1750pts battle report - Imperial Knights & Dark Angels v Renegade Knights & Chaos Space Marines

Liam had observed we haven't had a game for a long time so we arranged get together but what to play? Having tried Kill Team and Deathwatch Overkill we thought it should be 40k but as I had the chance bring my [mostly] Knights for convenience and their first march AND the fact Liam is the only one with a similar company of Knights it seemed like a more balanced match up. That said he has Renegade Knights which only have access to two stratagems I wanted something different, more narrative.

There was an Echoes of War mission in Vigilus Defiant called Forlorn Charge. It was Knights and Freeblades versus Ork Stompas, Morkanauts and Gorkanauts. It compressed the Knights into a 2'x2' corner with the 'Orks' creating their 'scrap city' and deploying first. There were also benefits for running a Fortification network and some additional stratagems. I thought this might help Liam out but it transpires the Attacker gets all the coolest extra Strats but even so Liam deployed the terrain and chose his Fortress of Redemption as a Fortification [gaining 3CP extra]. Liam spent some time trying to get the 1750pts but as it was 'narrative' and I had all the Knight strats I was quite happy for him to have significantly more points. Victory conditions were for my Knights to destroy all his Knights and buildings for a Major Victory, Minor if I killed more than were left alive and Defeat if it was any other result.

He built the 'scrap city' as you would expect - shattered ruins just inside his DZ with my zone devoid of terrain. There was a nice 'choke point' between the two ruins so I couldn't assault the Fortress en masse [theoretically it could be one shotted by the Lancer and the Gallant]. A thin bubble wrap of Cultists were going to prevent those shenanigans, while the rest hid indoors. Craters in both access points to his DZ would also slow my charges, which fit the narrative mission description in place of barricades.

A unit of Obliterators were in the middle building with a Sorceror, the two Knights at the back of the board. Abaddon would teleport in with two other units of Oblits. I had my Galant, an Errant, Lancer, two Warglaives and a Dark Angel Outrider detachment of three units of three Ravenwing Bikes and a Techmarine. I got first turn but Liam won the initiative, which he was initially going to give up but I pointed out he'd get a turn of shooting with the Oblits if he didn't. So he shot at my Lancer, stripping away 6 wounds [I think].

With my turn I pushed forward, the Lancer mvoing at Flank Speed round the top of the ruins, on the other side a Ravenwing bike squad could just fit down the alley between the suin and the board edge. The other Knights filled out the middle.

Ser Ellenbogen held the centre ground with his primary concern the Obliterators in the ruins.

All my Knight's heavy weapons fire was put into the Oblits, with some obseceleny good dice rolling eventually wiping them out.

The Warglaives added their guns to the mix, while targetting the cultists with their lighter weaponry. My Lancer had discharged it's Shock Blast into the Oblits too but it had a bigger target in its sights for the Combat phase.

Those Ravenwing that hadn't advanced poured Bolter fire into the Cultists trying to thin their ranks and remove the bubble wrap to the Fortresws.

My Lancer made it into combat and I was able strip all but one wound off Liam's 'Black Legion' Gallant. Probably wished I'd fired that Shock Blast at it.

The lancer was outnumbered now, the Khorne Gallant stepping in to finish what the other Knight couldn't, but not before the Chaos Sorceror had cursed the Lancer so it could no longer make use of its Invulnerable save - that 4++ Ion Gaunlet Shield going to waste this turn.

Thankfully it's 2+ Armour of the Sainted Ion save had managed to keep 1 wound left on the Knight and by interrupting I was able to destroy the Black Legion Knight. The Khorne Knight finished it off.

Abaddon [Typhus] and two more units of Obliterators teleported into the middle of the board, blasting away at Ser Ellenbogen. I think he took significant wounds.

Ser Ellenbogen charged into the Oblits and Abaddon, joined by two units of Ravewning, one of which was totally annhiliated by overwatch when they charged in - a really stupid decision.

Ser Ellenbogen fell, either by the same fate as the bikers or in combat, but not without his reactors overloading - wiping out one unit of Obliterators, wounding Abaddon, killing another Oblit, possibly the Sorceror a bunch of cultists, 2 Ravenwing and wounding both Warglaives - he sold his death HARD!

With the path clear Abaddon moved into the breach. One Warglaive was blasted to pieces by the remainign Obliterators while Abaddon would wipe out the second.

