Topic: Tale of 5 Gamers - 2010

[Semaj_14]

while scout legs might have been a viable option I believe that the current legs have much more action in them.
What is the top scouts head from? Looking great so far Even if you Don't like the scouts 100%

[dakota]

Very nice work there chris. are you going to green stuff the rolled up sleaves on them still? as for the legs, the scout stuff is just a bit too over sized and chunky - these look perfect

[lijah_cuu]

I've had a little idea for Kototoma's monoliths...
How about if he was to put in a little speaker and everytime it plays a little tune the Nightbringers comes out of the top and spins around like on a little jewellry box??

[StraightSilver]

Cheers guys, I may be more happy with them once they have some paint on them I guess.

And yes the Catachan legs do have some nice action poses. I wasn't too keen on the running ones at first but now I really like them and they perfectly match up with Furious Charge so these guys are pretty much 100% WYSIWYG.

And maybe the Scout legs would have been too big.

The only reason I went with the Catachan legs in the end was financial. I had the bits and I want to use the SM Scout legs on my Vets and couldn't afford to buy any more Scout kits.

But I reckon now it was the right decision.

As for the arms yes I will indeed be adding sleeves to the Catachan arms, rolled up above the elbow.

I haven't decided whether or not to reduce the size of the arms down further or leave them as they are. I will knock up a couple of testers this week to see what they look like and post some pics for an opinion.

And Semaj_14 the head of the Scout Sergeant came from the Forge World Cadian Veteran upgrade sprue.

Cheers for looking. 

Edit: @ lijah_cuu - sorry mate you just got this post in as I was typing. Genius idea, although knowing Stuart he will probabaly do just that! Let's not give him any ideas!! 

[kototama]

I've had a little idea for Kototoma's monoliths...
How about if he was to put in a little speaker and everytime it plays a little tune the Nightbringers comes out of the top and spins around like on a little jewellry box??

Already on this. I think I've got a way of building sound into one of them (too expensive to do on all of them). If time permits I'll have a go at adding sound to one of them. I have a miniature motor that would handle spining the nightbringer but a mechanism for opening the top and raising him out of it is beyond me. Lovely idea though, you're as bad as Chris- he's always giving me ideas I'll never have time to have a go at....I'm still working out how I'm going to make a valkyrie fly. I've got most of the parts, just need a valkyrie now.

My love of the idea of 6 monoliths comes from 2 things:

(a) I simply want to see 6 monoliths ambling across the table at once,
(b) I also want to try deploying 3, then deep striking another 3 to the rear of the opposition and move them all together
I've never seen this many monoliths in one place at one time (none of us have the space to play apoc games).

For (a), if you space them far enough apart in a line across the table or deepstrike them all near the centre line, then most things will be in range of at least one of them despite the 24" range limitation. Maybe we should gang up and try it sometime Dakota?

In the real world however, I simply cannot afford 6 of them - I've got two and will acquire a third sometime next year but would still need another £105 worth which is folding stuff I don't have at the moment. Not to mention the fact that everyone would have to agree to my playing two detachments rather than a single army.

My 1000pt intention includes two monoliths, both will be lit, one may have sound (thinking of the tardis here - shame the crystal on top is not clear plastic. Might be worth having a go at press moulding one in clear or blue resin......

My initial pledge like Dakota will be for two squads of warriors and a lord to meet the minimum troop requirements. Boring but all you can do with 500pts.

I've about 3500pts worth of unpainted unassembled necrons to play with so I've plenty to choose from later on.

I've taken a couple more pictures of the finished destroyers:


and the heavy destroyers:


Must be having a off-week, don't seem to be able to get half decent pictures of these things.

[Semaj_14]

The quality of the paintjob More than makes up for the quality of the pictures (actually not that bad)
Wow. I really like what you are doing there with those colors... and its nice to see a nicely painted necron thats not painted bone color (locals paint scheme)

[lijah_cuu]

This is that image I was trying to show you:
http://www.migproductionsforums.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7595

[dakota]

before we get a map sorted for the campaign, what sort of terrain is going to feature on your army's bases?
This type of terrain should then become your home/starting position terain. it shouldn't have any effect on anything but might make the map more interesting.

