Monthly Archives: August 2009

Red Block List – First Cut

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Got the big shipment of Red Blok stuff in the mail yesterday. I was suprised by the quality of the army box; you could bludgeon someone unconscious with the box alone. It’ll also be nice to have a spare Odin & Manon to experiment touching up.

Also, I had a total brainfart and, in thinking I was ordering three Dragomirov Kolossi, I ended up ordering three boxes of Dragomirov Kolossi. It was a stupid mistake, and I’m really not sure how I made it: I was probably focusing on Lt. Dragomira O-3, who’s pretty much the same thing and comes one figure to the box. Given how much it would cost to return the extra two to the War Store… I’d only end up saving about $10 anyway. So, I’ll keep them (unless anyone local wants some, in which case let me know!).
I’ve started playing around with lists for the game. For fun, I made one that uses all of the Dragomirov Kolossi. It’s probably a wildly bad list… but what the heck?
Red Blok – Frontline
  • Kozni
  • Hetman
  • Dragomirov Kolossi x3 – Lt. Dragomira
  • Dragomirov Kolossi x3 – Sergeant
  • Dragomirov Kolossi x3 – Sergeant
I could just use the list from the Army Box… but I’m leery of putting the Dotch Yaga into a 2,000 point game, for the same I reason I don’t like running Land Raiders: too many points!

Instead, the list I plan on running initially will be a mite heavy on infantry and a bit light on striders… but I think it’ll be alright.

Red Blok
  • Urod
  • Kraznye Soldati x12 – Captain Vrachov, Medic x2, Grenade Launcher x3
  • RPG Soldati x12 – Sergeant, Medic x2, MGauss x1
  • Dragonov Kommandos x9 – Sergeant, Electronic Warfare x2, Sniper x3
  • Dragomirov Kolossus x4 – Lt. Dragomira

I could take three MGauss weapons in the RPG Soldati… but I don’t have the models and I’m unlikely to buy another two attachment boxes simply for the the MGauss bearers. Without much headache, I could replace the four Dragomirovs with three Strielitz and use the left over points to turn the MGauss into three rocket launchers, which I do have the models for. This is a start, though.

Painting Progress – 20090826

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Last week, I finished assembling and basing four Juggernauts. I still need to convert (for the icon bearer and musician) and mount the Bloodletters on them, but it’s enough that I think I can start playing the revised list I’ve worked up that contains Bloodcrushers.
Then, this weekend, I painted terrain.
For starters, I painted four of the five Blastscape pieces. Only four of them, because I’m having trouble figuring out exactly how to paint the lava. It’s not something I’ve ever really done before. I’ll come back to it at some point.
The Blastscape pieces really were disappointments. Reports of them being pretty shoddy were true; the plastic really is paper thin in a few spots, and the detail isn’t as good as it is on other terrain pieces, like the crashed Aquila.
But… that’s okay. The detail is certainly good enough, and it’s unrealistic to expect vac-formed stuff to have as fine detail as the molded plastic terrain. I think it looks pretty good for what it is. The extremely thin points, where the peaks are easily crushed suck, but aren’t nearly as noticable when the whole thing’s been painted and been drybrushed.



I really like the way that gem came out; I’ve never tried painting one before, and I think it looks good.
I also painted the Aegis Defense Line walls that came with the Strongpoint I got… a month or so back. I haven’t painted the guns or mounts yet, but the walls, like the bastions, painted up very quickly.

As with the bastions, I primed them dark grey, airbrushed Charadon Granite over the whole thing, then dry brushed it with khaki. For the Aquilae, I basecoated them Scorched Brown, then did a heavy drybrush of P3 Menoth White Base and a light drybrush of white. Very, very easy.
While I’m thinking about it: I don’t know that I’ve posted finished pictures of the Bastions. (Of course, it’s hard to take decent pictures of things that are quite so large, but something’s better than nothing.)



Finally, because I didn’t feel like starting up on the Bloodcrushers’ Bloodletters or fiddling around with a paint scheme for all of them (my brain really needed to be offline), I puttered around with building those Dark Angel Sternguard. Nowhere near done, but progress. I think I’ll have to buy another Space Marine Commander: when bitz-ordering a dang Combimelta costs $9, I might as well the extra $4 for the full kit and use the extra bitz elsewhere.

Space Commies (Not Tau)

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I’ve finally given in and ordered the Red Blok armybox. I’d put it off for a while, but since some friends have loaded up on AT-43, I figured I’m certain to be able to get to finally play the game.
I hardly know what I’m doing with the game, but I’ve got some options to play around with.
What I’ve got right now:
  • Odin & Mannon
  • LT Dragomira
  • Tymofiyova
  • 3 Strielitz Kolossus
  • 14 Kraznye Soldati (Unit + Attachment)
  • 12 Dragonov Kommandos (Unit + Attachment)
  • 1 Nakovalny (Kozni)
  • 1 Hetman (Urod)
What I’ll have when the order comes in:
  • Vrachov
  • Another Odin & Manon
  • 20 Krazny Soldati (inc. 4 Grenade Launchers, 2 Medics, 2 Mechanics, 2 Officers)
  • 14 RPG Soldati (Unit + Attachment)
  • 6 Dragonov Kommandos (1 Sniper, 1 Electronic Warfare Specialist, 1 Medic, 1 Officer)
  • 3 Dragomirov Kolossus
  • 1 Hetman (another Urod)
  • 1 Dotch Yaga
The contents of the box alone guarantees me 2,000 points. I’ve got a ton of infantry, but I’m light on armor; only one light walker and two heavies.

