support your local blogger - Blue Warp Studios

He's only gone and done it! My mate Liam has started a blog at http://bluewarpstudios.blogspot.co.uk/ I cannot recommend it enough, afterall I've been showcasing his insane talent and machine-like productivity for years. Lets face he scratchbuilt a Warlord Titan:

He scratchbuilt a beautiful Warhound Titan too:

He kitbashes all sorts of awesome models

And his painting is award winning, scooping loads of the certificates at Throne of Skulls

And he's insane enough to make his own life-sized Chaos Space Marine helmet too! And he shows how to make it in his blog!

Seriously, is that not evidence enough to follow his blog? Well once again it's a low rent blog, updates every couple of weeks or so and hopefully with more readers he may well dip into his massive collection and showcase all those other armies he has - Elves, Dark Eldar, Crimson Fists, Chaos Marines and many more.

Liam is a hobby genius so sign up now!

EPIC! Battle Report - Horus Heresy Skirmish

PeteB went and pickedup the bargain set of Space Marine 1st Edition about a month ago now. Following his 'epic' purchase we decided to have a battle. I thought I had more pictures but it seems I didn't take as many as I first thought. Really we were just struggling to come to terms with the rules as I also had the 2nd edition rule set and Pete had the current Epic Armageddon ones. Having looked at the new rules one thing jumped out at me - the fact you have to roll off to see if your unit actually follows through on it's orders [am I wrong in this?] I hate that dynamic so we went with 2nd edition and mixed in some of the stuff we liked from 1st.

I got to roll out some of my old Ultramarines and PeteB had his force of traitors ;). I really need the 2nd Edition Warlord Titan datasheet, so if anyone has it or a link to it I'd appreciate it. Instead we used the Adeptus Titanicus rules that make it incredibly difficult to kill with non-titan units. Anyway, this was our set up at the beginning of the game, we put down orders and PeteB won the initiative and moved first.

And we suddenly realised that putting everything on Charge orders was quite an issue as some of our faster units - bikes, speeders etc. were suddenly on the other side of the board. 2nd edition rules I think stated you couldn't fire either, compared with 1st edition where it was at a -1 modifier. Therefore I tried to position to capitalise on the next turn, making sure I'd got everything in place to rain fire down on the traitorous scum.

I did manage to get into assault with his Dreadnoughts though [robot proxies] and killed a few.

My Dark Angel allies - Ravenwing and Land Raiders, together with my Ultramarine Predators and Dreadnoughts tried to outflank the Land Raiders on the hill.

My Tarantula battery set up on the hill but I'd bigged them up too much before the game and the next turn they were assaulted and wiped out. My Titan spent most of the game untouched, firing with impunity but not doing a whole lot of damage. 2nd edition doesn't state you get +1 to hit on First fire orders, it's only advantage being you 'fire first'! Given most to hit rolls are on 5+ I'm not sure we liked this. When only a third of your hits do anything it can be a pretty unrewarding experience.

Sadly this is the last pic and so much happened after this. I tried to blow up buildings but again 2nd edition works by only barrage being able to damage them. My Thunderhawk came on, managed to do practically nothing and then put itself in a position in PeteB's deployment zone where it was just riddled with fire and shot out of the sky. Pete also created a Land Raider sandwich attack - my four Land Raiders in the centre of the board [three by the time this event took place] were assaulted by 2 units of three Rhinos with a higher Close Assault Factor the Raiders easily dispatched the first Rhino but the second Rhino gets an additional d6 as a secondary attacker and he was able to ram the Raiders into oblivion.

Once again it was getting late and we called it a night. I'm not even sure who won, we didn't even bother to work up which units had broken [and therefore we gain their VPs] and to be honest I didn't care. This was a game full of fun, attack and counter attack, periods were nothing seemed to happen and then suddenly entire units were vaporised. The great thing was there was no emotional attachment to the forces, these aren't my nids I've been using for years so it didn't matter if I won or lost it was the 'cinematic' journey along the way.

