Showing posts with label sentry gun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sentry gun. Show all posts

Sunday 9 September 2012

'nids part 52 / Terrain is everything - Tyranid Quad Gun pt2.

When last we left the 'quad gun' I had a head and a gun and a champagne cork. Now I have something that looks a little more like an anti-aircraft weapon.


Some flower wire was pinned into the back of the gun and the cork. The I hot-glued the cork to the 50mm base and used a sausage of tin foil to bulk out the bottom of the cork and save Milliput. I've sculpted the Milliput on top and used my sculpting tool to add a bit of 'alien' detail. It also went some way to join the gun to the cork. I also added it to the base as I had some left over and didn't want it to go to waste.


I added some of the Monstrous Creature Toxin Sacs to the head. This helps cover the join between the head and the weapon arm. The could be classed as sacs or even synapse conduits like I justified the ones on the side of my Tyranid Prime's head. This way my Tyranids aren't manually firing the gun with their hands but using the synapse to control the limited sentience of the 'gun beast', much like the Mycetic Spore.


Once I put two sacs in place there was a perfect gap for another Termagant sac so I added that too. I looked in my bits and found the Trygon Prime tail - the one that looks like a Rattlesnake tail. I've decided to mount this at the bottom, again justified as a synapse 'antenna'. I haven't pictures but I drilled a hole and pinned it ready to put a Milliput sheath around the join, so it looks like it's coming out of a fleshy protuberance.


Chitinous plates will be sculpted around sides. I'm actually amazed how solid this feels. I tied to pull the cork off after I initially clued it in place because I'd made a slight error but if felt like it was going to tear the base apart before separating.


This fortification is coming along and totally monopolising my hobby efforts, which isn't a bad thing. My only concern is that Liam and Ben both have reservations about this being able to be manually fired by 'nids. The semantics that justify it are OK with them, although they think it's sketchy at best, but they're just worried that I could be making this for Throne of Skulls and have someone disagree with my stance and therefore I won't be able to use it. So really I should be focusing on the Tervigon because I will definitely need that complete. But it's easiest to go with the flow so as my hobby meme is in this direction I'll go with it and get it done, hopefully coming back to the Tervigon with renewed vigour.

Friday 10 August 2012

1000pt battle report - nids Vs Marines [6th Edition]

My third 6th Edition game and it was round to PeteB's for our second showdown. Obviously still a lot to learn for both of us. I've had the advantage of the full rules but I haven't actually been reading them religiously so it wasn't too much of an advantage.

PeteB had a tactical squad split in two, 8 man assault squad, razorback, Stormfinch, terminator squad with Librarian and an aegis defence line with quad gun. I had the usual suspects Hive Guard, Tervigon, Trygon, Prime, 11 Hormagaunt, 10 Devgaunts, 6 Stealers and Broodlord with Iron Arm and Warp Speed. My Warlord [Prime] had the ability to allow an extra Run dice or a reroll for any unit within 12", PeteB had something that meant my Reserve roll had -1. As you can see it was Vanguard strike deployment with the Emperor's Will 'Eternal War' Mission - my hive node objective behind the Tervigon and PeteB's ammo cache next to his Rhino behind the Aegis Defence Line.


PeteB got first turn, did some shooting, took out four Devgaunts  and a Hormagaunt and may have put a wound on the Prime. The Hive Guard targetted the only things in range - the assault marines and killed 2. My infiltrated stealers, who'd lost two to first turn fire leapt from the ruins intent on mayhem.


The main horde surged forwards, the Tervigon spawned 15 and pooped out with three 5's. The Termagants surrounded my objective.


The marines hunkered down behind their defences, firing at anything that moved.


The Stormfinch burst onto the battlefield in a roar, blasting away at the Tervigon, taking a wound. The Terminators teleported onto the battlefield but Servitor XXIV misjudged their co-ordinates and for fear they would materialise inside a cliff face emergency aborted the teleport and returned them to their strike cruiser. Meanwhile the assault marines took to the skies on their jump packs and fired into the oncoming brood of Hormagaunts. The Razorback reveresed, it's tactical squad disembarking to take up position next to the objective. Most of the fire was directed at the Genestealers killing all and leaving the Broodlord with 2 wounds.


The Hormagaunts and Prime charged down the Assault Marines but the gaunts couldn't survive the withering overwatch fire. The Prime was eager to avange their demise through rending claws and Bonewswords but forgot how to use them and failed to wound a single marine.


The Broodlord channeled the power of the warp, adding 2 attacks to his 5 on the charge, his +1 adrenal strength taking out the sergeant and perhaps 1 other marine [but his rending claws failed to bite], not before he suffered another overwatch wound.


