A Kill Team Battle

Yesterday Tim and I got together for a game of Kill Team.  This was my 5th game since we decided to try the game out earlier this year.  This would be our first game using our own custom Kill Teams rather than the pre-generated teams from the starter set or the Rouge Trader set.  Tim used is Deathwatch kill team and I took my trusty Orks.

For this game we selected the Terror Tactics scenario.  The setting is a ruined sector frontieris settlement that has been taken over by an Ork Mekboy for his workshop.  The the goal of the battle is to do as much damage to the enemy as possible.  The first kill team to break is the looser. For this game we actually forgot to use any of the sector special rules.

Deployment is complete.  For the Scouting Phase the Orks select Take Forward Positions and and the Deathwatch selected Eliminate Sentries.  

Ork gunners move up to take better firing positions.

Deathwatch marines target the advancing Orks.  They score a single flesh wound on a Loota.

Orks advance on the DW who are taking cover behind the Mekboy workshop.

After a couple of turns of moving and shooting the Orks in the center have closed into melee with the DW.  Meanwhile the rest of the Orks are providing covering fire to keep the rest of the DW occupied.

The dense terrain made for some very close action.  A failed charge leaves and Ork in a bad spot.

DW Marines are dropping like flies.  The Grot has just killed a Space Marine with a close combat pistol shot and now looks to join another fight.

The DW sergeant has fallen and now this loan Space Marine is overwhelmed. He would stoically fight on as the rest of his team falls.

The loan surviver of the Deathwatch kill team manages to take out one more Ork and this results in the Ork force breaking.  The marine passes his break test and wins the battle.

At truly epic battle and a shocking win for the Deathwatch.  The marines took hit after hit and made save after save and took piles of flesh wounds before going down.  I really though that the Orks had this but time and again the failed to get that last wound.  This was the best game so far I think.

Tim and I are slowly getting the finer points of the game.  I still struggle with the command abilities.  What can I use and when is at the center of this.  I frequently forget to use these abilities at all.  Another aspect of the game that we have not yet used are the specialist traits.  This will open up new dimensions once we figure out how to use them.

Space Marine Dreadnought #2

Progress continues on the dead lead projects.  Man 40K has really gotten under my skin lately.  This guy has been sitting in my Knights of Eden army box for years.  This is an old metal Dreadnought with a Forge World plasma cannon arm.  Back in the day this was a killer model that would have been the envy of many a Space Marine player.  Today it is a dated relic that does not stand up well to the new plastic kits.  I really like the rough texture of the model as I think it really makes you think of something that has been in use for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years and repeatedly rebuilt.

This one was really fun to get on the paint bench and get finished up.  I still have tons of models for this army awaiting completion and I am sure I will have more to come.

Space Marine Scout Additions

With the pending release of Warhammer 40,000 8th edition and the already released Shadow War Armageddon I have been inspired to paint more of my collection of Space Marine models.

I have tried the Space Marine Scouts in SW:A a couple of times and found my configuration to be lacking.  I have been using the 5 close combat scouts that I painted up over 8 years ago as the basis.  With the additional points I added a scout with a sniper rifle.

The sniper rifle has not really impressed me so I decided to paint up my scout heavy bolter to add some punch.

As well as the heavy bolter I also painted up a couple of scout with boltguns.  The bolt pistol option is nice but you have to allow enemies to get very close before you can shoot and as fast as some of these armies move you need some balance on the ranged weapons.  The boltguns will do that.

Now I have 9 painted scouts to mix and match for my SW:A force.  I really can't wait to try these new options out and see which ones work best.

These models have all been painted in the colors for my Knights of Eden Space Marine Chapter I have been working on for more than 10 years.  These are the first additions to this collection in about 5 years.  I still have lots of models waiting to be painted for this army and this latest work has inspired me to work on more of it.  This is another area of saving money by painting what I already have.  Novel concept for a gamer but so far it is really paying off.  Sometimes less is more.

Terminator Reinforcements

My Knights of Eden Space Marine army has been neglected for some time...OK, nearly three years.  I am shocked that I have added nothing to this army for so long.  A couple of months ago I got the army out on the table (I might not have played the army in three years either) and got in a game against my friend, Lonnie.  He wanted to try out his 2000 point Deathwing Assault army.  Well, let me just say that he showed me that I have a few gaps in my army.  In order to try and fill some of those gaps I decided to add some much needed heavy weapons to my terminators.  It just so happens that I had a box sitting around so I decided to build one of each heavy weapon as well as a Chainfist and another Sargent. 

