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!