Test Battle - White Scars vs. Tau - 500pt battle

So I finished putting together the remaining parts of a 500pt Tau list today while taking care of laundry and watching football.  Now the White Scar bikers & Tau are not all the way completed, as I still want to make the weapons interchangeable for the Special Weapon bikers & the Tau Commander still.  As for the small points total, there is two reasons for 500pts & 4'x4' table.  Reason number one is that is the points total the friends from Arizona are playing at while building & painting their armies up for 40k, and their groups point value to get everyone back into 40k again with painted armies to play.  Reason number two is that I just really don't have enough room to setup a full 4'x6' table at the moment, so low points and 4'x4' work for me.

The Setup
Mission Rolled - The Relic (Gold token in center of board)
Deployment Rolled - Hammer & Anvil
(which really doesn't matter unless it would of been Vanguard on a 4'x4' table)
Roll off for First Turn - White Scars 6 vs. Tau 1
Deployment - White Scars go first

Terrain Setup

White Scars
Kor'sarro Khan - Moondrakken; Bike Squad 1 - Vet w/ Lightning Claw & Melta Bomb, Bikers w/ 2 Grav-guns; Bike Squad 2 - same as Bike Squad 1 setup.

Tau
Commander - XV8-02 Crisis 'Iridium' Battlesuit, Onager Gauntlet, Twin-Linked Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Warlord Trait - Through Boldness, Victory; Fire Warrior Team - Shas'ui, Bonding Knife Ritual; Kroot Carnivore Squad - Shaper w/ Pulse Rifle, Sniper Rounds, XV88 Broadside Team - Shas'vre, Twin-Linked High Yield Missile Pod, Twin-Linked Smart Missile System, Drone Controller, 2 Missile Drones.

Deployment

Deployment - After Infiltrate of Kroot

Deployment - After Scout moves

Seize the Initiative - Tau roll a 6 and Seize first turn
Roll for Night Fighting - Roll of 5, so Night Fighting on First Turn

First Turn - Tau

End of Tau First Turn

Commander moves, everyone else stays in place. 

• Kroot take the first shots on Khan & BS 1, using Sniper Rounds they score 4 hits, 2 wound with Rending, and two Bikers go down.  
• XV88 & Drones then shoot at Khan & BS1, High Yields score 2 hits with 1 wound, Smarts score 4 hits with 2 wounds, Drones score 1 hit with 1 wound.  So each biker could take a wound, and sure enough 2 failed saves.  So Khan & Vet Sergeant are left, Khan passes the Leadership test.
• Commander shoots at BS2, TL Plasma Rifle scores a hit but fails to wound, Missile Pod scores 2 hits with 2 wounds & saves are made.
• Fire Warriors shoot at BS2, score 3 hits with 2 wound & 1 save failed.

Commander makes a 9" Thrust Move away from BS2.

First Turn - White Scars

End of White Scars First Turn

Simple turn, All move up and then Turbo Boost into some cover from the Tau hopefully.

Second Turn - Tau

End of Tau Second Turn

Commander, Kroot, Fire Warriors all move, with Kroot getting a 6" run as well to advance into the middle Ruins & onto the Relic token.

• XV88 shoots at Khan & BS1 with TL Smart Missiles scoring 4 hits with 2 wounds & both are saved.
• Fire Warriors shoot at Khan & BS1 with 5 hits with 4 wounds, all are saved.
• Commander shoots at BS2 with TLPR scoring 2 hits with 1 wound with Jink save failed, Missile Pod scores 2 hits with 2 wounds & both saves failed.  BS2 pass their Leadership test to stay.

Commander makes an 8" Thrust Move away from BS2 again.

