The Most Dangerous Game

     I'm back in the groove at home. I've started work on my IG army, and I have just so many ideas spinning around in my head that I'm having difficulty focusing on finishing my Blood Angels. There's not just a terrible amount of work that I have to do, but there's enough that I'm letting the IG distract me willfully. On the Guard front, I've assembled my first Veteran Squad, I've completed all their bases, and I've even managed to build a Hell Hound (complete with magnetized weapons). I've also been pecking away impatiently at my Valkyrie model. I'm afraid of doing any substantial assembly as I need to understand what I'm going to need to paint and how I might magnetize things.

     I stopped by at my CLGS this Saturday for a game. I experienced what I might classify as the worst game I've ever been a part of. I brought my Orks (1850 pts) against a Necrons army. This guy is a regular, but he's not very... good. He basically lost the game in deployment. He crammed everything into a corner, put his Monolith in reserve, and let my Biker Nobz and Foot Nobz run rampant through his trapped Necrons. I've seen this guy up there on and off for the last year. I really have to wonder what he has been doing because there were some really basic 40K concepts that seemed to be alien to him. He didn't even know that you can assault multiple units. He asked if that was a piece of war gear that I had on my Nobz.

     The game was officially over at the end of round two. Unofficially it was really over after the top of round two. Though I won, it wasn't fun. I've said before that I thought my Orks were a little TOO competitive to be fun, and a game like this certainly shows that. I'm not saying that I can't lose, I've proven that I'm quite capable of that. I just think I just enjoy a game were there are more eventualities. Which is why, at some point in the future, I'll need to paint up a few less power-gamey type characters for my Orks.

'Os Da Boss?

     He's done! This represents a true mile-marker for me. This is my first Forge World model that I've purchased, assembled, and painted. I'm completely thrilled that it came out as well as it did. His little squig partner looks like he's enjoying the ride back there, so I think that was a proper addition to the model. I've actually decided NOT to glue the Warboss down. This is mainly because I painted quite a lot of detail on his chest, and I'd hate to just leave it covered up forever. I've got eight lootas sitting there to be painted next, but I think I'm going to take a small break from just straight unit painting and try adding a little flavor to my army along the lines of a nice barrel of fungus beer to ride in the back of the Trukk. I'll take some time to start assembling the Deff Dread just a bit, getting a feel for the model.

     That's all I got for now. I'm looking forward to putting this bad boy on the table. Here are some detail shots and some nice size comparison shots:

Hogz for Nobz and Games for Me

     Can you smell the exhaust fumes? That could actually just be the primer. Regardless, my Nob Bikerz have doubled their numbers and my little biker gang now boasts two power claws, three big choppas, and a painboy. I pieced together the Painboy from the Ork Nob box consisting of the saw arm and one of the Cyb-ork heads. I think he came out alright. All of my bikes are unique, which is pretty sweet. I green stuffed one of the big choppa arms so that he's holding the weapon lower to the ground and away from his body. I think it gives a little appearance of speed and, in my mind, represents him speeding towards his next assault.

     This weekend was most excellent. I managed to get in a teaching game (my Marines got slaughtered by my Orks at approximately 550 points), an 1850 point level battle mission game, and a Kill Teams game. I won the last two. I enjoyed teaching, but I don't know if the guy from work got much from it. One thing I can say for sure is that it is supremely annoying when you're trying to teach the game and people keep stopping by and offering tips and tricks, side-tracking me and trying desperately to clean up what knowledge they're spilling. Just being enthusiastic about something, doesn't mean you're an excellent teacher. Just KNOWING a lot about something doesn't make you a great teacher either.

      My 1850 game was absolutely perfect! I played against a fantastic opponent. He was gracious, gentlemanly, and played the game for fun, not just to win. His list is very fluffy and well painted/converted. He has an entire Thousand Sons list with a Demon Prince as the lead. We played the "Pillage" mission from the Chaos Space Marine Battle Missions, and I have to say that it is one of the best missions I've played thus far from the book.

     My Space Marines, at 1850, are severely lacking. I've essentially hammered it together, stretching my anemic army to get to that value. I throw in my Grey Knight terminators simply to soak up some points (which is what they do best, frankly). Imagine my surprise when they actually started earning their points back! They performed admirably given my expectations and their previous record. The big BIG VIP of the game, however, was my sniper scouts. I think I might even have to say it was mostly Telion. He was a right bastard to those Thousand Sons. I managed to kill the Demon Prince and THREE sorcerers with my sharp shooting. Telion's ability to assign the wounds is PRICELESS in these situations. Furthermore, if you get those rending hits, you're a GOD! Even with the 4+ invulnerable saves, you're going to fail eventually.

