Happy Halloween: Eversor TO DONE!

Hi folks,

A few months ago Sgt Waz gave me this Eversor as a gift, as well as to right an ancient wrong. I have spent the last week or so painting it each night, so that it would be ready for Halloween. Halloween is not a very big thing in Australia, we only ever get a handful of kids walking around in very lame costumes asking for chocolate... but I thought I would do something special anyway to celebrate with my American blogger friends. Here are a few shots of the finished model:

The bronze is meant to tie the paint scheme in with my Iron Snakes, providing a universal element.

The vials on his arm were a nightmare to paint.

 

The neuro gauntlet was painted leadbelchers then glazed with Tamiya Clear Red.

 

 

 

 

 

 



I painted a little cyber-Raven familiar to go with him, in the same style as my Ravenwing figures. I am planning on surreptitiously placing the raven figure down next to my next opponent's commander and whispering... "Eversor". 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

Once upon a battlefield dreary, where I cowered, spent and weary,
Within an Imperial bunker, darkly stained with dust and gore -
As I cowered, darkly muttering, suddenly there came a sputtering
As some weapon quickly stuttering - firing at my bunker door.
"'Tis some bolter", I murmured, "firing at my bunker door -
Only this and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And the brightly burning bastions lit the horizon by the score.
Eagerly, on freedom drunker; - vainly had I sought to hunker
In this heavy Imperial bunker - with perhaps a tunnel in the floor -
A safe and empty fortress with perhaps a tiny tunnel in the floor -
Only this and nothing more.

And the mad raving howling of each distant Space Wolf prowling
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before.
So that now, to the beating of my heart, I stood entreating
"'Tis some Space Wolf there repeating, firing at my bunker door -
Some common Grey Hunter rapid-firing at my bunker door -
This it is and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer
"Marine," said I, "or Scout, your attention I implore;
The bunker walls are thick - they are made of tempered brick
And your bolters do not nick the slightest scratch or tiny score -
Not a dimple, dent, depression, dip, scratch or tiny score -
Away now, and fire no more."

Then in the bunker slumping, presently I heard a thumping
A pounding - rattling many times fiercer than before.
And soon I heard a screech – as if a claw was used to breech;
The very Gods I did beseech as the ceiling fell upon the floor -
Through the wounds poured streams of light which danced upon the floor -
Danced amidst the sounds of war.

Then at once it stopped the violence - I was left alone with silence
Confused, I spied the reason why the shells did drop no more -
Flying through the clutter, then with many a flit and flutter
A psyber-Raven came through the dust to perch above the door -
Perched on the two-headed eagle just above the bunker door -
Perched and sat and nothing more.

At this I grew more craven, for the talons of the psyber-Raven
Were all over covered with bright red blood and crimson gore.
"Wretch!" I cried, "Njal hath lent thee - into this fortress has he sent thee
So that remotely here he may be - and this bunker then explore -
Scry out my exact location and this bunker then explore -"
Quoth the Raven, "Eversor"

Then, methought, the air grew darker, the bunker now a little starker
For the uttered word brought terror as I had never felt before.
As for weapons, I knew I had none - no bolter, sword or lasgun;
No arms to stop the war's son fated to break soon through the door -
The blood-mad crazed assassin fated to break soon through the door-
Quoth the Raven, "Eversor"

"Be that word our sign of parting, machine or bird!" I shrieked, upstarting -
"Get thee back into the fire-fight and here spy on me no more!
For as you came unbidden - I would otherwise be here hidden -
Leave my location in this midden - quit that icon above my door!
Take thy shining metal eye, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Eversor"

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting - still is sitting
On the pallid two-headed eagle just above the bunker door;
His metal eye has all the seeming of a psyker that is scheming,
To have my guts lie steaming in a pile upon the floor;
And now all hope has left me, crouched here upon the floor
I await the Eversor!

 

 

 

 

 

 

See you across the table (slicked with crimson gore),

 

M4cr0

 

P.S The grim/dark version of the Edgar Allan Poe classic is from a White Dwarf back in the 90's. I have no idea who the original author was, but I remember we all went crazy about it when it was published. I have changed a bit of it so that it makes more sense, but I can't claim anything more that that (...apart from modelling the characters!). If you know the author let me know in the comments :-)

 



Dreadtober!

