These guys have taken forever; waiting several eternities for glue to dry, etc. Still need to do some green stuff on about half of them and I’m waiting on a head for one of the models.
These are supposed to be Genestealer Cultists that have corrupted hive governance. Guardrails on the project is to do them up for Kill Team.
Everything is basically just head and arm swaps but I think they work. Cult Agents are Necromunda hired guns with same.
I guess I’m posting these in reverse order.
During my staycation, I painted up some more Crimson Fists: the Hellblasters from Dark Imperium/Know No Fear, and power-sword’d models from Indomitus.
I want to take a moment to shit on the Judicar. This is the dumbest GW model I’ve put together in memory. This dummy has a mask over his mask? And a coat over his armor? But also armor over his coat? Ugh, I just hate this model.
I wrapped up the first chunk of my Crimson Fists, so I wanted to get them into the lightbox.
They’re weirdly very frustrating. The recipe is extremely simple and speedy; I’m painting them in what I would describe as the Citadel/Duncan style, which is to say I put down a bunch of base colors, wash it, tidy up the colors, and highlight.
Probably because it’s got like 12 steps that involve me applying Night Lords Blue it starts to feel old pretty quickly. Fortunately, I’m using NLB Air.
Here’s the thing, because I don’t know that I’ve advocated enough for the GW Air paints here: brush that stuff on. It’s fine in the airbrush (despite being in a damned pot and not a dropper), but their air paints tend to have great coverage w/r flow when just brushed on. When highlighting stuff, I would very much prefer their air paints over their non-air paints. The flow of the NLB, compared to the weird flow of the TB, makes it a lot easier for me to just not fight the Thunderhawk and then clean it up with the Night Lords.
Anyway, it’s so easy I expect progress to be faster than it is, which discourages me, which makes progress slower, etc. Vicious cirle.
First batch is done, anyway. These are Intercessors and characters from Dark Imperium & Know No Fear and the Phobos LT from the SC! Vanguard box.
I’m also particularly pleased with how the power swords came out.
I picked up a few Genestealer Cult models a few months back for no reason other than that they look cool. I didn’t intend to paint up a 40K army of them (nor did I) but I certainly kept the idea of playing Kill Team with them on the table (I haven’t).
They’re painted up Duncan-style, per one of the WarhammerTV video guides. I deviated a little where it came to carapace and flesh, but otherwise, there’s nothing revolutionary here.
I’ve got to say: painting these was kind of a delight. I didn’t do it for any reason other than “I felt like it.” The Citadel method’s easy and produces good results with little effort. And Games Workshop minis really are pretty great, and it feels like it’s been a while since I painted them. (Not true, I’d just painted some Adeptus Titanicus before these, but that’s a little different.)
I think I might still have one batch left (Acolyte Hybrids? and an Acolyte Iconward?) but I don’t know that I’m likely to get to it soon. And I don’t think I’m likely to pick up any more, either.
But man, it felt good to just build a box of GW minis, paint a box of GW minis. Done.
Turns out I haven’t photographed anything I’ve worked on since…. before NOVA. Time to fix that.
These are the models from the Adeptus Titanicus Grand Master set. I spent the better part of a month working on these: I’m quite happy with them… although I haven’t had the chance to play the game yet. It’s my understanding that the game plays better with some Reavers & Warhounds, but I’m having a hard time finding it in my heart to buy more models for this game until I’ve pushed these around.
No deliberate house here: I just picked colors and decals I thought would look good.
It’s been out for a couple of months now, at this point, but I’ve only just now gotten to playing a game of 8E.
Scott (who has a blog, but I can’t remember the name) was kind enough to run me through a quick game to help me see how it plays.
It seemed alright. The mechanics of it kind of hummed along, but referencing the rules was a fucking goddamned nightmare. Flip flip flip flip flip flip flip flip flip flip flip flip flip. I hate the Warscroll format.
Otherwise, it was OK. I’m not afire with a need to build a new army for it, and I’m not likely to update anything especially for 8E (especially given that Dark Angels and Khornate Daemons are still in Index-mod), but I won’t turn down a casual game of it.
