Elephants!

I had the house to my self today, what shall i do? oh I know, I shall see if Smiffy fancies giving me a hand with a spot of painting. Several months ago one of the guys from the shop bought a rather large model for the Lord of the Rings table top game, the model concerned is a War Mumak, it’s basically a big elephant with six tusks and a bad attitude. I was asked to paint as the lad isn’t very confident in his painting skills. so, like a fool, I agreed. that was over a year ago. well since i had the house to myself, and given the fact that yesterday I gave the chap my word that the model would be painted and delivered to him on Sunday, I made a start on painting the thing. I started at around 13:00 and finished at about 18:00. I must admit that i am rather pleased with the results so far, and my deadline of having the model finished by Friday night is looking rather realistic.

The model is based on a beastie that features in the books and, obviously, the films, and it is the standard elephant colour, grey! now I’ve never painted something that uses a real animal as the template, I’ve painted a couple of dragons and some weird alien creatures, both of these allow you a free run with your palette. so an elephant was a bit of a challenge, i spent a few hours looking at pictures to get an idea of skin tone and shading, and to get get an idea on the best way to paint the tusks, granted it’s not an accurate representation but it’s close enough for jazz, as you can see by the pictures here.

They don’t really do it justice, the flash from the camera washes out the shading and the background could be better as Trudes pointed out. but the important thing will be Sunday when I present it to the owner and see how he reacts to the end result, I expect I shall be a bit worried that he will hate it, but knowing him as I do that’s rather unlikely. All I have left to say about this particular model is, although I’ve enjoyed painting the model, I’m never going to do another one.

The model is incomplete as Smiffy has had the task of painting the howdah that mounts on the back of the model. He’s recommended that the wicker work of the construction should be done with the foundation paint that is Khemri Brown, so I shall nip into the shop tomorrow and grab a pot. I can’t thank him enough for his help with this model, without him it would be a long way from finished.

I shall post on Sunday and let people know how Mikey reacted to seeing the finished piece, lord knows the poor chap’s waited long enough.

One win, one loss, not bad I suppose.

With it being the middle Sunday of the month I set off to Hythe for a day’s gaming wiv da boyz, we had the usual crowd in and Mickey and I had a game whilst Dan and Data played on the other table (ooer) I went up against Space Marines with Necrons. I would like to be able to say it was a tough battle, but since I decided to start the game with a Monolith, 20 warriors and a Lord in reserve, Mickey managed to do some serious damage to the six destroyers, 3 heavy Destroyers and Destroyer Lord that were already on the table, Taking first turn I couldn’t do much, with the majority of the Marine infantry making full use of available cover all I could do was take pot shots at a predator and a dreadnought. The dreadnought was shaken but the extra armour on the tank proved to be just a little too tough for gauss cannon to puncture. On Mickey’s first turn he dropped an Ironclad Dreadnought into close assault with three destroyers, killing them with little effort. At the start of my second turn I rolled to see if the Monolith would arrive, it didn’t! So I tried to take out some of the tactical Squad that had just moved out of cover, 9 shots took out one Blood Raven. The luck of the dice continued to be against me as the dreadnought retaliated and took out a heavy destroyer and three lascannon on the predator took out three destroyers, fortunately I had a resurrection orb in play so I didn’t lose all three straight away, but failing two out of three we’ll be back rolls put paid to two of the fallen destroyers and yet another failed reserve roll meant that the Monolith with its cargo of destruction meant that my third turn was going to be a struggle, and my last if Mike rolled well. As fate would have it, he didn’t. Although my force was severely reduced I managed to score a glancing hit on the dreadnought and that resulted in a shaken, turning my attention to the ironclad a penetrating hit from the remaining heavy destroyer caused it to explode. Mike destroyed the remaining destroyer, moving into turn four and I finally made a decent reserve roll and the Monolith arrived on the battle field. The troops within poured onto the scene firing gauss flayers as they exited. The lord joined the fray, bringing down a small number of one of the tac squads, it would have been more but armour saves assured that the majority of the squad remained to fight, and fight they did. I can’t really remember much from this point; I really must start making notes so that I can put a more detailed battle report together. What I do know is that the Monolith scored two glancing hits against the dreadnought resulting in both weapons being destroyed and a melta shot from a servitor wrecked the Monolith. The game ended with my Necrons phasing out and Mike being very happy that he had finally beaten the Necrons.

My second game was against my oldest adversary, Smiffy. We decided to play as close to 2000 points as we could and ended up fielding 1975. My force was pretty much the same as had put against Mike, plus another twenty warriors and the Nightbringer. For this second game I must admit that the man of the match goes to the C’tan. It dealt with Smiffys' Chaos lord quite rapidly, but the with six S10 unsavable wounds I would have been very surprised if it hadn’t. It also finished off a squad of Chaos Marines whilst my destroyer lord finally ended a close combat with a chaos sorcerer that had been waged for at least three turns. When the game ended It was won on kill points, four two to me. That gives me two wins over Smiffy this week; I had one on Wednesday when we had a Chaos Space Marines v Space Marines battle. The worrying bit is, that he’s overdue a victory and I don’t doubt that it will be quite a devastating win when he gets it, I’m off to work out a force that he will struggle against.

