Tale of 40K Gamers - Glen #3 Word Bearers

I am steadily moving through my initial 400 points having completed 4 Tactical marines.  These join the sergeant shown previously as half of my first Word Bearer Tactical/Chaos Marine squad.

Like the Chaplain and Sergeant I have made freehand designs on the armour and added runic script and sigils.  I will attempt to use the provided transfers for Legion markings but I may end up doing them freehand as well.

5 more to go including a missile launcher and the Contemptor Dreadnought.

Tale of 40k Gamers - Sam #1 Flesh Tearers

Our hobby project is moving along nicely with some of the local gamers.

Sam is participating by building a Flesh Tearers force.  He has done a fantastic job on Gabriel Seth the Chapter Master.  I believe his next unit will be a tactical squad.

Tale of 40K Gamers - Glen #2 Word Bearer Sergeant

I have been working through the Word Bearers from Betrayal at Calth.  All are assembled and base coated with the old airbrush.

To fill out my initial 400 points I'll use a squad of 10 Word Bearers with plasma gun and missile launcher, the Chaplain as a Dark Apostle and as a Contemptor is a bit high points wise I'll use the Dreadnought as a Hellbrute.

Here is the finished sergeant for the squad.  I added a book from the Skaven Plague Monk set and the backpack icon and a bolt pistol from a Chaos Marine set.  I have painted the runes again on the armour, careful linework giving a sense of etching on the armour.

Cons and boards

So sadly I did not manage to get a ticket to Comic Con in San Diego. However given the huge demand it was always a strong possibility. 

Not giving up, Glen is investigating the other 'Cons so we can still get a nerd trip some time in the future.

On the positive side, I had two very enjoyable games of Cthulhu Wars with Glen. The rules were simple to learn, but applying them requires a bit of thought and planning to succeed. 

The pace is great, the models are fantastic, and highly recommend it to anyone.

Tale of 40k Gamers - Ryan #2

So I had fun Tuesday night remembering what it was like to clip lots of plastic from sprues then tidy up the mold lines.

I hate filing off mold lines

Compared with dealing with the starter kit in which every model is about 4 pieces total - much easier!

Heroes, big cannon and dread arms

Then last night spent some time getting bases ready with magnets (I like to move my stuff around on metal trays), and preparing for next step.

Pledge starting to come together

Now I have assembled 10 Tactical Marines - 5 from the previous standard tactical kit (top photo), a few recycles, and a few from the dark vengeance kit. Armaments include a plasma cannon, plasma gun, plasma pistol sergeant (sensing a theme here?) and boltguns. The sergeant got a wristorectomy and now has the option of chainsword or power sword with some 3mm magnets. Finally I felt like I needed a 2IC in case of combat squadding, so I repurposed a black reach sergeant and gave him a bolt gun instead of a chainsword.

Alongside them is a venerable dreadnought and all his arms (now with magnetised base), and a sweet sweet terminator captain/company master from the dark vengeance kit. Not a big fan of his base kit so thinking he may get a shield or a hammer somewhere along the line but for now I don't have the bits to make this happen.

On to painting next!

Tale of 40K Gamers - Ryan #1

So today I did some sorting and organising of the mountain of plastic at my house and got ready to start my pledge for the first section.

Loosely following the new start collecting box from GW, I am going to assemble, paint and play with the following:

1 Terminator Captain

10 Tactical Marines

1 Venerable Dreadnought

Here they are in all their glory:

So it begins...

I will be running them as Disciples of Caliban - they will eventually form part of my bike army (which is painted green hence using the successor chapter).

The tactical marines are the previous edition, and the terminator captain will come from the dark vengeance kit. The dreadnought is a partially finished venerable dread that was going to be in my grey knights army - now will be re purposed for this project.

Looking forward to getting stuck in!

Tale of 40K Gamers - Tyranids

Jake who is participating in our group hobby project has shared a look at his first painted unit.  The Gargoyles from the Tyranid Starter force.

Jake has returned to gaming this year after a hiatus.  He has taken to the hobby side of it very well and has produced some fantastic looking Dark Angels in a short space of time.  The Tyranids give him a nice change in palette and techniques.  Excellent work!

Tale of 40k Gamers - Wrythhold edition

Over the past few weeks there has been discussion amongst our gaming group about new projects for the year.  These coincided with GW releasing the new Army Starter boxes.

We normally look at making armies for competitive play but we all enjoy campaign and narrative play more.  Looking at the new box sets they all clock in around 400 points so it seems a good place to start.

We have around 8 people participating so far with a good spread of army choices.  The guidelines are to make a new Army from new products or for me, use things from my vast unused collection and turn them into a painted army.

Stage 1
Make and paint a 400 point force with the following restrictions.
1 HQ
1 Troop
1-2 choices from Troop, Elite, Fast or Heavy.

Ryan has put together an excellent document with suggestions and guidelines covering all these things.

Once participants have their core forces ready we will arrange a gaming day of narrative battles. Following additions to the armies will then be arranged.

I have chosen Heretics from Imperial Armour 13 and Word Bearers using the Betrayal at Calth miniatures.  This will encourage me to get real work done with the Heretic forces I have toyed around with from the Forge World of Wrakinos, a setting I have used for the Rogue Trader rpg and small 40k games with Alex.  The Chaplain/Dark Apostle is the first miniature from the Calth set I have worked on so far.

Painting - Death Company Stormraven

After this model has sat on the shelf partially assembled since it's release, I thought it was high time it got painted.

With Valleycon coming up and Cody and I both using Blood Angel's it was bound to get use.  It already had the black panels and steel base coloured so I decided to go Death Company.

After edging the panels it didn't really stand out so I went to work with weathering powders.  I looked to the Blood Angel codex for freehand inspiration which ended up on the wings.

Cody included it in his list, so last weekend it got plenty of use in his five games at Valleycon in Upper Hutt, including against me!  I have another Stormraven which I have grand plans for, though it will be geared for the Inquisition.