Friday 21 September 2012

Finished Aegis Defence Line

Hello everyone, a quick post to show you the latest edition to the army.


A couple of weeks back I decided to get myself an Aegis defence line for the obvious reasons that it is dirt cheap points wise and that why not make the most of 6th and get on the bandwagon.


I think the Aegis is a great looking piece of kit and will give me the option of fielding some effective AA in the form of the quad gun. A lot of fortifications I've seen are pretty simple and haven't received the same attention painting wise that their units have. I decided to paint it as I would any of my tanks, with the same colour scheme, detail in the form of gems, skulls, eagles, metal cables and an awful lot of weathering, scorch marks, blast marks and chips. It's taken me a few hours here and there to finish with the weathering being by far and away the most time consuming thing to finish. Here is the result!















Thursday 13 September 2012

Thursday Night is Fight Night

Hey everyone

I finally managed to get my first proper game of 6th this evening! and what an event it was too. My impressions of 6th are really good, I think the game is more dynamic and seems to flow as well as it ever has.

I'd arrange a 1500pts game against an unknown opponent and decided to follow my normal army selction policy of take what models I think look the nicest at the time. Consequently there a few slightly rubbish or ineffective units but who cares! Also, shock horror, Colonel Winterborne was omitted from the army, being instead led by the Primaris Psyker. Such a thing has never happened before, how will they fare without his tactical know how!
My army list was roughly as follows

Psyker
Platoon Command, 2 Chimera Squads, 2 squads in blob with Commissar
Highland Vets
Rough Riders with special weapons
Hellhound
Banewolf
Medusa
Leman Russ
Marbo

My opponent was to be a Chaos Death Guard army led by the man himself, Typhus. His army was something like this

Typhus
Terminators
Summoned plaguebearers
3x2 obliterators
4 units of 5/6 plague marines.

I'm not going to do a blow by blow account (partly as I have to get up for work early in the morning!) but here are the photos and I'll provide a brief running commentary.



The deployment was short edges and the mission was 6 objectives of random value. The Chaos set up as spread out as possible trying to avoid the medusa's gaze.



Turn 1 proved to be a brutal one for the chaos as my lines opened fire and killed half the plague marines for no loss. This was almost exclusively down to a complete dice failure for my opponent. He was making more feel no pain than 3+ !





Though their numbers are thinned the chaos advance is relentless.


Outflanking stormtroopers get the jump on a unit of plague marines... only to butchered as the S3 hotshots can't wound.




The tables start to turn and luck starts to favour the forces of chaos.


The obliterators find their marks and start to wreak havoc among the guard lines.


The guardsmen come under heavy assault from the the obliterators plasma cannons.


While the chaos number less than 10 the ever more desperate Praetorian gunners can't seem to take any of them down.




The Highland Vets disembark to take the fight to the enemy!


The plaguebearers arrive just in time. By this point the only other scoring unit is a lone plague marine who just will not die!



After a less than auspicious start the Chaos managed to pull off a victory! With the loss of the big guns and the chaos players ever increasing ability to pass armour saves (particularly when they were taken in multiples of 7...) the game ended with the lone plague marine holding one objective with the rest uncontested. It had been a blood bath, the Chaos had a wounded Typhus, 5 oblits and a plague marine while I had a motley collection of imobilized or damaged tanks and a few depleted squads who had desperately tried to take down some of the oblits.

I had a great opponent for this game, who took the bad with the good and was great fun to play against throughout. Also the Deathguard army really looked the part with the vestiges of their old armoru colour still clinging on in parts with the rest having rotted off. It occurs to me that I didn't take enough photos of them! Who know perhaps I'll see them in the field again, the Colonel won't be happy that they suffered defeat in his absence...

Monday 10 September 2012

Praetorian's on GW what's new!

To my surprise upon getting home from work this evening I saw a few pictures of my Praetorians on Gamesworkshop's What's New Today! A good start to any week. Follow the link and check it out, its a few photos of my Macharius, although unfortunately before the I got the tank commander finished.


So what am I working on next? Well here is a look at the latest models to grace my painting table. In addition to these are my heavy weapon AT teams and a few other bits and pieces.


With the addition of these I will be well on my way to 4k painted. I also have a game scheduled for this Thursday 1500k against an unknown opponent. Army selection will probably follow the usual pattern of taking whatever I think looks the best with no tactical thought. The under coated items above sadly won't feature (Aegis at a push as it's pretty simple to paint) although I am tempted to take a less mechanised army these days as my options are increasing with all of the new additions.

That's enough for now, let's see if I can steal an hour or two of painting time!

Cheers!

Thursday 6 September 2012

Finished Praetorian Macharius tank crew



Finally after finishing the tank itself over a month ago I have finished the crew!

Here we have the Tank Commander (a suitably Praetorian name for him will surely follow) and the driver before I started painting.



And here we have the finished Commander before he boarded his tank! (The driver was already in the tank at this point)




Here we have the fully completed Macharius Vanquisher complete with crew. I don't have ideal photo taking conditions here, but you get the idea!












Finally finished. Now on to the next project! Time to spray a bombard and a hydra... then I reckon I need a baneblade... I just love painting tanks!

I'd love to hear what you think about what is undoubtedly the centrepiece of the 4th Mechanised. Also any ideas for the name or title of the commander would be appreciated!

Cheers!

Saturday 1 September 2012

Curious Constructs - Tank Commander Review

I've been luck enough to get one of Col. Gravis' brand new Tank Commanders from curious constructs.

Here is a review of the New Tank Commander!

The miniature arrives in three parts, the torso with left arm holding binoculars, the pointing arm and finally the head. The quality of the cast is great with little or no mould lines and takes only minute to clean up and put together. The whole miniature has great definition which really shows off the great work Gravis has done in sculpting it. I'm a particular fan of the way it is in 3 parts, it gives you plenty of options for different heads (VL or GW or other Curious Construct heads all fit great) and alternative right arms. The way the head and the torso fit together is also very good, it is nice and snug and makes for a clean finish.


Here is is assembled before I started applying some paint.


Here we go, the finished article! Now with a coat of paint the detail on the model really stands out. The first thing to note is the tank commander emblem on the tunic, now I didn't notice this till I started painting but it is a tank on a laurel wreath! Absolutely brilliant.


I think Gravis has got his torso down to a fine art now, the folds and crease are great and the model pretty much paints itself in terms of highlighting.


I don't have the best light so here is another photo which might show it of in a slightly different way. Another thing to note is the quality of the face, really good detail and nice easy eyes to paint as well.


Here he is again in the turret of my Macharius, I reckon he looks pretty at home!


So there you have it, the new Tank Commander from Curious Constructs. I think it is a great model, plenty of detail and character which really lends itself to painting. If I'm totally honest I wasn't to keen on the miniature when I first looked at it, but for me, what a difference a coat of paint makes, the miniature came to life and really looks the part. Now all I need to do is find him a tank to command as that Macharius is taken...

Coming up will be a review of the Heavy Cavalry and a look at the Gravis gatling gun!