Fear the Plague-bear-er

GW Newbury celebrated its third birthday today.  I am at least pleased to report an overdue victory in the store.  I won the cake competition with this:

My prize was a golden wooden spoon!

Warhammer World Invasion

This half-term has seen Warhammer World inviting various GW stores for some inter-store competition, which they have called Invasion.  It is basically a 40K 600pt doubles tournament.  (See my first post for a similar event in April.)

GW Newbury went with a good crowd on Monday, along with Reading, Oxford and Swindon.

The day started terribly for me at 5.30 am with a flat tyre on the car, but I just made it to the store for the bus.

I had had a chat with my partner Chris about his Eldar force the day before, and we discussed our options a little more on the coach.  I had considered taking my Howling Griffons, but decided against them, as I hadn't had much success with them yet, and my Assault Terminators were less than half done.  Chaos was another option, using my old Lost and the Damned army from Eye of Terror for Bezerkers and Cultists.  However, I don't have a decent Khorne Lord and I figured there would be a plethora of Chaos armies there with lots of the shiny new models.  Also, with points being awarded for cohesion between the two armies, it would be an unlikely / unholy alliance.  Eventually I decided on taking my small Space Wolves force.  I played a trial game on Sunday, using two units of Grey Hunters with plasma guns and pistols, a Razorback with lascannons and a small unit of Swiftclaw bikers and a biker Wolf Lord.  They won on objectives in the trial game, but on the coach I decided to downgrade the HQ to a Wolf Guard Battle Leader and to swap the Razorback for a Drop Pod.

Chris had been up late getting some paint on his figures the night before, so arrived at the store even later than me!  He took a Farseer, a unit of Dire Avengers, some Guardians with a Warlock and a unit of Dark Reapers.

Our first opponents were a Space Wolves / Ork combo with lots of biker orks, two units of Grey Hunters in Rhinos and a Runepriest.  In every game, I used the Drop Pod aggressively and put it in the opposition deployment zone and in this game my Grey Hunters shot up the Lootas and made them run off the board, giving us First Blood.  However, my bikes failed their charge on the Ork bikers, which proved costly.  If the game had finished a couple of minutes earlier we would have won, but in the last few minutes the remains of my drop pod hunters were shot off one objective and their rhinos deposited their passengers onto two high-value objectives, giving them a 7-2 win.

The second game was against Grey Knights and Guard.  On the first turn a Demolisher shot took out most of my bikers and my warlord, giving them three VPs straight away from one model!  Again I put my Drop Pod down in harm's way, right in front of a Vindicare Assassin, which then seemed to have a a charmed life.  It made numerous 4+ invulnerable saves on its last wound and eventually beat off my Grey Hunters after a couple of rounds of drawn combat.  A combination of the Deathwind launcher and Eldar shooting killed off the Rough Riders (very nicely-painted Death Korps models) and the power-armoured GKs, but we never recovered from the early setback, and were only one wound away from being tabled by the end of the game.

Having had two losses, we hoped for better fortune in the final game, against more Space Wolves and more Guard from the Reading store!  There were plenty of Chaos armies there, but we hadn't met any of them!  This force included a fun Commissar on a Segway!

We finally managed to get the first turn in a game, but only by seizing the initiative.  Again the Drop Pod went down behind their Medusa, but we just couldn't kill it off.  This wasn't helped my my repeated rolling a 1s with my plasma weapons.  During the day I got snake-eyes twice when rapid-firing my plasma guns!  Of course, I also then failed the 3+ armour save each time.  I even got Chris to roll for me instead, and of course he also rolled a 1!!  We did have a bit of luck managing to hit their Vendetta with a snapshot from my multimelta Attack Bike, but then only managed to remove one of the twin-linked lascannons.  Chris' Dark Reapers had given us First Blood by sending their Thunderwolves running and his Runes of Warding also nullified and finally killed off their Runepriest.

I was just a little too sporting for us to win this game.  With two minutes to go they suggested and I agreed to a draw, as we were tied on VPs and had had three turns each.  Had we continued my remaining Grey Hunter could have got close enough to contest their three-point objective and we would have also had Linebreaker.  I just hadn't thought of suggesting this in game one and was a little taken aback by the suggestion.  This was only my second ever tournament, so I guess I'll know better next time.

Overall, GW Reading emerged victorious, so well done to them.  After the success in April, I won't tell you where Newbury came out of the four stores competing, but we were disappointed.  This was despite Quinn's team winning every game by taking two identical armies of Tervigons and Doom of Malan'tai, which basically swamped their enemies with Termagants.

The coach back was slightly delayed by another vehicular mishap, when someone reversed into our parked coach just before we were due to get on.

We had a fun day out and I have certainly learnt quite a bit for future competitions like this.  In particular, being a bit more decisive about my list and getting some practice games with my partner would be very useful.

Chaos codex is here!

I picked up the new book at GW Newbury.  I have yet to study it in detail, but a few things were particularly interesting.

Obviously all the new 40K codices will be hardback now and around the £30 mark, à la Fantasy.  It is a decent quality and full-colour, but at the price maybe it should be a few more than just over 100 pages?

What is a boost for chaos player is that the marks of chaos now grant more than a single stat increase, but also give some of the new special rules in the Sixth Edition rulebook.

