How does this all work again?

Scythiak Vojaki Storm Troopers - painted

I finished painting the Anvil Industries squad I'll use as Scions for my Scythiak Usurpation army.  4+ armor!  They're invincible!

WIP Scythiak Vojaki Storm Troopers / Anvil Industry review

I recently was fortunate enough to win a Facebook contest for Anvil Industry and received a squad of figures from their Regiments range.  I just pulled the parts out of their bags and assembled four of them, pictured above.  They're destined to add to my 40K chaos guard army, the Scythiak Usurpation, as Storm Troopers/Scions.  A review follows - I did get the minis for free, but it was not contingent on doing a review or the content of any review.

I've gotten a few parts from Anvil in the past, but never a full squad, and nothing from their regiments line.  I am pretty impressed with the design and the quality.  A lot of thought went into these.  Anvil's site mentions that they are:

• User Friendly - Where possible components feature a peg assembly system for precise and easy dry fitting and assembly. 
• High Quality  - We've used the latest digital design methods and highest quality resin casting to achieve incredible levels of detail and quality.

Workbench reorganization, Scythiak tanks

With the help of a bunch of fingernail polish racks I reorganized my paints and such to be more readily accessible, and hopefully put back where they belong.

Back to the workbench!

After a while of not doing much modelling or painting I'm getting back into the swing.  I picked up this fella on ebay and added the mask and axe and plan to use him as Lord Taurus, ascended leader of the Sons of Taurus renegade marines.  The listing said it was from Creature Caster, but I haven't been able to verify that.  Anyone recognize him and able to point me to some confirmation of origins?

I'm also bulking up the Scythiak Usurpation .  Above are my unimaginative Crusaders.  Very on the nose perhaps, but pretty much fit perfectly how they're supposed to be equipped (heavy armor, storm shield, power sword) and fit with the aesthetic already established with the marauder rough riders and use of fantasy chaos heads elsewhere.  I plan to put them and a priest in a twin heavy flamer Chimera and go try to fry and dice some loyalists.

 
Sonofsonsoftaurus has also been busy, assembling mostly on his own (I did some trimming of flash and sprue remainders) a Primaris Apothecary and an Ultramarines herald/ancient.  The head on the herald is from a different heresy kit (MKIII command I believe).  Cape/backpack left off of the herald for painting.  That Apothecary has a bunch of tiny pieces.  If I get one myself I may have him and his small hands build it for me.

More to come!

Vraks: A Farewell to Templates

Today Scott came over with his Death Korps of Krieg and we played a 2500pt a side Vraks slugfest, partly as a farewell to 7th edition.  And man, it's good that blast markers are going away in 8th edition because I think we wore ours out in this battle!

We had been working our way through the actual Imperial Armour 5-7 missions, originally intending to play through the whole Vraks campaign, but that fell by the wayside after the first 3 (?) scenarios.  Instead we went with this, with his DKoK against my renegades, represented by my Scythiak Usurpation and assisted by sonofsonsoftaurus commanding my Steel Legion/Merkan 76th figures towards the top of this pic (chaos right flank) (renegades using regular IG rules).  With the Death Korps loaded down with artillery pieces, our only hope was to swarm across no man's land as fast as we could and close with the guns.  The whistles blew and we were off!

Vraks: Crossing No Man's Land, Day One

Krieg troopers hit the wire!

Scott came over and we dove into the first mission in the Vraks campaign.

Vraks: Prelude

Ever since Scott had started his Death Korps of Krieg army, we had planned to play through the Siege of Vraks campaign.  Now we are going to get started!  The renegades hunker down in their defenses awaiting the oncoming Death Korps, for the first mission from IA: 5.

Drop it! Silver Skulls vs. Scythiak Usuarpation

Scythiak deployment

This afternoon I got a game in with sonofsonsoftaurus.  He wanted to do a game with the high tech guys against the not so high tech guys, with both guys and tanks.  So we have an approximately 1000pt game with him running the Silver Skulls against the Scythiak.  4x4 map, no real mission beyond trash daddy's guys.  He set up the map with minimal guidance, mostly opening things up a bit to make his podding in easier.