I now have 14 painted Terminators for this army.  I still have another box of unbuilt terminators so I will be adding another Cyclone and an Assault Cannon at least.  I also have 5 more AOBR terminators so this could get out of hand.

Space Marine Terminator Librarian

This is a stock Terminator Librarian from the current Space Marine line. He is painted up as a Librarian for my Knights of Eden Sapce Marine Chpater. As usual, this model took way too long to finish. I think I have been working on it for more than a year.

I now have three HQ options for this army and they are all very different.

The Knights of Eden - Army to Date

I have been doing lots of posts on this blog about my home brew Space Marine Chapter but I have never posted a group shot of the army. Mostly this has been do to not having enough done to make a group picture very interesting. In the last couple of weeks, however, I have added a Heavy Support, a Fast Attack, an Elite and an HQ. I finally have a unit for each force organization slot. This picture represents about 5 years of collecting and painting. This army started out as a couple tac squads, some scouts and a speeder for my Daemonhunters army, but has now grown to a full Space Marine force.

Here is what the army consists of today.

HQ

Space Marine Captain with a Command Squad
Chaplain

Elite

9 Terminators
Dreadnought
Techmarine with Servitors
10 Sternguard Veterans

Troops

3 - 10 man Tactical Squads
5 man Scout Squad

Fast Attack

10 man Assault Marine Squad
Landspeeder
Landspeeder Typhoon

Heavy Support

Land Raider

Dedicated Transports

4 Rhinos
Drop Pod

There are many more items in the collection waiting to be painted. I still have a couple more Rhinos, a couple more tac squads, about 20 more scouts, scout bikers, regular bikers, a couple more speeders, two more dreds, 5 more terminators, a Librarian in terminator armor, a couple of whirlwinds, a razorback, another Drop Pod and at least 2 more captains. I have so much stuff left I am debating starting another Space Marine army or painting all this up for a Knights of Eden Apocalypse force.

Space Marine Company Command Squad

I finally have a command squad for my Knights of Eden Captain, which I just realized I have never photographed and blogged. Anyway, this unit took way too long to get painted. It seemed that each time I would start to work on it I would quickly loose interest and move to something else. I think the banner scared me and I was subconsciously using this as an excuse to not finish the unit.

I have been taking a drawing class and it inspired me to take another look and doing the banner. I have also been inspired by Ron Saikowski's banners. Take a look at the Tutorial section a the ++ From the Warp ++ blog for excellent examples of what you can do with hand painted banners. Armed with new-found confidence I jumped back into this project and finished it up! In the end the banner is not as good as I had hoped but I think it looks good considering it is my first hand painted...well...anything really.

Another thing that I like about this unit is the 2 Power Fist guy. With the 5th edition rules the only way a PF can get an extra attack is to have 2 of them. I figured that with the current selection of models and parts your were unlikely to see this combination on the table. It seems that all the models currently available from GW either have a left hand PF already or you can get the plastic PF arm with is also left hand. Searching my references I could not find a model with a right hand power fist. The only way this could be modeled, that I could see, would be to use a Lightning Claw model and remove the claws. This seemed like a waste to me.

After digging through my vast collection of junk I found an old Blood Angels Sargent with a raised Power Fist. It was still a left hand power fist but it was different. It was smaller than most. I then remembered that the original plastic Space Marine set had a right hand power fist arm and it to was small. I dug through the bits box and bingo! there was the answer. The old RT era power fist is right hand and it matches the early metal PF version well. After a little modification to the army I was able to get the model of my dreams (OK, not of my dreams, really). It should be fun to spring this one in a game and see how it works.

Techmarine and Servitors

I have finished another Elite option for my Knights of Eden Space Marine army. This is my Techmarine and Servitor squad. In all my years of playing 40K I have never really used a Techmarine. I used to take one in my old third edition Dark Angels because he was a close combat monster but I never took one because of the vehicle repair rules. I am still not sure he is worth it considering most games I have played are over after 5 turns. There just does not seem to be enough time to use his special rules.