As far as the Troops choices go, of course there are now the cannon fodder, sorry Cultists.  However, the basic Chaos Marines now have to choose between bolter + pistol or pistol + weapon, so have to focus more on their rôle in advance.  Also, Plague / Noise Marines etc are now Elites choices, unless you take a Lord (or Sorceror for Tzeentch) with the same mark.

The Heldrake model has attracted a lot of attention at Games Day and in WD, but it is also worth noting that Havocs can now take flakk missiles too.

Still no chaos drop pods...?

Quinn has asked me to be part of the Newbury team again for a return to Warhammer World in October half-term, for a 600pts doubles tournament.  I need to decide between my Howling Griffons, Guard or the shiny new Chaos.  I have a feeling there will be a lot of Chaos armies again!

Armies on Parade - Howling Griffons

Having spent most of my hobby time over the last few weeks working on my Howling Griffons, it was finally time for the Armies on Parade Competition at GW Newbury.

As I didn't have enough of the Bretonnian transfers I had used before for the whole army, I decided to hand-paint a rough black griffon for the shoulder pads, which looked OK - at a distance anyway.  My Assault Squad therefore stayed in the case, as they had white half griffon transfers and they had also been 'ardcoated, and so were glossier than the rest of the army.

Overall I came 3rd (out of 4) in the competition.  The scenery pieces and the quartered scheme got quite a few favourable comments, as did the interactive narrative of the rising Necron and the Command Squad, but I think I had neglected the board itself.  It was a bit bare in places and needed a bit more interesting stuff going on.

Quinn is keen for people to start planning boards for next year, so I will think about that at some stage.  I also await the rules for next year's store visit to Warhammer World, to see where my Howling Griffons go next.

Griffon Scenery

I've been a bit quiet for the past couple of weeks, mainly due to Olympic fever.  I even took my son up to Old Trafford to see a couple of games.

Anyway, I have been doing some work on some pieces of scenery.  One of them is a couple of moonscape craters with various Necron bits bursting out of the ground.  The main piece though is a Griffon statue based on the Fantasy Deathclaw model and a Sanctum Imperialis.

It is still WIP, but I'm quite pleased with how it is turning out, especially the claw grasping the top corner.  In game, it would count as Imperial Statuary

Howling Griffons 1250 vs Grey Knights

My army has grown enough that I played 1250 pts against Quinn's Grey Knights last night.  It wasn't pretty and I'm starting to wonder when we will be seeing their first victory at GW.  They have done well at a couple of smaller games at the school club, but these rarely get played to conclusion, so I can't really count those wins.

I have now added an Ironclad, a Rhino and a Devastator Squad, as well as enough marines for two full Tactical Squads.  Most are virtually finished, although 6 marines and the Rhino have only had a basecoat.

We rolled The Relic mission, but to be honest I struggled to get anywhere near it and was pushed back as the GK dominated.  His Vindicare Assassin was lucky to survive a snapshot from my Missile Launcher in the Rhino, but then went on to wreck my vehicles in short order.  Quinn does not like GK Terminators at all, but his two big squads of Interceptors proved far too manoeuvrable for me to deal with, and they put out a lot of shots too.

Quinn kept failing Ld tests on psychic powers and even towards the end when I tried to tank shock one of the Interceptors units, who were behind my lines.  However, with them falling back towards their own table edge, rather than the closest edge, which was just inches away, this proved rather pointless.

I did have a little luck with a few snapshots and managed to kill one squad of Interceptors, but not enough to trouble Quinn unduly.

The army still needs work to make it even vaguely competitive at the moment, but I have had a few positive comments about how they are looking.

Howling Griffons Predator

The Predator is very nearly done.  I just need to decide two things - what colour to do the lights and what to do about unit transfers.

I didn't fancy doing a quartered scheme on a vehicle, but I'm quite pleased with the two-coloured effect.  I have now started a Rhino, and am debating whether to stick with the same colours or reverse them, with a red body and yellow doors etc.

As I now have some time off, I have also got started with an Ironclad and some Devastators, if only to give me more choice of heavy weapons.

Chariot Challenges Counter

OK, so I should have ignored the chariot and just assaulted the Overlord.  Challenges cannot be issued from a chariot, so the Mindschackle Scarabs would have targetted a random model from my unit in base contact, rather than having a choice of one.  Hammer of Wrath from the chariot could be a problem, as it gets those hits whenever it charges and it can't be locked in combat as a vehicle.

Something like an Ironclad would be good in that combat, as it could ignore the Hammer of Wrath and can't be Mindshackled, but it would probably end up getting glanced to death before it could get in a charge.

Cheeky chariot challenge combo

I took my Chaos army for an outing to GW Newbury last night.  I have now bought a winged Daemon Prince to lead them, for some Monstrous Flyer goodness.  It is still being painted and I haven't worked out how to fit him in my case yet, so I was using my Nurgle Sorceror on a bike as HQ.  I also ended up with Invisibility as my psychic power, so my unit of T6 Nurgle Bikers also got a very tasty cover save and could only be hit at WS 1 in combat.

