More Chaplain progress and Vehicle movement cheating

Chaplain Progress

     Here is an updated shot of the commissioned Chaplain.  Still a bunch of work to do, but I'm very close.  The client apologized as he later mentioned to his brother-in-law that he thought I was raising the price on him.  Thankfully his brother-in-law was there when I agreed to paint it for $35.  He then paid me $40.  Conflict resolved.

     Having never painted yellow on this type of miniature (I did yellow stripes on my Firestorm Armada Dendrenzi ships) I certainly learned some lessons.  I started with a brown base and built it up to what you see there.  As usual, soon after finishing all the yellow, happened to check Dave Taylor's blog and he had done some wonderful work on a Lamenters assault marine.  I could tell that he had based with orange and built up from there.  The effect is better, in my opinion, so should I find myself doing yellow marines, I'll be trying that.

     There are plenty of details and final highlights yet to go.  I need to work on the base as well, but regardless I'm going to heavily seal this puppy because he'll be receiving some serious table time.  I certainly know that yellow is fun to weather though.  This is for true.  Anways, more pics:

Vehicle Movement Cheating

     I watched a video on Youtube from Beasts of War.  If you're not familiar with this group, they do a bunch of videos concerning a multitude of table top war games.  On one of their recent videos, Darrell (their resident rules-lawyer and self appointed "Cheese Master".  His new found strategy for using Land Speeders involved cheating.  That sounds harsh but I'm calling a spade a spade.

     In his example, he placed his Land Speeder right up on the deployment line, with the nose of the LS pointing towards the short table edge, and his side facing the enemy.  When it is his turn, he pivots the LS 90 degrees to now face his opponent, then measures 12" from the front of the vehicle to move.  The net result is that he has gained an inch by pivoting the LS before he measures the move.

     This is just completely wrong.  Page 71 of the BRB covers vehicle movement.  They say that you should measure from the hull.  Pivoting does not reduce the vehicle's movement.  Vehicles that pivot but otherwise stay stationary don't count as having moved.  Now that all those facts are there, let me say this:  if you measure from where Darrell's LS started at the beginning of his movement phase, to where it ends, that's 13".  There's no other way to describe that.  He pivots then moves.  The pivot can be PART of the move, and the rules certainly state that there's no penalty for that, but it also describes the total distance a model as moved as determining the "speed" the vehicle is traveling at.

     If you want to LEGALLY achieve this effect, you can pivot on your first turn, then move on your second.  Technically you've gained the same inch, but you've done it within the constructs of the rules.

     If pivoting the vehicle, then measuring the move is okay, then I should similarly be allowed to pivot my Nob Bikers, and the Forgeworld Warboss on his bike because I can stand to gain inches there.  Quite frankly this is all bullshit.  If you intend to move a vehicle, don't touch the vehicle until you determine the distance and thus the final location the vehicle will be moved to.  You avoid this rules breaking nonsense and everyone goes home without a number of new stab wounds.

Ugh! Know your core rules!

I swear! I've had nothing by bad in so many pick-up games as of late. My CLGS is supremely sub-par just to start. Terrible tables that rarely actually measure to 6x4, and never have painted or textured surface through-out. I suppose that's fine if you like to have all your battles on Planet Particle-Boardia. I'm growing weary of that through.

The A-#1 kick in the soft-bits is the people I've had the chance to play against. So far I've encountered no less than three regulars that either routinely forget rules, twist rules, make up wargear, or are still playing freaking 4th edition because they haven't fully learned 5th. The last bit seems to be fairly common. So far my best games have actually been with fairly new players. Like me, they've learned only 5th, and thus tend not to adamantly demand they're right about some crusty rule that might be as old as 3rd edition!!!

Yesterday, I had TWO games ruined by one made-up piece of wargear. I don't own every codex, and I've been playing for less than a year, but when I'm playing against Mr. I've-been-playing-since-Moses-started-40K, I tend to yield on a lot of the armies that are foreign to me. This has resulted in MULTIPLE disasters. Let me describe my most recent disappointment.

My lowly 1000 points of Orks found themselves facing down a Necron gun-line. I honestly had very little hope of survival. I managed to struggle forward, losing most of my army in turn 2. I had only my group of 20 'Ard Boyz (had to take them as that to make up the points) and my big-bad Warboss. I managed to call a Whaagh! and make assault. I spread out my boys into multiple unit combat. I was stuck in with a group of 10 Warriors, 10 Immortals, and a Necron Lord. I had positioned myself such that I could allocate most attacks against the Warriors, and my Warboss' attacks against the Immortals. The result was EPIC! I managed to cause an unsaved wound differential of 12! SUCCESS! My opponent had his back up against the table edge to try and give his gun line the best chance of whittling me down. This now was backfiring hugely as he was about to fail leadership with his two big point units; Immortals and his Lord. I was ready to fist-pump all the way home when my opponent announced that he had taken some wargear on his Lord that made him Fearless along with whatever unit he joined.

WHAAAAAA!

Now, not knowing the Necrons, I just assumed that was correct. HUGE MISTAKE! He promptly made most of the saves for the additional wounds, and began his turn. He used the Veil of Shadows, pulling his Lord and Immortals out of assault. His devastated Warrior squad only saw three make their "We'll Be Back" rolls and were forced to join a nearby Warriors squad that was not in combat. This left my Orks out in the cold. I was immediately hit by a Monolith template weapon killing 15 Boyz. The remainder were gunned down by the Immortals.

When I got home I loaded up my Necrons PDF codex (Shhhh!! Don't tell anyone) and I couldn't find ANYTHING that would make them fearless. Quite the opposite! I found the explicit explanation of why they DO take leadership tests despite being Undead Zombie Space Robots for the Future. GAAAAHHHHH! Ruined game! What's worse, we played another game and he repeated this SAME violation on me, claiming this imaginary wargear. What's worse, he wanted me to take a negative modifier after one assault because he "Outnumbered" me. WTH guy! Even I know that was a 4th Edition rule that wasn't in 5th! What sucked was that he INSISTED it was in the codex and took 10 minutes to look for it... IN MY RULE BOOK!

To summarize: I love 40K... I hate 40K players! KNOW THE CORE RULES PLEASE! I don't CARE that you were around when GW invented Space Marines! I don't care that your army hasn't seen a new codex since tight-rolled jeans were in style! I WANT YOU TO READ YOUR RULE BOOK!

*sigh* I feel better now. Although I'm never playing that guy again.