Battle Report: BA vs. new Tyranids (1’500 points)

Mission was capture & control with a dawn of war setup; the game ended in a draw.

Captain Parcival checked his Tac Com and knew things didn’t look good. The 2nd Company formed a first line of defense in the outskirts of Plethora Hive, the last position the Blood Angels still held on Tenebra IX. The incoming data showed that Class C organisms were moving three klicks NW inbound. Soon there were going to be Tyranids everywhere.

Parcival went through his geotactical situation. In his immediate area of control there was a Dortis Sugar refinery and his own locator beacon. The Tyranids were surely going to feast on the sugar, but if they had a chance to destroy his locator beacon and cut him off from supplies, they wouldn’t let it slip either. Parcival told his troops to hide among the buildings so that the Tyranids would run into a seemingly empty area. He figured they only had a chance if they attacked by surprise and did a mechanized countercharge into the back of the Tyranid wave.

All of a sudden, there they were. A Hive Tyrant was directly charging with Termagants towards the locator beacon. Parcival ordered his very own Razorback and the Rhino of Squad Calrissian to move against these incoming creatures.

On the right flank, the Rhino of Squad Derian and the two Baal Predators rolled onto the scene and went straight for the sugar refinery where Hormagants and a Carnifex were trying to dig themselves in. However, just when the Rhino reached the refinery, the Carnifex charged the vehicle and tore it apart killing the entire squad with the exception of Sergeant Derian himself. Derian ran into the refinery and up the stairs onto its roof so he could take shots at the lingering Tyrandis outside. The Carnifex followed him into the refinery, however, and Derian could hear the brutal noises as this creature was smashing its way through the machines. Derian just hoped that the creature was too heavy to make it to the upper floors.

In the meantime, the two Baal Predators were busy killing Zoantrophes which they successfully did as they were still fully operational. However, mopping up the Zoes took away precious time when the Blood Angels’ infantry was in bitter need for their support.

On the left flank, Parcival and his Honor Guard exited the Razorback and took shots at the Hive Tyrant. The creature produced infernal screams as it felt the cleansing fire of the Emperor, but stayed focused and destroyed the Rhino of Squad Calrissian first. The Termagants quickly fell over the proud Warriors and the Hive Tyrant started to collect a heavy blood toll, too. However, Parcival stood firm in his decision not to yield a single meter to these creatures and let his Powerfist hammer onto the Hive Tyrant until the creature was no more. Parcival felt the stinking scent of the alien when he gasped for a breath of fresh air and tried to refocus, but in this moment a couple Venators came in and a Trygon dug out of the earth. Parcival played his last ace and called in Assault Squad Vincenzo who shocked down on the surprised Tyranids. Parcival’s and Sergeant Vincenzo’s Powerfists continued to do their ugly work, but a huge blow by the Trygon’s tail finally knocked Parcival off his feet and left him with an intense pain in his chest. He felt the warm comfort of Sanguinius wing’s folding around him and in the corner of his eyes he saw how Vincenzo delivered a last and final blow to the Trygon. And as Parcival’s memory was about to fade away, he heard the familiar beeping sounds of a locator beacon delivering its coordinates to some battleship in orbit…

Commando styled Cygnar army list (25 points)

This article is going to talk about what type of army I intend to play in Warmachine. However, don’t expect a treatise with tactical brilliance here. After all, it was the beauty of the models that got me drawn into Warmachine, so the degree of me liking/not liking a certain miniature was the most important factor on whether it made it into this list or not.

To create this list, I started out with Dannon Blythe & Bull and worked my way up based on what models I liked and made game wise sense to be added.

So, here’s the list:

Captain Allister Caine (-5)
Thunderhead (12)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4)
Dannon Blythe & Bull (4)
Greygore Boomhowler & Company (6)
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios (3)
Total number of points: 25

Tactics:
The list is very unusual, but fairly simple:

1. The Black 13, Dannon Blythe & Bull, Eiryss, and last but not least Allister Caine lay down the law and go after the enemy’s warcaster. As half of my list is made up with Mercenaries, I liked to have Allister Caine in there as he’s not that much of a traditional military officer but more of a rogue with a military rank (which he is not too happy about).
2. Allister Caine is a focus hog, so I needed a Warjack that works pretty much left alone. The Thunderhead is a good choice for that. Together with Greygore Boomhowler & Company, he’s the blocker in this list.
3. Reinholdt is just there to bring the list up to 25 points and will work as a lucky charm for Allister Caine. I guess I will paint him like a Leprechaun.

How to build a Warjack – a guide for newbies from a newbie

Ok, this article is continuing my narration of my journey through the world of Warmachine. I decided to add more step by step articles as those are usually the most interesting ones in blogs that I read. So what’s better than doing that with my new Warmachine stuff?

This article has a specific audience in mind, namely people like me who are familiar with Games Workshop products, but new to Warmachine. We know the drill of doing miniatures from Games Workshop, but nevertheless Warmachine can pose its very own challenges. I am going to work with GW hobby products since I already have them laying around from my Warhammer adventures, but Privateer Press has its own line of hobby products. If you are interested in those, I suggest you check out the PP Forum.