Hi folks,

I have been so busy with work, the house extension and a special project for Halloween that I only just found out that it is Dreadtober! Joe over at Broken Paintbrush posted a great short story called The Interment of Brother Gud Kaninkarr and mentioned that it was for the Dreadtober challenge, so I went exploring to find out what it was and DAMN the interwebz is full of dreadnoughts this month.

Space Marine Dreadnoughts have always been my favourite unit and I have six of them floating around my garage in various stages of completion. This year they even made my To-Do list, as I am planning on running three of them in my Dark Angels army. When I saw that I had four days left to make a contribution to the Dreadnought challenge I immediately stormed into my garage and salvaged my oldest Dreadnought kit from the bitz box. His time had come.

With two fist-fulls of pieces I sat down with the kids and starting assembling. For one hour I was crazy busy; gluing, filing, filling gaps with green stuff and converting an assault cannon on the missile arm.

By 5.30 pm I had a Dark Angels Dreadnought built, armed with a twin-linked autocannon and assault cannon. The only thing missing was a decent  targetter for the assault cannon, which I soon fixed up. Over all, I am very happy with the build, though the model is so old that the metal is corroded in several places.

Later on I gave it a quick green spray using Army Painter.

That's a fair bit of dakka right there.

Now... all I have to do is paint it and do the base...

See you across the table,

M4cr0


P.S. Here is a little teaser for my Halloween project:



 

The Knight Before Christmas

Hi folks,

Decisions, decisions. It is getting towards Christmas and this is usually the time when I think about ordering something interesting. Buying online in Australia, particularly from the UK, is a particularly painful exercise; sometimes I think we are still paying the fines for all those convicts they sent over in the 1700's. Still... Forge World Imperial Knights... 

All you bloggers out there (keep up the good work) painting Knights have eroded my willpower and I am that close to biting the bullet, particularly with the offer of the free Knight Scion. I had a chat to a collector of Knights at my local GW and bounced some ideas off him; he had some serious neck-beard going on, so we got on just fine. We both lamented the fact that few of the Knights look like the old Epic models, a complaint that I'm guessing very few people would make.

Wifey was listening in and added her infinite wisdom:

1) "The GW ones are too short... they should be bigger"
2) "If you are going to get one you may as well go the whole hog"
3) "How much does that convert too?" [$375 AUS]
4) "Ahhh... well... if we run out of money you may have to wear it. Or eat it."

As she will be paying for whatever decision I make, I got her to take a look at the prime candidates and provide more infinite wisdom...

Option 1: I suggested that a GW Warden could be converted to look like the old Castellan, my absolute favourite Knight from my pre-teen Epic days (below). In reality though, I would probably just make a standard Warden. This would be the cheapest option, in fact, I could get two for the price of a single Forge World Knight. I also wouldn't have to muck about with resin, which would save a bit of preparation time.

Option 2: The new Knight-Atrapos has some wicked old school weapons going on, which makes me giggle on the inside. It stands nice and tall and the weapons have a lot of opportunities to paint glow effects which I enjoy doing, especially with the Graviton Singularity Cannon barrel open. Jen thought this guy looks cool but would fit more with skitarii (how's that for an insight!). She was also fascinated with what she called the "crotch-banner" and what I was going to paint on it.

 Option 3: A Knight-Lancer would fit in quite nicely with my Iron Snakes, rocking the spear and shield combo. I just wish the shield was different shape, though that is just me being picky and dreaming about razor saws... Jen felt the same, it just didn't excite her at all.

Option 4: Similarly, the Knight-Acheron's head makes it look like a Greek hoplite. I can't say I am fussed with the weapons it has though. If only I could get an Acheron head with a Lancer body... Anyway, I would definitely paint this guy to match my Iron Snakes. Wifey said it looked like a Spartan straight away, which was a plus, but it seemed to have a weak crotch banner flapping in the breeze.

Option 5: A Knight-Castigator would look pretty neat with my Dark Angels, having the most "Knightly" of heads in my opinion. It reminds me of the Mk III Iron Armour I am using for my Dark Angel veteran squad. My only concern was the style of the sword, which Jen also picked up on. A little too small and hollow for our liking.

After all that I am still undecided. Which Knight do you think I should get? Do you have a personal favourite? If you get a chance let me know what you think, I will probably make an order in early November.

