Death Company assemble, Terminators finished and Orks attack!

Hey readers,

I was planning on 2 extra blogposts this week but decided to smoosh them into 1 instead. Its been a nice and productive hobby week for me with a squad finished apart from minor basing additions and a lot of models built as well.

On The building front I have been working on my death company army as I have been accumulating cheap death company sprues people are selling from the shield of baal boxset. £14 for 5 brand new death company! Its brilliant! Anyway, these guys along with Astorath and Raphen's Death Company make up the bulk of my force with another dreadnought in a drop pod and a stormraven to add to it. The stormraven is bought and on its way to me so that just leaves the dreadnought and drop pod to finish the list.

Here are the damned and the thirsty (or damn thirsty) Death Company and Lemartes, the Guardian of the Lost:

And behind them you can see the then unfinished Terminator Squad. Those guys now look like this:

I am happy with how they turned out and think I've got this colour scheme for my Archangels down pretty well now. Still 21 infantry to paint for these guys but a third down. Still need do the bases properly on these guys but I will probably save a good chunk of models up and then do them all together.

And finally, I played a game last thursday with a great guy called Stuart. We were playing the first game of a narrative series so we just picked the Scouring and played it as a fast skirmish game between a templars scouting force investigating a crashed hulk on a planet of spires and deserts. It was a great game that I ended up winning 7-6 but at the end of turn three my army looked like this:

All bar my terminators and emperors champion died in that great Waaaaaaagh! But the Emperor's champion and 1 terminator grabbed an objective and my culexus assassin grabbed another objective and linebreaker to give me a win. They were my only three models left on the table to his 30 though.... 

Anyway thats all for now but I will be back on Sunday with Part 4 of my blood angels retrospective.

Till then, Peace Out

Rob

Blood Angels - Are we that bad? - Part Three Elites (and Hobby update)

Hello dear readers,

I have finished my house move and have a nice big new bedroom with plenty of space for my hobby work. We also have a shed that I'm hoping to use to build a foldable gaming table so I can better use out of my FAT mat without destroying the cervical and sacral sections of my spine. 

Today I'm going to go over the elite section of the Blood Angels Codex. This is a big section so I will just give a summary of verdicts at the end rather than for each choice. After that you can see a few pics of my new set up and sneak peaks of what's on my hobby table. I'm also going to be putting up my several parts of my collection on ebay today and tomorrow so please stay tuned for links to those auctions and maybe pester a friend or your wallet to bid or buy it now :)

On we go!

Elites

Command squad - 100 points basic - FNP - issue and accept challenges for company champion - These guys are very limited and in such a rich slot as the elites are in the Blood Angels Codex I see no room for you to take them over other choices.

Death Company - 2 attacks, S5 on charge, rage = 4 attacks on charge - 5 attacks with 2 x ccw, striking at I5 in strike force (and why wouldn't you), Astorath re-roll to hit and to wound on the charge - FNP - relentless for bolters and charging - fearless - hand flamers and inferno pistols = awesome. These guys really are fantastic, they will destroy pretty much anything in close combat and the jump packs will hopefully get them there somewhat intact. 

Squads of 10 are a must I think to mitigate the fire power that will definitely be directed at them. These are still the last word in face punching as they should be and the Vanilla's have nothing that can shake that position. A good mix of weapons and bolters on power fist guys to take advantage of relentless is always good. Add Lemartes or Astorath to taste. Or take 2 10 man squads like I am and put one character in each ;)

Lemartes Guardian of the Lost - badass chaplain with mastercrafted crozius - +1 s and A after lost a wound all the rules of death company aside from fearless but has zealot as well. This guys really adds a nice whallop to a squad of death company and to top it all of hey-zeus he has a great model. Really fantastic, always admired it and got mine in the post recently - I'm not a fan of finecast but this one had 0 flash on it essentially and the detail is awesome, look forward to showing you in fully painted up. Hopefully I will get him painted to an Asotrath level of detail for me.

