Not had any pictures for ages.

Four Raiders and a Ravager. DE Jetbikes behind.

Most 40K blogs show steady improvement/progress in photo form. Most of these are done using careful set ups with light boxes and proper cameras and stuff. Not mine I'm afraid. N'er mind eh ?

Other Stuff

I might buy an new VTT. Or a bathroom suite. I might ask Paula what my priorities are. My car needs a touch up on the front nearside and rear nearside. And if she wants a super holiday then I should put some money aside for that. What I'm going to try to avoid, is buying more WH40K stuff. I have already set aside a bung for some stuff; but that's a secret plan cos it involves someone using his staff discount - so I'm not putting that on the interweb, even if no one ever reads this.

More progress

I've now put two coats of the base sea-green colour on the sentinals. The first one looked a bit thin. The rest of the Tigers now have their first coat of flesh colour on their fleshy bits.

The DE warriors are all based and base coated. And then I trod on the box they were sat on. Only one needs re-gluing. The Raiders (and Ravagers) were all re-base coated black.

The Bel Tain folk are based and basecoated. One of the Warlocks has bsae colours on for his final colour scheme.

So then: It looks like the 400 point battles should be acheivable.

Progress

I've put a few more coats of paint on the workers rabble (Bloodcoats) and mutant horde (Tigers). I've settled on a colour scheme for the Tigers, applying the base colour to the sentinals. I've based and basecoated one platoon of Tigers and the Bel Tain figures required for the first games.

Only the DE left to base and basecoat.

WH40K Rules OK (?)

Nah. Not really.

The 4th ed basic rule book (BRB) contains a lot of kool/useful/fun stuff that has been, perhaps for reasons of space and consiceness, left out of the 5th ed BRB.

So then, the idea that an army's codex 'trumps' the BRB is not too hard to cope with. ie a specific rule for a particular army stands even if it contradicts something in the BRB that everyone else has to abide by; for instance, Dark Eldar, living in the webway itself, are always the attacker in scenarios with attackers/defenders. No problemo.

And those things that are in the 4th ed BRB; combat patrols and Kill Team fights are still perfectly useable.

Indeed, I think, despite not actually playing much, that a games system that can handle Kill Team missions (you get one squad of expendable heros, I get a Bond Villan Lair) and Apocalypse scale games (>3000 points per side) without breaking is actually pretty good. I'm pleased that now I have game tables, scenery and armies, I can play immensely differring games with it all with the same rule set. Bonza.

One of the things that doesn't help is points. In Rogue Trader, there is a points list that gives the points cost for attributes, ailities and wargear. Nice.

Flicking through the newer codices, it is obvious that someone at GW noticed that certain combinations of things produced units that were either greater or lesser than these simple numerical points scores would suggest. And so the points scores that there now are, are so different that it's not easy to see where they come from. For instance, the Imperial Guardsman has dropped by two points in the 5th ed IG codex. This encourages the IG player to take more of them, simulating the type of army that the fluff suggests. Their stat line has not changed, the tweak to the points cost just made them cheaper.

So it's sort of hard to 'make stuff up' and give it an appropriate points cost. FW models always come with rules for their use somewhere, whether an Imperial Armour book, a pdf or in a soft back suppliment. There is always an aura of expense (in points cost) associated with these items when you look at the on line 40k community's comments on them. So that does not provide a good guide (although does provide a good 'upper' handrail).

Therefore the player is left with the 'counts as' option. Whatever it is that has been produced simply 'counts as' something from an existing army. Which is fine, but it does mean that whatever it has to 'count as' something from the codices that you actually possess/have access to. And if you wanted one of those you wouldn't have gone to the trouble of modelling something different in the first place - after all, the models are supposed to be WYSIWYG so you'd use a guardsman with a melta gun figure to represent a guardsman with a melta gun.

There are tweaks that one can reasonably extrapolate from a limited amount of source data to allow some creativity. As long it is the same mind/crerative genius using the same method for each of the new creations then the adjustments to each army should be comprable. It's a working practice and we're only playing beer and pizza games anyway. One might suppose that if a tournament organiser isn't going to allow (the already over priced) FW items, as they might not occur in the codex; they arn't going to allow home brew units either. Max Nix.

inching forwards

Well, I did a load of Bloodcoats. There should now be enough Bloodcoats for the 400 pt games. I've since been working on the 144th Cadian Recce Regt's weasels (HALO warthogs with Cadian crews).

I've also acquired an airbrush. I shall set out today and get some compressed air and propriatory thinners for it. As it's Friday, I shall be going home tonight (this afternoon). So having my first go with the airbrush will have to wait until next week.

Also next week I will be working on the DE 400 point forces. Twenty warriors and three Raiders should be achievable within a week !