I was playing Necrons and came up against a rather nasty combo, which ended up shutting me down.  He had two Overlords in Command Barges, which are apparently now chariots.  Anyway, I got in charges on both in separate assaults to avoid getting Hammer of Wrath from them.  I managed to wreck both chariots with krak grenades.  Each Overlord survived and was then fighting a unit and they issued challenges.  If I accepted the challenge, he then used Mindschackle Scarabs on the accepting model.  I failed all of these rolls, which meant the single model in the combat was hitting itself, but my other models were locked in combat and were unable to attack anyone, due to the challenge.  Refusing the challenge meant I was then struggling to wound him with basic troops, especially with his 2+ save.

I guess I need to read up on the new chariot rules to find a counter.  I suppose a cheap tar-pit unit to tie him up in combat would be one method.

First of Sixth

I finally got my copy earlier - my preciouss...!

So what are my first impressions?  Well the production quality is very good, especially the artwork on the Holy Terra and the Space Marine Monastery foldouts, which are extremely dark and evocative of the whole grim future theme.

As for the rules, a few things have caught my attention.

I had misunderstood the changes to Rapid Fire.  Moving models can't fire twice to maximum range, but can now fire once at least.  Shooty armies will still like this.

The rules about snapfiring Heavy Weapons, either when moving or charged, will also be fun.  A Devastator Squad used to be a relatively soft target for assault, but they can now defend themselves a little better.  In particular, with the closest model being hit first, it will be the tooled-up characters leading the charge who could now get a faceful of lascannon!  I think this will also make flamers a lot trickier to employ.

There were a few comments in GW Newbury about the Allies matrix.  It's a shame Tyranids can't ally with anyone, but fluff-wise it make sense.  However, vanilla Space Marines now consider Tau to be trusted Battle Brothers, whereas the Inquisition are merely Allies of Convenience.

I had hoped you could buy more terrain than just fortifications, as part of your army, such as a morale-boosting statue.  However, the sheer variety of potential mysterious terrain on the board means you are unlikely to get any particular roll.  We will just have to improvise more.

The new Big Guns Never Tire and The Scouring missions each seem to encourage you to take Heavy Support and Fast Attack choices respectively, as each one counts as scoring in these missions.  However, as they are also worth a Victory Point for your opponent, this could make them less attractive.

My next personal objective is to make sense of the psychic powers, so I can start using the spell, sorry psychic power, cards I also got today.

Tuesday will be my first chance to try out the new rules set, and I can't wait!

The cat is getting out of the bag and will soon be amongst the pigeons

So after the rumours and the teasers, GW have now announced Sixth Edition in White Dwarf and advance orders are now up.

I'm looking forward to seeing the details on things like flyers, buying terrain as part of your army and the psychic powers, but I think a real game changer has been less prominent.  Rapid fire weapons have been boosted, increasing the range for two shots.  With the rules for Overwatch, I think this could mean shooty armies like Tau and Eldar, which are surely due new codexes (codices?) soon, will be more competitive.


Could we also see fewer GK armies, with terrain such as the Psychoneuein Hive inflicting D3 hits at S3 AP2 on every psyker on the board?


Only time will tell if there will be more shooty armies instead of combat armies, especially with the increase in flying transports and gunships.  Interesting times are ahead.

Waiting for Sixth Edition

I haven't done much 40K this week, between work and the Euros.  Even at the school club this week we were mainly building some Fantasy models from the Island of Blood box set.

With the new edition of 40K imminent I'm pausing in making any more HGs for the moment, although I have had some thoughts about improving my list.  Having a Master of the Forge on a bike with a Conversion Beamer could be fun, or using a Drop Pod with locator beacon to help the Assault Squad.  The Dreadnought Drop Pod rules would also be a good combo with an Ironclad.

Alternatively, a Librarian is quite fluffy for HG, and the new rules for psychic powers could be interesting.  I guess we will find out soon.

Latest games - Howling Griffons 600 pts

My HG had three games yesterday as part of Quinn's School vs School competition.  It was a mini-league of four doubles teams of 2x600 pts per team.  I was paired with one of the lads from my club, who used a Captain, two tac squads and a MM dread.  My HG was basically my entire painted force so far - Chaplain, Assault Squad, Sniper Scouts, Tactical Squad (now 10 man with ML and flamer) and the assembled and basecoated Predator.  I have decided not to quarter the Predator, but to do the main body yellow, with the sponsons, doors etc in red.

First game was against a Blood Angels / Chaos combo, with lots of jump-packs and power weapons for the BA and Plague Marines, Obliterators and a Lash Sorceror for the Chaos.  As usual for a new model, the Predator died first turn before it did anything.  I also infiltrated the snipers into the central woods, but they proved ineffective against power armour and were soon assaulted and wiped out.  In the end we lost 7-2 KPs, as once the Predator was gone we only really had the MLs from the tacticals for longer-range fire-power, but not enough close-combat power to beat them in assault either.  The highlight was probably George's Rhino with dozer blades immobilising itself in  crater with two ones.

The second game against another marines combo and was closer.  This time the Predator did its job of soaking up fire a lot more successfully.  Even if it couldn't shoot half the time, it ended up frustrating our opponents for four turns before succumbing.  We lost 4-2 this time.