     Kill teams still seems enjoyable to me. I enjoy the faster pace, and the unique strategies. I think I've found the list I enjoy playing the most. I take a five man Sternguard squad, and a five man scout squad. You're really only taking minimum gear, but you have some deadly firepower in these choices. Once my Orks are finished, and I've started back towards my Space Marines, I have a few ideas for making a themed army for Kill Teams.

     Lastly; I purchased my Deff Dread. I just can't wait to get this guy put together and painted. I have a really fun idea for some customization that I know people will enjoy. In the meantime, I've primed my eight lootas and my Forge World Warboss, so look forward to those within the next week or two. I leave you with some more pics of my new bikes:

Bikerz go WOOOOOOO!

     Here's a little peek at those Nob Bikerz I mentioned in the last post. The happy fellow in the middle is my Painboy, and you might see the Space Marines flamer attached to the Nob with the Big Choppa. I also have a sneak peek at my Forge World Warboss with a little hitch-hiker that I purchased for just this purpose some while ago. I think it's perfect! Gotta love that Ork character!

Incoming Ork Bikes and Armies of the Future

     With the Kommandos done, I was fired up. Like I said in my previous post, the painting process for those Kommandos was just painful for various reasons. Once completed, I was refueled. I plunged into one of my Ork Battleforce boxes and immediately started gluing my last three Nob bikers together (and my fingers). I have combined a few bits to build a Painboy on a bike, and I even scavenged a Space Marine flamer to make my shoota/skorcha Nob. I'm chomping at the bit to paint them up and that will lead me towards my Warboss on Bike! HURRAY!

     I've been pondering my future army ideas. I'm constantly thrilled with how deep this hobby goes. My imagination and creativity gets a goodly amount of exercise just dreaming up new armies. Right now I'm thinking of doing a group of Sternguard as Deathwatch. I've got my theoretical Imperial Guard army tempting my wallet as well. My more immediate thoughts are of a Salamanders variant of my Space Marines, so once the Orks are done, I'll have to refocus on those guys.

     I just purchased some foam trays for my Orks from Battlefoam. I can't fully explain how awesome my Battlefoam case has been for me. My current case has been getting some really good use. I've got this thing loaded up to near full capacity. I just noticed that they have a new bag coming out and it looks slick. I'm wondering which bag I'll eventually upgrade to: The new 720 or the massive 1520. I guess this depends on what my third army ends up being.

     Last bit of news here. I've found a new 40K related podcast that I've been enjoying. It's called 11th Company. The podcast is very focused and nearly completely 40K tactics focused. 40K Radio has been sucking and I'm tired of pointless babbling about beer drinking and shitty puns. I've enjoyed World's End Radio, but they aren't strictly 40K focused. Check out 11th Company if you get a chance.

Mission Success

     I had a really good day at the CLGS today. I won every game I played, I had a pretty good time, and the Battle Missions book seems to be pretty slick.

     First, my orks! They performed excellent. The Trukk showed to be an extremely lethal addition to the army. I played a 1000 point game against my friend Sean with his Eldar army. Turn one was a down right murder! I flung my three Nob bikers and the Trukk filled with 10 Nobz and my Big Mek up the right flank. The awesome open-topped-ness of the trukk allowed me to disembark far enough out front to setup a truly epic assault. With the Nobz plowing through the Eldar in assault, my 20 'Ard Boyz just sat back on our objective, making sure no sneaky Striking Scorpions tried to take it. I had pretty much wiped the Eldar by the end of turn three. For as awesome as this all sounds, it was assisted by some exceedingly terrible rolls on my friend's side. I found myself in that uncomfortable position of feeling bad for him.

     After that first game, we got the Battle Missions book and played a game of Kill Teams. I really dig it, but I must say that this game type needs a few rule clarifications. If you and your opponent have an understanding before the game starts, then it's totally cool. This game type seems like it might be easily broken by certain armies (namely horde armies). I got one more two on two kill teams game in before I left, and this too was tons of fun.

     I got Vulcan Hes'tan in the mail the other day, along with some squigs that I plan on using on both objective markers and potentially with the Warboss on Bike that I'm getting for Forgeworld. Vulcan represents really the beginnings of my "third" army. Really I'm just building a variant of my current SM list to be more Salamandar-ish. I really still want to do a Imperial Guard army next, but that will have to wait for a while. I've got plenty to paint until then.

