Road to Adepticon - Army Pics and List v3

It's been crazy at work of late so not a whole lot of hobby time - a little bit of fooling around with army lists, but only one model actually got painted:

Eye of Error over at Eye of Error made a couple banners for me, so I scaled one down to use as the Regimental banner. Fairly simple bit of work, I clipped the plastic banner and pole off and inserted a bit of brass rod cut to fit, and used one of the banner toppers that comes with the command squad sprues to cap it off. I'm rather pleased with how the banner itself turned out as well - definitely more suited to the army than the rather cadian-esque one that comes with the plastic kit.

I've done a bit of messing about with the army list I'm intending to take to Adepticon and ended up with a compromise between building the most efficient group of killers I could, and my desire to include a number of units that fit the fluff of the Mordian 7th Regiment. The 7th are known for their heavy use of abhumans, and while I haven't found a really good fit for my Beastmen (in friendly games I use them as Penitents that always use the Knife Fighters option but lose their lasguns), I did want to include Thargadd's Thumpers (ogryns) and Dunno's Deadeyes (ratling snipers). I also drew out the shape for the carrying tray just to see if I could actually FIT all the models, which just barely worked. That's a whole lotta infantry!

As far as it goes, there's not a lot that still needs to be painted for this version of the list - A Vendetta, the proxy Hydra and the Aegis Defense Line, all of which have at least a little paint on 'em so far. Hopefully with the upcoming holiday weekend I can actually get 'em finished off!

Imperial Guard - A whole mess of infantry painted!

With Adepticon bearing down on us, I really needed to get in gear and paint up the multiple squads of infantry that have been neglected for so long. Thirty of 'em were going to be needed for my planned 1850 list so there was no getting around the fact that I was in for some assembly line painting. Not my favorite way to paint, but it's efficient for those times when you just have a horde of troops to do.

On the up side, I'd already painted up the heavy weapons teams so there ended up being 24 of 'em on deck. I didn't document this stage too much, just snapped a quick picture about halfway through. The scheme is fairly quick and painless, so it only took about 5-6 hours to get them up to tabletop standard.

...Almost to the finish line! I still need to paint on the unit insignia and "winged 7" on the shoulder pads, but I wanted to get a first pass of sealant on them before I did so. I find that helps when it comes time to draw on tiny numbers and symbols - the sealant smooths out the surface somewhat so the paint flows really nicely onto the shoulder pads.

  

Couple closeups of the various squads - I don't tend to go overboard on detail for the troops - especially true in the case of the guard, as these guys get pulled off the table in double handfuls due to casualties anyway! The grenade launcher/missile launcher combo gives the squads the ability to deal with both hordes and light vehicles/elite infantry, alternately there's 3 lascannons that I can swap in for those times I know I'll be facing heavier mechanized opponents.

While I was about it, I brought the old unit of ratlings up to speed, touching up their fatigues, re-painting the weapon housings, and re-basing them. Luckily my old urban rubble theme is essentially the same physical form as my current method - just a re-paint from grey to brown, and the addition of some static grass is all that is required.

 

I'm in the queue to have the extraordinarily talented Ron over at FTW build me a new commander model for the army, but needed something for a stand in in the short term. Recently I've been using the rules for Ursakar Creed for my army commander Evin Eldro, which meant that the old model I was using wasn't armed appropriately and the real Creed model, while cool, just doesn't fit my vision. Twin hot-shot laspistols and a power sword? Turns out I have a model armed that way... Kal Jerico! A quick repaint of the coat and base and job's a good 'un. I'm hoping to have Ron do a similar model that includes a carapace breastplate and an officer's head - while the base Kal Jerico model is really dynamic, it needs some work to really make it blend in with a guard army. For now though, this'll do!

It felt really good to be able to swap the last of the big Troop units over to green on the painting chart. I also took a little time in Excel and got it to reference the point values of the army list and was surprised to find out exactly how many points of guard there actually are lurking in the Closet of Doom. I really can't think of much that I want to add to the army at this point - possibly another couple Leman Russ variants, maybe a Stormblade for grins, but unless GW comes out with a storm trooper kit that I can't live without, I can't think of any further infantry that I really need. Could it be that the project is finally reaching conclusion?

...Nah, probably not. Hah!

Road to Adepticon 2013 - test game, sort of...

Well over the past weekend I got together with my buddy Dave from Ex Fide Vivo with the intent to try out the guard army list I'd cobbled together for use at Adepticon next year. Unfortunately the weather was quite poor on Saturday and it started to snow and sleet fairly heavily, so we didn't get much past turn 2 before calling the game for weather. Nevertheless I did take a few pictures that I thought I'd share, as well as point you over to Dave's blog where he did a rather more in-depth write up of the game (as much of it as we got done, that is.

Setup - We ended up playing the Scouring with the diagonal setup. I liked the idea of the randomized objective values, though the placement that I chose for the ones on my side of the line came back to bite me...

 

Two of the three objectives on my side of the table ended up being "Sabotaged", and the forest in which the one on the left flank the located was also full of brainleaf fronds. Suffice it to say the squad in there fled for their lives! The potential for explosions drove my guard from cover in the middle of the table as well, which definitely hampered my plans.

 

I started to swing to the right flank to take that objective, and the rough riders showed up on that flank as well - I was feeling pretty confident... Until a full assault squad DS'ed right in the middle of 'em!

 

The vindicator had been stunned such that it couldn't fire its gun, so it attempted a tank shock into the Rough Riders. They danced out of the way rather deftly, only to be annihilated by the Baal Predator immediately thereafter.