Sanguinary guard - golden angels of sigmar---I mean death ;) 2+ save and Ld 10 with marine mulching weapons (encarmine sword....ap3 master crafted two handed and encarmine axe... +1 ap2 mastercrafted unwieldy 2 handed). These guys are fantastic, the models are really great, though I have ordered some flying sigmarites to convert into them so they are extra bad ass.. but they suffer from no Invulnerable save or even FNP, be careful with them, maybe throw in a couple of storm shield characters to tank wounds if you really want to take them, but more importantly pick your targets carefully. I recommend the sword and leave 2+ saves to someone like death compay who can drown them in a mixture of ap - and ap3 attacks as well as throwing ap2 attacks at I1.

Dreadnought basic - a dread is a dread is a dread - except the cc chapter dread has 2 attacks less.... bugger. Very little to say on these guys. If you are taking dreads then take either of the other 2 dread option we have available.

Death Company Dreadnought - has furious charge and rage which is fun and can get ap2 shred blood talons but only has 3 attacks and really should have 5 (though it gets 5 on the charge so its not too bad and possibly 6 with 2 CCW weapons..I think?)I doubt this will be faq'd though sadly still awesome though and ignores crew shaken and crew stunned results. The ignoring crew shaken and stunned results are the best thing about this beast

Furioso Dreadnought - suffers from the bizarrely low attacks but the best way to run this guy is in my opinion as a holy crap tonne of horde cleansing. Frag cannon and underslung flamer produce 3 template attacks a turn with 2 of them at s6! Oh and those ones are RENDING! Drop this guy in a pod next to any units in cover (T3 for maximum effect) and watch them burn.This beast also has AV13 on the fron for extra survivability. Very tasty profile

Terminator Squad - 200 points and still too expensive for what they do and the models don't even look bad ass like the assault marines do - sad to say I will never be taking these guys - they are marginally better in the vanilla codex due to price drop but still too easily wiped.

Terminator Assault Squad - a different story - the hammernator squad is the same price as the vanilla marines but the kit we have is simply awesome, really beautiful models indeed. The claw variant is over costed compared to vanilla but not by much and they are great at shredding units especially as ours are S5 on the charge and at I5 in the baal strike force formation so it really ups your chance of killing marine squads no problem. A top choice compared to vanilla because of these unique Blood Angel buffs.

Vanguard Veteran Squads - I love the whole concept of these guys and will have two in one of my angel armies eventually (still lying in bits :( ) but the vanilla codex got a MASSIVE reduction in their weapon upgrade costs. Sadly these guys took in the neck the same as the dreadnoughts.

Sternguard Veteran Squads - are as good as they ever were with their fantastic utility. I will also have 2 squads of these drop podding in with my archangels because of their effectiveness. Price point wise they are little changed if at all as I recall but even if they are more expensive compared to vanilla they are still well worth taking

Verdicts

Overall the winners in this section are, as they should be, the Blood angels unique choices. Death company squads and dreadnoughts are top of the class, with flame spewing Furioso dreadnoughts a close second I think. Assault terminators come next, they are really and truly better than marine equivalents when you take the claw variant as they are +1 strength on the charge and can get +1 initiative also. Throwing a sanguinary guard or chaplain in there will boost them even further. I love the sanguinary guard but they are expensive for what they do, you will have to design around these 

guys to get them to really fulfill there potential but they can do it if you want it.

Losers are dreadnought base attacks and vanguard veterans costing significantly more than the vanilla counterpart due to weapon upgrade costs. This can be mitigated somewhat if you take a particular formation but I'll get into that in my final post.

Hobby

So here we have a few pictures of my new hobby set up, I have enough space to have a to do pile:

And a working pile and also have a two lamp set up for better light. The window also provides better light in this room so its very nice all round. 

You can see how much I have to do and also how many brushed I have accumulated!! 

This sits at the foot of my bed and will now be reserved for finished models only so I can get a nice sense of how far I am coming along. 

I'm hoping to get a decent amount of hobby progress this week as my girlfriend is away so hopefully there will be a couple of posts from me this week in addition to my sunday post which will be going through the heavy and fast attack choices for the blood angels codex.

