Old Predator

Here's another stripped and re-painted tank from my buddies Space Marine collection. It's a Predator set up to take on enemy armor. In the battles played so far the Dark Angels' one weakness has been enemy tanks, particularly those nasty 13-13-13 ones deployed by the Necrons. With both Predators taking the field the force now has a formidable anti-everything fire base.

Having an older, slightly beat-up model gave me the inspiration to try some battle damage and weathering effects. I'm not the biggest fan of this kind of painting, I prefer crisp clean lines but I think it turned out alright. The main worry was overdoing it, and I think I managed to hold back just enough. For the bullet holes I drilled a small hole with a pin vice and then widened it with the tip of a pocket knife, varying the angle to make it less uniform. For the paint weathering I lightly dabbed black paint around the model with a piece of foam, and then did the same with a metal paint on the same areas.

Overall I like the effect, and would like to try and replicate it on a Land Raider which is waiting in line on my work desk.

Wood Elf Scouts

I picked these up a few months back when I got my Spellsinger, and have been slowly putting them together not to mention painting them. It was interesting re-learning the techniques for creating my Autumnal scheme and I believe I've improved upon my old methods somewhat. While painting these two I grew really tired of using my old paints and so have started to replace them, as well as fill in the gaps with more shades. I'm quite excited to not have to constantly thin out the pot with water before applying the next layer.

Heroes of Middenheim

Contrary to all rational thought I've decided to collect an Empire army. I've recently introduced Warhammer Fantasy to my gaming group and I've only got three armies. *only*. So naturally I need a fourth to spice things up. Crazy I know. So to start off the force I got some heroes to take my time. First, my general on horseback:

 The pallette I've gone with is quite a challenge. Being from Middenheim the colours are white and blue, but I want the army to have a grittier feel than other Empire armies which come across as a little too flambouyant. I also didn't want to get into much of a dirty painting technique, such using as lots of drybrushing and inking (which I do for my Nids.)
When I say dirty I don't mean it negatively. White is always hard, and to tone it down I've thrown in lots of grey, which can be hard to add depth too. The initial results aren't too bad. I've landed somewhere between the quick drybrush/ink style of my Tyranids and the clean-cut-within-the-lines style of my Eldar. (photos to come).
My battle standard bearer:

Back when I used to play in 6th edition I never used battle standard bearers as I preferred to kit up my one lord to around 500 points. This was foolish, but my gaming group was obsessed with hitting 2,000 points. Now that heroes, especially their magic items, have been tooled back I'm happy to spread the weight. I look forward to fielding this guy right in the middle of a block of state troops, while my general smashes through the enemy lines surrounded by the Knights of the White Wolf.
Said Knights are my next project, and after that it will be a battalion. With even more knights! I'll do those up as Knights of the Black Rose to add to my darker, grittier theme. After all the strife Middenheim went through during the Storm of Chaos it only makes sense that Knights obsessed with Morr have appeared in the area.

Rules commentary: Stealth/Shrouded

In a few of our games we've had a lot of night fighting. This makes sense given the odds, but one thing has stood out as rather confusing. Tau Stealthsuits come with shrouded and stealth, giving them a natural 4+ cover save. However we've been playing that you can only have each rule once, which doesn't seem to make sense. If the Stealthsuits are already hard to spot, surely it would become nigh impossible in the dark of night.

As such it seems more sensible to allow stealth and shrouded to applied multpile times. So the Stealthsuits would have their 4+ improved depending on how far they are. This of course works for other units such as the Tyranid Venomthrope. And it just feels right this way.

Battle Report Tyranids vs. Tau

So the big battle happened. And it was pretty interesting. We set points at 1,663. An odd number, but we were just throwing everything we've got on the table without using needless upgrades.

The Tau army

The Tyranid swarm

We rolled the scouring as our scenario, and spread the objectives pretty evenly across the field.

The battlefield

Deployment for the Tau was a standard firing line; two squads of Fire Warriors to cover the middle, with the Kroot infiltrating in front of them. The Commander and his buddy set up behind a large building on the left hand side. Next to them was the third Fire Warrior squad, guns ready to dominate the left side flank. On the far right the Pathfinders sat in their Devilfish. Behind this line were two Hammerheads, one on each flank and the Ethereal who started within 12" of every friendly Tau unit on the table. In reserve were one squad of Stealthsuits and another two Crisis Battlesuits.

My Tyranids really didn't know where to go so the 30 strong Termagants took the middle, confident that the Tervigon just behind would re-fill the numbers. On the left went the Hormagaunts, backed up by some Warriors and a Biovore. The Hive Tyrant parked himself next to a large wood near to the Zoanthrope. The Rippers sat on the far right. To their left, behind a nice large hill I put the second lot of Warriors and the other Biovore. The Raveners and a Spore Mine Cluster chose to deep strike, and my 20 strong Genestealers waited to outflank.

Pathfinders Devilfish zooms down the side

The Tau won the first turn roll off and in a slightly unorthodox move, sent the patherfinders in their devilfish careening down the Nids weak right flank. The rest of the army basically stayed still apart from the kroot who took the centre objective. The Stealthsuits on the right jumped on top of the sewage building, as well as the Commander. Shooting was as to be expected. 9 Termagants, 10 Hormagaunts and a Warrior were taken down. Thanks night fight!

