This...Isn't Quite Right

Last night I spent a couple hours working on Vanguard Vets., highlighting of their armor and then moved on to base coating grey in preparation for white. What you see below is the result. I stopped after the second Marine, because what I was seeing threw me off. (It's a quick and dirty photo, just to show color layout).

Originally, I'd planned to avoid the standard GW Raven Guard color scheme for veterans that uses all white arms and heads. I wasn't a huge fan of it, because I felt that pure white was a poor choice for stealth-oriented troopers. I decided to go with white decorations and pad rims instead.

After looking at the above Marines, I'm rethinking my plan. At this point, they look very odd to me. The scattered patches of white feel like they frame the black too much, especially on the shoulder pads. I selected fancy pads that had both open, flat areas to which to apply Chapter symbol decals, but that also provided white decoration. It's just not working out. I also selected helmeted heads that contained some sort of brow decoration that I could paint white while leaving the main helm black. Again, it looks really odd.

I'm not sure how to fix these guys. My first thought was to rip all the heads off if I can and paint them full white. But I think I'd still be left with the "picture frame" problem of the shoulder pads. So, perhaps solid white pads instead.

What do you readers think? White helmets with silver brow details, or black details? Solid white pads, or white pads with black details? The only thing that is off the table are solid white arms. Keep in mind that the jump packs will be attached eventually, adding more black behind the heads, with silver in the intake grilles.

One-Day Campaign, and a Farewell

On Saturday the 19th, the FLGS ran a single-day campaign-style event instead of the standard monthly tourney. I think folks were burned out on competitive gaming after such a long period of monthlies, culminating in the Standish Standoff last month. I know I was, and it was nice to just throw dice and not worry about winning.

The basic format was that at the end of each game, the winner awarded his warlord and one Troops unit a stat bonus from a provided list. The loser awarded a Troop unit, and on a 4+, his warlord as well. Missions were Maelstrom, but with some alternate secondaries (Second Blood or Last Blood instead of First Blood, Kill Points, etc). No map taking or anything like that.

For the day, I wanted to start phasing out Ultramarines from my list as much as I could and still play. The only thing I have that isn't Ultramarines and actually playable is a full set of Assassins. I took the full Assassinorum Execution Force formation (one of each assassin). Then I took a small Ultramarines CAD with a ML 1 Librarian, Scout Squad, and Tactical Squad. I finished it off with a First Company Strike Force made of two Terminator Squads, each with a chainfist and assault cannon, an Assault Terminator squad with two hammers, and a five-man Sternguard squad (just bolters). Originally, I'd had an Allied Detachment made of Telion, six Scouts, and a Landspeeder instead of the CAD, but I realized that if I did so, I'd have no eligible warlord under the campaign rules, which required you to have a non-special character as your warlord. I was just going to select an assassin, but they don't get any warlord benefits, so I rewrote the list. This also allowed me to get my Librarian model onto the table for the first time ever.

Anyhow, because it was a campaign day, I decided my army's mission was to kill as many of the enemy army's characters as possible in every game, to the exclusion of all other mission rules as far as the Assassins were concerned.

My first game was against Thor, since the tournament software he wrote really likes to pair us up. The story of the game were the Assassins. Their ability to infiltrate really threw a bag of wrenches into the gears of his force. He had to dedicate some inordinate amounts of fire and effort into clearing them out. In the end, I won by just a few points.

Assassinorum Report, Engagement One:
Terminator Sorceror - Target Eliminated, Vindicare Kill
Power Armored Chaos Champion - Target Eliminated, Culexus Kill
Power Armored Chaos Champion - Target Eliminated, Vindicare Kill
Chaos Champion on Traitor Pattern Bike - Target Eliminated, Callidus Kill
Terminator Armored Chaos Champion - Target Elimited - Adeptus Astartes Kill

Callidus Operative - KIA
Vindicare Operative - Recovered
Culexus Operative - Recovered
Eversor Operative - KIA

Game Two was against my last-round opponent from the Standoff, who was feeling much better this time round. He brought his Krieg and their Baneblade again, and he won by a few points. The highlight of this game was having my Vindicare, who'd camped out on the roof of a building at the far edge of the field, take his final shot of the game at three surviving members of an infantry squad. They were lined up along a wall, and I opted to use a turbo penetrator round. After the dice were rolled, I put all three squaddies down with a single shot. We agreed that he'd probably headshotted all three in succession. FYI, Turbo Pen rounds against non-vehicles produce d3 wounds instead of just one on a successful to-wound roll.