Second Turn - White Scars

White Scar Turn 2 - Shooting Results

White Scar Turn 2 - End of Assault Phase

Everyone moves towards the Fire Warrior Team, in hopes to wipe them off the table for "First Blood" Victory Points.  Khan & BS1 gets 4 hits with 3 wounds & 1 failed save on Fire Warriors, BS2 scores 2 hits with 2 wounds & 2 failed saves on Fire Warriors.  So onto the charge, decided to charge BS2 in first to soak up Overwatch for the round.  Fire Warriors score no hits with Overwatch, the Commander adds in with Supporting Fire and scores 1 hit with TLPR & 1 wound with the Jink cover save being failed.  BS2 is dead giving the Tau "First Blood".  Then Khan & BS1 charge in, XV88 & Drones help with their Supporting Fire, scoring 3 hits with TLSM & 2 wounds, with 1 failed save taking out the Vet Sergeant from BS1, so now BS1 is gone as well.

• Khan gets 2 Hammer of Wrath hits, 1 wounds, & 1 failed save.
• Khan then strikes with 2 hits, 2 wounds, killing 2 Fire Warriors
• Fire Warriors get 1 hit & fail to wound.
• Khan wins with 3 wounds to Fire Warriors zero, but Fire Warriors stay with a 5 on the dice needing 5 or less to pass.

Third Turn - Tau

End of Tau Third Turn

XV88 & Drones move up on top of container.

• Khan vs. Fire Warriors, Khan scores 4 hits with 2 wounds, killing 2 more Fire Warrior.
• Fire Warriors get 1 hit with no wound.
• Khan wins 2 to 0, Fire Warriors fail Leadership test and fall back off the board.  Khan consolidates 2" towards the Commander.

Third Turn - White Scars

End of White Scar Third Turn

Khan moves towards Commander, shoots with TLBG scoring 2 hits with 2 wounds & 1 failed save.  Commanders Overwatch misses, XV88 scores 3 hits with 3 wounds & 2 failed saves.  Khan gets 2 HoW hits with 2 wounds & 1 failed save, Khan then gets 2 hits with 1 wound & save is made, Commander uses Onager Gauntlet scoring 1 hit with 1 wound & which is saved.  Khan wins 1 to 0, Commander passes Leadership test.

Forth Turn - Tau

End of Tau Forth Turn

Kroot move 3" into a shooting position if the Commander fails to kill off Khan, and still hold the Relic.  Commander vs. Khan, Khan scores 1 hit with no wound, Commander misses with the Onager Gauntlet.  Khan passes Hit & Run and goes 8" from the Commander, Commander consolidates 3" away from Khan.

Forth Turn - White Scars

Start of White Scars Forth Turn

End of White Scars Forth Turn Assault

Khan moves towards the Commander, Khan hits with TLBG but no wounds, Khan then charges the Commander.  Overwatch shots fail, Khan has 2 HoW but fail to wound, Khan then scores 2 hits with 1 wound with a roll of 6 to Wound (Instant Death if not saved), Commander makes the save, Commander Onager Gauntlet scores 1 hit with 1 wound & Khan misses his Invul Save.  Khan is dead; Tau win the battle scoring "First Blood", "Slay the Warlord", & "The Relic"  so Tau 5 VP to White Scars 0 VP.  Kind of like my last match with Dark Angels vs. Tau, bad moves and bad luck vs. Tau got them killed off again.  Next time I might try and go with Outflank for the White Scars bikers, might give them a better chance at living longer.  We'll see the next time, might get another game in over this week after work spread over a few nites.

Board at end of Turn 4 - Tau Win

Plastic Battle Sister test run

Used the torso, legs, arms, & head from a female Dark Eldar Warrior; then bolter & backpack from Tactical Marines.  Cleaned up the Dark Eldar Warrior parts, mainly removed any pointy or blade looking areas on them.  Then took the top knot off the female head and smoothed off the ear areas on the head, I had planned to add Green Stuff hair to match the Sisters heads.  But the Dreadball Wildcard MVP figures head matches fairly well, so I might have to look into getting some of those.  But the scale of it compared to the Marine looks really good I think.  I added the random ammo pouches to the back to help on the backpack to torso fit issues, still needs something else done to it to work.

Which I think a Green Stuff cloak to bridge the torso & backpack, and supply some leg / back torso cover up as well.  Then was thinking of making Green Stuff sleeves to help with the arms to torso, and could help on the bolter / weapon fit in the front as well.  And make a skirt for the front to match with their pictures of the minis & the fluff pictures for them.