Army Profile - The Scythiak Usurpation

I always liked the Lost and the Damned army from the old Eye of Terror campaign book, and really like the different Chaos cults and various renegades that show up in the background.  After redoing my loyalist Imperial Guard into a very straightforward force, I knew that I wanted to also make a force that represented the other side - not only serving Chaos instead of the Imperium, but also including elements not present in the Merkans - abhumans, psykers, etc.

Get to the Choppah! Battle Report: Merkan 76th vs. Pilgrims of Rust

3000pts of horde guard + 4x4 table + narrow no-man's land = CARNAGE!

Had a game with Aaron of Skies of Flies, Ground of Rust.  We had arranged a game using the basics of the "Evacuation" scenario from the back of the hardback rulebook.  Basically, one side tries to escort a model to the evac point, the other side tries to kill him.  KP mission, with the special model being worth 3KP (if defender gets him away, he earns them, if attacker kills him, he earns them).

Ork run-in with Lost and the Damned of all things!

Not having any takers for league games yesterday, I stayed closer to home and went out to the local Hobbytown for a little bit.  There was a pretty good crowd, and most of theme were getting started with an Apocalypse game.  From what I can recall it was Grey Knights, Space Wolves, and some other Marines against Chaos Marines with traitor guard backup and Orks.  Some home-built Apoc-type stuff hit the table, like Stompas and Imperial fighter-bombers.  From what I saw, the Grey Knights, Space Wolves, and World Eaters all looked especially nice.

I didn't get into that, instead starting up a pick up game with Jason (from prior batrep) and his Death Guard and Aaron whom I've seen around but haven't played, who broke out his Nurgle traitor guard (the Traitors of Rust) for the match.  Awesome! 

Christmas Usurpation - Scythiak WIP and other holiday cheer

Ho ho ho and all that! We're having the first White Christmas here since 1966 (though I wasn't around for that one), which is nice for sonofsonsoftaurus. Tomorrow we'll get out and play in it; should have a few inches.

Un Ho Ho Holy Trinity

Here's a couple of the WIP Psyker Battle Squad/Sorcerer Cabal. I think the color scheme at this stage may have been influenced by the season.

Scythiak Usurpation - WIP Ogryn and Techno-barbarian platoon pics

Semester's over, last project done, grades are back and they are good!  Hurrah.

This weekend also sees my in-laws in town, for our pre-Christmas celebration with them before we have our separate ones next week.  Nice seeing the nephew and niece and getting the cousins together for playing and general mischief.  As part of our gift exchange, got a lightbox (woot) that I'm starting to play with (results below!), as well as the DVD set for Tales of the Gold Monkey, a fun show that I loved as a kid when it was on, and probably helped spark my loves for pulp adventure and flying boats. 

Late over the last few nights I managed to get more painting done on the Ogryn and hit them with washes.

Scythiak Usurpation - WIP Techno-barbarian heavy weapons nearing completion

The techno-barbarian lascannon and mortar teams are also nearing completion.  Same as with the rest of the platoon, just need to decide on if want more levels of shading or if this is enough, and basing.

Scythiak Usurpation - WIP Techno-barbarian platoon near completion

My time lately hasn't had much in the way of hobby time, but after I get motivated to finish up my last project for the semester I should be able to plunge back in.  I have managed to get a little more work done on the Scythiak for the techno-barbarian infantry platoon - some basic painting and some washes.

I originally planned to use the wood stain on these guys, but I'm liking how they look with just the washes so may stick with that.  I hit them with Devlan Mud all over, and it looked pretty good, but made the skin look a little too grimy and too extremely shaded in the recesses, and a little too dark for the reds.  So I went back over the skin with Ogryn Flesh wash, and hit the big red areas like the horns and shields with Baal Red, which seems to have lightened things up a tad and made shading transitions a little smoother.  With a little time away from them, when I get back I'll decide if I like them enough as-is or if I want to do a little drybrushing then another round of wash or not. 

I like being able to crop pics to show closer looks, but man things just don't look as good up close!  From a normal distance they do look a bit better.  Still, I'm pretty pleased with how they're shaping up.  Next I'll finish up the other techno-barbarian heavy weapons teams and then will probably return to the Ogryn.

