Sedition Wars: Patient Zero Identified

Last night was hobby night and the first of the Sedition Wars: Battle for Alabaster minis got painted. There are maybe 100 figs total in the "Biohazard" level Kickstart package, so assuming one model per night I have a good amount of painting ahead of me. 

This is a start to finish one night paint job, and that leads to my new "thing." I'm going to try and stay focused on any model I start to paint until it's finished. I have way too many models at the 25% completion level, and I want them to be done. They don't have to be painting competition level or perfunctory level, just done. Like Mr. Revenant here. Done. 1% of the way to fully painted SW:BfA set. I am not limiting myself in the same way for building models, since I might want to assemble some for gaming, but once paint touches a model all others shall be forsaken until that one is done.

In other news, Khador Brian brought in FFG's X-Wing and we played at lunch. Wow, is that fun. Simple rules and nice pre-painted models meant everyone could get into the game easily. Matt immediately realized that he would be dropping a lot of money on this game, and I know he was shopping online shortly after lunch. Larger battles appear to be in our future.

Last Of The Horsemen

An epic poem of seriously inside humor

No more the crack of salty seeds
no more the jest at some's expense
the final horseman met his end
hear now his final tale

In days gone by of fleeting youth
the horseman stood flanked by his peers
but years did pass and fade they did
and left him last to stand alone

Though challengers arose in turn
outlast each one in turn he did
as years went by he persevered
by moving not an inch

But at last the vicious beast
reared its vile head and roared
Amperdragon was its name
Its bane a thing of arcane lore

Long fought the two in fields of strife
What manner of epic conflict this?
What can you say of struggles such?
What knowledge can you lend?

At last the arcane lore revealed
the beast was slain and vanish did
to be replaced by the next threat
an endless queue of ceaseless foes

But in the end the horseman's foe
revealed to be his hand alone
and now the horemen gone are they
their legacy to be forgot

=====

Have you ever wondered what could fill someone's shoes, only to discover that those shoes were actually rotting squirrel carcasses held together with scotch tape and bits of twine? Yeah, better buy some new shoes.

Overcoming the Sedition Wars Glass Ceiling

An analysis of the "Biohazard" level kickstarter rewards, Vanguard faction.

14 male Vanguard models

• 4 w/ heavy weapon (29%)
• 9 w/ helmet (64%)
• 2 hero classification (14%)

19 female Vanguard models

• 6 w/ heavy weapon (31%)
• 8 w/ helmet (42%)
• 1 hero classification (5%)
• 1 commander classification (5%)

If you are a female Vanguard you are less likely to be assigned a helmet and less likely to receive a promotion from trooper to hero. You are more likely to be promoted from hero to commander. You are slightly more likely to receive a heavy weapon. Those promoted to hero or assigned a heavy weapon cost the same as their male counterpart. 

Looking over the breakdown, I note that the two female Vanguard promoted to hero or above have some form of mechanical augmentation. Akosha Nama is a cyborg and Captain Kara Black has a bionic arm. Does this imply that females must suffer some mutilation to advance in the Vanguard ranks? Or perhaps that one must put herself in harm's way more than the average trooper to be considered for promotion? No Vanguard of hero level or above wears a helmet, save for Vade's rebreather mask. Could the stark discrepancy of helmet use between male and female troopers be an attempt by female troopers to show that they are like their superiors and not averse to risk?

I have daughters of my own, and should they choose the Vanguard as a career choice they should be able to advance within the ranks based on their talent, not their bionics or ability to stay perfectly coiffed through the entire scenario.

Stay tuned for the next article in this series where we tackle Strain bias against bipeds in high level classifications.

/// end transmission ///

I started building my Vanguard force last night, and I am torn between loving the models and feeling a little crazy about getting the mold lines cleaned off. I never got the hang of this new plastic, either in Privateer Press models or now McVey. I shudder to think of all the struggling I will do when my Bones vampire level gets here.

I love that they all come with bases like this, but having to pin each one onto the base is going to be a bit of a pain. I'm using a new alchemy called "Loctite Plastics Bonder" which is a combination activator and cyanoacrylate that they claim will create a very strong bond. I'll do a couple models to the base with this stuff and try a drop test and report back. The tests I've done so far seem like the stuff is pretty strong.

 Here's a little scale pic of the SW minis. From left, Warmachine Protectorate of Menoth Deliverer, Sedition Wars Vanguard Reaver, spess mreen, Wargames Factory shock trooper, GW Chaos cultist, Wargames Factory zombie. The primary difference I see is that the head is more adult proportioned than some of the heroic scale minis. That lends to the illusion that the mini is smaller/shorter even though they are comparable.

Can't wait to play some Sedition Wars!

I Will Finally Own A Quality Painted Miniature!

James Wappel, one of my painting heroes, has just kickstarted his series of painting tutorial DVD's. The full set is not, shall we say, inexpensive. At 100 minutes each, I also wonder why the colors red, blue and green need their own DVD, or why multiple flesh tones need their own DVD. Hey, you know what? It's his party and if I painted as well as him I'd be in a much better position to judge that.

Here's what I'm excited about: one of the reward levels gets you a DVD plus the miniature painted for the DVD. I don't think it's the actual mini painted for the tutorial... the text says "you will receive a PAINTED VERSION of the mini that is featured on the DVD!!"  If you've ever priced a really good commission figure you'll know that getting the DVD and the figure for $135 is a steal. 

Turn, Turn, Turn 2013

Well, apparently the world didn't end. Kinda makes me wish I had paid my mortgage in December.

