The Battle Leader speaks....

Aye lad, the flagons will be full and the bones will be rolled!

Epic Saga’s of heroics and death will fill the mouths of Skalds of the Internet.

Friends will be made, rivals found and best of all it will be Cinco De Mayo!
What more could a Wolf Lord ask for but drink and battle for his men!

I am getting pumped about this event, how cool is it that I am going out of state for a tournament that is on Cinco De Mayo at a bar and I am playing Warhammer 40k for the day?

Painting is going well, should have the rest of the Marines done in a few days and the back packs also. This just leaves the Rhinos and basing starting around the weekend and wrapping up Wednesday night. Worst case, I can drag some stuff with me on the trip and paint some on Thursday night late at my parents if I hit a critical part.

Some friends have said if I need help they would rally and help out if they could and I have been thinking about taking up that offer. Still, like the Space Wolves, there is a matter of pride in making the accomplishment myself.

Bonus!


This is how I plan to paint my two wolves! 

The Clock is Ticking

One of my favorite works by Dali. This guy did some amazing stuff! If you ever go to Tampa where I live, this is a must see stop. The guy just had an amazing life and a brilliant artist.

Well, it is crunch time! The Kalm is a little over a week away now and I still have a great deal to finish. My friend Chris has finished up most of his stuff as he was just doing touch ups and such to his army that I am sure going to look great. I am still in the hot seat, but no impossible!

I have about a dozen Marines to finish, 2 wolves and 4 Rhinos. I should be done with the Marines in the next few days and the wolves in a few hours. The Rhinos are the tough challenge but I hope that Hank’s advice to get some Testor’s spray saves the day and shortens my painting down to a day or two. Then it is just a matter of finishing the back packs, gluing them on and finishing the bases.

Of course they are table worthy and I will go back later to touch them up, add transfers and such at a later date when I have more time to focus on the finer details. Still even with the crunch I am finding some bits of this and that slipping in. Tonight I am going to plan a few "lunch painting" sessions to get a little extra time.

Here is some shots of the cart as I am working away!

2k Space Wolves (Refined)

Well, just a few weeks away and after the two past weekends I think I have my list done for the Kalm in Alabama the first weekend in May. So far, it seems my friend Chris and I will have very similar lists for the most part with some minor cosmetic changes making us slightly different.

The Savage Wolves List:

175pts Wolf Guard Battle Leader: Frost Weapon, Storm Shield, Saga of the Hunter, Runic Armor

110pts Rune Priest: COS, LL and MH

110pts Rune Priests: COS, LL and JOW

172pts Wolf Guard x4: P ower fist, Combi Melta

63pts  Wolf Guard: Terminator Armor, Cyclone Launcher

145pts Wolf Scouts x7: PW x2, Melta Gun

145pts Wolf Scouts x7: PW x2, Melta Gun

175s GH x8 PW, MG, Rhino

175s GH x8 PW, MG, Rhino

175s GH x8 PW, MG, Rhino

160pts GH x7: PW, MG, Rhino

140pts Long Fangs x6: 5 ML

140pts Long Fangs x6: 5 ML

115pts Long Fangs x5: 4 ML

The layout:

Wolf Guard Battle Leader either joins one of the Scout units, flanks on his own or joins a Grey Hunter Squad.

2 Wolf Guard join the Scouts (one each) and 2 join the first two Grey Hunter Squads.

The Last two Grey Hunter Squads each get one of the Rune Priests.

The last Long Fang takes the Wolf Guard in TDA with Cyclone to be able to shoot 6 missiles now.

Long Fangs go into cover. Duh!

Grey Hunters are mobile units to do things in the game.

Scouts Flank

Painting Log:

Wolf Guard Pack Leader: 1/2 painted.

2 Rune Priests: Done

Wolf Guard: 4 with Fists/Meltas Done. TDA with Cylone (primed)

14 Wolf Scouts: 7painted, just need basing. 7PIP (Painting in progress)

31 Grey Hunters: Various stages, most need detail work, wash and basing.

4 Rhinos: Grey basic assembly, nothing fancy on it yet.

17 Long Fangs: 2 PIP, touch ups and basing left on the rest.

2 Wolves: I have the new kit and want to paint two, unassembled so far. I do have some old wolves worst case.

Anthem Games Battle Reports: 4-12

Took my Space Wolves out for some paper training at Anthem Games over Easter Weekend to get some practice games in before the big tournament in May.