The third game against the Ork combo of our other club team could have gone either way.  The Predator survived to the end this time and my Snipers kept their Bikers pinned all game and then killed them off.  My Tac Squad and Assault Marines also took out a Trukk with its Boyz and Big Mek quickly before the Warboss and 'Ard Boyz arrived.  The Tacs surprisingly even won the combat against their first charge, but were eventually ground down by the Warboss.  On Jamie's flank he did well immobilising and thus destroying most of the Killa Kans, but could not quite finish the unit off.  However he did account for the Mekka Dread towards the end with the Captain's combi-melta.  The final result was 6-5 to the Orks, with the difference being our two Tac Squads breaking off the table at the end, as the Orks were too close to regroup.

OK, so we came bottom of the league with three losses, but it was a fun day.  All of the games were Kill Points, when I had planned more for objectives games.  I need to think more about KPs and focus more on grinding down the opponent, instead of offering them points.  At 600pts my army lacks a cutting edge, so I probably need a bit of a rethink.

PS - no pictures today, as Dan's Dreads aren't finished yet.

GW price rises

Perhaps GW hope that nobody will realise, as there hasn't been a proper announcement yet, but I notice that there are the new prices on the GW website already.  For example a Predator has gone up from £31 to £35.  It does seem to be just a £1 or £2 in most cases, but the pick has to be the Space Marine Battleforce, which has gone from £60 to £80 - a 33% increase!  I'm glad I got a Battleforce a couple of weeks ago and even picked up a Predator yesterday!

I wonder how many players will now announce they are giving up?

Howling Griffons 800 pts list

Club this week was mainly spent getting some doubles teams organised for an interschools tournament Quinn is setting up at GW Newbury over half-term.  I am particularly looking forward to the Ork-Ork combo, including Dan's Deff Dread list from IA8.  I'm not sure what he can take at 600 pts each, but he has converted some great models, especially his grot tanks.  I shall try to get some pictures.

As we have a week off for half-term, I intend to get some more Howling Griffons done.  After some deliberation I have now come up with a list suitable for Carnage, ie 800pts, must have at least one each of Elite / Fast / Heavy before you can take a second.


HQ Chaplain
- jump pack

Troops Scouts
- 5 sniper rifles

Tactical Squad
- 10 Space Marines
- PW
- ML
- flamer

Fast Attack Assault Squad
- 5 Assault Marines
- PF / PP
- PP

Land Speeder  Storm

Elite Ironclad Dreadnought

Heavy Support Predator
- Autocannon
- HB sponsons

That gives me a couple of solid AV13 vehicles (I don't expect to see much AV14 at 800 pts), which will hopefully soak up some fire and whittle down any troops on objectives, before sneaking in with fast units to contest later on.

First Howling Griffons game

My first five-man squad of Howling Griffons now means I can start playing games with my new force.  I did just that on Tuesday with a 450-point game at the school club.  My entire force was up against two five-man tactical squads, a captain and a dread.  As we rolled four objectives, that pretty much occupied all the troop choices on the board, whilst my assault squad quickly chewed through one squad and then the other for a comfortable debut victory.

Keen for some more practice with Space Marines, my Salamanders had an overdue outing at GW Newbury's Veterans' Night on Thursday, playing a 1000pt battle against Tom's Necrons.  With a big hill in the centre of the board, I made the mistake of advancing my Devastators for better LOS, only to be jumped by his Tomb Stalker (which he has modelled bursting through a wrecked landspeeder).  Some atrocious armour saves early on also cost me half of the Tactical Squad on my objective.

After the initial setbacks I recovered to kill the Tomb Stalker and two Annihilation Barges.  I even got as far as contesting his objective, before being ground down and losing 2-0.

Despite my poor rolls on amour and also leadership throughout the game, I did seem to have more luck against his Mindshackle Scarabs, making my first three Ld tests on 3d6 before missing the fourth one.  I also tried out a Librarian with Might of the Ancients.  Again, I failed to make two psychic tests (although I avoided perils), before wrecking one of the barges.

With new White Dwarf out this weekend, complete with new flyers, I am contemplating how useful a Stormtalon would be, given that I already have a Fast Attack choice.  The Escort Craft rule makes it quite interesting with reserves and a 36" Supersonic move would be very good for last-minute contesting objectives.  However, I didn't like the model at first glance.

Sniper Scouts plus wasp

The next unit of Howling Griffons are nearly done.  I've been working on 5 Sniper Scouts this week.  I left the gun arms and heads on the sprues for ease of painting, before final assembly.  I normally build the models completely prior to undercoating and painting, but the cloaks and big guns would have made it harder to do the quartering and details.  Now that they are assembled, I am not sure I've got the head poses right.  Hmm...

I haven't used snipers before, so I'm interested in how to get the best out of them.  I'm still deciding on my Carnage list, but now have a Space Marine battleforce, as I want to do Armies on Parade as well.  I could expand the two current units, but instead next up will be a Tactical Squad, 5 at a time, so I can start getting some legal games with a mix of units.  I will definitely be adding a Scout with Heavy Bolter at some point, too.

