before they could even do ANYTHING... so disappointing... we learned that maybe they, being one of the biggest. most dangerous units he had, would always draw a LOT of fire and maaaaaaaayyybe they were best set up in the webway to deep strike in a later turn - thus guaranteeing at least ONE shot off before annihilation.

 

MARINES!!

 

XENOS TO THE FRONT! THIRTY SEVEN ROUNDS - RAPID FIRE!! Sweet Jiminy, they just rolled bochket and buckets of dice and they ALL re-rolled misses and re-rolled failed wound rolls...

 

Finnegan's one moment of EPICNESS! His Hellions swooped around the corner of this large central building and utterly blew away a unit of Assault Marines!

 

Wyches and Wraithguard advancing on the flank under cover.

I made some marker to put by each of his Wych Cult units so he'd be able to remember which Combat Drugs each had taken and what their game effect was!



Turn Two the Raven Guard landed their drop pod to our rear... and out poured marines!

On our turn, Farseer Thymiltelyir did a pretty good job of thinning their forces with a psychic power -taking out six of the Marines. Inspired by his masters work, Warlock Broelwyn tried to summon a power and suffered Perils of the Warp!



I dropped some Warp Spiders out of the Warp to their rear and unleashed Death Spinners on some scouts hiding in a building...



Finnegan threw some Wyches up against Chris' Marines and they just had their asses handed to them...



Rangers showed up and shot up the Raven Guard captain... but not enough to take him down...



he charged in and took down Farseer Thymiltelyir. Luckily some fleeing rangers spotted him and scooped up his unconscious form and hauled him back to the rendezvous point and escaped back into the Webway with him... others weren't so lucky...



This Assassin was mauling my Warpsiders so we just charged in and were joined by some Witches and took the blighter down... and then he exploded and took three more Warp Spider and three more Wyches with him!?

It was a fun game, but we lost... badly... like 40-0.... It was fun, though, Chris and Dave were a riot. I'd love to play with them again, but I'd have to seriously reconsider what I'd bring to the table - how do you DEAL with SO MUCH very accurate and DEADLY dakka!?

While Finnegan and I were playing Chris and Dave, Keira and Other Tim were playing Jeremy and Cody.



I only turned over to the neighbouring table to snap few quick pics of the action, from time to time.



I think they fared better than us...




But they still lost...



At least they weren't tabled!



More of their game...



Still more of their game...


ROUND TWO



In round two Keira and I faced Mark and Randy's combines forces of Chaos! I think the table was supposed to be some sort of Necron Tomb, but Keira thought it looked like it could be inside a Blackstone Fortress - which is kind of did, AND it would make way more sense for this particular match-up - so we went with that.



Knowing that it would be bad for another Blackstone Fortress to fall into the hands of the forces of Chaos, combined warhosts of the Thaestalyrdaes Craftworld and the Biel-Tim fleet stood to foil the dark powers malevolent plans!



Randy was a very crafty player - positioning his HUGE group of Black Legion cultists to deny us the ability to deep strike behind their lines. Mark had HUGE hordes of Pink Horrors - two units of 30, shooting gouts of multi coloured death-sparkles everywhere - which were kind of cool! (They'll be way cooler when he gets them all painted!)!



Warp Spiders arrived and blew up a Chaos Rhino!



Ranger appeared and sniped







Pink Horror Rampage! those Horrors surged forward and pretty mcc wiped out the Swooping Hawks, Rangers, Dire Avengers, and Warp Spiders. It was awful.

We totally lost this game - but it was a bit closer! 28 - 12...? Maybe...? I can't remember. It was fun, though, so...

While Keira and I were playing Mark and Randy, Other Tim and Finnegan were playing Chad Jordan and Orion Croteau



I had really hoped to play against these guys - because they're great guys. (After hearing about their forces, however, I'm secretly relived that I didn't have to face them after all).



Combined Aeldari forces swoop into contact with the forces of Chaos.



These were apparently no fun at all to fight... (They LOOK wicked coo, though, huh?)



Chaos marines relentlessly holding objectives.



The Hellions and Reavers arrive!

I took a few moments during the second round to walk around and take a few quick snaps of some of the other games going on (usually while Mark was moving his hordes of Pink Horrors!)



Battlegroup Pegasus and their massed artillery...



I think this was a massive Chaos on Chaos throwdown.



T'au and Slaanesh some kind of marines taking on more Chaos hordes.




ROUND THREE



In round three Other Tim and I paired up against the only other Asuryani player, who was teamed up with some T'au. Apparently a splinter faction of the Alaitoc Craftworld that bought into the T'au philosophy of "the Greater Good". Their team was called Three Xenos Walk Into a Grey Knight Bar... (the team includes Asuryani, T'au, Tuyranids and... Grey Knights!? I guess that's why it was called "Strange Bedfellows!")



