Club Night 3rd August

Mike arranged a big game of Space Hulk. I liked the idea of this, but was concerned how well it would work. We used the latest rules and tiles, but based the scenario on one from an older edition that linked a number of missions together into one massive board. In fact so massive that we had to have 'scrolling' terrain even with two copies of the box set. We have three players on each side, the Marine players having a squad each and with plenty of blips for the 'Stealers, including the options to have two brood lords!

Things started out well on my side as I combined with one of Mikes teams to advance on what appeared to be lightly held passages. However on thew other side all the enemy seemed to be attacking Steve H's Shadow Marines, and although his two assault cannons were holding them at bay, it was chewing through his ammunition. And then the inevitable happened and he ran out and then his men started to fall and had to fight to the front and rear as they tried to advance.

Then came the that moment of heroism that games like this need. The sole survivor of Steve's two squads got caught at a corner and was attacked by hordes from both directions, but kept holding them off, turning an cutting them down. Once finished he then hurried to catch up with the others.

Back on my side I was burning through Psi-Points trying to keep up a force barrier to prevent the Brood lord advancing on me as my firing was totally ineffective. I finally ran out and he advanced on me and I cut him down with surprising ease!

By now it was getting very late and the marines, although having taken casualties had advanced far enough to cut off the 'Stealer re-enforcements and they admitted defeat, not having enough blips left to counter the remaining terminator marines.

This was a great fun game and I was really pleased how well the big game worked.

Above: The marine starting posotions, below: Marines advance

Above: Blips await the Marines, Below: Steve's Shadow Marine survivor catches up with the others

Club Night 20th July

I met up with Matt and Mike to try out the new 40k 6th edition. Like many gamers I get frustrated by the constant changes, but I understand the need for it as a business. They key thing however is that the rules must be a genuine improvement, and not change for changes sake. From what I had read they had taken a few elements from fantasy battle, which should be good, and tweaked the vehicles rules so hopefully we will get more bodies on the ground again.

I took a force of Eldar, with some allied Tau, to try out the allies rule and to get some more varied troops to experiment with. However my first problem was that I was facing Necrons and Orks. Now in all fairness they had told me that and I remembered as soon as they said, but I had forgotten when I picked the army and was expecting Grey Knights and some kind of Imperial allies. Never mind. Lets see how the rules work and how my mismatched army fairs.

I deployed the Tau on the flanks, fire warriors on one and sniper drones on the other, while the Falcon, dire avengers and war walkers held the centre. I then planned to advance on the flanks with Jet bikes and warp spiders on one and Jain Zar and her banshees on the other. Against this I had a mass of large war machines on one flank with some ork boyz, a mass of Necron warriors in the centre and more Orks on the other flank.

On my left flank my fire warriors deployed but were quickly overrun by the Ork mob, while the fire from their support saw off the Warp Spiders and forced the Jet bikes back and eventually destroyed them.

On the other flank the sniper drones pinned down the Orks enabling the banshees to charge them and avoid their snap fire and wipe them out.

In the centre I poured fire into the advancing hordes but seemed to be having very little affect. When the mega-armoured Nobz smashed through in their truck I knew I was in trouble as they smashed through my centre, which was also be attacked from the flank where the Tau had been overrun. However not everything went their way, although the Scarabs had taken weakened the Falcon allowing it to be taken down, they were destroyed by the Banshees sweeping in from their victorious flank. They were then all mowed down by the Necrontyr, except for Jain who single-handedly attacked, broke and wiped them out.This however was the end of the game and I had been soundly beaten, A combination of spreading too thin, some poor dice rolling and really the wrong tools for the job. Having said that, the Banshees were my best unit by far and would probably have been the last unit I would have picked if I had remembered who my opponents were!

The rules seemed good. I think I need to get my own set, although hopefully for less than the £45RRP and have a good read of them and then play some more games.

Club Night 17th February

I played new club member Dan (yes, another new club member, we have gained three new members since the start of the year, which is great) in a game of 40K. Dan is still learning and getting going and had played some smaller games against Mike last week, so we decided to play a 1,500 point game, with him using my Tau and me my Blood Angels.