Off topic - I seem to have been sharing my shed this weekend with a wasp.  I wondered why it kept coming back, then noticed that it had started building a nest!  I felt mean removing its WIP, but it hasn't given up yet.  Any suggestions on discouraging it from starting again?  And no, I don't plan on lighting a fire in the shed to smoke it out...!

Back from Germany

I've just spent a few days in Germany leading a school trip. I managed to spend a bit of hobby time over there and visited the GW stores in Darmstadt, Mannheim and Frankfurt. The Mannheim one had a particularly impressive Armies on Parade winner on display. It featured Dark Angels defending a ruined chapel, with some great details, like a lone Fallen Angel lurking around the back.

Whilst away I read the rest of the Soul Drinkers Omnibus, which has grown on me a lot. The idea of modelling Tellos and some purple, mutated assault marines with Khorne Bezerker rules seems like fun. Apparently the fourth part 'Chapter War' is no longer in print, so I shall probably download the e-book from Black Library, instead of waiting for the second omnibus.

In Frankfurt I picked up a box of Sniper Scouts, to add to my Howling Griffons Assault Marines to start making a viable 800 point army for Carnage next year. Quinn has also persuaded me to do my own Armies on Parade entry. The idea of Howling Griffons defending a Griffon statue comes to mind, based on the new Empire monster.

Oh, and I finally got one of these...

GW Newbury Painting Competitions

Well I got the Chaplain finished earlier in time for the painting competition at GW Newbury.  There were two categories I entered.  The Chaplain was for the hero painting competition organised by GW nationally and the Assault Squad was for the local competition.

In terms of votes, the Chaplain did a little better than the Assault Squad.  Perhaps they were a little two shiny for most people, although I did get some very positive comments about them.  However, they were up against some very good models - well done to all the winners.  At least I can say mine were all done with the new paints and these were certainly my the best painted models I have ever done.  That is probably as much to do with the time and care I have taken over them, as with the new paints.  I do now have a lot of the new yellow and red paints, so I should make use of them and get some more Howling Griffons ready for battle.

Whilst finishing the metal on the Chaplain, I was a little unhappy with the overly reddish tint on the Gehanna's Gold colour, so I softened it with some Sepia wash.  I was then pleased to see that the gold dry colour is called Golden Griffon.  It fitted very nicely!

Getting there slowly

I had a quick 800pts game at the club on Tuesday with my guard against one of the boys there, who has a nicely-painted vanilla SM army with a couple of dreads.  It was Dawn of War - Annihilation, and I got to set up on the halfway line, which pushed him right back.  The walkers proved to be easy points, and the only point I conceded were from my Veterans, who failed to turn up by the time we had to finish.

I also went along to GW Newbury's Vets' Night again yesterday to do a bit of painting, and am nearly there with the Howling Griffons.  I did the bases with Zandri Dust and applied some 'Ardcoat all over.  I want to give the bases another coat and tidy up a couple of bits I had missed and then I will concentrate on getting the Chaplain done, hopefully by the end of next week.

Having researched a bit of the background for the Howling Griffons, I saw they had a run in with the Soul Drinkers, so I picked up their Omnibus yesterday too.

Last tweaks

Back to the grindstone today after holidays, so updates will be less frequent now.

I think the Assault Squad is nearly done, although I will probably redo the base edges.  It is currently sepia wash on a white undercoat and so it has followed the laws of gravity and only really covered the bottom half.  The textured paint on the base was a little less textured than I was hoping.

I have also got started with the chaplain.  Strangely, I have started with a white undercoat, with a Nuln Oil wash, Abaddon Black base in the plates and Dark Reaper layer on top.  I quite like the effect so far.

Finecast chaplain problems

The Finecast chaplain with jump-pack seemed to be a good character to lead my fledgling unit, but I have not had the best of starts assembling him.

It is a clear April morning, so it was a little chilly out in the shed just now.  I noticed that the crozius arcanum was a little warped, so tried to flex it once to see if it would bend back into shape.  It snapped straight off just above the hand.  Then the feet almost broke off as I was gluing it to the base.  Finally, the detail on the jump-pack has not come out very well, as there are two big air bubbles right on the top corners of the air intakes and one of the skulls on the side is just a blob.

I know they suggest applying heat from a hair-dryer or hot water makes Finecast easy to reposition, but this seems far too brittle.  I wanted to use him for the painting competition, but he seems to be doomed to disaster.

This chaplain is my third Finecast purchase.  Logan was fine, although his cloak keeps coming off.  I have also bought some LOTR dwarfs / dwarves and the extended weapons on those seem a bit weak.

Howling Griffons progress

Just a quick update today.

The red quarters are done on the Howling Griffons, apart from the Bloodletter Glaze, which I forgot to get.  I must say I like the light, dusty effect with the new drybrush paints.

I am reasonably pleased with my painting skills on the quartering, but it does need a lot of concentration.  Not recommended with kids around, like I had!

The red now seems stronger then the yellow, but I think I'll finish the rest of the model, to see if I need another coat of yellow layer and glaze to make it a bit deeper.

I have now also tidied up the white of the weapons, before I apply a metallic wash.

Mitorian XIII vs Space Wolves 1.5K

Well I got another game at Veterans' Night last night, but not against Quinn's Grey Knights.  Instead I played Dan, who was also at Carnage.  I added in a couple of squads of my own - my almost finished Ogryns, some Penal Legion and another Infantry Squad, and also borrowed another combined squad from Eli to make up the gap.

