Painting Challenge 250 Points/Month (April)

Hey guys,

with the month of April coming to an end I want to present the models for my Tyranid army that I haved painted this month. As in the month before I only painted a very small number of models, but I used the remaining time to start magnetizing a few models I want to paint over the next month in order to get a small headstart for the busy time coming towards me.

The list for this month was:

---------- HQ (1) ----------
Tervigon (195 points)
- Scything Talons
- Stinger Salvo

---------- Troops (1) ----------
 Broodlord (64 points)
-- Scything Talons
_________________________________________
259 points

As you can see I have finished my first monstrous creature for the army and directly a rather large one ;)

In the next month I'll most certainly add another monstrous creature and some other models, all of them fully magnetized in order to change weapons.

So stay tuned!

Cheers Cleutin

The Tervigon in all its pride

Close up of the Tervigon

Comparison of Broodlord and Tervigon

The second Broodlord (painted in April)

The Broodlord Brothers (painted in March and April)

Painting Challenge 250 Points/Month (March)

Hi guys,

another month rushed by and I managed to paint another 250 points of Tyranids. This month I decided to only paint the following models, because I had my final exam at university:


---------- HQ (1) ----------
Deathleaper (130 points)

---------- Troops (1) ----------
5x Genestealers (134 points)
- Broodlord (Scything Talons)
______________________________________________
264 points

Now I already have completed over 500 points and own the mandatory choices of 1 HQ and 2 Troop choices. In April I will add the first monstrous creature to the Hive Fleet. I definitely need some huge beasts in the army ;)

Cheers Cleutin

Painting Challenge 250 Points/Month (February)

Hi all,

a friend of mine in our local gaming club came up with the idea to start a small painting project in order to increase his motivation for painting. He planned a new IG army in an urban warfare style and wanted to paint 250points per month.
Looking for other people foolish enough to join his idea he asked me whether I was interested in joining him. After a quick glimpse at my started and still not finished armies, I decided that I could just as well use a boost of motivation in order to finish at least one army. A second look at my armies revealed that I had already decided the schemes for all of my armies and none of them would end up with city fight bases ... This seemed like a great excuse to start with a new army ;)
With the release of the new Tyranid book only a few weeks before I nearly instantly decided to grab my old and awfully painted Tyranids from more than 10 years ago and rip them apart. With some new additions I would end up with a decent but not too strong force.

After some research about how to create bases that fit in a destroyed city I found a video from BoW that showed a way to create concrete out of old CD-cases. I now had an army and a style to create bases, but was still left with no colour scheme for my army.

Originally I had painted my Nids in the classic Kraken scheme, but over the years I had seen way to many Kraken, Leviathan and Behemoth Nids so that I decided to change unto another range of colours. I had always admired green and brown Nids and painted a simple Termagant as a testmodell for my new scheme.

With everything ready to paint I just had to find the time needed for the project between my university exams and decided to paint the following models in the month of February:

---------- Elite (2) ----------
Zoanthrope (50 points)
Lictor (50 points)

---------- Troops (2) ----------
5x Genestealers (70 points)
11x Termagants (44 points)
- 11x Fleshborer

---------- Heavy Support (1) ----------
Biovore (40 points)
_____________________________________________
254 points

I ended up with 254 points (due to the testmodel) and a total of 19 models in one month. This seemed manageable to me and I didn't have to work with magnets in the first month (I will have to do this once I start working on Tyranid Warriors, Hive Tyrants and Carnifexes).

To come to an end: I finished all of the models in time and started working on some SporeMines for the Biovore, which I haven't finished. In March I will work on an HQ (the Deathleaper, because I still have no time to work with magnets) and another brood of Genestealers. But that's it for today and now enjoy the photos of Hive Fleet ... I still need a name for it ...

Cheers Cleutin

Termagants without finished bases

First 254 points of my new Hive Fleet completely finished

Imperial Armour Volume 11

Hey guys,

just stumbled over the news that Imperial Armour Volume 11 "The Doom of Mymeara" was recently released.