This article is particularly those who may have built dozens of GW plastic models, maybe even complex ones, but never done a complex metal model like e.g. the Chaos Dreadnought. Now please note that I am not the ultimate wisdom in terms of modeling but a newbie myself, if you want to look at the real pros, pay a visit to Dave or Ron. However, I think the following guide could be useful for other newbies like me who are still dealing with basics.

The first thing you should always do after unpacking a new model is dry fitting everything to see how it’s going to be built. After that, I usually arrange the bits in the way (more or less) they are going to be glued together later. In terms of Warmachine I decided to go for the Thunderhead Warjack:

(you can click all images to enlarge them)

What you notice from these bits is that it’s a) a fairly complex model and b) the connection between the legs and the abdomen is going to be the weakest link – especially with the weight of all the metal resting on it. To prevent this baby from falling apart again, we need some heavy duty technique, so I decided to go for a mix between GW’s super glue and green stuff (modeling putty) plus the use of pins.

When I started in the early 90s with the hobby I just glued all the metal pieces together with super glue and I have seen many beautiful models fall apart again ever since, e.g. my Durth, The Treeman and the Wood Elf Forrest Dragon. Putting some extra effort into building a model is well worth the time if it doesn’t fall apart later and potentially also ruins your paint job.

When building metal models, it’s usually not the glue that is a problem but a mismatch of the pieces that don’t create a good adherent surface. For this purpose I mix super glue with green stuff as the green stuff greatly enhances the potential of the super glue.

Working with green stuff and super glue creates another important necessity to be aware of: you need a plan. When working with this combination, you need to let the model rest for a while before gluing on the next piece so that the super glue can dry. However, you can’t let it rest for too long either or your green stuff will dry out and become rock solid. So what you want is an exact plan on how to glue everything so that once you started the process, you can work swiftly but not hastily. This is why you spread out the pieces and dry fit them first.

So, let’s do all the pins first.

Before I started with the pins, I filed off the joints of the legs so they would fit into the sockets of the abdomen. After that, I drilled the holes with the GW hand drill and clipped off the pins from a standard paper clip. With the pins inserted into the joints of the legs it looks like this:

I also decided to do a pin for the joint between abdomen and torso. It was a wise decision as dry fitting showed that the model would even hold without any glue:

I decided to do the same for the arms with the same success:

Dry fit everything again after you made a pin just to see if the holes are in the correct location and if the pin has the proper length.

Once I had all the pins, I made the green stuff (I always use equal amounts of the blue and yellow components) and put small portions into the sockets. In this case, less is clearly more or you will have ugly green stuff spills all over your model!

Please take a closer look at the socket in the abdomen, there I applied two tiny portions of green stuff to either side of the hole – the tinier, the better. On the other hand, I was more generous with the green stuff going in the sinks on the arms where the electric coils will be later. Here you can create with green stuff a nice bed for the coils to rest on later, but still don’t use green stuff excessively.

So, once everything was ready, I started to glue together the various pieces. Always use small amounts of glue only, again less is more.

First, I took the pins out of the limbs again, filled them with a little super glue, and inserted the pins again.

After that I continued with the legs and the abdomen since they need the longest drying time for best stability. I smeared a little super glue over the green stuff and pressed on the legs with the pins going into the proper holes.

After that I took the torso, glued the shoulders to it, and let everything rest for a short while while I was gluing the electric coils into the sinks in the arms.

Once the model was stable enough, I glued the arms to it and connected the upper torso with the abdomen.

Once the model was stable enough again, I turned it over and glued the exhaust on the back onto the big blob of green stuff:

I let the model rest on its back over night so that the super glue had enough time to dry and the green stuff to become solid:

After that, only finishing work was left to be done:

1. Gluing the head to the torso. I used a pin for the sake of stabiloty as well, but not green stuff.
2. Gluing on the pistons – just plain super glue.
3. Gluing on the tubes. Take your time to bend them into the correct position so that they connect well once you glue them on.
4. Finally, I traced the shapes of the sockets on the Warjack’s feet with a pen on the model’s base, drilled holes into the outline, and cut it out with my hobby knive. After that, I just had to isnert the Warjack into its base.
   Warning: My Warjack’s left leg fell off again when I pushed it into the base. Maybe it’s a good idea to put the legs into the base before you glue them to the abdomen.

In Zurich, Switzerland, the Warmachine community is very small while the GW community is firmly established. A couple people asked me about the size of Warjacks as they are interested in using them for their Warhammer projects. For this purpose, you see the finished Thunderhead in comparison to a Space Hulk Terminator:

So, this is it for the modeling part. To continue, I suggest you check out Nick’s wonderful tutorial on how to paint a Warjack with easy highlights. Originally, I thought about doing my own tutorial, but this one pretty much covers it. Maybe I’ll still do my own tutorial just for the sake of running down the GW paints I used (Nick uses a broader range of paints).

