Scythe & Teacup 1850pt battle report - nids vs Chaos Space Marines [no allies!] - game 2

Joel was next up with his Chaos force led by Huron Blackheart. Plenty of Rhinos for 39 Marines and a Vindicator, with a Heldrake and Maulerfiend alongside 6 Warp Talons.

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant HQ Winged Tyrant Tervigon CC TR Tervigon Plain Tr Life Leech Warp Speed Warp Speed Iron Arm Smite Enfeeble Iron Arm Life Leech Doom of Malan'tai  Psychic Shriek

The low down:

• 6 objectives, we each get to place 3, one in our deployment, one in the 24" no mans land, and the last in our opponents deployment zone 
• Dawn of War
• Line breaker and Slay the Warlord, no First Blood
• I won deployment but chose to let Joel go first.
• Warlord Trait - Opponent -1 to reserve

I decided to keep the Tervigon and spare Flyrant on the board this time. I wanted to stall that Maulerfiend with a Termagant tarpit and pull back but I greatly underestimated the speed of the Rhinos and Huron's ability to Infiltrate D3 units had them at my door well be fore I expected.

At the end of his first turn everything was well forwards but he'd not been able to target much on this side.

Meanwhile in my 'base' either the Hive Guard or the Biovores suffered a wound, alongside some Termagants.

I was able to blow up a Rhino in the centre, may have immobilised the other one top right through rear armour shooting. Tervigon spawned out on 10.

Biovores were poor shots and aimed too far away.

Warp Talons got in on the action and my spare Flyrant was engaged in combat.

Vanilla Tervigon had spawned out on 9 and having drawn the Maulerfiend forwards [like it was going anywhere else?] moved back to my base with the Termagants as the delaying meat shield. Somehow the Rhino/Vindicator sandwich did not take out the Tervigon.

My spare Flyrant was on one wound but he'd taken out Huron. You can just see the Doom in the background. He'd deviated quite far away from the action but he would later move around, sucking life and being a pain.

My Tervigon was being assaulted from both front and back but Warp Speed was allowing me to take great toll on the Talons and Marines, I think my spawned Termagants were roasted by flamers. I was not feeling confident considering I was losing my extra scoring units quite quickly.

Everything turned up for my reserves. I blasted the Rhinos and Vindicator with the Mawloc, taking out it's Cannon with a penetrating hit. Devgaunts tried to glance a Rhino and my Flyrant banked left to take out the other Rhino. His Heldrake came on  and with my vanilla Tervigon assaulting the tarpitted Maulerfiend the Heldrake proceeded to roast the gaunts I'd put on the battlements of the Bastion.

The gaunts were reduced down to 2 from the Heldrake. Those two would later leave the Bastion and capture the objective underneath the wrecked Rhino on the right.

I think the Mawloc was killed at this point but most of these vehicle were now immobilised or wrecked, hence the foot slogging Marines.

My Ymgarls had woken up in his back field, in the ruins top left out of shot but managed to reach the marines. The Chaos Marines multi-assaulted the Devgaunts and my Spore Pod which killed two marines!

Only to be wiped out alongside the gaunts - once again my scoring unit is wiped out as I hold an objective only to lose it to Joel!

And yet somehow in the remaining turns, but with no visual documentation I was able to kill the Maulerfiend, with my Tervigon securing one of the objective on my left and my Termagants securing another. The Heldrake was laid low by my Hive Tyrant  and my other Hive Tyrant managed to oust the Marines from the ruins and Joel was thankful to be tabled as it made it easier for him to tot up how many points I'd destroyed.

It was then that I found out if I tabled someone I got his whole FOC points and all the objectives, regardless of if I had troops to gain them so I got the full 18 pts plus Lien Breaker and Slay the Warlord. Suddenly I'd leap frogged up the rankings. I don't know how the game turned around. The Doom survived and helped out I don't think it was one thing it was just too many tricks on my side that stopped Joel from focusing on one element and taking it piece by piece.

Scythe & Teacup 1850pt battle report - nids vs Dark Eldar and Chaos Allies - game1

Given the extra points than I'm used to using I went with 2 Hive Tyrants and then gave my Warlord Hive Commander just to have some fun outflanking a Tervigon, that way I could have 6 things turning up on turn 2 [if he survived] - Mawloc, 5 Ymgarls, Doom, 10 Devgaunts in Pod, Tervigon and the 2nd Hive Tyrant. Lets see someone resolve that target priority.

I took less photographs than usual so hopefully it'll be quicker to do the reports sbut maybe more sketchy in what went on.

