What belt do you have in Armylist-fu?

What I think my List-Fu looks like.

One thing that is great about the wargaming hobby is the variety of activities that it includes. I haven't been able to play a lot recently but that doesn't mean that I'm not involved and interested in the hobby. I have been painting a fair bit, reading background fluff (especially the Iron Kingdoms background Warmachine and Hordes are set in), keeping up with new releases and also engaging in the time-honoured art of List-Fu.

The latter is a lot of fun for me. I compare it to window shopping in a way. I put together armies that I will probably never actually collect, which lets me make forces that I would not consider in real life since finances are something most of us must take consideration of. Who has not considered the fun of building a Forge World Elysians army or an army running all dreanoughts etc.?

Rargh, Dreadnoughts!

For me it's a way to really imagine the setting and story in a way that brings it to life. I read the fiction in the various rulebooks or army books and then I want to create a force that will be able to create the stories on the tabletop that I see in my head, even if it's just for the sake of a thought experiment. It also brings to mind the different tactical challenges on offer as you try to compose the best force for what you want to do or how you want to play. I think this can work in a competitive sense, of course, but also in a more casual way when if you're the kind to think about which weapons those marines should be armed with from a background point of view and then find the pieces that fit into that with respect to points and FOCs.


What my List-Fu actually looks like ;-)

Recently I've been very inspired by the setting and environment of Warmachine and Hordes from Privateer Press. I've flirted with this briefly before but now I'm getting to the stage of really wanting to invest some time and money into the game. It will of course depend on whether I can find some gaming partners over here but I think it won't be too hard, especially since the non-GW crowd seems to have grown in recent months. One of the things that is a real benefit to Warmachine (as I'm given to understand) is that there are very few units that are actually bad. The game revolves around combinations and synergies between units to provide power and so even a "weaker piece" can hold a very important place in an army as long as you work it in somewhere. This is fun for me because I get to choose the models I find the most fun and I don't have the worries that I'll be lugging around a model that makes my games less fun by it all being more difficult.

Then again, there is always the temptation to kick around with some Infinity models as a gaming buddy over here has a starter set he's never opened, plus Old Shatter Hands has promised to bring his models for some tabletop sci-fi action in the summer when he visits Slovakia with his family. Of course, some Malifaux with creepy

Following this post will be a series of others looking at the kind of models and lists that spark my interest in different game systems.

- So do you like list-fu and creating armies in your mind or on paper?
- Is it a waste of time that could be better spent playing or painting?
- What kind of lists have you created that, in all likelihood, you will never actually collect?

WARMACHINE!!! This summer will be colossal fun ;-)

Hey everyone,

Having just seen the latest news from Privateer Press I can honestly say I am sold on getting in Warmachine properly. Whether I get just a small force to start playing or whether I get seriously into it I don't know, but I need to get my hands on some of these new monster miniatures!

Here are the models for Cygnar and Khador's colossals. Giant warjacks that will be coming out in a new supplement in July this year.

On a side note, let's enjoy a company that gives us five months of advance notice of sweet models being released rather than clamping down on rumours, even if it's the Hobbit movie backers who are behind the GW info lockdown.


Here is the Khador one next to a heavy warjack. For those who don't play Warmachine, that warjack is on a 50mm base and so is a similar size to a dreadnought, though less boxy in the shoulders. These new models are BIG.


Here is Cygnar's offering next to an Ironclad heavy warjack.


Now I don't know how these will work out on the tabletop but they look so good I think I might get them just for the collection if nothing else. This might be the final push to have me playing Warmachine too. If nothing else, I want to run one of those models as a Dreadnought, just to mess with an opponent's head :-D

All the best.

Pete

Deathwing command squad almost ready to take the field.

Hi everyone,

There hasn't been too much going on my gaming world for the past few weeks. It's been busy at work getting back into things after the Christmas period and my gaming buddy is also a teacher, so schedule matching can be a task. I've managed to play a few more games of Dreadfleet with my girlfriend and we've started working through the campaign in the book. Sadly I've had a complete lack of success in the game no matter what we try and my record now stands at ZERO wins with SIX losses....oh boy :-)


I've been working on my Deathwing painting though and putting in a bit of brush time each day, even if it's just ten minutes. It doesn't seem like much at first but all of a sudden I notice that I've completed big sections of models by the end of the week. I recommend snatching those few minutes each day to work on models, perhaps while you wait for dinner in the oven or while you play a song or two. I'm surprised at how much it can help without seeming like much effort.



So here is my command squad arrayed in full glory with Belial at their head. I'm glad I was persuaded to go for the second armour highlight layer (Menoth White Highlight) as it's brought them out nicely. They aren't all finished but now they look like a nice squad when put side by side, instead of some loosely similar bone-white figures.