Here is a sneak peak of my WIP Dante conversion:

And finally, I always wonder what bloggers look like so I though you guys could have a picture of me to put a face to a name :) (I don't smile for photos but I am much friendlier looking in real life I promise!)

Peace out till next time

Rob

Culexus Assassin, narrative games and Terminators!

Hi readers,

Taking a break from my review of the badass Blood Angels to bring you some assassin-y goodness.

Culexus

I pre-ordered the assassin game Execution Force and have played precisely... 0 games with it... Ahem. But last night I sat down and managed to build and paint the Culexus to a standard I am happy with in a couple of hours. Its a brilliant model but due to the skin tight nature of its clothing it has a lot less fiddly detail than a terminator sergeant for example.

I wanted to paint it in slightly comic book style colours so I went for a dark blue highlighted body suit with red to set it off. I went for an antique-y look with the bizarre headset thing and then further practiced my OSL skills with the opening of the gun. I'm pretty happy with the OSL effect and how the model looks overall, I even think I managed to get a decent rust effect on the base!

The model has been based to match my templars as the Culexus is going to be their anti-pysker ace in the hole. The templars are set up to be very fluffy with big crusade squads and lots of hand to hand goodness and the Culexus felt like a natural and competitive match for their hatred of Pyskers.

Anyway here are some pictures, sadly the flash has washed out the metal bits, they have a lot more depth in person but its a grey day and flash was the only way to get usable piccies!

As a side note, how cool does his shadow look!?

Narrative Games

In other news I will be  playing the first of a set of linked narrative games tonight. Tonights game will be the Scouring versus Orks. The lead in fluff for this game is a small Ork hulk crashing on to a planet that the Templars are currently investigating. We haven't met before so as well as the game I think we will work out the rest of the narrative but this should be a fun 5-6 games that incentivise me to finish my templars off as I now have all the models I need!

This will mean a slight break from painting Blood Angels but I will be getting back to them as I want to take them to Blog Wars 10, either as the archangels or as a whole army of Death Company. I have enough Death Company to make a 1250 point force right now I just need 5 more Death Company, a Stormraven and another Death Company dreadnought with a drop pod. 

But I hope to get you some OK battle reports up in the future. If I am on my A game tonight I may remember to take pictures! But I'm pretty bad for that so a short synopsis might be the only thing you get from this first game.

And Finally

Just a quick picture of my nearly finished lightning claw terminator sergeant. I was really pleased with this squad as they were made from the bog standard termies that come with Death Storm with just the claws and spare gubbins added to them from the Blood Angel Specific terminators set and they look great! Again I'm pleased with the hair on this one. He just needs basing but the rest of the squad need all the highlighting and layering doing, I just fancied finishing one of them off. Sometimes squad painting get so dull!!

I'm moving house this weekend and internet isn't going to be up till the 8th of July so this will likely be my last post till then, unless I get spare time at work to write the next part of my reviews.

Peace out all

Rob

Blood Angels - Are we that bad? Part 2 Troops

Part 2

Hello and welcome back to the second part of my retrospective thoughts on the Blood Angels codex in light of the release and obvious disparities in the Vanilla marines codex. A short one today!

My aim in these article is to show that despite the doom and gloom naysayers all about, the Blood Angels still have a solid codex both fluff wise and competitively on the tablet top. 

As I've said before, these articles are not going to argue we didn't get the slightly suspect and smelly end of the stick but just to give dues to the bits of our codex that are really good and are the reasons that you play Blood Angels. As an example a friend of mine was messaging me about the injustice of the scouts stat line, which is I agree, ridiculous. However his point was that now he can't run a scout army of Blood Angels.. to which I replied that yes you should be able to run scout Blood Angels if you want and have their stats in line with Vanilla marines, but at the same time I don't understand why you are running Blood Angels for a scout army? Surely the reason you play Blood Angels is so you can access their unique and fluffy units that makes them different from red marines? 

That is just a personal bug bear of mine but I think most people will, to greater and lesser extents see my point. I'm currently swiping up cheap shield of baal death company kits so I can run a death company army. Its expensive in points and elite as hell but by god its as unique as the Sons of Sanguinius get and it'll look cool as hell. 

