November's Plate

So what's on the plate for the month of November.

W40K:
Imperial Guard
I am still working on my Imperial Guard army. Using "TAP" has been great and all my Troops are done for my ACON 40K TT list. I finished building 4 Chimera Transports for the list this past weekend, and I still have a Hellhound and Executioner to purchase/complete for the list. I will also continue painting up the rest of my IG to complete out my 1750 list. With one of the extra Vet Squads for my TT list, I'll actually enough done for possibly an 1850 list.

Salamanders
1750 points are done for the Salamanders. I recently acquired a third Razorback for "Squad 3" so I'll be putting that together this month to give me a few more options for my son. I still have plenty of Space Marine vehicles that can be put together for my son's army, just not enough time.

WFB:
Well next Saturday is the release of the new Skaven army book. I will be picking up the book for sure, but my desire for a Skaven army may have to wait till the new year. I may pick up a new box here and there to slowly start to collect the army.

Dwarfs
My war machine crew are now done for the Dwarfs. I still have a unit of Miners I want to get done by 11/15. If that does not happen, I will fill out a unit 15 GW Dwarfs to 25. They are already done, just the bases have to be redone.

Wood Elves
This is my son's Fantasy army. They are done, but most of the models are previous edition. We are slowly replacing them with new models. My next order with "The War Store" I'll be adding some of the Green Primer. I decided that I will be dipping these to get them done sooner.

Dark Elves
Wont be touching these this month. We'll see about December.

Not too much for November....... Lets hope I can get the above done.

W40K: Imperial Guard "TAP"

This past Friday UPS shows up at my door with my The War Store order for my The Army Painter supplies. Looks like I'll be painting for the weekend.

The colors that I had ordered are going to be perfect for our "Desert Theme" we are trying to accomplish for the AdeptiCon W40K Team Tournament. Each team will consist of 1000 points.

I wanted to paint my 1000 points to something that I really liked and that was quick to paint. The rest of my Imperial Guard army will also be matching this theme.

So I opened the box and started to get my models ready.

Step 1: Prime the models.

Step 2: Basecoat the models.

Step 3: Quickshade the models.

Step 4: Matt varnish and finish the bases.

I ended up finishing 2 Veteran Troop Squads this past weekend, with about 2 hours of time per Squad. I am really happy with the results and it will speed up my time to get my army on the gaming table. This is the first time I ever used a "dip" method and I like the results.

The Army Painter: Part 2

So yesterday afternoon I decided to place my order with The War Store for some "The Army Painter" supplies so I can finally start working on my Imperial Guard. Once the "Brown Fur" primer is available I will also order that for my new Skaven Army.

I ended up ordering the "Desert Yellow" Primer, "Strong Tone" Quick Shade, and "Anti Shine" Matte Varnish. As soon as it comes in I'll be priming the Imperial Guard troops.

1000 points of my Imperial Guard army will also be used in the 4-man 40K Team Tournament at AdeptiCon 2010. Our theme color is desert based. So I think the "Desert Yellow" will make a great basecoat and I am going to use "Calthan Brown" from the GW Foundation line for all the armor.

Hopefully my order will arrive before the weekend so I can give it a try, if not stay tuned next week for an update.

The Army Painter

While in Phoenix, AZ for the Wild West Shootout this past weekend I was able to meet up with some friends on Friday night at Empire Games during their Mercenary Market (flee market) and one of my friends mentioned to me a new product called "The Army Painter".

"The Army Painter" is basically a "dipping" method for painting your armies. The nice thing about TAP is that the base color sprays come in a lot of colors. With the new release of Skaven for Warhammer coming out in few weeks, I think this is going to be a quick way to get them done. TAP will be releasing a "Brown Fur" base color right around the same time.

Here a re a few pictures on the procedures.

Step 1: Primer with Base Color

Step 2: Basecoat with Normal Colors

Step 3: Dip

Step 4: Matt Varnish


Step 5: Finish the Base of the Model

I have friends that use the "dupping" method all the time with the "Minwax" product, but I have never tried it before. I am really considering it for the Skaven. With that many models, I think this will save me a lot of time. If I decide to go this route, I will post pictures of the progress.

