Tomorrow, The Mechanicon!

Well, I have just finished painting my Iron Warriors Army to 1500 points, and thought I would snap a few photos before I pack them up for their big debut at the Mechanicon.

I certainly don't think that they are my best work for a couple of reasons, I painted the entire 1500 points in less than 3 months, that's very fast for me, so some of the army feels rushed.
Also due to time constraints, I didn't do as much conversion work as I would have liked.
That being said, I am still very happy with the army, it has been a wonderful break from painting Space Wolves, and has given me a chance to experiment some more with free-hand work, and learning how to paint red.  Which I think may be very important for my next project.

Here are a couple of more pictures

 Above you can see my Terminator Squad, with some minor conversions making a mockery of the Grey Knights.

 I wanted to convert all of my cultists using Flagellants but just didn't have the time if I wanted to use the army for Mechanicon, so I painted up 20 of the models from the new boxed set.

Above you can see an example of a couple of the standard Chaos Marines in the force, there are only 15 of them forming 2 squads, but they set the standard for the army.

So, my son Chucky (who still isn't done painting), our friend Chris Hartman playing Dark Angels, and I will be heading out around noon tomorrow and meeting up with Jawaballs where I will try and get some revenge for the pounding he gave me on Friday night last year at the Mechanicon!

So Mechanicon is going to be great, and will be my first major tournament of 6th edition.  Truthfully, my list is quite weak in my opinion, but what the hell, I'm hoping for 2 wins through the weekend, and I'll call it a success.  I am guess my army is going to garner some mixed reactions in regards to its paint score as I went a bit non-traditional on a traditional legion.  One that has a strong following, I'm thinking some people will love it, and some will hate it.  But that is the chance you take when you try something new.

I am committed to this army for the year though, and this is going to be my main Tournament army into 2013.  I am going to be expanding it quickly to 1850 for their next big outing, but have not yet decided what to add, but that is for another post.

Till next time, wish me luck.
and Jawaballs, you had best look out, I have lots of Pie-plate lovin' comin' yer way...

The Forge Fiend

Well, I am painting furiously, but I am right on track to get my 1500 points army of Iron Warriors done in time for the Mechanicon

Damn, this guy was time consuming, but a wonderful model

You can see in the photo above, that I gave up on painting all of the banding, though I did try and make it so that it looked intentional, rather than me running out of time. (and getting tired of painting red)

You know, I do love to convert models, but I'm finding more and more with Games Workshop that the model quality is such, that I feel like it would be a shame to alter this beast.  Maybe on the next one, I'll add some personal touches.

Hope you all enjoy, now I'm off to paint some Cultists, and get a practice game or three in...

It's finally here!

Last evening I finally got my hands on the brand new tome of ultimate evil that is Codex, Chaos Space Marines. Oh, and a Forge Fiend a Warp Smith, the New plastic Champion, the Psychic power cards, and a Dark Apostle...(I hate finecast)

Okay, so right off the bat I'm gonna say I love it.  Yeah, I know I'm a GW fan-boy, and my opinion on such matters means little, but the book is beautiful with lots of cool options.  But you can get discussions on the new book everywhere and that is not the true purpose of this post.

What I really want to take a few moments to do is discuss the progress I've made on my Iron Warriors project.  This project has unfortunately been woefully short on W.I.P. updates, but I have made a lot of progress.  In fact I had reached a stand still and couldn't progress any further without the new Codex in hand.

Here is a short list of what I have painted so far:
5 Terminators
Land Raider
Vindicator
15 Space Marines
10 Cultists
Defiler.

Prior to last night with a WIP rhino and my Aegis Defense line with Quad-gun, I was fielding roughly a 1250 list (using estimated points costs for the cultists based off what I knew from the White Dwarf)

Now with the new book in hand I could finalize my 1500 Point list for the Mechanicon.  When making this new list I set myself with a couple of rules.  Firstly, I promised myself I would take all of the models that I had painted thus far to the Tournament, it's only about 3 weeks away, and I have no time to start from scratch.  Secondly, the Warpsmith is a must take as is one of the new Daemon Engines.

Taking that into consideration, this is the list I quickly drew up and am currently working towards.

HQ: Warp Smith
Elite: 5x Chosen Terminators.  2x Power Lance, 2x Combi-MG, Chain-Fist, Combi-PG
Land Raider Transport
Troops: 10x Marines with 2x MG, Champion has Power Fist and Combi-MG
Rhino Transport with Havoc Launcher
Troops: 5x Marines
Troops: 10x Cultists with Auto-guns and a Heavy Stubber
Troops: 10x Cultists with Auto-guns and a Heavy Stubber
Heavy: Defiler
Heavy: Vindicator with Siege Shield
Heavy: Forge Fiend with Ectoplasma everywhere

So, in an edition where people are saying armor is dead, I'm going to saturate the board with it.  Well if it doesn't work well it's going to be cool to play, and I think it fits strongly with the Iron Warriors, Warp Smith theme.