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant HQ Winged Tyrant Tervigon CC TR Tervigon Plain Tr Endurance Smite Endurance Enfeeble Warp Speed Enfeeble Iron Arm Warp Speed Doom of Malan'tai  Psychic Shriek

The low down:

• 6 objectives, equally spaced
• Dawn of War
• Line breaker and Slay the Warlord, no First Blood
• I won deployment and went first.
• Warlord Trait - Night Fighting - of no use against Dark Eldar.

Will, was my opponent, he had plenty of Dark Eldar [which I forget their names] including 7 Venoms and 3 Ravagers with some Chaos allies of Obliterators, cultists and a Heldrake. I moved forwards cautiously, maybe stupidly. Tervigon spawned out on 9. 

The flyrant was open to the Venoms and the Ravager on the right so I flew him towards the trees just out of shot.

More Venoms than you can shake a stick at. Having been tabled last time I played Dark Eldar I felt slightly more confident in that my six turn 2 'beta strikers' should do some serious damage.

My Ymgarls were asleep in the shrine area, waiting for victims.

My Flyrant on the right flank.

I think the Tervigon took a couple of wounds but most of Will's shooting was ineffective. Although I don't think that unit of gaunts in the crater survived as they don't appear in any further pictures.

With my Warlord still alive I got my +1 to reserves, but the Ymgarls failed to turn up as did the Devgaunts in their pod! So much for beta strike. The Doom pod deviated but I got within range of the Oblits and sucked the 3 wounds out of them. The Flyrant managed to get a Hull Point on the Ravager, meh!

With only two wounds remaining I send the Tervigon forwards, it was either that our skulk back, which may have been the better option.

Hive Guard enter the Iceblood River, one takes a wound.

Flyrant manages a Hull point vector striking the Venom bu fails Devourers on something else. Mawloc misses and the outflanking Tervigon doesn't do much. My 'beta-strike' sucked the big one.

Heldrake arrives and flames the spawned gaunts. Tervigon implodes.

The Doom sucked another wound, I should have insisted the already wounded Oblit take it but didn't want to be an a$$ so he got two shots on the Doom and he was insta-killed - the price of kindness ;)

The Flyrants on 3 wounds bu manages to chase down the Heldrake and tears it a new one. It blows up and crashes backwards into the iceblood river where it can do no harm. The Mawloc just in view in the top right smashes the Venom, disgorging the Homunculus and his retinue. He would later kill him getting me Slay the Warlord.

Having secured the Bastion with my Biovores Will manages to target it with Dark lances which blows the thing sky high, killing the Biovores and a nearby Hive Guard.

The second Flyrant [with 3 wounds remaining] Vector Strikes a venom with 4 hits, manages to wreck it and then with it's Brainleech worms pins the cultists. I later reposition him to contest the objective and Enfeeble the cultists so they will struggle to reclaim the objective.

The Devgaunts arrive to hold my objective but are quickly removed from play by the Dark Eldar.

Warriors on the far side of the river target the last Hive Guard, wounding 5 times but his armour is impenetrable and does not lose his last wound.

The game ends and somehow I've won 5 VPs to 4 VPs. I'm assuming the outflanking Tervigon captured an objective as I had Line Breaker and Slay the Warlord and Will had Line Breaker and 1 objective. However, there were victory points too for the units you killed, but to get them you had to kill a unit and it's transport. Just taking out one element was not enough. So although I had won my FOC points were quite low and Will, although losing, had made quite a few points, with 1130 points in tatters.

I have to admit I was physically drained after this game. It was such a close thing at the end. Splinter rifles are relentless, Will did say it was one of the most tactical games he'd played. It felt to me like game three on a Throne of Skulls not game 1 at a local tournie. I was shattered and still two games to go!

What happens when the wells run dry? Oh no, I've run out of paint!

A couple of years ago when I was knocked off the wagon and back into the world of wargaming I was searching around for paints to start doing my son's Tyranids [what I would eventually adopt as my own]. In doing so I popped into Southport Hobby Scene a tiny little shop just off one of the main streets in Southport. It's one of those places where you wonder how it's still kept going but clearly it's down to the passion of the owner. Anyway, it was there that I picked up my Anita's All Purpose Acrylic Craft Paint Turquoise No.11021.

This bad boy [or girl, seeing as it's Anita's] has painted every Tyranid I've ever done, from the smallest Ripper to the biggest, well, Tyranid Bastion [yeah, that's right I made one, lets not forget!]. I've enjoyed using it, with it's slightly unique properties and it's done me proud. However, I started noticing the pot was feeling much lighter and I planned to pick up a replacement.