Lady Pettorini had traded blows with the Khorne Gallant and would finish it off this turn but was down to just 4 wounds. Those double sixes probably helped [perhaps if I'd written this report the day after as I intended I might recall what it was for] I had not known they got 5 attacks and hitting on 2s, Liam asked if I'd actually ever read my Codex!?

As it was getting late we decided to call it, we tried one last ditch attempt to get Lady Pettorini into combat with the Fortress - an 11" charge would have made contact and she'd have auto hit 5 times wounding on 2's and 6 damage potentially wrecking it in one turn, but she couldn;t make the charge.

I think Liam faired much better than he expected. I realised the next day he should have had all the Oblits on the board from the beginning. Two other squads would have taken down on of the Knights in turn 1. Then if he'd swamped the crater with the Cultists it would have stalled my adavnce through the middle [not that I actually got far through the breach] and his other Oblits could have held the Fortress, which hadn;t been particularly effective with its own shooting - that BS 5+ is rubbish. Remember when its missiles use to be Vortex missiles, now they're some anti-personnel rubbish.

Anyway, a good game even if I did lose more Knights than I'd like but I always do. However, Lady Pettorini survived and killed a Knight so I'll have to give her an honour badge/purity seal. Overall it was just great to get to use them and see how Liam played so I got more experience. Although I probably still had more advantages with the stratagems, Liams extras - deployment, Fortifications, more CPs and stealing the initiative really helped to balance it out and lthough I took the minor victory it was a very close game.

Terrain is everything - Sanctum Imperialis - The blues [greens and turquoisey bits]

Annoyingly I was beginning to stall on this the raw bronze matched the red walls so well with the  cream interior complimenting it all and I was going to throw all that turquoise into the mix?! But before all of that I needed to gild the doors a little so they were a little more brassy/polished bronze. At least that was all I'd hoped it would be.

I'd already gone full verdigris on the roof top. There had been an original plan to do it rusted steel but if I chickened out of weathering the buttresses [obviously I didn't when you look closely] I'd have explored the effect in the roof at least. Unfortunately, even with my Photoshop mock-up and the reality in my hand I started to doubt this route even more. It was probably what prompted me to build some new figures! The roof is fully highlighted but I'll be putting some shadow washes on as I've been observing some patina'd overhead power cables at some of the train stations on my commute and black shading appears in some areas. Ideally that should have captured by the Warplock Bronze base - at which point we question why I did any of that but I'm a slave to the process...

Ultimately I just threw on the Hawk Turquoise. I came to the realisation I should just not care. If it goes wrong so what? This may well look odd and garish on the battlefield but often reality isn't always colour matched and complimentary, sometimes things just do look out of place. Failing that I could always repaint!

Having thinned the paint down a lot I needed to paint one side of each of the buttresses and leave it to dry properly before flipping to do the other side or the paint would just bleed everywhere.

A bit of a faff but now I'm ready for the highlights which will be mainly drybrushed so it should be straightforward. Just need to crack on and do it.

GW Manchester Battle of the Brush - March - Characters

Following on from February's Battle of the Brush [or 'Tale of our Warlords', as it's also known], March's category is Characters. I entered my Space Hulk Genestealer Broodlord, aside from the Terminator Librarian [which might feature in June...?] it was my most recently completed character. Obviously if I could paint something in time I would but my priority is my ongoing projects so some months it will be legacy miniatures as my entries. So long as they've never been in the cabinet before, the store is OK with that. Luckily my Sanctum Imperialis will count as a 'Large Miniature' in May, if I get it done that is!

Anyway, I didn't get a lot of pics but these are the highlights. I think I was lucky in that I did capture the top three etntries with this Wight King gaining the top spot.

Gandalf was 2nd I think but he was absolutely stunning. You can even see Sir Ian McKellen in his face.

Riding Shadowfax too, and Merry or Pippin [I forget which].

An Isharann Tidecaster and some kind of Troggoth

Watch Captain Artemis and Spirit of Durthu - this Sylvaneth army is growing month on month so I lookk forward to seeing more entries.

Some additional entires, including a Biophagus.

Moar dakka?!

One of their taster tables, I like the fact it has the standard Realm of battle board next to the Sector Imperialis gamboard. I quite fancy having a couple of those to sit next to my own board as a transition to a more urban area, even if it's a nightmare to play on!

I'll be taking regular pics throughout the months for this challenge, so enjoy.

