2013 - Not a Bad Hobby Year After All.

With very limited time available for the hobby, it seemed at first that 2013 was going to be the worst year in a long time as far as my personal wargames hobby is concerned. Funny enough, it turns out that this is yet more proof that fact and perception are often-times at complete odds with each other.

The fact is, I actually did more painting and hobbying in 2013 compared to 2012 and 2011. I did play less games, and attended less events, but the personal hobbying was not too shabby at all.

I guess the highlight would be the completion (finally!) of II Catachan Rgt's Air Mobile Detachment (a.k.a. AirCav), an army that actually started with much fervor with the first Valkyrie completed in 2009, but got completely derailed as I finished off several other projects in between. But largely thanks to the first Throwdown earlier in the year, the project was given a huge kick and restarted with gusto! And now, version 1 is done! I've got version 2 on the cards, but I'll wait for the new codex before doing more work on them (it might turn out I'd have to use the army as a counts-as Elysian list if some of the rumors are true - but we'll see).

 

So in 2013, I actually finished:
- 36 IG aircav infantry (almost all converted)
- 1 Col Straken
- 1 Uriah Jacobus preacher
- 1 Astropath
- 3 Vendetta
- 1 Valkyrie
- 1 Basilisk (happy with the simple conversion for this guy)
- 1 Crimson Hunter
- 6 Eldar Jet Bikes (in one (long) intense hobby session, I might add)

On top of that, I started (but obviously did not finish):
- 1 Eldar Warlock on jetbike (actually, this guy is almost done - maybe another hour or so)
- 1 Ilyic the super Pathfinder
- 1 Dark Reaper Exarch (converted from bits + OOP Eldar warrior)
- 1 Nephilim
- 1 Helbrute
- 1 Heldrake
- 6 Ravenwing Black Knights
- 5 Ravenwing Command Squad Black Knights
- 30 Deathwing Terminators (including command)
- 23 Dark Angels Space Marines (including command)
- 1 Officer of the Fleet

It's not too shabby, given the circumstances.

Now on to the lowlights. I guess the worst part of my hobby year was actually missing Legio's big move to its shiny new premises at Hobby Forge. That was a real bummer. The next one has to be the fact that this was the first year in a long time that I did not play in a tournament. And this was in a year with a bumper crop of tournaments! And I just realized that my proud 6th Brandenberg Imperial Guard never left the shelves all year! That is something that must be rectified this year!

Anyways, I'm not going to dwell in doldrums so early in the day. I am looking forward to 2014. The first project in mind is a quick revisit of Master Ahriman and the Thousand Sons. I'm looking to finish up my first ever Heldrake, the 1.5 models left to paint to complete the Favored Rubric Terminator squad, and the awesome Land Raider that's been WIP for 6 years (I think). After that, it's a bit more work with the Ravenwing - finish up the Black Knights and the Command Squad, and add 3 Land Speeders to the army.

We'll see how far that takes me. Here's hoping that I don't get TOO over-distracted (e.g. WW1 Brit-themed IG with steel helmets, fixed bayonets and tanks that look like Malcadors ... or a Thunderbolt (or two) ... or an expansion of the seedling of the Tzeentch daemons in my collection ... or a 28mm Napoleonic army ...)

Cheers to 2013! Cheers to 2014!
Happy New Year guys!
Keep them dice rolling ...

Heldrake!

After much procrastination, my Thousand Sons finally received much-needed air support - a Heldrake. It was orginally to be armed with the Hades autocannon (partly because all Heldrakes are Baledrakes and Ahriman thought he wanted to be different). But let's face it, the Baleflamer thing is just too good!!!!

This will be painted after the Thousand Sons termies are done. It will be a b***h to paint, but I'm looking forward to it.

Happy New Year!

Infantry for 1850 Air Cav RTD!

All infantry for the 1850pts version of my AirCav list are now ready to dip - in fact, the 23 models have been dipped this morning and are currently going through air-drying for the next couple of days. I'll be off on Christmas break, and when I come back they'll be matt varnished, based and brought into battle! Fully painted at last!

This version of the 1850pt list has a Basilisk in it, which I painted for the Legio Throwdown earlier this year. I built another 1850pt list which incorporates an infantry platoon, and without the Basilisk, to keep to the light infantry operating deep in enemy territory theme. This would need a few more infantry and heavy weapons teams to be painted.