Assassinorum Report, Engagement Two:
Company Commander - Target Escaped, Mission Failure
Inquisitor Coteaz - Target Escaped, Mission Failure
Various Guard Unit Leadership - Three Targets Escaped - Mission Failure
Various Guard Unit Leadership - Four Targets Eliminated - Culexus Kill, Vindicare Kill, Vindicare Kill, Adeptus Astartes Force Kill

Callidus Operative - KIA
Vindicare Operative - Recovered
Culexus Operative - KIA
Eversor Operative - KIA

The last game of the day was against a Chaos Marines force with very few models. Just a couple Cultist squads, two Maulerfields, two Daemon Princes with wings and Tzeentch powers, a Hellblade flyer (which was really cool to play against), a Chaos Fire raptor, and a Helldrake. We beat the hell out of one another, and tied for primary points, but he took more secondaries. As usual, Assassins have a really hard time with Daemon Princes. I had no anti-air capability, but that was mitigated by his flyers' refusal to show up until turn four.

Assassinorum Report: Engagement Three:
Daemon Prince - Target Escaped, Mission Failure
Daemon Prince - Target Escaped, Mission Failure
Mortal Cultist Champion - Target Eliminated, Vindicare Kill
Mortal Cultist Champion - Target Escaped, Mission Failure

Callidus Operative - Recovered
Vindicare Operative - KIA
Culexus Operative - Recovered
Eversor Operative - KIA

So the total for the day was five character kills for the Vindicare, two for the Culexus, one for the Callidus, and two for various Astartes units. The Eversor had no character kills for the day.
The Callidus died 2 of 3 games, the Vindicare and Culexus 1 of 3, and the Eversor 3 of 3. About what you'd expect considering their roles of the table. The Eversor, despite being my favorite of the Assassin types, was very hard to get into combat due to the infiltrate rules for line of sight and distance. Perhaps next time I should simply deploy him during setup. The Callidus might benefit from outflanking or arriving from the opponent's table edge as well.
It was nice, relaxed, and fun day. My list was enjoyable to play. I really liked running the First Company Strike Force with Terminators, and I think I'll be creating some Raven Guard Terminators as soon as I can. The list I ran Saturday helped me solidify my army play style for my Raven Guard, as well as the load out for my Captain. What I want my Raven Guard options to personify is a "blade and mailed fist" option. My Captain will be armed with a power sword and a power fist. His method of combat is to present both a fast, agile attack on one hand (the blade), while holding a crushing, mailed fist as a threat. His army around him will be composed of Scouts, Speeders, and Jump units as the blade, while Terminators and Centurions will be the fist.
My thoughts are that if you are engaged in a duel with a swordsman with a long blade in one hand, and a heavy gauntlet in the other, you might try to deny the strengths of his blade by getting inside his guard. But the punches from the gauntlet force you back out, or knock you down entirely. If you stay at arm's length to avoid the punches, the blade takes you apart with stabs and cuts. I know nothing about actual melee combat, but it sounds neat, right?

I'm even more excited about painting up my Raven Guard now, which is great. Previously, I was very focused on formations and being able to use units in multiple formation roles from game to game, but this revised way of thinking about my army is even better. Yes, I'll use formations, but all of them should revolve around the previously-described combat doctrine.
It was a real struggle to decide how to arm my Captain as well. I originally wanted to capitalize on the new Raven Guard relics from Kauyon, with the new bolter or lightning claws as a priority, but I will instead go with non-weapon relics like the jump pack or armor, if any at all. I'm bu8ilding to model to fit the character, not the character to fit the model. I'd complained about people forming their fluff to the army list before, and I feel ashamed I'd fallen into that same pit!

The farewell I mentioned in the post title is for my Ultramarine bikes. I handed them over to their new owner on Saturday. I've sold every painted bike model I have (I kept all the unbuilt models and bitz). I sold them for a price I considered fair, but won't reveal the exact amount. The new owner can tell people if he'd like, but it's not really about the money for me as much as it is seeing them run by someone who'll enjoy them. Dave actually sought me out to inquire about buying all of my Ultras when he heard I was retiring them. It was pretty flattering. Eventually, I'll sell off all of my Ultramarines as I manage to get more and more points of Raven Guard onto the table.

