WaterGun - March 12 2011

   After several weeks far from the battle fields, I stopped working in our new house and  took my car to play with the members of the WaterGun association. Being the last arrived, there remained only one table for four players. Not a problem! We'll make a " King off the Hill" scenario with the WaterGun manner.

    The scenario is made for four players. The goal is to take your HQ to the top of a tower after having passed a turn in the neutral zone.   Deployment zones are 12' squares. In order to preserve the scenario, the objective is surrounded by a neutral zone preventing any teleportation/deep strike. This zone can't be reached  by any other means than BY FEET. Once in the neutral zone, the HQ must await a turn, to prepare himself for the rise.  The HQ and  ONLY the HQ can go in the objective zone. Any accompanying squaq  remains at the the foot of the objective. If another player manages to make assemble his HQ, then there is confrontation at the top!

    In order to spice up the game, the initiative is known as "revolving". Before beginning each turn, the four players launch a dice. The greatest number starts and so on jusqu' with the last. This revolving initiative creates many surprises, upsetting the best established situations. The winner is the one whose HQ is still alive and on the objective at the end of the game.

   We played this scenario on a 48' x36' table, with the Redemption Fortress as central objective. The best format to play this scenario seems to us to be 1000pts.

   For this game, we had Necron, a full Nurgle CSM, Space Marine and Tyranide.

The game  lasted 5 turns, the revolving initiative giving place to many situation reversals. The Captain Tavern showed an epic courage, having demolished a Trygon and a Nurgle marine section… A second trygon puted an end to his race towards the victory.

The end of the world challenge: I'm hungry!

   Hello you all happy tax payers. Let me introduce a new Challenger: Stunts. He's playing Tyranids and chosed a nice and realistic color scheme.

Tunio didn't paint anything new, he's preparing his removal.

And I had to remove minis after some modifications in my army list.

   Actually, we all have about 1750 army points. Next month, we'll have better news and many new minis to show you, I promise!

[HQ] Chaplains

   [Because I am moving from a little appartment to a big house, news from the End of the World Challenge are deferred to the next week. Sorry.]

    I decided to paint a flying chaplain after the biggest fail I ever saw in a game. A half tactical marines squad was charged by a Dark Angel chaplain. He didn't make anything. The Emperor was with the Doom Angels. So I decided to paint one and see what he can do on the field ^-^. As you can see, the flying pack was changed for an old  one.

   The second chaplain was painted because I needed one without reactors. I choosed this model because their was hooded angel in the front of the armor. I changed the left arm for a plasma gun.

   For both of them, the armor is green instead of black, because the Doom Angels are all as one. All of them wear the same color.  The only accepted difference is on the shoulder pad.

[Elite] Dreadnoughts

Gaïus - click to enlarge

   When I had finished my two firts tactical squads, a logical choice would have been to paint a HQ choice.

But I did not.

I was too impatient to have a dreadnought under my brushes.

   I started with the same dreadnought than in Down of War: assault canon, heavy flamer. I added to the Games Workshop kit a Dark Angel symbol and a buckler to represent the reinforced armor. Some other armor pieces are using the DA kit.

   To finish the job, I painted some impacts and added a metallic vets banner on the roof top.

Ares - click to enlarge

   One month later, I started an Assault for Black Reach dreadnought. I was disappointed by the kit: the arms are hollow and with less details. But I had to have such a squat dreadnought in my army.

   The roof top was equiped with a small DA symbol. I added barbed wire and some wall parts on the base.

Gaïus - click to enlarge

   One year later, I decided to play Gaïus as an Ironclad dreadnought.

   I replaced the assault canon arm with a chainsaw combat arm. This arm is made with parts coming from both right and left arms of the Ironclad Games Workshop kit. I added two grenade lauchers on the roof top to finish the Ironclad transformation.

   All I need now is a dreadnought drop pod.

[Troops] Tactical squads

click to enlarge

   The first thing to paint when you start a new army is the two tactical squads you need in any army. It allows you to fix the painting scheme and some details.

   At the beginning, I wanted to have a successor chapter from the Dark Angels, founded after the Great Heresyand named the Doom Angels. This army will have colors based on the old Dark Angel codex, W40k second edition.

click to enlarge

   Their armor are painted in Orkhide Shade, with red stripes in Baal Red. To mark the difference between the Dark Angels and the Doom Angels, the sword in the DA symbol will be painted in red, so will their guns. I added a three colors tag on every left leg or knee pad. These three colors are black, red and green. The black represents the Dark Angels origin, the red the Horus Heresy and the green their chapter.

   Having Dark Angels army allows you to play with beautiful minis like the Dark Angel sergent with a bolt pistol and an energetic blade. I added him a DA banner et voilà.

   The tunic was painted in Foundation Khemri Brown, darker than the Bleach Bone from the Deathwing. I added a skull on the base to show that's a commanding mini.

click to enlarge

   The second tactical squad was created on the same philosophy: having cool minis to play with. I bought spare parts from the Iron Hands vets to convert some marines and add some  more variation.

   The last DA codex and the 5th Space Marines codex edition introduced a big modification in the tactical squads: you can split them in two. But while the sergent goes with one part, who commands the second one?

click to enlarge

   That's why I created the "half squad sergents". These minis aren't sergents, they don't wear a red  helmet and a tunic. They just have a loosy t-shirt DoA symbol on the top of their backpack.

   The second Sergent was based on another cool DA sergent mini. The banner was differently painted. I chosed to emphasize the three colors tag and added a winged skull. The chainsword is a bit damaged, because Doom Angels are a fighting army :-).

Doom Angels: who are they?

   Before playing Doom Angels, I tried Chaos Space Marines (Alpha Legion), Tau , Necron and... Dark Angels. But I wasn't satisfied with the gameplay and I deceided to play wih vanilla marines.

   Obviously, Doom Angels colors seems to be the same than the Dark Angels colors. If you take a look, you can see I choosed a red sword with white wings... where Dark Angels have the same thing in full white. It's because this army is prepared to be played as Dark Angels when I want to play a Deathwing or Ravenwing only army.

   In the nexts posts, I'll try to describe the differents units and the choices I made to paint them... and follow the End Of the World Challenge.

The end of the world challenge: are you ready?

   The Challenge is launched and we actually are… two. The others didn't send their photographs to present the armies in progress.

Tunio decided to assemble its phalange of Necron, already with 1800pts.

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While your servant will assemble his Doom Angels, currently at 1875pts.

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