See Me Rollin

What I'm playing on.  Not too shabby.

Despite a few ups and downs (and I mean that sorta literally. Lots of earthquakes here, but little ones and it's apparently just business as usual after), I've managed to get my first few games in in Japan.  It's been a very good experience.  The local folks seem to be extremely flexible about what they're playing.  That seems to be the case for everything, so it may mean a pretty transient metagame, which makes sense with so many people rotating in and out.  Honestly, I'm kind of excited about that.  It means lots of new challenges and no must haves in my list.  Obviously, we're looking at mostly power armor, which is just about the norm everywhere, but there seems to be plenty of variety in the flavor available.

But, when hammers hammer, they totally hammer.

I've also made a drop from the typical 1850 point games I played for most of last year to 1500 points.  This is for a couple reasons.  Number one, again, runs back to new challenges.  Going in with blind lists and only having 1500 points means trying to have solutions for problems with resources that are even dearer.  Every troop unit that goes down makes the road to scoring even tougher.  Each time a hammer fails to break its target, the opponent's is free to wreak havoc.  It makes the game tougher and the board seem a little more open.  I like the challenge, though certain mismatches yield uphill battles.

Second, I don't know if you've heard, but there is a new Daemons codex out.  I don't have it.  While that really wouldn't stop me from playing at a higher points level, it feels weird to have a big Word Bearers army and not have any daemons in it.  It's kind of a shame, as I've heard some things that sound pretty cool about the book, but time and opportunity haven't met for my acquisition of the aforementioned book.

To these larger thoughts, I'd like to add three micro-level observations from each of my three games.  From my most recent game is this little nugget.  Grey Knights suck.  It's not exactly a new sentiment, but holy cow, do they try to take my fun and stomp all over it.  I'm sure they're good normally, but against an army with as many things with the "Daemon" rule as mine, it becomes a real uphill struggle.    I threw my Daemon Prince into a Paladins squad knowing he'd die, but hoping he'd take out the enemy warlord in the process.  Terminator troops make Possessed hammer units sad.  Land Raiders are tough to crack (as always).  Thankfully, everyone did there job.  While I didn't have much left, I squeaked it out, though that doesn't do anything to lessen my Grey Knight hate.

Picture preceded by: "It can't possibly happen again..."

From game two, I learned that bad luck on key rolls can only produce a shake of the head and a little laugh, cuz there's nothing else you can really do.  I played kill points against a Blood Angels army that had two serious hammer units consisting of Assault Terminators plus a Captain in a Storm Raven and Death Company with a Chaplain in a Drop Pod.  I planned on letting the Daemon Prince (with multiple boons!) go to work on the Terminators, but it was not to be.  I rolled FOUR ones on Daemon Weapon rolls.  That guy took all game trying to take out a five man assault squad and a ten man tactical squad.  It was ridiculous.  On the other hand, my Possessed popped up with AP3 weapons on the charge and totally wiped the Death Company in one go (minus the Chaplain in a challenge), so Lady Luck really does swing both ways.

Finally, from my very first game, I've begun "Playing to a Story" as I like to call it.  A few other members of the gang have made up a setting in which there games take place.  I have written up a little something to be an episode that will become a part of my army's history.  This means a little extra bookkeeping, but with the way things are in the codex, what's a little more?  I'm tracking specific events and deeds performed by various units and trying to produce certain things.  This doesn't always mean making the most tactical decision, but it adds a fun RPG element to my games.  As a general overview of what I'm talking about, my warlord is trying to secure the patronage of a minor deity, and to do that I am attempting to do things like force morale checks, headhunt HQ's, and force enemies to flee off the board (which is tough to do against all these marines).  It's actually a decent sized list, and I'm trying to come up with additional objectives, but it adds some spice to the decision making process which has been really enjoyable.

Hobby Update: Monster Mash

It's been a minute since I've thrown any models up here.  I've made plenty of progress, but that is what's supposed to happen over the course of three weeks.

The Nightbringer has seen a fair bit of attention.  I've got most of the colors down, but before I can be closer to "finished" status, I need to A) decide if I like the placement of the colors and B) work on getting the colors to blend together more smoothly.  If you compare the before and current versions of the model, you can see pretty plainly that the colors are migrating north and becoming increasingly extreme.  I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing yet.  I think I'm going to remain patient and decide when I've cleaned things up a bit more.

