Battle record - 40k Tyranids Vs Ork Speeed Freeeaks - 16/10/25

I've been #PlayingWarhammer with a game of Warhammer 40k! After last weeks 4 hour gaming session on just the first turns we were all hoping to finish our return to 40k. We had agreed that we would come into this with open minds. We want to like 40k, I am addicted to it afterall. But to paraphrase Helmuth von Moltke 'no plan survives contact with the enemy'. 

Last week the Orks hadn't been particularly effective. 

The Tyranids however were more durable, seemed to kill whatever was put in front of them and their wealth of rules seemed disproportionate to the Ork buffs. 

As Ben and Liam started turn 2 this continued. 

Liam was lucky with his amount of shots, then many hits, but he couldn't seem to translate that into wounds. 

Even when they did, our high saves, or invulnerable saves left most of the bugs undamaged.

 As our turn started Ben and Liam had almost called it quits. Shadows in the Warp left most of the Orks battle shocked, adding to their woes.

But, when it came to our shooting and combat the dice failed us and we couldn't seem to thin the Ork Horde. The Norn Emissary, who was nigh unkillable failed to remove any of those that had surrounded him.

And with their ability to fall back, shoot and assault he was riddled with the weight of dakka.

Suddenly the game swung the other way but the damage had been done.

The game is depressing. Every unit came as a surprise and the wealth of buffs proved too much to ignore and just play the game. I couldn't enjoy our initial success while Ben and Liam felt overwhelmed. Then when the fates reversed I felt annoyed we'd gone through that complaining because all it took was some bad dice to put them in the lead. Ben admitted he too then felt bad because it was all going their way. Maybe with more games, familiarity with both the ruleset and the units may prevent the unpleasant revelations of "it does what?!" Put it this way, we only got to the bottom of turn 3 in another 4.5-5 hours. I wasn't interested in the scores but Liam checked and we were losing [just] 26 to 25. It was mentioned finishing it off next week but I have no desire because it wasn't a fun experience. 

In fairness I felt despite all the buffs there must be balance in the game for us to have been so close. We both had shocking runs of dice rolling that did very little and allowed the other players to come back into the game. So really it isn't that bad. It just brings out the worst in us, because the depth of rules and interactions gives the impression it's unbalanced. I don't want to go through a debate every time about a unit's rules and if it's OP every time we play. I didn't write its rules. As we have plenty of other game options that don't feel so overwhelming, and are more fun, so why play one that does? We may try it again sometime. It's just a shame we couldn't make it work for us.

#DreadTober Adeptus Titanicus - Warlord Titan - Switch target!

Afternoon #Warhammer Community it's the sixth of #DreadTober2025 and last we met my Legio Gryphonicus Adeptus Titanicus Warlord Titan was in crisis. Progress has been good but I was doubting my decisions over just how many decals I had applied. So, rather than face the problem I switched targets. The second Warlord was never really in scope for DreadTober but given the progress so far on the first and desire to avoid it why not get it built at least. I'd smashed it apart and rebuilt most of it, I just wanted a more dynamic pose, but did I do it leg further back.

leg coming forward [almost imperceptible I know...]

Or leg in the air, cool but unstable. I'd looked at tilting the body forward more as well. But it made all the guns point at the ground. Furthermore, the resin base adds about 8mm in height, plus the straighter legs means the extra height this model could achieve would be sacrificed for a dynamic unstable pose.

So I chose option two.

As you can see a lot of work has been done on this Warlord, but not by me. It came with painted weapons. I'm actually going to keep the heat bloom on the Gatling Blaster and blue plasma glow. I may favour orange, but the airbrush effect is much better than my own glow effect, although I may add some additional highlights and tweaks.

The head is the only thing I've applied paint to so far - adding the yellow contrast paint to start bringing it into the Legio Gryphonicus. The gun casings will be a mix of blue and grey, it cam with most of the other weapon options too!

It's right leg has been pinned at the toe. I drilled into it and inserted a paper clip. I'm not gluing it until I've painted the base separately. All the trim will be redone as well. I'm going to go gold, as Retributor Armour has such good coverage I think it will look really good. Just keep it simple and use the Leadbelcher undercoat with a shade and highlights.

Whereas Iron Regent has a yellow carapace front and back, with grey in the middle this will be grey front and back with yellow in the middle. As the middle panel does not have the cog symbol there is plenty of space for the largest and most ornate House Coldshroud decals, which will stand out on the yellow background. I'll do the arm plate on the gun yellow too. To have that line of colour running down.

And I'm going to try yellow shins again. It worked on the Reaver, so I hope it works here too. Despite the fact this is so very far from a 'blank page', my clear plan and the surprising progress on Iron Regent I'm already sabotaging my vision of progress on this one. Maybe when the first one is done I can be more confident but right now, as pleased as I am to have this ready to paint, it feels just a little bit overwhelming. I've gone from having it in the bag to doubling my workload, which has switched off the serotonin somewhat. Maybe I just needed to bask in the glow of achievement before starting something else, or is hobby momentum more important...?

#DreadTober Adeptus Titanicus - Warlord Titan - Highlights and decals

Afternoon #Warhammer Community it's the fifth of #DreadTober2025 and I've continued to paint my Legio Gryphonicus Adeptus Titanicus Warlord Titan. Progress has been good. Originally the highlights were going to be part of the last post but these were the only pictures I got.