We had 10 armies in total:

2 Space Wolves

2 Chaos Marines

2 Tyranids

2 Imperial Guard

1 Grey Knights

1 Unkown (I forgot and didn’t see what he was playing and he left after the first game)

Dark Eldar (ringer to fill in for the missing player after the first round)

My first draw was against an IG player by the name of David, he had the vehicle heavy IG list that looked something like this: Squadron of Leman Russ tanks, another Leman Russ and Exterminator all with sponsons and I think lascannons. Topped with a Command Squad with 2 bodyguards and medics with melta guns in a Chimera and a Commissar Lord with a Vet squad and a couple of other Vet squads with plasma guns with a Penal Unit in tow with a Rough Rider unit.

David, IG General

The games we played was the Nova open missions, so all games had the same elements: objectives, kill points, table quarters and victory points just the order and deployment zones changed.

The first game was Dawn of War with Kill Points, Table Quarters and VPs in that order. I won the dice and setup first with a Wolf Lord in the middle with a Grey Hunter squad in a rhino. He placed out a Chimera with Vets and Commisar Lord. David failed to seize and the game was on.

My first turn was quick, unable to spot with the vehicles and enhanced senses (due to range), most other stuff moved on and ran (namely the Long Fangs). David moved his stuff on and tried to shoot a few times, with no real impact yet due to night fighting still.

Then the game was on in turn 2. My scouts appeared and blew up one of the two squadron tanks and removed the turrent from the other. Some shooting stunned a few tanks forcing him disembark and one Chimera to become immobile. Once he was out the Lord and company went to work taking apart the Lord Commisar and Veterans, they walked down the board along with the scouts slipping down through the wreckage after they blew up the last tank on turn 3 from the squadron only to finish off a disabled Chimera towards the end of the game. The rest of the army got flanked by one of the Rune Priests and the Wolf Guard Battle Leader following behind the Lord. David had a very defensive game on his hands the entire game.

When the dust settled he had a Penal Squad, one Vet squad, a Chimera and the Exterminator tank left on the table. I had the VPs, objectives and table quarters hands down taking a clean sweep to the second round.

First Turn

Scouts suprise the Leman Russ Squadron

There was a Chimera there and a Command Squad...at least before they ran away!

Scouts kill the second tank!

The Lord and Grey Hunters take on the Exterminator Tank.

Scouts finish off a Chimera.

Epic fight at the end. IG beat the two Space Wolves in hand to hand.

My second round opponent was another regular at Anthem, forgot his name right now. Old age sucks you now! Adam I think is his name. He brought a Chaos army that was interesting and well played against my list.

Just oozes chaos eh?

He had: Land Raider, 2 Lords with Terminator armor with Lash, 1 Unit of Nurgle Marked Marines with rhino, heavy bolter and melta I think, a large block of Khorne Bezerkers (in the Raider), another Rhino with Thousand Sons, a Chosen Squad with lighting claws and a Raptor squad with some assorted weapons. He also had a trio of Chaos Termiantors with a reaper autocannon and some other assorted weapons.

I won the setup again, took my table side and this time we had Pitched Battle, he failed to seize and it was game on. The  Wolves pushed forward and the shooting worked out well for me disabling one Rhino with the Thousand Sons and blowing up the Nurgle Rhino. Then we played cat and mouse as my Rhinos got stunned or disabled forcing me to dismount and take cover to continue using my Rune Priests powers or advancing with the Lord and Pack Leader’s groups.

The game came to a peak about midway when I took out his Terminators only to have the Bezerkers swarm out of the Land Raider and chew up the Grey Hunters with the Lord. The Lord finished off the Zerkers and walked over to finish off one of the two Lash Lords. The other Lash Lord towards the end died to a missile shot and a 1 on the armor save. The Scouts died after the 1000 Sons was assaulted (after all it was the honor of Fenris at stake) and the Wolf Guard survivor turned around and finished off the Thousand Sons sorcerer and died to the Chosen when they assaulted. There was no Lashed units this game thanks to runic weapons!

