My Crazy Army Plan - 17 Down and onto Tomb Kings (again!), Eldar on hold for now, 2,000 Points for each Army!

[Plasman]

Not sold on the brown fur colour, or maybe it's just because it's the same as his arm wraps?

 

I have my first beastmen models awaiting paint so I'm happy to see whatever other people are trying! I was thinking a grey/black of the elite bestigors but wasn't sure on the wussygors.

[BIG]

Hmmm that is a good point. Lots of brown. Perhaps if I went with a blue/grey on the fur it would complement the skin better?

Back to the painting table. 

[korocite]

1 hour ago, Plasman said:

Not sold on the brown fur colour, or maybe it's just because it's the same as his arm wraps?

I think the problem is mixing the warm brown with the cool pale blue. I agree that a cool, or neutral colour would work better for the fur. Maybe a wash for the skin to blend the shading with the base colour too?

[BIG]

So based on some suggestions from a different forum I post on I have made some tweaks to the Ungor Raider I trialled for the scheme of my Beastmen. Let me know what you think of this version compared to the previous one.....

The major changes are the fur has become a blue/grey.  This does provide a better contrast to the brown leather and wood on the model.  I also tried to blend the flesh a bit better so it isn't as stark a contrast between the light and dark.

Thanks for reading.

[korocite]

I like this version better. Only one question, would you consider white for the fletching? The orange is a bit odd.

[BIG]

I was planning to use the fletching as a way to tell the different units apart (as well as the loin cloth that isn’t obvious). So each unit was going to have different coloured fletchings rather than a unified colour.

But, I am open to other ideas if people have them.  

[BIG]

So I have been really slow on any hobby progress, had yet more need of hospital services in our household with my wife needing to get a hernia that was wrapped around her stoma dealt with (it is likely it first developed during her pregnancy with our son; who is now 5.  But it came to a head and needed to be operated on). Then I had another surgery on my nose to remove the diseased sinus tissue that just wouldn't respond to antibiotics.  But that is now behind us (I hope as I have had 7 surgeries in the last 2 years and am very much over it).

So I have been slowly getting back into the hobby swing, just pottering around on various things and trying to get a few things that have been bugging me for some time off the to do list.

First up in the newly finished things is something that has been bugging me for ages is my paint collection.  I mentioned a little while ago (I think) that I was transitioning away from GW paints to Vallejo, well that is all good, but I have a metal GW painting suitcase from yesteryear that had vacuum formed trays that neatly held all the GW paints I could ever want.  But the trays wouldn't hold the dropper bottles and I didn't want them just floating around loose as that would drive me bonkers.  So this is my solution.......

Two layers of foam, cut to fit snuggly into the case and 234 holes punched into the foam (117 in each sheet) firmly holds the dropper bottles. I have them upside down so I can pick the colour I want quickly and through accident rather than good design the label still sticks out above the foam so I can read the name as well.  So all in all it turned out well.  I was also very lucky that the dropper bottles are just shorter than the closed case so they fit like they were made for it.

Next up are the Centigor Herd that I had intended to paint for a competition, but alas I failed miserably especially as I have only just finished them off.  But They are now done and I am super happy with how they have turned out.  I continued the colour scheme of the previous Ungor on the "beastman" part and then moved into browns for the lower portion.

These were second hand and I needed to do some rebuilding of missing horns and someone had replaced the spear on 5 of them with bows.....which was an interesting conversion, but I removed them and added the spears back on (which the previous owner fortunately still had and provided them when I bought the models).

I toyed with a couple of different browns, but ended up with a mustard for the "horse" bits, I think the warm brown vs the cool skin tone works.

I have decided that green will be the army's "colour" for cloth and the like, so I have also repainted the Ungor who had previously sported orange fletching and loin cloth.  I much prefer the green.

I think that the Centigor's may be one of my favourite units of any army to date.  Not really sure why, but I think they are a kooky unit and have oodles of character.

I messed up the movement tray size (it's too bit).  Teach me to glue it together without checking it first.  But it isn't horrendous and I won't bother to modify it.  You use the bases to determine the actual size anyway......

Here is the unit champion next to the test model Ungor, I think I managed to reproduce the skin pretty well.  You can see his new green colours, I think it works much better.

So that is where I am at currently, next time I hope to have finished off some more terrain that has been sitting ALMOST finished for quite a while now and has been bugging me every time I see them sitting 90% finished.

Thanks for reading and good to be back posting.

[korocite]

That is a nice centigor herd. The two tone colour scheme makes the horse and gor sections stand out. I don’t think you need to be concerned about the slightly over size base - your regular opponent will not be worried.

[BIG]

Slight deviation from the Beastmen and a tiny update before the New Year.  I knocked out a little more scatter terrain for the fantasy tables.  I also FINALLY finished off the last little outstanding pieces of the medieval houses that I had been neglecting.  I hope to get a photo of a table with all the medieval terrain laid out to show it off.  But we will see if I get the time and the space.