We had a 40k battle the next time we met up, as that was in preparation for Blog Wars but I look forward to our next Epic confrontation. We still need to iron out some of the rules we want to play with, being happy with a system that works for us. I think if we have the correct edition datasheets for Warlords, Reavers and Warhounds that would help too. I was devastated with their rules in 2nd edition, they became so much easier to kill but if we play them like Adeptus Titanicus rules they're overpowered so that has to change.

Following on from my battle I wanted to paint up a Reaver Titan for PeteB to use in battles. I wanted to do a red one with all brass fittings [very Khorne] I started with a Red Oxide primer and then blacked in all the metal areas.

Shoulder pads, missile launcher, and head are all pinned to be secure. I've tried to do a similar metal effect as on my drop pod [do you remember that? G.O.D. that's so long ago now and still so unfinished!] Anyway, I'll add some more highlights and then probably a 'devlan mud' wash and then work on the red bits. I can't decide to go basic highlights on the red or try and do a mottled blotchy pattern of highlights...

EPIC! Battle Report - Horus Heresy Skirmish

A week or so ago I saw an ebay bargain to die for. A near complete set of 1st Edition Epic Space Marine for £28 Buy it Now! I couldn't believe it, more importantly I could justify getting it, not with a number of gaming purchases already made and a new tyre for the Micra due. But PeteB can see a bargain and snapped it up and he got even more than he bargained for with a bundle of extra miniatures - Orks, their battlewagons and the Space Marines that included bikes, Land Speeders, Terminators, Assault and Devastator units. I think he'd probably recoup a third of his outlay by selling the Orks but we'll see.

With a new game in hand we decided to have a knockaround, we'd spent 2 hours just gassing about the game and I showed off my old copy of Rogue Trader and we giggled. Anyway, we went simple, a Warlord and Warhound each [I swapped around the weapons so PeteB had the plasma and I had the las so we could experience the other side. 3 Barrels on each and Chainfists I also had a Multi-launcher and PeteB had and auto-cannon]. We also had 6 Land Raiders each, and two stand of Devastators, Tactical and Assault troops.

This is after turn 1 [although my Warhound needs to move]. I was trying to flank with my Land Raiders, it's worked on the left but the right is very exposed.

My assault marines jump behind the Warhound.

More of PeteB's infantry disembark and the Land Raiders position to shoot.

His Warhound goes to stomp on the Assault Squad, missing one.

But then as he passes he uses his head mounted Heavy Bolter and Plasma Gun to kill one the other.

Devastator and Tactical squads occupy the buildings.

I manage to blow the Auto cannon off his Warlord Titan with my own.

The building occupied by the Tactical squad takes two damage from my Land Raiders. 

The building PeteB's Warlord was taking cover from is destroyed leaving it exposed.

But his Titan manages to get a Plasma Cannon shot on the Warhound and two Land Raiders.

Leaving the Warhound to stand above the molten slag of the Raiders.

By this time it was getting late, I'm not sure who was winning and didn't really care to be honest. We'd had some real fun and it was a completely different tactical game. It eventually became apparent PeteB had missed the bit where I said all the weapons on the Titan had 3 barrels except the Plasma Cannon. He'd been firing only one shot whit his Heavy Plasma Gun. The Auto Cannon had gone quite early so it wasn't too bad but still, a fair few Land Raiders may have been destroyed other wise.

We're going to be playing this again next week but I'll be bringing my 2nd Edition rules and Expansion so we can take some more interesting models and see what does what.

Apocalypse WOW! 12,500pts of Armageddon - Turns 4, 5 and 6

Our turn 4 and Nancy was suitably miffed at the loss of the Swarmlord and trained her guns on the Warhound which had just suffered a glancing hit from one of my Hive Guard!

This is 're-creation' of the dice roll Otty quickly whipped off the table in excitement. It surely looks like the Warhound was wounded badly but is still in later pics so I guess she didn't die, just yet! 