Although a bajillion other scenarios have popped off (Stormtroopers assaulting a Kroot encampment! Cultists infiltrating a Militarum base! Goddamn Space Marine! Just one!), my initial plan was to do Stormtroopers vs. Cultists.
I got a bunch of cultists back in the Dark Vengeance box and, even when I traded away the rest of the Chaos models, I hung onto them because they’re cool and they’re the sort of model I’d like to have around painted. Obviously, it took me a bit to get to them.
They’re definitely Chaos-y, but maybe not so specific I can’t use them for whatever.
I was really excited about painting up some Stormtroopers. I’ve been into the models since they came out, but haven’t had an excuse to paint them up. Because they’re supposed to be stealthy, I used the same paint scheme for them that I used on the Deadzone Pathfinders I painted up a few months ago, and I’m nuts for it. It’s black without being black, which is always the problem with painting things black, you know?
I also used some of the Mantic Peacekeeper shields because, well, I thought they deserved some riot shields.
First off: some links:
As I said yesterday, I wanted to be able to run Black Ops-style scenarios (elite specialists assaulting a position held by less elite bad guys via stealth) in the 40K universe. I wanted the attackers to go in ignorant about the force they’d be facing: in both general and particular.
Go ahead and open one of those up and and either read through them or follow along with them as I ramble through my thought processes.
So my goals were to:
The expectation was to run the game as a GM’d, convention-style game. The hope would be that players would address the game creatively and with initiative… and that I wouldn’t have to try to account for every potential scenario in writing. I think it’ll handle random, non-arbitrated play, but it definitely benefits from a GM.
As a baseline, I envisioned an elite squad of Imperial Guard Stormtroopers (yeah, yeah, “Tempestus Scions”) striking against a gaggle of Chaos Cultists. I had 10 of the former and 20 of the latter.
For starters, I’m in love with the Bolt Action activation system. I might hate the second edition of the game, but those dice provide a lot of flexibility, spontaneity, and complexity in a manner that is immediately understandable to a new player. I decided to shamelessly steal an idea that Casey had: each model (not squad) gets an activation die and, to reflect the better training and badassery of special characters, Character models get a number of activation dice equal to their number of wounds. So, a squad of 10 guardsmen would get 11 dice: 1 for each guardsman and 2 for the sergeant. When the sergeant loses a wound, a die’s removed from the bag.
The orders have to change a little bit: Pins and BA-style morale fall apart immediately when you’re looking at a single model. Fortunately, I needed a catch-all order for button pushing, prisoner interrogation, and psychic power use, so “Rally” becomes “Special.” I also wanted more of a 40K-style Overwatch, in which a model can fire repeatedly in a limited arc, than a BA-style Ambush, in which a model gets a single fire response to someone they can draw line of sight to, so “Ambush” becomes “Overwatch.”
The rest of everything comes together pretty quickly: Down is down, Fire, Advance, and Run all remain pretty much the same except an articulation of what sort of weapon can be fired on what order.
I did take the opportunity to change a thing I’ve never liked about 40K Rapid Fire Weapons: instead of this range-based 2 shots at 12″, 1 shot at 24″ business, I’ve always thought Rapid Fire weapons should fire two shots when standing still and one when on the move: so that becomes 2 shots on a Fire order, 1 shot on an Advance.
Nothing here is groundbreaking. I’m sure any number of 40K players who’ve encountered Bolt Action have noodled through something that looks very, very similar to this… but it’s got to be documented, right?
I did want to cover multiple attacks: in 40K, if you shoot a Heavy Bolter at a bunch of guys, you might kill three of them… but that only works because it’s really just one unit of models. I’ve got a rule that says you can “walk” attacks 2 inches: if you had a 2 shot weapon, for example, you could decide to allocate 1 shot at a model and the other shot at a model 2″ away. If you had, say, 3 shots, you could allocate 1 at a model, loose one in the middle, and 1 at a model 4″ inches away…. the same for close combat.