The Tau army I provided was fairly balanced, a commander and his bodyguards and another unit of crisis suits, backed up by two fire warrior squads and some pathfinders in devilfish, a sky ray and two units of sniper drones for some serious anti-marine fire-power. Against this I used the same list as I sued for the club league as it was fairly balanced, and other than a couple of landspeeders is all jump pack equipped which makes for a terrifyingly fast attack force.

We set up the terrain with a big ruined fort in the middle at an angle with small hills, a crashed ship and some palm trees scattered around the outside. This reduced lines of fire, but not too drastically and also should restrict where I could deep strike, so should be an even set up. The mission was take and hold with objectives in opposite towers if the fort, one in the supply dump in the middle and one on the crashed ship. With diagonal deployment, Dan choose to gab the zone with two objectives in it and one near it, leaving me with the opposite one, with an objective just outside and having to hunt down the rest.

Dan deployed a unit of fire warriors on each flank supported by a unit of sniper drones, with the pathfinders in the middle and the sky ray set back for fire support. The battle suits loitered more centrally, but could easily move to support wither flank or attack in the centre. In my zone I set up just two full strength assault squads with sanguinary priests and a supporting landspeeder, each group hugging cover to avoid being shot up by the Tau. But then Dan had his first bit of bad luck, I seized the initiative and was able to start advancing before he had been able to deploy into a firing line. Each of my groups moved out to the opposite flanks, continuing to hug the cover. Dan then started to deploy the Tau warriors and moved the battle suits forward centrally.

This fortunately played into my hands as it meant that I was able to engage the Battle suits in melee and avoid getting shot at. A quad attached each unit, the Tau commander falling relatively easily over a couple of turns, but the other quad proved much more troublesome. As my reserves began to arrive I started to overwhelm the Tau warriors on close combat, taking relatively light casualties and demonstrating the ferocity that the Blood Angels are renowned for.

With Assault squad rolling up each flank and the Death Company and veterans chewing through the centre, Dan conceded the battle. This was a fun game, although quite a steep learning curve for Dan. I gave him as much advice as was sensible, and he really only made one small mistake in putting the battle suits where I could charge them. The only other thing that really cost him was my seizing the initiative, which is the first time I have ever managed to do this. I look forward to my next game with my Blood Angels who I really enjoy using. There is even a rumour that Ken has been painting figures for his Grey Knights...!*

*Ken is known at the club for owning masses of figures for his Grey Knights, but only having a small army painter, which I did for him about 8 years ago!

Club Night 14th October

I played my second 40k league game against John-Paul and his Dark Hunter marines. It was an objective based mission with dawn of war deployment. The Dark Hunters had a mixed force, 3 scout squads (1 with sniper rifles), and a long range dreadnought (twin-linked lascannons and missile launchers), then 3 tactical squads and a standard assault cannon armed dreadnought all in drop pods and a squad of terminators. The force was finished off with a pair of land-speeders, a pair of whirlwinds and a chaplain to lead them.

The sniper scouts started on table and John-Paul took the first turn landing two tactical squads right over deep in to my table edge with the land speeders sweeping forward to support them. I bought my assault squads on, one attacking the marines in the centre and one beginning to flank the enemy.

A viscous close combat developed in the centre with my assault squad eventually re-enforced by some death company against tactical squads and some terminators. I was eventually defeated but had inflicted heavy casualties on my opponent.

On my right flank I found my flanking squad caught up with the drop-pod landed terminator in a prolonged combat as I failed to defeat it. However the death company with the Chaplain who had dropped in to support them were attacked by a scout squad they quickly dispatched and they moved off to support the attack on the enemies rear.

I dropped the veterans into the enemy centre and saw off my opponent and hurried to try and attack the snipers, but had to go to support the the final assault squad. This combat finally swung against me and the game ended with the objective on my table edge not held by anyone, the objective on the left also not held by anyone as I was still unable to defeat the dreadnought and move to take it, while the objective on the Dark Hunters table side was held by the scouts and my surviving marines in the combat on the far side were too far to contest it so I suffered a defeat after a close, enjoyable game.

Blood Angels XI - Almost finished

I have the final touches to my last units of Blood Angels. That is the whole company now completed, just need some flat coat to finish them. I will then take and post some pictures of the finished units.

