The Eldar, The Ork and The Cabinet

Went down to IKEA this weekend with the intention of getting a display case for my various armies (the dilapidated shelf hanging precariously above my painting desk got too crowded.) and returned victorious! Bask in her white-wood and glass majesty! It took me a good couple hours to assemble the thing, which left me little time to finish one of my painting projects. IKEA really is the grown man's Legos. I stare at a flimsy instruction manual looking for "the long plank with 16 holes down one side" in order to fit those holes with wooden pegs, then attach it to the back of a T-shaped plank also with 16 holes down the side.


Anyways, I've also re-based my Eldar as well as my Orks. The Eldar are on an Autumn-colored grass, scattered rocks and orange leaves. Orks are on a sand and rock mix with various scorch marks and wet-stains to look like oil-spills/pools of dried blood. I wish I had the Dark Angels done too, but the sheets of plasticard I need have been put on backorder.

Gray Matter

I had mentioned the multitude of assembled-yet-unpainted stuff awaiting me ... well here's the Tau and Chaos assembled stuffs. Bask in it's gray and unfinished glory! Also, a closeup of my first Chaos Lord. Bolter-Melta combi-gun, and a Daemon weapon. Yes, I broke the arm off of an old and poorly painted Abaddon model (keep your old models!). I will repaint it in a purplish-yellow (hard to imagine, I know, but you'll see) in an attempt to make it look like none of the god-specific colors. I will be making a few Lords kitted out in various ways for the 4 powers (as well as some additional Sorcerers) ... but all in due time.

Daemons

I picked up the new Chaos Daemons Spearhead box a bit ago. Sifting through the figs has left me all giddy. Beasts of Nurgle, the New Soul Grinder, Bloodcrushers, Daemonettes, Bloodletters, it's all awesome.

The Codex:

Reading through the codex and planning out possible strategies was much more difficult than usual, due to the setup for how daemons work.

First of all, the entire army Deep Strikes. In a way, that's awesome because your opponent has to fully deploy their units before you do. It will leave them in a tricky situation. Do they deploy spread out and risk your entire force concentrating on one area at a time? Do they clump together in a corner and risk the multitude of templates that daemons can lay down? The drawback to this ability is that only half of your army will come in on the first turn, so you have to split your army in two ... and even then you have to roll to see if the half you want comes in first ... or if the ruinous powers disagree with you and have the other half come in. After the initial wave, the other half undergoes normal rules for reserves.

There are plenty of cool units, options and upgrades to choose from. My collector's nature works against me here, as a preliminary tally of what I ideally would like to have to maximize on army building possibilities puts me at near 6,000 points worth of stuff. Meh, it'll be a fun ride.

Greater Daemons. They're great, and have a good variety to choose from. Also, you have 3 special character Greater Daemons (sorry, no Slaaneshi) to choose from. Frankly, though, I find them a bit lacking in that I can build a very similar "Do It Yourself" greater daemon for much less points.

Heralds. Ok, unlike with the above, I cannot make a herald anywhere near as cool as the 4 special character heralds they supply you with. Can not. Lets start with Skulltaker. I can build up everything nearly to the same effect, except that his WS is higher ... and he has the ability "Skulls for the Skull Throne!" which is unavailable to a DIY herald. This ability changes his Rending to 4+ instead of only on 6's. Also, one wound from a rend result kills the model regardless of Toughness. He has decapitated them. That's ridiculous and cool. Next up, The Masque. She has the ability "Eternal Dance" which allows her to use her Pavane of Slaanesh ability 3 times. She alone will allow me to move a good chunk of my opponent's army as I will. Epidemius. This bloke is way awesome with his "Tally of Nurgle" ability, which gives escalating benefits to anyone bearing the mark of Nurgle depending on how many kills they got. benefits include EVERYONE getting Feel No Pain, weapons being Poisoned, Poisoned weapons wounding on 2+, all weapons counting as power weapons. Yeesh. Lastly, but certainly not least, is The Blue Scribes, the herald for Tzeentch. I can build a similar herald, but two things I cannot do. First, there is a chance that the herald will be able to cast the same spell twice in one turn. Can be way beneficial. Secondly, they have access to nearly every spell in the codex (even Slaaneshi and Nurglesque ones), allowing you to always have the most appropriate spell for the situation.

Soul Grinders. They're vehicles. Other than that, they're pretty damn awesome. I still wish they were Monstrous Creatures, but oh well.