Going to the Library

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The Dark Angels don’t have it so hot when it comes to Librarians.
There’s the basic, unnamed Librarian. He’s got a number of wargear options, including the ability to take Terminator armor. He’s got two powers: a random flamer template (S 2d6-2 , AP d6) and the ability to save a single wound with a Leadership test.
Then there’s Ezekiel, Grand Master of Librarians. He has no wargear options, and cannot Terminator armor. He’s got the same powers as the other Unforgiven Librarians, plus the ability to remove a model from the game if it fails a Leadership test (which sounds cool, but very unlikely to happen).
Note that “can take Terminator armor” is something I’m particularly concerned about; my Dark Angels are (especially since the new Space Marine codex came out) primarily Deathwing. So a Librarian not wearing Tactical Dreadnought armor is pretty useless to me, which means that Ezekiel is pretty useless to me. (Also, the lack of an Invulnerable save hurts, and that he makes all units within a foot of him Fearless does nothing whatsoever for me.)
The problem is: Ezekiel is much better at doing what I need a Librarian to do: wear a Psychic Hood and shut down enemy psykers. That, more than anything else, is why I want a Librarian in my list.
Ld 9 (generic Librarian) is not nearly as good as Ld 10 (Ezekiel). Chaos Sorcerers and Eldrad, the guys I’m most likely to see doing naughty things with Warp-born powers are Leadership 10, which means I need to beat their roll by 2 instead of just 1. Ick.
So, what to do? Outsource?
I’m looking at replacing my generic Dark Angels Terminator Librarian with a Daemonhunters choice.
For a five points less than Ezekiel, I can buy a Grand-Master with a Psychic Hood. I’m swapping a master-crafted force weapon for a +2 S one, a master-crafted bolt pistol for a stormbolter, losing the Fearless bubble (that I have no use for) and gaining +1 A. I also don’t get any psychic powers, but I’m very much okay with that. That said “five points less than Ezekiel” is still a hefty chunk of change, and is more than I’d like to spend on a single model.
For over sixty points less than a generic Terminator Librarian, I can buy a Brother-Captain with a Psychic Hood. In this case, I’m replacing the force weapon with a +2 S power weapon (which is kind of a bummer), and taking -1 BS, -1 W, -1 I and +1 Ld. This is a tougher choice. The +1 Ld makes him much, much better at doing what he does, but the loss of the Force Weapon is a great one and dropping down to one wound makes him considerably more fragile. Still, he costs nearly half of what I’m paying for a Terminator Librarian!
I’m supposed to play some Planetstrike tomorrow; I’m going to replace my Librarian with a Brother-Captain and see how that goes.

Space Hulk

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Well, I’ve ordered my copy of Space Hulk.

I’m a little suprised (and by”surprised”, I mean “disappointed”) by a couple of things about it, though. The “limited” thing is really probably a mistake. The pricetag is also… very high.
I’m also trying to figure out what’s up with the bases on the minis. It looks like they’re all on cavalry bases, which is odd. More than anything, I’d like to be able to use my Deathwing Terminators in the game (40mm bases are too large for the previous edition), and I think that if the pictured miniatures are on cav bases, I might be able to do that… but it still strikes me as an odd choice.
The genestealer sculpts are amazing. The terminator sculpts also look really, really good… though perhaps a smidge too Blood Angel-y for my tastes. I suppose I’ll have to decide whether to just keep them and use them as is, convert them slightly to replace the winged chalices with winged broken swords, or trade them off for multi-part terminators. That will have to wait until later, though.

Hell Dorado

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Just got a text from Chris S., who’s at GenCon right now. He wanted me to know that, at the Hell Dorado tournament, they’re using a cheatsheet I threw together about this time in 2007. That’s pretty cool!

I’m excited about the most recent news about the game, and hope it works out. I’m not holding my breath, though, and my minis will probably stay in the foam trays until we see some sort of Anglophonic love for the game.

Mid-August Update

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The past two weeks have been busy, first with a trip to visit Mrs. Rushputin’s family in South Texas and then busy with catching up at work from having missed a week. So, understandably, Painting Progress has been slow.

I’ve finished the one Bastion (which I need to photograph), and have gotten most of the way through the second, larger Bastion.

I’d started working on assembling some Bloodcrushers, but that’s been put on hold until a magnet order shows up (possibly today). I’m going to do some experiments with magnetizing the Bloodletters riding the Bloodcrushers because, as someone else has pointed out, there’s really not much in the way of contact points for them. Hopefully some teeny-tiny magnets will help with that.
I’m going to have to figure out how to convert the Bloodletters, too. They all have Hellblades in their right hands, and grip the collar of the Juggernaut with their left. I’ve got to work in a horn on one and an Icon on another.
Something else I plan to fiddle with in the next couple of weeks is assembling some boltgun-toting Dark Angel Veterans. Currently, the only unit of veterans I have are configured for assault; they’re pretty much the only viable non-terminator assault unit in the Dark Angel codex. I’m looking into using the vanilla Space Marine codex, though, for more variety and because I’d like to step back from playing Deathwing and return to playing with Battle Company marines. I’m absolutely going to need some Sternguard veterans when I do that, so it’s time to make some.
I also expect I’ll want to run a Predator. I’ve got one assembled, but unpainted. Of course, I’ve got a half-painted Land Raider I should probably finish first…
On the gaming front, I’m still having a wagonload of fun with my Khornate Daemons. I’ve lost hard and had my teeth kicked in only the once. I’ve walked away from every other game I’ve played feeling like I’ve won… even though I’ve probably drawn twice as many times as I’ve won. That’s entirely because I’ve put up a good fight and have had the draws be extremely close.