As you can quite easily see on the picture the book is featuring the Eldar. On the other side of the table (as always) the Imperial Guard get some new rules and in addition to this there are some pages of the book reserved for Space Wolves.

I for myself, not being an Apocalypse or Imperial Armour player, am not really interested in this, but maybe the one or other of you might find this interesting.

Cheers Cleutin


P.S.: Here is the link to the product on Forgeworld.

Tournament in Iserlohn Part II

Hey guys,

as I promised in my last post, I’ll take a bit about the games played in the tournament and the lists other players fielded against us.

Let’s get started with: Game 1!
The mission played was Seize Ground with a fixed number of five objectives and armies were deployment like in Spearhead.
Once again I had to play against my brother in the first round of a tournament … this is getting rather strange! He didn’t intend to play and was just asked to play for another player, who didn’t show up and so he borrowed a Grey Knights army from the store and teamed up with a Wolves player. There lists were as follows:

***************  1 HQ  *************** 

Ordo Xenos Inquisitor

- 3 x Servo-Skulls

- Power Armour

- Ulumeathi Plasma Syphon

- Rad Grenades

- Psychotroke Grenades

 - - - > 82 Points

***************  1 Elite  *************** 

Purifier Squad

9 Purifiers

- 5 x Nemesis Force Halberd

- 1 x Nemesis Daemon Hammer

- 6 x Storm Bolter

- 2 x Psycannon

- Psybolt Ammunition

+ Upgrade to Knight of the Flame

   - Nemesis Daemon Hammer

   - Storm Bolter

+ - Rhino

   - Searchlight

   - Dozerblade

 - - - > 322 Points

***************  2 Troop  *************** 

Grey Knight Strike Squad

5 Grey Knights

- 3 x Nemesis Force Sword

- 3 x Storm Bolter

- 1 x Psycannon

+ Upgrade to Justicar

   - Nemesis Force Sword

   - Storm Bolter

+ - Razorback

   - Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter

   - Searchlight

   - Psybolt Ammunition

 - - - > 161 Points

Grey Knight Strike Squad

5 Grey Knights

- 3 x Nemesis Force Sword

- 3 x Storm Bolter

- 1 x Psycannon

+ Upgrade to Justicar

   - Nemesis Force Sword

   - Storm Bolter

+ - Razorback

   - Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter

   - Searchlight

   - Psybolt Ammunition

 - - - > 161 Points

***************  2 Heavy Support  *************** 

Dreadnought

- Twin-Linked Autocannon

- Twin-Linked Autocannon

- Psybolt Ammunition

 - - - > 135 Points

Dreadnought

- Twin-Linked Autocannon

- Twin-Linked Autocannon

- Psybolt Ammunition

 - - - > 135 Points

Summed up: 996 Points

***************  1 HQ  *************** 

Rune Priest

- Living Lightning

- Jaws of the World Wolf

 - - - > 100 Points

Rune Priest

- Boltgun

- Living Lightning

- Murderours Hurricane

 - - - > 100 Points

***************  2 Elite  *************** 

Wolf Scouts Pack

5 Wolf Scouts

- Meltagun

 - - - > 85 Points

Wolf Guard Pack

3 Wolf Guard

- 3 x Combi-Melta

- 3 x Powerfist

 - - - > 129 Points

***************  2 Standard  *************** 

Grey Hunters Pack

8 Grey Hunters

- Meltagun

+ - Rhino

 - - - > 160 Points

Grey Hunters Pack

7 Grey Hunters

- Meltagun

+ - Rhino

 - - - > 145 Points

***************  2 Unterstützung  *************** 

Long Fangs Pack

6 Long Fangs

- 5 x Missile Launcher

+ Upgrade to Squad Leader

 - - - > 140 Points

Long Fangs Pack

6 Long Fangs

- 5 x Missile Launcher

+ Upgrade to Squad Leader

 - - - > 140 Points

Summed up: 999 Points

Our deployment of the Orks from the side ...