Here you can see how I added yellow and grey blobs to the armour panels to create the mottled effect. 

With that texture in place I was to add a fair bit of glazing layers toward the top of each panel. This would help merge the individual blobs in this area. It creates a highlighted look at the top with more definition in the pattern the darker it goes.

Then gloss varnish.

And decals next. Now this was a weird one as I have loads of cool decals now. The Warlord sheet itself comes with this quartered cog, meant to fit on the gun plates [just]. Now, I'd have preferred black on the yellow, but they didn't think to do that option instead giving us two white cogs! I mean when it's a two colour black and white sheet why would you just put two white cogs. It's not like the Mechanicum doesn't have half white half black anyway. It just makes no sense

Here is Iron Regent from the Adeptus Titanicus rulebook.

The axes on the left knee where nearly perfect - just black instead of blue. I considered painting over them but didn't see the benefit. You can also see the freehand chevron stripes. I was a fiend, refusing to pencil in the lines. I was sure I'd got them positioned right based on the illustration but seem to have done them at a steeper angle and thicker, so the bottom stripe is much lower.

The right knee. There were no head and wings in a size for the top left, so I chose a full griffon. There was no blue dagger symbol in that size, so I chose a blue Knight. A King or Queen might have been more appropriate for the Titan but wouldn't fit. No griffon head symbol with lightning for bottom right, so I just chose a Y symbol, that broke as the decal was applied. So, quite short. And the eagle was almost correct, except black with laurels. I also got creative, adding a large white griffon on the left and using the Armiger decal sheet to add the shoulder cog to the right thigh plate.

Anyway, the Cerastus kits come with Horus Heresy decals. Forgeworld decals are full colour prints and conveniently one knightly house - House Coldshroud, has exactly the same heraldry as Legio Gryphonicus. So the bottom right is one of the fancy decals that matched the Y on the knee plate. Where I could I tried to copy what was on the knee plate, with some added warning decals with text.

The left tilting plate has a Forgeworld decal that is the blue dagger, Titanicus symbol and griffon head. I added a couple of kill markings and House Raven lightning bolt for more heraldry. I'm not overly keen on the result but it'll do. A house Hawkshroud eagle is close enough to the Griffon symbol which only comes in white, but I wanted in black. The eagle on the head plate was supposed to be black on both sides but the left side shredded on application so I use the only alternative - a white one. Echoing the half white, half black cog. The full colour Coldshroud badge and the second tilting plate is a crossed axe and dagger

The back has it's number 69Δ from the Armiger decals and a titan eagle on the right.

So here we are - highlights and decals. I'm overjoyed at the progress but suddenly convinced it's too much bling. What have I done? Doubts start gnawing at my confidence

That all these extra details had overegged the pudding. Like the two blue cog/lightning badges on the back of the arm guards for the Volcano cannons. I knew I wanted to use them, I just never thought if I should - but that's making decisions right?

The white cog on the gun shield looked too bright, as did the cog on the thigh plate. At this stage I was properly considering if I needed to paint them over completely, or if I could tone them down with glazes.

And just to make matters worse, although not really evident in these pictures, a thinned coat of matt varnish over the decals looked like it had yellowed. All the whites and greys seemed to have been tinted. Suspiciously the same colour as my water pot, however I only used clean water thinning the varnish.

So, after all that progress and hard work applying the decals - I mean it was hours, they so fiddly and fussy! I'm having a crisis of confidence, what could I do bring it back on track...?

Battle record - 40k Tyranids Vs Ork Speeed Freeeaks - 09/10/25

I've been #PlayingWarhammer with a game of Warhammer 40k! You read that right, actual 40k that I am supposedly an addict for. We had a full shed of Otty, Ben and Liam. Ben brought his Speeed Freeeaks, which was supposed to be 2,000 points, but due to balance updates was now around 1,780. I managed to combine Otty and my own Tyranids and bring it down to 1,735 [the 2,000 point list looked awesome]. Even so when Liam and Ben set up the plethora of vehicles with so many still in reserve it felt like we were severely outgunned. Anyway, we lost first turn and managed to weather the barrage of fire, mistakes were made and progress was painfully slow. I think we just managed one turn each! Our counter-attack was much more effective and quite a few vehicles were trashed. But aside from the mistakes and bad luck I actually think when we finish it off it will be close and challenging for both sides. We have the advantage but if the game turns then it could prove interesting for us all, which is the most important thing. We want to like the game but if it's no fun then what's the point when we have more pleasant game to play instead?

#DreadTober Adeptus Titanicus - Warlord Titan - Shades

Afternoon #Warhammer Community it's the fourth of #DreadTober2025 and I've continued to paint my Legio Gryphonicus Adeptus Titanicus Warlord Titan. This may look like a small update but I wanted a record as I seem to gloss over this step in previous Titan WiP posts.

The main thing being that I added a Sepia and Flesh Tone shade to all the metallics. Also, Citadel Iyanden Yellow Contrast paint was stippled/splodged on to give a bit more patination. This will make the next lot of mottled highlights stand out more.

You can see I also added a bit of Leadbelcher to the Volcano Cannon barrels, this helps to match up with my Reaver Titan weapons.

I also picked out the black and grey for the Machine Cogs on the carapace and added the white on the weapon armour and heraldry tilting shield. All ready to attempt the mottled highlights on the grey and yellow areas next.