But the little pieces I knocked off are....

Some wells, every town needs wells.

Thatched roof and stone construction.  I basically copied the same concepts from the houses to tie it all together neatly. These were laser cut and I think they are incredibly effective.

The next items I am not super sure what they are, but I filled them with straw, guess they can double as roofing thatch storage or feed bins for livestock.  But they add interest and that is all that matters.

Kept them very, very simple, just to knock them out and put them on the finished pile.

A couple of my Marienburgers scouting out the new digs, hopefully the wells aren't tainted.......

Thanks for reading and I hope everyone is safe and happy over this festive season.

[BIG]

Happy new year to everyone, I hope that the festive season has been fruitful and peaceful.

I thought I would show off some photos to inspire some motivation in myself.  So first of all, when my in-laws semi-recently sold their house to downsize I got offered the following cabinet.  I was hesitant in regard to getting it to my place, but with a couple of stout lads we managed it...

Seems I can fit about 2 armies per shelf....going to need a lot more space.

I laid out all the "medieval" urban style terrain I had.  The two boards made a 3 foot by 4 foot area, so I am pretty happy with how much terrain I have for this style.

 

Spread out over a full table I think it will make for a really great (if still dense) table.  All of the buildings are fully "playable" as in the floors and roof can be removed should someone want to send troops inside.

I then set up the buildings in a really dense "inside" the wall sort of arrangement.  Kind of ended up quite claustrophobic. Could be great for a Mordheim game, although some higher walkways are a little lacking.

I am almost at a point of being happy enough to put my medieval terrain collection to bed.  I just have a few things left....

I have 2 of each of these (GW Watchtower and Church).  So another 4 buildings and I think I can jam pack a table when needed.  I also have the bits to attach the Church to the Watchtower into a single bigger building so the whole collection will be able to be modular and always something different.

Thanks for reading and hear to a healthy and stress free 2023 (please...I could really use no more surgeries...)

 

Edited January 2, 2023 by BIG

[korocite]

That makes for a nice medieval table. Regarding walkways, there could be a ladder conveniently left on one of those thatched roof tops adjacent the castle walls for a quick means of getting in/out of the keep. I like the display cabinet. Coincidentally, I am in the market for something similar myself.

[BIG]

Ladder to the rooftop? Sounds like a great idea. I get a nice image of a rooftop chase. Pity it would be such a pain in the backside putting models on the roof…..just a tad too steep.

I have made some ok progress on the last 4 buildings (the plastic GW ones). Hope to have them done before the end of the month. 

[BIG]

Quick update, with what I hope some more to follow shortly as I have been getting some good painting progress going. But the issue with batch painting is it is nothing worth showing, nothing worth showing, nothing worth showing, then bam lots to show.

So have put the effort into getting the last four medieval buildings done and I am pretty happy with them. Especially the colour of the roof tiles.  Something about it I just like.

Here we see my capable assistant Carl showing off the group of buildiings, the two watch towers and the two churches.  I will explain the strange little additional thing in a moment.

One of the churches is a little more ostentatious than the other. Mainly as I didn't seem to have all the same pieces for some reason, but these kits have been in my possession for ages and the reason for the missing pieces is lost to the mists of time.

Like most of my terrain I kept it quick, simple and dirty. Then again that is most of my painting.  But I think they look effective and importantly as they are stone constructions look far more solid and intimidating than the farm houses I have already finished.

Here Carl is trying to gain access to a watchtower. They are pretty big and will add some nice vertical terrain. I think they could look quite nice lined up around the Castle.  Then again, who would want to be caught in one of these things during a siege?

Carl on the rooftop, what a view for a lowly Ungor. Hope he doesn't get used to it.

Now, the strange little add on piece, I don't know why I only have one and which kit it came off. But it allows you to "connect" a watch tower and church into a single larger building.  I think it works pretty well for its purpose and adds some modularity to the kits.

Carl picking a fight with a statue...

Thanks for reading and hopefully have more finished progress soon.

Edited January 30, 2023 by BIG

[korocite]

Nicely done. They look very good (and solid). What colour did you use for the roof tiles? It works very well. 

[BIG]

I am using up my remaining citadel paints on my terrain at the moment. So the roof tiles were a base of Averland Sunset then a wash of Fuegan Orange. Not sure if it had a massive effect, but I had sprayed the hole thing with Fang Spray to be the colour of the building so that probably muted the Averland sunset a little bit. 

[BIG]

Another day and another update. Go me. This time though it was a little looking back. As you know the plan is for 2,000 points (give or take a little here and there) for a given army. The problem I had was with the release of changes to points values it would mess with my delicately balanced lists.  I chose the end of 8th edition as the tipping point where I would stop chasing editions and points changes.  So yes, my armies will be out of date for 9th edition 40k and currently unusable in AoS for most of them, but I had to draw a line in the sand and I am happy with my decision.