[lijah_cuu]

i was thinking of having mine desert/scrub

[kototama]

before we get a map sorted for the campaign, what sort of terrain is going to feature on your army's bases?
This type of terrain should then become your home/starting position terain. it shouldn't have any effect on anything but might make the map more interesting.

Mine are on sandstone paving. Might have some pictures some time over the weekend as I spent a few hours starting on bases last night.

[StraightSilver]

Mine will be Mountain/Snow bases.

I reckon I will be in the North then as that's meant to be Mountainous.

Stuart can be deployed in either of the 2 Necron Ruins as they are Pyramidy/tomb like structures.

[lijah_cuu]

Just a quick note to say that I popped into 'Dark Sphere' this morning. It's literally 1 minute away from Waterloo station and I highly recommend it - They have a sale on at the moment with the instore prices the same as the website so you're looking at around 25%. I picked up a chimera and two pots of wash for £18!
Its got plenty of bits of stock including Almera scenery and a couple of other companies stuff, cases, oop figures, direct only bits and all the usual bits and bobs you need. It also stocks flames of war and after Xmas will be doing warmachine and something else that I can't remember!
Its only been open a couple of months and the guys inside were really helpful and friendly. They have a 40k games night every Wednesday although they only have a couple of tables so it might be worth us having a visit one time before lugging all the cases down.
The sale ends mid January and I think we should support them!

Theire website is: www.darksphere.co.uk

[StraightSilver]

Hi guys,

Unfortunately no updates to speak of from me right now as I spent most of the weekend trying to clean my flat! Rock 'n' Roll!!

However I thought I would fill everybody in on our first Campaign Rules Playtest.

After a couple of pints and some excited scribbling on bits of paper the general concensus of the Campaign System was that it was OK but to be perfectly honest I wasn't entirely happy with it.

One of the good things about having a good clear out at home though is that I finally managed to get my hands on my copy of the rules for Mighty Empires.

The original one that is, not the watered down version that was recently released.

Once reading through this fantastic rules set I suddenly realised that many of my ideas were in fact based on this system, but as I hadn't played it for many years I had forgotten most of the good bits!

Then whilst celebrating finding this battered copy of the rules I discovered rather frustratingly that they are in fact free to download from the GW site! So I hadn't needed to turn my flat upside down!

So for anyone interested here is the link for the PDF from GW's website:

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1340009_Mighty_Empires.pdf

These are a great set of rules, and nice and easy but fun to play.

OK so they are Fantasy Based, but to be honest it really does't take any work at all to convert it over to 40K and if the group is happy to do so I would like to use these rules instead.

However due to the nature of our challenge a couple of things will need to be changed.

The Mighty Empires Rules Set assumes that you already have an army fully painted and ready to game with. You then spilt this army into Banners and are good to go.

Obviously this doesn't work in our case as we are only just starting this army, so I am thinking that we all start with one 500pt banner.

Then each Campaign month we have 250pts to allocate to every banner under our control. This means we can create new banners or reinforce banners which have taken casualties.

Banners will still need to occupy the same Hex to exchange baggage/troops but can otherwise be reinforced by 250pts per month as long as each player has their SkyShield intact.

Skyshields will be located in each player's Capital Hex.

If a player loses his Sky Shield he will still be able to reinforce banners but they will need to return to the Capital Hex to do so.

Independent States and banners will remain independent, but when a Battle is called for one of the other players will be the independent state and use their army. This allows us to follow the rules, but also means we get more games in.

Autumn/Spring Equinox Magic can remain the same, but instead of Wizards we will assume this is done by Psykers.

The Spells can all be easily converted over to 40K with no changes at all.

The only thing that is a little bit too fantasy based is the Dragon Rage.

However this is very easily rectified. Dragons are now Rad Wyrms. These dangerus creatures first appeared after the Adeptus Mechanicus used powerful atomics to try to excavate the Necrontyr Vessel and from time to time awaken and cause havoc to the inhabitants of Messier Object 45.

The only other thing I would suggest is to count Necrons as Undead.

This means they do not need baggage and instead of making Subsistence rolls have to test for instability instead, which in this case will be Phase Out, perfect for Necrons.

Instead of Liches and Necromancers we will say that the Necron Banners are immune to Phase out if they have at least one Necron Lord or Tomb Spyder alive in each banner.