I thought it would be a good bit of spackle. In effect, it didn’t come up once, which means it’s unnecessary complexity.
Similarly, I wanted to pull a bit from Infinity’s ARO system: I put in rules that allowed models access to a subset of Orders (Fire, Down, Advance) that they could take in response to an activating model (like BA’s ability to go Down in response to being fired at), with a test to continue to be able to accept orders. Again, it never came up at all, was complicated and kind of hard to articulate. So, I’ll keep the list of Reaction orders and dump the test and ability to continue to respond.
That’s about it on how I fiddle with the 40K mechanics to make it work for the this. The rest all speaks to how those mechanics are used: stealth missions
This began as a very clear port of the Black Ops rules, but after some playtesting it became clear that it wasn’t going to work the way I wanted it to.
We’ve done a ton of “hidden model” scenarios in TGS and have seen what works and what doesn’t: even better, having encountered Infinity (but not having played it as much as I’d like) I’m familiar with the idea of silhouette markers. In fact, I love them. So much so that, for this sort of game, I’ve ordered and numbered 32 of them.
Each side gets a DBT tray with an insert that looks like this:
Silhouette Marker 03 corresponds to whatever model’s sitting on 03 in the tray.
10 of the defenders are “Guards” these run on autopilot and respond to noise generated around them. This started as a direct port from Black Ops, where all of the defenders worked off of the table, but that left the defender with too little agency. So, instead it’s just the 10, and then the defenders get to control a handful of models in the same way that the attackers get. Both attackers and (non-Guard) defenders begin as silhouettes.
The Guards are fine on the table, because they’re generic enough: Cultists are Cultists, and I’ll be picking up a handful of Cadians to use as Guards when the baddies are attacking.
The Noise table is what really drew me to BO, but quickly changed enough that I feel comfortable dropping it into the rules doc above: I’d originally planned to just say “Reference the book”. “Noise” was confusing, because so much of it is visible, so I renamed it “Disturbance.” In fact, I broke out the types of disturbance into Visual and Auditory. Different weapons generate different amounts of disturbance and different ways.
For example:
Finally, I was dissatisfied with the reaction table: it was both too forgiving and too punishing. There’s a strong likelihood that I replace this table with a leadership test instead of a single d6 roll and have a few more options, but need to do some math to make that work.
Anyway, that’s all there is to the rules!
A while back, I picked up Osprey Games’ Black Ops. It’s a game that covers games like Zero Dark Thirty and Metal Gear Solid: modern (or five-minutes-in-the-future) skirmishes with a strong emphasis on attacker vs. defender and stealth. Like most Osprey Games it looks like it’s probably perfect for a convention-style game that probably wouldn’t hold up to extended, concentrated play. A solid basis for the sort of game it set out to be.
I really dug the idea of a stealth game, but I’m not interested in trying to recreate contemporary conflicts that are actually getting actual people killed actually right now.
Fortunately, I had a fix for that: I love 40K, of course, but as should be obvious around here I haven’t wanted to play the game in a long time. 40K’s a complex setting, and even though the tabletop game’s become about The Big (sometimes you’d think it was a skirmish game at 5½ ” scale), there’s still a lot of room for the sort of smaller scale engagements that are analogous to the ones Black Ops intends to serve.
Now, I don’t have an opinion about the Black Ops game. I haven’t played it. I could immediately tell that it wasn’t going to work, though: it covers humans fighting humans using modern equipment: not humans fighting orks fighting daemons with microwave and laser guns. In the end, I ended up mashing together a whole mess of rules that I described in the initial game pitch as “It’s like 40K talked Bolt Action into having a three-way with Infinity, but Bolt Action and Infinity are kind of really into each other and neglect the hell out of 40K and now 40K just feels miserable and awkward and alone.”
I noodled on it for a long while, then finally decided: actually execute on the dang game: schedule it, build and paint for it, then run the damned thing. That happened over the past weekend.
This is what’s occupied most of my hobby time over the past two months and, because I wanted things to be a surprise, that’s why I’ve been so quiet around here. I’ve been busy… just not able to post about it.