But I digress... on to the troops!!

Troops

So in this category I will cover the two basic troops options from the codex but also look at the unique Death company troop options that come in the shield of baal campaign set.

Tactical squad: So these guys are pretty much as standard as you can get with one exception. Flamers. Beautiful promethium fed flamers. As a 5 man squad these guys can rock a heavy flamer and 2 x gunslinging hand flamers on the sergeant. This provides a nice and cheap drop pod unit that can lay down some excellent ignores cover fire that can also really thin out horde armies.

Verdict: These guys are as good as they always have been in any space marine codex. The flamers give them a nice little unique something to flash on the table, but I do genuinely feel this belongs to the Salamanders remit and if its going to be unique to any chapter it should be unique to them. Still, I shan't complain!

Scouts: Well, yeah. These guys have nothing special going for them and they suffer an inexplicable lesser ability to shoot compared to almost all their loyalist brethren, Space Wolves excepted (I think..?). However, more inexplicably, they suffer a lesser ability to FIGHT, you know, for the blood crazed close combat chapter that specialises in fast hard hitting close combat, hand to hand, mano a mano style fighting tooth and nail stuff. Anyway, they are still useful as a tax if you want to just fill up on elites and such but this really should receive an FAQ in short order. Its an adjustment of 2 number and there is absolutely no reason for GW not to do it other than being lazy or being fearful of setting a precedent. I am inclined to believe it will be the latter that prevents them from doing it if they choose to leave them as is.

Verdict: Fine as they are but given how long in advance GW plans a codex (and I can't believe there wasnt some overlap between the vanilla being written as Blood Angels being finished) this should have been dealt with early and headed off. Le sigh.


OK and now the unique Death Company Choices:

Cassor the Damned: So Cassor is essentially a Death Company dreadnought with blood talons which are Sx2 AP2 close combat weapons, and these come with underslung melta gun and storm bolter. This build is 135 in the codex and 140 for this guy who occupies a troop slot. This is a steal and makes a full death company army viable. No dedicated transport options though!

Verdict: This chap is an absolute must if you want a full death company army taking up that valuable troop slot that he does for only 5 points more over the unnamed build. His biggest weakness is the lack of a transport option but I am getting round this by sticking him in the back of a storm raven. You could of course also buy a fast attack slot drop pod but I'm inclined to take the storm raven as air support also.


And finally,

Raphen's Death Company: This is a funny one. 5 man Death Company squad with fixed options and no way to increase the squad size. The fixed options are a thunder hammer, a power fist, a power sword and an inferno pistol, with 1 squad member just vanilla with chainsword and bolt pistol. This comes in at 210 points, They also come equipped with jump packs I should note. This would cost 10 points less as a normal build squad so again you are paying a tiny tax to get that all important troop choice selection. The problem here comes in the weapon choice and squad size, they aren't really designed particularly well for any one role. However these guys and Cassor the Damned allow you to have a a full death company army, particularly if you take the baal strike force detachment (which I will cover later on) as this allows you to take 4 elites.

Verdict: This squad is limited and does lack a clear competitive focus, BUT you aren't taking it for that you are taking it so you are entirely black and red army of frothing maniacs. Personally I will hide them away and use them to either grab objectives (being a T4, 3+/5+ FNP objective secured unit) or I will use them to bust tanks with the power fist, thunder hammer and inferno pistol all contributing good damage to that end.



Overall, the troop selection is small but we have a nice addition to your choices with the Shield of Baal campaign which although not optimised builds they can still be effective and grant you a great deal of fluff based variety.

The real winner in the selection is the drop podding wall of flaming death with the trip flamer tactical marines which I think will and are a popular build for alpha strike blood angel armies. However the obvious losers are the scouts with their bizarrely diminished stats line that we can only hope is rectified with haste.