The game ended up with me trying to beat down a Land Raider that my melta would not roll high enough to destroy. It was immobile and two out of 4 weapons was blown off! *sigh*

Chaos deploys!

Epic battle with the 1000 Sons and Scouts. The Chosen turn the tide of the battle and win it for Chaos.

The Lord and Chaos Sorcerer face off!

Where the hell did that base come from?

Again another clean sweep for Chaos and it was to the final round to face what? IG again! *sigh* This one was ugly…

Chris had his shooter/armored arcade of mechanized troops and tanks in this list. Something similar to what I would field.

Chris, master of the mecha...

Chris had 2 Executioner tanks with plasma and lascannons, 1 Punisher with lascannon and Pask, several Vet units with Chimeras and a single lascannon in the unit, 2 Plasma Armored Sentinels, 3 Normal Sentinels, Vendetta with a Vet squad with 3 melta guns. A command squad was somewhere with another lascannon.

He won the roll, picked his quarter, I deployed in the other as best I could. I held the Lord, Scouts and Pack Leader units behind just hoping the Long Fangs and Rune Priests would survive.

Chris had put the Vendetta in reserve with the trio of sentinels with multilasers.

The game went as expected, I failed to seize and I was cut down with a series of massed shooting. At the end of turn 3 I had only the one Pack leader left out of 3 Long Fang Squads. I was able to blow his Vendetta out of the sky on turn 2 and my scouts and Lord Unit wrecked one Chimera, Vet Squad and Executioner tank before they was torn apart by a rain of fire and turned to puppy chow. Only the Lord lived with 2 wounds left.

All said and done, Chris had the game any way we played it, I could have pushed for another turn we could have completed I feel, but all I would have been able to do is remove one squad from an objective making a tie for the primary, we would have went to secondary which was victory points that he would have won anyway. A graceful player knows how to take a loss. It sucked when my dice turned south in the game and his was on fire. That’s the way it goes though….

The amusing part of this game was the Sentinel Battle…two Walkers was blown apart by shooting and then I charged thinking a STR 5 Frost Weapon would finish the last one off…NOT! For 3 turns we wailed on one another, I was unable to kill the damm thing! And the last Long Fang Leader was fighting an Armored Sentinel with no main gun (blown off earlier) to no avail. It was just sad, he threw a krak, no 6, sentinel swings misses or would fail to wound usuall or the 3+ save would kick in….comedy at the finest.

IG Advance

Scouts make a kill or two....

Ugh! Setback.

Charlie Brown sums up the end of my day. I come home to find a card in my door for our fence installer that we have been waiting 3 weeks to schedule. I call the guy, "Be out tomorrow..." *sigh* Thanks for the advance warning a******! So, I am out there tonight shoveling dirt and such away from the fence to level the ground before they show up tomorrow. Mind you, I planned to do this a few days before not the night before after working in the office all day moving stuff for new carpet next week.

So, I bashed my hand while I was near the old fence while shoveling....lovely, the knuckles are swollen, the hand is shaking a bit and hurts like hell. Hurts to type some, so no painting for me tonight. *sigh* Not happy about this. This better be the best damm looking fence to go up when I get home tomorrow night after a tournament.

Movie Review: Lockout

Overall this was a good movie! This is your typical "action" sci-fi flick that is full of the one liners from the hero. The acting was your standard fare for an action flick as well, with the bad guys being just right with that  evil tough guy and nutcases in one group. The damsel in distress was your typical blond to a point but had her moments of not being the victim all the time and showed a few merits that took her away from the standard helpless blond we are used to seeing in the movies.

The most refreshing part was the ending with the non-standard guy kisses girl and they walk off into the sunset. Instead they walk away talking about getting ice cream and having sex instead of trying to be romantic.

The worst downside to the movie was the "escape" as the station was being blown apart. First they jump from an airlock in space. In theory you should go forward unless either: a) the station has a gravity field (which it did but didn't work well for the hero earlier getting on), b) they was close enough to Earth that they was drawn into the gravity well. Yet, this was not the major weird point, I know it is 2079 in the movie but really an armored space suit able to go through the atmosphere and not burn up? Even if it could make it the person inside would roast or at least the face plate would blow out due to pressure. Then popping a chute in a free fall at the end. Yea, right! 