But that will have to wait. The first project for 2014 would be back to my Thousand Sons - the last 1.5 termies from the squad of 9, the Heldrake and a Land Raider.

Merry Christmas, and keep rolling them dice!

AirCav final squad RTD!!

Yes! The last squad for my AirCav is now RTD (Ready To Dip)! Next, I need to finish the standard bearer (which is about 50% done), paint the preacher, the astropath and the officer of the fleet (in fact, for 1850, the officer of the fleet is not in the list). And then we do a nice big dipping session for the last 2 squads. Then matt them, finish up their bases, finish the 4 flyer bases I forgot to do, and it's finally done!

Then it's back to the Thousand Sons!

AirCav second last squad RTD

The second last squad for the AirCav is now RTD (ready to dip). This is exciting indeed, as the last squad is now around 20% done. After that will be the standard bearer (50%), preacher, astropath and officer of the fleet, though for 1850 games the fleet officer will stay in his ship aloft. Then I'll dip the lot, finish their bases and four flyer bases and the army will be done! Immediate additions after that will be the 3 crewmen from the Basilisk, and maybe some heavy weapons teams and platoon command for a different version of the army. But that's later. Right after this version of the AirCav is done, I'm going to finish up my Thousand Sons termies, a Land Raider, and then 12 Ravenwing Black Knights. 2014 will start with a bang!

Baptism of Fire for the Air Cav ...

,,, and it was a bloodbath! For the IG, that is.

A few days ago while painting the last few of the AirCav dudes, I realized two things - the army is more than 80% done, and I don't have many opportunities left to actually game in 2013. So it was decided that the WIP army will go into action last Hobby Night.

First battle was against Subhan's Necrons in a Big Guns Never Tire fight. And it was awesome indeed. I didn't know what to do with the 3 squads that I must deploy on-table (the list was designed in 5th ed, and was designed for the whole army to come in on turn 2, with nothing deployed at turn 1), so I bunched them up in a corner of the field near an objective. When the flyers did come in on Turn 2, one Vendetta squadron immediately came under fire from the Necron's interceptor quad flak weapon. The flight did not flinch, did not evade and the lead Vendetta lost one hull point to a glancing hit. First turn fire from the flyers was not bad, destroying one of his skimmer tanks, and immobilizing and almost destroying one of his walker things (in my excitement, I forgot to target the other skimmer tank thing). The Valkyries unleashed their rockets on the flak battery, killing 6 aliens.

Turn 3 onwards, everything kinda went down hill. Despite the Officer of the Fleet's presence, both Necron flyers came in, shaking destroying one Vendetta, as well as the Valkyrie escorting Straken's ride. In the meantime, I wasn't doing much damage to his army, as the Necrons in the center kept coming back, and the rest of the shooting was also not very well done.

The AirCav really suffered from its infantry being split-deployed, and I was never able to get the infantry together. One of my squads was in a Vendetta that suffered locked velocity, and had no choice but to grav-chute in (luckily they survived). As a result, the Necrons were able to pick off the infantry piece meal. The one saving grace was Straken's nasty squad, which killed 2 tanks in close combat. I conceded in Turn 5 as it was clear that I was running out of troops and not hurting the xenos much.

Vs Tau was much worse. Skyfire and Interceptor units were everywhere, and by the end of Turn 2, half the flyers were gone, and I had the same problem with getting the infantry together.

Some real good lessons were learnt. I will need to figure out how to make sure the infantry fight together and not be spread piece meal like in the first 2 fights. I have some ideas, and I'll be trying it out next time. I've also built an 1850 version of the list. This is simply adding the Basilisk which I painted for Throwdown earlier in the year, and taking out the Office of the Fleet (still got 5 extra points, will figure that out another time). This also means I'll need to paint the crew of the Basilisk - should be fun, with a Nam firebase feel to the artillery crew in mind.

The Hobby Night ended with my Eldar Windriders avenging the AirCav by beating the Tau in a brutal Relic fight, in which both sides suffered some pretty heavy losses.

Looking forward to finishing this army before the year is out!

The Windriders are Back!

After a long hiatus brought about by many many short intra-sector hops to nearby SG system, punctuated by a number of major familial events, the Windriders finally arrived at Legio's new digs at Hobby Forge. And what an awesome debut!