Having said that.....these models are the last ones I needed to bring all of the existing armies back up to 2,000 points as per the last Chapter Approved for 8th edition 40k.  Bring on the Orks....

I agonized as to what to add to my Orks to bring them up to the 2,000 points and I chose to enlarge the Nobz mob (which I posted a while ago now) and since they are a Freebooterz army I couldn't resist getting some Flash Gitz for that authentic Pirate feel.

I mean, they have Pirate hats, who can go past Orks in Pirate hats?  They are a super expensive unit though and I don't hold much hope of them doing anything before they get wiped off the table.

Unfortunately they have been languishing on my painting station for some time and every now and then I would grab one and do a little bit more.  It got to a point recently that their unfinished presence annoyed me enough to finish them off.  They have far more detail than I had anticipated and I haven't given them the respect that the wonderful models deserve.

I kind of like the way that the basing material has splashed up onto the legs and coats of the models.  Kind of ties them to the bases and gives them a weathered appearance.

Thanks for reading and hope to be back to the Beastmen soon, they too have been languishing with my lack of focus.

[BIG]

Some more finished models to present.  These guys were finished late Saturday night last weekend and I have only just gotten around to snapping some photos.

The first lot of my Beastmen "Core" the Chariots!

All six of the core chariots, this leaves me with the Ungor Raiders to do and then the Razorgor Chariots (of which the actual Razorgors are done) and the Characters.  So all in all a big chunk of this Beastmen army is now done.

I am actually pretty happy with how the paint choices have worked out. The chariots are actually a brown base colour with a green wash, kind of wanted to try and convey a sense that the timber for the chariots was freshly hewn and they didn't bother seasoning it, I mean what self respecting Beastman would do that?

I tried to keep the Tuskgor's somewhat "natural" to act as a contrast to the whacky Gors they are carrying.  I think it worked pretty well although they do sort of blend into the bases a tad.

The crews are the standard scheme I have developed for the army with the pale white skin and blue hair, I think it really makes them stand out from their chariots nicely.

I gave the snouts of the Tuskgor a nice coat of pink to try and draw a little focus to their faces rather than have them all brown.  It is a tad too much of a contrast, but I am not goiing to change them, they are mutants of chaos so a little wild colour is the order of the day.

I am going to have a tiny diversion from the Beastmen for a bit as I am planning a large 40k game for my birthday this year (multiple armies and players) and want to add in some extra Imperial Guard infantry so have dug though my bits box and can pull together a hodge podge of about 27 guardsmen.  Really wish I had a few more pairs of legs to make it up to 30, but we will see what we can do......

Thanks for reading.

[korocite]

Nice, you know I am fond of beastmen in chariots so this brings back some memories. The green tinge to the chariots makes me think of moss/lichen growing on perpetually moist wood in a dank, dark forest. 

 

What flavour of imperial guardsman are you after?

 

[BIG]

I am using Cadian's as I somehow have quite a few Cadian bits I must have picked up in the very distant past.  I used some to make the Veteran squads in my previous Imperial Guard army. Now I am seeing if I can get my bits box to stretch to the next army and I need 30 of the little guys.

[BIG]

So as I said, I have allowed myself to do a slight diversion from the current Beastmen army, but I hope I will remain motivated and it is only a short diversion.  I am planning to do a large game for my birthday and in the planning for it I figured some extra Imperial Guard bodies wouldn't go astray.  Especially as I would like to do a second Guard army at some stage.

I don't expect that I would be able to get the whole army done for May, especially as I would pretty much need to buy most of the army...so I had a poke through my bits box and have managed to come up with 30 Guardsmen (that is what I wanted for the list).  Thanks to those that offered to donate parts to get me to the 30 guardsmen.  I have taken the opportunity to kitbash/convert a few models for this, one: I enjoy doing it, but don't do it often, two: The army is meant to be a ragtag collection of survivors (with tonnes of abhumans) that have been grouped together so the random collection of Cadian uniforms (some armoured some not) adds to the fact some of the rear guard have been pressed into active service, three: it saves a heap of money using what I have, where I can.

Here is an example of what I have done...

I had a pair of the old metal Cadian standard bearers (I don't need a standard in this army) so one has become a Sergeant (on the right) and I haven't finished him yet, but the other will become a Vox operator.

So all three squads are going to be Grenade Launcher and Missile Launcher as these were the models I had available. 

The other model I could add to the army from my bits box is a Hydra. I had somehow scored a Foregworld Hydra Turret and until I sat down and wrote out this Guard army I had no plans to use it, but, I have always loved the Hydra model and am happy I now have a place for it.  Looking through my bits box I didn't have a full Chimera chassis to use, so I set about seeing if I could build one from the bits I did have.

This is what I pulled out of my bits box as "possible" components.  I grabbed anything that I knew was from a Chimera and had my fingers crossed.

