Fall of Arminius - Game 1, Tyranids Vs Space Wolves pt1

It's been a few weeks since I played in my first tournament so my memories are sketchy but here's some pics, plenty from my first match, quite a few from my second and then a couple from the third - I was a bit tired by then. Tehy may be a bit mixed up but I'll do my best to explain what went down.

So here's my 2000pts versus some red Space Wolves. Spearhead deployment, objectives on that wall in my deployment, in the centre area terrain and behind that large rock formation in the Space Wolves deployment.

Everything moves up, I forget to spawn any Termagants to just hold my deployment objective, something that will come back to bite me in the end.

Hormagaunts and devgaunts scramble up the walls of the area terrain.

Noticing my opponent visually drawing a line through the Tervigon and Hive Tyrant directly to Njall Stormcaller I recall some psychic attack that rips open the ground in a straight line so I run the Tyrant so both aren't in danger.

So much for getting out of danger. The Hive Tyrant is no more, it may have been the Long Fangs and the Assault Cannon Razorback but alas the Tyrant was no more - so much for my Hive Commander Reserve Roll buff!

Little do those marines in the top left realise that the rock formation beside them hides a nasty surprise. Meanwhile some scouts come on to my left.

Oops, Njall opens up the ground beneathe the Tervigon's feet and it falls through to it's doom. It had suffered a couple of las-cannon wounds already I think.

I was a bit concerned about these Fenrisian Wolves.

So when my warriors and stealer reserved onto the board.

It made sense to send the adrenal stealers and Broodlord into the squad of marines...

and send the Warriors to take out the wolves.

Here go the stealers.

and here go the warriors.

Up popped the Trygon Prime and I think his Containment Spines may have shook or stunned the Vindicator.

The view across the board.

Here come the scouts, heading for my deployment objective.

My little gribblies head for the main objective.

Darn Long Fangs will be the bane of my life.

Ebay goodness

Got a parcel in the post the other day, my latest ebay purchase. I'd been on the hunt for some more Tyranid Infestation Markers. I've got the big Hive Node and two or three of the triple nodes but none of the twins. I had a look on ebay and they had a Buy It Now of a twin and triple for £4ish including postage...

... but then I saw this 'bitz' auction that's got two twins and a triple, what looked like one or two warriors at least five Termagants and some Genestealers including the heads, which can sell for silly money on their own sometimes. So I bid and it came to £4.70 in the end.

Anyway, I was right in my estimation. There's also three halves of the basic Termagants, just missing their leg bits which isn't too bad as I may be able to use them as spawning termagants if I ever get a full size Tervigon(!). There are a couple of the spinefist rippers and there were enough bits to make 4 Ymgarl Genestealers, not the tentacle mouth heads but scything talons and armour plates. If I were to source another couple of bodies and only a few pairs of plates I should enough for a half a dozen Ymgarl's.

BUT, the big thing was the rest of the bits. The two Warriors were complete and there are two Monstrous Creature crushing claws, a Venom Cannon and some rending claws. I have enough, enough bits to finally attempt my Tyranid Warrior to Hive Guard conversion.I don't guarantee that the conversion will be cheaper than buying the proper model, BUT it is certainly going to be interesting if you have spare Venom Cannons [and who doesn't], Crushing Claws, Rending Claws and some Tyranid Warriors and their Flesh Hooks... so any bitz bag could be just the gold mine you're looking for. I think with another few quids worth of investment I could have around £50 worth of figures out of this one bag and the bitz I've already got which were currently doing nothing. So buckle up folks this is going to get really interesting.

Blood Bowl - Yellow Elves

 The Elves are progressing! What amazes me is that back in the day the very thought of paintin 16 figures at once would have killed a project stone dead for me but nowadays this is the way I feel I need to do it if I'm going to get any of them done. far better to do ten at a time and have ten complete than do one.

 

These have all been painted whatever Vallejo Yellow came in my paint set, Sun-something-or-other no doubt. They've had a wash of thinned Maccarius Solar Orange and then Gryphonne Sepia and I'm beginning to feel happy with the tone. 

 They've also had brown applied to the skin areas, this'll be the base for all my skin tones. I have a number od decisions [G.O.D. help us all] to do with hair and towel colours. I was thinking of matching them to their positions but I don't fancy having all the linemen with grey towels - boring!

I am going to be intorducing black into the models too. The top and bottom belts are going to be black as well as the two outer 'straps' on their kilts. That way I'm getting in the stripey effect of the Haffenheim Hornets, should I use them as such.

I will also have to look at the face guards, leave them yellow or do it orange or black? Knee pads also need to be either black or left yellow - do I want a carbon copy uniform or a bit of variety in what is black or yellow?



Here's a little update on the above pics although it should be hard to see given the completely different lighting conditions. However, this is the last two figures to have a highlight of yellow applied over the Sepia shading wash. Honestly it's a nightmare painting round all those suds and Blitzers are the absolute worst with them on arms and legs. G.O.D. bless catchers they've hardly any. Think flesh next, then black and finally highlights. This is going well.