I’ll break this across a couple of posts: this overview, a link to and a discussion of the rules, the models I painted, and some game photos.
So, the army I took was a shortest-path-to-tournament-ready deal. I’d rather be playing Tau right now, but they’re so far from presentable it’s tragic. I considered trying to update my Dark Angels to something I could bring, but ended up settling on my Khornate Daemons.
Casey was an immense help in figuring out what the list needed to look like given the models I had ready to go.
It started out just needing a Bloodletter with Instrument of Chaos. Then, it just needed a Herald of Tzeentch. Then, some travel got cancelled, so I decided to push on and do some Plaguebearers. (As in, I got the call while I was on other travel, and stopped by the game store on the way home from the airport to grab the kits I needed.)
In the end, this is what I ran:
MAXIMUM KHORNAGE
HQ
Bloodthirster – Exalted x1, Greater x1
Herald of Khorne – Juggernaut, Wrath, Greater x1, Lesser x1
Herald of Tzeentch – Warlord, Lvl 3, Conjuration, Exalted x1Elites
Flamers x4Troops
Pink Horrors x16 – Champ w/ Lesser x2
Plaguebearers x10 – Champ w/ Lesser x1, InstrumentFast Attack
Flesh Hounds x16Heavy Support
Daemon Prince – Khorne, Flying, Armor, Greater x2, Lesser x1
Soul Grinder – Slaanesh, Baleful Torrent
Soul Grinder – Slaanesh, Baleful Torrent
There’s a lot stupid, extraneous upgrades in there, yes. I was pushing to build as few models as possible; that’s why.
I had SO MANY really great games. NoVA scoring is a pretty basic affair: 3’s unbelievably enjoyable game, 2’s an average game, and 1’s a shit, miserable game.
I had 6, 1, 1, respectively.
That said: I didn’t finish hardly any games. Out of 8 games, I think 7 were called for time. Most games had a pace where, when they’d call “30 minutes” we’d agree that we’d get one more full round in. Maybe because we were (in general) chatting too much?
Also, I really dropped the ball on photographing my opponents armies. I always do that, and I’m really annoyed with myself that I neglected to this time. Sorry, guys.
HQ
Saint Celestine – Warlord
Primaris Psyker
Uriah JacobusElites
MarboTroops
Battle Sisters x10 – Meltagun x2
– Rhino – Dozer Blade
Battle Sisters x10 – Meltagun x2, Meltabombs
– Rhino – Dozer Blade
Infantry Platoon
– Command Squad x5
– Infantry x10 – Plasmagun, Power Axe
– Infantry x10 – Plasmagun, Power Axe
– Infantry x10 – Plasmagun, Power Axe
– Infantry x10 – Plasmagun, Power Axe
– Infantry x10 – Plasmagun, Power Axe
Seraphim x9, Two Hand Flamers x2, Meltabombs
Seraphim x10, Two Hand Flamers x2Fast Attack
VendettaHeavy Support
Exorcist
Retributors x5 – Heavy Bolters x4
I lost, 0-20.
I did a lot wrong here; if I’d played my army ten more times, maybe I’d have considered that in a Kill Point mission, taking the Portalglyph is probably the stupidest thing I could do. I also might have respected the two hand flamers a bit more.
I got my clock cleaned… but I don’t mind. Stephen was a nice dude, and I got the weekend off on about as right a foot as I could with an enjoyable game.
HQ
Hive Tyrant – Warlord, Wings, TL Devourer w/ Brainworms x2, Hive Commander, Leech, Paroxysm
Hive Tyrant – Wings, TL Devourer w/ Brainworms x2, Old Adversary, Leech, ParoxysmElite
Doom of Malan’tai – Mycetic SporeTroops
Tervigon – Crushing Claws, Toxin Sacs, Catalyst
Tervigon – Crushing Claws, Toxin Sacs, Catalyst
Tervigon – Crushing Claws, Toxin Sacs, Catalyst
Termagants x20 – Devourers, Mycetic Spore
Termagants x10 – Fleshborers
Termagants x10 – FleshborersHeavy Support
Biovore x2
Biovore x2
I lost, 0-20.