As I said above though, scouts are not why you take Blood Angels and my main grip with this category is that they allowed force org shenanigans around bikes becoming troops to stand in the vanilla codex. By that logic surely a unique Blood Angel trait would be a relic jump pack that unlocks assault marines as troop by paying a premium for the jump pack. I think that would have been fair and Blood Angel players all over would have been happy as Larry.

But that isn't the way the cookie has crumbled and ultimately, the troops aren't what make this codex great (and it is great) so next time we will go through the Elites which will be a big old post I think. Following that will be Part 4 with heavy and fast attack and finally I will do part 5 which will look at relics and detachments both in the code and in shield of baal Leviathan which really should have been in the codex.

In between that I hope to post some finished assault terminators and a WIP librarian as well!

Peace out

Rob 

Blood Angels - are we that bad? Part 1 of a retrospective musing - HQ.

Hello readers,

So today I'd like to do Part 1 of a look at the Blood Angels Codex going over the HQ choice. Obviously there are plenty of reviews out there, but in the context of the new Space marines codex and the impending Dark Angels codex many people have been up in arms about both Space Wolves and Blood Angels. The obvious points of contention here are the disparity in points costs for common units (e.g. vanguard veteran power weapons) and even base stat lines (e.g. scouts WS and BS). These are all valid concerns and too a certain extent I'm not going to argue that we received a bit of a crapping on...

HOWEVER

Aside from these disparities I'm going to go over the codex and hopefully show that these disparities alone do not mean we have a bad codex. I actually think it is a very well written codex and remains a mid level of competitiveness if that is your thing. I'm not going to pretend that it competes with eldar and decurions shenanigans but I think it holds it own just fine and combined with the Shield of Baal supplements (which was a whole lot of love more than many other codices got and essentially fills our formation quota lacking in the codex.) it has great flavour and battlefield punch. 

Added to this we are not Dark Eldar (no lord of war and utterly, literally utterly useless units), Tyranids and Orks (difficult armies at the best of times with limited competitive builds and units requiring excellent generalship), Chaos Space marines (well,,, lots and lots and lots - caveat still to be updated), Sisters of battle (.......). And if you look historically at codices that have been left behind such as the previous Dark Angels Codex I laugh at anyone that wants to argue that the gap in power to the Blood Angels Codex from the current crop is similar. It isn't, it just isn't. 

The Blood Angels have their pride bruised and their feathers ruffled but they are still alive and kicking and I hope to go over the Codex sections 1 at a time to illustrate some of these elements. But I am still hoping for a FAQ-up to fix some bits :P

HQ

So what do we have in the HQ department then:

First off lets count this shall we... 6 unique character HQ's (7 including Shield of Baal) plus the 2 x generic unique characters sanguinary priest and Librarian Dreadnought HQ, that alone is nice to have compared to say Salamanders/Ravenguard/Imperial Fists with... 3 between them (maybe 4 I can't remember off the top of my head.) The point is we are individual beyond just red marines still. Now to actually look at some competitive options.

Astorath the Grim, Redeemer of the Lost: Essentially a 3 wound beast of a chaplain with a 2+/4++ that synergises so damn well with Death Company (who are still the boss) granting re-rolls to hit and to wound in the fight sub-phase, every fight sub-phase, not the charge, EVERY fight sub-phase. Yes his axe is unwieldy compared to say the Emperor's champion's sword. But honestly how many axes don't have unwieldy? I'm not an expert but the only one that springs to mind is in OUR codex on OUR LoW Dante! (Who is also boss). Also has adamantium will (Warlord Trait) for protecting your Death company from Pyschic attacks.

Verdict: Stick him in a jump pack unit of Death Company as the striking blow of your force and he will wreck face. He's not a point and click Lysander but he costs 165 points versus 230 points. He's 15 points cheaper than High Marshall helbrecht who only has an AP3 power sword versus Astorath's 2+. I know who I'd bet on.

Mephiston Lord of Death: Adamantium will (Warlord Trait), psyhic hood and mastery level 3? Psychic beast that can make himself strength 10 so is capable of ripping through tanks and insta gibbing many things even without force activated on his sword (wording just says his force sword is strength 10 no mention of force being activated. Also has toughness 5 and a 2+ save for 175 points. Only let down is lack of an invulnerable save or eternal warrior. His transfixing gaze (roll 2D6 and higher than opponent leadership hits on 2+) is a nice bonus to his already good stats and price. 

