Xmas time is a time for...bugs

Hello everyone and I hope the holiday season has brought you lots of joy, food and time to have some hobby fun.

Now I'm typing this with slightly black hands as I've been undercoating the bigger of my 2 new additions to the Hive Fleet Tiamat.

So this post is a bit of an update overall but also to say I'm really enjoying working on this army and hope that now it has grown to around the 1000 point size it will have the chance to try out against some new forces in the next year.

So here's the finished Tyranid Prime. I'm happy with the paint job even if the Boneswords aren't quite as I hoped. Very happy with the conversion and so am certain she will die in the first game that she takes to the table.

The two new additions for xmas to the bugs are the little flying nuisance that are gargoyles (thank you lovely wife). The first 10 will allow me to just get used to positioning them and then when I double their broods size and add in some Shrikes I expect them to pack a bit more punch.

The second pic is of one of the most used Tyranid models since the latest codex landed. Tervigons are simply great for their points, good resilience  force multiplier (quite literally  and no push over in combat....oh and scoring. Very much looking forward to unleashing in the new year.

Nom. Nom. Nom

Big Mumma's swords

So this month I set myself the aim of converting and painting up the HQ choice for my force. So here she is before undercoating.

I hope to get another 3 Warriors done too so that I will have the big unit of Prime plus 6 Warriors to both be scoring and spearhead any assaults on the tougher enemy units.

The return of the tale - I get distracted

While I’m sure my rambling posts are just as important, I should really be getting on with work at the moment so will cut to the chase and just post some pictures. Oh, and I’ve even done some painting.

For reference we have 9 Guardsmen, which is the start of my infantry squad - Sergeant with power axe, and one with a flamer.

 

Month Four

So the month of November is now over and so here is how everyone has got on against the categories set out

	Played a game	Built months purchases	Painted unit 1	Painted unit 2	Base all purchases
Philip	X	X	X	X	X
Wiggy	X	X			X
Oddsock Keith		X	X	X	X
Enza		X	X	X	X

So after this it means the scores from the fist three month are as follows

Philip - 5 Point                     9 Total

Wiggy - 3 Points                  13 Total

Oddsock Keith - 4 Point +1  7 Total

Enza - 4 Point                     14 Total

Philip has a very good month due to tournament deadlines getting him in gear and hopefully some pics of the army will appear soon.

Enza as shown in the Tau pictures continues to grow an impressive force and has been busy planning with the use of painting books a very impressive addition for next month......

Oddsock scores well and perhaps should've been on higher points before. While his Tale has been chopped and change the amount of scenery that's been done scores him a bonus point.

For Wiggy the bugs continue to get worked on but not finished so hopefully soon a big influx of pretty fully done bugs.

Xmas month awaits so we are all looking at what will both get done this month and then what might fall into our grasp in January. 

They call themselves ....The Tau

The army so far

The Tau force above is the progress of Enza. As a newer additon to the hobby world they decided that they were less keen on the initial attempt they made at Fire Warriors based off of the blue/grey guys from the codex and having watched Tron Legacy decided that the shiny nature and high tech feel would lend themselves well to Tron style Tau.

Each section of force organisation has its own colour and you can see in the fire warriors and the Kroot that the troops are signified by an ice blue colour, the Kroot sporting it on the rifle bandages.

Elite choices sport a red colour for their markings and the Stealth team team displayed below usually seem to be the star performers in games they are involved with. They have even managed a couple of close combat wins but certainly not against my Dark Eldar Incubi, that was someone else honest.

Fast attack choices get a nice bright yellow which looks very strong on the drones that have been done so far. Both Vespid and Pathfinders are being looked at as a next addition and the yellow I'm sure will either look strong on a Devilfish and there is a lot of decision making going on for vespid skin colour to go with the yellow (current choice is the grey/blue and purple of the Daemon Prince skin)

This leaves us with Heavy support and my personal favourite model for the force, the Skyray. The tank has also had the rain gun and ion cannon painted to change to a Hammerhead. I love the way the engines have achieved their glow and earlier in the blog is a stage guide to how this was done. It has certainly been interesting to watch a newer hobbyist set their own ideas and make use of the How to paint book and the 'eavy metal masterclass book to gain ideas and thoughts on techniques.