On the Raven Guard model front, I've got my Landspeeder ready for decals, so I'll get some pictures as soon as it's all marked and sealed. Once that's done, it's on to the Captain.

Flavius Felix, Command Squad Veteran

I am now the proud owner of a full Ultramarines Command Squad with Style! Here is Flavius Felix:

This is his general back story write up:
Veteran Brother Flavius Felix is the oldest member of the command squad, and is fiercely protective of Numerian Castor. He has taken more than one bullet for the Apothecary, and his extensive bionics are proof of that. Castor ensures the scarred old veteran receives the best augmetics the Chapter's Apothecarion has to offer.

Overall, I'm happy with how he turned out. I did add some static grass to his base shortly after taking the pictures to break up the brown and match the rest of the squad. Speaking of the squad...

In all their glory. It feels really good to finish such a long project like this. I know normal humans would probably have finished these guys in a week or two, but it took me six months.

Now that they are done, I can dedicate more time to completing my Vindicator. I really want to have it complete for this month's 1500 point tournament at the FLGS. I haven't run a Vindicator since the dawn of 5th Edition, when I had a second hand, metal version that I used to run unpainted and half-salvaged.

Look at me, I'm bionic!

The painting bug continues gnawing on my brain, so I've been painting and painting these last several days. The result is some very solid progress on the final member of the Command Squad, the bionic bodyguard.

Here's where he's at right now:

The head is pretty much done, though I'm not so sure about that bionic eye. It's miniscule on the model, so I'm not sure there's much else I can do with it. I'm not sure if I should dot his other eye or not. I really should, but I fear I'll screw up the whole eye if I do. At arm's distance it looks ok, but in pictures the missing pupil is pretty glaring.

As for his body, he's got a Mk5 torso, bionic chainsword arm from the Commander kit, a stormbolter and arm from the Sternguard kit, one pad from the Command Squad box, and one from Sternguard, and those bionic legs. They're from Kromlech. I'll do a review of them in the future.

His pose is a little off. I'd intended it to be a walking forward type of pose with him having his arms out in a "give me your best shot!" gesture. I think I missed on it a little, and I think the reason is because I didn't roll his shoulders back. Instead of him having his shoulders back, baring his chest to the enemy, he's just walking forward with his weapons lowered. I really wish Marine torsos had ball joints on the shoulders.

I also applied a shading wash to my Vindicator but haven't cleaned it up yet. I've got the stormbolter hatch to add to it, which has been assembled and primed as long as the tank itself, I've just not touched it with paint. I also added a Razorback turret with heavy bolters to the painting queue, for use by the Command Squad and whomever they ride with.

Thrax Gaios, Command Squad Veteran

I've been on a bit of a painting tear over the holiday weekend. I managed to get time in on just about every day in the four-day weekend. As a result, I finished off the tank hunting veteran for my Command Squad, put a ton of paint on my Vindicator, and started working on the final member of the Command Squad.

Here is Thrax Gaios' back story:

Veteran Brother Thrax Gaios is the squad's demolitions expert. He carries a meltagun, his bolter, and a satchel of meltabombs and grenades. He can toss a krak grenade into the vision slit of a moving tank at a hundred meters. Where the other squad members wear armor featuring ornate designs and decoration to reflect their veteran status and membership in the Command Squad, Gaios wears bulky, reinforced armor with little adornment. Because his armor is so often dented and scraped when he stands in the blast wash of exploding enemy tanks and fortifications, he has opted to forego ostentation in favor of smooth lines and heavy plating.

And here are the pictures:

 

As you can see, he's pretty plain. I could probably drop him into a tactical squad and he'd blend right in. I had originally planned to put a brass etch aquila on his chest, but the damned things never lay flat and gluing them down is a major pain in the ass, as you either end up gluing it to your fingers or tools, or with a spread of lumpy superglue residue around the area. I tried briefly to add one freehand, but it looked terrible and I scrubbed it off. His Ultramarine symbol is also a tad crooked, though it doesn't look quite as severe in person. I might have to go back and redo that, if it starts to irk me.

Now that he's done, I've only got one squad member left. The Apothecary's bodyguard. He's largely bionic, so I used as many bionic bits as I could on the model. I forgot to take a picture of his body, but here is his head so far:

Pretty simple bionic head. The skin is done, but the metallics are not. The rest of him is made from GW parts with Kromlech legs. I'll get a shot up in the coming days.

