Misc Hobby Projects

Hello!

This post is really a bit of a roundup of a few smaller projects I've been working on in the first quarter of 2022 - things I may have posted on Instagram but didn't become full blog posts. There's a fun commission model, a couple of nice grabs off eBay for me, and the always entertaining job of rebasing...

First up, that commission, only the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes himself, Trajann Valoris:

The client wanted him to fit in with an existing custom Custodes colour scheme, so he's got a mix of gold and silver armour and some purple details and a red plume of feathers. I'm particularly pleased with how the axe came out - it is mostly done with the glorious sponge! I definitely think I'll be reusing that technique next time I have to do some power weapons. I'm also pleased with the gold, which was washed with Skeleton Horde contrast - I think it's becoming my most valuable paint!

Next up, a new addition to the Death Guard:

This Helbrute was a cheeky eBay purchase, and came with some cool bonus tendrils sprouting out of it's armour. I gave it a bit of paint here and there to get it more in line with my lot, and a desert base, but a pretty straightforward job. I think he definitely looks like he fits in with the boys, and a bit of sponge over the face and horns at the front ended up looking suitably grim-dark! He has already appeared in a battle, taking on the Astra Militarum, and I'm considering adding him to my Crusade force.

In addition to a bit of 40k stuff, I've been working on some Age of Sigmar - in this case doing a bit of work on the Seraphon, replacing square bases with round and adding a new dino!

After playing a game recently with my force on mixed round and square bases, I found I was getting very annoyed with the square ones - they felt a lot less stable standing on their own (rather than in a regiment as originally intended). I decided to replace the outdated squares with some nice (cheap) round MDF bases. I had a 'fun' day of chopping up the old ones so I didn't loose any feet, and gluing what I could salvage from the bases onto the new ones. A bit of texture paint, some washing and a drybrush later and they look decent enough and fit in with the others at a glance.

I also did a bit of reorganisation, so my 20 Temple Guard (now an illegal unit in matched play) became two units of ten with a new standard, musician and champion. I also had an old metal Skink with a banner who got a much smaller, more comfortable one to hold. I know Skinks don't get drummers and standards any more, but they are kind of cool!

Finally, I picked up another eBay buy:

There is something very Seraphon about a dinosaur with a magic laser gun, so I'd been kind of after a Bastiladon for a while. This one was fairly cheap so I grabbed it and gave it a bit of a repaint. Originally it was red and blue - I've painted over the majority of the blue on it's upper scales with a bit of washing and sponging, but the red is largely in tact. The Skinks also got repainted but I left the crystal as it was as it does look rather nice!

At time of writing I do have another game planned so we'll have to see if the new addition performs for me, and if I can get my head around the AoS rules! Thanks for checking this out, hope you liked it, and stay safe out there.

Crusade Mini Reports - Adeptus Mechanicus vs Salamanders and Night Lords

Hello!

I'm taking part in a Crusade League/Campaign thing at Grim Dice, using my Ryza Adeptus Mechanicus force aka the Helios Explorator Fleet. They were last seen on Crusade before the 'new' AdMech book, and I've been looking forward to having a go at grabbing some Archeotech items, so it seemed like a good excuse to give them another go.

In this campaign everyone starts on 25 power level, increasing by 25 each month with two games at each level, until we reach 100 - 8 games total I think! It had to be a new Crusade so I would be running the Helios Explorator Fleet Second Cohort. We were also using the Plague Purge mission pack, so it'd all be new as far as I was concerned.

Let by Eldane Katronosa, Tech-Priest Manipulus, the initial force consisted of Kataphron Destroyers, ten Skitarii Vanguard, Sicarian Ruststalkers and Pteraxii Sterylizors. Katronosa is kitted out with a Magnarail Lance, Masterwork Bionics and Anzion's Pseudogenetor. I thought it was a nice mix of units with enough melee stuff to take advantage of our 'not Blood Angels' trait.

My first game was against CJ and his Salamanders, playing the scenario Tech-Relic. I can only assume the Salamanders were securing the area from other, non-Imperial forces when the AdMech deployed to claim the spoils. Gib tech! This is a 'search the objectives to find the real one, then carry it around with you' mission - kind of like the old Relic mission from 8th edition but with the relic randomised between four possible objectives.

The Salamanders force consisted of a Captain, some Infiltrators, Bladeguard and Eradicators. Pretty elite and being salamanders they were ignoring the -1 AP the Manipulus would be giving out to the Vanguard. I took the agenda to dig up an objective to grab a tech part, while the Salamanders were looking to wipe my lot off the map.