Moving on, listening to Radcliff and McConie last night, they were discussing the extremely important subject of music journalism (sneered the bloke with a blog about toy soldiers). Anyway, Stuart likened a lot of blogs to literary masturbation (my words, not his). So many blogs are written and then read by only a very few persons.

Work is getting to a frustrating state where a lot of people are just waiting for the end of the project - everyone knows that at some point in the foreseeable future, they will be told that their services are no longer required. But not actually knowing when makes it impossible to plan. Two people were given an end date, consequently terminated their accommodation contract and now have been asked to stay on another month. So they are back to living in hotels for a month.

I have a lot of fortykay stuff just kicking around the cabin. I need another figure case and two more ikea boxes to pack it all into, otherwise I cannot vacate the premises. And I really want to finish the armies for the 400 point games before I do leave Kent, due to the awkwardness of trying to finish them at home.

Inching forwards ? Yes. Do I have enough time ? Almost certainly. As long as I keep my production rate at the current steady level.

Capturing Lt Gen Marcus Firth III

Lt Gen Marcus Firth III is, for the first couple of battles, the HQ choice for Devos 2nd Regt.

There will be a battle to capture him. For this battle, every shot that wounds him will be assumed to miss (as the Army of Chaux Na M'rr'see are trying to capture him, not kill him). The capteurs have to 'wound' (subdue) him in CC in order to capture him. Once a zero wounds, they can bundle him (in base to base contact) back to their board edge.

Spraying. Popular with males of all speicies.

Getting a spray gun. For all the tanks. And perhaps to re-do the Eldar tanks already done.

Progress

I've now got most of the Bloodcoats done to a point where they'll be allowed on the table. There's also the 'workers rabble' who need a little time spent on them. And a little inspiration from me.

DE next, I think. Archon and Incubi are OK. Warriors and Raiders need doing.

Then the Tigers. All unbased grey plastic.

Then the other IG (Devos 2nd Regt and Valhallans) Who may or may not be mostly done.

Then Bel Tain. All unbased, in need of base coating.

blogger

AAhhhhhrg !

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/257776.page

Codex, non-codex, apoc, cities of deff etc

In case there someone out there who is insterested:

Devos IV loyalist PDF 5th Ed Codex IG
Valhallans 5th Ed Codex IG
Bel Tain Craftworld Eldar
Dark Eldar Dark Eldar
Bloodcoats Defenders of Vraks
Tigers Servants of Slaughter
Emperor's Children CSM

There are also Rough Riders (IG Codex) and Chaos Hounds (Eye of Terror) to go into the Tigers.

Not there yet:

Ulthwe Craftworld Eldar
DKK 5th Ed Codex IG

More house rules

Dice will shaken in a pot (old paint/filler pot) and rolled into a suitable tray (baneblade box). Cocked dice will be removed and reshaken.

Nothing goes onto the game table that is not part of either army or scenery. No food, no drink, templates, dice, books, rules, army lists. No reinforcements yet to be deployed, no 'dead' units. All these things remain on the side table.

All figures used will be based, basecoated and have at least three colours applied as a minimum standard before use.

Loser is the umpire for the next round. Winner makes the teas and coffees.

Certain things that are heavy weapons in the Basic Rule Book (BRB) and codexes can only either move or fire. ie they cannot both move and fire in the same turn as they need to be set up and/or dismantled and are bulky, heavy (doh) and awkward. These are mounted on 60mm bases.

Certain weapons (Devos 2nd Regt Las cannons, DKK grenadier Heavy Flamer, Devos 2nd Regt heavy stubber and Bloodcoat Heavy stubber) whilst 'heavy weapons' for all other purposes; are designed to be mobile and will be allowed to move and fire in the same round. These are mounted on 40mm round bases. These units cannot 'run'.

link of the weekend

http://xkcd.com/123/

Primarily for the sceptics amongst you

Feck. That's a bit awkward.

The GW cadian sprue comes with the bits to make a sgt (pistol and chainsword), and a number of riflemen. Now some of these riflemen can be given alternative weapons (Flamer, GL, Melta gun and plasma gun - the melta and plasma you had to buy aftermarket, but hey, who cared ?)

When I put the DKK together I ended up with enough to equip each squad with one of each. The cadians have one of each.

When I play Dawn of War (WH40K on the PC), you can give each squad three weapon upgrades (but no heavy weapon option, so maybe they had spotted what I later learned).

Using Army Builder, the IG squads (including Defenders of Vraks (the Bloodcoats) and the Servants of Slaughter (the Tigers)) can only be given one of these weapons (and a crew served heavy weapon, but that doesn't enter to this at the moment). The awkward thing is that I have modelled all of the squads for the DKK, Cadians, Bloodcoats & Tigers with all four weapons. So including the Sgt, there are only actually five riflemen in each squad for all of these armies.