Hiatus

I am going on a hiatus and leaving my Blood Angels alone for a little. Instead, you are going to see here a few articles on Warmachine over the next couple months instead.

I have been playing Games Workshop games (in chronological order: Blood Bowl, Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40’000) throughout all my hobby life and so far GW has given me a great time with their miniature range that keeps getting better and the fantastic universe serving as a background for one’s own little campaigns. However, now is the time to try Warmachine. Here are the reasons why:

1. With the Blood Angels Codex coming in April I don’t wanna build that units now and wait and see first what happens.
2. Privateer Press is making awesome miniatures for Warmachine. I finally fell in love when I saw an image of Dannon Blythe & Bull. From this point on I knew I need an army just to have these models.
3. Privateer Press has a predictable release cycle with fast updates for all factions. If you play Dark Eldar, Necrons, or the Inquisition, you may like that.
4. Privateer Press is cheaper. You don’t need that many models to start a respectable army while the price range is about the same as GW’s. To get started, all you need to buy is the main rulebook because the rules for every unit are printed on a card that comes in the unit’s box.
5. Most of all, Privateer Press integrates the community. They have a forum on their website where I got quick and friendly help when I decided to take the plunge. But most of all, when they were about to release the new MKII rulebook, they had a field test where everyone in the community could download the PDF, give it a try in a couple games and give feedback to the company! Now how great is that? Today, we live in a connected world where everybody is talking about how important it is to reach out to your customer. This company is doing it!

Integrating the community in the production process is about telling your customer that you care. Furthermore, it’s a little bit like opensource software. Opensource software is so great and stable because many eyes review the code. I expect Warmachine to be a much smoother experience than Warhammer. GW develops everything in secrecy, pumps out FAQs, and still there are some gamers with no sportsmanship exploiting holes in the rules. I think at GW work many creative spirits who make great products, but once they’re out in the wild they morph to a certain degree into something the developer didn’t think of. When you integrate the community, you have even more creative spirits plus the checks and balances from out in the wild, so using that information is the best thing a company can do. Why should it not talk directly to its customers when it’s so easy in our modern world?

Why Blood Angels have 4+ INV Stormshields

Today’s merry topic is why Blood Angels have worse Stormshields than any loyal Space Marine Chapter of the Second Founding. Nobody knows quite the reasons, but rumors indicate that the Blood Angels actually order their Stormshields from Grotz in the Terto sector.

In other words, since the advent of the latest Codex: Space Marines it is especially evident that the Codex: Blood Angels is outdated. Common sense tells you that it is just natural to use some of the rules for the Vanilla Marine for the Blood Angels as well. Over at Bolter & Chainsword one can even download a nice homebrew “Codex: Blood Angels – Revived” that allows you to adapt the Blood Angels rules in a three tiers system depending on how close you wanna stick to the original. With this document, you can iron out all errors in the current Codex: Blood Angels and everybody could be happy – if it weren’t for reasons of jealousy.

You see, with the Codex: Space Marines, all those Vanilla players felt treated well again. Suddenly they had cheaper troops and cool wargear to play with – if you compare the Ironclad Dreadnought to the Furioso Dreadnought and the Vanguard Veterans to the Veteran Assault Squads, you can sort of see where the ideas were coming from. So, everything in Vanilla world was good and that’s okay as every fan deserves a Codex he’s happy with.

However, some Vanilla players reacted to Blood Angels players’ attempts to unify the rules with utter refusal. Obviously, the new Vanilla Codex was theirs and nobody else should have a part of it as this would endanger them feeling special anymore. When a Blood Angels player vented his frustration over at Librarium Online about Blood Angels Stormshields still being a 4+ INV save rather than a 3+, he was corrected by a Vanilla player that this differences are necessary for balancing reasons. Yeah, right. When there were rumors about a new Codex: Blood Angels in 2010, people commenting over at Bell of Lost Souls already know how broken it will be. The truth is, the Codex Blood Angels can be considered broken right now, but not in favor of the Marines in red. There’s a list of challenges a Blood Angels player has to think of if he wants build an army list that is as efficient as a Vanilla list.

Since the Blood Angels have been confirmed for April 2010, we will see a few types of players come into focus:

1. Veteran Blood Angels players enjoying the new Codex.
2. Blood Angels newbies picking up the army because it’s either just the latest strongest army (they think) or because they like the fluff.
3. Vanilla players bitching about the new Codex: Blood Angels. I assume those are the ones who picked up Vanilla Marines just because they were the latest strongest.
4. Vanilla Veterans who are still proud of their own Chapter and are happy for the Blood Angels players because ultimately it’s diversity that makes this game great.

I will play anytime with a happy Vanilla or Blood Angels Veteran. I will also play anytime with a Blood Angels newbie who wants to commit himself to this army because he likes the Chapter’s fluff and background. However, I won’t have much patience for unhappy whiners. Everyone gets a little jealous every once in a while because the time frame when one’s army is the latest fad is relatively short. If you let that dominate your game, you’re missing a whole lot of fun. All the Space Wolves models that will be left unpainted when the Codex: Blood Angels arrives will speak for themselves.