The Brood Mother has spawned - congratulations!

Just a quick shout out to Otty, Mrs Otty and all the little Otty's who have been blessed with a new addition to the family - this being the reason we went to Throne of Skulls in March and not in May ;) Y'see we could have made it there the other weekend, ha, ha!

All the best to everyone in the Otterburn household!

1500pt battle report - nids vs Imperial Guard

Another match up against Ben and his embryonic Imperial Guard, once again we did the full board density rules, this time using some of Ben’s fantasy terrain. Unfortunately I can't find my army list with the Psychic Powers on, when/if I do I'll update the list below:

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant HQ Tervigon CC troop Tervigon Plain troop Broodlord [Adrenal] Iron Arm Endurance NA Haemorrhage Doom of Malan'tai Forgot to change, so left him with Catclysm

The low down:

• Crusade.
• Vanguard Strike
• I won deployment but elected to deploy second
• Warlord Trait - Move through cover for ruins.

His Aegis is made of the dry stone wall and I have to say I was a little in love with the Autumnal Silver Birch trees cobbled together out of BBQ skewers and the leaves from the Citadel Trees he uses bare. I’ve wanted to do these Birch trees on Terra Genesis for years, got the flower arranging wire but just use it for other modelling purposes. Anyway I’ll get round to doing something similar when I’ve got time.

So the Vanguard setup and Ben went first, I was fearful of his Hydra and Quad Gun so kept the Winged Tyrant off the board but still fearful of what would happen when he deep struck. Luckily no -1 modifier for reserves this game, just a big Psychic squad.





Despite having a decent set of support powers I still chose to push the Stealers forwards, hoping for cover.





My Termagants were a bit lazy, so much for ‘move through cover’ and that was my Warlord Trait too.





Still, at least that wasn’t my Tervigon spawning rolls which were 8 for the CC and 14 for the vanilla and both spawned out. Everything else moved into whatever cover I could find but it was a bit of a parking lot. The Biovore took a shot but just clipped a single Guard behind the Aegis which absorbed the blast.






Penal troops arrived on my flank...





with a Vendetta closing in on the Hive Guard and





Penal troops shot up the Biovore for First Blood.





Demolisher shot came down on my Broodlord, insta-killing him and all but one of Stealers.





Ymgarls wake from hibernation and luckily a prehensile tongue allowed the furthest to cling to the skullface so they would launch a retaliatory attack on the Leman Russ.





The Tyrant swooped out of the sky, out of range of any anti air and deviated to only get side armour shots on the Vendetta but thankfully an inch short of the board edge.





The Spore Pod missed being in front of the Aegis and deviated onto the Guard but moved to the nearest point it could, behind them. The Doom didn’t manage to Spirit Leech anything from the surprisingly brave Guard, no doubt boosted by Commissar Yarrick’s presence. Interceptor fire from the Quad Gun tooks some wounds on the Doom. The Mawloc also missed the Leman Russ and ended up roughly where the Spore Pod was aiming for.





I think this may be my wound roll for the Hydra Flak Tank from the Mycetic Spore. Can you imagine after getting four 5s/6s I then just get just one glancing hit for my troubles!





The Tyrant blasted the Vendetta out of the sky with his Devourers, 3 HPs and once again we forgot about Jink until it was dead, this time Ben took it on the chin and vowed to remember next time.





The Penal Troops were reduced to 5 after being shot by Fleshborers, Impaler Cannons and Stinger Salvoes.





Ymgarls lined up to charge the Leman Russ but after a 3” move from cover they could make the 10” charge even with a Fleet re-roll.





The Guard repositioned some moving to surround the Mawloc, others moved out of range of the Doom and the remainder, spurred on by the Hero of Armageddon faced down both the Doom and its living transport beast. A torrent of las-fire left it with 2 wounds remaining.





The Leman Russ repositioned to get a better shot at the Ymgarls. 3 of them were killed and the remaining two broke and fled.





The remaining Penal troops in my DZ headed for the entrenched Termagants





The Ymgarls entered the Synapse Range of my CC Tervigon, rallied instantly and later headed for cover.





Guard charged my Mawloc, he got in one hit before being battered by Krak grenades [thankfully no Melta Bombs this time] and suffering a wound – stalemate.





The Doom managed to kill a Guardsman bringing it up to 3 wounds. The Spore Pod’s lash Whips made Yarrick and 2 Guard Initiative 1 but some of the remaining Guard, not in base contact, were able to Krak Grenade it into a pulp before it got chance to attack [once again missing it’s opportunity to record a kill].





Finally Yarrick got to bring his Power Claw to bear and took another wound off the Doom, leaving it with 2.





The Mawloc managed to break from combat with the Guard and headed out into the open.





Winged Tyrant kept out of range of the anti-air and added support for my home objectives and cover the imminent arrival of the remaining Vendetta. Unsurprisngly the Penal troops did not live beyond the end of this turn!





Conga lining the Devgaunts I was able to get in range of the Guard holding an objective. With a bit of luck from 9 shots could I rout them leaving the objective unmanned?





The Mawloc slammed into the Leman Russ managing to blow it up but without any wounds to itself or the nearby Guard.





The Doom managed to Leech the life out of all but one Guard and Yarrick.





The Second Vendetta arrived, dropped the second Penal troop in it’s shadow and then put another two wounds on the Mawloc. Aggressive fire from the nearby Guard and Veterans managed to strip it’s remaining 3 wounds.