Buy a beer, win a battleforce! Wow!

Saw this over at Dark Future games...an amusing contest to those going to Adepticon, buy them a drink and you get an entry into the contest, enter as many times as you like, watch for the guys with the shirts! Shirts look kick ass also! I would love to have one! Those skulls in the banner are sweet!





http://darkfuturegaming.blogspot.com/2012/04/news-win-battle-force-or-troop-box-we.html

Space Wolves WIP

I still have a long ways to go in 3 weeks but I feel I can make it!

Here is some of my progress, going to a tournament this weekend to test out a list to see how it does....

My cart and army as is....yes that is the new paints to the left!

\

HQ: Rune Priess and Wolf Guard Battle Leader

Scouts

Long Fangs

Pack Leader with Long Fangs, enjoying a cold one!

Wish me luck as I finish this army up and I hope kick some ass in Alabama, or as they say in Bama' "Whoop some ass!"

Waaaghhh! Oh how I love a good tournament!

Where have I been? Painting and trying to get some table time in when I can before a big event in May that I have been looking forward to!

We have about three weeks to go before it is time to load up to go to the Kalm Before the Waaaghhh in Madison Alabama. I am very excited about making this trip for several reasons…

I have been keeping an eye on the Kalm for some time. Last year, I missed the window to register with my friend and the tornados hit making it even worse of a situation. Still, the event went on despite setbacks which impressed me more than anything as they played at the home of the organizer and still had a blast.

The format for this event is held at a bar and is a 21 and older event. They also have on the website, no douchebags, simply if you’re a tournament GT gung-ho win-win player then this isn’t your event then. They even bothered to define a douchebag (serious, check their website out).

This event is about seeing old friends and making new ones. Sipping beer and eating good food while throwing some dice and playing with toy soldiers. Much like how GW first set out for Warhammer to be like. Throw in a Blood Bowl game the night before and you have a great lineup for an event.

What is going to be great about this is the trip itself. I get to visit my parents for a day, then visit an old high school friend that owns a comic store in Gadsden Alabama then go back to the Space Museum (if we have time) that I have not been to since I was a kid. Plus, it looks like at least one name on the list is from my days when I worked for GW in Atlanta, so it will be cool to see at least one old face from the past.

I also am simply amazed this event is in Alabama, my home state, just a few hours where I was born. So this is a going home GT for me and something I wished was going on when I lived there. It was so hard to find players in Alabama and Georgia until you get into Atlanta or Birmingham (the major cities).

My first choice is what team should I bring for Blood Bowl, so far I have only the Necromantic and Orcs, To me based on the skill packs I am going to go with the solid Orc team to take on the challenge, nothing fancy just pure Ard Orcs looking to throw the ball around and krump some people.

As for the actual 40k tournament there is the toughest choice. While I do have several armies and it does hold a painting score, I would like to use 100% of my stuff if possible; sometimes I do borrow my friends stuff if I am missing something. A GT is something I try to take more pride in than a local tournament. In a local gaming store event just having it painted is what I want. Sure if the event allowed unpainted I could do it, but I won’t because of my opinion, I call it a standard.

That said, I am going with Space Wolves, I have everything and in theory I can have everything painted by the end of this month if I get off my duff and paint. There should be no excuse that I cannot finish out the army list I drew up. I don’t aspire to win the best painted trophy as there is always more brilliant painters than I out there on the tables, so I hope it goes to a deserving player.

It was close for IG to be making the Alabama trip but in the end I would need to buy and borrow more than what I felt was acceptable to put on the table for the event. Plus, it would be more models and more time painting than I would have.

In one way it is weird to be bringing the same army as my friend as we are the only two from Florida with the same armies. My goal is to at least make sure we don’t have the same list and throw out some variety onto the table to see how the kids do. My plan is simple, I want 3 good games of 40k, a good few runs of Blood Bowl and some good beer and meet some cool people from my backyard where I grew up at.

With luck I can post some pictures of my WIP tonight! 