Above: Tactical Squads, Death Company and Honour Guard,
Below: Assault Squads, Dreadnoughts, Land Speeder and Terminators

Above: Command, Veterans, Below: The entire company

Painting Blood Angels Step by Step

I have decide to try and photo the painting of my Sanguinary priests step by step so you can see how I work if your interested.
1. Prime miniatures with Citadel spray gun and Mechanite Red GW foundation paint2. Highlight armour with GW Blood Red applied with airbrush. I spray from level and above only so there begins to get some shading appear.

3. I then washed the armour with GW Baal Red wash to enrich the red and provide some guidance for subsequent painting.
4. For the sanguinary priests I found after the red was painted some of the crosses I had filled on the Death company parts were still visible so I refilled them and touched up those areas using the same colours as 1-3. I then put a base colour of Astronomican Grey GW foundation paint over any areas that were going to be white or gold.5. I then over-painted the areas to be white with Vallejo off-white and black areas with Vallejo black.
6. I then washed these areas with thinned GW Badab Black wash to provide some crisper depth than the army painter will give.7. I then repainted the white areas using off-white again over the washed areas
8. Next I painted metal areas with GW Boltgun metal
9. All bone areas and scrolls and purity seals were base coated with GW Dheneb Stone
10. All the gold areas where painted Vallejo Old Gold, I like this as its a nice deep aged gold. It takes two to three thin coats to build this up but its worth the effort.
11. It was now time to clean up the paint job again. With the amount of detail on these there is more areas that need cleaning up than usual. This is just a repeat of the colours used in steps 1-3. At this step I also pick out the blood drops and purity seals wax seals in Mechanite Red. I painted the eyes lenses Knarloc green at this point too.
12. The eye lenses are painted GW Scorpion green and white dots added. The blood drops are highlighted with GW blazing orange.
13. The next four images are almost the final steps. Highlight the blood drops and the vials with GW Sunburst yellow and off-white dots. It was also at this step any bone areas were highlighted with GW Bleached bone.
14. The final painting step is GW Codex Grey highlights to the black areas and GW Vomit Brown to the red areas. Unfortunately I forgot to photo this step.

15. Army painter. I use the strong tone and apply with a brush. Once I have brushed it all over, I wipe the brush clean and start lifting off any army painter that I don't want to leave shading in the recess and not affect the colour of the raised areas too much.

16. Bases and Transfers. Bases are painted whatever dark brown I have to hand, usually either GW Scorched Brown or System 3 Artists Burnt Umber, then over-brushed with bubonic brown, before a dry-brush of bleached bone, with the edges repainted bubonic brown. The decals are the standard Blood Angel chapter badge with one wing chopped off for my chapter badge. I complete my scrolls with a fine permanent pen

17. Final step is to flatten the shine from the army painter. I use the army painter anti-shine as it is made to go with army painter so as long as I follow the instructions I should be fine.

Club Night 5th August

My Blood Angels got their first run out in the club 40k league. I had managed to flat coat them, but unfortunately I got a slight whitening on some of the models so I need to revisit them and see if I can rescue them. Any ideas?

My first game was against Ian's Dark Angels. It was going to be interesting as both being marines we would be fairly similar and I had no idea what I would be facing. It turned out there were two elements to his force, 3 units of Deathwing lead by Belial, and 3 tactical squads led by a chaplain with his command squad, supported by scouts and a vindicator.

I finally decided to deploy some of my army on the table as we played a capture and control mission with spearhead deployment. I started with two assault squads, both with a sanguinary priest and supported by a land speeder on table, with the plan to launch them in opposite directions using the terrain to cover them before they could assault, avoiding the giant shell from the vindicator.

My squads bonded forward, coming under some desultory fire from the scouts and one of the tactical squads, but mostly staying out of sight. My deep striking reserves then arrived with the help of descent of angels. The veterans arrived immediately behind the enemy objective, declaring a heroic intervention to charge the terminators defending it, while the two death company units spread out to support them.

Here is where I took my first serious set-back. Both the chaplain with his combi-melta and the land speeder with the multi-melta missed the vindicator, leaving it free to fire accurately at Astorath and his Death company killing all but the Blood Angel hero and one of his crazed companions, while the chaplain and his squad came under fire from Belial and his escorts and a tactical squad and were also reduced to the chaplain and 1 death company.