What's new today?

Just to let you know what's been going down amongst the other stuff I've posted. Last Sunday was a Warmachine tournament day at my local friendly neighbourhood gaming club and us 40k'ers were invited to help cover costs. I got a game in with Rob and his Whitescars, minus the bikes! The pic below is from our previous match but I will have a battle report to follow, after I've finally shared my previous Tournament efforts. The Fall of Arminius reports are coming soon.

I hope you're not tired of these reports. The hobby aspect continues and I'm enthused to do more so I can play more but with the new graphics card installed I'm returning to Dawn of War 2 and enjoying that campaign now that it's running at more than 4fps.

I also got in a good game against Roy and his Imperial Guard last night. No pictures but I may discuss some of it as it was a thoroughly rewarding match. I had a Warrior and the Mycetic Spore left but it was a draw on turn 7, turn 5 I was winning on the objectives! Will keep posting content but must try to do more hobby, although the new 'nids are coming along.

GW - "thanks, but no thanks!"

Did you ever wonder in the early 90's what happens when you contact GW and ask for help with your GCSE Craft, Design and Technology project? Of course you did, we all did and here's what happens:

In tidying out the loft the other day I finally decided to chuck some of my old school work. Really why am I still hanging onto GCSE coursework that's 21 years old? Anyway, we had pretty much free reign to do what we wanted and I wanted to combine my project with my love of gaming so planned to do a gaming club, complete with individually themed games rooms.

There was a Dark Future room complete with a front end of a car smashed through the walls, a Space Hulk room with alien infestation on the walls made with hot melt glue and ping-pong balls in the scale model. Most portentous of all was the Fantasy Battle room, actually called Warhammer World and the walls were lined with polystyrene carved to look like a castle's battlements. Now I'm not saying they eventually stole my idea, I asked for their help in the early stages so nothing had actually been done but I'm thinking now the postcard may have been their way of ensuring I can't claim it was all my idea, but this is Warhammer World:

http://hexus.net/gaming/previews/pc/6251-exclusive-warhammer-mark-of-chaos-how-rts-game-shaping-up/

and we all know the truth now don't we ;)

Blood Bowl - Skaven

Skaven in the garden, and rats in the shed, how appropriate. Actually I don't think it's rats, I think it's mice as I can't find any rat droppings but gnawing has gone on and they've moved the poison I put down to a more 'accessible' location - nearer to the door which I think they are managing to squeeze through. So small rat or mouse in my book. Anyway, this is just a record of the two Skaven figures I am going to have to sacrifice from my Mongrel Horde mixed chaos or underworld team to go in my straight Skaven team.

The pink came out really rather well, I hope I can repeat that when I get round to the Horde. I'm also a fan of doing a large portion of my skaven Albino. It seems there aren't enough of those in the Warhammer world. I will definitely be doing that, 

The Thrower too has some nice blending but this time I decided on a ginger rat, they must have them what with all that cavorting with warpstone ;)

The grey is quite nice, part of me feels sad this is now gone under a Red Oxide undercoat. I'm hoping this will be a perfect base fro my Orange Skavenblight Scramblers. Not sure it'll allow me any gingers but I'm hoping that the orange and black colour scheme will scratch the itch of my 'Hallowe'en' theme from way back in my Squat days but of course I did plan on doing that on the Orks from Assault on Black Reach, good practice then int it!

Eldar Swooping Hawks or Diving Eagles?

Despite my Son's on/off passion for 40k he does have some very particular feelings about it. He's often coming up with new 'rules' and ideas for the game. Clearly ones that make any kind of balance laughable but then aren't we already at that point? One thing in particular he's opinionated about was how he wanted to paint his Swooping Hawks and his Striking Scorpions too. He wants his Swooping Hawks to be the same colours as Golden Eagles, or remeniscent of them. So I've gone about Red Oxide priming them and we've used Iyanden Darksun on the wings and 'beaks', he then decided the shoulder pads could do with a coat of yellow too, fair enuff!

Next step will be to pick out details and areas that will be metallic for painting initially black. Once that's all done we'll do a Gryphonne Sepia and Devlan Mud wash to try and make them a bit more brown and obviously bring out all the shadowed areas

Hopefully we'll then be able to add in some highlights on the armour plate bits, bring the level of finish up a bit from the Guardians hes done which are just basecoat and wash, it's the next step for him. Frutratingly I'd hoped he would have done more than this in the hour and a bit I was out visiting my Aunt one Sunday. Two of the Hawks had their wings and beak done already so he only had to do 4 including the Exarch.

Perhaps the issue is I'm now 'involved' again in his painting so he doesn't feel confident enough to continue on his own. It seems I can't win in this situation and pretty much every night he's clamped to the PC playing some 3D virtual world game where everyone looks like a Lego person.

Anyway, if he doesn't get them done it'll be 'nids in June!