It was my first time there, and I must admit I was blown away. My expectations were high, as I knew what the Legio and HF crew are capable of based on the terrain and events already done in the past few years. And I have to say that it's simply the most mind-blowing thing!

Ten exquisite Legio Mk.II tables, complete with themed finishing and scatter terrain, finished with classy side pieces with Hobby Forge, the name of the table, and Legio Malaysia proudly emblazoned. Two smaller tables perfect for skirmishing, both done in the same high standard. Huge uplifting murals. Appropriately martial music. Display shelves with awesomely painted models in them. Stock. Lots of stock. Paint bar. Drinks fridge. Digital displays. High ceilings. Clean. Comfy. Awesome.

I had a game vs Ultramarines - my first against mon-keigh of the current codex. It was simply awesome. The Windriders managed to carry the day, and it was just the cream on top of an amazing experience. This is is simply da Hobby bomb!

Awesome.

Alaitoc Windriders to the Fore!

I finally got a pic up of my Alaitoc Windriders army last night. The Windriders are a much-chastised organization in Puritan Alaitoc, drawing their inspiration and lust for speed from such feral creeds like the Saim Hann. Indeed, instead of the mottle dark blue livery of the Alaitoc military, the Windriders sport stripes similar to the Saim Hann. And in keeping with their love of speed, the Windriders favour jetbikes and grav tanks over other forms weaponry.

At 1850 points, it’s largely made up of models I’ve had for years, supplanted by some new models I added in the past few weeks. I thought it would be interesting to list out the models that make up this army:

Farseer Lahnn – with jetbike and singing spear. This model was converted and painted in 2007. Chopped a jetbike in half and pinned it to the metal Farseer. Extended the Farseer’s cape and added gems and runes on the bike carapace with green stuff.

2 Warlocks – with jetbikes and singing spears. The first warlock was converted by chopping up a metal warlock and pinning it to plastic rider legs, adding the spear and wrapping legs and torso in tissue and glue, back in 2001. He actually played the role of Farseer on jetbike for some years before I finally made a proper Farseer model. The second warlock was converted very recently from plastic Guardian, Wood Elf and jetbike bits and is still WIP actually.

10 Dire Avengers – with Exarch. These are classic 2^nd ed metal models which I got in 2000 and finally painted in 2007. In fact, I must ashamedly admit that I still have to finish basing them, and fix 2 of the helmet combs which I painted in stripes. I added a plastic exarch’s shield to his arm and plastic flag on his back and made a cape out of green stuff. For a very short time in 2007 and 2008, he was my Autarch.

10 Guardian Defenders – with starcannon. These are very old metal Eldar, back when shuriken catapults came with a drum magazine, as well as musician and standard bearer. There are 2 plastic ones from 2^nd ed to make up the numbers. The starcannon platform is metal. All painted in 2000.

2 Wave Serpents – with twin-linked brightlances and holofields. These were converted and painted in 2000 using bits, plastic card and blueprints I downloaded from the Internet. I was supposed to refurbish them back in 2007 but never got around to it.

6 Jetbikes – with 2 shuriken cannons. The first 3 came with the very first 40k stuff I ever bought in 2000 – the 3^rd ed Eldar Battleforce. I added the rest between 2000 and 2007, the last one being the shuriken cannon bike with the large Alaitoc rune. The crew were all repainted in 2007. One of the shuriken cannons is the actual metal bit, the other one was converted from a plastic shuriken cannon.

6 jetbikes – with 2 shuriken cannons. These were done a few weeks ago in a single night of frenzied hobbying. Like the first squad, one of the shuriken cannons is plastic and the other is the actual metal bit – which was transplanted from one of my Vypers.

3 Vypers – with scatter lasers and shuriken cannons. I’ve had 4 Vypers since2000, the first came with the battleforce that got me into the hobby in the first place. For a long time the Vypers were armed with starcannon. In 2007, I reequipped the Vypers with scatter lasers and shuriken cannon, and updated the paint scheme for the crew and equipment.

Crimson Hunter – with Exarch. This was done a few weeks ago. Really like the model.