Verdict: Tigurius is 10 points less. has 1S and 1T less. Has a lower save (3+). Doesn't have adamantium will. Doesn't have furious charge. Doesn't have transfixing gaze. Doesn't have warp charge 1 - I am strength 10 - I will rip your landraider to pieces power. An excellent choice for the psychically engendered.

The Sanguinor The Golden Angel: He doesn't have independent character and he costs 200 points. BUT he is a 2+/4++ eternal warrior WS8, S5, I6, W3, furious charging, fear inducing, jump packing, AP3 master crafted sword wielding beast. Who also grants a 12" bubble of fearless to ANY friendly imperium army units around him (Warlord Trait) and any models within 6" add + 1 to their attacks. And he re-rolls tro hit and to wound in a challenge. He's not perfect but for the price he comes with a whole lot of awesome baggage.

Verdict: Mid level useful in a competitive list but with correct usage can murder many things particularly of the 3+ save variety. AP2 weapons will hurt but he has eternal warrior and a 4++ to shake the odd wound. Avoid AP2 fire and you are good to go. 

Brother Corbulo Keeper of the Red Grail: 120 points with a 3+/5+ FNP. Has +1 initiative if Warlord. Also has 3 wounds for that price furious charge, a +1 strength rending chainsword, an ability to allow the re-roll of a single seize roll, scatter roll, reserve roll, to hit roll, to wound roll or to save roll per game. Only once but maximum tactical utility. That vindicator needs to hit that blob of centurions? You got it. Bam. Also grants +1 WS and +1 I to units within 6". 

Verdict: A very solid support HQ, particularly if you are running a beat stick like Dante for example. Excellent force multiplier if positioned correctly and might just make that crucial difference with a re-roll.  Strongly recommended for a support roll.

Captain Karlaen: Shield of Baal Special Character. 2+/4+ 3W dude with a mastercrafted thunder hammer, counter-attack as well as furious charge and also grants reserve re-rolls for 160 points.

Verdict: For 15 points more than a similarly kitted out Captain you get a mastercrafted hammer, counter attack and reserve roll manipulations. If there was a relic which granted that for 15 points? EVERYONE would take. A solid quite nice and fluffy character.

Now the Generic Unique Characters:

Sanguinary Priest: Yes they are a single HQ choice now. And that is how it should be, it makes sense, I'm also not comparing this to the old codex but to the field it sits in right now. This fella brings FNP and + 1 to WS to the party all for 60 points with 2 wounds. You can also give him a jump pack if you want to give that WS buff to Death company making them even more potent.

Verdict: One of the best value utility cheap HQ's in any marine codex. There I said it. Perfect for low points value games as a single HQ or as a support HQ. 

Dreadnought Librarian: 3HP drop podding armour 13/12/10 Mastery Level 2, furious charge, force halbard wielding dreadnought arriving turn one for 210 points? Beautiful. Also is a character so can have the Blood Angel primaris power cast on him. +D3 attacks and initiative? On a force halberd dreadnought? Cheeky.

Verdict: Popular and rightly so. Personally I'd take Mephiston but his ability to drop pod turn one is a lovely tactical buff to him.

In the balance of fairness I'll go over the others very quickly. 

Tycho of either variety: Nope. Nope. A big tall glass of nope. Not even from a fluff stand point his he ever worth taking as this badass sucks so hard compared to his fluff.

Librarian: Fine, as good as the vanilla equivalent. But take Mephiston. (Ironically I have 2 of these models as presents so they will be in my list). Not bad at all, pretty good but nothing WOW here.

Chaplain: Pretty much as above with the librarian but I would rather take a Sanguinary priest for 30 points less. Not bad but much like the vanilla version, there are just better options out there.

Techmarine: Does anyone take these beyond fluff and style and thunderfire cannons? I would genuinely like to know.