In case you are interested, you can purchase "The Army Painter" online at "The War Store".

W40K: Wild West Shootout Day 2

Day 2 of the WWS 2009 has now come to the conclusion and I wanted to say that I had a blast this weekend. This is the first time I can say that I had 5 fun games. I hope all my opponent's can say the same.

Well, I did not take the "Murphy's Luck" award for last place, I did manage to get a win in Game #4.

Onto the recaps.

Game 4: vs Brad N (Space Wolves)
This mission was a "top secret" mission and was not published beforehand. When we arrived at our tables we were handed an envelope with our mission. Before opening the envelopes we were told that we are in the Wild West and that this mission would be in that tradition. We then opened our envelops and the mission read, good ole fashion shootout. NO TERRAIN on the tables at all and Victory Points would be used.

Scenario: "Wild West Shootout"

My opponent was a great guy and he was playing an all Drop Pod Space Wolves with the new Codex. First I have never played against an all Drop Pod army before, Second I have not seen the new Codex yet. This was gonna be good. I heard the best defense against an all DP army would be to "castle up". So I did that. The deployment zone was 15", I placed my 3 Troops with their 3 Razorbacks (TLLC) in the corner, my LRC was protecting its flank with my Vet squad in Rhino behind the LRC.

Brad dropped 3 Pods on first turn (the 4th scattered off but will be back later). 2 converted Dreads (looked like robot Wolves.... awesome) dropped in front of my troops. He manged to flame a few and killed some marines. My Razorbacks and Plasmacanons returned fire and I was able to blow off the Close Combat weapons off each of the dreads.

This was a really fun game. I managed to kill quite a few squads, couple of Drop Pods, and Dread and a HQ. Brad managed to kill 2 full troop squads and my squad of Terminators. I ended up winning the game by just over 400 Victory Points (301 was a Win).

First win of the tourney.

1-2-1

Game 5: Jim A (Chaos Space Marines - Nurgle)
Final game of the tournament and I really wanted another fun game. I got to play Jim A, a friend of mine who also used to live in Phoenix and relocated back to Florida around the same time I left back to Chicago. Now that my chances for last place were gone, I joked with him and said no holds bar, I'm going out shooting......

We finally got to play an object based game. 5 objectives with one of them in the center of the table. Control more objectives than your opponent and you win.

Scenario: "When All Is Lost"

Deployment was 12" Pitched Battle with 7 turns and Jim got to go first. This was a really tough game that came down to the wire. My LRC with Terminators went up across the board and dismantled a unit of Marines and held onto one Objective. The LRC then pick up a 5 man unit of Troops and proceeded to the center Objective but became Immobilized 5" away. The rest of my army was trying to hold onto a third Objective.

Came down to bottom of Turn 7. Jim has 2 Objectives. My 5 man combat squad jumped out of the LRC and contested the center Objective. The Objective that was in my deployment zone was being contested, but I still had the one that Terminators controlled. Last chance..... Jim has 2 Marines sitting on 1 objective........Plasmacanon fires.....does not get hot.........scatters 8" off target.... game over. Jim controlled 2 Objectives, I had 1 Objective and we contested the other 2. Great game.

1-3-1

Well thats it for my gaming weekend. I want to thank Battlefoam and Empire Games for this weekend, it was a blast.

Now its time to put the 40K armies back on the shelf for abit and get back into Fantasy.

W40K: Wild West Shootout Day 1

Well Day 1 of the Wild West Shootout 2009 is in the books and I am not one to write up great battle reports, but here is a quick recap of my first three games.

Game 1: vs. Chris A (Chaos Space Marines)
Chris is a good friend of mine from when I lived there in Phoenix. It was really nice to be able to start off the tournament against a friend. He was playing a new army that he had just finished and it looked awesome. The scenario was a variation of Annihilation with modified Kill Points and the game would last 6 Turns.

Scenario: "Lost to the Warp"

This game was close until the final 2 Turns. Once the Chaos Marines hit my lines, it was over.
Final KP's: Chris 15, Dean 9. So we start the tournament with a Loss. But that is OK with me. It was a fun game.

0-1-0

Game 2: vs. Zack (Chaos Space Marines)
This mission was a variation of Capture and Control in which you had to carry the objective off the board via your enemies deployment zone.

Scenario: "Downed Pilot"

The deployment zone was 18" (yes 18") which is needed to get the objective off the board, but it really made the game a close combat type of game. The objective was in the center of the board and we had these 2 large ruins surrounding it on both sides. So there really was 2 ways to get out of the "ruined village". Zach setup a defensive line on his side, and I did the same on my side. For the most part the objective stayed in the middle of the board while I was shooting up units and Daemon Prince's that were trying to hold it. By Turn 5 we realized that the game would be a Draw, but we had to finish the final two turns and calculate Victory Points. Victory Point are being used in the Tournament just for overall tie-breakers in the standings.

So another fun game and a Draw for me.

0-1-1

Game 3: vs. Dave T (Chaos Imperial Guard)
This was the game I was waiting for. I finally got to play a game against "Mr. Dave Taylor". Dave is great guy who actually used to work for Games Workshop and is now currently employed with Wargames Illustrated. Dave invited me to the last Vegas GT in 2008 to help run LotR and here is where we actually got to sit and chit-chat for awhile. So playing him now I knew was going to be fun. Dave has been working on his custom Chaos Imperial Guard with all scratch built vehicles. It was a sharp looking army. So onto the game.

This mission was strictly a Victory Points games with a bonus of 250 VP's for holding Table Quarters. The game would be 7 turns and the first 3 turns were night fighting.

Scenario: "Night Assault"

So with 2 sit back and shoot armies and 3 turns of night fighting, this was gonna be pretty quick first half.

Well Dave got first turn and did not waste it one bit. First shot of the game, decides to check and see if he can my Land Raider Crusader drops a Battle Canon shot on top of my LRC (which is the transport for my Terminators), hits right, rolls and penetrates, and then........... immobilized. That was good enough for Dave. VP's would have been nice, but now he knew my Termies would have to foot slog it across the board.

The dice were not with me all game and were with Dave. My Termies did eventually hit his lines and got to destroy some units, but not enough. The rest of my army could not do anything. Dave manged to kill 1025 points plus a bonus 250 for a table quarter, and I managed a measly 400 points. This didnt matter, it was a blast. I hope Dave had as much fun as I did.

Another Loss, but a good Loss.

0-2-1

So I have 2 Losses and 1 Draw for the day. The award for last place is looking pretty good right about now.

Now to get ready for the final 2 games.

W40K: Wild West Shootout 2009

Well yesterday afternoon I boarded the plane and headed back 'home' to Phoenix (yes I'm calling Phoenix home, I really love it here..... maybe in the future we might be back) for the W40K Wild West Shootout 2009 presented by Battlefoam.

I was deciding between 2 different armies to bring. My good 'ole' trustworthy Dark Angels that I have been playing for 6 years or my sons new Salamanders army that I had finished this year. The paint scheme is nice on both of them, but the Dark Angels have some weathering effects on their vehicles. I decided I was going to pack my army in the suitcase to save from carrying on another item. So with that in mind, I really did not want to have any of my son's army break on me while traveling, so I opted for my Dark Angels. They looked to have arrived safely, but I will double check on them later today just to make sure nothing broke off.

The Wild West Shootout will be a 2 day 1750 pt W40K Indy GT held at Empire Games in Mesa, AZ starting early tomorrow morning. I'm really looking forward to meeting up with old friends again. Thats really the only reason I came down for this event. Meet with friends, and spend a weekend with my parents. The gaming will be secondhand. I know I am not going to win (I do not play to win anymore, just for fun) so I'm just looking for a good time. I'm hoping my good friend Tim will be able to come over on Sunday so we can chit-chat for a little. With having to miss out on GitD 2010 coming in February, I hope I can meet up with him.

Tonight Empire Games is going to have a Mercenary Market (allows players to sell some of their models to others for store credit) so I plan on swinging by to see if their is anything interesting.

Well, this will probably be my last W40K tourney until AdeptiCon. The Fantasy bug has really bitten me pretty hard the last couple of weeks so I am really excited about Fantasy again.

Stay tuned for a Saturday night recap of WWS2009.