Yearly Archives: 2009

Pustulent Rat Spawn

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In preparation for next week, I had to dig around to find the Nurglitch I’d assembled and gap filled about a year ago. I also searched, in vain, for the Lord Skrolk miniature I know I own (but can’t seem to find).
Anyway, here’s Nurglitch, Arch Plague Lord of Clan Pestilens in all of his pustulent glory.

I also assembled a Rat Spawn. I’d orginally intended to use the Chaos Spawn model as a base and throw in some Rat Ogre bits… but that really never really came together. I have to say; I appear to have unreasonable expectation for the Chaos Spawn kit; it seems particularly unable to produce what I’d like it to produce. (See also: The World’s Crappiest Daemon Prince.)
Instead, it ended up being a Rat Ogre with a couple of Chaos Spawn bits and a hunk of green stuff. It’s not as impressive as I’d hoped, but it’s sufficient. Better than the Daemon Prince, that’s for sure.



Those snakey things in the background are D&D Minis I’d considered sawing into bits and using as a lower torso… but I ended up deciding against doing that. It’d be weird to have a snake-like lower body… and a tail.

Hell Dorado Licensed

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It’s great news to finally have some resolution on the state of the game. When we get a release date for the English-language book, I’ll finish painting my Démons.

Making Sausage

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Mostly just thinking out loud here:

With the Bubonic Court and, according to rumors, the new Skaven book, I can take Plague Monks as Core. It’s probably ill-advised, but what the heck:
Plague Monkapalooza
Bubonic Court of Nurglitch – 2,000 points
Lords & Heroes
Plague Lord Nurglitch
Plague Priest – BSB, Storm Banner
Festering Chantor – Plague Censer, Dispell Scroll x2
Core
  • Plague Monks x25 – Full Command, Extra Hand Weapon, War Banner
  • Plague Monks x25 – Full Command, Extra Hand Weapon
  • Plague Monks x25 – Full Command, Extra Hand Weapon
Special
  • Plague Censer Bearers x10
  • Plague Censer Bearers x10
Rare
  • Rat Spawn
AT-43 is also on the top of my mind, since I’ll be playing it in a few hours. Mind you, I’m sure none of these are good and, if they are, they’ve probably been done to death at this point. This is mostly mental sausage-making as I try to process the game. Expect more!
One list I’ll be able to easily run when my final orders come in is:
Red Block – Supra
  • Dragonov Kommandos x9 – Sergeant, Sniper Gun x3, Electronic Warfare x2
  • Dragonov Groupa S
  • Krasnye Soldati x15 – Vrachov, Rocket Launcher x3, Medic x2
  • Dragomirov Kolossi – Dragomira
  • Sierp x3
Or maybe even drop the Krasnye Soldati and replace them with even more Dragonov Kommandos.
The list I plan to run this evening (at first, at least) is:
Red Block
  • Krasnye Soldati x14 – Vrachov, Rocket Launcher x3, Medic x2
  • Krasnye Soldati x12 – Tymofieva, Grenade Launcher x3, Mechanic x2
  • Dragonov Kommandos x9 – Sergeant, Sniper Gun x3, Electronic Warfare x2
  • Sierp x2 – Sergeant
  • Urod
I’d like to work up a list that lets me load up on Kolossi… but it just ain’t happening at 2,000 points. The list that gives me the most options there is Frontline and, with that, I need to ensure that I have enough AFVs to stick around… and it’s tough to find points for both those and TacArms with only 2,000 points to spend.

The Stinking Things

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I’ve been very excited since we got official confirmation of the upcoming new Skaven armybook. The loathsome ratmen are what got me into the hobby (16?) years ago and, even though I’ve ultimately found frustration with Warhammer, I still love the Skaven more than anything else Games Workshop’s produced.
I can’t quite manage enthusiasm to play them again, right now, before the new book’s come out. Every time I grind out a list, it looks remarkably like the lists I’d played with before taking a break from the game… lists that I know will take forever to play and won’t be particularly successful. I’d like to push my ratmen around… but I want something different.
Enter: The Bubonic Court of Nurglitch. I’ve got Nurglitch. I’ve got 25+ Plague Censer Bearers and over 100 Plague Monks. I can do this. I certainly thought about it when I really set into playing WHFB, so why not?
I’ll be fighting my WHFB arch-nemesis, Mike, and his Dark Elves on the fields of Killpeopleburg next week. The list I’m planning to bring is really only half-considered, but could be fun.
Stinkclaw
Bubonic Court of Nurglitch – 2,000 Points

Lords & Heroes
  • Plague Lord Nurglitch
  • Plague Priest – BSB, Stormbanner
  • Festering Chantor – Plague Censer, Dispell Scroll x2
Core
  • Plague Monks x24 – Full Command, Extra Hand Weapons, War Banner
  • Plague Monks x10 – Full Command, Extra Hand Weapons
  • Rotten Rodents x25 – Full Command
  • Pusbags x20
  • Pusbags x20
Special
  • Plague Censer Bearers x10
  • Plague Censer Bearers x10
Rare
  • Rat Spawn
  • Rat Spawn
The Censer Bearers are in larger units than they need to be, but why not? Plus, I’d like to stick Nurglitch in one of them, so bigger means more survivable means better.
Two Rat Spawns should be fun: I’ve got bits for a Chaos Spawn and I don’t know how many Rat Ogres floating around, so I should be able to construct one without any trouble (and will likely have a good time doing it) and will use a Carnifex conversion I got in a bulk trade a couple of years back for the other.
The Plague Priest will go in with the Rotten Rodents; the Stormbanner will buy me at least one turn to close on the enemy; if it persists, I lose nothing, however, since I don’t have a single bit of shooting. The Festering Chantor will go in with the large Plague Monk unit.
We’ll have to see if a block of Plague Monks can survive. Normally, they can’t: T 4 is nice, but it can’t make up for the total lack of armor save, and they’re simply not good enough at killing to offset how easily they die. Since Rotten Rodents, the Clanrat replacement, are pretty much in the same predicament (they’re fundamentally Plague Monks who’ve traded Frenzy for Light Armor), I figure I might as well give it a shot. Might be worth it to try juicing up their damage output by replacing War Banner with Banner of Burning Hatred.
Ultimately, it’s sure to play very, very differently than what I’m used to.

Progress – 20090901

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I don’t think I should call these posts “Painting Progress” anymore… I feel like I haven’t actually painted in too long.
I did have a little free time over the weekend and was unable to motivate myself to do anything with my Daemons. I really need to knuckle down and come up with a paint scheme for them: I’m sure that, once I do, I’ll have the army done in just a few months.
In the hopes of getting something done, I did some puttering with my Dark Angels.
I put some more effort into finishing off my Sternguard Veterans (they’re just waiting on some studded pauldrons that should arrive any day now).

I also assembled two heavy bolter brothers and another devastator sergeant (I’ve had two assembled for quite some time) for a new Devastator squad. I started painting them last night.
I also fixed this poor assault marine: he’d been a bit too enthusiastic with his chainsword, holding it up higher than the trays I store my marines in were ready to allow. So, he got a new arm.
In other news, I’m officially cut off from buying more AT-43 stuff. I’ve got two Sierps, two Dragonov Kommandos boxes and two Dragonov Kommando Attachment boxes on order. That’s more than I should have bought, but it’s too late, now. (They’re hard to find, which is my excuse.)

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.