This game was a mess: lots of big monsters and a lot of chaff to wade through to get to them. My Herald of Khorne was MVP, decapitating two Tervigons himself. He didn’t roll Decapitating Blow every round of combat, but when he did, he rolled it a lot.
The game ended on Turn 3, unfortunately. If we’d gotten the rest of the game, I might have been able to turn it around. Things were, frankly, looking pretty dang good for me, but we’d have needed a 5 hour round, I think.
Lots of generated models here: his Tervigons kept pooping out above average sized broods, and I rolled two new units of Daemons on the Warp Storm table.
HQ
Aun’Va – WarlordElites
XV104 Riptide – TL Plasma Rifle, Ion Accelerator, Shielded Missile Drone x1, Early Warning Override, Stimulant Injector
XV8 Crisis Suits x3 – TL Plasma Rifle x3, Fusion Blaster x3
XV8 Crisis Suits x3 – TL Plasma Rifle x3, Fusion Blaster x3Troops
Fire Warriors x12
Fire Warriors x12
Fire Warriors x12
Fire Warriors x12
Kroot x20Fast Attack
Pathfinders x6Heavy Support
Broadsides x3 – TL Rail Rifle x3, Velocity Tracker x2, Positional Relay x1
Hammerhead – Ion Cannon, Blacksun Filter
Hammerhead – Ion Cannon, Blacksun Filter
I won, 13-7.
Things did not go Zander’s way. First, I Seized Initiative. Then my Soul Grinder Baleful Torrented most of his Kroot to cinders. Then all of my Blood Horrors looked at Aun’Va standing behind a row of Fire Warriors and said, “There’s no way he can make that many cover saves,” and were proven right.
I did some stomping; on the flank with his Fire Warriors, I outshot him with my Horrors. On the Flank with his Broadsides and Riptide, my Hounds, Herald, and fliers swarmed over him.
This was only a Minor Victory, though: the Hounds multi-charged a unit of Fire Warriors, a Hammerhead, and the Broadsides; this was a mistake. It took them too long to chew through the Broadsides… and the game got called on time. If we’d been able to play through to the end, I think odds are high I might have been able to table him.
HQ
Fateweaver – Warlord
Herald of Tzeentch – Lvl 3, ConjurationElite
Fiends x9Troops
Plaguebearers x10
Plaguebearers x10
Pink Horrors x16
Pink Horrors x16Fast Attack
Flesh Hounds x16
Seekers x15 – IconHeavy Support
Soul Grinder – Nurgle, Baleful Torrent
I lost 7 to 13.
Kevin and I had been chatting about Daemons and how rad it was to be running a goofy army when we realized hey: we’re both at this table ’cause we’re supposed to play each other.
Anyway, this was the best possible way to start the day. It really looked like I had him on the ropes, but when time was called: he’d eked out a win over me.
Unfortunately, he’d also managed to knock my Bloodthirster to the floor, shattering him into four pieces. I’m still working through that. But, when a dude can (accidentally) destroy one of your minis and you still point at it as the best game of the weekend: it was a good game.
HQ
Chaos Lord – Warlord, horne, Juggernaut, Axe of Blind Fury, Sigil of Corruption
Bloodthirster – Greater x2Troops
Bloodletters x10
Chaos Marines x10 – Khorne, Meltagun x2, Meltabombs
– Rhino
Chaos Marines x10 – Khorne, Meltagun x2, Meltabombs
– Rhino
Chaos Marines x10 – Khorne, Meltagun x2, Meltabombs
– RhinoFast Attack
Chaos Bikers x5 – Khorne, Plasmagun x2, MeltabombsHeavy Support
Havocs x5 – Autocannon x4, Veterans, Meltabombs
Maulerfiend
MaulerfiendFortificiations
Aegis Defense Line – Quad-gun
I won, 17-3.
SIck of me saying “this was a really good game” yet? A lot of fun, some unexpected Warp Storm results, laughs all around.