Captain: Again, bog standard. Some of the relics can make him pretty tasty but I think there is always a character I would take over him any day of the week personally. They all bring a lot of special rules that really enhance the army as a whole.

Well there we are! A quick retrospective of Blood Angel HQ's. There are so doozys aren't there? At least I think so and I hope I have convinced you guys that it is a packed slot with fluff, flavour and plenty of fight all combined. I think the comparison to Tigurius is one of the best I could come up with for me. The only real loser is Tycho, man they screwed him up so bloody much.

I will go over the Elites section when I have time to sit down and write, will be honest this post has taken a lot out of me! I'm just not a born writer...

Any comments questions or constructive criticisms (I will have only polite people on here please). Please leave a comment, I'd love to know if you agree or disagree. 

As I said we have been crapped on with recent vanilla changes but we are definitely still a good codex with lots to offer.

Till next time

Peace out

Rob

Astorath the Grim and Archangels List finalised

Hi there everyone!

First thing is first,,, 1000 views!! A pitiful amount compared to many blogs I follow (such as Alex @ From the Fang whom I received a FAT mat from after winning his 1 million views competition), but I hope to get more followers and views as I put more work out there. Incidentally I can't seem to add the followers widget to my blog, just the google plus widget, if anyone else has had this problem do leave me a comment or send me an email on how to sort the damn thing!!

Anyway...

I got back nice and early today from watching tennis in Nottingham which was good fun, if very delayed because of Britain's beautiful weather... I really wanted to make some significant progress today so instead of starting on a squad I decided to paint an independent character because I can finish those in a few hours if I really set myself too it. To that end I decided to paint the metal Astorath the Grim model that arrived on thursday and I had stripped down. I forgot to take pictures of it its stripped stated but here's a picture of him basecoated:

(Though I did give the striated parts an experimental wash and drybrush in this picture - but found it too bright)

And washed x 1:

And washed x 2:

And highlighted and done!

I've not finished his base because he is on a 25mm base and I want my Blood Angels to be fully on the 32mm bases. I have no intention to convert my Black Templars though they will just stay with the 25mm they are all already based on. To do the conversion I have ordered some secret weapon converters and am looking forward to receiving them and doing a little review of how they go together and how effective they are. I know many people are intending to re-base their models and this may prove an easier way than ripping them all off their 25mm bases and sticking on a fresh one, just add an outer layer and base it appropriately. 

Archangels

So I've finally settled on the list I'm going to take with my Archangels Strike Force. Obviously if you hadn't already noticed I'm not a super competitive player, a lot of my choices are based one what I think looks an plays cool with a lot of leaning towards fluff over competitiveness. I don't ignore that aspect but its occurrence is as much happy coincidence as it is design half the time!

Anyway here is the list and I'll put a little summary afterwards.

HQ

Captain Karlaen

Terminator Librarian with ML2 and combi-melta

Elites

Furioso Dreadnought with Frag Cannon, heavy flamer

+ Drop pod with deathwind missile launcher and locator beacon

5 x Assault Terminators - all with lightning claws

5 x Assault Terminaotrs - all with Thunder Hammer + Storm Shield

5 x sternguard with 2 x grav gun, 2 x combi-grav, sergeant has grav pistol + power fist

+ Drop pod with deathwind missile launcher

5 x sternguard with 2 x melta gun, 2 x combi melta, sergeant has combi melta, chainsword

+ Drop pod with storm bolter

5 x vanguard veterans with jump packs, melta bombs, all with storm shields and thunder hammers apart from sergeant who has relic blade, hand flamer 

5 x vanguard veterans with jump packs, 5 x bolt pistol, 1 x power fist, 3 x hand flamers, sergeant has melta bombs and relic blade.

So obviously not that competitive but has some tasty elements too it. Depending on the army I'm facing I can drop 2 of the 3 drop pods which deal with either 2 + saves (grav sternguard), tanks (melta sternguard) or cover hugging infantry/small hordes (3 x flamer dreadnought).