First up, I had the outer parts of the track units from a Chimera, and plenty of track, so I had to come up with something to make the inner part of the track units.  

I had some heavy carboard that I soak in PVA and stuck two layers together. It ended up almost like plastic...it has worked very well for this.

I am not sure what the actual Chimera parts looked like, it has been ages since I have assembled a Chimera, but I kept it simple and think it worked, it is quite solid.

I didn't take any photos of putting the hull together, but I had the proper rear and top of the Chimera, but I was missing the base and front sections.  I think it was a Rhino base I used to get most of the structure underneath and used more of the cardboard to build up the front and give a location for the Heavy Bolter.  You see here the cupola for the gun, I think it is donated from a Sisters of battle Immolator (I think...)

I cut the immolator? top in half and used more of the card to seal it up. It is about the same size as the Hydra turret (although not round) so it didn't look too screwy.  You can see I had yet to deal with what to do on the back half of the Chimera.  Also, the reason I am mounting the gun so far forward is I saw a Forgeworld one built and the gun was a lot further forward than I expected. It makes sense to me though as the crew and ammo are packed in though the rear hatch and if the gun and all its workings are at the back it would be a hell of lot of effort to climb through it to get to your station.  Plus I like how different it makes it from a Chimera,

Test fitting the turret, I glued a 25mm base under the turret to make it sit and rotate neatly inside the cupola.

The tank is very flat, I realised I needed to add some estra details just to break up the surfaces.

Here is my solution to the rear of the tank. I added a little extra height. The sides are I think the front end of a Rhino (maybe) and the resin thing on top is up for anyone's guess, I don't even know when I got it.  But it fitted perfectly and it looks interesting.

I started as extra details like access hatches and gubbinz to make it look more interesting.

The tied up tarpaulin hides a large gap...convenient.

The Chimera has these extra armour bits that go on the sides, but I didn't have any so I just added extra things I had lying around.

Vision slit added on the front (driver has to see somehow?) and the obligatory Aquila to boot.

The final fitting. I still have a few gaps to fill and areas to clean up.  But it is largely done.

I am really happy with how it has come together. It looks intimidating.

I don't often do scratchbuilding/converting, but I really enjoyed the process and think this army has allowed me to mess around and get dirty (or at least glue everywhere).

Thanks for reading.

[BIG]

So I decided to throw my hat in the ring for the monthly painting challenge as the theme was "Renewal" and I was keen to strip a couple of the Beastmen models and get them done for the army.  So I figured the fact I was "renewing" the paint work it fitted the theme (even loosely).  So I grabbed the Beastlord and Bray Shaman and threw them in a container of acetone and let it do its magic.  Now these fellows will end up in Chariots (along with almost everyone else in the army). But for this painting challenge I stuck with just the Heroes.

This is where the journey started, not my paint jobs and the scheme is so dark it wasn't easy to get a decent photograph.  The paint had been damaged and didn't fit my Beastmen scheme so it was easier to just chemically scrub it.

I am always amazed at how some colours are more resistant to chemicals than others.  The Shaman cleaned up almost to new status, where as the Beastlord needed a lot more attention and still had paint in the recesses.

And this is where we ended up.  I am really happy with them, it makes progress really quick when you have the army recipe written out and you can just keep repeating it over and over. The scheme is the same as I have done for all the previous Beastmen, although the Shaman is the first one to wear any real clothing and I enjoyed being able to paint some more cloth than just a loincloth.

So a short update, but I have started the last of the Chariots now these two are out of the way. 

Thanks for reading.

[BIG]

@wyomingfox they are certainly old Bestigors, I am not knowledgeable enough for the exact vintage or even where I acquired them.  Sorry for the delay in responding to your query.

So, it seems I have let things slip; again.

As seems to have become the norm for our family yet more medical issues have tried their best to interrupt life.  I will keep it brief as we are here to celebrate the hobbies we enjoy so much and not ruminate on the trials and tribulations.  

But my father-in-law had a major heart issue develop that has somewhat been resolved but has resulted in 30% heart function and a pacemaker.  The are a little cagey about it, but I suspect it is now a when not if scenario with him; so my wife and I are doing our best to help them out and make plans should my Mother-in-law (who herself needs a fair bit of assistance) suddenly finds herself alone.

My son has also been back into the wars with a bacterial infection (called Cellulitis) developed in his left leg and ended up with 6 days in hospital on some pretty heavy IV antibiotics and now he is home 6 hourly oral antibiotics will continue for some time.  I have never seen anyone go downhill so quickly and watching (yes I mean literally watching) the redness work its way up his leg over the 9 hours we were in the emergency department was a pretty scary thing, turned up to the hospital with him unable to walk on it and a horrendous temperature.  While we were in the hospital being seen to the doctors and I watched a redness develop on his ankle and 9 hours later it had spread all the way up to his hip.