Space Marine Land Speeder Typhoon

My Land Speeder Typhoon is done! This is another salvage project from my collection of old Imperial Fists. This model has a similar story to the Landraider. Again, huge amounts of superglue and yellow paint made this a challenge. After 24 hours in the freezer I was able to get the original crew out and the missile pods off. I had enough parts to replace the crew and the Multi-Melta. The missile pods spent the night in the Simple Green to strip off the paint. I decided not to try and strip the paint from the speeder. There is not enough fine detail to have made that worth the effort.

The antenna was broken so I replaced that with the radar dish from the vehicle accessory sprue. This is actually a good thing because the speeder will be serving as my spotter for my Suppression Force for Apocalypse battles.

Not a perfect job but it looks pretty good.

Edit 9/18/2009: Here is an old before picture of this model. No a great picture but it gives you an idea of what it looked like.

Space Marine Landraider

My Knights of Eden Space Marine chapter finally has some heavy support. I have been working on this Landraider for a long time and it is now ready for battle. There is an interesting story behind this model.


This model started life as one of the original Landraider Crusader models. The original owner was new to the hobby, and model building, when he started his Space Marine force. He was doing Imperial Fists and everything in the army had a thick coat of bright yellow paint. This covered up huge amounts of superglue and very poor assembly. The Landraider was not built correctly, missing sever parts and not having been assembled in the correct order.


When the original owner got out of the hobby my friend Lonnie bought the army as an opponent force. He wanted to experiment with different Space Marine armies so he would know best how to wipe them out. He changed around the army, adding new units and modifying existing ones. One of the changes was to rob parts from the Landraider to do other conversions. When he tired of the Space Marines he donated the entire collection to me to expand my army. By the time I got the Landraider it was missing the Assault Cannons, the Hurricane Bolters and the top hatches.


I started collecting up the missing parts to turn this into a standard Landraider configuration. It took time and I was not able to find all the right parts. The ones that I could not find I had to convert. I wanted to take the entire model apart to and build it fresh but there was so much superglue on it I could not get it apart. I ended up adding lots of battle damage to cover the bad assembly. In the end I am happy with how it turned out but it took way too much work. This is the last time I do a salvage project on a Landraider.

Painting a Dreadnought

A few weeks ago I painted up some Rhinos and a few people expressed and interest in the technique used to paint them so quickly. Well, I don't have any more Rhinos to paint so I thought I would do this demo with one of the dreds. For vehicle painting I usually use a sponge technique and that is what I am using here.

The materials for this are very simple. You need a selection of make-up or cosmetic sponges. Don't use sponge paint brushes as the texture of these are too course. The make-up sponges are very fine and will provide a better finish. You need a cheap bottle of paint that is a little darker than your target color. Craft paint is perfect for this. The sponges soak up lots of paint so do not waste your expensive stuff on this.

In addition to the materials listed above you need you normal brushes and paints for all the detail work. You also need a black primed model. For this example I am using my Assault on Black Reach Dreadnought that I have added a spotlight and smoke launchers.

To do this technique take a sponge and dip it in the paint. I usually start with the thin edge of the sponge. Wipe off the excess paint on a paper towel. To apply the paint you will dab the paint on rather than brushing or wiping. Start on a corner of the model and begin applying paint. You want the edges of the model to have more paint and then fade into shadows in the more complex areas of the model. In the picture above you can see what the model looks like after a few coats with the sponge. Just keep working until you are happy with the look.

Once the base color is down it is time to clean-up the model. The sponge will get paint all over so it is usually required to touch things up. I go back with a brush and clean-up the black for areas that will not be the base color. This allows me to paint in details later. At this stage I will also clean-up the base color. I took some GW Blazing Orange and a brush and went over the base color. Be careful to preserve the shadows provided by the sponges. One thing I really like about this is the texture the sponges add. Take a look at the picture above and notice the shading and the texture.

Now that the clean-up is done it is time to paint in the details. In this picture you can see all the metallic work and other random details have been painted.

The last paint step is to edge the base color to bring out the details. For this step I used GW Fiery Orange and just worked all the edges of the model. You can also use this highlight color to add some scuffs and ware marks to the model. At this point you are done unless you want to apply a wash. I use Minwax Polyshades Tutor to grime up the model and add a protective finish.

Below are some pictures of the finished model ready for the table.