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?

40K 6th Game 2 Plus Space Hulkamanders!

So, I got in my second game of 6th Edition last night.  I lost again, but it was a ridiculously close game with lots of back and forth, and good and bad dice rolls on both sides.  The game would have been a draw except my opponent scored points for First Blood, and killing my Warlord....gotta love advancing into the guns playing Tyranids!  The silly part about the game is my opponent won with 1 wounded model left on the field.  His Nurgle Sorcerer in Terminator armor had 2 wounds left.  Stupid toughness 5 and 2+ save!  I had around 30 models on the table; mostly free spawned termagants.  Fortunately (for him) I had explained to James earlier in the game how he could use "Look Out Sir!" to protect his Sorcerer.  Oh well, it was a fun game.  I still don't like the random charge distance, even though I generally rolled better for it this game than last.  I also didn't need to roll well, because I tried to set myself up so I COULD roll crappy and not have it matter.  In one case I only needed to roll a 2 on 2d6 which was good, because I rolled a 4!  On 2 other occasions I rolled 12 on 2d6 (unheard of!)  Again, it didn't matter because I only needed about 5 inches in both cases.  The jury is still out.

Enough of that!  Here's some painting!  Still showing stuff I have done over the past few months; these models were finished back in March or April.  These models are the Space Hulk Terminator models.  I painted them up as part of a trade with a friend of mine.  I was originally supposed to paint them "just like the ones from the box."  Before I got to them however, my friend decided that since he doesn't often play Space Hulk he'd rather have them painted in his army's colors, green for Salamanders.  He carved all of the Blood Angels iconography off, based them, and then I was off and painting.  He added Forge World shoulder pads wherever he could.   He also included 1 old school pewter model with a bionic leg (he has a "thing" for models with bionics) and converted up a power fist into a narthecium so I could turn the kneeling model into an Apothecary.  He also requested a crazy half, half, and half color scheme on the Apothecary.  After painting 1/2 of these models I took a break, learned how to use my airbrush, and base coated all of the armor on about 100 Ultramarines models in 1 day.  THEN I had to go back and look at Hulkamander squad two!  Did I want to painstakingly build up the highlights by brush, or dig out the airbrush and have them look better in a tenth the time?  No, they needed to match, so I went to work with the brush again.......here's the results:

All of the models

The Librarian and a couple dudes.  I was happy with the armor and the robe on the Librarian.

The commanders and the flamer.  I like how the sword turned out.
 

Another angle

Just an assortment of the models

The last 3 models I finished.  I was pleased with all of them for one reason or another.

Top view!

I'll hopefully have more pics up by the end of the week. It depends on how work goes.  With the next post we'll be getting into my most recent stuff.  I'll be showing my Ultramarines army!  I also started teaching a local guy how to paint last night.  He hadn't touched a brush in about 10 years because he just never got a model he was happy with.  So far he's tickled with the results he's getting.  Hopefully more on that front after next Monday night.  With luck we'll finish the 3 models he's working on.  If not, then it will be the following week.  Either way, watch for updates!

First Game of 40K 6th Edition!

Well, it's been a long and crazy week.  I actually played my first game of 6th edition 40K last Monday night, but am just now getting to write about it!  We played a 1250 pt. game, since it was my first, and nobody locally really has many games under their belts yet.  We figured that would help us get done in a reasonable amount of time.  Not sure that worked; the game took MUCH longer than I expected it to.  Not just due to the newness of 6th edition.  For the first time in about 11 months, I fielded my Tyranids.  I spent more time than normal looking things up on my army list to check stats.  I guess that's to be expected when you move from army to army.  Fortunately Kirk, my opponent, also plays 'Nids sometimes and he was able to help keep me on track!  He played a fairly generic list out of Codex Space Marines.  He turtled up behind his Aegis defense line, and I tried to get across the board to give him some Tyranid style loving.  I lost. 

Now that we have that out of the way, what are my impressions?  Good and bad.  First, Tyranids are really slow in this edition!  Not being able to assault after running hurts a lot!  I'm sure there are those out there that will yammer about being able to charge 2d6 inches instead of 6.  Who cares?  I only had one charge go over 7 inches in the game (even with the Warlord trait giving a bonus inch) and that one was termigants assaulting a Rhino!  Yes, I had bad dice rolls for charging.  Still, losing any meaningful benefit to "Fleet" is another good sized boot to the teeth of the bugs.  A boot that hurts all other armies that utilized fleet in the past as well.  The "no assaulting the turn you outflank" rule is another kick in the the teeth.  I thought the previous rules for deployment, outflanking/infiltrating, and assault worked pretty well, and I don't always play bugs!

On an up note however, I like the new hull point rules!  A lot!  Over the years I have drawn, or lost numerous games because I was unable to roll better than a 2 on the vehicle damage charts.  I'm talking with multiple armies here.  Now, I still get some gradual benefit from those crappy rolls!  A unit of free, spawned termigants can charge and destroy a rhino.  A lone Genestealer can (with miraculous dice rolls) pull off the very "cinematic" attack on the hovering Stormtalon and drag it from the sky. Hull points is definitely a rule change for the better.

Good and bad, I still have hopes for this newest incarnation of my favorite game.  Every edition people talk about the "pendulum" and how the game swings back and forth.  Why, like an actual pendulum," does it never seem to slow and achieve some middle ground?  Why am I feeling more and more like the rules are pigeon-holing me into a specific style of play?  Why, for the first time in over a decade, am I looking seriously at other games?  I know all of these questions make it appear that I'm down on Games Workshop and 40K.  I'm not really.  I am less willing to give as freely of my time to aspects of this hobby that are not as fun as they used to be.  These days, I generally have less fun playing the game, and more fun modelling and painting.  I'm actively trying to get all of the models I "need" for existing armies bought before the next price hike.  I'll focus on getting it all painted then.  My HOPE is that negative aspects aside, 6th Edition 40K starts to turn the situation around some and I start to enjoy playing the game more again.  Fingers crossed!  I know I can't count on my dice!

Tyranids! 2011 Armies On Parade Entry!

In the interests of 1, getting used to updating a blog, and 2, getting something for people to look at on said blog, here's a quick update with photos of my 2011 Armies On Parade entry.  My Tyranids!  When I first decided to build a bug army I wanted ruined city/rubble bases, so that meant I wanted really bright colors so they would stand out.  I think I managed that goal!  I've heard some comments where people think the bright models are silly, because 'Nids should be more "naturally" colored or have camouflage.  Guess they've never looked at pictures of poisonous tree frogs on the Internet their folks provide for 'em!  Maybe bright green and gold WAS perfect camo on the last planet the Hive fleet stopped off at for a quick brunch.  All I know is I enjoy painting them, they're fast to paint, and I really dig how they look on the table.  On top of that, they won me 1st Best Painted, and 2nd Player's Choice at the Alamo 40K Indy GT in 2011.  They won 2nd Best Painted at Wargames Con 2011.  They won the Parade Day Qualifier at Games Workshop: The Market at Town Center, in Sugarland Texas.  And models or objective markers from this army have been featured on the BoLS Pic of the Day 4 times that I know of.  Yeah, I LIKE my bugs.  I look forward to having them all painted some day (that's gonna be a while!) so I can throw them all down in a huge Apocalypse game. Without further ado, here's some photos....

First up, the entire army with objective markers on the ruined city display board.

Next, 1 of the Carnifexes (Carnifexi?)
 

 Easter Gargoyles!

 Hive Guard and my Doom of Malan'tai conversion.

 Hormagaunts and a Tyrant Guard.

 Mycetic Spore!  I have a different design that I sculpted and cast up, but this one, made by my friend Merlin, was used due to space considerations on the display board.  It gets rave revues, as it should.  Merlin does great work!

 Swarmlord and the best 'Nid objective marker ever!  Converted from a Carnifex, LONG before GW brought out a model for him.

Genestealers.   I like the old Genestealer models more than the new ones, but they never seemed to "fit" with the rest of the Tyranid models.  So I sculpted carapace plates for their backs and heads, learned how to make molds, and cast up enough for my whole army....96 first edition Genestealers.  Thank You first and second edition Space Hulk!  Look forward to having all of them painted and playable!

 Termagants.

 Tervigon.  Also converted from a Carnifex before GW had a model.

 Termigant being born.  This part of the model generates 2 responses; gross! and awesome!  That's the effect I was going for!

Hope you like them!  I'm supposed to play my first game of 6th Edition 40K tonight, and start teaching a couple of guys how to paint better.  What that means is I should have some material for the next update!  Until next time.....