But I am happy to say at least for now everyone is back to happy and healthy (since the pacemaker my father-in-law has boundless energy).  I really hope our family will catch a much needed break soon, but we have been hoping for that for a few years now.  Just a feeling of being utterly crushed under one incident after another....

Ok, unpleasant stuff over. It seems that even though I have been utterly inactive online that I still have been managing to get into the hobby mood and I suppose it has allowed a certain level of 'normalcy' during long uncertain nights and I have managed a bit of progress.  I have been jumping around a bit as I have been pushing forward with the Guard in an attempt to get them ready for the large game I have mentioned for my birthday, but more on that later.

First up, the Beastmen have come along nicely....

Here are the 2 Razorgor Chariots adding some serious punch to the Chariot lineup.

I had to do a bit of work to convince the chariots to even remotely attach to the Razorgors, they are a little "back heavy" but by and large are ok.

I changed the weapons on the Bestigors to add some individuality.

Not going to lie, I really love the Razorgors, although they weigh a hell of a lot, moving them on anything but a flat surface will be a challenge.

Next up we have the leaders of the army as they are supposed to appear.

The Beastlord on his Razorgor Chariot (because overkill is awesome), a Bray Shaman and Battle Standard Bearer on Tuskgor Chariots.

The Beastlords chariot is a total fabrication of balsa wood festooned with shields and other detritus to hide the dodgey chassis.

Brutally ugly.  As befits the leaders of any Beastherd.

I have kept the characters separate from the chariots in case they are destroyed during a game or if I happen to want to run them on foot for giggles. At the time of this photo I had yet to finish the Wargor with Standards base.  That has since been rectified.

So with these chariots done I am left with a measly 30 Ungor Raiders to complete to finish this Beastman army off! It always feels a little surreal when I get within striking distance of finishing an army off.

Now for something completely different.....back to the Imperial Guard distraction and in particular my attempt at a largely scratchbuilt Hydra (well at least the chassis was, the turret was a Forgeworld piece I have NO idea where I actually picked it up.

But that doesn't matter as for the first time it has tasted paint and I am most pleased with it.

In contrast to the previous Guard army I did way back when, I want a much more "normal" paint scheme for these guys, I think this works.

It's pretty drab, but aren't modern military uniforms kind of dull anyway?

I kept the colour choices pretty limited so the "colours" I did use stand out fairly starkly for a little spot detail.

I am really pleased with it as with the paint on it is hard to tell it isn't a "proper" model.  although the weight is a little off.  Pity none of my regular opponents have many flyers.....

I did try really hard to straighten the barrels before painting, but I just couldn't get them to stay and finally gave up and made piece with it.  The bottom two are good, the top two are still a little wonky.

Now I also managed to get a good lot done with the foot sloggers.  The plan for this next guard army is it will be Abhuman heavy (Ogryns, Bullgryns, Psykers, Ratlings etc. etc) but I will have a 'core' of the regulars.  The backstory is the actual Humans in the army are a lucky few left overs that are all that remains of their original regiment and have been 'adopted' by the abhumans to add some legitimacy to their own formation and also to do the paperwork for the Ogryns when it comes to requisitions.....

So here is the human core of my abhuman guard army.....

30 Guardsman, with the ubiquitous Missile Launcher and Grenade Launcher.  I have a vox in each squad as well.

I used the same colours as the armour of the Hydra on their fatigues and the grey from its guns for their weapons and picked a nice green for the armour. A stripe of colour on shoulder pad or helmet helps organise the squads during games.

There is no difference in each squad as these were all made from leftover parts (hence why there are some unarmoured torso's).  But when you can effectively make 27 Guardsmen out of leftover bits you have acquired who is complaing?

I also added the first of the Psykers (again I had the models in my bits box somehow....and the 'Commander' of the human element.

The commanders sword was slightly bent from years of sitting around and instead of trying to straighten it I went the other way and bent it even further. Cavalry sabre anyone?

One big happy family and ready for the big game for my birthday.  I hope.

In regard to the big game for my birthday I am happy to report that it did happen (my birthday is at the end of May) so that was awesome.  I have a few photos from the event and I will get them up for people to have a look at soon, but it is getting late here and I am utterly exhausted these days.  

So stay tuned for more Beastmen and I am very close to starting the next army in the plan.....any thoughts on what it should be? 

 

Thanks for reading.

Edited June 4, 2023 by BIG

[BIG]

Back again and this one will have just a few photos.  What follows is a poor account of the large game that we played in honour of my birthday.  This had been planned for last year to see in my 40th, but health and circumstances required that to be postponed.

The photos that will follow are going to be rather slap dash as we weren't really paying attention to the camera and only took photos when it occurred to us, so I won't be giving a blow by blow account, more a rolling tally of events as they became important.