The Hormagaunts are routing all the way back now with little hope of me regrouping. Otty's mishapped Devgaunts are nearly out of the deployment zone - sodding Synapse and run moves. My Tervigon is starting the dash across the frozen wastes...

Only to get splatted, probably by the Shadowsword given how smug it looks immediately opposite.

The Vulture culls even more of the fleeing Hormagaunts.

And with targets running out everywhere why not drop an Apocalypse blasts on those devgaunts who've done nothing all game? Yep, thats around 8 dead.

I think this is now our Turn 5 as Nancy takes another crack at the Warhound.

And she finally bites the dust getting us a VP!

The remaining Hormagaunts head for the hills and I move what's left of the Devgaunts forward.

Meanwhile my Tervigon is still holding the Chapel, with her 5 spawnedTermagants waiting in cover to steal the objective should she fall.

The Warriors finally make it to the objective but there's a busload of Ogryns the other side of that wall and I just don't think the Prime and a Warrior with only one wound is going to survive their ripper guns let alone an assault.

Nancy slams into the Shadowsword and I think she ultimately smashes it to pieces like tin foil!

The vanilla Tervigon gets prioritzed for termination by whatever Imperial weaponry is available.

And ultimately her fate is sealed...

and the Chapel is sullied no more by the stink of Xenos filth

The Ogryns dutifully wipe out the Warriors and Prime, although I think the Prime might have offed Commissar Yarrick in a challenge as he doesn't seem to be with his crew.

The Stormlord swivels to bring down Nancy

But somehow she smashes that to pieces gaining us our 3rd VP

With only Otty's Devgaunts for me to move there was one last hope for redemption when an over eager Vendetta pilot closed in for the kill on the already fleeing Hormagaunts, thus allowing the Devgaunts to reposition for a rear-armour shot. Here's my first 11/21 snap fire shots. Sadly I only got one more 6 to hit and needed three 6s to glance it out of the sky. Sadly the bitter irony did not go my way and I could only manage 1 glance and the flyer escaped.

The Termagants managed to pass their Instinctive behaviour and capture the Chapel once more.

Only to have it snatched away by the contesting Vulture, he probably shot them all too, to capture it back for the Imperium

And that was the end of the game, with I think the final score being something like 19 to 3. So it was an absolute whitewash, although in that last turn Nancy was an absolute beast ripping through the three Super Heavies like they were never going to be a problem. This was a fun game though, it was more like a big 40k game for me as I didn't have any Apocalypse beasts under my control but pretty much everything I wanted to do with my deep strikes delivered. I think I should have committed the CC Tervigon sooner, it did nothing all game and neither did the Swarmlord. But we were terrified he was going to be killed first turn.

The BIG problem with Apocalypse is the scale of it, with so much to move and the amount of time it's such a shame that you have an hour+ of killing where you just totally hammer your opponents only to then be on the receiving end yourself for an hour+ too. It can be too much of a up, down, up, down scenario. Also you really need the Apocalypse creatures/tanks to stand a chance. I'm not sure what my 4000pts could have done to those Super Heavies, maybe they should have been a priority instead of the Manticores but I think Smash attacks would have been needed by MCs and I'm not sure any got chance to do that with easier targets in the way anyway. Then again Otty was stuffed by a drop pod capturing an objective and he didn't have anything nearby strong enough to even glance the thing let alone penetrate it.

And once you start getting the extra VPs for controlling objectives in turn 4 there was just no coming back for us. Luckily 3 of the VPs spent by Ben and Liam were pretty ineffective otherwise we'd be looking at an even worse score line.

We'll definitely do this again, although we may have to tinker again with the rules to see how the playing field can be levelled. Clearly letting us go first helped a bit but then again Nancy was brutal when she finally got her a$$ in gear. A great game all round.

Lastly here's a shot of Liam's scratchbuilt Contemptor Dreadnought, not bad for a Bucks Fizz plastic cork, plastic lids, caps and other bitz!

His awesome Forgeworld Dread.

And the four of us, Otty, me, Liam and Ben...

...yes I was dead by the end of the day!