The Devgaunts scuttled thought the ruined Administratum building. The Hive Guard were picked off by the hovering Stormfinch, not before they'd both managed to shoot it while flying but failing to penetrate or glance it's armour.


The Devgaunts charged to help the Tyranid Prime in combat, their combined weight too much but for a single marine.


The Trygon had been busy slithering forwards to support the Broodlord [who'd managed to kill another marine, not throigh rending and with 3 attacks from Warp Speed], suffering wounds on the way but bashing down the defence line as it went.


The Stormfinch had hovered to score wounds on the Trygon and having spent a turn chastising Servitor XXIV the Terminator squad appeared in blinding light and sharp crack.


The Tervigon moved back to add support to the termagants on the objective.


Storm Bolter and Assault Cannon fire did serious damage to the Termagant numbers but the Tervigon's cluster spines hit, wounded and killed 2 of the terminators in return.


The last of the Assault marines was killed but not before the power fist wielding sergeant hammered the Prime into the dirt. The Devgaunts scuttled off to try and take on the Terminators.


Finely the dormant Ymgarls emerged from hibernation in the ruins and headed to support the Broodlord who'd finally managed with 7 attacks to kill the last two Marines, but still no rends in in three rounds of combat and 21 dice rolls! The Trygon ploughed into the Razorback...


four Smash attacks tearing it apart and suffering two massive explosions that failed to wound the towering beast.


More firing from the Devgaunts, Termagants and Tervigon managed to kill two more Terminators but the repositioned Stormfinch was desperate to gun down the remaining gribblies.


To finally silence the destructive Quad Gun the tervigon tore it to pieces like confetti.


A wound was put on the Librarian, who promptly charged along with the remaining terminator into the brood.


The Devgaunts and Tervigon joined the fray, the Tervigon graciously accepting the challenge of the Librarian but resulting in stalemate.


The Ymgarls and Trygon high tailed it back to the fight but couldn't reach the battle before the end of the game.


We rolled one xtra turn of combat where the Tervigon squished the Librarian but the terminator remained.

End result was a win for me. PeteB got shodachi [first blood] and was in my delpoyment zone and killed my Warlord [3kp]. He contested my objective but I had his, and was in his deployment zone [4kp]. So I won, narrowly. Still an awful lot to learn, so many 'modifiers' and I've still got to remember existing ones like instinctive behaviour - the Trygon was out of Synapse a few times and I forgot to roll. Not too much of a big thing but when rage gives you +2 on the attacks its worth remembering.


Thursday 5 July 2012

Terrain is everything - Tyranid defence line

Firstly, apologies for the lack of 6th coverage. I've got a shedload on my plate at the moment and fitting in the blog when it can tick away happily without my intervention for a fortnight makes it bottom of the pile, that's not to say I don't love you all, I do, you're just high maintenance ;) The sad fact is though that by the time I get to address some of the more pertinent issues with 6th many of them will have been addressed or discussed by those bloggers and forumites worthier than I and I may have missed the boat. Still I'll struggle on.

Back to the post, you've all seen Fortifications are 'in' and everyone and his dog can make space for 50pts of Aegis Defence Line so they can bring their cover with them. GW's point of view is that now folk will be buying this set in bucketloads and not just for the quad guns to make Mortis dreadnoughts! My initial reaction for Tyranids was excitement because I'm not going to buy the Aegis set because my nids obviously don't use Imperial Architecture and if you've seen the nid FAQ:
Q: Are Tyranid units inside buildings (ie the Bastion) subject to instinctive behaviour tests? Further, are they able to manual fire emplaced weapons? (p33)
A: No to both questions
But apparently the FAQ implies that only Imperial folk can use the weapons emplaced within - BOO! I was looking forward to using spare deathspitters and Tyrannofex weapons to represent the weapons attached within. But if the nids can't use them that sucks. My knee jerk reaction was eventually not 100% justified as the weapons can be auto fired, so a semi-sentient nid presence will still get 'quad' guns
Ultimately though my hope was that the 'in game' purchasing of Aegis Defence Lines, Bastions and fortifications etc. would herald a new renaissance in folk creating their own xenos equivalents to get the benefits but by doing it old school hobby style on the cheap and with some exciting creativity. Obviously a Tyranid Bastion equivalent in my case might be a nice challenge.

Of course there are already 'alien' 3rd party equivalents out there, the most well known is Darkartstores First Contact Terrain. It's not necessarily the cheapest option but you do seem to get quite a lot for your buck - a 5" section for £4.50 seams equivalent to any sort of Forgeworld prices/purchases.