While waiting for Dullcote to dry, I also started plugging along on my Vindicator. Here's a quick, largely uninteresting shot:

As of this morning, the blue is about 90% done. I decided to try a different technique for painting vehicles. Instead of painstakingly applying each layer, leaving careful shade lines as I go, I decided to paint each layer quickly and thoroughly, and then apply the shading with a wash of my darkest color. If it turns out right, it'll save me a TON of time when painting tanks and pods.

There is a bit of bad news to go along with all my painting progress. Yesterday afternoon, while scrubbing mold release off my Forgeworld Raven Guard Captain Korvydae model parts, I dropped one of the fuel lines for his jump pack down the sink drain. I soak my FW resin parts in Simple Green, which is a great degreaser and perfect for cleaning resin. Unfortunately, the dissolved mold release makes the parts VERY slippery. I thought to myself "I should probably close the drain plug for this." I decided that I was almost done, so didn't bother. Fate punished me by sending that little pipe part squirting out of my fingers and right down the drain. ARGH! If anyone knows where I can get another fuel line for that kit without buying the whole thing over again, or has an example of rebuilding the line from other parts, I'd appreciate it!

In general gaming news, it looks like GW is revamping the base sizes for models. 32mm bases are up for preorders, with all of the new Blood Angel reboxings and kits having new sizes. I do like the idea of added space for posing Marines, but not the idea of buying scads of new bases at fifty cents a pop. I'm not hurting for hobby funds, I just hate spending money on simple pieces. I'll wait to see what the reasoning behind the bases is before jumping in. The timing is fortunate for me though, as I'm just about to start assembling and posing Raven Guard models. Id 32mm is standard for Marine infantry, that gives my Scouts, Assault Marines, and Jump HQs a lot of space to work with. One of the basing ideas I had for them was a desert city ruin with small tumbles of bricks and broken walls, but that is largely lost on 25mm bases. 32mm would give me room to stack bricks, sculpt pavers, and add little windswept sand piles to the debris. I'd wanted to jump right in to the RG models, but new bases put a little delay in the process. I have plenty of Ultramarine tanks to paint while waiting though.

Command Squad Progress: the Tank Killer

In the last week or so, I've made some very solid progress on my Command Squad. Painting for the Standard Bearer is done except for his base, I've picked some parts for the bionic Veteran, and I fully built the tank-killing Veteran. Here are some shots of him:

This is the initial body construction, showing the FW torso defects I repaired and some studs I added to his knee pads.

And then his final state, with a head picked out and pads on.

The studs are micro beads, set into small drill holes and glued in place. You can see the tutorial I got the idea from over at Drowned in Plastic. While you're there, check out his Helbrecht build. It's AMAZING.
I held off on a full spread of studs, because I wasn't sure how well they'd come out. A couple added to break up the smooth lines just a bit felt like enough.

The general design behind him is that he wears plated Mk4 armor and a left-leading pad with an extended edge to protect him from the shrapnel and blast from tanks and bunkers he's destroyed with that meltagun and meltabombs (the meltabombs are behind his left hip, not visible in the images). He's got improved targeters in his helm for finding and tracking weak points in vehicle armor, including an upgraded thermal imaging suite for finding exhaust ports and venting seams in xenos and Imperial STC vehicle patterns.

I didn't elect to use another tabarded set of legs for this Marine, as I figured he'd either have no use for one as decoration or that it would be burned up pretty quickly as he stands in the blast wash from exploding tanks. It might bust up the cohesion of the squad some, but probably not a lot as the Apothecary and the bionic Veteran also do not have tabards (though the bionic one is still up in the air, with a post on him and his legs coming later this week).

It's exciting to be nearly done with the Command Squad as a whole. Once the Standard Bearer is done, I'll be over halfway finished, with only two guys left. Both are simpler paint jobs than the Standard Bearer or the Apothecary. The tank hunter will go pretty quickly, being all blue and gold and the bionic Marine will as well, since I don't forsee using any white or fancy sections on him.
Once the squad members are done I have to decide if I'll build them a custom Razorback, or just paint up a turret to put on top of one of my Rhinos. Right now, all of my Razorback turrets are assault cannons or las/plas.