Feel No Pain

     It has been a bit since I've shown some progress on my Orks. It's time to do that. Here is my Painboy, which will be running with my 10 man Nob squad deployed in a Trukk. I've got a few touches that I need to put on this guy, nothing huge though. I've played a few games with him in the squad and he does quite well. My only difficulty is deciding if I should take 'Eavy Armor on my Nobz. Technically this would make the Painboy more useful, or I should say that I would be using his Feel No Pain saves more frequently. Hmmm just not sure. I had fun making the tarnished brass look on his syringe and tank on his back. Here's some more pics:

  

    I've started working on the Trukk for my Big Mek, Nobz, and Painboy to ride in. I've decided that I'm going to try a technique I saw at Iron Dog Studios on the Tator Titan. I've started with the Tin Bitz layer, then I'll be doing a nice Boltgun layer. After that, I'll be picking out what I want to be black and orange and I'll go from there with more detailed painting. I think this will give a nice worn look that won't take too much time to complete. I've done the first pass tonight and here are the results:

     I'll have some options for my project following the Trukk. I've got my Kommandos all cleaned up and ready for painting, or I could go ahead and assemble my Lootas. I've gained some respect for the Lootas potent abilities, so I'm half tempted to jump ahead to them. Hmmmm but Snikrot is just an AWESOME model. Tough decisions!

Catching up with the Orks

Well it has been a while, and I have something to show for it. I took a little vacation back home to Dallas for New Years. I put a lot of effort into cramming as much 40K as I possibly could into the week I had there. I managed to play quite a few games with my two local 40K buddies while I was there. In an effort to make sure that I had two armies to play, I struggled to complete as many Orks as possible to bring me up to roughly 1000 points. Sadly I had to stretch a bit to get to that value, and in the end they certainly weren't the most competitive 1000 point list you've ever seen, but they were fun and finally getting some time behind the wheel of the army was what was most important.

I did have to fudge a little on my pledge of never playing a unit that wasn't painted. I had three Nob Bikerz that I had only about 15% complete on their paint job. It was still worth it and I think we all had a good time playing the various games. We did not, however, play at one of the GW stores this time around. I think it's a lot of fun though and next time I hope to do so. We paid them a visit a couple of times and I got the chance to see some of the new Tyranid models up close. The Trygon and the Raveners to be specific. Great models, and they'll be a fantastic looking addition to any 40K table out there.

Before I left for the vacation, I managed to finish up a 10 man squad of foot-slogging Nobz. I used both a box of Nobz and the five Nobz from Assault on Black Reach. At first I was disappointed with the box of Nobz, as I had originally thought I was going to be able to use the torsos for the warbikez. Sadly, I discovered that they are torso and legs together in essentially one piece. Instead of chopping them up, I scrounged some Nob torsos from my battleforce for the warbikez and decided to just use the Nobz box as intended. I'm now VERY glad that I did. These models turned out fantastic. They are some of my favorite Orks to date. Each model came out unique and I had a terrific time choosing the bits to customize each one. The AoBR models, though obviously not customizable, still turned out pretty good. When I ran these combined with the boxed ones, it was nearly impossible to tell them apart, all crowded together on the table. Of course, they tend to be the first to die since they're all just choppa-slugga Nobz, but that's alright because the wound allocation for the last five (the ones from the box) is pretty cheesy. Basically they're just a meat-shield, allowing my to hopefully deliver three Big Choppas and two Power Klaws with deadly force. By the way: Big Choppas are some vehicle killing bastards.

The Nob Bikerz were pretty good, but with only three of them, they tended to be an early target, and pay a pretty heavy price. When they managed to survive, they tended to be VERY good. I can't wait to finish the other three, giving them that same awesome allocation ability and bringing along a Painboy. Ooooooh it's going to be nasty.

I've essentially purchased everything I need to finish up the army to about 1500 points. I'll be finishing up my Boyz squad, building a Kommandos squad with Snikrot, bringing in a Painboy for my foot-slogging Nobz, throwing in a trukk for them to ride in, and putting together a nasty group of Lootas. The only model I've yet to buy is the Forgeworld Ork Warboss on the Bike. I shiver every time I think of that wicked model. I'll probably be purchasing that in the next couple of months. Until then, I still have the warboss on foot from the AoBR set.

Here are some more shots of my newest additions: