The Green Tide

Warning I am terrible at English read at your own risk!!!!!!!!!!!(Now with Punctuation - Editor Glen)

Long time no post, today I felt like I had a chance to post something worth while.

So I came into 40k in the middle of 5th edition and my first choice of army was Tau, unfortunately the book was old and I just didn't get it and so I gave up on them rather quickly.  So I moved over to the safe choice, Space Marines and played them for a while.  The first tournament I went to with them was Fields of Blood way back in 2010.  I didn't do to hot but came away with Living Saint a.k.a top sportsmanship.  At that point I was locked into 40k, definitely enjoying everything about it but Space Marines to me were kind of bland.  Not painted, but just rule wise just uninteresting.

Then came along Dark Eldar.  I was in love from day one and quickly switched over to them, building up a force of 1750 points as that was the standard for most of 5th ed. Soon after, Glen and I found our way to Sydney to play in Lords of Terra and High Lords respectively a.k.a Glen.  Here I came 7th overall and Glen winning High Lords with one of the oldest books at the time, Night Spinner FTW. Soon after was Call to Arms and once again Warhammer raged on but this time I actually came First overall with Dark Eldar FTW!!!

I happily kept playing them for a while then out of the blue came Grey Knights!  To me they were Space Marines with personality and to this day the best looking Terminators around.  I didn't start playing them straight away as Glen was pondering about building a force, but after some time I finally let loose and started building up units.  I was definitely enjoying them a lot, the rest of 5th and start of 6th but they had lost their shine.  I already had 3 armies and had decided not to start another one.  At the start of 7th I decided to return to Space Marines, with their new book in hand started picking up new units including Sternguard, Calgar box set, Drop Pod, Centurions, the new plastic Librarian and some other stuff!  But it was not to last with the new.....

...Grey Knights incoming I quickly switched back but the book to me is disappointing, but I was enjoying them and then all of a sudden Dark Eldar are coming too!! quickly Picking up the new codex it quickly became apparent the book was average at best there were no new builds and Archons got turned into garbage along with Wyches. :(

Leaving me here.  The other night while doing Tuesday night Pathfinder, I was sitting across from a Dakka jet, as I looked at it something clicked and by the end of the night I had decided to play Orks.  Later that week I received the codex and quickly found myself having a lot of fun with it.  After having my first game with them yesterday I definitely have found that love for an army again.  I did lose the game and there was tons of swearing at Glen (How many cover saves can I keep on making? - Glen) and running out of the room when failing an assault change screaming FUCK!!!! All in good fun.  Really have to thank Joel for selling his Ork army to Glen as it gave me the chance to play them.

Also thanks to Joel for Fantasy as I am now able to play High Elves 

Cody Out

CTA '11

With the weekend been and gone team 'Primarch' as we called ourselves did very very well in the 40k at Call to Arms '11 in Wellington.

I played my Eldar list which I have not really changed since Masters last year so it was dual Night Spinner harassment and super clowns all the way as usual. I played Ryan Lister first, in hindsight we should have redrawn but we always have fun. So after I had given him a good beating on Friday afternoon in a practice game he retaliated with psychotrope grenades doing a number on my Avatar and Harlequins(both times getting reduced to 1 attack and hit automatically!!!) and pretty soundly winning.

Next I played Jared Odom(ithink) with a mobile Kosarro Khan bike list. He had just been defeated by Cody's Dark Eldar in round 1 and to get me next was a bit rough as he had only played the list for the first time that day! The Eldar pretty much wiped him off the board with a combined charge of Harlequins and an Avatar causing a record 29 wounds on his bike command squad - 19 of which were invulnerable saves only.

The third game of the day was against Peter Rundlett and his Dark Angels with Belial at the helm. We had a very entertaining game exchanging fire throughout the early turns as the meteor objective came down not far from the centre. I forced Belial and his scoring terminator companion off the crater in the last turns with a combined dual wave serpent tank shock and mass focused fire giving me a big win at the end of the day.

Sunday morning had me play PJ Smith and his motley Ork horde. I can never beat the green tide at tournaments try as I might. After removing an awful lot of Ork models off the board I could not manage to kill 3 seemingly invulnerable Orks contesting the centre of the board in a burning building. These Orks were the remnants of a mob who had spent 11 rounds of assault phases with the Avatar and had not bloody run away even after the Avatar kill their warboss in 1 go! The Avatar rolling like a n00b didn't help and after grabbing/contesting what quarters I could PJ snuck a 1 point lead winning the game.

Last game of the event had me across from Carson and his Mephiston Blood Angel list. After some initial rule discussions and clarifications we got under way (you cannot put Mephiston in a command squad he is not an IC). Carson almost completely null deployed against me in a 3 objective game and I swiftly suppressed what elements arrived each turn. The Harlequins camped the Alpha objective and 1 shotted the BA Assault squad which jumped onto the board. The Avatar had no close combat, content to patrol between 2 objectives throwing his Wailing Doom at things. The 2 units of Assualt terminators gave me pause but some Doom aided focus fire had them worn down. Mephiston fell prey to Runes of Warding losing 3 wounds to perils while mass fire got the last 2. I ended with my farseer solo charing his remaining incomplete tactical squad to pull them off their objective. This with plenty of Eldar left on the table gave me a big win to end the competition on.

Wil used a Blood Angel build he came up with last weekend! As the Sisters are still a work in progress. He used two Assault squads in discounted Landraiders, a stormraven carrying a Reclusiarch lead Death Company and Death Company dread, 10 sniper and ML scouts and a ML devastator squad. Bit of a straight forward smash you in the face build and it worked a charm for him. I believ he only lost 1 game! The competitive beast which was nerfed by the Tyranid codex returned for his last tourney in NZ before he heads to Canada.

Cody and his Dark Eldar were on a roll with 4 wins and a draw! Lords in Sydney was obviously a good experience for him and he learnt some lessons which showed. The army itself also looked great on the tables, if I do say myself ;D Cody had some tough opponents but he focused on the missions and kicked some arse!

Ryan after giving me a slap in round 1 went on to also only have 1 'donut'(no point) defeat and his foot slogging Grey Knights went on to multiple victories. I will have to get a rundown on his games and had little tim e to before I headed home.

With this fine performance from the team where did this leave us? Well, Ryan took the best Sportsman medal and came 5th overall! Will got the bronze medal with 3rd, I scored both best painted and 2nd overall medals and Cody rocked it with gold for 1st place! We won 'em all!! I also was presented with an award for best presented for the whole event, thats out of all the game systems in play at Call to Arms this year.

I must say results aside I thoroughly enjoyed myself, Hagen did a wonderful job as TO even if every game he came and told my opponents to destroy my Nightspinners for bonus TO points! It was awesome talking to Wes Barclay as usual, still not facing up against him, I'll grudge match next time. We came up with some very cool ideas for some future projects and conversions including a campaign weekend which was met with some enthusiasm by those included... watch this space... What a great send off for Wil with the group he plays with taking all the top spots, he'll have to berate us and keep us mean from afar.

WIP - Dark Eldar

So I am in the process of painting Coldbane/Cody's Dark Eldar army for use in Sydney next month. My own Craftworld Eldar need some minor repairs and I'm going to rebase the vehicles.

I plan on getting through the bulk of the Dark kin in the next couple weeks so I might have a little time to paint some more High Elves before Horned Rat in Wellington but we'll see =/

I apologise in advance for a couple photos, as I finish bases and full squads I'll repost better ones.

I really enjoyed the Venoms and this has encouraged me to get the 2 remaining Raiders and 2 Ravagers completed before the Razorwing arrives and a handful of Wyches and Warriors are on the painting table basecoated.

More to come...

Painting - Archon Coldbane

Put the finishing touches on Coldbane's 'Archon Coldbane' last night while that little wedding was on the tele. Coldbane says he probably won't be using the soultrap in game but it looks cool and there is plenty of room for a pistol under the cloak.

The agoniser and arm are from the plastic witch sprue and the base is an Iron Halo Battlefield of Thran one I had in a bitz box.

The rest of his Dark Eldar force will be on flagstoned bases so the slightly raised more detailed base just adds to the Hq choice.

Painting WIP

For my Eldar I only really have to paint up my Striking Scorpions so thought I'd start trying some paint schemes out. I originally was going to paint them a dark tin bitz based 'Predator' inspired fashion but thought it would look horrible alongside the rest of my arctic based force. Looking at the Warmachine Retribution of Scyrath book I painted this fella up and quite like him.

Didn't take long either which was nice.

I also have to get stuck into Hoverd's Sisters and Coldbane's Dark Eldar.

I was going to go for a dark red industrial tone for the Dark Eldar but with High Elves and Sisters I'm already painting a lot of red. Looking at the Raiders and with some freehand in mind for the hulls I quikly painted this guy last night. Obviously Coldbane has to approve but he's pretty much leaving it up to me.

I'm all inspired now to paint again following Runefang and with Dark Eldar, Sisters and probably more High Elves to work on I have a nice selection to work on.

2nd Wave Dark Eldar

Since Coldbane made comment in the last post about it I'd like to put my 2 cents in. GW had vague mention that more Dark Eldar are on the way on the coming months and it seems very doable as the beastmasters were slid in alongside the new Orc and Goblin releases.

Please bring on Scourges and the Haemonculi faction, if they are up to the standard of the rest of the range and look like the artwork then... happy times =D

While putting out the washing today I had thoughts of kitbashing a vampire counts corpse cart with a raider for a Haemonculi coven Raider, cool huh.

So Coldbane, going to start buying some accesories for me to play with... for your own army of course ;)

WIP Dark Eldar Raider

Heres Some work in progress shots of Coldbane's 1st Raider I'm working on in between High Elves. Its 'redder' in real life but you get the idea. Black undercoat with mechrite red drybrush foloowed by blood red then blazing orange drybrushing. Red and black wash til the tone looks right then a little toned down vomit brown on hard edges. The metalwork is tin bitz and dwarf bronze.

The Webway opens!

Here is the first completed set of models from the new Dark Eldar range. Expect to see a few other updates on this army for Cody and the Sisters of Battle for Wil or whatever his eclesiarchy alias may be.

Have a Raider undercoated and to be painted in Cody's Wyche cult scheme which will be a Sith scheme, red and black. Alongside that are a handful of Sisters of Battle to do final details on.