Thursday 28 February 2013

A freebie - Wound Markers MKII - the square ones

Continuing on with the freebies and as it's my birthday, here's another gift to you all - square wound markers.  The more popular 1s and 2s with a sprinkling of 3, 4, 5s for monstrous creatures and the full 1-10 in blue for random nonsense like the Doom of Malan'tai


It'd be really nice to see these in action if anyone uses them, they also make handy hull point indicators too!


Usual step-by-step:
  1. Print
  2. Apply double sided tape to back
  3. Stick to mounting card
  4. Carefully apply sellotape to top if you want them pseudo-laminated
  5. Cut out with craft knife/scalpel
  6. Amaze your friends and enemies with these cards
  7. Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.

Tuesday 26 February 2013

A freebie - Necron Wound Markers

It's been a while since I did anything for Freebie hunters. This may not be of interest but I was working on some square counters. I noticed that the triangular ones, when cut with scissors, tend to curl at the points. So I figured square ones my bend less when cut. So I made some similar to my normal design but also got the urge to do some Necron themed wound markers. The picture below doesn't quite do them justice.


However, you can see below clearly there's some Necron nodes and circuitry evident on the counters and the numbers glow slightly. Hopefully those who deal with the robotic undead will find a use for them. maybe one day I'll actually see them being used on other blogs or battle reports...


Usual step-by-step:
  1. Print
  2. Apply double sided tape to back
  3. Stick to mounting card
  4. Carefully apply sellotape to top if you want them pseudo-laminated
  5. Cut out with craft knife/scalpel
  6. Amaze your friends and enemies with these cards
  7. Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.
Enjoy, the normal square ones will be up in a day or two, something to look forward to.

Sunday 24 February 2013

1600pt battle report - nids Vs Orks!

My friendly neighbourhood gaming club has a 40k tournament coming up against three other North West gaming clubs and the great thing is it's free! I've already got permission to go and the Mother-in-law will be looking after the kids so I can go, she's great. My only real concern is it's 1600pts and three games, but each game is only 2 hours long! That's going to be tough and I have to say that kind of speed and pressure on decision making makes me wonder just how other 40k players can play so 'tactically', still here's the game against Tom's Orks.

Psychic Powers
Tervigon HQ CCTervigon T TalBroodlord [Adrenal]Broodlord [Toxin]
EnduranceEnfeebleIron ArmIron Arm
HaemorrhageLife LeechNA HaemorrhageNA Haemorrhage

The low down:
  • Purge the Alien.
  • Vanguard Strike
  • I lost deployment, but eventually stole the initiative
  • Starting off I had 12 potential VPs to Tom's 10, so spawning gaunts wasn't going to be an option.
I don't know much about Orks but Tom had a lot of bikers, with the special warlord on a bike. Some Big Shoota Boyz [?] behind the Aegis Defence Line and two Trukks full of Boyz just on the top left there.


This is after my first turn and moved everyone up. Pretty much my standard list but with four Hive Guard in two broods of two a Biovore [yes really, I don't know why either?] and twin-linked Deathspitters on the Mycetic Spore and the Tyranid Prime has Regeneration [must remember that!]


Having moved everything up the Hive Guard targeted the Trukks with both of them being blown up and each squad of Boyz suffering casualties. A good opening salvo gaining me first blood and blunting that flank attack.


Having +1 Iron Armed the HQ Tervigon Warlord [who'd rolled Immovable Object, which was pointless in this game]. He took 2 wounds from Big Shootaz and bikes considerably less than Tom hoped for I guess.


However, he had much more success whittling down the Devgaunts and all the Toxin Stealers and a wound on the Broodlord.


Turn 2 and the Doom arrives and his spore pod hits on target [again :)]. The Biker squad on the left was Enfeebled and suffered 3 losses by the Doom, taking him to 7 wounds. He fires Cataclysm but somehow only takes down 1 more biker and the Doom recovers the single wound lost in using the power. The Spore Pod is super effective on the enfeebled bikers, the twin linked Deathspitters proving extra handy.


Tom's turn and the Ork Bommer comes on. 


By now I'm on 4 victory points to 0 and for some reason my Biovore seems to have upset the Orks so much a Bomb is dropped on it's head. So far it's hardly done anything, hitting but not wounding any Orks. Still the bomb is dropped and it scatters 9" to the right! Orks, gotta love 'em...