All banners must have at least 1 HQ and 2 Troops per baner, and these must be replaced if lost by either spending the monthly 250pts or by merging more than 1 banner.

What does everybody think?

And now we just need a map.

I found this great little Hex Map generator too:

http://www.sirdinglydang.com/OgreMapEditor.htm

Only problem with this is that I can't seem to be able to resize the map for my printer, can anyone else tell me how to do this?

This program would be perfect for this Campaign, but a 100 square map barely fills half a sheet of A4 when printed and so is therefore too small.

Anyway, hopefully I will have something to show soon, although Christmas work and personal life are preventing me form spending time doing hobby stuff unfortunately......  :'(

[burgers4me]

The only other thing I would suggest is to count Necrons as Undead.

This means they do not need baggage and instead of making Subsistence rolls have to test for instability instead, which in this case will be Phase Out, perfect for Necrons.

Instead of Liches and Necromancers we will say that the Necron Banners are immune to Phase out if they have at least one Necron Lord or Tomb Spyder alive in each banner.

All banners must have at least 1 HQ and 2 Troops per baner, and these must be replaced if lost by either spending the monthly 250pts or by merging more than 1 banner.

Ummm.

Don't, by your rules, the Necron forces always have 1 Necron Lord, as he is the HQ?
I would probably say only Sypders stop it, as they are the Artisans. Perhaps a modify for each unit of scarabs (yay for tiny helper bugs!)

[StraightSilver]

Hi Burgers4me,

I do agree that perhaps it should be just Spyders and Scarabs as this makes more sense from a fluff point of view.

However it is possible that during the battle phase the Necron Player may lose his Lord, Spyder or Scarabs and may not be able to replace them immediately, either due to the lack of a banner close by that can reinforce him, or simply because he doesn't have enough troop points to spend.

This means that if he then fails his instability test that month he loses the entire banner, which I felt was a bit unfair as the other players don't suffer this disadvantage (although they do have to make subsistence rolls if they run out of baggage).

The original rules for undead in Mighty Empires allow them to automatically pass if they have a Liche, Vampire or Necromancer, and I think this translates fairly well to Necron Lord, Tomb Spyder although I am thinking that we might include Monolith as the third because losing a whole banner to instability would be quite nasty.

And I had some other thought last night too.

I think we should still award the points for painting and gaming as before (5 points for painting on time, 3 for a win, 2 for a loss and 1 for a draw) but we should use them differently.

These points could be exchanged for either Crowns or Baggage.

1 point for 1 crown
2 points for 1 baggage

I also thought that during Objective grabbing missions held objectives could count towards baggage points?

In other words capturing enemy objectives steals baggage points from them  and puts it on your banner (unless you're Necrons of course in which case you destroy it!).

What does everyone think? The idea behind this is to balance out the extra potential baggage points gained from painting and gaming.

[burgers4me]

Hi Burgers4me,

I do agree that perhaps it should be just Spyders and Scarabs as this makes more sense from a fluff point of view.

However it is possible that during the battle phase the Necron Player may lose his Lord, Spyder or Scarabs and may not be able to replace them immediately, either due to the lack of a banner close by that can reinforce him, or simply because he doesn't have enough troop points to spend.

This means that if he then fails his instability test that month he loses the entire banner, which I felt was a bit unfair as the other players don't suffer this disadvantage (although they do have to make subsistence rolls if they run out of baggage).

The original rules for undead in Mighty Empires allow them to automatically pass if they have a Liche, Vampire or Necromancer, and I think this translates fairly well to Necron Lord, Tomb Spyder although I am thinking that we might include Monolith as the third because losing a whole banner to instability would be quite nasty.

That is exactly the point. The Necron banner needs the Scarabs and Spyders for upkeep. Without it, they will rust (I am *totally* not looking at someones paint scheme right now  ).
This would be slightly OP but it is true. Since they will not be affected by baggage there is not reason why the Necron players will not raze everything to stop other armies from foraging.
Also, the fact that Spyders, Scarabs and possibly the lords and the 'Lith are so important will change the game play. Taking out the 'Maintenance' units could cause a 500 point army to 'destroy' a 1500 point army as the rust to death 

Perhaps all the armies should have certain units affecting the rules? Perhaps Advisors can add extra rules? New advisors for this campaign? Command squad actually doing something? ( ).