I got turn one, Pteraxii in the sky and servitors hiding behind a ruin, the Vanguard and Ruststalkers moved up on the flanks. As luck would have it, the Vanguard found the Tech Relic straight away! Bingo!

I was also able to make a first turn charge with the Ruststalkers into the Infiltrators in the opposite ruin, since they were forward deployed. This means the Bladeguard were able to use a stratagem to heroically intervene 2d6 inches and pile into me. I spent a bunch of CP to buff the 'stalkers, split attacks, and butchered the Bladeguard with some good mortal wound output - as seen here all of their heads and arms were chopped off! The Infiltrators did survive though and hit back hard to remove a couple of the Sicarians.

The Eradicators popped out of cover the get an angle into my Kataphrons - without much trouble the Servitors were removed before they could fire. We left objective 4 in play temporarily since it was the one my Tech-Priest wanted to examine.

The Sterylizors dropped in turn two to deal with the Eradicators, supported by the warlord Katronosa. However ignoring their -1 AP and being Gravis armoured meant the flamers were ineffective. The charge did go off though, and the Captain intervened. Katronosa struck at their opposite number, and with some very poor armour saves, reduced him to a single wound, only to get struck down in return.

Elsewhere the Infiltrators and Ruststalkers were reduced to just their squad leaders, leading to an entertaining duel that was eventually won by the Ruststalker Princeps.

With the Captain wounded the Vanguard formed up into a firing squad to gun him down, leaving the Eradicators the only Salamanders standing. No realistic way back for CJ, so a win for the forces of Ryza. No one levelled up or suffered a battle scar, but as a winning bonus I got a free weapon upgrade - I rolled on the table for Eldane Katronosa's Magnarail Lance, getting an Autoloader - meaning a six to hit would become two hits.

The second game was against Phil and his Night Lords, featuring a squad of melee armed Chaos Marines, a beefed up Lord and a Land Raider! The mission was Survivors of the Fallout - featuring four objectives scored at the end of the battle round and a big central radioactive bubble that meant units within had +1 to be wounded. The Night Lords opted for the Kingslayer agenda, while the AdMech were looking to aquire archeotech from the remains of that Land Raider - obviously being held by the forces of Chaos was a huge insult to it's machine spirit and it would be best to put it out of it's misery.

The Ryza forces spread out early to cover as many objectives as possible, not getting any shots in on the hidded traitor Astartes. In response the Land Raider trundled forward to get some shots - blasting two of the Kataphrons in the fallout zone. The Lord also emerged to threaten my left flank, but he failed a middling charge.

The Land Raider however made it's charge and crushed one of the Ruststalkers through the ruin! They were able to chip a bit of damage off it in return but not much, fishing for mortal wounds. However they still held the objective - the AdMech forces were taking control of the field.

The Chaos Lord found himself a bit out of position after his failed charge and got gunned down in short order. This left his squad to charge through the ruins from a slightly safer position to try and avenge him.

And they made it in! But some really poor rolls let them down - a sea of ones and twos to wound meant only a couple of the Vanguard dropped.

And the counter attack was swift - Katronosa piling in to combine with the Alpha's taser goad to finish the Chaos Marines off.

This left just the Land Raider, which killed it's way through the Ruststalkers, the last Kataphron and eventually the Sterylizors who had been sent to claim it's archeotech. On turn five it finally fell to the Vanguard's Arc Rifle, a comprehensive win to the Adeptus Mechanicus but too late to recover the Archeotech.

After that my forces picked up a load of experience points - the Vanguard were the only unit to reach Blooded (earning Killcode Gear Switches for +1 strength) but several others are poised to level up soon. The Sicarians obviously are held to high standards as they suffered a battle scar for being killed by a Land Raider; Mark of Shame. This means they are unable to benefit from Auras until it's removed, but it's unlikely they would anyway so they can just live with the shame for the time being.

Finally, after reaching five requisition points again, I opted to spend three to generate an Archeotech component - in this case an Acidic Conductor - hopefully I'll get the chance to pick up some more to combine with it and have some cool unique wargear!

Hopefully you've enjoyed reading, I certainly enjoyed getting the AdMech out onto the table in a smaller, less competitive and confusing game. The admin phase was pretty light! Thanks for checking it out, stay safe.

Crusade Battle Report - Death Guard vs Necrons

Hello!

The Death Guard warband 'The Desiccated' march once more on the planet of Silex, this time venturing out into the southern deserts of the world's main land mass, looking to take access to the quarries and their associated manufactorums. Under the unforgiving sun, the warriors of Mortarion search for sites of aerial supply drops, but the Necrons of the Ay-Tez dynasty have risen from the sands to oppose them once again...

