Adeptus Titanicus - Titans in Manufactorum - Big Build BASE - TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my #AdeptusTitanicus Titans. Another one of those projects where initial progress seemed so trivial that the effort to record it would have slowed down actually getting it done.

All of the armour panels had been primed on the sprue - red oxide and then a grey primer. I got most of the metallics done too and then I just pulled the trigger and glued the panels in place. It did highlight some dodgy piston placements on the toes - their armour panel looking all wonky. With hindsight I should have added these at the same time. Although the underlying piston is legitimately placed I think something that would be a little less extreme might look more sensible.

I've also seen the two shin cards with a gap between them at the front but I like to join them together. I don't know which is correct [maybe I should look at the box art?] but it has made these two look like they've got flares on compared to my previous Reaver [even though the two panels are also joined]. 

Although, I could just be reacting to seeing the leg covered, when previously it's skeleton was a little more spindly.

At this stage my mind is on fire trying to think of how I will colour them. Some areas I've already decided will be yellow, or blue but even so there are some areas that are unknown.

I'm also giddy with excitement wanting to put the decals on. That's ages off yet, but they bring so much character to the models, I just can't wait.

I was also planning on getting some Basilicanum Grey Contrast paint to help with the dappled effect on the grey that was so challenging last time.

But that was going to need a trip to GW, which I was going to be in Liverpool in a few days, I just had to find a way to not get held up by the delay.

Luckily I had all the guns to add metallics too - so tedious.

They all so fiddly and difficult to hold onto. Eventually I started using screws sometimes to hold them with the magnets. Not ideal, but slightly functional.

The Lancers also got their bases done and metallics splodged on to shade stage.

Progress has been much smother than last time and I am doing a great job balancing that joy of development with the tedium of taking on too much for a batch project.

I mean the weapons are killing me but otherwise I'm really chuffed how well it's going

Bloody Great Big Bloody BASE Stamp of Bloody Approval 

And another 4 [or should be 5 for the 6 bases]

Somehow I just see the Knights bases as one task, that's why I struggle sometimes about what constitutes a TO DONE!

And if I don't know then who does. I just need to just suck it up and say "this is what I say it's worth" because it's not like I have anyone coming along and 'checking my answers'. I'm my own arbiter.

Adeptus Titanicus - Titans in Manufactorum - Big Build - TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #BuildingWarhammer  It's been just over 4 years since I built my first 'nu' Adeptus Titanicus Titans with Liam. I crashed my car that night in some snow and he came and saved me - that's mates for you. Then a month later we were in lockdown! I struggled with the Reaver and Warhounds for so long, which did not inspire me with confidence this time around. I'm building everything from the starter set, which seemed to go in and out of production so often I had to bite the bullet and not get the 'best' deal, but the 'only' deal rather than risk missing out. It's since gone back in production and there are better deals to be had!

Anyway, I had 'fun' building this base out of an old cork mat. Did a bit of card detailing, with some tiny gems for rivets. I then used tile grout to smooth the edges. 

Tactical embankment. The pose was interesting enough to do. The pipework to its inside left thigh wasn't going to work so I've used guitar string. Unfortunately it's not the correct grade but it'll suffice [as you can see in the first pic]. 

The second Reaver had similar pose, but instead of stepping up, it's stepping down. All the magnetising for the weapons got down and I'd created a similar base.

One of the Warhounds was on top of the embankment, which had been damaged. It took a good few weeks to get to this stage - waiting on magnets, deciding on poses, achieving the pose, adding the magnets - it was a lot of faffing!

Which is why the second Warhound was in a much more 'stock' pose. That's a piece from the Bastion kit, used to differentiate part of the terrain. There's another decorative piece from the Sanctum Imperialis kit behind his leg, which will be some kind of Imperial Statuary.

And lastly, two more Cerastus Lancers.

Which I'm going to say entitles me to 5 [maybe even 6] Bloody Great Big Bloody BIG BUILD Stamp of Bloody BUILD Approval

Dark Angels - The Lion

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on The Lion. I've been working on him intermittently with the base part way done, just the broken tiles and Blessed Verdigris on the statuary. The Watchers have been shaded too.

Shade washes on the cloak. This is the outer cloak, inside and out.

The Lion himself, I was not happy with the shade wash here, but reminded myself it's far from finished and I'll be covering most of this up anyway.

I finally gave up on having the cloak on sprue. I realised I could paint it just as well and occasionally dry fit it in place. I want to be able to make use of some of the shading. There's no point putting highlight in where it will be in shadow.

So, having that option to make informed decisions, rather than guess really helps. I've also added  in the colours for the lion pelt and did the first set of highlights on the red cloak.

I was also working on the Ironsoul's Condemnors at the time so I got a good refresher on red fabric. Hopefully I can pull of the same on a much bigger surface area. I also tidied up all the black. So, I'm flitting to something else next, which will probably delay any further updates. Where I can I'll make a little bit of progress here and there. It's much better than it was, I just need to reach that tipping point where all I can think about is finishing it off.

#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. 

#BattleReport - 1,000pts Eldar v Tyranids

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been playing TENTH! #New40k again, this is a while ago, so I'm not sure how much I remember but it was a chance for a few of us to get together. This was Scott's Aeldari versus Otty's Tyranids.

Scott and Liam had quite the array, with a Wraithknight, Avatar, Wave Serpent and some Wraithguard. 

Otty had some Carnifex, Tyrannofex, Zoanthropes, Hive Guard, Termagants and Genestealers/Broodlord

I think we got first turn and, as always, got as far up the board as possible. 

I'm pretty sure the Tfex got a really good shot on the Wave Serpent, but thanks to a stratagem was able to shrug off half its damage, keeping it alive. With hindsight I think this was a pivotal moment. If that Wave Serpent had have gone down it might have changed everything. We did however kill the Rangers in the Tyranid Capillary Towers... 

Which gave the Avatar the perfect launching point. Concentrated fire on the Tfex put it down, with the Wraithknight, Avatar and Wave Serpent taking out their biggest threat.

Scott and Liam had been able to make great progress, both in board control and damage to the Tyranids. We were already floundering. We were struggling to put any damage on those big 3.

And the Avatar stepped down from the Towers to wipe out the Zoanthropes.

I think we lost so much more after this and although I thought the game was a bit more 'fun' than previous attempts I know Otty was unimpressed. Our rolling was unspectacular, we were out-gunned and the constant rule checking didn't help the flow of the game. Not having the stats for the nids on cards I was constantly switching between the 2 Indexes giving the rules for both factions. It's not a great way to play. The actual game rules - if we played more and got the core rules down that might help but definitely having the faction rules to hand will be of benefit. I've a better report coming though with my Knights, so look out for that.