#BattleReport - 1,000pts Imperial Knights v Chaos Knights

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been playing TENTH! #New40k We're persevering, I think this is my 4th game of 10th edition now, which is double what I played of 9th. Anyway, I was taking my Knights [Lancer and 3 Warglaive] against Liam's Chaos Knights [Rampager, Desecrator and War Dog Carnivore]. We're still confused with setting up. We got Dawn of War, but the mission was the Ritual, where you deploy objectives in No Man's Land [that's all I read]. I won deployment and took the near side, trying to keep the terrain between me and Liam's big guys so I can put my objectives out of his reach. My secondary was 2VPs per unit killed [yeah right], while Liam had to defend his home objective for 3VPs per turn! I was so screwed

He won first turn and sent the Rampager up the board and deployed an objective. It was at this point I read the 'fine print' of the mission. You can only deploy an objective within 9" of an existing objective. So, as I'd moved the bulk of my army to the other side of the board, away from the only objective in my deployment zone I was utterly and completely screwed. One of the Warglaives weathered the opening salvo fromt he Desecrator with some fantastic saves. My turn I used the Lancers Bondsman ability on my Warglaive to Advance and Charge the Carnivore. I managed to get 6 wounds on it.

Then I discovered [as did Liam] how utterly brutal the Chaos equivalent is in combat as it ripped the Warglaive to pieces with absolute ease. The only bright side being it went overkill and the Warglaive blew up, but only did 1 more wound on the Carnivore. With the scent of blood in its nose it loped toward my second Warglaive.

And just mauled it to pieces. I was getting spanked at this stage. The complete failure in deployment had already left me 13pts adrift with no chance to perform and Ritual objective deployments and I'd lost 2 knights already.

Some good news though, the remaining Warglaive smashed through a walkway and got its sights on the Carnivore - managing to strip its remaining wounds, no explosion.

My Lancer bounded round the refinery, shot its Lance at the Desecrator with no damage. It had already taken 7 wounds thanks to the Desecrator. It then took a load more from this turn of shooting, I think there were 5 or 6 wounds left.

The Rampager Tank Shocked the Lancer and it stripped the remaining wounds. I used the fight on death strategy to get some attacks back. I think I got 12 wounds back on it, or strip most of its wounds off it.

We were close to calling it at a night at this stage. Despite the early success on the dice the deployment had destroyed any chance I had. My dice rolling had been shocking since. BUt I had my last Warglaive left and it's Melta Lance was still sufficient to bring the Rampager down

So we went another turn and amazingly the Warglaive did enough with Trophy Hunter I regained my only CP and if I could survive another turn I'd be getting an additional 3 for killing Liam's Warlord.

The Desecrator came in and I was once again able to weather the storm thanks to Rotating Ion Shields. I was also Honoured now, giving my a 5+ FNP. Liam just made it into combat.

I think this was his total whiff, with only 1 attack hitting home. In my turn I was on 4 CPs. We struggled a bit with the command phase as I had to take a Battle Shock test - failure would mean no stratagems. But Shoulder The Burden is used in the Command Phase and gives me +1 to Move, Toughness, Save, Leadership, OC and adds 1 to the Hit roll. We figured it worked, but if he failed the Battle Shock we'd take it off. Luckily he passed. But he was down to 2CP

I threw Squires Duty on for improved +1 Strength, AP and Damage, as well as Trophy Claim for +1 to the Wound Roll. I shot in combat with the Melta Lance - still hitting on 3's [due to modifiers] and rerolling a 1. Wounding on 2's [reroll a 1] and doing D6+5 damage. The Melta Gun, hit on 3's wound on 4's D6+3 damage. But not enough, the Desecrator survived and smooshed him real good for his temerity.