Game three for the Desiccated Crusade, this time against Sharpy and his Necrons (and I'm borrowing a few of his photos again!) This was his first Crusade game so we kept it relatively simple, with a rulebook mission Supplies From Above - essentially a 6 objective mission scored like in matched play, but with the twist that the objectives all moved in the randomly determined direction of the wind each battle round. Also, since we were playing in a desert, we used the twist card for Blinding Sun from the open war deck - this meant it would be -1 to hit for shooting attacks that were aiming towards the board edge where the sun was currently in the sky. As it happened, the Necrons were coming out of the sun so it hurt me a bit more - though it wasn't effecting melee so not an insurmountable issue.

After gaining a lot of experience in the previous battle against Orks, I was now deploying 60 power level, so had to leave a few things at home. I took all my troop units - Poxwalkers, Cultists, two Plague Marine squads, led by Lord of Virulence Najax the Generous and Malignant Plaguecaster Gilus the Withered. They were backed up by the Plague Surgeon, Noxious Blightbringer, Foetid Bloat-drone and two Blooded units, the Terminators 'Crotalus' Hammer' and the Plagueburst Crawler 'The Oasis of Filth'. My agendas were Reaper, Survivor (on Najax) and Turn Their Hope to Rot - points for killing the strongest enemy unit, in this case the Wraiths.

The Necrons were fielding a mixed force with a strong Canoptek element. Overlord Kothetek and Technomancer Mekeros led two units of Warriors and one of Immortals, some Skorpekh Destroyers, a couple of Lokhust Heavy Destroyers, a Tomb Spyder, nine Scarab swarms and six Wraiths. The dynasty were using Rad-wreathed for a -1 toughness in melee effect (seems familiar!) and an ability to increase the speed of Canoptek units.

The Necron agendas were Reaper, Assassinate and Territorial Imperative - getting experience for doing actions on objectives and taking out enemy units holding them.

Deployment, just after the objectives moved for the first time, favourably for the Necrons so that the three on their side of the board were comfortably under their control, while the three on my side had moved further away from me. No scoring on the first turn though so there would be another shift before we were awarded points. Terminators were off the board but everything else was lined up. The Necrons got to go first...

Turn one, the Necrons advanced up into striking distance of two now fairly central objectives, while securing the three in their own half. Those Canoptek units were pretty nippy, and would definitely be all up in the Death Guard turn two.

Similarly the Death Guard rolled up to close the gap and get a finger to some objectives, shooting was fairly ineffective, but Plague Marines on the right flank did get up into range to punch some Scarabs.

At the end of the turn all the objectives scattered to the right, not significantly changing who controlled them.

Necrons picked up a bunch of points for the objectives, then moved in to surround the Death Guard centre. The melee units came wheeling in, the Wraiths cut down the Blightbringer and a couple of marines, ending up locking the Plagueburst Crawler into combat. The Skorpekh Destroyers whiffed a bit though, only killing five Poxwalkers and leaving them to control the objective on my turn.

Elsewhere the Spyder went into combat with the Plague Marines but got punched out by the interrupting power fist.

With the central push tied up and surrounded, Lord Najax would have to get involved himself. On the flanks the Bloat-drone abandoned the objective in favour of assisting vs the Wraiths, while the other Plague Marines continued to battle the Scarabs.

With the melee units moved on ahead, it was time to spring the Death Guard trap! The Blightlord Terminators emerged from the waste tanks of bio-sludge (or the teleporter if you're being boring), lining up a charge on the now exposed Warriors, while gunning down a Skorpekh or two.

Turn two melee proved pretty decisive - the Warriors were obliterated by the Blightlords, buffed by a bunch of stratagems to make sure. The Wraiths were dropped to a single model, and I think the scarabs were finally removed.

A big swing in terms of units being killed, but after the wind blowing the objectives around again, the Necrons once again held more of them. Remaining forces castled up in the corners, getting some good shooting in to blast three of the five Terminators to bits!

Turn three for the Death Guard was spent chasing after objectives and cutting down the remnants of the Necron forward elements. The Bloat-drone made a bit of a meal out of killing the last Wraith, while the Destroyers were cut down with relative ease.

Turn four and five were spent with the Death Guard trying to take out the last Necrons, while the 'crons were trying to hold on to their objective lead. When the dust settled only three or four Warriors still stood before phasing out, but they had secured the objectives, and those vital supplies were teleported back to the tomb world. Necrons win!