We rolled Spearhead and Annihilation.  I realized quickly that I had a lot more Kill Points on the board, so mobbed up a couple of the squads together.  Dan had three squads of Grey Hunters in a Rhino and two Razorbacks, two squads of Wolf Scouts, three units of Long Fangs with a mix of missiles, plasma and lascannons, with Njal as HQ.

I got first turn and immobilised the transports first, as I was expecting him to race forward and get into combat.  However, he was happy to stand back and shoot with all the Long Fangs.  My Penal Legion got Assault 2 weapons and did well to help me take out a plasma squad.  The Leman Russ also soaked up a lot of fire before it succumbed.  The Ogryns lost their transport, so were late to the party with the Wolf Scouts vs the Conscripts, but they did get in a Furious Charge, which was fun.  However, the final tally was 10-2 for Dan.

Dan told me at the end that his army was designed with infantry guard in mind, but I learnt a few things against a canny opponent.  I wish I had brought my Executioner along to take on the Long Fangs and I should have run more squads forward to get the Long Fangs engaged in combat.  Even with their counter-attack rule, it would have tied them up from shooting for a bit.  The Ogryns and Penal Legion did give me some more options though, but more tanks and armour would have been better than more cannon-fodder squads in this battle.

Howling mad!

Having got as far as the yellow basecoat yesterday, I have now decided to abandon the Imperial Fists idea for Howling Griffons instead.  They have a red-yellow quartered scheme.  I doubt my sanity at times.

First off, I wonder how many red pots I will need for this?  Secondly, I've never done quartered armour before and I hope my lines are straight enough across the whole squad.  I will also need some transfers, which I think I can get from Bitbox.

So far I have done a shade and a layer on the basecoat on the yellow quarters.

I am a hobby butterfly!

I am lucky to have my own shed in the garden, which is full of my Warhammer stuff.  I have my figure cases, several boxes of unmade models and all my paints, glues etc.  I keep telling to myself that I need to finish what I have already bought before I buy any more.  Of course, I never stick to this.

Now GW have revamped their entire paint range with 145 new, exciting pots to choose from.  I have already got some of the new textured paint, but again I was thinking I needed to finish my current stock of paints before shelling out on more.

Unfortunately, Quinn has now started up a competition specifically to use the new pots to paint a unit by the end of the month.  What a clever ploy to boost sales!

So, ever up for a challenge, I'm entering.  It could be any unit from Warhammer Fantasy, 40K or LOTR.  I did consider the unmade flagellants I have in the shed, but I haven't painted any Fantasy for a while and I rather fancied doing something yellow, which has always been a bit tricksy to get right before.  I knew I had some Space Marines to make too, so I thought I'd do some Imperial Fists (even though I already have three power-armoured armies already).

I dutifully went into GW Newbury and picked up FIVE yellows - Averland Sunset (base), Cassandora Yellow (shade), Yriel Yellow (layer), Hexos Palesun (dry) and finally Lamenters Yellow (glaze).  The days of a single pot for any colour are clearly over!!  That was more than enough for the moment for the armour, but I will need some red and metal colours for the details.

When I got home I found I only had three tactical marines on the sprues, but I did have enough bitz for a 5-man Assault Squad, so the decision as to which unit to do was made for me.

They are now assembled, and I have taken a bit extra care in removing mould lines, etc.  I have even gone as far as drilling out the ends of the guns, which I can't normally be bothered to do.

I am nearly out of Chaos Black spray, but have plenty of Skull White, so after a white undercoat I have now got as far as a coat of the Averland Sunset base before it got too dark outside.  (No electric in the shed - one day...)  I'm interested how the next stages will turn out tomorrow.

(Not the best light for the pictures, but a flash makes them look too orange)

How long have I played Warhammer?

I suppose I can count myself as an experienced collector of Warhammer, although like many people, I probably spend more time making and painting the models than actually playing.

Last year I turned 40, but as a teenager back in the Eighties, as well as my ZX Spectrum, I was into Dungeons and Dragons and other RPGs.  Eventually Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay came along, which I remember mainly for the vast range of careers you could follow, as well as the most imaginative injury table this side of the Casualty Script Department.  I painted up a few figures for these games with Airfix enamels, and even remember buying one Space Marine figure when 40K first came out, but never got into the Warhammer games.  Indeed, I used to buy White Dwarf when it actually covered non-GW products, including D+D, but stopped getting it as the GW wargames took over and it became something of a monthly GW catalogue.

Then I went off to university and lost interest in RPGs.  I still continued with games on various computers, with Elite and later Civilization I and II particular favourites, and even got into CCGs, like Magic.  Then  came the wife and kids and time for games seemed to decrease, until about 10 years ago I picked up a copy of White Dwarf (issue 274) and couldn't put it down.  One article that particularly got me interested, was Lure of the Gods for Warhammer Fantasy, where the editor was gradually creating a Chaos army for Fantasy.  The whole idea of assembling, then painting and playing with your own personal army was the hook.  Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers encouraged me even more, so that Christmas I put the Warhammer Fantasy box set on my list.