The Tau have all been painted with the new Citadel colours and Enza was advised to make use of the glazes over the models to link and intensify the colours. What are people thoughts on this as it is one area that is still uncertain on.

The basing uses the texture paints and I think works well for the uniform look of the army. Next to add apart from the fast attack options is the HQ section but the purple attempted colour Enza isn't pleased with so anyone with tips for a nice bright purple that would work with the black give a comment with ideas.

Hive Fleet Tiamat progress

The bugs have been a very enjoyable project from so many aspects: -

• New citadel paints - given me  good reason to use them and I do like the colours I've used and how well the paints actually work. Have been able to look at the textures for bases, glazes and the medium and I think actually in a way the overhaul was long overdue. Great change but I still have no idea on the colour names.
• 5th vs 6th editon - So far in 6th my Tyranids have performed very well and eaten everything they have fought but they haven't fought much. Having played against H and his bugs at the doubles it was painful to see what concentrated firepower could do against the bugs. I like 6th from a non competitive stand and more and more of my gaming I think will happen outside of tournaments and pick up 'fair' games and so from this point I expect to enjoy the bugs
• army balance - For those times when I do want the bugs to go to battle and munch all in front of them I think I have now found that I can't have the units I want and still expect to be cohesive so I will now have 2 lists to work towards using these six units: -

Tyranid warriors and Termgants and Tervigons
Genestealers and Hormagaunts and Carnifexs

I feel that these parts work in groupings, I know I am enjoying Raveners and will get round to getting the Gargoyles that I also want as part of my basic force but I feel at the moment that the units listed above are an either/or set up to go with my force.

Snake bugs

Bounding bugs and leader bugs

Bugs to go splat

So I hope to get  a bit more painted as I go, get my Tyranid Prime done for Xmas and into 2013 maybe start some big bugs.

Then there is the return trip to Warhammer World and my revenge against the Gutbuster to be had!

Philip's thoughts

Ok, taking time out not to pretend I'm speaking for Pedro for a bit and just focus on the task at hand - what is in the future for my Black Consuls?


One thing I learned from the recent tournament is that balance in the army is a vital thing - if I am to continue onto a 1500 to 2000 point army I'm definitrly going to have to add a few things

I'm actually very happy with the results on the first outing, in particular I like the Scouts and Tellion, being able to give the Heavy Bolter chap a ballastic skill of 6 or just have Tellion himself make a mess of things was good. Scouts obviously had their wobbly moments but on the whole I like that unit a lot. Kantor and the Sternguard are brutal when they want to be - the ability to change the type of ammo for the occasion is so worth it in a 10 man squad. Pedro is brilliant to have on the pitch, I'm keeping him, he is vital. Landspeeder did a good job of distracting enemies long enough - 70 points is not a bad loss when you can have the chance to melt and burn as much of you can before it buys the farm.

What I do need for a larger army is more long range heavy fire power, I'm happy with the range of most of my weapons but I think it is vital to have a few more really nasty guns to help shoot fliers and make a few dents in vehicles. It is vital I think to be able to scrape the hull points off of vehicles - if you keep at it you can make a mess of a lot of armies by stopping them in their tracks a bit by slowing down vehicles or blowing them and their contents up rather happily!

So, I think definitely a Devastator Squard is on the cards this month, I want a good unit that has some feriocious weapons that can pack a punch at the start of a battle.

I'm very used to fighty Eldar, Striking Scorpions are always going to be a favourite but I feel combat is on the back burner with the 6th Edition and I think it is time to get the guns out and hang back and blast away.

