Last month threw up a bit of a surprise for me with the Tale of Gamers painting challenge. I was aiming to enter my new bubble-chukka on a scenic oval base (from a flyer). However, the base was stuck in the shop and took a bit longer than expected to finish, so I was behind on painting the artillery piece come judging day. As a result I decided to put in my Warboss from month one instead, which won by one vote!
For the final instalment of the competition I decided I needed a bit more anti-tank beyond the 2 Meks with killsaws I added last month. I am now nearly finished with 10 Tankbustas to do this job. Boss Zagstruk makes up my last 65 points. He gives me another character in my Stormboyz, and has the potential to remove a character with his hammer of wrath attacks.
The final challenge was to either enter Armies on Parade with the army, or enter it for a separate best painted army competition this weekend. As I didn't have time to paint any more scenery, I have opted for the latter. Having seen many of the entries from a number of stores this year, which seemed to be simply an army plonked on a realm of battle board, I might as well have done the same. The lack of a national competition at Games Day this year seems to have discouraged many people from putting in much effort on terrain pieces.
I played a game with the full 1500 point army yesterday against Taff's Salamanders / Grey Knight alliance. This was another fun but very close affair, with the relic changing hands a couple of times, as neither of us could get away with it, although I lost it at the end of the game. The deciding factor was his seemingly immortal biker captain, which spent most of the game on his last wound, but just would not die. At one point I allocated all my attacks from 13 boyz against him, but rolled just one 6 to wound, which of course he saved! My tankbustas had a good game though, by killing the Dreadknight sat on the relic with their meltabombs. That also got me first blood, which ended up being my only VP.
After the competition has finished I have a few more Nobz and Gretchin from Stormclaw to make, as well as 6 Killakans. At some point I shall probably get another unit of Stormboyz, so I can field the formation from the Ghaz supplement with Zagstrukk. 1500 points is as many as I normally play anyway, but out would be good to get to 1850 or 2000, if only to give me more choice of units, instead of every greenskin I have.