I'll say it again - deployment was flawed from the beginning, because I just hadn't read the mission properly. But aside from that this was the most fun game of 10th we've had, even if I did get slaughtered. Lesson's learned - the Carnivore is brutal, kill it from distance. Lancers need to charge, do not let it get charged. Read the mission rules properly! But that comes down to unfamiliarity. The more we play the more the missions will make sense. Having the cards really helped for us both, but there is still a lot of back and forth to the rules to understand, stratagems, terrain rules, battleshock, the mission and also the pre-game roll offs. All that previous knowledge is lost and we're not confident enough. Checking the rules repeatedly disrupts the flow and energy of the game, which is a shame. 

#DeathGuard #KillTeam Poxwalkers - White pics

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer Death Guard Poxwalkers. Here's the white background shots, they all seem a bit dark, which is where Camera360 had a decent enhance feature to lighten everything, but then they'd all look like paintings rather than photographs if I'd persevered with that app.

Anyway, you at least get to see the back views on these too.

It's really weird as I write about these because it was a while back now and I have no recollection how long they took or how laborious it felt. 

It's great that they're just done, but I do wonder if I was ever so inclined to have more Poxwalkers would I feel that this amount of effort was worth it or not?

Sure, I have the Gellerpox Infected to do at some point but they are much more diverse models, with only a few similar to these.

I imagine I'll start them at the same time, work on bits concurrently and then focus. 

Ultimately I just love what I painted here. These will definitely be models I return to down the line and will be surprised at the results I achieved.

And the best thing is I know they are far from perfect. They are insanely busy to look at but that feeling of overwhelming satisfaction, despite their flaws is a gift beyond measure.

I've always wanted to paint my armies and I've always wanted to paint to the best of my ability. Sometimes compromises have to be made, but in sacrificing quality how will I ever progress as a painter, and in sacrificing finishing models how will I feel satisfied. To be able to balance the two - quality and delivery and yet still feel like I've improved as a painter, or even just comfortable with whatever flaws there are is the high point of my hobby exploits.

#DeathGuard #KillTeam Poxwalkers - TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer Death Guard Poxwalkers. Technically my #NewYearNewArmy for #ArmiesOnParade, which seems so long ago now. These came together so well right at the end. Although they're far too vibrant to be truly 'grimdark' I really like how they came out.

They're mid-way between the much grimier Plague Marines and my Genestealer Cult which may not be exactly what I intended but shaking my 'signature' vibrancy was always going to be a challenge.

The skin is something I'm quite pleased with. I managed to balance similarity with subtle differences. It's actually the clothing that I think lens more into my traditional style. To be fair that's because I actually wanted them to as then I could repurpose my cultists as both Genestealer and Chaos, nto that I'll ever play with them but they were added to my Armies On Parade display to bump up the numbers.

However, that long cloak/coat was very much in the grimdark style and I love how grimy it ended up.

Here we go with the entirety of the Poxwalkers, all mixed up so you can see how the 4 different variations of the skintone just add enough variety to make things interesting.

Grey base colours with red and green shading and bone base colours with red and green. All with purple to add raw and bruised effects.

I just absolutely love them as a group. Despite this being a fusion of two styles I'm familiar with they feel very different.

Although I would not describe this as a levelling up moment, as I do my Ylthari's Guardians its definitely something new and it surprises me to see what I achieved.

I think the surprise is enhanced because they really came together as they were finished.

Not to mention the gore FX, with Tamiya Clear Red X-27 and deciding the eyes would be gloss black.

You see it some many times in films but not always in miniatures, perhaps because it's hard to notice but I felt it was the right choice.

I just love the end result.

White pics to follow and there will be front and back views so you get to see them clearly.

Here's a GREAT Big RUSTY Stamp of Approval for the lot.

#DeathGuard #KillTeam Plague Marines - White Pics

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer. Here are the white background pics. I'll leave the commentary just so you can enjoy the images. Any questions just pop them in the comments.

Here are the shots from Camera360. So you can see why the detail has been abstracted. They're cool in a way, but not what I'm after for my showcase pics. Just a shame I can't recreate the white background in these shots in my shots above. I could easily do it in Photoshop but I don't need another step, Google Photos really needs to copy that isolate feature Apple has rolled out to the iPhone.