Here is a shot of the Objective marker you get for attending! WOW! Yea, there is something worth fighting for!

Here are what the trophies look like:

More of the bottle trophies in the background!

I hope to bring back to Florida one of those trophies! There is 70+ players from what I understand so this is going to be a tough run! 3 games and one day! 

Teaser: Battle Report and Paint Review

Just played in a tournament on Saturday at Anthem games and I should be cranking out a Batrep soon enough and I will also be posting a review on the new GW paints. I bought 11 last last night including several Dry, Base, one Technical and several Layers to put them to the test.

The one on the right was brushed with the Lilac and washed to tone down the dry brush work. While not GW Figures I wanted to do a test while waiting for one of my Easter dishes to finish cooking. If you find the figures interesting check out the Strange Aeons Adventure blog I have going. A great game outside the realm of GW, imagine Necromunda/Mordheim meets HP Lovecraft!

Cool Contest: Spreading the Word

http://sippinonpaintwater.blogspot.com/2012/03/easter-basket-giveaway.html

Over at Sippin' in Paint Water they are giving away an Easter basket full of candy and hobby goodies! Check it out...of course I am going to win it!

Breaking News! Games Workshop Throws In the Towel!

This was just slipped to me from a friend that still works for Games Workshop....

On April 2^nd the GW board of directors plans to announce on Monday their intent to close Games Workshop effective January 1^st, 2013. It is said that the notes for the announcement states that while the sun never sets on the hobby like how the vast British empire was like once, things change and poor management choices by the board has forced them to evaluate their business status in an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss the financial threats facing GW as many of their investors are wish to cash in quickly on the gains instead of bothering to help fund the company.

The board cites many issues with management oversight being the primary issue of the company making poor choices from product pricing, support of the hobby and the poor selection of writes for the current game systems.

GW does plan to release Warhammer 40,000 6^th edition along with all current planned releases to attempt to recover their financial investment.

Among those quoted, “We are unsure what went wrong, we had a great product, our miniatures are of the finest quality and we are catering to the little brats with rich parents…our business plan was infallible. “

Games Workshop wanted to thank all of their loyal hobbyists under the age of 13 for their devoted allowance funds and apologies to the adults that once enjoyed the hobby their hobby and has since forced them to leave the hobby due to outlandish prices and poor consistency of product in our games.

April Fools!

Book Update: Know No Fear

Just picked up Know No Fear by Dan Abnett last week and about halfway finished reading it. I’ve been ready for a good book and it seems we are going to have a summer of good books from Black Library.

Again, I like to hold to my policy and unlike other book reviewers, I don’t intend to give away anything and spoil a book. Much like watching a movie trailer that has all the good points in it, once you watch the movie you feel very disappointed…on with the review!

First off Dan Abnett has produced another masterwork again, the artful character of his writing is still there and as always there is a twist on how he presents the story to the reader. How did he do it time? The book is broken down into “timestamps” that the Ultramarines use to record the time elapsed in an engagement.

Second, this book is oozing with characters, perhaps a bit too many as I feel many have been missing in the book for several chapters and I am waiting on them to return to the fore. This may be perhaps the worst setback that I could say about the book. Still, he develops the characters well and portrays them in a light that is very enjoyable and you can empathize with the characters throughout the story.

I have to admit based on the timeline of when the Istavan massacre happened and when the Word Bearers attacked the Ultramarines that the Ultramarines did not get any type of warning of the betrayal by Horus and the other legions even prior to the drop site massacre. It seems to me that Guilliman would have been aware of at least some bit of information that something was amiss. Granted the psychic choirs was messed up and there was other factors keyed into the situation that unfolded, it just surprises me is all.

One other interesting thing I caught is that Kor Phaeron mentions the “eight” instead of the big 4, this is going back to serious old school Chaos history and I am wondering if this is a teaser for the new Chaos codex fluff. Of late I have seen some fluff tied into the Black Library’s work, even in this one they are pimping several of the variant vehicles and dreadnoughts that Forge World sells as they are worked into the story (thus to the fluff) making them enticing for people to want to buy.

I highly recommend you pick up this book if you have not. Dan Abnett will not disappoint you with this book and I don’t recommend books lightly.