Blood Angels, now there’s a chapter to be feared!

Another Sunday has passed, the last AGS of the year, a low turnout but fun was had. First to arrive was Mickey, soon followed by Dan. Mike had bought along the blood raven space marines and Dan had his Blood Angels, an unpleasant taste is in my mouth as I write the name of the last chapter. It is the taste of defeat. Dan suggested a 1000 point battle, a simple annihilation, simple my foot. We rolled for deployment, although Dan won the roll he insisted that I deploy first. An unusual tactic, but I soon discovered why, Dan was fielding and entire force comprised of assault squads. Turn 1: since there were no BA’s on the table all I could do was take up a defensive position and hunker down in the hope that one of my five squads would sight movement on the battle field. Turn 2: As my Terminator squad teleported onto the battlefield, the wail of jump packs filled the air as a squad of Blood Angels descended from above heading for my devastator squad. As they fell from the sky their jump packs stuttered and died. The marines plummeted to the ground, smashing through the floor of a building, their bodies crushed from the impact; all that could be done was to mutter a prayer to the Emperor to guard their souls. The rest of the force must have become apprehensive about performing an orbital drop as no other Marines arrived to collect their fallen brethren. Turn three: Blood Angels rained from the sky, this time none of the jump packs failed and they took position in some of the ruins of a once great city. The battle brothers of the ninth legion expected them to advance, instead they withdrew, making full use of available cover. A few shots were hurled at the warriors of the Chapter Aurelius, none of which did any real damage. The Terminator Squad and the Dreadnought moved in on one of the Blood Angel squads, the Dreadnought launched a krak missile into the unit, bringing down one of them. It then unleashed a ball of plasma fire, despatching two marines. The Terminator squad opened fire with an assault cannon and four storm Bolters, bringing down four more men. The Devastator squad also opened fire, further reducing the enemy squads number by three. Unfortunately the Plasma cannon overheated, the Marine carrying the weapon managed to avoid serious injury.

From the top of another ruin a squad of snipers fired at the same squad, although the shots found their marks they failed to bring down any of the Blood Angels. Once again the BA’s did not act as anticipated. I expected the squad that had taken losses to move against either the Terminators or the Dreadnought, instead they retreated further into the ruin. It appeared they were apprehensive about firing upon their own, whatever their plan was it was soon to be played out. Turn 4, the air was once again filled with the all too familiar scream of jump packs, Dante and a squad appeared behind the devastator squad. Dante fired his Infernus pistol into the squad, although the shot hit, the targeted marines armour protected him and no damage was taken, the rest of the squad fired bolters into the squad, bring one of them down, removing the hazard of the las-cannon. Suddenly the blood Angels poured out of the protection of the ruin and opened fire with flamers, choosing the Devastator squad as their target but doing no harm. Dante then led his squad into combat with the Devastator squad, eradicating them before they had a chance to strike back. The unit of blood Angels that had been reduced to just two men charged toward the Terminators, no doubt hoping to bring them down with chain swords and pistol fire. Although they managed to slay two of the Terminator squad the retaliation was merciless and the last two members of the blood angel squad were cut down, their blood staining the ground. The Terminators found no solace in this victory; they were fighting not only for their lives but for the honour of the chapter Aurelius. The blood Angels are devoutly loyal in the service of the Emperor and have sworn to eradicate any that do not swear allegiance to the god emperor. The Terminators and the Dreadnought turned their attention to squad Dante. Storm bolter and assault cannon fire tore through the air, felling two of the squad, Dante remained untouched. Meanwhile the sniper squad, eager to join the fray, reposition so that they stood a better chance of targeting Dante. By the time they had braced their weapons the Terminators had already charged into combat. Squad Dante were too quick and unrelenting in their assault, cutting the mighty Terminators down before they could act. Turn five saw the final squad of blood angels make landfall close to the tactical squad that had so far missed any of the action, The Angels fired into the squad killing two men. Squad Dante broke and their commanding officer tore into the Dreadnoughts armour, damaging the servos that operate the legs; the continued assault resulted in the Dreadnoughts plasma cannon being ripped from its mounting, all the machine could do was pivot on the spot in the hope of acquiring a target lock with the missile pod. The remainder of squad Dante slaughtered the sniper squad. The Ninth legions captain broke cover, firing a melta shot at Commander Dante, although the shot scored a hit, the emperor was watching over his favoured son and he survived the shot. The tactical squad fired on the assault squad that had attacked them moments before, although the entire squad was slain, the battle forces victory was short lived as the remaining members of squad Dante eviscerated the Ninths captain but not before he could cleave in two one of them. Dante stood victorious over the fallen captain, there was nothing more the remaining space marines of the chapter Aurelius could other than retreat, carrying with them the hope that one day their honour will be restored and they would once again be embraced by the Emperor they lived to serve. Until then they will continue to fight all enemies, whether they be a part of the Xenos threat to the future of mankind, or the brethren they longed to fight beside under a single cause. On receiving the news that his men had failed to find a world where the disgraced ninth legion could find respite, Chapter Master Marcus Aurelius destroyed a console on his battle barges bridge, vowing that for the next encounter his warriors would show no mercy, no relent, they would eradicate the next enemy from the galaxy and send them begging for the Emperors grace.