I've managed to do something somewhere between an update and a redo on my Dark Apostle Daemon Prince.  Previously, he had white armor with black wings.  Now he has black armor with white wings...  so the opposite.  But with a lot more colors applied and technique.  The wings started with Dawnstone, Badab Black, Codex Grey, then finally Skull White with a quick drybrush of the new dry compound Praxeti White.  From a distance, they look great.  Close up, I am less sold.  A few of the lines are a little less clean than I'd like, but I think the biggest issue is I may have left too much of the dark coloring behind.  I'm not sure how feasible it would be to fix without redoing the whole thing, so I think I'm going to make my peace with it.  I also redid the shoulder pads and highlighted the robes.  Previously the colors were clean, but flat, which was typical of my painting back in the day.  With a new Chaos book coming up, I really want to have my army up to what I consider my current ability to be.  This guy is definitely going to be a centerpiece so I'm glad to have him done.

My Defiler has been a pretty regular presence in my Chaos Army over the last few months... or always, I suppose.  It has always been an awesome model and being able to throw around a battle cannon shot is a lot of fun.  However, part of the model's cool factor comes from its size and design, which makes it tough to transport elegantly.  Because of this, his spiky bits tend to take a lot of damage.  I got fed up with it this week when he took a tumble and one of the legs popped off.  I gave the others a pull and they actually came off pretty easily.  Before I knew it the drill was out and magnets were setting in the glue.  Despite repeated testing, not all of them were set the right way.  As a general piece of advice, definitely set the magnets that are harder to get in first.  Now the model breaks down into eight pieces that fit perfectly into one of the random extra slots in my carrying case that is currently unoccupied.  My big problem is the guy is a little finicky about standing up.  It was top and forward heavy to begin with, and now the legs tend to spin and slide out from under him.  I might try a second magnet, but we'll see.  And of course there's the high possibility that they just give the walker a base when they update the book in a month or so.

I showed off the Possessed Marines I finished in one of my last hobby posts.  I was hesitant to start the next batch right away since I was hoping to acquire two more bodies and a few arms and legs from some friends.  Honestly, I never got around too it and, surprise, surprise, my patience ran out.  I raided my own bitz box and came up with an Ork head, some Crypt Horror hands, and a few other bits that got grafted on randomly.  They don't fit perfectly, but if you don't know to look for them (cuz you're not me) they'll blend well enough.  Now on to paint!

Hobby Accomplishments

-Finished the Dark Apostle Daemon Prince
-Built Possessed Marines from scratch
-Added layers to the Nightbringer
-Magnetized the Defiler
-Wrote rules packet for this weekends tournament... so all in all, a productive three weeks.

Hobby goals for the next two weeks

-Focus
-Get the next two coats of red on the Possessed
-Get red and gold on the Death Company
-Finish the Nightbringer

Fear the Coryphaus!

What am I supposed to be working on?  A Land Raider and 3 Vargheists for Saturday. 

What am I actually working on?  Finishing a Word Bearers Daemon Prince.  He'll serve as the military strategist to the Dark Apostle.  I find him suitably intimidating.

Who wants a hug?

He's been Mechrite Red for an extended period of time, but I finally got around to putting a basecoat of 1:1 Red Gore and Scab Red on him while I was taking a break from working on some other things.  Then I got sucked in and put on the next layer of straight up Red Gore, followed by highlights with 2:1 Red Gore and Blood Red.  This is the standard procedure that I am using for my Word Bearers marines, though obviously on a smaller scale.  It produces a very robust, deep red that I'm quite fond of.  The interesting part with this model was doing the highlighting for much larger areas of illumination.  He's so similar in structure to a space marine in power armor, that while the highlight areas felt familiar, they were larger, so trying to do them so they looked smooth felt more difficult.

Additionally, I rebased my Fantasy Daemon Prince, so we have this family portrait:

You and me...  and me and you...

I share this "ohbytheway" because I built both from a single kit.  When the new kit came out several years ago, I picked one up.  Being a huge cheapskate, I counted up the bits and realized that it was short only a back and a set of legs to be twice as efficient. 

Never one to pass up a chance to do a little hobby and save a few bucks, I used some old Legos to build a crucible and made a mold out of greenstuff.  I let the mold sit overnight, then coated it in Vaseline, and put an ample amount of putty into it.  In a rare spell of patience, I let that sit long enough to harden, then pulled it out via the twist-tie that you can see embedded in the inside of the piece.  It turned out quite well.  I can't remember which Prince has the false back and can't tell by looking at them.

I would recommend the same procedure to anyone looking to save a few bucks or looking for a hobby project.  There are lots of great bits in the kit, and even if you don't have an extra set of legs laying around, you can really get creative with options for the lower half.

Finally, I'm headed to Dundracon with some friends this weekend.  It'll be quite a drive, but I'm sure that will be more than made up for with the fun to be had both at the con and in the tournament.  It's also my first tournament of the year and in a very new environment, so we'll see how it goes.