I painted their left shoulderpads black as a nod to the original Deathwing story in an old GW anthology book. This was before the current Caliban and Heresy fluff but is the origin of the white armour. In essence, the Dark Angel 1st company terminators arrive on their homeworld to find that it has been taken over by a genestealer cult. In the final battle to cleanse the taint, they paint their armour bone white in the tribal ritual of Deathwing, symbolising that they are already dead and so have no fear. Their armour was originally black and it's noted that they left the left shoulder with the Crux Terminatus in the original black, as a mark of respect for the Emperor.




Belial and the Lysander sergeant stomp up the field. This squad hits nice and hard in assault, especially with the banner and apothecary to give them FNP. I often split Belial off as he can take on small squads alone most of the time and it gives me a nice variety of threats.

****Can anybody give me good advice on how to paint up Belial's sword to look like shiny obsidian? I guess some kind of highlighting similar to what you see from NMM would be good but I've not really done that before. Suggested patterns etc. are welcome.****



Here is one of the finished terminators up close. I really like the combination of Grey Knight, Space Wolf, Space Marine and Dark Angel bits and the look that they create. The lightning effect on the thunder hammer is much nicer than my first attempt (on Lysander) so I might go back and redo that one to make it look better. It's time consuming but looks good in my view.




Here is the brotherhood banner, originally from the Grey Knights set. It's not totally finished but I got tired of painting such small details and wanted to get on with the rest of the models. I've been talking with Tim from the Tau of War and he thinks the border should be brightened up. My girlfriend agrees but they each think different colours would work. Tim favours a bright red, whereas Edina thinks gold would look good. I can't decide between the two or whether I should just keep the green. Also, I can't decide if I should repaint the sword to be black with lightning effects instead of the silver here.


So that's where I stand for the moment with my army. I've got a plan for a centrepiece model using a Dreadknight conversion as a Deathwing dreadnought but I can't justify spending on that until I've finished painting these. I have to pay off my student loan first and so extra gaming expenses must be curbed until they can be properly justified (i.e. painting everything else).

Deathwing. Do they need some plasma on their side?

Happy New Year everyone and I hope you had a wonderful time over the holidays. I took my girlfriend home for a Christmas in England and it was really nice.


I've finally gotten more settled with my career as an EFL teacher and I'm getting the chance and time to work on hobby items. My Deathwing command squad are now well on the way to being painted. I gave up on assembly line painting the whole army and I've switched it out to just working on a single unit since I was becoming unmotivated. Now it feels good to be back in the painting vibe again and I'm looking forward to bringing the pain against my fellow 40k-playing teacher just as soon as we can schedule a game around teaching, preparing, relationships and his being a father :-)


I'm currently running my Deathwing at 1500pts but I've been told that people here tend to play more frequently at 1750, which makes me think about the future options for my army expansion. I've promised my girlfriend that I'll avoid buying things until I'm finished with painting the current batch but it doesn't hurt to plan ahead. I'm thinking about adding a plasma cannon to the army in one form or another since my army has no low-AP firepower and relies on assault to take out armoured troops. I know we're good at that with the multitude of hammers available but sometimes you need to thin things out at range.





Here is the first of the options I'm thinking about. This model has long attracted me but since it was only available in metal and I'm a klutz with superglue and metal (apparently), I put it off. Now it is available in Finecast, I might just find a place to have the pimp-daddy of the Dark Angels riding around on his jetbike dropping plasma cannon shots on people's heads. I'm a little concerned with the Finecast quality problems but I have absolutely no hesitation in calling up GW customer services as many times as necessary if there are miscasts in the kit. Hopefully, of course, I'll get a top notch kit first time.




The other choice is to bring some plasma cannon dreadnoughts to the field. Now I know that I won't get the model shown above, but it's so lovely that I thought the picture deserved a repost ;-) I could pick up a venerable dreadnought (or two) and get some nice plasma on the field along with a couple of armoured stompy robots. To be honest, with the mix and match modelling I've got going on now, I'd probably get a venerable kit and a Furioso kit so I'd have variety. I could use the Frag Cannon arm to represent a plasma cannon and it would look neat to have the different Blood Angel parts available.


Choices are good to have and I will enjoy mulling these over as I paint up the rest of the Deathwing. I should have a picture update of the command squad soon.


All the best,


Pete

My girlfriend kicking my butt at Dreadfleet :-)

My girlfriend, Edina, recently expressed an interest in trying out Dreadfleet. She got to watch me and another teacher who games play out one of the scenarios of Dreadfleet. While it confused her quite a bit with the language (she's trilingual but hasn't read up on nautical terms in English) she said it looked like fun.

I decided on to play a simplified game with her so that she could get to grips with how the game works without getting overloaded. In our first game, there was no wind, no fate cards, no captain duels in boarding actions and no special ship actions. We just kept it to the basic stats, the mechanics of moving and shooting, and the skill in positioning your ships to fire at the enemy. She took the Heldenhammer and Grimnir's Thunder, against which I had the Bloody Reaver and the Curse of Zhandri.