This was our closest game yet - probably because the forces were a bit more balanced. Patrick and David were super fun guys to play against.



There were some pretty epic events - like the Dire Avenger Exarch on the left (partly obscured by the Drone) - his entire squad was wiped out. I spent 2 Command Points to have him auto-pass his morale test (as he would have fled on anything but a one). In this last game, victory point were awarded for units wiped out - and if figured keep him on the table denied them a victory point and would force them to concentrate some fire on him just to finish off the unit, with would draw fire away from other units... but then I did stupid things with him... like charge into combat versus three VX8 Crisis suits and a swarm of drones!? Somehow he survived all the incoming overwatch fire - and then the rest of these guys joined in the melee... in the melee he took piles of hits - four of which wounded with -1AP... I saved all four. Later the T'au fell back and fired on him again - another four hits - I failed ONE armour save - so I use another command point to re-roll and he survived! He was still running around at the end of the game so we decided he was some sort of epic hero that poems would be written about.



We just squeaked out a victory - the only one for our team this weekend. I think the score was 24-16?



while Other Tim and I battled the Eldar and T'au, Finnegan and Keira faced their teammates who were playing Tyranids and Grey Knights!?



Finnegan figured the Grey Knights used their psychic powers to disrupt the Tyranids synaptic link and mind control them into working for the Grey Knights - which was kind of a cool idea! I mean, the Grey Knights ARE the super secret chamber militant of the Ordo Malleus. Their mission is to hunt daemons. They could give no fü¢ks at all about Xenos threats. I could see a Radical Inquisotor of the Ordos justifying the use of dangerous Xenos to wage their war against Daemonkind in and "end justify the means" kind of way...



The Succubus finding herself surrounded by a swarm of giant alien beasties... just like back home in the arenas of Commorragh!



The Reavers arrive! Hey look an opportunity to use Eviscerating Fly-By - a 1 Command Point Stratagem that allows a Wychcult flying unit to overpass an enemy unit at top speed (must be advancing) - they roll one die for each model in the Drukhari unit on a 6+ the enemy unit sufferes a mortal wound (+1 to the roll if the enemy unit is INFANTRY - like those guys). Unfortunately, out of the TWELVE DICE he only rolled ONE 5+... yeah... It was that kind of day.



Hellions arrive to menace the rear!



The kids lost. In fact they were tabled on Round Four for a 40-0 loss... Keira said she had fun.... Jain Zar and her Howling Banshees wiped out a unit of Terminators and a character in Terminator Armour! So.. small victory there...



The Aeldari All-Stars! We made team hoodies (or "Bunnyhugs" as they are called in Saskatchewan) though they look a little blue in this pic, they were actually purple. We handprinted the faction symbols on them with fabric paint. Keira did her own, I did the rest. From left to right; Other Tim (Alaitoc), Keira (Thaestalyrdaes Craftworld), your truly (Biel-Tim Fleet), and Finnegan (Crimson Wave Wych Cult).

We took home the "Wooden Spoon" award - for being dead last in the standings - despite the minor victory Other Tim and myself pulled off in the last round...

Fun was had. Met some great people. Got to play some games with the great people I already knew. Rolled dice. Pushed around minis on a table. War Noises were made as shit got blowed up. All-in-all a pretty good way to spend a Saturday.

Thanks to Beau Sutton for organizing the event and thanks to all those who we played against us and (mostly) kicked out asses!

I'm not sure I'll convince Finnegan to go to another tournament. He's experienced a 40K tournament, and it's not really his thing (he's way more into role-playing and narrative-type games - and it's not always easy to construct narrative in the middle of a tournament, where some of your opponents are just there to compete and could care less about fluff...).

Keira said she'd totally play in another tournament - at least one like this that was more for fun... maybe not-so-mch a high-powered, super competitive ITC event... Maybe we'll be paired up for the next Battle of the Abyss... or we'll see her at next year's Battleforce Recon...? I think she'll be working on a Ynnari  next - she's assembling her first unit of Drukhari Wyches as I type - and picked up the Triumvirate of Ynnead last week - which I promised to help her assemble this week! I think we'll be trying out the fancy new Contrast® paints on these...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming blog:

I'll probably get some pis of the finish Drukhari force - oh, I haven't finished ALL the Drukhari we have - just the 1000 point force I finished up for this tournament. I have another 1000 points of stuff to finish up to complete EVERYTHING. But at least Amanda has a playable force and hopefully we'll see her at the table rolling dice and kicking our asses in the near future.

After that, expect to see some NECROMUNDA in the coming weeks!!!