2 Fire Prisms – with holofield. Both Prisms were done in 2007.

Falcon – with pulse laser, scatter laser, shuriken cannon, holofield. This was the very first GW tank I ever painted back in 2000. It came with the battleforce. In 2007 I added the hull-mounted shuriken cannon and touched up the paint-work, removing any metal colors, updating the decals and repainting the crew. It’s still my favourite tank model.

The Windriders have been performing quite amazingly on the battlefield, having won all its battles until the Tau managed to beat them last night (the Windriders recovered and proceeded to beat the Tau in the next battle after that). What’s more important is that this army is loads of fun to play! The speed and ability to outmanouver just about any foe is truly addictive. Here’s looking forward to next hobby night!

BFG is Awesome!!!

After more than 3 years of routine patrols, anti-pirate actions, and a couple of small xenos cleansing operations, Battlefleet Farquhar fought its first large scale fleet action since the Arenxis campaign.

After some sweeping real and warp space manouvers, the battlefleet translated into real space abreast of Jeff's Nurgle fleet. His fleet had a tough roll for sub-plots, and translated right into a meteor shower, with a couple of ships severely damaged. My sub-plot was to rescue an Imperial spy hiding aboard the Horrific. And being a pretty standard gun-line IN fleet, I would need to board the enemy ship!

I must admit my deployment was quite bad, straddling the fleet with the various squadrons too far from each other. My weakness is in ordnance - I have only 1 carrier with 4 launch bays, whereas Jeff had 2 carriers with 6 or 7 launch bays. So I should have really clustered together to bring my gun superiority to bear. To make matters worse, in my first turn my first attempt to order Come to New Heading failed - and I really needed that to bring my carrier and light cruisers, which were on my far right flank, back to the rest of the fleet.

Anyways, I won't go into much detail here. Some highlights was my over-successful salvo to soften up the Horrific and prepare it for boarding. Essentially, the enemy ship was hit by both Nova cannons in my fleet, immediately crippling it. The next turn, Jeff successfully withdrew the Horrific from the battle!

Jeff's escorts were aggressively employed, delivering a torpedo alpha-strike on the Dominator squadron. Combined with assault boats and bombers, the Dominator-class cruiser Intrepid was crippled in a single round of fire. Return fire from my Sword frigates, combined with the cruisers snd the battleship Redoubtable itself destroyed all but one enemy escort from both the enemy escort squadrons.

The Redoubtable locked on to the enemy cruiser that was damaged pre-game and was fighting without a bridge, and reduce the ship to a hulk. But return fire and further swarms of assault boats soon took its toll, and eventually both my Dominators were burning, and all 3 Sword frigates were destroyed. It was time to bug out and save the rest of the fleet.

That was quite the brawl. I think I made 2 fundamental mistakes. First, my deployment was too spread out and it halved my fleet's effectiveness. Second, my biggest weakness was the enemy's superiority in launch bays, and it was the repeated assault boat and bomber strikes that eventualy won the day for him. I should have focused fire on the carriers and tried to even out the balance in ordnance.

At any rate that was a lot of fun. My fleet lost 2 Dominator crusiers, and 3 Sword frigates. Jeff's fleet lost 8 escorts, 1 cruiser and a crippled Horrific. Like I said, that was some brawl.

I had a 40k game after that - my Windriders vs Faizal's revamped Space Wolves. With 5 drop pods, and termie, Long Fang and wolf cavalry support, it was quite a formidable army. I managed to use the Windriders' speed to switch flank and stay out of range of the Long Fangs to be able to deal with the deep striking mon-keigh one at a time. It worked, and the Eldar won, though I lost 2 tanks, the Dire Avengers and 1 jetbike squad.

I'll be out of action for the next couple of weeks. But definitely looking forward to see how my Eldar will do against the new Space Marines!

The Flight of the Valkyrie!

With Valkyrie 07 ready last night, all flyer transports are now done for Straken's Air Mobile detachment. Only 2 squads, 2 advisors, 1 preist and half a standard bearer to go and the 1750pt army will be ready. But that will have to wait until the later part of the month when I get back home.

I've been working on possible expansions to 1850pts. The immediately available version is to drop a few heavy bolters from some of the Vendettas and put in the Basilisk which I painted for the 2000pt version of the army. But what would actually be fun is to include Sgt Harker, plus 2 missile launcher and 1 autocannon teams into the squads. That would work nicely.

