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."