Edina moves up the dwarf ship Grimnir's Thunder

Now, while she may not have spent a lot of time wargaming, Edina quickly figured out that she could get my Flagship between her two ships and....well....blow it to pieces.


This is the result of her first volley

I'll point out for the above picture, that we're not using any hit modifiers so in the full game it would be worse since you get a bonus on the first broadside of the game. Still, ending up with being set ablaze twice, having a fire on deck (which can add more set ablaze cards, losing my rigging and taking hull damage is a big bit of pain, even for my notoriously resilient flagship.



"Pete, I want to shoot you with that one now!"


Playing with the funky turning tool. This game is really quite easy to get used to.



Repositioning to chase down the Bloody Reaver



Come on lucky red dice. Let me set Edina's ship on fire. Note, this is before the Curse of Zhandri died a briny death at the hands of the Heldenhammer's massive broadside.


Sad face as the Bloody Reaver is pinned in the corner of the game board by Edina's ships. They were wounded but I didn't like my odds of surviving.


The last sight seen by the crew and Captain of the Bloody Reaver


After my unceremonious drubbing, Edina was keen for another game. We decided to switch up the ships and this time I introduced the special mechanics for each ship (getting an extra order, rerolls etc.). In short order though, this game turned into a brawling, multiple boarding action and her dice came up hotter than mine, again leaving me defeated.


Me when the game was still in the balance. ***Not shown, Pete's sad face at losing shortly afterwards.


We've since played another game including wind and fate cards, which Edina handled well and we enjoyed. Naturally she won again, so her wargaming record is now a perfect 3-0 and I've now had four losses in my four games of Dreadfleet. Still, it's a fun game so you won't hear me complaining about getting to do something enjoyable with people I like.

Next on our list is a bigger game on Saturday, perhaps one of the scenarios, and some painting of the ships. We're also looking into other board games that we might be able to play together as it's a lot of fun and fits into our schedules nicely.

All the best folks,

Comments, criticism, advice, questions and merciless mocking will all be appreciated ;-)

Pete

Cheesing it up with Draigowing?

Hey all,

After rummaging around in the various gaming bits my dad brought over to Bratislava when he visited, I found my batch of metal Grey Knight Terminators that I got in trade before leaving the US. As I counted up how many bodies, arms and weapons I had, a thought struck me....Draigowing. While I don't have that many terminators, using Draigowing means I can make a 1500pt army with perhaps 15 figures all in all.

For those who aren't familiar with the term, Draigowing is named after Deathwing and is another all terminator force that can be played, this time with the Grey Knight Codex (the other one is Loganwing with Space Wolves). It involves using the special character Kaldor Draigo to unlock Paladins (2 wound terminator dudes) as troops and having a nasty, deathstar-type army list.

To sum up the list:

- Draigo
- Librarian
- 10 Paladins with 4 psycannons
- 5 Paladins with 2 incinerators

Add a few upgrades and it makes 1500 on the nose. Compact and deadly, I hope.

Here's what I have to start working with.

Sterm with a Storm Shield will be Draigo and the brother captain will be the librarian.

My long range firepower component.

The rest of the big squad.

My incinerator squad, still short a few arms unfortunately.


So here is the next project that I'll be working on alongside the Deathwing painting and Dreadfleet, though my girlfriend has expressed interest in helping with the latter. She played two games against me last night (winning both) and is quite a fan of the ship-based boardgame vibe.

I am a little short of weapons and other bits for these guys. You'll notice that I have an extra four bodies in the first picture with no arms for them. It's a bit of a bummer but I might just use regular plastic terminator arms for them and then paint them up as another Deathwing squad if I need to expand the army.

Of course, if any readers have spare Grey Knight terminator weapons they might be willing to part with, please get in touch ;-)

Also, any tactical thoughts or advice for this compact army is much appreciated.

All the best,

Pete

PS: Next post is about me getting my butt kicked at Dreadfleet by my girlfriend.

Awesome girlfriend syndrome ;-)

Hey guys,



So my great girlfriend officially became awesome last night when she started painting her first model and it is looking really good. This is her first ever time picking up a paintbrush for models and she picked out the pieces to assemble her terminator from my bits bag. I'm really proud of what she's done and here is her guy next to the Deathwing Lysander I'm working on. I've given up batch painting the army for a while in favour of finishing single models and squads. I'm tired of doing the same old stuff and I want to get some nice finished models out there.





I love the way she's done this model already. I should stress that this is an unfinished model (hence the blu-tac arms). In fact we're off to paint a little more tonight, which is a great way to round off the weekend.

All in all.....she rocks and I love her

Pete


PS: I think my P3 Morrow White is cursed. I knocked it over on my friend's black table when I was painting with them and look what happened again....