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!