Then maybe make some molds of the cloaks, sleeves, & skirts to convert a squad of Dark Eldar female warrior parts into a Battle Sisters squad or their other units.  Need to go to the Hobby Lobby here and get some sculpting supplies & start working on these.  As I would like to make a small army of plastic Sisters, or enough for some kind of allied detachment for one of my other armies.  Maybe White Scars & Sisters of Battle combo, the Motorcycle Club & their Old Ladies.

Also was looking at the DE Scourge figures I've got in primer as well at the moment, and think their legs will work fairly well for Sisters Seraphim.  And I think the left over Chaos Biker Backpacks will work for the Seraphim minus the little arrow & skull on the back.  But more to come on those later on, as I have to grab the parts from the pile of DE boxes I have.  And I have some Milliput Superfine White and a set of sculpting tools from the Hobby Lobby last nite, they are ok tools but not as good as the set I got from Adepticon classes a few years back & a nice set made by a Freeboota from the first Geek Nation UK trip back a few years ago as well.

 

 

Salamanders Crusader Titan WIP

First off, like to thank Mark at Dreamforge Games for putting together this awesome Crusader Leviathan kit & all the other kits from the Kickstarter Project.  I so far put together this one and another one that is going to be Blue & White for the other army I have.  Which leaves two more Crusaders from the Kickstarter deal, which I might do a Chaos conversion on one of them if I can find somewhere that has the new Khorne Lord of Skulls model built for a size comparison.  As I think the top half of the Lord would maybe fit on the Legs & Spine of a Crusader, but that will be a different post later on.

But here is the Salamanders paint scheme Crusader so far, need to do some touch ups and work on weathering & wear on it.  Then decals & symbols on the big guy, but the base is done on this one.  Which on the base I went with what I'm calling an Armageddon theme, with some Ork pieces and just a simple gray three color drybrush over the texture. 

One thing to note on the pictures, yes the Crusader did have a lean to it.  What happen was that I glued the spine joints in the pose that I liked at the time, then during painting the bottom spine joint broke on me.  So it took some creative fixing, but I believe it will for sure hold together now (no pictures of it after the fix yet) but the lean is gone.  What I did was take a hobby saw and cut the pistons on the torso where the two tubes come together, this was very much a pain it the butt to cut without cutting the area around the pistons.  Which on the pistons I didn't glue them together until after I painted them, and then right after that is when the spine broke on me (lessons learned).  But with the two halves separated I cleaned up the joints & drilled holes for some finish nail pins in the spine & the two pistons.  Then glued the joints together with the pins installed and used some rubber bands to keep all the joints together while it dried.

Note to other miniatures companies, make your weapon arms to disconnect.  Dreamforge Leviathan weapon arms are awesome, just twist and swap or disconnect for storage or painting.  Again, these are really nice kits & I can't wait to get the other weapon arms and bits from the Kickstarter pledge.

Eldar Wraithknight WIP

Here is what I've got so far on my Eldar Wraithknight for my Saim-Hann army, still need to knock out some details on it and clean up some of the painting.  The base is finished at the moment, just went fairly simple on it and used some left over bits from other armies I've worked on.

I was going to magnetize the arms so that I could switch out the whole arm to use the shield & sword on this one.  But I didn't plan far enough ahead on the build, and I now know an easier way to get them magnetized and not have them move all around too.  I went for magnets in the end of the torso ball sockets the arms go onto, and then magnets in the socket on the arm pieces.  But the magnets were just strong enough to hold the arms on good, the arms with the weight of the guns would twist down.  I could of figured out a pin from the torso to the arm, but I was tired of messing with it at that point.  My fix for this in the future is to take the ball socket and put the magnet in the end that goes into the torso, as the ball socket pieces have two tabs that lock into the torso and will keep it from moving like the others were.  Which doing this you will also need to glue them to the arms, so for the other two arms I'll need to cast two more ball socket pieces or build something similar to it.

I still plan on making the secondary weapons so that they can be pinned in place on the shoulders.