Anyways, Valkyrie 07 was done pretty fast. I guess after doing 2 in quick succession, the 3rd one didn't require much guidance and referring back and forth to the earlier models. Plus, there are no extra FW bits to fuss about.

Ivan asked me in our forum about what technique I used to paint these guys. I don't know about technique, but these are the steps:

1. Citadel Black spray undercoat
2. Tamiya OD Green spray basecoat
3. Drybrush Citadel Camo Green (I kept stocks of the old ones)
4. Paint crew: uniform (Citadel Knarloc Green), helmets (Citadel Castellan Green), face (Citadel Tallarn Flesh), metal bits (Citadel Leadbelcher), belts & gloves (Citadel Snakebite Leather - precious), visor (Citadel Abaddon Black base, highlight w Citadel Regal Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Ice Blue, and white dots in the corners). highlight green parts with Camo Green, wash with Citadel Devlan Mud
5. Paint cockpit: joystick & controls (Citadel Leadbelcher), assorted lights (Citadel Blood Red, Bright Yellow), gunner's display (same as visor as above, but with cross-hair painted over the screen, as weel as suitably random dots and squiggly lines on the screen - both done with Ultramarine Blue, and White on top)
6. Paint nose Citadel Abaddon Black, light drybrush Citadel Mechanicum Grey
7. Paint the various lights in nose and a couple more to the left of the cockpit and on the wing roots. I use blue for most of them (same as visor above), except for the one sticking out on the top of the nose, done in red (Citadel Abaddon Black base, Bright Yellow diagonally on lower half, then Blood Red on top and blended out, finally the obligatory White dot in top left corner)
8. Paint metal parts. For mine - turbine fans, jet nozzles, piping on top of engine, bolts on undercarriage, gun barrels. All in Citadel Leadbelcher. For the heavy bolters, base Citadel Abaddon Black, edge highlight Citadel Mechanicum Grey.
9. Paint the yellow bits - base in Citadel White - a few thin layers. Then Citadel Yellow - a few thin layers.
10. Paint in the detail for the AirCav logo in the nose with Citadel Abaddon Black
11. Wash metal bits with Citadel Devlan mud. Some areas like jet nozzles more liberally than others
12. Weathering - stipple Citadel Leadbelcher all over the aircraft. I tend to overdo this. I'll have heavier weathering where paint scratches are more likely to happen - door edges, hinges, etc. Also weathering bolts and bolt holes seem to work well too
13. Apply decals. For my first ones, I prep the areas with Citadel Gloss Varnish first, then apply the decals. Then dry. Then apply Mr Mark Softerner. Later on I use Tamiya Mark Fit, which is pretty cool. The decals are from 2 sheets - the numbers are from the standard IG vehicle transfer sheet, the littel Aquilas are from the Baneblade transfer sheet.
14. Glue on weapons. Just realized that for the first two there were a few more steps - I actually painted the passenger compartment interior and the gun crew. Got smarter after that. lol
15. Couple of (light) coats of Tamiya Clear Matt spray
16. While waiting to dry, I paint the canopies. Most of it is sprayed Tamiya OD Green while on sprue. Then after assembling, I touch up with Citadel Castellan Green. Then edge highlight Citadel Camo Green. Then apply Citadel Leadbelcher weathering. Usually the middle of the left side of the canopy is weathered heavier, matching the fuselage weathering earlier - this is where the crew climbs into the cockpit.
17. Glue the canopy pieces onto the fuselage
18. Take pics and blog!

All Vendettas and Colonel Straken's Command Valk now ready for action!

And only Valkyrie 07 to go! Vendetta 06 was quite a breeze to paint, I guess it being the final Vendetta in the squadron and all. And the good news is, I actually found those AirCav shield logos that were missing when I painted Vendetta 05. So I painted 2 of those and retrofitted 1 onto Vendetta 05. All's well!

With less than 4 days to go before I fly off on vacation, and with all kinds of RL work stuff getting in the way in these precious few days, I don't think I'll be able to finish the AirCav before I go on vacation. But I'll definitely be able to finish the last transport (Valk 07)!

But it's not too bad. I can finish off the 2 and a half squads left to go quite fast, being a dip army and all. Then I'll just need to paint some extra models for a bigger 1850 version, but the 1750 is pretty much nearly done.