I'm gonna fudge this. Stand by for a house rule:

If both opposing sides have modelled weapons that do not appear on their Army List; as long as it is identical to their opponent's not accounted for weapon; these identical weapons can be 'traded off' against each other on a like for like basis. This can only apply to armies written using the same basic codex (ie, derivitives of the IG).

Sunday's progress

I was looking at the game boards. One has a scattering of sand on it - in retrospect, too much. Some smears of filler would have been a much better way to go. Anyway; both the boards were done with the remains of the black and white kids paint from the big squeezy tubes. So the boards would be the same base colour as most of the scenery (done with much the same paint, ne c'est pas ?).

It's too dark.

I've looked at other boards on other peoples' webpages. And I've considered the lighting in the garage. And the fact that there might not be that much ambient light in November.

They are too dark.

I bought some light grey emulsion from Wickes. I've painted the flat, untextured board. It is now too light. But a wash of greatly thinned down kiddies black paint with a spot of PVA in it will do the trick. The same scheme will also have to be applied to all of the scenery. Oh well. Ho hum.

getting somehere

I bought a subscription to Army Builder 3.2. I've made up 400 point lists for:

Devos IV loyalist PDF
Valhallans
Bel Tain
Dark Eldar
Bloodcoats
Tigers
Emperor's Children

So now all I have to do is base and paint these before 14 Nov 09. Some are already done. More to do, though. At least I now have a goal and am not just faced with a vast pile of work. The only vehicles I have to do are two scout sentinals for the Tigers and three Raiders for the DE. The DKK's eighteen Chimera can wait for another day.

GW's metal Kasarkin (commandos[storm troopers]). I do like the figures. But at over £20 for a squad of ten they are not cheap (still not as expensive as the DKK though !). And the rumour mill for future IG releases is that there will be plastic storm troopers soon. So maybe this small group of five will remain as inducted sidekicks for the Inquistion.

Another, equally attractive rumour is that the other/alternative release will be Armaggedon Steel Leigon. It was ASL I wanted in the first instance - but could not find them and ended up buying DKK. Can I afford another two IG armies ? The idea of a valkyrie mounted storm trooper army or (and) another mech coy is quite exciting.

Progress

I finished the Ravagers - I've been negligent in not putting the disintegrator gunners on board. Added seven more DE warriors, a Bloodcoat Heavy Stubber crew and a DKK Grenadier melta gunner.

Hurrah

Retail theropy

Did some, don't feel any better.

blogger

OK. So you should be able to leave comments now. Meh.

Motivation

My motivation has been incrreased by 1) reading other peoples blogs about motivation. This led directly to my 2) putting two of the tabletops on trestles and flinging the cities of the death secenary on one and some fortifications on the other. Looks good. Must crack on with the HQs and Troops types for the first battles.

Link of the Day.

To Bog's World; Of course. AD(HD) [Attention Defiecit Hyperactivity Disorder] has a cunning redesign to make the blog entiries run in order and split out the background and other peripheral bits, whilst placing them in context. I'm looking forward to it.

http://bogsworld.wordpress.com/

mot de passe

S'odd, but I'd never before considered what the French for 'password' would be.

Anyway; scant hours before we left for France my dad popped 'round and dropped off three sets of trestles that he picked up cheap from Aldi. There is no Aldi in striking distance of Bicester, except perhaps Aylesbury. OK then, there probably is an Aldi within striking distance of Bicester, but I didn't go there. My daddy did it for me.

Pater and I had previously had a conversation about the game - I'm 2/3rds of the way through preparing three 6'x4' boards. Now, with the advent of the trestles, I actually have somewhere to put them. Other than the garage floor. The problem with the garage floor, apart from the lumbers of four blokes in their late 30s/early 40s (and yours, KK, which should be much better than ours but which nonetheless requires protection), is that my helpers are quite likely to realise where the action is and walk into the middle and sit down. Or drop tennis balls/rope chews/squeaky toys.

Now all of this floor/dog action could be viewed as suitably apocolyptic (sic). However, these armies have taken years (three) to put together and, lets face it, have a cash replacement cost as well.

So that is why the trestles are good.

I've also got this:

Which has a node based campaign at the back. I'm also got no Spaze Murheen army. And only the bare bones of a Noise Marine Warband. But hey.

So, how will it work ?

We have Four (six ?) armies:

Eldar (poss split into Bel Tain and Ulthwe)

IG (sub divided into DKK, Devos IV PDF, Valhallans, and then sub bits of ASL, Vostroyans & Cadians)

(And a theoretically legal Inquistorial warband as well)

Heretics (the Bloodcoats) and Renegades (the Tigers).