Dreadnaughts with large guns and drop pods are still a possibility - maybe even Terminators with Storm Shields and Thunder Hammers which are very difficult to kill - but I'm more attracted to units that can belt out a lot of long range nasty firepower at the moment and that is what I want to do for this next month of 40K Goodness!

Cheers

Philip

Diary of Pedro Kantor - The Black Consul Days - The Great Battles

Dear Diary

So I return with the newly formed Black Consuls from what I feel was a successful first campaign, we have fought 6 mighty battles and by The Emperor we fought well

We were not a big army, we needed some help and such mighty help we got - Chapter Master Wiggy of the Imperial Fists agreed to team up with my Black Consuls in order to put right to the galaxy as best we could.

The first battle, I don't remember much, I don't think Wiggy knows either,  it must have been an epic fight cos we both woke up a bit concussed and all our missile launcher Marines both said something about Vendettas and Marbo turning up - we got hit hard!

Seondly we ran into some Marines and Space Wolves who were under the command of the famous Oakley and Whittacker for a bit of War Games practice, came up a bit of a cropper for that one but I know some Terminators got shot in the face before we left the pitch,  so not all bad there! Jolly good scrap if I ever had one, helmet off to the pair of them, excellent fellows.

The 3rd battle saw us matched against Tyranids and Necrons - all the Tyranids had this strange H on their foreheads and the Necrons kept shouting the name Kev at us - we had objectives to claim for the Emperor and that we did despite a viscious battle that saw both sides fight very well indeed

4th Battle saw us up against some Sisters of Battle who had taken great umbrage at our being there and being male and some Grey Knights who are the sort of Grey Knights who will fight anyone they suspect of even the slightest of heresies. That was a very tough fight, 2 Storm Ravens made a mess of the army and we left the pitch confident we'd had a good scrap but lost it nonetheless.

5th Battle saw us up against Imperial Guard again, they had obviously gone mad as they had teamed up with servants of Chaos - I mean really, Imperials turning to the Chaos side? Ha! Next thing you know they will be riding around on horses with the Necrons! This was one of the toughest and closely fought battles of the whole lot with the battle swinging from side to side as to who was going to win. I swear if I see Marbo and that damned handbag of his again, there will be trouble - I shot him in the face twice for his arrogance after he'd blown up some of my Sternguard! We won the day and walked away with our objectives - Tellion was rather proud, he'd found some excellent cover and nobody was able to land a shot upon him

6th Battle, those Tyrannids and Necrons turned up again out of the blue - Chapter Master Wiggy and I suddenly found the Will of The Emperor with us that day for we slaughtered them all! All day I'd firmly believed Orks had been messing about with my orbital strikes as they had missed every single time, but it was not the case this battle and we massacred them all - it was a well fought battle, whoever these characters of H and Kev are, they certainly fought as valiantly as they could, Wiggy and I just were having a good day!

So, thank you to Wiggy, you taught me things that will aid my army's growth and survivability - here's to the Emperor!

And the destruction of every filthy Ork!!

Kantor out

Diary of Pedro Kantor - The Black Consul Days

Dear diary

I'm sorry I've neglected you, I am sorry to say some damn filthy Orks have been pestering me of late, I had to slaughter them all naturally and since a good slaughter takes time and precision planning I've had to neglect a few duties

Also that damn Eldar Farseer could not have been more right if he wanted to - I've only gone and found what remains of the Black Consuls - though I secretly suspect this is actually the will of The Emperor disguised as Eldar nonsense, you know, to test me!

I found this Sargeant wondering around aimlessly - when you have dirty great big axes in your hand the last thing you want to do is walk as aimlessly as this Space Marine was - I noticed something about his armour I had not seen in all my years of crushing damn filthy loathesome Orks - THEY MAKE MY BLOOD BOIL...must..control The Rage...