I was unable to materially weaken the rampaging assault squads, who butchered their way through my line, and managed to surround and cut down the company command squad. At this point we ended up calling the game due to snow, but in all honesty it was pretty much all over but the shouting at this point anyway.

We spent some time discussing tactics and listbuilding and I've come up with a tweaked version of the list that cuts out some of the Chimeras, adds a defense line and quad-gun, and so forth. We're hoping to have a re-match soon!

Road to Adepticon 2013 - Choosing an army

It's been a whirlwind in Real Life(tm) of late, as we head into the final stretch of a major upgrade at work. Oof. That's got me thinking about vacation plans, and one of the things on the horizon is Adepticon 2013!

Now, let's be frank. I haven't played in a tournament since 3rd edition so I'm under no illusions as to how it's going to go, but based on what I saw at Feast of Blades there's plenty of fun to be had provided you have a good attitude about it all! Looking over the events scheduled for the Adepticon weekend it also looks like there's plenty of other, more narrative-based events to do on the rest of the days (i.e. after I'm eliminated on the first day of the tournament), which is my preferred style of gaming! I'd toyed with the idea of doing a Chaos Marine army for the event, but ended up settling on an army that I'm much more familiar and comfortable with...

That's right - The Imperial Guard! Heck, the blog's called Mordian7th so my foray into the tournament scene really ought to utilize the army closest to my heart. I'm going to be trying out a list over the weekend that I've hammered out with the assistance of a couple fellow bloggers, we'll see how it goes!

Here's the current list:

HQ
Company Command Squad - 230 points

• Evin Eldro (Creed)
• Voxcaster
• Medic
• Standard Bearer
• Meltagun
• 2x Bodyguards

ELITES
Psyker Battle Squad - 90 points

• Overseer
• 7 Psykers

Brother Nicodemus (Guardsman Marbo) - 65 points

TROOPS

Veterans Squad 1:1 - 95 points

• Grenade Launcher
• Missile Launcher
• Voxcaster

Veterans Squad 1:2 - 97 points

• Sergeant w/ Bolt Pistol
• Grenade Launcher
• Missile Launcher
• Voxcaster

Veterans Squad 1:3 - 97 points

• Sergeant w/ Bolt Pistol
• Grenade Launcher
• Missile Launcher
• Voxcaster

Veterans Squad 2:1 - 135 points

• Sergeant w/ Power Axe, Plasma Pistol
• 3x Plasma Guns
• Voxcaster

FAST ATTACK

Rough Riders - 155 points

• Captain Hilts (Mogul Kamir)
• 2x Flamers
• 7x Hunting Lances

Vendetta Assault Carrier - 130 points

HEAVY SUPPORT

Leman Russ Vanquisher - 180 points

• Dozer Blade

Leman Russ Executioner - 230 points

• Plasma Cannon Sponsons

Hydra Flak Battery - 150 points

• 2x Charybdis Launchers (Hydra Flak Tank)

DEDICATED TRANSPORTS

Chimera - 90 points

• Heavy Stubber
• Dozer Blade

Chimera - 80 points

• Dozer Blade

Chimera - 80 points

• Dozer Blade

TOTAL - 1849 points

One of the nice things about this army is that it's all purchased, built and a goodly chunk of it is painted already:

It's definitely at odds with my usual lists, which invariably feature all sorts of units that are woefully inefficient for their points cost (notably my beloved Ogryns), and I was honestly surprised at how much I could cram into an 1850 list. 56 infantry, ten cavalry, 7 tanks and a flyer! ...Of course, that list presupposes I can actually FIT it all into my P.A.C.K Air. Might be I have to swap in more costly units, just to cut down on how much has to make the trip. Hah!

I would certainly appreciate comments and critiques of the list - pictures to follow after the gameon Saturday!

Heresy Era World Eaters - Jetbikes built

The hobby ADHD has settled in on me a bit of late. Pinballing around the various projects lurking on the shelves up in the hobby loft, my eye fell on the package of Jetbikes I'd picked up a while back for use with the (now defunct) Heresy-era World Eaters I had been working on. While there are a number of companies doing jetbikes these days (many of which are very, very cool) none of them really matched the artwork from Visions of Heresy as well as I'd hoped:

However, BigDaddy of Blight Wheel miniatures had, at one point long ago, shown off a set of World Eaters jetbikes that were darn near exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately they're not available anymore as far as I know but I'd managed to grab a set before they disappeared and they've lurked in the Closet of Doom ever since. But no longer!

There are eight of them (sacred number of Khorne and all), and I spent some time rummaging through the leftover bits from the infantry builds to come up with enough FW Mk. V torsos and heads to match up with the legs and arms included in the kit. For the unit champion I added a few more Khorne-esque bits, including the ol' "bunny ears" helmet and some extra chains and spikes.

I also scattered a few bolt pistols and chain axes throughout the unit, and found enough RT-era backpacks to match up as well. However, now that they're built I have no idea what I want to do with them. The majority of the World Eaters army is long since sold, and I have to admit I didn't really enjoy painting them nor how they played on the table. I think these are likely just going to go up on the auction block to help fund the Tzeentch Renegades army I'm putting together for Adepticon. Expect to see another 'blatant advertising' post soon (unless one of you fine readers is interested and wants to make me an offer - I'm looking to get $120 out of them).

Now off to work on some other project. Hmm, it's been a while since I did any Eldar... Hey, wait, what are you doing with that taser? It was a joke! A JOKE! BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT! Argh!