The Jump to 1850 will either be a pair of Hellbrutes and a beefing up of the small marine squad, or a Hellbrute and Hell Drake with a couple extra marines for that small squad.

Check back soon, I'm hoping to snap some pictures this afternoon...

Poor Boris the Besieger, fired already...and the Mechanicon getting sooooo close

 

My newly painted Chaos Lord, Boris the Besieger hasn't seen much action yet.  Maybe three or four games goofing around at the corner store, and just one Tournament at Jester's Playhouse (took over-all at that oddly enough).
Don't get me wrong, I like him enough, I think he fits well with the look and feel that I was shooting for with my Iron Warriors army, it's just well...

He isn't this guy

 My army just must be led by the new WarpSmith.

Oh but that is not all folks.  Under the current Codex, my army stands at about 1150 painted, with just a few hundred more points to go.  The Mechanicon rules state that they will be using any Codex out prior to October 7th, with the Chaos Codex release date set for October 6th, that means I'm in with the new book.  Now, this is good and bad.  Good in that I get to use all those fancy new rules, and hopefully get some of the new models painted in time for the Mechanicon.  On the bad side, I've only got a few weeks to make adjustments to the army and have the list finalized and emailed to the Mechanicon staff by October 20th.  An exciting time with some self induced stress just for fun!

I would be even more excited if I could find out if Chaos Terminators still have the option to take Land Raiders as dedicated transports.  If yes, then I'm in good shape, if no, then I have some serious thinking to do.

Here is a rough estimate of what I have planned for a list:

HQ: WarpSmith
Elite: 5x Terminators with a couple of Combi-weapons, and one Chain-fist
Land Raider Transport (I hope)
Troop: 10x Marines with 2x Melta, Champ with Fist and Combi
Rhino Transport
Troop: 5x Marines
Troop: 10x Cultists
Heavy: Forge Fiend
Heavy: Defiler
Heavy: Vindicator
I should have some points left over, maybe for a Dread or Aegis Defense line with Quad gun
Light on Troops, but heavy on what I feel makes and Iron Warriors army look like Iron Warriors.

Oh, I did get some pics taken at the Tournament the other day, but have been too lazy to post them.  Well not really too lazy, just been spending all my free time in a painting frenzy, trying to meet my personal set deadline for Mechanicon.

Which reminds me I gotta go, have painting to do...

Iron Warriors First Blood

I finally got enough of my Iron Warriors finished for a game, well, a small game anyway.  I challenged my son to a game of 900 points.

My list (army pictured above)
Chaos Lord in Terminator Armor, and Mark of Nurgle
Squad of 6 Chaos Marines with a Melta-gun
Squad of 7 Chaos Marines with a Melta-gun, one upgraded to Aspiring Champion with Combi-Melta and Power fist
Land Raider
Defiler with Havoc Launcher
Aegis Defense Line with Quad-gun

Below you can see the Battle Field we set up at Aether Storm Games, a Game Store down the corner from my house.  Mike is the owner and a great guy, he always keeps an area open for us WH40k guys, regardless of what events he has going on.

 My son chose to take his Dark Eldar, this shocked me a bit as I fully expected him to field the Imperial Fists he has been working on.  He managed to put 8 Dark Lances into this small force.

I rolled my Warlord trait using the Command Traits table and got the Dust of a Thousand Worlds, giving my Warlord and any friendly unit within 12" the Move Through Cover special rule.

Rolling for the mission we got The Emperor's Will, with a single objective marker in each deployment zone.  and our deployment would be Dawn of War.

Rolling for board sides and first turn, I won the roll-off and began to deploy my forces, opting to take the first turn.  You will note that as a house rule, we deploy fortifications with our deployment, and in our deployment zones, we have found that this works well for our gaming group.

 I deploy my forces in a tight group on my right board side, then in shockingly, my Son deploys his forces directly opposite of me.  This would prove to be a huge error, he knows better, he will be crushed for this mistake...
Chucky (my son) fails to seize initiative, and I begin to open fire, focusing on the two ravagers.  The combined fire power of the Land Raider, Defiler, and Quad-gun destroys one, and immobilized the other.

Chucky responds by rushing forward with his two Raiders packed with Wyches.  He scoots his two Venoms on the other side of the board to gain a good field of fire on the unit behind the Aegis Defense line.
Shooting with his Dark Lances, he doesn't even scratch the paint on any of my Vehicles, the Venoms manage to kill a couple of Chaos Marines.  The Dark Eldar are proving to be quite ineffective.

In my turn, I decide I'm going to hit the Dark Eldar while they are weak,  my Lord bails out one side of the Land Raider, while the squad bails out the other, splitting up to hit more targets.
Shooting from the Land Raider and the Defiler drops both Raiders, and one of his squads of Wyches is pinned in the process!

The Chaos Lord charges and declares a challenge, killing the leader of the Wych Cult squad, they break and flee, the Lords heavy Terminator Armor prevents him from giving chase.