... and from the top, with the CSM.

Enemies' deployment, everthing seems to be hidden.

My team won the roll off to place the first marker, which gave us the ability to place three out of the five objectives and we decided to put those pretty close to each other, so that my large Ork units could claim several objectives at once. To make it even better for us, we even won the roll off for the first turn and decided to go first, this way we were able to choose a quarter with several interesting ruins for our Obliterators, while we left the enemy armies with only one large LoS blocker, but practically no other cover and in addition to this even only one good position for the Longfangs.
I set up my Nob Bikers quite offensive and Michael kept his Chaos Marines mostly in cover, because we wanted to protect the Rhinos and Daemon Prince. My Boyz were intended to move into the open right from the beginning in order to claim as many objectives as possible. Our opponents tried to get the most out of their LoS blocker, fearing the power of our Obliterators. Right at the moment, when I wanted to start moving my bikes about 24” into the direction of the Longfangs to put on some pressure, our opponents seized the initiative!

Seizing initiative and directly moving into shooting positions.

That meant lots of S8 missiles and autocannons would shoot at my nobs, there wasn’t much I feared, but this was definitely one of the worst things that could happen, because I had no chance to turboboost beforehand. Luckily the shooting was not very successful and I was able to save every shot and didn’t lose a single model. In addition to this our enemy’s large number of Rhinos and Razorbacks stood in each other’s way and couldn’t move around freely. In our turn I boosted the bikes, moved the Boyz and the CSM started to shoot at the annoying Dreadnoughts.

All of the Orks start moving out ...

... and the Boyz secure some objectives.

Over the next few turns we were able to destroy both Dreadnoughts, one unit of Longfangs and nearly every transport vehicle. Sadly, I lost my complete Nob Bikers, but at least they soaked up loooooots of fire and killed one unit of Longfangs and one of the Dreadnoughts. The large unit of Boyz did exactly what it was supposed to do. It secured two objectives and killed a complete unit of Greyhunters, which attacked them.

The Boyz stop the Grey Hunters.

The other Greyhunters and Grey Knights were threaten by our Obliterators and couldn’t reach any objectives that way. The normal CSM camped our home objective and defeated the Wolfscouts and the Plague Marines shot at them Rhinos with their meltaguns. All in all worked our initial plan pretty good, because the table had a large area without any cover right in the middle and we had been able to place most of the objectives there, so that our Obliterators could control everything in the late game. In the end we scored a 15-5 with 3-0 objectives and no real difference in victory points.

The Prince stops some tanks (and lots of dead Orks on the right).

In the next post I’ll tell more about game two and three (which was quite fast). For the second game there are only two or three pictures and in the last game we forgot to take some at all, sorry for that.

Cheers Cleutin

Tournament in Iserlohn

Hey guys,

on Saturday November 5^th 2011 I went to Iserlohn in order to participate in a team tournament with my fellow Michael. A few weeks earlier my brother and Michael had taken part in another team tournament, which was very similar to this one and so we had very early some good ideas for a team setup.
With a total of 76 tournament points in which only 60 points could be achieved throughout the three games and the remaining 16 points were given for painting, we decided to opt for a fully painted army, because we didn’t want to lose 4 or more points due to painting. In addition to this we hoped that not every team would be fully painted, which would give us an edge in the final rating.