I assembled all the Orcs as quickly as I could and my wife even started making and painting some of the Empire figures, but she lost patience with them quite soon.  Once I had made and painted the Orcs in the box set, I got some goblin wolf riders too for the army and then decided I needed to collect a different army, so I could get my gamer friend Ian over to play some games.  (I was still hopeful that my wife would continue with the Empire figures.)  WD 274 had included a battle report with Dark Elves vs Chaos, which the Dark Elves won.  So I decided on the Druchii.  After what seemed a long time planning, I invited Ian over for the evening to play a game.  Unfortunately, Ian got put off as soon as I mentioned the word 'magic', as he is more into more authetnic, historical games, like Risk.

Undeterred, I got chatting with a pupil at the school where I teach, and between us we came up with the idea of setting up a school club every Tuesday for an hour and a half.  I soon had a fairly regular range of opponents all playing Warhammer Fantasy against my Dark Elves.  The Club is still going today, but now almost entirely with 40K players.  There has been a resurgence in LOTR recently, but there have been no Fantasy games for a while.  Quinn has even visited the Club to help encourage the players even more.

Mitorian XIII vs Eldar 1000 pts

I was buzzing with my (beginner's?) luck at our win at Carnage, so I was keen to test out the army again.

Thursday night is Veterans' Night at GW Newbury, so I was finally able to get the Chimera assembled and field the same 800pts myself.  I have given up on the Hydra idea for now, as a transport seemed more useful.

Quinn's Conqueror's certificate for the winning store was in pride of place by the till when I walked into the shop, so of course I stuck my certificate up next to it for the evening!  Just in case anyone hadn't heard!

There were a couple of games already going on, but after waiting for a bit, Quinn found an opponent for me with Matt, who wanted to try out some new Forge World models he had picked up at the Open Day in Warhammer World on Sunday, namely 5 Shadow Spectres and a Warp Hunter.  He was a fairly new player, but had some nice models.

We settled on 1000pts, so I simply added in a normal Leman Russ armed with lascannon and heavy bolter sponsons at exactly 200pts to my previous list and we rolled Spearhead deployment with Kill Points.

Yet again, my luck held, as I managed to seize the initiative on the first turn.  My Battle Cannon then scattered slightly from immobilizing the Warp Hunter to also destroy the Falcon next to it.  I also managed to disable his other Falcon, which meant his two squads of Dire Avengers plus Autarch had to walk right across the board into my massed guns.  When the Shadow Spectres turned up by Deep Strike, they ended up right in front of my troops and then their shot at my Leman Russ scattered off target, before I wiped them out with 57 las shots from my conscripts and an infantry squad.

The Warp Hunter was still around and I was gradually removing its weapons, whilst his troops were also being ground down.  My new chimera broke the 'unfinished models do badly' rule by flaming a unit of Dire Avengers and instant-killing the Autarch with its multi-laser, despite only having a black undercoat.  I'm afraid all his troops got shot to pieces, with the Warp Hunter the last unit to die.  I rolled a 5 on the damage table, which he made me re-roll.  My luck kept going as the re-roll turned up a 6!  My only casualty was a single veteran.

Quinn has now challenged me with his Grey Knights he took to Carnage, so I doubt very much my next Battle Report will be as one-sided, at least not in my favour.

My next project for the army is to make some Ogryns from the usual Fantasy Ogres, to fill the Elites gap and provide some more ability in combat.

My GW hobby - Carnage 2 April 2012

I thought I should start a blog about my Games Workshop hobby, which I hope will be of some interest to anyone involved in the hobby, or who might just be curious.

I once set up a forum about 5 or 6 years ago, which , like this blog, was also called Raise the Standard.  I like the double meaning of the name, which seems relevant in terms of my own hobby.

Carnage last Monday seems a good place to start, as it actually involved some gaming.

The Manager at my local Games Workshop goes by the name of Quinn.  That's his surname, but he is simply Quinn.  Anyway, last Saturday he said he was running a trip to the Carnage Doubles Tournament at Warhammer World in Nottingham.  I had always wanted to go there and the Easter holidays had just started, so I signed up.  Teams from the GW stores in Newbury, Reading, Swindon, Oxford, Windsor and Maidenhead would be competing.

I was less confident about the gaming part.  I run a Wargames Club at the school where I teach, but I only really play against kids.  Not that there is anything wrong with kids playing at all.  It's just that most are beginners and only have a small collection of figures.  (More on the Club another time.)

There were already two pairs going from Newbury, and I didn't have a partner, so Quinn quickly rang the Reading store and found out that there was a spare there I could team up with, who would be using Blood Angels.  Forces would be 800pts per player.

I have four viable 40K Armies I could have used at 800pts.  I decided against the three Space Marine armies (Salamanders, Space Wolves and Chaos) in favour of my Imperial Guard army.  I recall a blog on the GW website, where a doubles team of Blood Angels and Guard won a tournament, even though they had never met before.