Though the Desiccated were defeated, they did pick up a lot of experience again. Both the Daemon Engines got advances (the drone now ignores AP -1 and -2, the PBC can 'mark' a unit with acidic residue in addition to it's creepy spider legs), as did the Plague Marines that battled the Scarabs (overwatch on 5s), and Najax himself (improved ap in melee) - coming a little closer to his goal of Daemonhood.

The Necron forced picked up a couple of changes - the Wraiths upgraded to improve their advances and charges, which is a bit scary, while the Skorpekhs recieved a battlescar that actually helped them - rerolling hits in exchange for the inability to charge anything but the closest target. Kothetek also picked up an epithet for his victory - 'Eternal Lord of Heavens'. Suitable, since all his soldiers got killed!

Anyway, great game, Crusade is always fun, especially when both players are fielding a nice balanced list. It's great to be able to play the missions but then have something else to go for (xp) when it goes wrong! Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, and stay safe.

Grim Dice 40k Tournament Report (Feb 2022) - Ork Green Tide Again

Hello!

You may remember at the end of last year I went to a tournament at Grim Dice Tabletop Gaming in Grimsby - well I went to another one. Same format, 2000 points, three games, though this time using the Nachmund GT pack. As before unpainted was allowed and full painting points were awarded to everyone.

I'm going to use the same format for this post as last time as well - brief army list description then a mini report of the three games, followed by some of my thoughts. So once again I took an attempt on the Green Tide style list, though once again I didn't go full horde, partly due to time concerns and partly as this is the way I'm leaning towards this build. The Boyz are great for board control and bullying troop units in melee, but they can struggle against tough targets and against heavy concentrated firepower. Currently I think spending a lot of points to buff them is a bit of a trap (outside of Bosses who do their own heavy lifting) so 'support' units take the form of units that can kill things Boyz can't and/or play the mission.

With that in mind, here's the list; Snakebites Battalion and Patrol, starting with 8 CP

HQ: Beast Boss (Warlord, Brutal but Kunnin, Beasthide Mantle), Warboss (attack squig, kombi skorcha, powerklaw, 'Ard as Nails, Da Killa Klaw), Big Mek with Shokk Attack Gun

Troops: 3x15 Boyz (powerklaw), 2x15 Boyz (shootas, powerklaw), 15 Beast Snagga Boyz

Elites: 6 Kommandos (powerklaw)

Fast Attack: 2x3 Deffkoptas (Boomboyz), 6 Stormboyz (powerklaw)

Heavy Support: 3 Killa Kans (big shootas), 3 Killa Kans (grotzookas), 5 Flash Gitz (ammo runt, choppa, gitfinda squig)

So 90 assorted Boyz forming the core of the list, with some light vehicle support, couple of little 6 man units for retrieving Nachmund data etc, two killy bosses and a bit of unreliable but potentially deadly fire support. The Kans in particular feel like a bargain with the new points costs - in previous editions they would have got rokkits every time but now they are so cheap without them I'm using them as just a melee unit. The Shokk Attack gun and Flash Gitz were my big decisions before the event - I've not been convinced by either of them before but they filled the gap of shooting units and have to potential to swing into being really killy. The Mek also let me go without psychic to free up Abhor the Witch, which is nice.

So, on to game one, against Ash and his Necrons - a bit of a classic mix of Necron units not going too heavily in on one thing. Plenty of Skorpekh Destroyers to get up on points and lots of smaller units to play the mission, with a Night Scythe to deliver some of them. The mission was Conversion, five objectives with corner deployments and bonuses on offer basically for holding the objectives. For secondaries I chose Stranglehold, Retrieve Nachmund Data and Stomp 'Em Good (basically Grind but only melee counts). Ash picked the classic Engage on All Fronts and RND combo plus Grind Them Down.

I got first turn and everything moved up to hold objectives where possible, then the Destroyers struck to wipe a unit of Boyz, but it put them in a bad position for turn two when they got surrounded and beaten down by both Bosses and a load of WAAAGH!ing Boyz. The rest of the game largely followed a patern of Necrons grabbing a point then the Orks pushing them straight off, while I pushed further towards the Necron lines. We both lost a lot of models, but kept our home objectives, though the Orks were comfortably ahead on the primary points.

89-66 is a fairly comfortable score but certainly not totally one sided. Ash was at his first tournament so I was glad he didn't get totally battered!

On to the game two, this time against Conner and his Drukhari - a mix of elements as one might expect for DE, but a focus on two blocks of three Talos and lots of small melee specialist units. The mission was Tide of Conviction, six objectives with most of them in the middle, and bonus points on offer for holding ones in your opponent's half, with extra available for holding them at the end of the game. For secondaries I went with Raise the Banners High, Stranglehold and Bring it Down, while Conner picked the Engage/RND combo and the highest scoring 'kill' secondary vs my army, No Prisoners.

