Christmas with a Land Raider

So then, its time for another 'Look what I got for Christmas' post! However, don't immediately stop reading as there is something interesting at the end of this message...

Anyway, I hope everybody had a great crimbo, and has a relaxing few days ahead of them. I had quite a successful day in GW terms, and to prove it here is my haul:

Besides the books (that I'm really looking forward to reading) there are some great goodies for my DA. Obviously there are the absolutely lovely Terminator Chaplin & Forge World Dread, some of my favourite models out there. These are going to be kept as a reward for finishing ToP, as I'm going to want to spend some time on both of them.

However, the star of today's post will be the combined contents of the two larger boxes.

Now then, how could any good Dark Angels player combine a Land Raider and a Vindicator. Hmmm......








Anybody who guessed a Land Raider Ares can award themselves a point!

Rules for the Land Raider Ares

Now its mostly held together with blue tack at this stage but I think I have the basic concept down. For the sponson flamers I'm planning on cutting down the Redeemers cannons.

This is going to be a slow burning project. I want to actually have a DA army painted before looking at this properly, but I couldn't resist putting it together. I'll probably finish the building soon and then shelve it for a while before painting.

Anyway, I would love to hear what you all think.

Finally, anybody who missed it, check out the post below on the Vogen Campaign - Battle Reports are coming soon...!

The Vogen '09 Campaign

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse:'

Well. Except for me writing blog updates... 

First off, Merry Christmas everybody, I hope you all have great days, and thanks for taking the time out to read my humble blog! 

In my last post I promised you all some Dark Angels Battle Reports. Well, before I get to them I want to show you all something I have been organising over the last few weeks. 

I'm a student (a bit of background on the author there!) and I don't tend to play many games while at university. However, I have a good core of friends back home who have the GW bug and I take the opportunity to get as many games as possible done over the holidays. Well, having always wanted to run a campaign I decided to organise one, planning to run it from now till late summer '09. Because we can only meet up during our holidays its obviously going to be a slow burning affair, but it should help to link our games up over the next year. 

Vogen '09 is essentially the old cityfight campaign released by GW with a few adaptions made by myself to bring it up to date with 5th ed. I also devised a mechanism for random game sizes (including the chance to play apocalypse games), modified some of the scenarios and changed the rules on alliances. Check out my versions of the relevant rules here:

Campaign Main Rules

Map Location Rules

Campaign Map

I held the first 'campaign day' at my house yesterday, and managed to squeeze 3 boards in two rooms. This is my house, not a well equipped gaming club so I apologise in advance for the quality of some the scenery and gaming surfaces!

We've got six campaign players:

Alex - Playing Tyranids

Conor - Playing Dark Angels (This is yours truly)

Mullen - Playing Black Templars 

Sam - Playing Imperial Guard

Vessey - Playing Necrons

Wookie - Playing Eldar

...and after the first days play the campaign looked like this:

On the first day there were 4 campaign games played (including two by me) as well as a further three non-campaign games (including one with my Dark Angels). All the games I played in are currently in the process of being written up for you all to see, along with a break down of what happened to everybody else on the campaign. 

I'm hoping that over the next few months this campaign should provide some interesting battle reports for you all. We already have another game day lined up for early next year, to resolve some of the contested territories we have on the map above. 

So, before I turn to my bed and await some GW related gifts (more on that later), here are a few sneak-peak pictures of the battle reports to come:

Tale of Painters Deadline 2: Met

The army, it grows! 

Another quick painting update today, to let you know I managed to get my ToP entry in to Librarium Online on time (just). 

For this months 200pts I painted up the Landspeeder that I've shown off before and some new Deathwing: 








Although I was keen to get them finished (and thus rushed through them a little) I'm pleased with a number of things with these termis. I used similar blending from my Power Sword tutorial to good effect on the lightning claws, and I'm pleased with how my first attempt at feathers turned out. I also think the guy wielding the cyclone missile launcher and the thunderhammer just looks cool! 

I've still not started to highlight the bone armour, so they aren't 100% done yet. I'm waiting till I have all the Deathwing done and them I'm going to go back and highlight the lot. If I want to keep up with ToP (which I'm finding amazing motivation to paint) then I've not got the time to highlight them right now. Still, they are tabletop worthy.

I leave you with two visions of the immediate future. One is a picture of the Rhino I've started working on. I'm really pleased with how its shaping up. Secondly is a promise that there will be a few battle reports (featuring the DA) on The Astronomican before this year is out, so look out for that soon.

As usual I would love to receive and comments or crit. Thanks for reading! 

Death By Dodo

This is something I've been meaning to post for a while, but before I get to the meat of it, let me start at the beginning. 