Back at home I looked at my collection and decided I wanted to include my unit of 20 conscripts and Executioner tank, both unfinished.  I then spent most of Saturday and Sunday trying to get them all painted in the Khaki / Bestial Brown colour scheme and up to scratch.  If I had had more time, I would have finally got round to doing the bases properly.  However, I also knew that GW were soon to release some lovely textured paints, which would make basing much quicker.  A coat of Graveyard Earth with the edge in the old Terracotta colour would have to do for the bases.  As it was, I was sat in the dark in my shed with a head-torch on doing some last details and sorting out the figure case.

On Monday the coach left GW Newbury at 6am and then picked up at Reading.  Everyone was talking about their figures and how pleased they were with their bases.  Oops!  I was beginning to feel even less confident about playing and then I found out that my partner from the Reading store, who was friend of Quinn's called Nick, didn't have Blood Angels, but Imperial Guard too!

Fortunately, we were the first store to arrive at Warhammer World, so we compared our lists in Bugman's Bar.  We had a slight problem in that we both wanted to use Leman Russ tanks in our 800pts, but the tournament rules were that we couldn't have two Heavy Support choices without any Elite choice in our armies.  Neither of us had any Ogryns, Ratlings or Stormtroopers or any other Elites with us.  In the end we decided that I would drop my tank and take more heavy weapons troops choices, along with a Chimera borrowed from Nick.  Luckily, Nick uses Tallarn figures, and mine also had a desert scheme, so it didn't look out of place in my army.

My list - Mitorian XIII


HQ - Lord Commissar - Power Fist

Troops - 10 Veterans - Power Fist, 3 Meltaguns

Troops - Platoon Command Squad, Captain Chenkov, Autocannon, Chimera
              2 Infantry Squads with Missile Launchers
              1 Infantry Squad with Grenade Launcher
              1 Heavy Weapons Squad with 2 Lascannons and a Missile Launcher
              20 Conscripts with Send in the Next Wave

Nick's Tallarn List


HQ - Techpriest Enginseer

Troops - Platoon Command Squad
               2 Infantry Squads, one with a Commissar

Fast Attack - Squadron of 2 Vendettas

Heavy Support - Squadron of 2 normal Leman Russ with Lascannons


Nick suggested the team name of the Mitorian-Tallarn 135th for our combined army.

Our first game was Annihilation against a Guard / Dark Eldar team using Spearhead deployment.
We were quite happy to let the Ogryns and xenos come towards us and were able to knock out a Venom and immobilize the Ravager and strip it of weapons fairly quickly, so they had to yomp across the battelfield.  Nick's troops did grab the bastion in the middle of the board and they seemed to get fixated on this, rather than going for some softer targets.  The Archon shrugged off a lot of fire with its 2+ invulnerable save, but when he charged my plucky conscripts he scored zero hits and they managed to knock out the invulnerable just as the 90 minutes for the game elapsed. We won on kill points, as they had not wiped out any complete units, whereas we got 5 or 6 kills, including the transports.

After lunch our second game was against another Guard / xenos team, but with Tyranids.  This time it was a Pitched Battle with three objectives.  We won the roll for placing objectives, so had two on our side of the board.  Again we had some early success with shooting killing the Zoanthrope first turn with a lascannon and on the second turn claimed the Tervigon, which killed more nids as it exploded than it had spawned by then.  The nids got across to my lines, but the hormagaunts were soon decimated by the chimera's heavy flamer and my rapid-firing conscripts. Once the Warriors were gone on my flank, the remaining termagaunts were reduced to lurking in the woods.  The other player's Medusas were a concern, but again we destroyed one and knocked out the others weapon, before gaining another victory with 2-1 objectives.

We knew the final game, Capture and Control with Dawn of War, would be a tough one.  We drew a Blood Angels / Vanilla combo, with a couple of infiltrating Baal Predators and a Plasmagun wielding Contemptor Dread to worry about.  The night-fighting limited the shooting in the first turn, but the Blood Angels with meltaguns in a drop pod soon accounted for our Leman Russ tanks.  The librarian and his squad from the other player's drop pod did not last long in the face of some concentrated rapid fire.  Their objective was in a bastion guarded by some scouts, which did a good job of pinning my veterans, before the bastion was blown up.  Our troops guarding our objective in the woods were slowly being whittled down.  Tycho and his squad, who had claimed the tanks, then wiped out my conscripts in combat.  This finally allowed me to Send in the Next Wave and recycle the unit in the last few minutes of the game.  A little stupidly, I brought them on nearer Tycho, whereas I should have put them by our objective.  In our last turn, the surviving Vendetta swooped in to contest their objective.  In their last move, the last scout biker tried to get close enough to our objective to pull the same trick, but just came up too short with the terrain.  We had won every game!!

This meant that not only were we the best Newbury team, but Newbury also had the best average out of all the stores there.  Nick was a great partner, who more than made up for my lack of experience at tournaments.  However, I plan on going to more, now that I have a certificate from one!

Whilst at Warhammer World, I had a look at some of the Forge World shinies in the shop there.  I was tempted by the Hydra Flak tank, but they don't do the conversion kit anymore.  I knew there was an untouched Chimera kit at home, so was reluctant to pay the full £43 for a complete Hydra kit.  After some hesitation, I settled on some Space Marine bits I had been wanting for a while - Salamander termie shoulders and Space Wolves rhino doors.

I showed my wife the certificate when I got home.  Her response was "That can go in the shed."