Come to think of it, I could have gotten it done if not for the accursed xenos distraction (1 Crimson Hunter, 6 jetbikes, 1 converted warlock on jetbike)! But such is the hobby ...

Vendetta 05 ready for action!

In the on-going saga of Straken's II Catachan Air Mobile Detachment (AirCav), finally finished this on Friday, pictured above with 3 other squadron-mates. This Vendetta and 2 others have been at 70% done for months. Today I'll tackle 06, and then hopefully also finish Valkyrie 07 before I go on vacation. I had to go back to hand-painting the AirCav shield on the nose because I really couldn't find the pre-cut shields that Jeff made for me. The hand-painted one turned slightly smaller than the others, but I'll leave it for now till I find those shields (and then glue it over the smaller one), or make the time to repaint it.

After the game on Friday night I also went back to add to my kit-bash Warlock on jetbike. I'm happy with it so far. Just thinking if I should sculpt the eyes, or leave it blank-faced, or just paint the eyes on. Anyways, hopefully I'll come back with the Vendetta 06 update real soon. Happy gaming!

Second Windrider squad ready for action!

It's been 13 years since I last painted an Eldar jetbike (not counting repainting the riders in 2007), and it was great to be able to finish this squad last night. In fact, I finished the whole squad from the box to finish in one seating. It's been awhile since I managed to find the time to do that.

I tried to keep to the original color scheme, but only managed a best match. The 6 original jetbikes in my collection, along with 4 Vypers, Falcon and 2 Wave Serpents, were all painted using the old OOP Citadel range (the ones with the cool flat white plastic caps, and used to last forever). Anyways, the colors match my Fire Prisms perfectly, so it's all good.

The finish on the bikes' carapace ended up to thick. I'm not used to the consistency of the new blue pot - definitely heavier pigmentation that the old Ultra Blue. So it kinda screwed it up for me. But after finishing the squad, I don't feel so bad.

In between allowing for coats and sprays to dry, I worked on kit-bashing a second Warlock on jetbike. The original plan was to emulate what I did with the first Warlock on jetbike that I already have (just realized that I did that conversion 12 years ago!), which was cutting up a metal Warlock, join the torso to a standard jetbike rider's legs, and GS the robes. But when I got the Warlock from Iqbal, it turned out that it was the only one that I've never had in my collection - I couldn't bring myself to cut the guy in two. So, he joins my now expanded Seer Council on foot.

I eventually kit-bashed the Warlock from the bits in my room. Legs and arms from the jetbike rider (right hand cut and repositioned for effect), torso and cloak from Wood Elf rider (arrows shaved out and patched w GS), head from Hemlock pilot. I'll be adding hair on his helm, and maybe more flowing cloak bits from the Wood Elf frame. Quite happy with how it's turning out so far.

Anyways, tonight it's back to AirCav!!!!

Finally got this baby painted for the table ...

... but I must say I could have done a much better job. Well, I suppose I needed to get it done after 4 weeks of sitting on the painting table.

It's a lovely model, and I should probably get another to do it real justice. My original plan was to adorn the aircraft with lots of green and amber gems. But I did get lazy. Especially after I lost the pilot's head - the thing rolled off my table and mysteriously disappeared (it's probably lying right next to my Forgeworld Imperial tank searchlight which disappeared under similar strange circumstances some 4 years ago). So now, a hapless random Guardian is walking around without his head, as some files, glue, bits and paint created a new exarch's helm for the pilot.

Anyways, it was painted up, some basic decals put on, spray varnished, dried, and went straight into battle vs some mon-keigh in blue armor. Happy to report that while I'm not entirely happy with the paint job, the aircraft did extremely well, with the exarch dancing in the skies and picking off mon-keigh at will.

Next up will be the final push to finish the AirCav.

Happy Daddy's Day ... and other hobby odds and ends ...

Had to put this drawing up which my daughter did for me for father's day. I thought it was pretty funny with the smiley faces and the neck tie liturgy scroll.

I've been struggling through hobby this past few months, stealing time here and there to get my fix of hobby goodness. Doesn't help that there's been so many cool stuff lately - Eldar, Langton 1/1200 ships, Napoleonic resurgence, Ravenwing, FoW, BFG ... jeez.

