Daemon Assembly Nearing Completion.....

Like the title says, I'm almost done with the assembling stage of the Chaos Daemon army for 40K.  Yes, I'm slow at assembling models.  I want them to look good when I'm done so I'm careful about poses and getting the mold lines cleaned good.  I'm also not sure which I dislike more: assembling and cleaning models, or base coating them?  Both suck.  I'm down to the last 4 models for the 2K list I'm play testing.  After a game Monday night, I'm 0/1 at 2000 points, and 1/1 overall with the Daemons.  I'll play a few more games first, but I'm not sure how much I'll like Skulltaker and the Bloodcrushers.  They're just seem to be SO slow!  I probably just need to figure out how to use them.  Brand new army and all that.  Like I said; play testing.  As far as assembly goes, I need to fill gaps on Be'Lakor (Slaanesh Daemon Prince), fill gaps on the one metal Bloodcrusher I have built, and finish a couple conversions.  Skulltaker is the first.  He's mounted on a Juggernaught, but I'm going to swap his sword into his left hand so I can put reigns (made of chain) in his right hand.  I think that will look pretty good.  The last model will take the most work.  I'm making a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch out of the plastic DP kit.  I've got lots of ideas on this one, but not sure exactly what all will make the final cut and be a part of the model.  You'll just have to wait for pictures of the finished product....hopefully within the next couple of weeks.  Wait For It!

Here's a couple photos of my conversion for The Masque.  I have a serious dislike of the GW model.  I bought the Lelith Hesperax model the week it came out with this conversion in mind.  I finally got around to it!  Its a pretty simple conversion.  I gave her one Daemonette claw.  The other arm is stock other than being lengthened slightly.  The one foot has been sculpted over to make it look daemonic.  Lastly I gave her a couple of small horns....which didn't photograph well.  They look better in person, I swear!  Hope you like it!

You can also see she has a stacked laminate base like I wrote about back in September.  She's pinned and glued to the laminate base, and the laminate base has a magnet epoxied into the bottom.  The plastic base has a scrap of sheet metal glued to it; she's easily swappable to a square Warhammer Fantasy base when the time comes.  What do you think of her?

Flamers are Gross!

So, I played my first game with Chaos Daemons last night.  The only models I had on the table that were painted were my Silver Demon winning Plaguebearers.  They did exactly what they were supposed to do; grabbed the objective (the Relic) and walked off with it while the rest of the army beat faces in.  It was a 1500 point game vs. a fairly generic Blood Angels list that my buddy Kirk has been experimenting with.  We quickly arrived at the same conclusion: Flamers are disgustingly, grossly, powerful!  I'd consider buying more and running multiple units but I really hate spam lists like that. 

To give you an idea of how powerful they are, here's the breakdown.  In 2 turns my 6 flamers (138 points) killed 10 assault marines, a priest, (I think) 10 Death Company, a Chaplain, and 2 Devastator Marines.  I don't have an exact points total, but Kirk said it was over 500 points.  In between killing the majority of that, and killing the Devastators the unit soaked up 100% of the remaining firepower of Kirk's army which left 1 model with 1 wound remaining.  Now, in all fairness, the Flamers were helped out by The Masque and her shooting Pavane of Slaanesh 3 times per turn which let me clump up the Death Company for maximum template coverage.  So, you factor her cost in, and 238 points killed one third of Kirk's army in 2 turns!  Yikes!  The Masque was Pavaning other units during this time too in order to shorten the Bloodletter's charge range.  In all fairness, I believe Kirk moved to charge the Flamers with his Assault squad to see if they are as scary as we had read.  They are.  Don't charge them!  Shoot them.  A lot. 

It was a fun first game with Daemons.  Both Kirk and I learned a ton about Daemons in 6th Edition.  I'm sure the next time we play, the Flamers will be a high priority target for his shooting.  I'll need to be careful with their deployment and keep them screened to get them in close enough.  I'll also have to choose their target well to get good use of them; I don't expect to get 2 turns of shooting out of them from now on unless the dice REALLY favor me!  Not likely!

Assembly is moving forward.  I'm almost done with all of the big annoying models.  The worst thing I have to deal with is finishing the assembly on the pewter (previous edition) daemonettes, and a bunch of mold line cleaning.  Then, on to painting!  Stay tuned!

Tyranid Defense Lines!

So, just a quick update for now.  I'm building Daemons as fast as I can which is not very.  This whole job thing really drags down the important stuff sometimes!  The bills are getting paid though so I guess that's good.  I'm getting close to having 1500 points ready to start playing which I'm looking forward to.  More on that hopefully in the next post.  For now, I've got a couple photos from my buddy Chris from his blog Lordokaos.  The photos are of a Tyranid (Aegis) defense line.  He recently painted up a bunch of these pieces for his bugs now that you can buy a defense line in any game.  I originally sculpted these pieces a couple of years ago when Planetstrike dropped.  I thought it would be cool to have actual Tyranid scenery when playing as the defender in games of Planetstrike.  I sculpted the original, and then made a mold and cast up a bunch of them.  Chris wanted some once he saw them so I traded him a bunch for some miniatures.  What do you think?

 I based the original sculpts on a single Aegis line piece for size.  These are a tiny bit wider, but don't provide as much actual coverage due to the shape.  They look good on the table so I think its a good trade off.

With a couple of models for scale.  Careful with your firing angles on that Carnifex; don't give him the better cover save!  The marine is from Chris' own chapter.

Incidentally, check out lordokaos to see Chris' long term project; 40K of 40K.  He's working on getting 20,000 points painted of two separate forces to be able to play a 40,000 point game of 40K!  The two forces are Tyranids, and Imperials.  The Imperials include Space Marines, Imperial Guard, and Titans.  He's well on his way too!  I believe he's around 16,000 for Tyranids, and I think he's just over 10,000 for Imperials.  Lots of people have big armies, but how many people do you know with armies that big that are fully (and well) painted?