Rough Riders, I love 'em (and yes, this is an Imperial Guard post, I've not forgotten my long neglected footsloggers!). Although tactically less than perfect, they do have their uses as a harassment, counter-charge or tank hunting unit. And more importantly, the idea of the humble IG having to make do with horses on a battlefield of genetically modified super killers is just so appealing. 

However, Rough Riders have one major downfall - the models. On the one hand you could spend a not inconsiderable amount of cash to get some of the worst models GW have ever made. Alternatively you could spend A LOT of money to get some of the superb Forge World versions. 

So, neither of those options are particularly appealing. You could of course scratch build your Rough Riders, and there are some stunning conversion jobs out there. Pop over to Col. Gravis' Praetorian Blog to see his great Lancers, Hussars and Mounted Colonel. Another example is this old GW suggestion for rough riding bikers. However, I'm not really at the stage where I want to attempt to scratch build models like these, so I had put the possibility of getting rough riders out of my mind. 

However, earlier this year I stumbled across a member of Librarium Online (Doctor Thunder), who was gauging support for some custom casted Rough Riders. These would be made by the folks at the Phoniex Wargamers Club, who have also produced conversion kits to make female marines. 

I was immediately interested. Then, when I found out that there would be only one batch made, that they would have a unique design and that it would only cost me around £30 for ten shipped from the US, I jumped at the chance. 

So, for your consideration, I present the 'Death Dodo's':

Now, the concept of Imperial Guardsmen riding to war atop the back of what are effectively giant emu's is, I'll admit, a bit on the farcical side. However, considering that I play a regiment of Pith Helmeted Victorians transposed into the future, I figured I could get away with it!

Now what I got for my money was amazing, considering the fact they are home made and relatively cheap. The components came in a small bag, and require a good amount of clean up, in terms of flash and mold lines (something I've not really tackled in the pictures shown here). In addition most of the joints will require some green stuff. I have enough parts for ten birds, along with 10 sets of legs, lance arms and rein arms. The original idea is to use Cadian torsos for the rest of the model, but I am of course planning to use some Praetorian torsos - I'm hoping that with a bit of green stuff they should fit quite well. 

So below are some pictures of what you get and one to show the scale of these models, which are far from small! 

The level of detail is very impressive, for example the tread on the boots. Its just a shame about the flash. 

I'm not planning on assembling the rest/painting these guys for a long while. I may have a crack at them during the summer, after I've got more DA done. However, I just wanted to show them off and see what you all thought. 

A big thank you goes to the Phoniex guys who organised all this (and who apparently ended up making a loss on the project). Its an awesome way to give something new to the community, I'm glad that I'm able to share them all with you! 

Thanks for reading...

Dark Angels Army 'Fluff' - The 1st Capture Group

I love the 40k background. It's the stories and novels that keeps me interested in this hobby. 

As an example, when I went to college I turned my back on the game itself and sold the vast majority of my models. However, I never even considered selling my novels, White Dwarfs or codices, indeed I continued to buy more. Unsurprisingly it was the fluff that eventually got me back into the game. 

So, presented below is some my fluff for my Dark Angels. 

It was also an excuse to mess around with photoshop...

++++++++++

Click on the photo for a full size version 

++++++++++

I'll let the fluff largely talk for itself, but below is some of my thought process. 

I wanted to link my DA in with my Praetorian Guard which, given that Praetoria is in Segmentum Tempestus, placed them directly in the path of Hive Fleet Leviathan. However, I also wanted my Dark Angels to keep to their main purpose, hunting the shadowy forces of Chaos. So I followed the old GW trick, and used a confused (Inquisition) outsider to describe my army as a sinister and suspicious force. The '1st Capture Force' is nowhere near the Eye of Terror or the Maelstrom (where you might assume the DA to be) and the Inquisition wants to work out why. 

So who are they hunting? Are they going to undermine efforts against the Hive Fleet? Does there presence signal a previously unknown Chaos presences in Segmentum Tempestus?

Well, don't you just love a bit of GW style intrique!

It's also convenient because my main enemies at home play Chaos and Tyranids, giving me a fluffy excuse to fight both of them!

I would love to hear anybodies comments on what I have come up with. Some of this is far from cannon (the 'Capture Groups' are entirely my own invention), so I would love to know if people think it does 'fit' within the wider 40k story.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I used a lot of images found on the Internet to make this picture. I would like to stress that all are used in good faith, and should any of the owners object, they will be taken down immediately. Please contact me by commenting on this post. I hope to improve the background of the 40K universe, I'm not trying to offend any other hobbyist out there. Many thanks.