We used 8th edition and cut out some of the more involved rules (command points, Warlord Traits etc. etc) as of the 8 players only 2 of us are regular players (of 8th edition and even then it had been months since we managed our last game).  This allowed for some of the guys who had NEVER played a game before not to be to overwhelmed and I am happy to say it worked pretty well even with a game played by noobs.

This is the map of deployment, it was 3 tables arranged as shown, the red deployment was the Chaos Forces and the Blue was the Imperials.  The armies involved were as follows:
Chaos - Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors and Death Guard
Imperial - LOTS of Astra Militarum with a tiny contingent of Space Wolves

When it came to deplyment, the Imperial Guard with so many tanks ran out of space for the final 2,000 points, so we allowed them to hold that army back in reserve to be deployed as the Guard commanders needs arose.  We had to keep in mind that more tanks would be rolling onto the board from around turn 3 onward.

Both sides were in the region of 9,500 points each so there was a lot of diversity across the boards.  

I have shown this carrying case off before, but for reference I supplied for this game 2,000 points of Imperial Guard, ALpha Legion and Death Guard and they all fitted in this behemoth along with rules, terrain and dice/markers.

This is from one end (although missing most of the end table.  I was playing at this end commanding my own Alpha Legion. My Deathguard ally and I decided I would hang back and tie up the Guard on our table and he would push forward to try and sweep the smaller Guard army in the middle of the board away.  Death Guard are super slow so it was quite a slog for him.  Yes that is a Super heavy at the far end of the playing surface and it started to shoot its Volcano Cannon at us (!!!!) later in the game almost deleting a vehicle with every shot.

A better shot of the end table and my Alpha Legion, I don't have a lot in the army to handle tanks, which my immediate Imperial opponent had in droves, but conversely as a pure infantry army his tanks lacked a lot of good targets. So it was often a frustrating match up, but I had the upper hand as he could kill off a few legionnaires but I could knock out tanks which hurt him a lot more.

You can see a Defiler, Helbrute and Plagueburst Mortar that my Death Guard ally left for me to handle for him and they added a much needed punch against the tanks.  The Defiler in particular was the infernal creature of the match at our end of the table and ended up rampaging all over the place.

This is actually a shot of the setup at our end. Notice the bright sunshine? The game went into the night.  The Guard tried an aggressive deployment that bought them plenty of room to retreat into as the game continued.  It was nice to get my pipe network onto a board. Would have liked a denser setup of them, but didn't want to penalise the vehicles with a lot of dense terrain.

Finally a clear photo of the Alpha Legion (they are tricky to get in focus ;-)). They are a real horde army and with so many bodies they were hard for the massed tanks to actually make a real dent in.  I knew that apart from the 2 squads of Havocs that hung way back on the table my best chance against the tanks were my Terminators and Raptors.  Although I did fortunately have a good smattering of meltagun concealed among my Marine squads.

This was by late afternoon, the Alpha Legion was just too much for the Guard to handle, the terrain allowed me to creep up with the infantry and then leap over the pipes to assault tanks.  Some of my unit took an absolute hammering (Storm Troopers are actually brutal up close as my Chosen can attest), but I had them on the ropes and  pushed right back into their deployment.  But I had to be mindful reinforcements were available and I didn't want to be sitting in the open and have yet more Leman Russ tanks roll over me.

At the start of the game the Deathguard advanced as one massive horde, but quickly the Foetid Bloat Drones (what an awesome name) began to outpace their brethren, these things are TOUGH, absolute pain in the backside to remove, but don't pack much of a hit.  They ended up tying up some Grey Hunters for quite a while before more Plague Marines arrived to help out.

A little further into the game and the Death Guard led by the Defiler and a horde of Zombies  makes it to the middle of the board.  We hadn't been paying attention to the other end of the table, but got a rude shock when the super heavy tank declared the Death Guard Land Raider as a target and destroyed it in a single blast! We then began hiding our limited vehicles behind whatever cover we could get. It did mean the Defiler was even slower to advance, but once it got into combat it was pretty much invulnerable.

For giggles I set up a 'battlefield reporter' he was in a good position to watch as the valiant Wolf Guard Terminators teleported into the fray to try and stem the unholy tide of filth that was the Deathguard advance.  They are a  formidable unit, but there was a Lord of Contagion and 3 Deathshroud Terminators heading their way......

This is a shot from the centre deployment looking toward the Iron Warriors and the beautifully painted Guard army of one of my mates (and that accursed super heavy; which I just looked up, its a Shadowsword).  The Space Wolves tried to hold back for as long as they could before sacrificing themselves as a 'speed bump' against the horde of zombies that the Death Guard had bought with them.

The bunkers we allowed the Guard to 'embark' into them and they proved a tough nut to crack to get at the unit within (which we allowed to continue to shoot out of).  

The centre spread out a fair bit more than I felt was probably sensible, but they did a good job of then retreating and offering a sacrificial unit when they had to.  They survived longer than it looked like they would due to some very clever movement.