See you across the table,

M4cr0

Tukkayid Campaign: Nova Cats Part 1

Hi folks,

The Nova Cats have had a pretty good run so far in our Battletech games, despite the fact that none of the players in my gaming group care two jots about them. In our recent Luthien campaign the Nova Cats performed particularly well in urban/short range settings, with a certain Gargoyle C MechWarrior tearing it up with his Ultra AC 20. In the first scenario of the Nova Cats invasion of Tukkayid we decided to bring the same guy back for another go. We teamed him up with an Adder C Star-mate to take on three Comstar Mechs: an Exterminator, a Flashman and a Crab.

1st Turn: Gargoyle (black Atlas) and Adder are ambushed by a Crab (Cicada), Flashman (Zeus) and Exterminator (Dragon).

In the first turn the Comstar Mechs emerged from there hiding spots and pummelled the Adder. As a Comstar player it was our goal to take down one of the Clan Mechs as quickly as possible. Considering how heavily armoured the Gargoyle is and the positioning of the Clan Mechs after the first turn, our choice was pretty simple; pick on the little guy. 

We continued to harass the Adder whilst evading the Gargoyle, dealing heavy damage it with multiple large lasers on the Flashman and Crab. In reply the Adder hit the Crab with a NARC beacon and rained LRM's down upon it. It wasn't enough to save the Adder though; it fell to multiple engine hits next turn. The Gargoyle drew a bead on the Exterminator and hammered it for a turn, dealing hits with both the Ultra AC 20 and ER medium laser array. Crumbs.

With the Adder down we couldn't avoid the Gargoyle any longer. With the Exterminator heavily damaged after only one turn of fire Wade suggested we just run it in and get a kick in. According to the Clan duelling rules Goomba couldn't return the favour and, for a cheap shot, a successful kick could lead to the Gargoyle being incapacitated much quicker. The Exterminator barely survived the Gargoyle's salvo and landed its kick, along with several medium laser blasts, to the Gargoyle's right leg. Then things started to go pear shaped for our heroes...

For the next hour or so, Wade and I did not win a single initiative roll. With the Gargoyle's comparatively high movement rate, there was no place we could go that he couldn't follow and he made us pay for it every turn. The best we could do was lure him into overlapping firing arcs and clench our teeth. We poured fire into that damned leg, but just couldn't take it out.

Overheating and limping from critical leg hits, Goomba's Gargoyle continued to win initiative and destroyed both Comstar Mechs to secure a decisive victory for the Nova Cats. At the end of the game the Gargoyle's record sheet told the story; massive amounts of damaged spread across too many locations. A few hits shifted to the arms or back onto that right leg and we would have won it. As it was, the Gargoyle MechWarrior had proved his mettle once again... time to give him a name I think!

No armour left in five locations and only one shot left with the autocannon!

See you across the table,

M4cr0

Garage-pocalypse

Hi folks,

The picture above shows the sorry state of my Man-Cave. It is driving me mad.

Lovingly known as "The Bunker" for many years, it has slowly turned into the dumping ground of choice for anything we don't want to look at. Every school holiday I tidy it up so that it is useable, but recently we have been building an extension to our house and it has not been possible.

In fact, the floor is now carpeted with so many power tools I could start my own hardware store. The extension is looking great but, in addition to the mess it has made of my personal space, it is chewing up my painting time. I could spend an hour highlighting one Ravenwing marine, or I could paint the ceiling... you get the picture.

Having said that, I have not been completely idle. Whilst not a particularly interesting update, I have finished off three more Ravenwing marines, at the expense of sleep ;-)

I still have to finish off there bikes and prepare some arms for them. Two of the marines will be armed with meltaguns, so at some point I am going to have to dive into the garage and sift through the detritus for them.

Originally I was going to arm them with grav guns, because that is what all the cool kids are doing, but I already have tons of anti-MEQ on hand. Plasma guns also seem a bad choice as the Black Knights do it so much better. I figure if I arm them with meltaguns, the sergeant with a combi-melta and thunderhammer, a multimelta attack bike and multimelta landspeeder, at least one of those hits is going to do something that all of my plasma cannons can't.

 

Anyway, time to go and sand another wall...

