Battle: Chaos vs. Marines/Imp.Guard

The whole battle is too sad a story to remember, so here’s just a few pics and what happened.
Blood Angels patch together an army with IG to rid overrun Imperial homeworld of the Chaos infestation, and fail miserably.

The combined Tzeentch/Khorne force attacked on both flanks with massed ranks of beastmen and lesser demons, supported by 3 Greater Demons and some Chaos gadgetry (Silver Towers). The Imperials were hoping to stop the tide with firepower (Ad.Ord.Armageddon, Leviathan, not enough Artillery) while the Marines landed their Veteran Company behind the enemy lines in order to recapture the city objectives. The latter were squashed spectacularly and shamefully by beastmen and chaos marines, while the first obviously had impaired targeting abilities and managed to hit next to nothing. Add a few few misplaced orders on the Imperials’ side and far too many Chaos Reward cards on the Chaos player’s hand (not too mention his dice luck that nearly got him lynched), with the result of a serious thrashing for the Imps.

Fresh Paint…

Easter Weekend, finally time to get some models finished that have already started collecting dust. Here’s the Leviathan the 2nd Imperial Company will ride in next time. Below, the second squadron of Gyrocopter gunships to bolster the Squat Company which will get a Leviathan soon too, bringing our Squat Forces up to around 7000 points. The last add were 3 Thunderhawk Gunships to replace the nasty old squarish ones (the flying toasters).

The Tzeentch Titan Conversion was also long overdue to progress. I started using Milliput, which opens a whole new range of possibilities. For instance the Tzeentch Beak stuck to the Titan’s face. I have tried achieving similar results with other air-drying stuff which, of course, never worked. This stuff now is amazing, make sure you let set overnight, and you can drill and saw and file to your heart’s content. Also worked well on stabilising the tail.

I haven’t quite figured out the weaponry concerning rules and stats, the right arm is a chainsaw plus plasma weapon, the other arm is obviously something huge and evil, plus the tail with some kind of stingy Tzeentch Magic. I had the idea of fixing a missile rack on the carapace as well, but I didn’t want to make it an overkill monstrosity (which it probably already is anyway) and it would have sat right in front of the tail gun.

Tank Emplacements

Something for those Siegers & Besieged among you! Tank Emplacements.
Lovingly detailed, complete with sandbags, tracks and ammo crates. Cast out of Plastalin, a very sturdy plaster-like material. It might not survive drops from high altitudes but it can take a lot of throwing about on the gametable (By the way, the missing corner on one of the pieces is due to my impatience and taking the first cast out of the mold before it had set properly – a really bad habit). This is the first in a series of assault scenario pieces, already got trenches and bunkers lined up, first pictures will go up here soonish.

Feel free to ask about possibilities to get your hands on a theoretically unlimited number of these!

Modular Imperial Warehouses

Another idea, again: you guessed it – modular. Using alginate to produce temporary molds from plasticard-scratchbuilt building fronts, I spent an afternoon pouring facades with a porcelain-like substance called Plastalin Super. Bought a kilo to get me started, here are the first runs:

The parts, put together, begin to look like this:

Here’s a pic of the roughly patched together warehouses painted ready for gaming:

What’s Going On…

Obviously, a long break in activitiy, mainly due to Christmas insanity and other paid work. Been doing a few more molds and casting with a porcelain-like material (very cheap and simple, just mix with water), about which I’ll post some more news soonish. Been redoing our playing room as well and indeed it’s beginning to feel a lot more living-room-like. Maybe a little game on the weekend… keep coming back.

Modular Hills

As mentioned before, I found this great material to carve hills from and still haven’t found out what they are called. They are obviously used for indoor decorating, a kind of soft material covered by a harder roughly textured layer.

The walkthrough: Brought them to shape and painted them in a protective layer of latex paint in stage 1, then the sides were textured with sand and all was given a green base coat in stage 2. Stage 3 shows the finished pieces, drybrushed in 3 stages.  As can be seen in the last picture, they may be stacked to produce different heights.
It is not the sturdiest of materials, but terrain pieces are after all not meant to be moved around much so I expect them to last many games before the corners will probably need minor retouching.

City Blocks Set #1

We offer:

(excludes Miniatures and base tiles shown)

Price depends on the amount of models taken and need not necessarily be monetary (swapping possible). Contact us with your inquiry.

Battle: Orks vs. Marines/PDF

A 7000pts battle between a defender force of Space Marines and PDF and a semi-massive Ork Waaagh. While the PDF sent its abhumans to halt the Snakebites (1) on the right flank, the Marines were attacked by the high-speed force of the Goffs, Evil Sunz and the Kult of Speed (2, 8). Advancing way ahead of the Baneblade Company, one Warhound surprised the Snakebites seeking cover in the ruins. But before it could bring its Inferno Gun to bear, the Nobz managed to blow it right off the arm (3)! The PDF bike company charged forward in the right centre and successfully managed to keep the Bad Moonz from manning (or orking?) high ground firing positions on the roofs of the large housing blocks. The Marines’ Reaver quickly moved up in support of the hard-pressed Scouts and Devastators (4).

The middle avenue was covered by the PDF command centre Leviathan, which covered the Slasha gargant in the centre of the Ork advance (5) with a hail of fire. After losing all its shields in round 1, the boiler blew spectacularly in round 2 – one minute it’s there and the next it’s gone (6) in a proper orky explosion, taking a couple of its own units with it. In sneaky revenge, the Mekboy Gargant stormed from its hiding on the far left flank and took the Reavers head off with its Krusha Arm (7). The Warhound which had moved up in support (9) was, in the end, not quick enough to save the Reaver from its fate, but cleared the objective from attacking Orks with its Vulcan Megabolter.

In the end phase of round 3 the game was decided by points in the Imperials’ favour. The Orks were beaten back, but at heavy costs. What saved the day was the superior firepower of the Marines that kept the Orks from reaching two of their objectives over the course of the whole game. It certainly didn’t help that the two attacking Ork clans were – suprisingly – broken in the first round, giving the Imperials a comfortable VP cushion to lean back and pick off the other clans one by one. Had the Goffs mustered a bit more of a punch in round 1 (or attacked on the PDF flank) the game could have ended quite differently. But so it goes.

Dumnar’s Hammer

Squat air superority:

…back to the docks to get that gun replaced…

News from the workshop…

Michi’s been at it again: A couple of really nice rolling hills, some with footpaths, some with cliffsides, one with an ancient stone circle. Quick styrofoam, glue and sand solution, all in one go.

As planned in a previous post, 3 inner city tiles to fill up those wide spaces with plazas, parking lots etc.

The first stage of 2 more singular models: At the top, a factory with (fuel or catshit) tanks, not yet primed. The lower one is going to be an objective scenery piece, a compound with something in it I haven’t decided on yet, maybe more tanks or a comm station or underground bunkers. We’ll see.
Found a really neat solution for fences: There is a kind of mesh sandpaper available in DIY stores for electric sanders, cut in strips it looks just as you see it on the picture. And: In the trash pile of an interior decorator I found the white – let’s call it ’stuff’ for now – boards, textured on one side, very soft and shaveable with a modelling blade. Looks like some kind of insulation board. Perfect for shaving hills, as you will see in a future post.