Imperial Knight

Hey guys. As promised in my Salamander army list post, here is my Knight. After much deliberation I went for the standard house Cadmus colour scheme because I liked both there fluff and colours and it gave me a chance to use some of the excellent transfers that can with the kit.

I started with a base of Leadbelcher on the sub skeleton wich was the given 2 heavy washes, one of Nuln oil and one of Agrax earthshade and finished with a drybrush of Necron compound. As suggested in GW's YouTube vid on painting a Knight, I painted the armour plates off the model and only stuck them on at the end. The green is Waaagh Flesh green, Shaded with BielTan Green wash in the recesses and highlighted with Straken Green. The Yellow is Avaland Sunset, shaded with Seraphim Sepia and Highlighted with Flash Gitz Yellow. For the more decorative metal and the gun barrel I again stated with a base coat of Leadbelcher but gave it only a single wash of Nuln Oil before layering with Leadbelcher and finally dry brushing with Necron compound.

I put loads of time and effort into getting it just right because it's a great model and an awesome center piece for my army (and was an anniversary present from my wife) and i'm delighted with how he turned out in the end

Hope Y'all like him, and look out for him in future batreps.

Getting into hoards part 2; Troll Axer

So turns out I'm too impatient to wait until the end of the month to get started on the Trollbloods, I went ahead and got my self a Troll Axer. The thinking is that I wanted a model to start practicing my Trollblood paint scheme on, and from what I've read the Axer is a good light beast that can find it's way into may troll lists. A strong reach weapon, a thresher attack, great armour for a light beast and an animus (+2 speed an pathfinder) that could go well on many melee beasts (I'm looking at you Dire Troll Mauler) all for 6 pts, I'll take one of those.

Overall I'm pleased with how it turned out. I had fun adding weathering effects to the armour and blood splatter to the ax and found a good way of getting to skin to look how I wanted it. Tried to do a tartan pattern on the kilt and although I'm not 100% pleased with it, I think it's a good place to start from. Next time I'll probably try a mix bright and more muted colours, rather than the barrage of bright, mostly primary colours I've used on the Axer's kilt. Once I've practiced the technique more I'm hopping to put up a tutorial about how I did the various bits, but for now, I hope you like my Troll Axer and check back
soon for more.

Friday night game (Salamanders vs White Scars battle report)

So last night I got a chance to play a game with that Salamanders list I put up earlier in the week. My opponent had a very nicely converted White Scars list featuring a Captain and a Master of the Forge, each leading full bike squads with melta attack bikes and loads of grav-guns, a drop pod sternguard squad, scouts in a landspeed transport, 2 stalkers, a thunderfire cannon and a pair of storm talons, converted to look like helicopter gunships. We played the cloak and dagger mission using the objective cards and the end to end deployment. 

Really nice pair of choppers my deployment

I went first and had a productive turn, scoring 2 points for claiming objectives and moving my rhino, landraider full of terminators and Knight into position to do serious damage next turn. My shooting was somewhat ineffective thanks to cover and jink saves but I was feeling positive. He dropped his sternguard down in position to attack either my tanks or my devatators and moved up his bike to shoot my knight and landraider. All this firepower did little to my Knight and devastators but the sternguard's melta gun wrecked one of the rhinos and left the tactical squad inside pinned. One of the bikes squads also got lucky with a grav-gun and immobilised the landraider. End of his turn yielded him one objective point and a point for first blood.

The landraider being stuck didn't phase me too much as it was close enough for the terminators to get out and charge a bike squad this turn and the knight was going to charge the other. A good size chunk of his sternguard fell to a sunburst from my librarian and more fell to a volley of krak missiles from my devastators. I had planned a similar fate for his bikes but, thanks to jink saves, my knight, a tactical squad, terminators and landraider killed a total of one bike! The assault phase didn't go much better, the terminators fluffed there charge, (to be fair, charging a unit holding a grav-wave generator and sitting in cover was perhaps to much to hope for) and the knight killed just a single bike and the then rolled a one on each of its stomp attacks before the bikes scarpered with hit and run. 