'nids part 264 - Genestealer cult - Aberrants - Avoidance tasking

Having concluded that my Sanctum Imperialis should be verdi-gris I promptly ttried to avoid the task. Sadly I didn't even avoid it with any of my other priority projects. I spent one night making the torso of my Redemptor Dreadnought [more later] and the Aberrant Hypermorph. The next, night fully intending to paint I only went and made up all 8 of my remaining Aberrants. It says something when building until 1am is a more appealing task than painting that building green! These two are from the new Aberrant kit, but I think the power hammer dude has a Deathwatch Overkill head - they're more gormless looking

I went with 3 power picks, because with 13 Aberrants in total I planned to kitbash another 2 and the spare hammers seemed an easier proposition to convert, although I may just be completely wrong on that viewpoint.

Having 4 Deathwatch Overkill models already I needed to do a couple of things to differentiate these. The first had its raised claw cut and tilted downwards. Then the second claw holding a skull was removed and a spare claw, possibly from a Space Hulk Genesteal was attached - it's slightly bigger than normal. He also got the 'elephant man' head from the new kit but it might have been a mistake as you can't radly see the side of the face covered in skin. The other figure got a new kit headswap.

The robed guys, first one had it's raised arm removed and thn effectively put back in the same position because I couldn't remember what it was like. I did put a little 'dewclaw' in the elbow joint though. I also swapped out the skull holding claw for the smaller Stealer clawed hand. Lastly the power pick was separated from the chest and pointed outwards. The power hammer dude got a new kit headswap, allowing it to look in a different direction.

I might need to add some chitinous armour plates and possibly some adrenal glands/toxin sacs to make them look different to their duo-pose bretheren below. I also need to decide on bases, do I get another set from bases4war.com or just  do my own? Obviously there's a financial implication and although the bases are effectively complete the washing, sanding to fit the feet, gluing and washing again to get rid of the dust is as much effort as PVA, grit and little bits of debris...

Here's my early attempt to kitbash 2 more Aberrants, although one could be another Hypermorph so would need an 'improvised weapon' of some sort meaning I'd actually need to kitbash a third. Anyway, I had some oAssault on Black Reach Orks lying around doing nothing so they're bulky enough to form a base. I cut the arms off and trimmed down the neck to fit the steel collar of the eventual head. I also have a spare Genestealer leg to replace a foot so it's more 'Tyraniddy'.

I realised this hammer came with an upper-torso, so I'm going to really trim back the top of the Ork so it replace it. I'll greenstuff some robes as well to try and cover the orky fashion up too.

Here's where I'm at with my Redemptor, I couldn't even leave this stock. I had a big Dark Angel chapter badge I was going to split but then I found this one that I'd already removed the sword from and it fit perfectly. I might also put the Dark Angel Relics on a rope on the exhaust manifolds on its back, as that also fits perfectly. I'm going to bling the shizzit out of this, loads of purity seals as I'm guessing he earned them already to be in this thing! ;)

And his hips.

Hopefully this procrastination was sufficient to get me back to the Sanctum, we shall see.

Terrain is everything - Sanctum Imperialis - it's not easy being verdi-green

If you follow the 40kaddict Facebook group you'll have seen some of these pics already. The plan was always to do full-on verdigris on the uprights, buttresses and external skirting boards, despite adding some highlights to the bronze. First was a wash of Army painter Hawk Turquoise.

Then another wash of my turquoise craft acrylic, followed by another drybrush of turquoise/white mix and I think it matches quite well my Matt Black Hero of the Imperium statue.

But putting it next to the big piece I was wracked with doubt about losing the bronze. It's such a consistent effect and will not stand out too much on the battlefield - tonal backdrop that does not detract from the miniatures.

But I realised I could Photoshop it to see the end-result and with the small piece rotated I could copy+paste elements across.

I also got to conceptualise the red glass finials, although didn't add the patina in the door relief. Asking in the group got a mixed response but I think the majority said go for it.

 The patina is my thing and as much as the terrain shouldn't take away from the models this is a piece in its own right.

If you look around there are always architectural elements that do not fit a single aesthetic. Not everything is designed to be harmonious and share the same palette of colours so I'm going ahead with it... And while I was in Manchester I came across this example to illustrate my point.

Not sure whether it was the inspiration [long in gestation] because they're just green painted drainpipes, not weathered copper, but you get the point.

So, more turquoise next.