It is your campaign.


Also, for the points ideas.
As the first idea, you can automatically supply 3 armies and this could probably fail seiges

The idea for the objectives sounds good. Perhaps a 'roll to search' table?
(Snake eyes: Your commander is attacked by wildlife. He has 1 less wound next game  )

[StraightSilver]

Actually Burgers4me you might have avery good point there.

I hadn't even considered the thought of the Necrons just Razing everything, which I am sure they will do, especially knowing our group!

And although the Necrons laying waste to the planet fits the fluff it would be a bit unfair to those of us who need to forage for baggage to survive.

I think I may well take on board your suggetsions and see what the group thinks.

The only thing is not all of our players take Tomb Spyders, but they do all take scarabs so this shouldn't be a huge problem.

And I guess the prospect of having hexes razed balances out the idea of a banner being destroyed by instability.

And I love the idea of making a "find roll" for baggage, and the double 1 idea is going in!!

[lijah_cuu]

Apologies for not having posted recently...I've just been lazy!
This has been my test model for my renegade models:

As always with my photos its a bit brighter in real life! I've tried to restrict myself to a limited palet of colours so it looks nurgley and all ties in with each other - it's not going to be the most exciting of armies to look at but I think it will be nice and consistent.
I'm going to wait until i've done a few more of them before I decide whether to use pigments to rust them up around the backpacks and weapons. Seeing as im going to have tons of the buggers i'm not sure whether i have the patience!
I plan to leave the bases until then end and do the same as I did last year - remove the model from its painting base and glue it onto ones that i've made seperatley - that way I can do loads in one go withouth worrying about getting flock,etc, stuck the model. Im torn between doing a desert/scrub base or the same as last year so they all fit in my with Deathguard.
I've also been able to strip down the hellhound back to basecoat with Fairy powerspray - it took about 3 days and has left some gribbly bits in hard to reach areas but with my paint scheme and theme that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Im going to leave it until January as one of my pledge items. I also have another chimera to do. I should be able to do the pair over 2 or 3 evenings.
I should also be putting in my order for 2 of those folding tables before the new year so in later games we split the games over both mine and Chris's on the same day so hopefully we can get as many games done as possible without people having to hang around. It also means that if someone isn't available at the weekend we can also play catch up games in the evening.

[Lord of Winter and War]

That guy is looking great. For basing, I'd say sticking with the same as the Deathguard would create a nice effect if you use the two forces together (like apocalypse). Have you seen the Nurlge cult Guard list from the Siege of Vraks III? It's updated for the recent guard codex (like heavy wepon teams are one model), and has most of the guard things, but also has crazy things like Zombies, Plague marines, Plague Ogryns, spawn and mutants. Also, an upgrade for Mortars makes them really, really good.

[StraightSilver]

Hey mate,

I also agree with Killersquid, I think you should base these guys to tie in with your Death Guard, then you will have Nurgle CSMs, Traitor Guard and a Warhound Titan all in the same scheme, which means when we finally get around to playing apocolypse you will have a coherent force.

It also means I will have my Ultramarines, Macragge PDF and one day my Warhound Titan (no really, one day I will get it out of its box, it's only been 5 years so far!).

Scarily similar forces...

I also love the blue helmet he is holding you cheeky bugger! I may have to do something similar on my Vets when I get them assembled.

And I wouldn't bother with weathering the infantry to be honest.

I don't think they need it looking at your test model, and it will take a while to do, and might make them look too dark.

I think it's fine on Tanks because of their size, but these infantry look fine as they are to be honest.

I have to admit that I have been a bit slack recently. I had my flat to myself this week so should have got lots of nerdy stuff done, but after screaming at greenstuff for the whole of Tuesday evening I got a bit put off.

I do now have assembled:

1 x Chimera (basecoated)
1 x Hellhound (80% painted)
1 x Infantry Squad (50% painted)
1 x Infantry Squad (0% painted)
1 x Penal Sqaud (0% painted)
1 x Command Squad (0% painted)

Unfortunately this little lot comes in at just over 500 points so ought to be completed for our first game, but as I am a sloooow painter I think this is unlikely, so I need to get cracking.

And Killersquid I don't have Vraks III yet, is there any cool stuff for Krieg in there?