His turn 2 was when it all started to go wrong. The scouts turned up and there speeder took out the other rhino. Both bike squads with support from the thunderfire and recently arrived stormtalons made a mess of all three tactical squads, two of whom fell back. The assault phase offered a slight upside as the remaining 2 sternguard charged the devastators, losing one to overwatch and the other in melee without hurting the devastators. But it mattered little as he revealed 2 + d3  points worth  of objectives scored this turn, and promtly rolled a 6 to claim a 7 to 2 lead.

things starting  to go wrong

Turn three was probably going to be my last chance to get back in the game, my cards gave me the chance for 4 points if I could beat both bikes in combat with the knight and terminators respectivly, killing his warlord (the captain) in the possess and shoot down at least one stormtalon. The devastators started well and downed one of the storm talons but despite the tactical squads re-grouping and the landraider, knight and razorback still having plenty of firepower between them, I still could barely scratch the bikes thanks to those accursed jink saves. The Knight did a bit more damage to the bikes this time around when it assaulted, but still not enough to break them or kill the captain and once again they used hit and run. The terminators managed to make there charge this time around, but lost two on the way in to snap-firing bikes. They won combat and my librarian killed the master of the forge but alas combat ended in another hit and run that left the bikes close enough to still contest the objective I wanted. 

His next turn ended it from a competitive point of view, with the terminator, all the tactical marines and the devastators getting shot to bits and him claiming more objective points. Two more turn of mopping up followed which left me with just the knight and immobile landrider by the end of 5. All in all a fun game against a good and fair opponent, dice didn't go my way but that's not to take anything away from his win.

Here's a few things I learnt from this game:

-Shooting white scar bikes is almost a waist of firepower unless you ignore jink saves and in combat you need to smash the in one round, a very solid unit and something to fear in future games. 

-If you have two big power units the outcome of the games will likely come down to how well they perform.

-My list is lacking a bit in mobility and a faster list can give me the run around when it comes to objective claiming.

-Even dedicated anti-armour firepower will still struggle to take down a knight.

Hope you liked this bat-rep, let me know if you want more of this.

Salamander army list.

Due to other commitments and playing other games I've only played one game of 40k this year but now my local game store, 4tk gaming, is starting a 40k league. So I've decided to give it a go and signed up. Going to use my Salamanders as they are the army I'm most comfortable using competitively and it also gives me a chance to use use the Imperial Knight that my wife got me for our anniversary last October.

For most of last year I'd been using drop podding lists, but when I tried to fit a Knight into that list I found I couldn't fit enough pods enough troops and all the support elements I wanted, along with the Knight. So I've gone for a more mechanised list, like I used to run back in 5th ed, but with a librarian instead of a Captain and finding enough room for a Knight.

Librarian   Level 2
Terminator armour, storm bolter 120

5 Terminators
heavy flamer  210

Landraider Redeemer
Multimelta              250

10 tactical marines
Flamer, Heavy Flamer,
combi-flamer, melta bomb 170

Rhino 35

10 tactical marines
Melta gun, Multimelta,
melta bomb, combi-melta  175

Rhino 35

5 tactical marines 70

Razorback
T.L. lascannon 75

5 Devastators
4 missile launchers
flakk missiles  170

5 Scouts
heavy bolter 63

Allied Imperial Knight

Knight Paladin  375


The plan in that the heavily armoured, high threat units (Landraider, terminators and the Knight) advance and threaten my opponent at close range while the Razorback and Devastator take out specific targets like transports and flyer, to make life easier for the rest of the army. The troops will follow up behind the armour, first and fore-most to claim objectives but also giving close range support for the armoured advance, but trying to stay far enough from the Knight to not get caught in the blast when (not if, because it will happen) it blows up. (Note this is not supposed to be a power gaming tournament list, just a balance between fun and effectiveness, with the models I have)

That's the plan, if it actually works is something that I won't find out until I try it out. Hopefully I'll get a game with it on Friday night and I'll let you know how it goes. Also, I should have some pics on this blog in the next few days when my phone (which is my only camera) is fixed.

Applying transfers.

For years I didn't use transfers on my models, I found them fiddly to use and when i did try it they didn't look right and had a tendency to chip and flake off. I got around this fairly well by free handing things like chapter badges onto my models which worked fine for simple symbols. Then my beautiful wife brought me an Imperial Knight for our 3rd wedding anniversary and it can with this...