Not much for him to do in his turn, his fleeing squad rallies, but wont be much help, the pinned squad can't do anything this turn (we forgot that pinned units can snap-fire, but that would have been of little consequence anyway)
On the other side of the board, his Venoms continue to harass the squad behind the Aegis Defense line.
In my next turn, my lord re-engages the Wych Squad, my combined fire power destroys the other Wych squad that was pinned the previous turn, and also contained his Warlord, the Quad-gun also drops one of his Venoms.

  In my eagerness to utterly destroy the enemy, I almost lost sight of the primary objective.  Chucky attempts to take advantage of this and moves his lone surviving Venom forward taking up a position of cover, preparing to make a play for my Objective marker, behind the Aegis line.  His other squad the one that disembarked from the destroyed Venom moves back to control his home objective.
He had been attempting to lure me into a trap, keeping me busy with the Ravagers and Wyches while his Venom squads moved in on objectives, sneaky Dark Eldar...
His Venom opens fire and forces a moral check on my Marine squad guarding the Objective which they pass.

In my turn I decide they will pay for trying to take a fortification from the Iron Warriors, I open fire on the Venom and destroy it, forcing the squad inside to disembark.  My remaining fire power finishes off the squad.

Realizing he cannot win, Chucky decides to call the game.  5(1 for 1st Blood, 1 for killing the Warlord and 3 for having an objective)-3(the Dark Eldar held an Objective) an Iron Warriors victory.

A small game I know, but I think it gave me an idea of how to use some of my units in this army.  It's play style is going to be quite different from my Space Wolves force.  As for Chucky, I think he made a critical mistake in his deployment, by deploying right across from all of my fire power.

Over-all though a blast for both sides, next time he says he is bringing his Imperial Fists, I say "bring it"

I am soooo pumped, New Chaos, new DA all in one new 40K starter box

I don't care what I have to do, that new Hell Beast, Dread thingy is going into my IW army...

In fact, I think most of the above models with a little conversion work are going to make the cut.

Not to mention I'm gonna be putting some cultists in,
looks like I'm going to have some work to do...

More progress made, and an updated list.

Believe it or not, I am actually on schedule with the pace that I set myself with this project.  Well sort of, basically the schedule I have set myself is forcing me to call certain things finished even though I would like to spend a bit more time on it.  I may go back and do some final highlights, and maybe even weathering at a later time, but I am forcing myself to the next unit when the timer rings.  For example, I allowed 20 hours of paint time for the Defiler.  It actually turned out to be more of a beast than I thought, so I didn't really get to finish all of the highlighting on the metals.  Oh well, it is just going to have to be good enough.

Here is a list of what I have done so far,
The Defiler
10x Chaos Space Marines, with 2x Melta-guns and the Champion with Power Fist and Combi-Melta
(doesn't seem like much but it is quite a dent)
Here is WIP,
the Warsmith (Modeled primed and based, will be done by Sunday)
5x Chaos Space Marines with Bolters (Most of the colors blocked out, highlights and washes started, will be done tomorrow)
Next up,
2x Rhino Transports, (I am going to build both of these, so I can paint them at the same time.  I think this process will be much faster and make the two look uniform)

If I stay on schedule, I will have an army ready for some play to start using these guys on the battle field, albeit a very small force consisting of
Chaos Lord
10x Marine Squad
5x Marine Squad
Defiler

I did let my son talk me into one game with my Chaos army at 1000 points, but I hate using unpainted models, so I wont talk about the game, other than to say, I love the Defiler...

Well let us move on to some pictures,
First up here is a WIP of Boris the Besieger my Warsmith

 Next up we have my painted models arrayed all together, so you can start to get a feel for what the army will look like on the table top

 next a close up of one of my standard marines, nothing really special about him except that I think he is cool.

 Finally a picture of my Defiler after 20 hours of painting, he is just going to have to do for now...

After some discussion with my son Chucky and his buddy Joe, my list has changed once again.  I don't think it's particularly strong, but I think it even better captures the look and feel of the Iron Warriors.

Iron Warriors Ver.4
Warsmith with Terminator Armor, Power Lance, Combi-Bolter

10x Marines with 2x Meltaguns, Champion has Combi-MG and Power Fist
Rhino with Dozerblade and Havoc Launcher

10x Marines with 2x Plasmaguns, Champion has Plasma Pistol and Power Sword
Rhino with Dozerblade and Havoc Launcher

5x Marines

4x Chosen Terminators with 4x Combi-Plasma, one has a Chainfist (I haven't decided on the Power Weapon load out of the other 3 yet)
Landraider Transport

Defiler with Havoc Launcher

Vindicator

Aegis Defense line with Quad-gun

Hopefully this will be the final draft of the list, because I already have everything for this list, and soon I will be pretty far into building and painting and changes will be more of a set back time-line wise.  Though with my luck the new Codex will be out soon and that will force me to revamp the whole list...