Eldar Farseer WIP

It's been a little while since I last posted anything to my blog, which I've not really work on anything in the first half of the year.  And really only got back into working on some miniatures around May/June this year, and still I've not really been working on a lot of things so far.  But I did buy the latest Eldar Farseer plastic model, and have done the primary paint work on it so far.  I'm going with the Saim-Hann army for colors, as I like the Red/Black/White scheme & think they will be a good counter color scheme to my Black/Red Dark Eldar once I get back to them hopefully soon as well.  But I still need to work on the metal parts and add some details to the Farseer, and work on the base as well.  Don't think it's really turned out to bad, the white was a bit of a pain to get right.  Which I primed the model in Flat White Krylon Fusion spray paint (all I had left & stores were out of gray & black), then I used some Model Air Black over top of that.  Not the best choices, but it's been awhile for me and painting.  Which I've found out that I'm really shaky now with the paintbrush & airbrush, which really sucks for trying to paint miniatures.

Two games of Dreadball down, and more learning to do.

While on vacation in Arizona seeing the friends I got in two games of Dreadball, one with Jon & one against his son Jake.  The first game against Jon was a learning process for both of us, but I think Jon was more prepared for it then I was.  We only used basic rules and didn't include the Ref or Fouling (at least we thought) in the game.  Jon used the Human team & I used the Forge Father team, both fresh out of the box and just put together for the game.  Didn't have time to paint them or really clean all the models up first, and so we really didn't keep track of and players by number or any stats on the guys.

It was a fairly hard hitting game with the Space Dwarves (basically that is what the Forge Fathers are from my view point), but the Humans were still able to get the ball moving around for scores.  Jon when up with 2 point strike, then I scored a 1 point strike, then Jon answered with a 4 point strike, and I answered back with a 4 point strike of my own, then Jon came back right before the last few turns and scored another 4 point strike.  Which left the game at 5 points for Jon, and it was a very good game just getting use to the way things go.

Then a day or two later I had a game with Jake (his first game of Dreadball), Jake to the Forge Fathers (his team of choice from the starter box) & I used the Orx & Goblin Team.  This was still a learning game for use, and again we decided to leave out the Ref & Fouling (at least we thought) for the game.  This time the game was not a high scoring game as the one me and Jon had, as we both had throws on the 4 point Strike hex that missed.  And the game came down to me trying to get an Orx Guard sprinting down the field and making a Slam on an Dwarf Jack right next to my 4/3 point Strike zone.  I got the knockdown on the Jack and scattered the ball in a direction I didn't want, and putting the ball a few hexes out of where I needed it to pickup with a Goblin Jake and make a 3 point Strike to win the game by 1 point. 

After reading over the rules a little bit more the nite & the next day after the match I realized that I'd missed some rules that would have lead to me getting the ball and maybe being able to get into the 3 point Strike zone and scoring the game winner.  That rule would have been some Dashes, which depending on dice rolls would of had the potential to move the Jack into the Strike zone and use another Action token to get Strike throw.  Also on the Fouls section; even though we said no fouls for the games, after reading the Fouls section I believe we preformed a few without really knowing it.  Which those were Sucker Punches, where you preform a Slam action with the player being hit with their backs to the person making the Slam. Which is a Foul and would have need to have an Eye in the Sky check and possibly a Ref check depending on where the Ref bot would have been on the board. 

Even with these oversights on the rules we had fun and will for sure be playing more Dreadball (with painted miniatures), and will be playing with all the rules in play.  I'd really like to see Dreadball played within a league setting, I would really like to see how the team progression goes.  So overall we were really happy on the way the game plays, there were a few issues we found with the size of the game board.  As with the miniatures and how close they get when beside each other in the hexes it can be a little bit of a pain to keep from knocking over miniatures trying to work out the plays.  But with that said it would not be that hard to fix on your personal games, as we are thinking that maybe bumping up the hex size from their standard 25mm to a 35mm or 40mm would be better.  And if you happen to be thinking of making you own personal Dreadball field you can expand the hex size to work for what you want, you just have to make your own bases for the miniatures to fit with the size you have decided on.  This is possible due to the everything within Dreadball being based on how many hexes away you are, so hex size really doesn't matter.  Unlike BloodBowl which has a throwing ruler that you would have to rework to match your new board size, and I know there is some sites that have the squares figured out for throwing ranges in BloodBowl (but it's still a pain, and not everyone will approve of the changes made).