Unfortunately the Docrafts Artiste Acrylic Paints do not have a Turquoise equivalent, so the many places this was available have offered me no joy and Anita's seems to be scarce on ebay, at least, my Turquoise is extinct. However, my recent painting competition win at the Scythe and Teacup did provide a similar colour called Aquamarine but I was kind of holding out on the off chance that Southport Hobby Scene might still have some Anita's in stock. So last weekend when visiting GW to pick up White Dwarf and see all the Space Marines I dragged the kids back to the shop. This is the sort of place that looks like it's been untouched by time, RC cars, train sets and model aeroplanes inside, however even though the paints were clearly 'mature', with a thin layer of dust, it would seem Anita's have been replace by DecoArt but I took one anyway. It's typical that the £1.55 cost was announced with a "but if you've got £1.50 it'll save the change" and I walked out thinking I was safe for another 2 years yet. So this is what I'm left with:

And this is as best as I can illustrate my current predicament. I have to say the Miniature Paints Aquamarine is a much closer match to Anita's Turquoise than this picture illustrates but the other colours are pretty much spot on. My new DecoArt Turquoise is actually a good match to my Chitin Highlight Mix of Anita's and White so it's not a total bust and the MP Aquamarine will do in a pinch, while the Light Turquoise will do for a super extreme third highlight on the larger creatures. However, I'm short of my Anita's Turquoise.

On the plus side I actually opened the bottle and found that it's not as empty as I imagined. I believe there is a third to a quarter of the bottle left but I still wish to future proof my supply. The big issue is despite Anita's being very popular for certain craft materials, I use her PVA Tacky Glue, the paints have disappeared, not doubt replaced by Docrafts. I've found a few places online but they have minimum orders of £15 and no online purchasing.

But there does seem to be availability in America, in Hobby Lobby for instance so if there are any followers of the blog who can access these paints without too much effort, either from Hobby Lobby or any other place they stock Anitas and would be willing to purchase and post them to me in the UK I am more than happy to reimburse them for their effort and come to some kind of arrangement. I have a Paypal account obviously, well you'd struggle to get anything on ebay these days without one. So, if anyone could help me out please leave a comment below or on the Facebook group which would allow me to message you directly to deal with arrangements etc.

Thanks for your help in continuing my addiction ;)

'nids part 104 - To done! Plasma Hatchers Mycetic Spores

These Plasma Hatchers scratchbuilt Mycetic Spores finally got their Tamiya Clear Red X-27, I think I may be reverting to my teenage persona and just putting as much gore on as possible. So juvenile!

I really love the way the 'brainy' bits have come out though, they really look like exposed flesh.

And the tentacles too look positively icky thanks to the gloss varnish, must get some more.

Damn that mould line on the the top. You try really hard to get rid of them all and they still show up, nevermind these are only spares.

Yep that's some raw fleshy bits on top.

I think you could get definitely get away with these being Vengeance Weapons Batteries.

The slightly dull side view where I added some extra texture with my rough bone stripes.

And yet more pics, they deserve it, this has been a project over 12-18 months since I bought them.

I wish I'd picked up more of the beggars now, they're actually hard to get hold of and even then not the £2.99 I paid, more like a tenner! May as well look at the GW model IF it ever arrives, although on principle I may wish to abstain.

Anyway, job done!

Mycetic Spore V2.0 Plasma Hatcher | part 1. | part 2. | part 3. |

'nids part 103 - Magnetised Hive Tyrant part 3

Back to my second pair of Flyrant wings. I've added some veins again. I find a cocktails stick is handy for this as you can roll the stick to get areas of thick and fine paint, much as you do veins.

I'll be adding some lighter highlights at the junctions and then be overpainting them with more red highlights to give the impression the veins are 'sub-dermal'.

It's amazing how similar these look to my original wings, although the pictures are a little misleading. Due to the red oxide primer base these wings are a lot darker than the original wings. I'll do a straight up comparison at a later date.

At least I don't have the crusty deposit of Seraphim Sepi as you can see in these old pics of the originals. However you can see that by starting with a Bonewhite base and then adding thinned Mechrite red and both sepia and mud washes I was able to get many tints in the wings making it quite 'membranous' something that was my intention but slightly lost on the new ones, they look practically rigid but they do match the old Forgeworld Shrike Wings, form what I've seen, so that's not too bad.

And the Devourers have had a nice wash too. Lets hope those playtest rumours don't hold true for the Hive Tyrant and they can no longer take them. It would be a real kick in the balls for all those who've made them only to no longer get the de-facto Flyrant build.

The Big question is what colour do I do the blades for the Swarmlord?

As you can see my Boneswords currently have a glossy crystalline look that uses black and turquoise.

However, this is the Swarmlord so would an alternative colour work? Particularly as his Bonesabres are so unique.

So wthat colour should I do them

1. Black with turquoise
2. Black with green
3. Black with red

I know I can do some really nice effects with the green and red but the green may be 'yet another colour' and the red may be lost in the base but what do you think?