The Ymgarls were finally despatched by Manticore fire with the lone Stealer securing the objective alongside the Devgaunts.





The Devgaunts had lost their front rank, retreating to the shelter of the Chaos Shrine, while the Tyrant finally set his sights on the enemy line.





Termagants head for middle objective along with CC Tervigon which succeeded in casting +1 Iron Arm but with Perils. The vanilla Tervigon had also Perilled, either this turn or the previous and so did the Tyrant this turn or the previous. So I’d caused more wounds on my own Monstrous Creatures through psychic power than the Guard had inflicted in anger. So the Guard upped their game, putting a wound on the Tyrant who then fell out of the sky taking him to 3 wounds.





The Doom managed to kill off the last Guard and put a wound on Yarrick.





Vendetta repositioned and the disgorged troops headed for the Tyrant but got gunned down by the Devgaunts. Gotta love those trees!





The Tyrant managed to survive he’d eventually head to the Aegis and the exposed vets were wiped out. Ben called it at turn 5. Yarrick couldn’t kill the Doom before he’d have the life sucked from him and he didn’t have enough to capture/deny the two objectives I’d claimed.

 Ultimately the Doom controlled the game, he’s become Ben’s Nemesis. He wasn’t targeted too much with high strength weaponry so there were no insta-kill rolls but coming back from 2 wounds to 10 can really shake your confidence. On the one hand assaulting him at least controlled him, ensured the remaining army could focus on other targets and not get leeched but with so many rapid fire weapons available perhaps it would have been best to move out of range and then shoot. I think I may try a list without him next time, perhaps swap in the Swarmlord instead!

The game was pretty much the Doom’s, everything else tried to weather the storm and hold the objectives but the Mawloc gets a special mention for failing in his primary task but at least taking advantage of his Hit and Run this time and then destroying the most deadly element of the Guard force – the Leman Russ. He essentially played as a Trygon, without the shooting and -30pts, so a good choice. The other pivotal element was all my reserves turning up in turn two. This does make me think a comms relay or the Swarmlord would be useful. Having everything turn up in turn 2 gave Ben too many targets to deal with and with the lone Vendetta and backfield Penal troops unsupported I could deal with that threat safely with the Tyrant while the forward push of the Ymgarls, Doom and Mawloc meant no one element suffered enough concentrated fire to destroy it completely.

Terrain is everything - Inquisitorial Vault progress

I'm kind of on 'hobby fire' at the moment. I've a number of projects I'm fiercely passionate about and somehow, despite some of the tediousness I'm motivated to do them. I'm actually very keen to get on and do my Dark Angels, the thought of painting them appeals to me although there's still hesitancy about 'how' to paint them so I'm sidestepping that by attempting the Dark Vengeance Librarian - he's blue so that'll be different. 

But back to the post at hand is one of the other challenges my Inquisitorial Vault and as you can see the horizontal strips have been put on and you may notice they're capped with masking tape, not cable ties.

Primarily this was because I realised capping them with cable ties is a pain in the a$$ whereas butting 4 5mm strips on a piece of tape, butted up and then running a blade between them is simple, effective and super quick. It also means the cable detailing will run in one direction only which will be better visually.

Horizontals in place and I believe this is why it becomes an Inquisitorial building. Without those extra bits that 'reinforce' the structure you can pass this off as an office block but with them it makes it look far more imposing and worthy of the Inquisition.

Here's why cable ties are not such a good idea the creation of it requires you run a scalpel down the edge of the foam separating it from the card. You then make two diagonal cuts inside the foam to end up with |/\| hopefully with the interior peak lower than the card edges so that when you put the cable tie in it fits neatly. You can see I've also had to use pins to secure the strip in place while the PVA dries.

Unfortunately the verticals are taller than a single cable tie and the plastic isn't always perfectly straight. I end up using a selection of clothes pegs to keep them in place until the glue dries but it can squash the now weakened foamboard. I'll also add a spare bit of foamcard on top and weight it down to press the tie into the groove. It's worth checking progress after half an hour to ensure it's not slipped out and all messed up. It's an insane way to do it but I've persevered...

It certainly makes it more durable, which is why I also need to cap the top and backs of the verticals as they reach the balcony. This way they'll be more protected from knocks.

Here's the first set of window caps. Unfortunately I measured them to be 100% accurate which doesn't work in the real world. The cuts in the foam are not 100% and it doesn't take into account the thickness of the card. I'll tweak the templates [which is why the free Radical Collective can be a hindrance more than a help] but essentially the vertical caps are fine, but may need a little trim on the bottom row of windows. However the horizontal windows needed trimming by about 1mm each side but without removing any of the width from the shorter side of the trapezium - the bottom edge as we look at it here.

Handily these tiny wedges were useful in filling in gaps. You can see one in place in the the 2nd row down and 2nd column in the top right corner. I'd glue the foamcard, top edges then corners and then another strip of PVA part way then use a scalpel to pick up a vertical, force it into position and then add the horizontals. A relatively simple process.

The only real issue is it takes around 5 minutes to cap each window and there are 56 - 4 hours and 40 minutes. And lets not forget the 40 windows that will be in the Reformatory and the 32 that will be in the Bastille. Trust me though the repetition will hone the skills to this efficiently and it's quite therapeutic.