See you across the table,

M4cr0

X-wing: Battle of Endor

Hi folks,

My mate Craig R. had his "Level Up" day and had a whole heap of gaming buddies over to roll dice and such-and-such. I offered to run a big introductory game of X-wing, as quite a few of the guys seem interested in the game but not yet willing to take the plunge. Craig R. himself has a little fleet of ships but had never played a game.

To kick things off I ran a quick game just with Craig R. before people arrived. This gave him some exposure to the rules in action and, I think, a deeper understanding of solid list building. He made all the rookie errors and picked up on some key strategies in a short period of time. Next I set up ~ 300 points of Imperials and Rebels so that we could re-visit the Battle of Endor in (some of) all its glory. The lists were chosen so that as many people as possible could control a functional component, that didn't rely on synergy with other units. The lists are provided after the battle report for those who are interested in that sort of thing.


Setup

The fleets lined up against each other ready to go. Most ships only had one upgrade to reduce the cognitive load on the new players. I don't think there were any Decimators on Endor, but I wanted a point-sink on the Imperial side to simplify setup and avoid a TIE swarm whitewash. I also love Decimators (there, I said it). If I ran this scenario again I would probably take the Decimator out and run the Imperials 50 points or so light.

Early Manoeuvres

...Or should I say "Mostly Effective Obstacle Dodging". After playing the first game Craig R. was a little more savvy about manoeuvring and the kind of mistakes new players make. We both had to chuckle as the Wade flew the TIE swarm on the left flank in perfect formation whilst the Rebels seemed to scatter randomly after the first turn. Very early in the game people figured out how important planning your moves was, as a few ships lined up obstacles with no way of avoiding them next turn.

The Crazy Furball

As the two fleets finally found range a crazy furball erupted. The TIEs on each flank swept towards the centre of the board, overlapping their firing arcs and focusing on single targets until they were destroyed. Wedge was the first to go. The Rebel attack was more disjointed, splitting fire between different TIE's and the Decimator. This was mainly due to a failure to manoeuvre in such a way that ships could fire on the same target. Another lesson learned!



Where is the Falcon off to? The B-wing vapes the nearest squint, but Wedge bears the brunt of the TIE swarm. 

The Rebels manage to get a Y-wing and A-wing in position to fire at the Decimator, causing heavy damage. 

The End Game

The Imperial flanks converge on the Rebels in a scissor like manoeuvre, catching the Y-wing and A-wing between them, whilst proton torpedoes and a proton rocket from the TIE bombers and TIE Advanced destroyed the last X-wing. The Falcon finally made it into the thick of the battle and got the Decimator down to one hull point.

At this stage we had been playing for a good couple of hours and I could see the Rebel players lamenting their early tactical decisions. It is amazing how quickly pick this game up. With only the B-wings, a damaged A-wing and Falcon still in play, they were happy to call it quits and discuss how they could have done things differently.

All things considered, this was a great experience for everyone. It showcased the models and the importance of manoeuvring (which is what got me hooked on the game), as well as the richness that upgrades add to gameplay. As I mentioned earlier, if I ran the scenario again, I would probably ditch the Decimator (and perhaps the TIE Advanced as well) and put all the new players on the Rebel side. That would give them a little bit more room to make errors. Hopefully a couple of the guys catch the bug and deepen our player pool in the future.

See you across the table,

M4cr0


Fleet Lists


Imperial (293 points)

• 4 Black Squadron TIEs with Expose
• Tetran Cowall and a Saber Squadron TIE/In with Predator
• Major Rhymer and a Gamma Squadron TIE bomber with Advanced Proton Torpedoes, Proton Torpedoes and Proton Bombs
• Rear Admiral Chiraneau with Ruthlessness, Engine Upgrade, Mara Jade, Tactician and Rebel Captive (I call this one the Stress Fairy)
• Maarek Stele with Squad Leader, Proton Rockets and Experimental Interface

Rebels (293 points)

• Wedge Antilles and Red Squadron X-wing with Outmaneuver
• Horton Salm and Grey Squadron Y-wing with Ion Cannon Turret
• Tycho Celchu and Green Squadron A-wing with Push the Limit and Proton Rockets
• Ten Numb and Blue Squadron B-wing with Autoblasters
• Lando Calrissian in the Falcon with Veteran Instincts, Engine Upgrade, Nien Nunb and Gunner