The swarm advances

The Tyranids advanced across the board, with the  Hive Tyrant deciding to swoop over to the right flank.
The Tervigon spawned 7 more babies and promptly ran out. Shooting was ineffective, apart from the Termagants. Thanks to 'Onslaught' they were able to run and shoot, and gunned down 10 Kroot.

End of turn 1

The second turn saw the Tau really bring the pain. The Pathfinders disembarked on the right, training their guns on some Warriors. The second group of Stealthsuits arrived by deep strike right behind the Tyranid lines, aiming for the Zoanthrope. Shooting was even more painful as the Ethereal's ability to up pulse fire saw 16 Termagants shot down. The left flank combination of Stealthsuits and Fire Warriors saw to another 6 Hormagaunts going down, the 'feel no pain' granted by 'Catalyst' saving two of them. The Pathfinders took down 2 whole Warriors, and brought the remaining one down to 1 wound. The Zoanthrope suffered a scratch from the Stealthsuits.

In return the Tyranids continued their advace, the Hormagaunts switching up and heading towards the center. My Raveners arrived from deep strike right at the back of the Tau line. The Hive Tyrants decided to glide closer to the remaining Kroot, hungry for some blood. Shooting was once again a non-event. 5 Fire Warriors fell, none fled. The assault phase was little better. The Rippers tried to charge the Pathfinders, losing a base to snap shots and failing the charge. The lone Warrior managed to get in though, and do no damage to none in return. The Hive Tyrant killed the Shaper and one other Kroot, causing them to run. They managed to escape, leaving the Tyrant right in the open.

Goodbye Hivey

On the third turn the Tau's remaining Crisis sqaud arrived to further bolster the right hand side. There was very little movement apart from getting the jump pack units into good firing positions. The casualties were pretty bad. The Hive Tyrant was shot down by the Fire Warriors. I forgot about his warlord trait granting 'feel no pain'. All of the Raveners were cut down, leaving the Red Terror alone with one wound left. Another Warrior was killed from the other sqaud, leaving one behind. The Zoanthrope also met its end to the Stealthsuits. Being out of synapse range the Red Terror broke and fell back, right into sight of the Commander who then assaulted it. The combat was a draw. The Warrior in combat on the right managed to kill a Pathfinder, before getting cut down itself leaving the right flank completely overwhelmed.

All that remains

Turn four saw the Tyranids get completely torn apart. The concentrations of Tau firepower saw the Tervigon fall, as well as the remaining Warrior plus a handful for Gaunts. There were no synapse creatures left on the table. The Genestealers finally arrived coming in behind the Hammerhead on the right side. There were some great instinctive behaviour roles allowing my Biovores to take down a few more Fire Warriors. The remaining Hormagaunts assaulted the Commander only to be destroyed.


Turn five was it. The Genestealers were reduced to 5, and the rest of the bugs wiped off the board. I made the call.

Result: Uncompromising Tau victory.

Raveners

I got these guys a few months back to use up a discount voucher. Since then they've taken a sideline to my Dark Angels project, but with a massive game verses Tau coming I decided to paint them up.

I haven't ever had any fast attack options in my Tyranid force. I've got a Red Terror model sitting idly in the carry case as well, so I think the new unit will give the Tau a decent amount of trouble. They're upgraded to have thorax-mounted spinefists so when they arrive from deep strike there will at least be a round of shooting.

I paint my bugs by drybrushing up from scorched brown to bleached bone. I'm not entirely sure what those colors are called now. I then unify the tone with a wash of reikland flesh. The result is a skin color that varies between models which is a pretty cool, but unintentional effect.

Paint Station

If I only I had done this earlier! Not enough can be said about having an organised workstation. It's just more inspiring to have all the paints you need lined up in a row, and not having brushes lying all over the place. I used to paint on newspaper, but would never look back now.

I was going to buy a paint station, but then just decided to make one myself. So here it is:

It's crude, but effective. I just got some mdf board and sawed out a 50 by 30 odd size piece for my base. I then cut the two sides and back piece, plus a couple of raiser bars for the paint rack. They were all glued in place using that standard white glue. The paint rack was specially cut through a laser cutting company, with holes for the brushes and tools added. It can hold 16 paints, which is enough for a palette for whatever I'm painting. The rest sit in the paint box.

You'll note I'm still using old citadel paint pots. They have just lasted. Sure they're a little dry, but with a little water they've come back to life.

Wood Elf Spellsinger

This week slavetopainting.com is running a painting competition. Other entries can be seen on their facebook page. This is what I've sent in.

 

This is a Spellsinger for my autumnal themed Wood Elf army. I haven't painted a fantasy character for a while, let alone flesh. I tried for a see-through effect on the sleeves using GW's Lahmian Medium for the first time. I think it worked quite well. I'll get some other angles up soon.

Rhino

Introducing a project of mine; painting my buddies Dark Angels collection. Almost all of the models are from around 10 years ago from when we played in high school. Since getting back into the game I've really enjoyed the painting again. The entire collection of Dark Angels stands at around 1,500 points. All of it used to be Ultramarines themed, so I've had to strip a lot of models.

This Rhino however was in an unwrapped box.

 

Space Marine tanks are fun to paint, as the models just lend themselves to great natural highlights. I decided to do a little bit of interior work to show off, and I've kept the top hatches free for when the vehicle inevitably blows up and I need debris on the battlefield.