Finally had my first game with the new Eldar, using the latest reincarnation of a "purist" Alaitoc Ranger Force - all foot, no vehicles. Against Faizal's Space Wolves, it was quite a blast. The Alaitoc have become deadlier than ever. Crazy. Will need to try the other new Eldar toys in the next game.

Talking about toys, I'm about 30% done with my Nightshade fighter. Decided to do an Exarch's aircraft. It's been awhile since I painted Eldar, and clean lines and bright colors are such a pain after a long spell painting IG and Ravenwing. My AirCav is on a break - got 2 Vendettas and 1 Valkyrie at about 40%, plus 24 infantry all black and ready to paint. When I get back to these guys next month it's for the home run! Other stuff on the table include 6 new Eldar jetbikes and 6 Ravenwing command squad bikes.

Lastly, Kill Team is a blast! As the pic below (actual in-game) will tell you.

Throwdown Day - 55% done!

The final Throwdown came and went last Friday. There were some really nice models there, but only 1 army was complete. And that of course, was Iqbal's brilliantly bright Eldar! Kudos for that purity seal dude.

My own AirCav came in at 55% complete. And I'm really glad for the Throwdown to get my ass of the ground and get some movement going in this project. Now that the Throwdown is done, I'm going to focus on finishing the army to the original 1750 pts, and then to the expanded 2000 pts.

For 1750, these are the models that need to be finished:

2 Vendetta - status: OD base coat done
1 Valkyrie - status: OD base coat done
20 veteran infantry - status: black under coat done
1 standard bearer - status: base coats 80% done
2 advisors - status: black under coat done
1 priest - status: black under coat done

For the extended 2000 pts, I need to add the following:

6 Ogryns - status: unassembled
1 Chimera - status: MIB
1 Marbo - status: unassembled (kitbash - parts already set aside)

And last Friday also saw the return of Ahriman and his dust boys. After 2 months of playing an all-foot Eldar, I must say it was a huge change - especially in rediscovering how easy Rhinos pop to concentrated fire (when I was playing the all-foot Eldar, that was a great way to gain First Blood. Guess I'm giving those away now).  But Thousand Sons is huge fun! All that magic. So cool.

Of course, in the very first time they come back to Legio battlefields, they go up against armies that ignore their AP3 bolters - Deathwing, and Blood Angels Honor Guard. Typical. The fight vs Deathwing didn't turn out too well. While Belial's uber 10-man Deathwing Assault Squad was wiped out in a single round of shooting, he actually held on in the ensuing close combat till battle's end. And the squad that could have saved the day for the Sons outflanked on the wrong flank (my mistake to assign that squad to the sorcerer with the blindfold - of course he couldn't see where he was going! lol), and the Deathwing carried the day. The fight against the Blood Angels was bloody. At the end of the battle, only Dante, 1 of his bodyguard and 1 Stormraven was left, and only 2 Terminators and 5 Thousand Sons survived (Ahriman died in Turn 2 - rolled a 1 for LOS, and failed his save against a melta shot). But they held the objective and won the day. The Sons are back!

Um, Colonel sir, I'm afraid we have bad news ...

... AirCav Detachment, II Catachan will not be ready for deployment by tomorrow evening as scheduled, sir! Yes sir, I have assigned myself to special punishment detail, sir! What is that sir? Yes sir, I will add self-flogging into my list, sir! Yes, sir, I will use the torture implements as used by the Arco-Flagellants bunking in at base camp, sir!

Sir? Paint faster, sir? Sir, yes sir!!!!

Eldrad Lives!!! Again!!!

What an amazing night of gaming and hobby last Friday! On the downside I didn't manage to finish my Vendetta #05 in time for the last fortnightly Throwdown. It was a great Throwdown too. Khairul's Space Marine jetbikes were awesome, and rookie Lena's Dark Eldar was really cool.  Btw, bunches of kudos to Lena for being the only one to have made 8 for 8 Throwdowns! 100%! Puts us all so-called vets to shame.

Iqbal's lovely Harlequins won the night's Throwdown. Real detail work. And if you know his penchant for really original color combos, it works just fine for Harlies. Well done!