 

Scythiak Usurpation - WIP Techno-barbarian heavy weapons, Yarrick, Eldar

As I mentioned in the last post, I forgot to take pictures of the heavy weapons teams I had also been working on a bit for the Scythiak.  I have corrected that oversight; here they are:

Lascannons

Mortars

Heavy Bolters

The Heavy Bolter guys are based off of Ox from the Last Chancers.  I'm planning on just having them alone on the 60mm base with some accessories, as 2W 2A bad mammajammas.  Also planning to have them detachable so I can take one to use as a Sgt. Harker stand in if needed.

A while back I got partway through a Commissar Yarrick figure, painted to match my Merkans but haven't finished him yet.  I also recently got another one that I plan to eventually traitorize.

I also picked up some Eldar figures the other day that have a long history.

Way back at the dawn of the millennium, when I was first getting back into 40K I got a huge Eldar deal.  While I was building Space Marines and Chaos Marines, my friend Pat was interested in Eldar, so I sold him most of the lot, and he used it for a while before dropping out of the game.  The mass of Eldar then eventually made its way to Nathan, then some of it made its way to John, and now these guys made their way back to me.  Some is also ending up with Ed, to reinforce the Ed-dar.  Ten years later some small part of that huge lot has found its way back to me.

The reason I got them is that I have some ideas of doing an Eldar Corsair force, combining Craftworld and Dark Eldar figures down the road.  I'll often do this, picking up a little bit here and there over a long time while I'm building and painting another army.  I'll be painting one, getting stuff for another, fiddling with lists for others to decide what to get for a third.  Once I get done painting one, every army moves up a slot in the pipeline.  It'll probably be quite a while before these guys see paint, so don't hold your breath for them.

Scythiak Usurpation - WIP Techno-barbarian platoon

I've been getting some progress in on the Scythiak, working on the techno-barbarian platoon.  They're still a good ways from being finished but I thought I'd share some pics of where they stand now.

Here's "PapaJJ" and his platoon command squad.

One squad:

Oops, forgot that one guy's boots.

Second squad:

And our MEq (Marbo Equivalent), Khonan:

I've also done a little work on the lascannon and mortar teams, but they're not quite as far along and I forgot to take pics of them anyways.  Hopefully I'll get them all to a good stage by the next time I update progress on this lot!

Campaign Progress - WIP Scythiak Usurpation shots, other pics

Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow, my fellow Americans!

Yesterday on our campaign day, I got in another game against Rob, one of the other IG players in the campaign.  Last time we played I got a string of good rolls in and took out his various vehicles.  This time I was not so lucky, and his armored force gave the Scythiak a good drubbing.  We did Annihilation/Dawn of War, and I had a hard time of it getting across the table to try to deal with all the armored firepower.  I took out a number of squads, killed one tank and did damage to several others, but in the end couldn't catch up on Kill Points.

Some shots from our game:

Scythiak moving onto the table turn one.  Hard finding space for everyone!

Wall of Steel - Vendetta, four chimeras, medusa, russ, vanquisher.

With the extra points from the Planetary Empires rules, Rob picked up some Dark Eldar mercs in the form of a Reaver squad.  I killed two of them early on, but the last one caused some trouble picking on HW teams.

Ogryn get up and 'splode the Vanquisher.  Too little, too late.

We were playing on a Zuzzy Miniatures mat that Rob had recently bought.  I've been looking at these before, and was recently seriously considering getting the exact type of mat Rob brought along (the Broken Blacktop mat) so I was quite pleased getting to see one up close and play on it.  I rather like it, and will have to pick one up for myself in the near future.  It looks pretty good as is, but will look fantastic painted up.  Being a rubber mat, dice rolls on it were very quiet, and bounced around a good bit, so if bouncing dice are a deal breaker for you, reconsider this product or get a box or something to roll in.  If it doesn't bother you, I think this would be a great way to get a good looking transportable tabletop.

Here's a couple of shots highlighting the mat:

Johann brought in his scratch-built Dark Eldar fighters/bombers, here's a shot of one of those:

Cardboard, tape, paper plates - certainly AV 10 or 11!

And lastly a treat for Loquacious (and everyone really).  I had just mentioned Alex's Black Templars here the other day, and lo and behold (so behold Lo!) he shows up in the store!  The power of blogging!  Hmm, I also find huge sweepstakes prizes and other financial windfalls interesting.  OK, we'll see if that works.

Also a quick plug at the end for one of our players who has started a blog - stop in at Ed's Eldar is Your Daddy for a helping of Eldar attitude.  We'll see if he can back it up!