This is from the other end of the board, it started out as a serious artillery duel (yes this Iron Warriors army has Basilisks, they look sick).  Unfortunately the Iron Warriors were just outgunned in the tank department and they began to quickly lose their artillery, but they did have a slew of Havocs and Helbrutes that allowed them to continue to put pressure on the Loyalist tanks even as their own armour blew up around them.

This edge of the end table was an absolute killing ground for most of the game, the Basilisks and Leman Russ dominated an open firing lane down the entire length of the table and they took a fearsome toll from the Deathguard that tried to come at them.  It wasn't until we took a gamble with the Defiler and our faithful crab walker took some hits but managed to get into combat with the lead Leman Russ and it was then a fairly quick downhill slide.

Late, late in the evening, my only surviving Chosen and a handful of cultists take some revenge on a poor Infantry Sergeant, him and his boys somehow held out for 3 turns against 3 chosen and what started as 12 cultists. As you can see, they sold themselves dearly as only 3 cultists made it to the end.....

The sun sets as the Imperial Guard prepare to sell their lives as dearly as possible.

I took an absolute beating in the centre as a Hellhound and Storm Troopers torched a Chosen squad badly and one of my Marine squads, I had not expected the Hellhound to be so successful, lesson learned the hard way.

A close up as I am taking body after body as my centre took a beating from the plucky storm troopers. These are truly vintage Storm Trooper models and they look so cool with their Berets. I am glad they did well. At least until I crushed them in an assault with a Chaos Lord and Dark Apostle......

The Havocs kept up an excellent rate of covering fire, but Autocannons and Missile Launchers lacked the sting I really needed against Leman Russ Battle Tanks.

A great shot of the Space Wolves descending to halt the tide of Nurgle.  It was spoiling to be a great fight.  But I think we knew that they were way too outnumbered, but that is how great Sagas are written.  In the end the Space Wolves did WAY better than I would have thought and really the major difference was the lack of characters amongst the Space Wolves (they had none, my mates tiny collection has yet to add any characters to his Wolves). If he had had a Wolf Lord it would have really swung things, maybe not to outright victory, but he would have been better placed to handle the Lord of Contagion and Daemon Prince.

The Blood Claws slammed into the Deathguard and then they were counter charged and it became a massive swirling melee, you can see the Land Raider is no longer present, we had an amazing run that 7 vehicles that were destroyed on this side of the table blew up and the Chaos forces actually lost 25 models to exploding tanks. It felt like we were losing more to that then enemy shooting.  Note, Deathshroud Terminators are utterly nasty.

You can see by the lighting that this was into the evening of the game.  The Deathguard had finally reached the first line of bunkers (the Space Wolves did a great job of holding the line for some time buying time for the Guard to reorder their ranks to get some decent shooting again.

This is actually on the far side of the centre from where we were set up.  The guys in the centre had the difficulty of having to deal with opponents on two sides.  But the Iron Warriors really didn't start pressing into the centre as they were really tied up in their artillery duel and the small amount they initially sent to harass the centre was easily dealt with.

Although it doesn't make a lot of story line sense I enjoyed putting my forklift models onto the table.  I really shouldn't have asked some of the most inexperienced players to setup the terrain.....

The 'far' table.  What I found really interesting is that we were really oblivious to what was going on 14 feet to out right, we were so tied up in what we were doing it was hardly noticed a desperate firefight was evolving at the other side, until they started dropping shells and Volcano Cannons on us.  It was I think the opposite of what was happening at our end of the table with the Guard having the upper hand for most of the game.

The Shadowsword, such a cool model, would need input from the Guard Players to know if it actually paid for itself, but the fact it one shotted a Land Raider I would guess yes.....You can see in the background the Iron Warriors managed to make several incursions across no mans land, but they were repelled by mass shooting each time.

This looks like it was mid/late afternoon when the Guard finally turned their guns on us. And let me tell you it started to quickly hurt. The Zombies really didn't like the Manticore or Wyvern and as the least armoured units that we had they really had a hard time.

I wasn't paying attention why but the Bloodletters seemed to take an absolute age to close the distance.  But they did eventually start reaping through the Guard in the centre.

This is one of the sweetest Daemon Prince models I have seen and it is SO fitting for an Iron Warrior Daemon Prince.  Together with an Iron Warrior Helbrute he led the charge to try and break the Guard in the centre, they were largely saved from his fury by his speed and some clever bubble wrapping with sacrificial units.  But he did soak up a stupid amount of firepower levelled at him and shrugged most of it off.

"See this gun here? It is really powerful"

Here come the Iron Warriors, such a beautifully painted and detailed army; really fits the back story of the Legion and I liked them getting in an artillery duel with the Guard.

A mass of spawn and daemons were to lead the charge into the centre.  I think in hindsight the Iron Warriors may have wished to instead have used the massed bodies to try and sweep the armour opposite them.  But it was a testament to how tough spawn are as they kept soaking up a lot of shooting and did a stellar job protecting the more dangerous units advancing behind them.