(Now as part of the H&R army there is also a legal Emperor's Children (Chaos Spaze Muhreen) army.)

Dark Eldar (the infamous Cabal of the Broken Teaspoon)

And a number (five) of players:

Zzzzzz, CNJ, AD(HD), MCA & MCH.

So; does everyone choose an army at the beginning and stick with it, learning how it works and so forth ?

Or do we let people choose a different one each time (with the order of the choosers pre-determined on a rolling programme) ?

Or do we randomise the entire process ?

Or something else ?

Do feel free to offer an opinion, otherwise I will just make it up. And I will not be fair or equitable, I will have you all do my bidding, Mwa ha ha... (exits vertically on a flying chair, stroking a dog dressed as a white persian cat)

It didn't happen yesterday, so audit today !

Progress - two more rear turret Chimera. Just two more to do and the DKK Mech Coy is complete. C'mon Forge World, send my eagle doors !

Audits again today ! hurrah !

No progress last night.

Watched an extremely avant guard film made by my landlord's son. (film making graduate).

There was too much in it. It was hampered rather than enhanced by its non liner format. Perhaps a film maker could go for either a non liner film or a story line that requires a little interpolation by the viewer. Having to interprate a non liner film that did not make every important point twice was hard work in that it prevented one from actually enjoying the film. It was technically competent, but required an awful lot from the viewer; too much perhaps ?

There is a line in cinema between art and entertainment. Straddling that line requires enormous resources to satiate a modern audience. Perhaps jumping wholly one way or the other might have produced a more concise product.

Cadian 44th Light Recce Regt

These are a 'remnant' on Devos IV - ie they are not there in sufficient numbers to form an army faction themselves, they are an add on to the Loyalist IG.

Troops: HQ section (FW ones - woo hoo), two standard squads, two special weapon teams (snipers)

Fast Attack: a troop of three HALO warthogs (count as salamanders)

I'm seriously considering adding more squads, purely because the FW Cadians are so kool. But that is a double whammy because once you have bought the FW bits, you need the regular Cadian bods to complete them.

...And really bad eggs for tea.

Nothing last night. My cruel and overbearing landlord made me watch Parrots of the Karabiner III - The World's End.

Keira Knightly. Uummmmmmmmmmm.

Devos IV loyalist PDF (2nd Inf Regt)

These guys are 'auld skool' 1980's IG, from the days when they were Imperial Army. Necromundia 9th on the box cover, etc. So they are reinforced by the very occasional Cadian, but more oftern than not, Urban Mammoth's Viridians. The viridians are generally a better match.

They have grey uniforms and purpleyblue helmets. Which caused CNJ to comment that they looked like UN troops.

HQ: Gen Marcus Firth & command squad.

Troops: two platoons - command and four squads.

That's it. They do have a scattering of missile launchers, HB & LC, but these are embedded in the squads - They are supposed to be descended from Skittari regiments, hence the man portable LC and one infantry squad armed with bolters.

And Corporal Hicks, of course.

The Bloodcoats

The Bloodcoats are Heretics; they have bought into Chaux Na'merci's rebellion. They are fairly standard PDF unit following the IG Codex more or less.

In terms of modelling, these are mostly Cadians and FW peices; it looks like a Vraks army. With the chaos icons in the platoon command squads stripped out, they could pass for Salvar Chem Dogs.

HQ Still no HQ for these guys either; maybe the human wave guy from the codex. Maybe not.

Troops: two platoons; Command squads and five squads

Elite: Thudd Gun Battery, Ogryn beserker squad

Fast attack: Not a hope

Heavy Support: Nine Autocannon teams, twelve mortar teams, a troop of three LRMBT (only two at the moment).

Looks like a reasonable defensive line up to me, with the Ogryn as a fearsome counter attack unit. These boys are the PLAs anvil.

The Tigers

The Tigers are renegades; they are part of the PLA because the opportunities for gain are higher than they would be fighting for the Imperium. This is a Devos IV PDF Mech unit that has been fighting orks in the ash wastes for years.

In terms of modelling, they are a little more chaos influenced than the Bloodcoats; they are mostly Catchan and Maruder parts. I was going to give the Bloodcoats the sentinels (they need a little manouver capability), but they are too chaosified, so the Tigers get to keep them.

So far then.

No HQ. Contemplating a 'counts as' Straken officer, as he would be more in keeping with their fluff than any apsotate cleric.

Troops: Two platoons of command squad and three squads.

Elite: Eight Ogyrn

Fast Attack: a pack of twenty chaos warhounds, a troop of three scout sentinals, a troop of ten rough riders

Heavy Support: a troop of three LRMBT and a BaneBlade.

So that's a heavy punch and a lot of early hitters. These desparadoes are the PLAs hammer.