The bikers and the Warboss reposition so they don't confer anymore wounds on the Doom.


While the two  remaining bikes head for the HQ Tervigon.


Meanwhile the Trygon suffers either 3 or 4 wounds.


The warboss assaults the Mycetic Spore but passes his fear test. The Spore Pod finally gets to assault  but even if he hit he didn't wound, one day!


The Warboss smooshes the pod with his Power Klaw and the bikers do the same to the Doom, just one of the wounds proving too much and insta-killing it.


The bike's consolidate their move to the right.


The HQ Tervigon beats down on the two bikers, giving me another kill point and the +1 Iron Armed Troop Tervigon assaults the remaining bikers.


The Bommer does a bit of damage but I'm not sure what at this stage.


The Troop Tervigon gets squashed somehow, probably power klaws.


With revenge in mind the Trygon slams into the bikers and kills 5, leaving 1 biker left who bottles it and is crushed as he tries to flee.


At this stage I probably had the game in the bag. I could have sat back behind my Aegis and let Tom come to me safe in the knowledge I'd already taken about 6VPs to his 1 or 2. If this was the proper tournament I'd probably have done that but given we were having fun I moved stuff forwards... 


nd also sent the Trygon deep behind enemy lines who ate the Heavy Shootas and consolidated into the crashed lander wreckage. He'd been on four wounds before the assault and I'm thinking he took a further wound during it because...


I took a picture of this dice roll, which is clearly a Monstrous Creature failed saving throw!


Saying that there's no HQ Tervigon left so it could have been killed. Also there's only one Broodlord left and the Devgaunts look like they're legging it so I think these turns proved costly and the final scoreline, which I forget as I complete this report a couple of weeks since the game was much closer than it had been earlier on.


Ultimately this was won thanks to stealing the Initiative. Killing those two Trukks first turn did a lot of damage to the Orks forward momentum and only the bikers had the pace to recover but were stuck dealing with the Doom and then slammed by the Monstrous Creature support that followed in his wake, he essentially stalled them long enough for the big guys to get stuck in.

I was super confident following this game and actually got a follow up game with my mate Liam and his Chaos the next night, so look forward to that!

Friday 22 February 2013

Terrain is everything - Simpler Mini Bunkers for 40K

Just a little one this, Pete Ball, one fo my regular commenters and reader has been exploring his terrain building efforts. He's had loads of simple CD sized ideas on his own blog recently - earthworks, watchtowers and the rather effective bunkers below:

http://veganhaggis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/terrain-tutorial-simpler-mini-bunkers.html

Check out his blog on the link above and this compendium of the recent articles to see if there's something that would suit your battlefields.

Wednesday 20 February 2013

'nids part 73 - Magnetised Hive Tyrant part 1

Having magnetised the Winged Hive Tyrant I thought I'd do the same to my metal Hive Tyrant. That way I can mix them up, have him with the Twinlinked Devourers, or as the Swarmlord or back with his normal Heavy Venom Cannon and Boneswords.. Of course the first thing to do was pull off the HVC and other weapons. This resulted in the HVC shoulder snapping but hopefully I can fix that.  


With some new drill bits I was able to chew through the pewter no worries, in fact if you can see in the bottom hole a slight darker horizontal curve, that's the abdominal ball joint attached to the torso. The rest of the miniature is looking quite dilapidated now, not from the conversion process, it's been unnecessarily in my figure box for months now and the crest got bent, fracturing the paint. And all the areas where weapons overlapped Chitin plates hadn't been painted either, I should be able to touch these up though.


The magnets in situ and the slotted in perfectly. You will note I haven't angled them like the Winged Hive Tyrant as this will primarily be using other weaponry so if the Fleshborer/Devourers are used I'm not fussed so much if they 'bunch up'.


The other side, equally as sweet.


And look what happens when I try out the Wings and Fleshborers/Devourers! I have to say how impressed I am that they made the wings fit the existing model. It may seem obvious it fits but there was always the chance the plastic version was different given the different moulding process.