Once again I got first turn and it was largely uneventful, raising some banners and running forward. The Drukhari response was to move up onto objectives and blast some Kans with dark light. Turn two saw the killing really start, Beast Snaggas and Kopta Rokkits downing a couple of the Talos while charges on the right flank took out some transports. Casualties were high on both sides, Orks are pretty good at killing T3 elves if they get to fight before them, and Conner got some pretty poor rolls with his Incubi, both to activate their fight last ability and on the wounding on 4 ups.

Mid game we both had a significant failure that swung the game one way then the other. I failed a very short charge over a pipe into the second Talos unit with a full boyz mob, onto an objective, while Conner's Wych and Succubus got interrupted on by my shoota boyz and battered to death with gun butts before they could fight. The game came down to the last turn, with the one remaining Talos clearing out one of my objectives and my Stormboyz failing a charge onto Wracks on one of Conner's. 

81-72 to the Drukhari, in spite of some bad luck the last turn scoring picked up some big points for the DE. I felt like I played it really well but just didn't quite have that little extra something to claim it in the end. I think up until the last turn we both thought I was winning. A loss is a loss but it definitely feels like an improvement from the second game vs Drukhari last time.

And the final game was against... Rick and his Orks, my first opponent from the last event. Rick had swapped out his Speedfreaks for Beast Snagga heavy Snakebites, so this was going to be a very interesting game as he looked for some revenge! The mission was Data-scry Salvage, a six objective mission with one in the corner deployment zones and four on a middle line. Bonus points were awarded for doing an action on your home objective, equal to the number of central objectives you held. My secondaries were Assassinate, Engage and RND, while Rick picked Stomp 'Em Good, Engage and RND.

Once again I got first turn, moved up and scored a few points. I did some 'token' shooting, but this time it really powered up - the Deffkoptas on the left flank wiped a full unit of Squighog Boyz, and the Shokk Attack Gun blasted most of another! In Rick's turn one the WAAAGH! was declared and all his melee units crashed into my front line in a huge wave of destruction. A couple of turns of our fronts bashing into each other occured, with CP combat interruptions causing huge swings - at one point a unit of shoota Boyz interrupted to batter a mob of Beast Snaggas, wiping them out and claiming an objective. Rick's units were dead killy, but were hampered significantly by the Snakebite trait - we were both on the receiving end for once! I got my Stormboyz in behind the rear objective to RND and disrupt the grots holding it, and the Shokk Attack gun absolutely was super charged this game - two rolls of 11+ for it's srength to dish out mortal wounds, one of which killing a Squigasaur Boss, among several other good shots into Squighogs.

With all the killing across the centre line, and it being a 'hold two' mission, scoring started pretty slowly, but in the end with few units left for me Rick was able to score decently on the primary, however with his losses he was unable to score much for his secondaries, while I maxed assassinate thanks to all his squig mounted characters. It was a nail biter...

Final result, 69-66 to Rick's Orks, once again decided by the final actions of the game - in this case his Kans blasting my Beast Boss off an objective to give him 'hold more'. What a game!

I ended up going 1-2 again, on paper not an improvement, but the two losses were both super close and could have swung the other way with a roll or two - possibly just going first did it for me in the end? It definitely felt like this list had more to give me than the last one, and I'm sure I played it much better. I'm not immediately sure of any big mistakes, maybe I should have put the Kans into reserve vs the Drukhari and their dark lances, and I probably shouldn't have vs the Necrons? Though I was hoping for a better result I'm very happy with how the games played out, all three were fun and the last two were just really intense - but in a good way. (Though there is something to be said for getting smashed in game three so you can go home early!)

Looking at my list, I'm pretty happy with it really. I think I've proved for me that a Boyz heavy list can at least play the game if not magically become top tier competitive, so I might not take it again next time. But if I did I think I'd be looking at the Flash Gitz as a possible cut - they were decent but hampered by S6 against two of my opponents, I think I might get the Meganobz back in instead, they aren't very shooty but they are at least a threat to higher toughness units. I'd also look at unit sizes, I think the two shoota mobs could go down to ten - this keeps them cheap for holding back on objectives and with a lower power level it makes strategic reserves a decent option. I'm glad I took them though, their shooting was handy and both units earned their keep in melee! With the spare points I'd probably up the Beast Snaggas, since they are a proper threat to a lot of units out there, and maybe grab a unit of grots for actions and the like.

Anyway, once more, thanks to everyone, Grim Dice for running, my opponents for excellent games, and you for reading. Hope you enjoyed, and please stay safe out there.