The imperial knight transfer sheet has a level of detail I've never seen before on any GW transfers before and was just too good a resource not to use. But how was I going to get the transfers to look good and stay on. I was chatting to a mate of mine about this, Gus, check out his YouTube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNf97KIzplNipgXwORdpd_w ), and he told me a simple technique that I used on my knight to get results that I was really pleased with.

-Once the model is painted, paint the whole area in a layer of Vallejo satin varnish.

-Cut out the transfer from the sheet put it in clean water for about 30 sec and then gently ease it off the backing paper with a brush

-Use the brush to apply it to where you want it and smooth it out using a little water it needed.

-Once it is COMPLETELY dry (i.e. leave it for a long time) apply another layer of the Vallejo satin varnish over the top.


The first layer of varnish gives a smooth surface for the transfer to adhere to and the top layer "hides" the faint "halo" around the the transfer and protects it from clipping and where-and-tare. I was really pleased with the results and hope that this quick guide helps you if you're struggling to get the most out of transfers.

Getting into hoards part1

So after a 4 year break from blogging I'm back.

I've had loads on that's left little time for blogging; including getting married and buying a house as well as branching out to new army's and gaming systems. Of these privateer press' Warmachine has been particularly fun, I've now got a descent sized Cygnar army and was considering where to take it next when THIS came up pre-order at my local game store.

/http://www.4tk.co.uk/store/product/15228/Trollblood-All-In-One-Army-Box//

Hoards, as the other side of Warmachine and completely compatible with it, has interested me for a while and this deal was to good to pass up. These army boxes give about a 50% discount on buying the models individually and unlike GW battleforces are designed to be fully usable (and competitive) armies on there own. Unlike every other fantasy setting, in the hoards universe trolls are cast as the oppressed good guys and there style is somewhere between Warhammer fantasy orcs and the Scottish in the time of William Walace (Braveheart). This all appeals to me and there play style (melee focused and very resilient) is the complete opposite to my fragile, shooty Cygnar, giving me a new gaming experience. 

The box comes out in late April and I'm planning to blog about my experiences painting, playing and expanding on the army and trying to make it interesting and informative. I'll also try to put some other Wargaming posts up along the way.

Hope you enjoy it and with a bit of luck I'll have another post up soon.

Month 2. Just Killin' and lootin'

Hi every one, I'm back with more of my tale of (about 8 but it keeps changing) gamers blog. My only purchase for this month was a truck giving me £8.50 saved for next time and more importantly enough transport for all the boyz in the battle force. I've built and painted this one a bit differently from the last one cos I don't think any self respecting Mek is going to built exactly the same thing twice.. As for the boyz, this time there just standard boyz but I've given then a nice Evil Sunz feel by giving some of them things like drive shafts and gear chains from the bikaz sprue instead of choppaz. That gives me 20 boyz in 2 trukkz and a boss on bike (not allowed to use him as wazzdakka till next month) at 500pts.


As for the game it's self, it was 8 players on a 4 foot by 12 foot monster of a board. The objective was to get from one end to the other, and get the uplink devise, (which jonny got to start with for winning the last game) and use it to take control of the power plant. Units could deep strike but the closer they got to the objective the more dice they has to roll for scatter. Thanks to rules that allow reduction to deep strike scatter and the shear length of the table, only really jonny's grey knights and kyles blood angles (he switched army last month, thus lost his uplink devise) had a chance and the rest of us fought over the various buildings down end we started on, each of which had hidden stuff in it (some good, some bad). My orkz had a great time killing a imperial guard command squad, three infantry squads, a lord commissar, half a unit of pink horrors and a 200point daemon prince of Tzeench and looting a suit of power armour, a jet bike and a daemon hammer to use in the next game. We also, through some wheeling a dealing with our dark eldar “allies” gained control of the planetary defence bastion objective from last month. Kyle eventualy won, with Commander Dante and sanguinery guard being perfectly suited to the misson.

So I may not have won but I had fun and got a few bonuses for next month. The campaign now splits into two groups of four for a few weeks, so I'll be up against Jonny, Kyle and Carl, should be some intense gaming with a good bunch of guys and some seriously tough armys.

In other news me and Carl are entering the double tournament a GW Colchester tomorrow. He's using his new grey knights and I've gone for a vastly changed salamander list from the last time I played double. We should be pretty competitive and will let you know how it goes.