Daemon Princes. These are likely the most customizable units in the codex. I'm quite pleased that they decided to put them as Heavy Support, because compared to the Greater Daemons, they're more of a supporting role. Back in the Chaos Space Marines Codex, they were your big baddie that flew around and terrified your opponent. Now, it's the Greater Daemons that do that. These guys can't really do anything that a Greater Daemon can't, and even then can't do it better. So, rather it makes sense to equip them to compliment what you already gave your Greater Daemon(s) to make a more terrifying combination of things. An example of this is the ability Pavane of Slaanesh. It's technically a shooting ability, meaning it will deny your Daemon the Fleet ability in favor of moving your opponent d6". If your intent is to assault them, the end result is the same; either you fleet d6" or you Pavane your target d6". Unless ... you have a nearby Daemon Prince with Pavane. Then you could have the Prince Pavane the target d6" and your intercepting Greater Daemon can Fleet. Or Pavane the target closer to your Bloodthirster. Anything near that is dead anyways.

Sorry I don't have any pictures for you all, I haven't assembled the box yet. I have a ton of Eldar, a ton of Chaos Marines, and a ton of Tau assembled and ready to paint. They called "dibs" too, so it's a bit out of my hands.

Da Boyz

I recently finished a small 10-man mob of boyz, and a Nob to lead them (small for an Ork mob, I know ... but it's all that came in the spearhead. I'll be getting more boyz when the 5th edition starter box comes out. Seriously, $60 for a ridiculous amount of models and the new rulebook). Also, a burna boy that I painted up. That models kills me; he's a Flamethrower-wielding Ork and he's smoking a cigar. Not only that (and I know it's hard to notice in the pic, I'll have to find another that shows it better) but apparently this particular Ork smokes cigars SO much that he has a notch carved out of his face-shield (currently up) so that the cigar would poke through. I did NOT model that notch on, that how the model CAME! Things like that seriously crack me up about the Orks.


Painting-wise, I'm glad to say that I've been using washes to bring out the details in the Orks as opposed to my usual method of blending and layers. It's a lot faster getting a model done, and the idea of so many Orks in my future has become less daunting.

Interrogator Chaplain Variant 2

I finished the second variant of 3 Chaplains I intend to make. This is a Power Fist equipped Chaplain. He's still a foot-slogger, though. Next (and last) variant I will do will be a Jump Pack and Power Fist variant. At that point, I believe I will have had enough Chaplains for my needs.


Also, concerning Space Marines in general ... I've been hearing good things about the new Space Marines codex that is slated to come out with the v.5 rules soon. Given that Dark Angels are arguably the weakest codex, I have been considering picking up the new Space Marines codex and using my Dark Angels models as a Vanilla Marines army. This will mean that Librarians will suddenly become viable, leading me to paint up two variants for them. We shall see when it comes out...

Death To The False Emperor!

My first of the new Chaos Space Marines.  These were real fun to paint; first they were made all perfect and shiny like a Dark Angel, then on went the washes to grime them up and make their armor look archaic.

As you can see from the paint scheme, my Chaos army will be Black Legion.  There are a few reasons for this.

First, I plan on collecting a variety of models so that I can play whatever army style I want. Lotsa Khorne? Check. All plague army? Check. Undivided with a little Tzeench support? Check. I plan on collecting enough models to support whatever faction of Chaos I want to, including an eclectic mix army. As it so happens, the Black Legion fluff goes right along with all that. They specifically have a portion of their legion dedicate to each of the ruinous powers, being undivided by worshipping all equally.


Secondly, I like Black and Gold. They were my High School colors, and it tickles me to paint my blasphemous Chaos army in the colors of my Catholic High School.


Thirdly, because of the reaction I got when I told the GW shop guys which army I was going to do. "But Black Legion is a noob army. All the beginners pick it." Wait, what? Fluff-wise The Black Legion is THE most powerful of all the traitor legions! How COULD I simply walk from them because they are the favorite choice of noobs? No, I say. We should take BACK the Black Legion! 40K players everywhere should once again huddle in corners, whispering of its deadly efficiency and brutality. You have been forwarned! Should you see a Black Legion army on the board, withhold your chuckle, this may be no mere noob.

For The Greater Good

My first painted Tau models. I decided to go with the Bork'an theme. I made this decision mostly based on the color scheme. Given that I am attempting the foolhardy task of collecting all armies, I would prefer not to chose a color scheme that is being used by another of my armies. For a while I was going to go with the basic T'au color scheme, but my wife helped convince me that I really don't like orange :P


So here we are with an Ice-blue and Gray scheme. When I get the supplies in, I'll redo the base for a snow canopy.