Keeping this in mind, we already had a rather limited possibility of different team setups. First of all I’ll give you a quick overview of the tournament’s rule set and later on will argue why we choose certain units for our armies.
A complete team consisted of two players, which played together on one table as ONE army. But any army specific special rules couldn’t be transferred to the partner’s units. Every player had exactly 1,000 points to spend for his units and any remaining points couldn’t be transferred into the partner’s army. In addition to that, every player had a limited FOC to build his army, which looked like the following:
1 HQ
2-4 Troop
0-2 Elite
0-2 Fast Attack
0-2 Heavy Support

The limitation of several important slots to only 2 per army (not per team) and the necessity to play only painted models, made it difficult to find a suiting army. So first of all, we took a look at the missions played, which were only the three rulebook missions, which meant that we would play objectives twice and killpoints once. Very soon we discovered that Orks and CSM would probably make a good combination, both armies could easily include Troop choices, which are able to deal with some enemies, and could easily combine strong CC power with some decent shooting.
In the end I decided to play the Ork part of our army and our final lists looked like that:

***************  1 HQ  *************** 
Warboss
- Power Claw
- Warbike
- Cybork Body
- Bosspole
 - - - > 140 Points

***************  2 Troop  *************** 
10 Nobz
- Nob Bikers
- Stikkbombz
- 3 x Big Choppa
- 3 x Power Claw
- 2 x Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-Weapon
- 3 x Bosspole
- 1 x Waaagh! Banner
- Painboy
- Cybork Bodies
 - - - > 670 Points

25 Boyz
- Shootas
- Nob
- Power Claw
- Bosspole
 - - - > 190 Points

Summed up: 1000 Points

***************  1 HQ  *************** 
Daemon Prince
- Wings
- Mark of Slaanesh
- Lash of Submission
 - - - > 155 Points

***************  1 Elite  *************** 
3 Chaos Terminators
- 3 x Melta-Combi Weapon
 - - - > 105 Points

***************  2 Troop  *************** 
5 Chaos Space Marines
- Icon of Chaos Glory
+ - Chaos Rhino
 - - - > 120 Points

5 Plague Marines
- 2 x Meltaguns
+ - Chaos Rhino
 - - - > 170 Points

***************  2 Heavy Support  *************** 
3 Obliterators
 - - - > 225 Points

3 Obliterators
 - - - > 225 Points

Summed up: 1000 Points

This way we got quite a number of scoring units (the Ork units being large enough to cover more than one objective and the Chaos units rather mobile and save due to the Rhinos), but also didn’t play too many units that could easily be killed in the killpoint mission. In addition to this we managed to field both armies with completely painted miniatures and didn’t lose any softscores in this way.

So much for today, in the next article I’ll write about the three games we played and provide some pictures and enemy army lists as far as I remember them.

Cheers Cleutin

Another look at Tau

Hey guys,

in my last article I talked about a possible 1750 points list for a Tau army. By this time I came to an agreement with my friend and bought his models already and therefore I started some more planning on how to build such an army.
One of the main problems of my last Tau list was the small number of crisis suits, though I decided to include a lot more of them into my army. In addition to this I equipped lots of them with twin-linked missile pods to get a better result of long range shots at transport vehicles. In order to still be able to deal with some heavily armoured vehicles like LRs, I decided to buy a unit of two Crisis suits, equipped with twin-linked fusion blasters. These guys are cheap enough to deep strike near dangerous units and shot at them at quite short range, to stop them long before they can reach my lines.
Another improvement over my first Tau list is the fact that I made much more use of different wound groups, because I equipped the Crisis suits in the squads different to get the most out of their two wounds, before they go down. Of course, I had to cut a lot of units in order to squeeze that many Crisis suits into the list. First of all I got rid of units which did nothing or at least not very much in my latest test games: The Hammerhead was supposed to give some long range fire power in addition to my Broadside Battlesuits, but I think it didn’t even score a single hit and therefore I know that I can do without it, as well. This already gave me some more points to spend and additionally I got rid of the Pathfinders and their quite expensive Devilfish. My Fire Warriors can as well keep their heads down in order to survive a battle, as long as they stay close to my lines and do not run around a lot, which they normally shouldn’t be doing.
After I added as many Crisis suits as I wanted, I spent the remaining points on another squad of Kroot. These guys are really good in annoying the enemy and I can even keep them in reserve and let them outflank later on in order to kill some scouts or whatever is sitting on my opponent’s home objective. After some reconstructions and some tweaking, I finally came to this list:

***************  2 HQ  *************** 

Commander
- Shas'o
+ - 2 x Missile Pod
   - Blacksun Filter
   - H-w. Drone Controller
   - H-w. Target Lock
   - 2 x Shield Drone
 - - - > 131 Points

Crisis Bodyguard Team
+ Crisis Shas'vre
   - 2 x Missile Pod
   - Targeting Array
   - H-w. Blacksun Filter
 - - - > 66 Points

Commander
- Shas'o
+ - 2 x Missile Pod
   - Blacksun Filter
   - H-w. Target Lock
 - - - > 101 Points

Crisis Bodyguard Team
+ Crisis Shas'vre
   - 2 x Missile Pod
   - Targeting Array
   - H-w. Blacksun Filter
   - H-w. Drone Controller
   - 2 x Shield Drone
+ Crisis Shas'vre
   - 2 x Missile Pod
   - Targeting Array
   - H-w. Blacksun Filter
 - - - > 162 Points

***************  3 Elite  *************** 

Crisis Battlesuit Team
+ Crisis Team Leader
   - 2 x Missile Pod
   - Targeting Array
   - H-w. Blacksun Filter
   - H-w. Target Lock
+ Crisis
   - 2 x Missile Pod
   - Blacksun Filter
+ Crisis
   - 2 x Missile Pod
   - Drone Controller
   - 2 x Shield Drone
 - - - > 185 Points

Crisis Battlesuit Team
+ Crisis Team Leader
   - 2 x Missile Pod
   - Targeting Array
   - H-w. Blacksun Filter
   - H-w. Target Lock
+ Crisis
   - 2 x Missile Pod
   - Blacksun Filter
+ Crisis
   - 2 x Missile Pod
   - Drone Controller
   - 2 x Shield Drone
 - - - > 185 Points

Crisis Battlesuit Team
+ Crisis
   - 2 x Fusion Blaster
   - Blacksun Filter
+ Crisis
   - 2 x Fusion Blaster
   - Target Lock
 - - - > 94 Points

***************  3 Troop  *************** 

6 Fire Warrior
 - - - > 60 Points

10 Kroot
7 Kroot Hounds
 - - - > 112 Points

10 Kroot
7 Kroot Hounds
 - - - > 112 Points

***************  1 Fast Attack  ***************  

2 Piranhas
- 2 x Fusion Blaster
- 1 x Targeting Array
 - - - > 135 Points

***************  2 Heavy Support  *************** 

Broadside Battlesuit Team
+ Broadside Team Leader
   - Smart Missile System
   - Advanced Stabilisation System
   - H-w. Blacksun Filter
   - H-w. Drone Controller
   - H-w. Target Lock
   - 2 x Shield Drone
+ Broadside
   - Smart Missile System
   - Advanced Stabilisation System
 - - - > 203 Points

Broadside Battlesuit Team
+ Broadside Team Leader
   - Smart Missile System
   - Advanced Stabilisation System
   - H-w. Blacksun Filter
   - H-w. Drone Controller
   - H-w. Target Lock
   - 2 x Shield Drone
+ Broadside
   - Smart Missile System
   - Advanced Stabilisation System
 - - - > 203 Points

Summed up : 1749 points

The main advantage of this list is, of course, quite a large number of battlesuits, but I don’t have that many plasma rifles than before, which leaves me quite vulnerable as soon as my opponent manages to come close to my lines. I think that it’ll take quite a lot testing in order to see whether this list is stronger than the last one or not. But I recently developed another Tau list, which is my favourite list at the moment. The list is basically a mixture of these two lists and will be tested by me as soon as possible. In the next article I will present the list and will have hopefully played some games with it, as well. So stay tuned for the next article.

Cheers Cleutin