Spawn are such awesome and tragic models and I loved to see a mass wall of twisted mutated flesh come rolling/running/sliding down the hill at the enemy.

So confident at the start of the game. Looking every bit the disciplined pride of the Astra Militarum.

Here ends the photos.  It was an awesome game and I really appreciated everyone (and their families allowing them) to take time out of their busy schedules to come and roll some dice.  We ended up calling the game I think around 9:30ish with the Chaos forces in full control of the left hand table and all but a single hold out on the centre table.  The Imperial forces rallied around their Super Heavy saviour held the right hand table and it would have been a blood bath trying to push them off.

I am humbled that my friends wanted to be a part of it as it was quite the logistics effort to get it all together.

I hope you enjoy looking at some of the game and it is a pity I wasn't able to do a more comprehensive blow by blow.  But I was enjoying the game too much.

Special thanks to our own Korocite who supplied beautifully painted Guard, Death Guard and Iron Warrior armies as well as some terrain and put up with my crazy hair brained idea in the first place.

Thanks for reading.

[korocite]

It was a spectacular day. So very good to have such a large game and looking forward to doing something similar again.

[BIG]

So I have been quiet as seems to be the norm these days, but I have not been idle.  The motivation bug kicked in a few days ago and finished off the Ungor from my Beastmen army (admittedly they were probably 70% done and simply were languishing from my lack of motivation).

But here they are my Ungor Raiders.....

So the plan is to run the 30 as 6 units of 5 Raiders.  I know that they won't really be all that effective, but I am planning to make use of the Beastmen "Ambush" ability to flood the enemy with lots of small units that will target war machine crews and lone characters to try to buy the rest of the army time to get in charge range.  I figure they will be able to handle most war machine crews if I get good roles for where they come on the board.  Failing that they will just be nuisance screens for the Chariots.

I kept to the same formula as the rest of the Beastmen, but decided not to use any gold on these guys as they are the lowest of the low and figured it was wrong they should have any bling.

Not that they really have a leader, this guy has sort of become the default Raiders boss (for no other reason than his horns are the biggest).

It's odd, but these are the first units I have done for my Warhammer armies so far that do not have movement trays.  I have considered making some "skirmish" movement trays, but I found a distinct lack of motivation for doing that....maybe in the future.

Now, the most important thing about these Ungor is they herald the completion of this Beastman army! So without further delay I present the Harvesters of Morrslieb....

These are the "core" units of the army, my lowly Ungor Raiders and the 6 Tuskgor Chariots, ready to roll over anything in their way. I hope...

The "special" units, my Favourite of the bunch the Centigor and a pair of Razorgor Chariots.  I think they will all attract too much attention from enemy missile weapons, but I hope they do something cool one day.

My 2 "Heroes" a Standard Bearer and Shaman, both of who are loose on the chariot so can keep fighting if the Chariot is destroyed (or I choose to run them without for some reason?).

The Bossman himself my Beastlord on his Razorgor Chariot, its big, its ugly and I don't expect it to get halfway across the table ever....like the heroes he is mot attached should I need him to run around on foot.

And here you have the whole herd.  All 2,000 points of them, 11 Chariots, 10 Centigors and 30 Ungors, a tiny, tiny army, but I really like the results and am slightly sad that I have finished the army.

I was afraid that the actual Beastmen part of the army (of which there are only 52 actual Beastmen) would get lost among the chariots and beasts, but I think the choice of the white and blue really helps them stand out.  

I also think the hide of the Tuskgor, Razorgor and Centigor's are different enough to be individual, but close enough that there is still a united feel to them.

A Brayherd hopefully soon to see some action on the tabletop....

So, another army down! This one has taken a little while as I have found motivation hard to come by among the stresses and distractions of real life.  But it feels good to add another army to the cabinet and move forward. As is the process I am heading back to 40k for the next one and since I need to conserve a little money I am choosing to do another Eldar (sorry Aeldari) army as I have almost all of the models.  But in contrast to my previous Eldar (Aeldari) army this one is going to be themed as a Biel-Tan one with a heap of Aspect Warriors with an Avatar at their head.

Most of the army are metal not the oldest of the sculpts, but I think the 2nd generation ones? Once I start getting them sorted out people can tell me their vintage.  I think I prefer most of them to the newer Aspect sculpts, but that may just be my sentimentality.  I have yet to decide if I will just repair the damage to the painted models or go the while hog and strip them and redo the paint.

The plan is to choose fairly traditional Aspect schemes, but have the purple and green of my craftworld appear as spot colours to tie them to my already finished Craftworld army.  I think I just need 7 Swooping Hawks and 3 Wave Serpents to round out the 2,000 points.

Anyway, thanks for reading and hopefully the Eldar will come together quickly (I wish).