Indeed the flat magnets means the Fleshborers/Devourers do look quite bulky, certainly more so than the dynamic winged pose but if I was ever to use these on the standard Tyrant I may have him with Armoured Shell and the weapons are bulky enough to get that across. What I would put on his other limbs I don't know, perhaps some of the spare tiny Mawloc claws.


I've started to magnetise the Swarmlord's Bone Sabres but the drill bits were so sharp they've torn through the edges of the plastic, less a cavity to slot the magnets in as a crater for them to rest on :( Still I'll fix it somehow. The great thing is when they're done I'll also be able to mount them on the Winged Tyrant - him leaping through the air!


One last thing to consider is that my next Throne of Skulls tournament is due in March and I think I can get the Winged Tyrant painted by then and it will be cool. So, do I take him? He's 260pts in a 1500pt list. I'll have to drop a Brood of Stealers but the lost Broodlord powers will be made up by the Tyrant and also my Prime and Warriors but the two Tervigons and two 10 man squads of Devgaunts [although whether I make both Tervigons troops when I could keep one as a HQ for my Warlord, safer than the Tyrant].

I feel less confident with the Winged Tyrant competitively. It's a shooting magnet and if it dies that's a lot of points gone but with it I have something that can tackle flyers [just about] instead of ignoring them and alternatively cause mayhem in the back field with the Doom. Otherwise I'll stick to pretty much the same list as last time, just without the Hormagaunts and maybe more Hive Guard. What do you think?

Monday 18 February 2013

'nids part 72 - Magnetised Winged Hive Tyrant part 1

Here's the tail of the Winged Hive Tyrant. I've stuck it to a piece of slate, it'd be rude not to, and I've another few bits that will be thrusting out of the Ferron Proxima sands. Another wandering adrenal gland will be making an appearance too.


Having magnetized the arms I wanted to create some kind of mechanism that would trap the Fleshborer hive arms against the wings so they don't flop about. You can just make out a claw from the monstrous Scything Talons [the ugly ones ;) ] that has bee stuck on the top of the shoulder. In fact this doesn't silve my problem, and neither did the second claw I attached, both seemed to be on the wrong side of any protuberances to trap it in the direction gravity was pulling it, ha, ha!


Having done a perfect job of drilling the body completely square I found out the Fleshborer Hives would look totally ridiculous positioned flat like the wing magnets. Therefore both weapon mounts are angled to allow the Fleshborers room and the Tyrants head to be seen between them.


You can see just how far I had to angle my recently salvaged Magnetix magnets, costing me nothing from my Son's long unused collection and rightly so given most of them were recalled due to kids swallowing them!


Here's the Right arm, again sitting quite proud of the torso to allow some space between the two arms. The exposed magnets will be covered with Milliput to disguise them.


Here you can see the magnet in the arm. The Magnetix sets we [shown below] had included the standard bar shapes which had magnets bigger than 6mm tall and diammeter and then the smaller ones fromt he more dangerous connector pieces in the second picture. The arms have the smaller magnets and the torso the bigger ones.



Here's everything in place. As you can see the left arm does hang down low despite my 'trapping mechanism' but the arms are significantly separated to not make it look dumb.


From this angle you can see that rather fortuitously the slightly 'droopy' left arm works quite well and the Tyrant seems to be banking to it's left with the left arm dropped and right raised it's turned it into quite a dynamic pose [thankfully].


The Fleshborer Hive also points quite neatly to its right knee and visually takes up the same space as most of the torso preventing the Hive's from dominating the model too much and making it look too bulky to fly. As much as I liked Jes's original model I think mine's going to look even better.

Saturday 16 February 2013

'nids part 71 - Ymgarl Genestealers Chitin and Bone Highlights

First and second sets of highlights on the Chitin and the Bonewhite is done. I think these are going to end up a lot paler than the standard Stealers, in itself not a bad thing. Nice to see the tentacles suitably writhing and scary.


A bit of variety in height thanks to the scything talons in the back row there.


So I'm beginning to wish I had one more to make two sets of 5. Perhaps even have him partway coming out of the ground  from dormancy...


When I get to basing them there will be larger stones and bits on the base. Seeing as they're coming out of terrain they need to be a little more densely populated than a normal base. I have some lava pebbles from a plant pot that can be sanded flat in seconds on a paving slab that make interesting shapes.


Here's where I've used the lava pebbles before: