Updates: Vogen '09 & Tale of Painters

Today's post is a quick update on my two main projects, should any of you out there be following them. I'll start with the more boring of the two:

Tale of Painters 3: Jokered 

Regular readers will have noticed that there's not been much new painting around here of late. In fact I've only painted 2/3rds of a single Terminator this month, indeed I've not had much time for 40k at all recently. I'm not going to bore you with the reasons for this but it does mean I've have to use my one 'Joker' in the Tale of Painters Comp. The joker effectively allows you to get away with submitting no painted models for a month without going out of the competition. 

I've had to play this card a bit earlier than I had planned, but we are now half way through & I'm confident I can see the project through to the end. My current schedule only demands one painted model a week - as I only I have 7 Deathwing, 3 Ravenwing & Belial left to complete.

For those interested in the overall competition, here are a few statistics that the fantastic organiser Cyric the Mad complied: 

• 54 Entrants
  
• 54% have Jokered out (i.e. left the competition)
  
• 24% are on-track
  
• 22% are a little behind 

Given that rate of attrition I don't feel so bad! I strongly suggest you have a root around on the Librarium projects forum, there are some excellent ToP armies being built. 

And on to update two...

Vogen '09 Update

Well, after Malcom Wilson asked for a proper Vogen Campaign update I though I had better bring it all up to speed. 

The two battle reports that have been written so far have dealt with my Dark Angels' games up till Campaign turn 8. 

The start of Campaign turn 9 looked something like this:

As you can see there were three major conflicts on the day, but we only managed to get round to 2 of them. Both turned out to be Apocalypse games and, although I was unable to take detailed battle reports, I have a few snaps of both of them. 

1. Necrons vs. Eldar - 2500pts Apoc. (For 8 contested victory points)

From what I saw of this game, it was a (sometimes) surprisingly close contest between Wookie (using elements of my Eldar models) & Vessey's Necrons. It seemed for a while that the entirely Mech. Eldar force might keep itself out of the Necron clutches. However after stretching his force a little too far Wookie was eventually bogged down and taken to pieces by the C'tan, who were both present! 

Necrons: 3 Objectives     Eldar: 1 Objective

This victory won Vessey three territories and leaves him at the head of the leaderboard. Wookie on the other hand is in dire straights. Boxed in and with no VP's he is going to need to work hard to turn things around. His occupation of the Water Plant allows does allow him to strike anywhere in the city, but he's going to have to be clever to use that to his advantage. 

2. Dark Angels Vs. Tyranids - 2500pts (For 4 Contested Victory Points) 

Determined to see off any challengers Alex showed his love of Forge World by bringing no less than 3 (!!!!) Gargantuan Creatures to the table. His two Hierodules and one Harridan dominated my combined Dark Angels/Imperial forces, and the table soon became a tank grave yard. I also had some terrible luck with deep strike, with one Deathwing Squad being lost to the warp while another ended up in an entirely useless spot. This was crucial as their 2+ saves were the only thing standing up the Tyranid fire.

Tyranids: 2 Objectives     Dark Angels: 2 Objective

With some admittedly clever maneuvers I managed to scrape a draw against the beasts. However, this did not help me. Draws in campaign games are decided by victory points (who wrote these rules!!??.....oh yeah, I did) and by the end Alex had claimed more than double the VP's I had. This left him in control of Angel Square, and me in some desperate need of Super Heavy support. 

So, after this day's games we were left with the following:

The game between Sam and Alex is hopefully going to be played shortly. However I'm afraid after that there will be no updates until Easter time, when we all reconvene. I hope this has wetted your appetite enough till then! I certainly can't wait to exact some vengeance on Alex, and work out how to get out of this mess I find myself in...

Anyway, this 'short update' got a tad more detailed than I had planned, but here's hoping that nobody is complaining! I'd love to hear any thoughts you have on the update. I've also got two non-campaign battle reports to write up for the blog soon (including one with my Saim-Hann!) and hopefully there will be some painting updates soon.

Thanks for reading guys!