But hopefully soon enough I'll have some miniatures painted and ready to go, and talk some local friends into trying out Dreadball as well.  And I'll get working on my custom Dreadball board as well, just have to find some laser cutters & CNC routers to make my ideas come to life.

The start of the modular game table frame

Here is some pics of the first piece of my modular game table frame, I still have some work to go on this but the basic shape will hold true for these pieces.  But what I was looking for was a fairly lightweight frame to hold my GW Realm of Battle Board or the foam terrain panels that I've made.  The ability to break it down into the 2'x2' sections, and make it so that you can configure the setup to what ever size you want.  Like being able to go from a 4'x4' board to a 4'x8' board, or have a 4'x4' board with 1'x4' side boards, or a 4'x6' board with the 1'x4' side boards.  Now on the side boards what I mean for them is just a simple piece of hardboard cut down to 1'x4' to act as a tray for holding out of play miniatures, place to put your rulebooks, place to roll dice and not have to worry about hitting miniatures with the dice.

At some point I'm looking to take the supports & fold up legs from a 2'x4' or bigger table and put the base supports I'm planning on cutting out here at some point.  Which these 2'x2' modules will fit down into and the supports will also help hold the modules together.  I've got a few ideas on ways to lock the modules together, and already have some woodworking items to hold modules in line when the faces are put together.  But those are further down the road in next year more then likely, since I'm running out of time this year.

Anyways here is the pictures and the final pic of the trial run at the FoW Winter Modular Game Board.

Dreadball is here

As the title says, Dreadball has arrived at my house from the Kickstarter pledge I did back in September.  And I've unboxed one of the three Dreadball boxes I've received, this is the first of two or three shipments from Mantic Games that I'll be getting for my pledge.  And overall I think Mantic Games knocked it out of the park with their packaging & quality of art / materials included in the box.  As far as the game goes, I've not had a chance to really read over the rules yet; since life has been chaos over the past few months.  But hopefully I'll have games in during New Years with the friends, and I'll put up a post about that once we get to play.

Now onto the insides of the box...

First item in the box is a signed print of the box and rulebook picture signed by Ronnie from Mantic Games.

Then we have the game board for Dreadball.

Then the Dreadball Event ticket (for Adepticon) & Mantic Games promo items.

Dreadball rulebook

Dreadball tokens, dice, clear bases, number decals, cards, team sheets, miniatures.  With the Kickstarter pledge I received the regular paper tokens that come with the base game, but I also received their acrylic token set as well.

Dreadball teams Midgard Delvers & Skittersneak Stealers

Dreadball teams Trontek 29ers & Greenmoon Smackers, and the MPVs & extras

Size comparison with one of my test models for the Astral Claws Heavy Bolter guys.


And some close up details for the different teams, these are just quick put together and not yet cleaned or ready for paint.  That will come later here in a few weeks maybe.

Now that I have a game board in hand and can take measurements from it, one of the future projects is a back lite game board that will look awesome with the theme of this game.  Really wish I had a CNC Router table at the moment, but hopefully one of the local friends will get one at some point this coming year.  Maybe I'll go see about buying a laser cutter / engraver this year.

Work on a FoW board for friend in AZ.

I have started to make a Winter theme FoW board for friend in Arizona for use hopefully in a tournament in Arizona in January.  And then it's his to keep after the tournament, and I might make another one or two for use as prizes for that tournament as well.  Now which one he wants to keep is up to him, as I'm learning as I go with these and already have new ideas on how to make these.

Anyways, I started these as a three part board with 2'x4' sections.  But due to future shipping concerns, and being able to easily fit these in my Mustang to transport them to work on it during the week; I had to cut them into 2'x2' sections.  First I did a ruff sketch on my new iPad using an app called Bamboo Paper (free & a paid version), included here is the screen print from the iPad of that sketch.