Fortunately it wasn't all going against me. I had run one assault squad away from the enemy chaplain when I realised they were too far away to assault, and the other squad was working its way through a terminator squad, despite the re-enforcement of a tactical squad. And the veterans were having more success. Another tactical squad had hurried in to support the terminators that had been their initial target, but having lost the combat, the tactical squad fled from the combat with such speed they left the table.

The land speeder then moved around the rear of the vindicator and destroyed it, while the final assault squad had dropped in ready to support the other assault squads while the chaplain and his companion proved no match for Belial and his terminators, but Astorath and his survivor demonstrated how terrifying a full squad would have been by destroying the scouts in a single combat.

Almost all my unit were now in combat, with one assault squad reducing the command squad to just the Interrogator chaplain, and the other two combining to destroy the terminators and all but one tactical marine who stubbornly held on, while I moved the other units around to avoid Belial until I could launch a co-ordinated attack, but luckily my heavy flamer managed to kill two of them.

I finished off the survivors and moved my assault squads and surviving veterans into a position to attack Belial and his Deathwing, while one assault squad hurried back to claim my own objective. I then launched my final assault and took down Belial by sheer number and some poor armour saves.

I had managed to claim a total victory by wiping out the enemy, but I had learnt a lot. The death company can still get killed by massed small arms fire, and their pistol fire is better to sacrifice in place of a run when they deep strike to spread out so they are not as vulnerable to template weapons. Ian's army was good, but he needed to be more aggressive, probably by deep striking his terminators, and maybe in the longer term getting some Rhinos for his other marines. But at least I managed to start this league with a victory, lets see if I can maintain my momentum.

Blood Angels X

The Blood Angels continue to progress. I have finished the basic painting on my Terminators and Dreadnoughts, so they just need basing and army-painter to complete them.

Really pleased with how these have come out, and no just have 40 marines (2 Tactical squads, a final Assault Squad and 2 5-man Devastator squads) left to go and all the Marines for the entire company and its support are done. I then need to make a final decision if I am going to do the drop pods or not.

Blood Angels XI

I have been able to make some serious painting progress and get the latest batch done with Army painter.

Above: Scout Squad, Below: Chaplain conversion based on Dante's Body

Above and Below: More images of the chaplain

Above and Below: Terminator Librarian conversion

Above: Another image of the Librarian, Below: My converted Astorath the Grim high chaplain

Above and Below: More images of Astorath

Above: Librarian after army painter, Below: Astorath after army painter

Blood Angels VIII

I have continued to make progress with my Blood Angels. The Sanguinary Priests are done ( a step by step guide for these will be up soon), Vanguard Veterans are complete, my scout squad is done and 3rd assault squad.

My plan now is to paint my characters (Astorath, Chaplain and Librarian) so I have my army for the club league finished but for transfers and basing. After that there is just another assault squad, couple of tactical and devastator squads, my terminators and the dreadnoughts and the army is done unless I decide to go back and actually finish my drop pods, but probably not for a while.

Club Night 1st July

Luke, Steve and I dusted off my 6mm Epic and played a game of Futurewar commander. Steve and Luke took the Imperial Guard and I took my Eldar. Initially it went all in the Eldar favour as Luke failed repeated command rolls and the Eldar jet bikes swept forward and drove back the guard. On the other flank the heavy tank and the Titan pinned down the Imperial armour and prevented it advancing.

It begun to swing when the enemy infantry were pushed back into the city ruins, and the enemy artillery came in to play, while on the other side the Imperial heavy tanks finally bought down the Titan.

It came down to a close finally with the Eldar jet bikes trying to get the guard infantry out of the ruins and the armour swinging forward on the other flank as the Eldar heavy tank was destroyed leaving the flank with no armour support.

The Eldar reached their breakpoint first, but held on, but the guard reached there and their battle group broke gifting the Xenos a narrow victory.

Terrain Painting 4

I finished the lava/skull cracks. Was surprisingly time consuming, There is a lot of little skulls in there!! Just need to give it a protective varnish and it is all done.