Thankfully, I've finished most of my home improvement projects that were eating up my evenings and the summer heat has gone, leaving me time and motivation to paint again.

Checking In

It's been some time since my last posting, so I figured it was time to check in with an update and some random thoughts.

I took the last week off work (hooray for paid vacation days), but didn't paint a whole lot. I had a lot of home improvement projects to do (and still do, nothing takes the time you'll think it'll take). I only found a few spare moments here and there to pick away at things. I primed the Standard Bearer, but not his banner. It's separate from the pole for painting. I also finished painting blue on the siege shield of my Vindicator (also separate from the parent model for painting). No picture, as I figure no one really needs or wants to see a siege shield painted plain blue.

I can't decide if I should finish the rest of the dozer in metallic colors before masking off the angled stripe I plan to airbrush across the front, or if I should airbrush the stripe and then finish the metals. It probably doesn't make much difference, as the stripe won't cross the metal areas.

I've selected some preliminary parts for the fourth member of the squad, who is the anti-armor and demolitions expert. I chose one of the armored torsos from the Forgeworld Mk4 Power Weapons Set, basic legs (no need for a tabard under all that plating), and haven't picked a helmet yet. FW parts are always ever so slightly smaller than GW plastics, so some heads look odd on the torso I picked. I thought about the grilled helmet from the VenDread kit, but it looks hilarious when test fitted in place.
For armament, I'm torn. I'm trying to keep every member of the squad at no more than 15 points of upgrades. Command Squad members start with a bolt pistol and a boltgun. They can buy pretty much any of the upgrade options (ranged, melee, special) and various other items. Because this guy is a demo/tank expert, he'll get meltabombs alongside his grenades. The meltabombs from the kit I linked above are about half the size of regular GW plastic bombs, so they can be fitted to a Marine's belt, pack, or thigh plates.
The sticky part are his guns. All Marine Veterans get two base attacks in their profile. You can bump them to three if you trade the bolter for a melee weapon while retaining the pistol. But this Marine isn't a melee fighter, so he won't get a melee upgrade. My decision comes down to: meltagun and bolter, or combimelta and bolt pistol? Both the combimelta and the meltagun are the same points cost.
If I take a pistol and combi, I'll get only one shot with the melta but also have the bolter to fire the rest of the time, as well as a pistol shot before a charge. It's simple to model and a pretty standard choice. However, if I take the meltagun and bolter I can fire as many melta shots as I like, and still have the bolter when other things are out of range or are less than ideal targets (you don't shoot melta at Gaunts and Orks). I won' tneed the pistol before a charge, because a meltagun is Assault 1. Modeling the bolter and the meltagun in a somewhat realistic way will be tougher. I will have to sling one or the other weapon over his back or under his backpack, or try to clamp the bolter to his leg. Unfortunately, there are no smaller bolters in any kit, and slinging weapons has always been a modeling challenge.

The fifth member of the squad is one I've not assembled parts for, though I did pickup some parts I might use. I got a handful of what I'm told are old upgrade torsos for Fabius Bile enhanced Marines. They look suitably bionic/augmetic for my purposes of building a squad member who's almost entirely rebuilt with bionics because he takes a lot of bullets for the Apothecary. The general plan is to use the half-bionic sergeant head from one of the older Marine kits, one of those Bile torsos, and then either buy or build bionic arms and legs. GW makes the Iron hands upgrade kit (though its in Finecast now), and Kromlech also makes some interesting bionic legs but no arms. I haven't picked armament for him yet, but I'm leaning towards something cheap like a stormbolter and a chainsword, because he'll be taking Look Out Sir rolls for the Apothecary a lot.

After all of that, I'm still working and planning some Allied units. Raven Guard are still in the works, but I'm also looking sidelong at Grey Knights. I own a 5-man unit of the old metal Terminators, and a Captain Stern model who can be just about any of the HQ models in TDA. I'd originally wanted to add them to add some Sanctic and anti-Daemon ability into my force, but the new codex looks really interesting. Not over the top like its prior incarnation, and much more streamlined.
There's also the upcoming Officio Assassinorum dataslate to think about. The one thing I hated about prior incarnations of Assassins was that you had to spend points on an HQ and Troops to get access to one. I'm definitely going to look at the dataslate when it's available, as I've always wanted to put an Eversor or a Culexis on the table.