So I started with 1/2" Owens Corning Foamular Insulating Sheathing (from Home Depot) as the base level of the board.  This is the town section of the picture and everything leading up to the first level, and what the first level is glued to for the other board sections.  Then taking into consideration the size of FoW mini's I went with 3/4" Foamular for the other levels.  With only a few FoW tanks built at the moment, and no troops built yet I really didn't have too much to go off of at the moment.  I've used 1" Foamular as terrain for my 40K boards before, and I figured 1" was going to be to much for FoW board I wanted to make.  I'll hopefully get some good FoW models to use for a size comparison, and Jon's opinion of the board here in a few weeks when he is in Ohio for work.

I started by cutting the 1/2" board into 2'x4' sections, and peeled the plastic film off the front and back of the pieces.  As I believe you will get a better bond on the glue if you go foam to foam instead of to the plastic that could peel apart down the road.  Then I cut down the 3/4" board into 2'x4' sections, using a 54" drywall square that I have and a good utility knife.  The blade doesn't always score all the way through the board, but you can easily snap the cut lines to complete the cut.  And as a bonus you can cut the pieces and snap the boards into the sections, and then peel the film off a lot easier.

Then using a cut off piece of the 3/4", I made the first level to the right of the town in the picture above.  Then added the 2'x4' 3/4" piece for the second section above the town and, and started laying out the topo of the first level on those two pieces with a marker.  Then going about an inch or two outside the lines I cut the boards down with a utility knife, that way there is not a lot of waste to handle while using the hotwire cutter.  Then I start in with the hotwire cutter cutting to the layout line to give the basic outline of the first level.  Then I come back with the hotwire cutter and on a bevel start cutting a slope to the edge of the level, and in some sections I left the vertical face to give a look of a stone outcrop.  On the Gorge section of the level I sloped the hotwire cutter a little more to give more definition to the area, I still need to go back with one of the bigger foam cutters that I have to make the gorge even better (that is for this week).  Then repeat the same process for the second & third level from the sketch above.

At this stage I start gluing the sections together making sure to line up each sections as I go, gluing one board section at a time & one level at a time before the next.  On the glue subject, I've found some glue that I thought would work fairly well last week.  It's the newer Gorilla Glue that dries white and 2x faster, I'm not really impressed with it for gluing the foam sections together.  I tried it on a piece of 1/2" & 3/4" foam to form a section last week before I started this.  I was able to easily peel the pieces apart without to much trouble, not sure if it didn't have enough moisture to cure or what.  But the glue didn't expand every much if at all once I had it apart to look at it today, so that was a week for it to set up and it was still not bonded very well.  So I switched to regular Gorilla Glue and used a little more water on the pieces, they are super bonded together now.  With some foam out around the edges of the level sections to let you know that they bonded really good.

And as you can see in the below pics I've got the sections all glued up, but I was missing the 1/2" 2'x4' foam for the third section at the time of these pics.  I've since added it (after I took the previous glued up piece apart), and now I'm just waiting to use my larger foam cutter to melt the gorge into the pieces tomorrow after work.  Also another thing to add on cleaning up the aftermath of the hotwire cutter, get a semi stiff plastic bristle cleaning brush and use it to go over your cuts.  This will clean off the hairs & slag left from the cutter, and will smooth out some of the cut too.   I've also cut down the first & second section pieces in the pics below to the 2'x2' sections, and left the third as a 2'x4' for glue up to the 1/2" foam here tonite.  The 2'x2' sections made it way more easy to fit into the back of the Mustang, the 2'x4' was a massive pain in the butt and made noise all the way down the road due to the way I had to position it in the car to fit along with all my other stuff for the week.

Next up will be to finish the molding of the gorge and clean up of glue expansion.  Then start painting with the stone texture paint I've found that doesn't destroy the foam, even though you can get some good effects with normal rattle can paint and the way it breaks down the foam a little bit.  I'll go over that a little later with a few more trial pieces to see what happens, but so far the effect on the Foamular with that paint is not as extreme as with regular Styrofoam.