Of course, this list would be the one I can’t find. Figures. So, from memory:
HQ
Overlord – Warlord, Warscythe, Command Barge
Commander – Command & Control Node, Puretide Chip, Iridium Armor, Vectored Retro-thrustersElites
Riptide – Ion Accelerator, TL Fusion BlasterTroops
Kroot x10
Warriors x5 – Night Scythe
Warriors x5 – Night Scythe
Warriors x5 – Night Scythe
Warriors x5 – Night ScytheHeavy Support
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
Broadsides x3 – TL High Yield Missiles x3, Missile Drones x4
I’m almost certainly off on some particulars, but the big themes are pretty hard to forget.
This was my bad game. It’s probably not entirely my opponent’s fault: he was probably (and I don’t know that I exaggerate here) all of thirteen years old. He can’t help that he was an unpleasant little shit: all boys that age are unpleasant little shits. Why we’re permitted to survive past that into manhood is one of nature’s greatest mysteries.
He had an unfun list, an unfun personality, and didn’t know the rules. (At one point, I just turned, walked off looking for a judge. I was done arguing with him.) The thought of just dropping the game had occurred to me; I’m glad I stuck through it.
I’d have played him at some point anyway: if I hadn’t have lost to him in Game 6, I’d likely have played him in Game 8, where he played for our bracket. (Instead, he played IFL’r Seth in that game, who had as much fun as I did. “The first words out of his mouth,” he said, “was that I had to have my Blacksun Filters painted on my tanks.” So, yeah.)
HQ
Chaos Lord – Warlord, Nurgle
Daemon Prince – Nurgle, Flying, Armor, Greater x2, Lesser x1
Sorcerer – Lvl 3, Bike, Aura of Dark Glory, Gift of Mutation, Spell FamiliarTroops
Plague Marines x8 – Meltagun, Power Fist,
– Rhino – Dozer Blade
Plague Marines x8 – Meltagun, Power Fist,
– Rhino – Dozer Blade
Plaguebearers x10
Plaguebearers x10Fast Attack
Chaos Bikers x5 – Slaanesh, Meltagun, Icon of Excess, Gift of Mutation, Power Fist
Heldrake – Baleflamer
Heldrake – Baleflamer
I won, 20-0.
Torrent of Fire has the wrong pairing up: it shows the Dark Angels player who no-showed, rather than the Chaos Space Marine/Daemons player I played (whose opponent dropped the night before). Sadly, I neglected to write his name on his list.
Anyway, this was another great way to start the final day. A fun game that was looking pretty grim for me at points but I managed to swing it around to a pretty decisive win.
HQ
Coteaz – WarlordTroops
Servitors x3 – Plasma Cannons x3
Warrior Acolytes x3
– Razorback – Psybolt Ammunition, Dozer Blade, Searchlight
Warrior Acolytes x3
– Razorback – Psybolt Ammunition, Searchlight
Warrior Acolytes x3
– Razorback – Psybolt Ammunition, Searchlight
Warrior Acolytes x3
– Razorback – Psybolt Ammunition, Searchlight
Warrior Acolytes x3
– Razorback – Psybolt Ammunition, SearchlightFast Attack
Storm Raven – TL Assault Cannon, Hurrican Bolter Sponsons, Psybolt Ammunition
Storm Raven – TL Multi-melta, TL Lascannon
Storm Raven – TL Multi-melta, TL LascannonHeavy Support
Dreadknight – Teleporter, Heavy Incinerator
Dreadknight – Teleporter, Heavy Incinerator
Dreadknight – Teleporter, Heavy Incinerator
I won, 17-3.
Man, I thought this game was going to hurt. I haven’t really played Daemons against Grey Knights, and he had kind of a lot of Dreadknights which kind of scare the pee out of me.
Despite running a list that I’d have judged harshly an edition ago: I had a good time against him. Things were pretty close in the last round: we got very tactical about charging here, holding things up there: in the end I pulled out a W because he failed something like a 4″ charge with his last remaining Dreadknight.