I did manage 2 games. One was a kill team game, which was rather one-sided. Mad Donna and her gang of Escher lovely thugs totally outnumbered and outgunned Khairul's Eldar aspects. Poor xenos. This game convinced me to finish painting my stormtroopers.

Anyways, my second game was a 1750 rematch vs Faizal's Tau, who slaughtered Eldrad's Defenders of Haran 2 weeks ago. The rematch was bloody from Turn 1, with the Kroots fried to a crisp by Wraithlord flamers. By turn 5, the Tau were down to their Riptides, a Hammerhead, a Tetra and the battle suit command squad. Eldar was down to only Eldrad and his Wraithlord buddy, both of whom managed to be in close combat, and thus pretty safe :) In the second last turn, Eldrad survived such a hail of shooting from the entire surviving Tau army. Insane! Fortune is good. With extremely heavy losses, Eldrad won the day, thanks in part to First Blood and the extra VP gained by killing the Ethereal.

And thus completes an amazing tour of duty of Eldrad's Defenders of Haran. Next time, Ahriman and his dust boys will be back in town. In the meantime, there's a s**tload of painting to do to get my AirCav done. And it shall be done!!!

Kill Team! Throwdown! New Tau! What an awesome Hobby Nite!

What an awesome Hobby Nite! So many things going on. I arrived early enough to witness our very own venerable Khairul completely demolish his opponent in a no-holds-barred epic game of ping-pong. Then it was reebs and good hobby talk. Then Faizal came with his new Tau models.

I must say the new Tau models are a vast improvement! What kept me away was the battlesuits - personally not to my taste. But the new Broadsides are really really nice models. And not to mention the ginormous Riptides - of which he brought 2. Since the Kill Team game was delayed (courtesy of a classic KL jam), we set about to having a good ol' 1750 40k game.

And he completely demolished Eldrad's Defenders of Haran! From the receiving end point of view, the Tau shooty just got shootier. But their Achilles Heel remains close combat. When out of desperation I unleashed my left flank (sounds big - 1 squad of Harlies, 1 squad of Warp Spiders) on him, 2 Kroot and 1 Fire Warrior squads were routed in a single charge, and a Riptide was held in combat. Should have done that from the start - and yes, Rangers WILL charge Tau. lol. Next time, you upstarts you.

Kill Team was an amazing experience. Note that these are home-brewed Kill Team rules and scenarios (and superb terrain!), not the GW rules that came out years ago. But it was totally awesome! You really get the feel of your individual warriors as they face down the enemy in a desperate fight to the death. Awesome terrain is absolutely essential as you get down to your models' point of view and eyeball the enemy trying to creep up to their objectives. Completely full of character! I'm so glad I named each individual team member of my Kill Team. It does bring across the feel of that amazing skirmish game - Necromunda. Only it's based on 6th ed 40k mechanics, and it's far simpler. Can't wait for the campaign.

And it was also Throwdown #7, which is the first night of 2 Wild Card entries. I still have loads of Catachan veterans to paint, so I entered my 3rd Squad. And amazingly, they came in 2nd! I was surprised - just finished that squad an hour before Hobby Nite. Thanks for the votes guys. But the highlight of the Throwdown was most definitely Jeff's really nicely painted Mk.II Land Raider. Very carefully done - quite inspiring for me to do my own one for the Thousand Sons.

Anyways, that was totally awesome. I love Hobby Nite!!!

Eldrad Lives!!!

Last Friday was another awesome night of mad hobby and dice chucking. I was a little late, but made it in time to display my Throwdown entry, and have a game vs the smelly minion of the Great Enemy - Papa Faizal Nurgle himself.

Unlike the last time that Eldrad's motley band of maiden world defenders met up with the Plague Marines, Nurgle was this time more careful to not split his army into bite-sized chunks.

And the result was dramatic! For minimal losses, the disciples of the Rotten One nearly wiped out my army - leaving only a Pathfinder and Eldrad alive. While technically the Eldar still won, it didn't feel like it ... lol

Faizal also won the Fast Attack Throwdown with his really nice looking bloated pus filled entry. I really like the detail in the exhaust, with bits of zombies falling out of the flyer's arse. As you can see above, Eldrad was bravely facing down the very same prize-winning flying monstrosity.

My own flyer was also at the Throwdown, and I believe it's the last Vendetta that I actually bothered to paint the insides of (got smarter after that).