Additionally all scatter in this formation is 6 inches for units arriving from deep strike (which I think includes drop pods?) and I can re-roll my reserves as either a formation benefit or a Captain Karlaen benefit. Though I assume these don't stack, i.e. I can't re-roll the same reserve roll twice if it fails the second time? Feel free to correct me if I can!!

This means I have fair chance of my reserves coming in hot and fast, the terminators are self explanatory, the hammer vets are back up against 2+ and tanks and the flamer vets have some punch in close combat but can gunsling bolt pistols and templates against troops.

The librarian is token psychic defence as well as taking the blood angels powers which means he will get the primaris the quickening. This is intended to be cast on none hammer vets and the dreadnought as well as the hammer vets in a pinch as this will give the sergeant an edge in any challenge hopefully! It will also help if any hammer unit attacks a high AV target, maximising the odds of the hammers rolling 6's with a potential 3 extra attacks each!

I'm not going to change the list, but any suggestions on how best you would run it beyond what I have said would be interesting to hear :)

And I think it is also fair to say that I have resigned myself to also making a Death Company themed army. It already has its HQ and a troop choice in Raphen's Death Company and I purchased 5 none jump pack Death Company off ebay to ride in a storm raven in the final list. So it's happening.

Incidentally if anyone is interested in buying my converted Militarum Tempestus models I have resigned myself to selling them and the Baneblade off together. Please email me any sensible offers that include postage costs :)

Till next time (which could be literally whenever at the moment) my readers and here's to the next 1000 views!

Peace out

Rob

Raphen's Death Company finished

Good evening returning readers.

A short gap between posts this week as I am off to Nottingham Friday evening to visit my partners sister and watch some tennis apparently. I had forgotten that I had agreed to this so it cam as something of a shock! This makes it unlikely I will have much time to post on Sunday so in case I fail to make any progress on other models and get a post up I thought I'd let you see the "finished" Death Company as they are.

I say "finished" as the bases are currently done only up to the first thin layer of snow effect, I will add bits and bobs of character to the bases before lumps of super glue and snow effect are piled on which gives an icy snow drift kind of effect, its not the best snow effect but its far from the worst and looks nice when totally finished I'd say, such as can be seen on Captain Karlaen. 

I've had a blast painting these and they have come together really quickly compared to the terminators and that isn't because they are short on detailing as the kit itself is fantastic with lots of different death company marking all about the model. I have determined to buy another dreadnought so I can use it as Cassor the damned from the Shield of Baal series and I may have accidentally slipped and pressed buy on eBay and purchased Astorath the Grim (in metal no less), so I have the beginnings of a small death company force.

Anyway here's lots of pictures with lots of angles as I am very very happy with how these have turned out, tempted to say best looking squad I have painted ever. Opinions on the standard of these models and how you would rate them would be really really appreciated, I'd just like to get some scope for where I am at :)

For the rest of the month I am going to focus on a few things. Firstly it is to lay down the major blocking colours on the terminators and maybe get to the wash stage, I'd be very happy with that. 

Secondly I need to put time aside to tidy up the drop pods for the blood angels, they were second hand and I had to hack of some dark angel icons and the pods in general have lots of flash and sprue that need filing off. If I can get hold of them I will buy some new icons to glue to the doors as they do add a nice little break in the flatness. 

Finally if they are built I will wait for a nice day and undercoat the inside in black for drybrushing and then close the doors and undercoat the outside in mephiston red as well as undercoat my blood angel librarian in maccrage blue and give it a purple wash. 

The plan through July would then be too finish the terminators, paint up the pods and librarian and purchase some 32mm bases so I can build myself a couple of squads of sternguard with grav and melta loadouts. Except I've just remembered I'm moving house and that includes having to stay at a friends for 2 weeks because my tenancy ends on the 19th of July and my new house starts on the 1st of August... scrap that plan then! I'll see what I can smash out at the beginning of July before they are packed...

If I can get all that done by August I will be a very happy bunny and the blood angels will be well on their way and then I can switch back to my templars to get them ship shape for Fluffageddon in September! Which I also need to buy a ticket for :/

Hobby like you mean it!

Peace out

Rob