Late Update

Here's my most recent attempt. Not terrible, but he came off with a bit of a grittier look thanks to my awesome fail of using slow-dry instead of flow-aid for the paint. The good news is that my touch is getting a little bit better with practice (thank you SpaceHulk) and I'm confident that by the time I complete my spacehulk set I'll be ready to burn through my termies fairly quickly.

I'm going to give the tutorial I posted earlier a shot on my next termie. I like the base/wash/highlight method, but I'm having a hard time getting good contrast in the crevaces. We'll see how the next one turns out.

I've been dragging my feet on painting because I'm moving this weekend, and didn't want to have a ton of shit to deal with packing it all back up. Probably a cop-out, but I'll have my fully functioning nerd-lair once I get moved in with the girl and I'll be able to hit it hard.

One positive note, I did get a chance to play with wet-blending as this clown was wearing a robe. Again, not terrible, but I need practice. I have a flat piece of resin that I think I'm going to use as a palette and just practice wet blending. Les Bursley's sword pisses me off.

Another note is that I'm still finding exactly what I want my color scheme to be in terms of the details. The Crux-Terminatus and the Aquila on the breastplate will end up being gold, and I think I am going to go with more metal pieces (ie: the tubing on the handles, webbing at the joints, etc.) Initially I wanted it to be fairly uniform, but the more I think about it the more I think the paint job will look "easy"

Another note, I need to perfect my Dark Angel green on the parts that need to be green.

My goal is still complete my deathwing army (Termies, Dread and Landraider) then work on my Ravenwing, which should be a complete vacation. I was planning on setting up a standard Dark Angel army after that, but I think I'm goin to build a 1500 point Ravenwing army (basically consists of 3 RW battleforces, Sammael and a chaplain on a bike) before I move onto that.

I'm pretty excited about the prospect of having the full Dark Angel arsenal at my disposal. Looking forward to using the Codex: Space Marine book when I roll with the DA's, but I'm willing to suffer through the shortfalls with DW and RW in the meantime because I dig the themes.

Just in case I forget

New link for Deathwing Paint Tutorial. This guys' DW look great and hopefully will be helpful.

http://www.codexunforgiven.com/content/view/42/27/

Changing Armies

So...after my third attempt at a Deathwing Terminator and not being happy with the bone white I've decided to switch Chapters. Luckily I have only painted my Spacehulk termies so I haven't blown the $50 per box.

It's actually a custom army that a guy put up on the web that I should be able to pull off using the Vanilla Space Marine codex.

Link to paint scheme here

In Other News:

Purchased the remainder of my 1500 point army.

Belial + 5 Termie Command Squad(Assault
5man Assault Terminators
5man Tactical Terminators
5man Tactical Terminators
3man Biker Squad
3man Biker Squad
Attack Bike
Skimmer

I'm pretty psyched. Now I just need for my slow-dry and flow-aid to arrive, and order some rare-earth magnets and I'll be good to start assembling/painting.

Recap.

Tyranids vs. Space Marines: Annihilation.

It was the Space Marine Army that I mentioned earlier, versus the following:

Hive Tyrant + Retinue(big beetle looking bugs)
1 unit of Rippers
1 unit of Termigaunts
1 unit of Hormogaunts
2 zoanthrope
2 carnifax

I a immediately upset at his decision to carry as many elites and heavies as possible.

We started at opposite corners, me setting up somewhat of a defensive line with my assault troops protecting my shooters. My purpose with this was the idea that Tyranids were almost exclusively hand-to-hand, and I wanted to hold them off.

The problem is, he had several guys that could shoot...even though they moved like 12" (reference previous post)

Anyway, I lost two of my command squad right of the bat, significantly diminishing their abilities in hand-to-hand.

I deep striked my terminators in an attempt to hold the high ground, and missed slightly landing on the ramp out of range. I still managed to fire a cyclone shot.

I moved my tactical squad with the heavy plasma in position to not have to fire through cover, and moved my flamer+multi melta in a position just outside of a trench.

I took out a few termigaunts the first turn, winning the round in terms of combat.

Next turn pretty much confirmed my suspicions that the battle would be an exercise in futility. His reinforcements showed up from the side nearest to my terminators. Nearly all of his units were on top of me this turn. My Plasma tactical squad was engaged by the Carnifax. My Flamer/Melta squad was overrun by hormigaunts.

The Carnifax didn't do much, but he took my plasma cannon out of play. The hormigaunts picked apart my Flamer/Melta squad immediately. The zoanthropes nearly annihilated my remaining tactical squad. My Dreadnought was all but worthless with a missile launcher and a lascannon, as he had monsters and no vehicles. My assault terminators moved in to support my melta/flamer squad, a little too late. My tactical terminators made short work of the genestealers but it seemed like a futile effort.

The next round was prtty much the coup'de grat. The rest of his guys moved in to assault me, the only punch being held back his second carnifax and zoanthrope.

In the end, if I would've killed the remaining two termigaunts I would've tied. He won.

Lessons learned:

1. I forgot the move 6" followed by a 6" move to assault.
2. My squads were too bunched up. Gotta expand on the 2" rule.
3. Task and Maneuver needs adjustment. Need a solution for moving tactical squads(re: giving up heavy weapon firing)
4. Think about putting tactical squads in reserve.
5. Throw all terminators into the thick of the action, don't just send them vs. one unit.
6. Don't use Lascannon's against beasts.


All in all I got a better idea of using squads. Seeing the terminators in action gives me hope for the deathwing despite their small numbers. I am wondering about whether or not I'll continue with the cyclone missiles on the Assault termies. Gotta brainstorm that s'more.

on Sportsmanship.

Before I go into the recap, I'd lke to talk a bit about sportsmanship.

If you engage in a hobby that doesn't have a strong following, one in which you cannot readily identify participants or more individuals who would like to join you, I'll offer a few tips that will bring more to you.

1. Don't try to annihilate them outside the gate. Nobody likes to play a game they are immediately bad at.

2. Help them learn the rules, don't obfusicate said rules in order to help you win.

3. Don't cheat. It just makes you look like a dick.

That is all I can think of at the moment. /end rant.