Anyways - his armour, it had the outline of a White Eagle with the rest of it being black with gold trimmings - ever since that Eldar mentioned the Consuls I did a quick check and sure enough he bore all the right markings

After a short discussion I discovered that the Consuls had survived, though they were small in number they were still going strong and I made it my business to bring them all together under my banner.

I met the troops - 1 Scout Squad with snipers and a Heavy Bolter, the Tactical Sqaud that was under the command of the wandering dirty great axe carrying Sargeant - clever men had managed to keep a working flamer and missile launcher going after all this time, praise be to the Emperor for missile launchers and the cleansing flames....the amount of Orks you can kill in flames....

Sorry, lost in thoughts again - I also found a Veteran Sternguard unit that I was very proud to see - 2 Combi plasmers, one plasmer gun, and 7 very large guns that could shoot all manner of nasty things at any passing nasty thing standing in their way - these men were the right unit for me, I decided I'd stick with this lot on the battlefield, they looked the part indeed!

From out of nowhere they produced a Landspeeder that had a gigantic flamer on it and a multi-melter, a thing of beauty of I ever saw it - I was very pleased with what these men had done - they had survived impossible odds and now by the Emperor's will - and NOT that rotten stinking pointy eared good for nothing poncy Eldar scum - they were willing to fight once more.

I did however think it lacked a vital ingredient and that ingredient was Sargeant Tellion - I once sliced an Ork's head off for him....ohhh the blood...and I felt he owed me a favour. He's a good type, great with teaching scouts new tricks and he agreed to come along as well

So, the Black Consuls had returned - in my next installment I'll describe The Great Battles recently fought

Kantor out.

Best painted army...

Apparently my husband won the best painted army at a doubles tournament last weekend...but he does not a certificate nor a trophy...so it could all be lies... I believe him though.

Here are some pics I took earlier today.

- Enza -

Everything’s better with an axe

Just a quick update post on what I’ve been getting on with over the last few weeks

It’s amazing what projects you can develop while avoiding a box of plastic toy soldiers. Latest example is picking up some scenery. In short, very enjoyable piece to paint, with the added bonus of using some new techniques from the ‘Eavy Metal book. Any Space Wolf players, it was simple a case of these where the colours I have, that don’t seem to be getting used at the moment. Let’s not start a war over a blow up Rhino - Have a dog biscuit or something.

 Also in case he does not mention. We have a painting champion in our group, with the Mighty Morphing Mr Endsor-Wigg picking up best-painted army at his last tournament visit. Not bad for an old timer…

Fire breathing zebra of doom

I know we have all been in the position where the crazy flaming zebra is on the attack. Explaining this, I’m sure will put into context why there has been such a delay in me making a post. What with finding the sword of ice and the lasso of contempt, never where you think they would be. Now why are you still reading at this point, it must be clear that this paragraph is just some pointless text (I now most of what I write is). Why not just skip down to the pictures. So back to the zebra - Turns out I had a bionic laser eye and just shot him with that.

Similar to Sonic 2 it turns out I have developed a 'two tails'. Although instead of a ginger fox I have gone for my old Necron army. Originally the plan was to take part in a doubles tournament mid November, which meant I had to get on and finish 900pts of the fleshless Arnie's. Below is what I have finished so far and a few of the bits that are not in my list but are mostly finished.

Until the next time I find a packed of biscuits and have a list of things that I should be getting on with, I so good-bye.

Month Three

So the month of October is now over and so here is how everyone has got on against the categories set out

	Played a game	Built months purchases	Painted unit 1	Painted unit 2	Base all purchases
Philip	X		X
Wiggy	X	X	X
Oddsock Keith			X
Enza		X

So after this it means the scores from the fist three month are as follows

Philip - 2 Point                4 Total

Wiggy - 3 Points             10 Total

Oddsock Keith - 1 Point   2 Total

Enza - 1 Point               10 Total

It's been an awkward month for all of us getting hobby done for many reasons. Expect everyone to come out fighting into November though