Alternatively there's Do It Yourself and you know that's what I'm all about, especially if it's cheap-cheap and doubly so if it looks cool. So forgive me if I just bow to someone who's already been there, done that and created the solution to our problem: Mr_Pink and his alien barricades

From this:


To this:



And lets be honest we can all manage that I think! And whilst we're at it I may as well share some more of Mr_pink's awesome work:
That should be enough for now, but it's got me thinking about Bastion and Skyshield equivalents and it's only a little step further on to look at Tau, Eldar, Necron and the oh, so amusing Ork versions!

Sunday 11 September 2011

Tactical squad update

I may be about to commit an unforgivable faux pas or not. Have I shown these already? For the life of me I can't tell but I can't seem to find them in my searches and I have another update to follow so thought I'd better just guarantee they were out there to prove I have made some advances. So the Tac squad had a basecoat of Orkhide Shade. I can't quite recall if this was at that point or after I'd done a Dark Angel Green drybrush. Now I say drybrush but the way I put it on it was more like a 'drybuff'! Everywhere it went seemed to get 'polished' so I haven't ended up with the usual dusty look most drybrushing results in.


Following on from this, though I have no pictures, I did a Badab Black wash and it removed any shiny quality and really started to generate that 'dark' in the Dark Angels. Not that I'll probably ever use this Space marine Captain but he's going to get painted up in the process.



The big deal, once I've resolved the DAGreen will be all the other bits . Had wanted a white edge round the the shoulder pads, leading up to the Tac Squad Arrow, but that isn't 'Chapter Approved' and may well end up being less dark than I wish. I'm thinking of going aged gold on the chest Aquila, sommething that can be toned down. I'm looking for whatever aged metals I can get, no shiny polished metal for these guys.


I also have to decide on which company. However as I have some of the Information from Imperial Armour 2 which details the Siege of Vraks I can choose from the 1st and 2nd [obviously] but also the 3rd, 5th, 6th, 8th and 9th companies. However, they do feature combat squad Boreas, which is 10 men so why not appropriate these guys and my Deathwing can also be Squad Arbalan, so I kind of know who each of these Marines is. Of course one of the real reasons for doing this is the Vraks Devastation force also included 12 Tarantual Sentry guns, so it's always a reason for keeping them included in my army.


Another shot of the Captain, subtly different but still worthy of showing nontheless.

Tuesday 16 November 2010

Epic Space Marines part 1. - Dark Angels

Here's some pics of my small Epic Dark Angels force. I had to have one seeing as I was fielding a Dark Angels 40 chapter but also you got extra choices with the likes of Ravenwing [before they went all Goth coloured]. So there's 3 tactical squads, differentiated by bolter and back pack colours - gold, silver and red. A Ravenwing attack force - Land Speeders and bikes. Three Lands Raiders, a Thunderhawk Gunship and continuing my love affair with Tarantula Sentry Guns - my own scratch builds made out of Imperial Guard las pistols and las rifle handles, enjoy!




Monday 8 November 2010

Dark Angels genesis vol 2.

Although I liked the darkness of my original attempt at Dark Angel power armour I was never fully happy with the quality and it felt like I was cheating. Essentially the paint was only applied at the edges, something most paint guides advocate now but back then it was shadows, midtone highlight [work your way up].

My mate James's Ultramarines were a 'duck egg blue'. They looked cool so I thought the same principle would work on DA's green. They've ended up far too pale but I still like them in a way and can't bring myself to strip them, not yet anyway.

Old school Space Marine devastator squad! Like I say not recognisable as true Dark Angels. Wow, folks that's a Conversion Beamer, when you didn't have to be a forge master to get one and they converted mass to energy, the bigger you are the bigger the bang! NOT the further away you are the bigger the bang, that makes no sense?! Spot the Advanced Space Crusade scout heavy bolter, I have the lead standard ones, I just wanted the massive ugly plastic one instead.

Circa 1992.




Old school Space Marine Chaplain, on a bike! Brother Infernus to the rescue. This was before the 'Ravenwing is all black' info came out, hence the green bike. This guy was supposed to zoom around the battle field dropping Vortex grenades like the easter bunny.



Old school Dark Angel mole mortar! Now no longer available to Space Marines [just Death Korps of Krieg] although the Thunderfire cannon has similar rules to those of the Rogue Trader days [although they're not in the DA codex!]


Old School Tarantula sentry gun from Advance Space Crusade. I've 3 of these babies and was gutted there was no rules for them until I saw Imperial Armour 2. 15pts each for twin linked heavy bolter. BS2, but 3 of them stacked together, you can do some damage on a gaunt swarm!