Painting Guardians and Support Weapons, Horus Heresy Books

Today's "What's New" on the Games Workshop site has a How-To for painting guardians and the new Eldar Support Platform. Good stuff for me! =) I really do want to have a fully painted army, but damn if I can focus on getting this stuff done like I used to. Here are the images of their painted models.

Enjoyable Reading

So I have also been reading the Horus Heresy book series. I have to say, I am really enjoying it. I started with "Fulgrim" because a co-worker loaned it to me and then he loaned me "A Thousand Sons". I read both of them and I was hooked. I have now bought and read "Horus Rising", "False Gods", "A Galaxy in Flames", "Flight of the Einenstain", and "Mechanicus". I have completely enjoyed them all. The authors are doing a wonderful job capturing the feel of The Great Crusade and the characters involved. The fluff is, of course, always welcome too. Last night I started on "Decent of Angels" and look forward to it as well. I have always enjoyed the Dark Angels' story.

For you IG Tread Heads!

Monday on the Games Workshop website, they posted a step-by-step assembly of the new Leman Russ Battle Tank. It looks like a really nice model. The sponsons and hull mounted weapons are inter-changable. With a little work, I'm sure the turret mounted cannon (which it comes with four options) could be also.

Today, they have a nice article on painting it. I only wish I could paint half as well and quick as the 'eavy Metal team hehe.

Spearhead & New Eldar Fire Prism / Night Spinner

If you haven't seen it yet, the new Spearhead rules and formations are out! You can find the rules in the June 2010 White Dwarf and the formations here. (Web site registration required!) Looking at the formations, I'm really looking forward to trying a few of them with my Eldar.

Mechanized Assault

Looks very Eldar-ish. Being able to outflank on the first guarenteed has got to put a kink in anyone's general attack plan. One to three Wave Serpents loaded up, maybe mix a Falcon with Fire Dragons in there. Lots of disruption potential in this spearhead

Outrider

Need to protect that one unit to make sure it survives to fire or deploy its payload? This is the spearhead for that. Protect one vehicle with one or two others. I only hope this one gets ammended to somehow be able to include Vypers (since they are neither tanks nor walkers.

** Update ** Skimmers are now allowed in this formation via a quiet update. Vypers are in...

Seek & Destroy

This could make vypers an attractive option with the ability to move flat out and fire as if they had moved at combat speed. They could cover some real distance and unload a serious payload into something. Might be a one-trick pony though since they are fragile.

With this release, Games Workshop also introduced the plastic multi-part Fire Prism/Night Spinner kit. I picked one of these up on this last Sunday and opened it up to take a look inside. Quick inspection noted that the new Star Engine and Vectored Engine add-ons look like you can either put them on or keep them off. No easy way to make them removable, but I'm going to play with some magnets and clippers and see what I can do.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get some pictures posted of it before assembly, during, and after. Maybe I'll even get around to painting it *sighs* No I still have not finished those Dire Avengers from 2009.

Week 2 at Ernie's Games

Well, I put together an experimental 1500 point list. The list consistsed of a Seer Council on jetbikes, Dire Avengers and Scorpions in Wave Serpents, Fire Dragons in a Falcon, and a ground slogging unit of guardians with a Wraithlord for support. My opponent was an Imperial Guard player, fully mechanized with veterans, two Vendettas, a Banewolf and Hellhound, 2 Medusas, and a mechanized command squad. Sadly, I lost 6 kill points to 4 kill points.

I think the first roll of the game set the pace. I rolled my psy check for my Farseer for Fortune... box eyes... double sixes out of the gate for the very first roll. Ghosthelm check passed, but that lack of fortune broke the game for me. First shooting round for IG, everything he had targeted the council and took it out round 1. *chuckles* Such is life. My mistake, still moving them up after failing the fortune roll. Lesson learned...(did I mention I moved them up too close to the Banewolf and Hellhound too?.. damn template weapons hehe).

Even still, I managed to make a game of it and almost could have pulled off a draw, but my Fire Dragons, which had to leave the Falcon because it got immoblized, died horribly... right next to his armor. An empty wave serpent went and picked up the Dragons, it then zipped them up to the enemy armor, and that turn, for the first time in the game (turn 4), he managed to destroy a wave serpent after I had moved it 24 inches across the board... bye bye passengers hehe.

All in all, I had fun though and it was nice playing against something new.

My son sadly lost also. He played a veteran Eldar player fielding two Fire Prisms that just took their toll on his armor and infantry. He learned he needs to take those things out =)

So that's week #2. On the plus side, we both made our terrain rolls to take a new area on the planetary empires board after our games.

Imperial Strongpoints

I also finished assembling the Imperial strongpoint boxes I bought. I now have three bastions and a lot of defense lines. I made one box into two normal bastions. The second box, I coverted the bastion into one big one with two levels. I like the way it turned out. I suppose they too are now on the need to be painted list.

40k League at Ernies!

So this last week, my son tells me that one of his friends asked him to come play 40k on Monday at Ernie's Games in Woodenville, WA. He wants to go, so I am happy to take him to get him out and playing more with friends. Imagine my surprise when we get there and it turns out they were starting a new league that night. So he and his buddy played.

He lost, but he did manage to take a territory in the Planetary Empires portion of the game. So, next Monday we go back... continue the campaign and I myself will probably jump in to.

On a side note, if you look back to April of 2008, I bought a Windrider Host of jetbikes... well just over 2 years later, I finally started to paint them *chuckles*

Ultramarines vs Chaos Marines

So my son was hired to do some lawn mowing for a friend last Saturday. After he was done, the two of them threw down on the battlefield with 750 points a piece.

My son fielded his 750 pt "Storm Minor" force & my friend threw together a quick army.

The dice gods dished out a Dawn of War Annihilation battle for the two of them and off they went.

After 5 turns, the Ultramarines won the day, 2 kill points to 1 kill point.

A squad of assault bikes earned some distinction taking out a Land Raider with their multi-melta.

All in all a good afternoon of steaks and 40k.

Myself, I started assembling two Imperial Strongpoints. There are a lot of pieces in these things, but I'm really happy with the quality of these new models. They are well designed and going together quite nicely. They even seem to have the ability to be modular without a lot of conversion work. I'll get some pictures up after the first set are built.

As for the Dire Avengers, yeah, I'm slacking, yet again....