Plans for 2013? They are well defined, with bullet lists of actionable items following the continual improvement cycle as seen below. Okay, maybe not.

I usually skip step 3 altogether and replace step 1 with "Purchase"

I refuse to make New Year Resolutions, because I have enough failed commitments to feel guilty about without having to include myself in the mix. Perhaps 2013 will be the year of hobby self indulgence for me. I will work on what I want to and not feel obligated to get anything done for any reason. Ah, who am I kidding? 2013 will be an endless series of artificial deadlines that mean nothing, flitting aimlessly from hobby idea to hobby idea and never completing anything I start. You know, kind of like every other year.

Here's the current situation:

1. I am finally finishing a Christmas present for a friend. It's been quite a long time coming, but the models look nice.
2. I am working on my Chaos Space Marines, but now that I have enough functional models to play I do not feel driven to build. The box of 30 Zombie Vixens I just picked up will add to my Typhus list nicely when mixed in with my other 30 all-male zombies. That's a whole lot of scoring, fearless, FNP troops.
3. I eagerly await the arrival of my box of Pirate Gobbos.
4. I eagerly await the arrival of Sedition Wars: The Battle for Alabaster.
5. I eagerly await the arrival of Reaper Bones, Vampire level.
6. I anxiously peruse the fan-made Kingdom Death Monster pledge calculator to try and allocate my meager funds to the various tantalizing expansions. (And no, the pinup models are not, nor are they the cause of, "tantalizing expansions" no matter what your dirty little mind is thinking.)
7. I am playing Talisman for the first time, and have committed (hah! see! already!) myself to paint whatever model wins each game. So far the Troll and Prophetess are in the queue, with the Troll already started.
8. I am playing Evil Baby Orphanage. It plays quickly and is tons of fun. We love shouting "USE YOUR WORDS!" at each other and other parental nonsense.
9. Something Blood Bowl-ish or Warmachine-y or Skavenesque. When I feel like it.
10. FTL. Soooo much FTL. I think I'm up to about 300 games played and 2 wins. This is the best $10 you can spend on gaming right now IMHO, since it goes to the developer.
11. Fallout 3, which I picked up for $4.49 at local Gamestop. I play for a while, laugh when I die horribly, realize I'm motion sick and then stop playing. I had motion sickness problems playing old PC games with poor frame rates, but I attribute this to my inability to keep my viewing angle reasonable with the PS3 controller. Seriously, it's like I have lost all control over my neck muscles or something.
12. Dungeon Village ... seriously. There has been a major update on Book of Heroes and I still find myself going back to DV over and over. Must.... get.... 5..... stars......
13. Thinking about game design... I have three ideas that I have been trying to flesh out for a while. They are very different scale, and I would like to eventually see one of them come to fruition, at the very least as a homebrew thingy.
14. Mobile/Flash development. haxe-NME is still the platform I've picked for my Android/Flash dev, and I really want to get something done and posted to Kongregate. Maybe a completed Ludum Dare entry, like my work buddy jomomomo has been doing.

Yep. Laser focus.

Stupidly Easy Tabletop Gold

I'm painting some gold power armor, and I am pretty happy with the gold tones I'm getting currently. Here is the stupidly easy recipe. It works great with you have multiple models to paint gold. Remember to let each step dry adequately before going on to the next.

1. Paint the area (or entire model in this case) Vallejo Model Air silver. The brand is important here. Model Air silver goes on incredibly smooth and even. What you are seeing in the pic is one coat, and not a thick one. It comes fairly thin out of the bottle. Once you try this you will abandon all others.

2. Wash with yellow ink. In this case I used Privateer Press's version. Keep the ink moving to avoid it pooling any one place too thick. It's hard to screw this step up unless you didn't wait long enough for the silver to dry or to proceed to the next step before the ink is dry. I tried mixing the yellow into into the silver to try for the same effect but it came out looking like antique gold, not nearly as vibrant as I wanted.

3. Heavy wash sepia. Use this to get contrast where things connect and basic deep shadow washing. Try not to let it pool on a surface too bad, but even if it does that's not terrible.

4. Heavy drybrush bright gold. In this case I used VGC Polished Gold. Make sure to hit any areas where the wash made tide marks. After gold, drybrush very selectively with silver to get top highlights.

That's it! You could probably go more lightly on step 4 if you wanted the gold more yellow, or maybe just apply the sepia wash more precisely so less correction is needed.

Die In 1000 Fires

I cannot say enough good things about FTL. After hundreds of plays, I still have not won it, and yet I keep playing. In that sense it's like Nethack, and just like that venerable favorite death is permanent, "hardcore" if you will. It's hard (at least to me.) Most games I play end something like this:

The game itself is a race across a series of randomly generated star maps, jumping from system to system and either fighting other ships, rescuing castaways (who may be helpful or suicidal and destructive) and trading at shops for better weapons and systems. 

Eventually you will encounter all the various planet/ship combinations, but the game continues to be fun. Unlocking new ships though various challenges only adds to the challenge. I have taken to calling the game "Die In A Fire" for good reason. Like Nethack, dying is frustrating and so very much fun.

It's available for only $6.99, for Windows, Mac and (gasp) Linux. I play the Linux version. Go buy it! Now!

Standard Template Construct Contest Voting

Voting is open in the Standard Template Construct Champion of Chaos contest. There are some fantastic entries, too!

So go and vote on best painted and best converted. Of course, if you wanted to cast your vote for Chaos Fan I wouldn't be disappointed.

Converting the Helbrute With No Plan .. Part 3

So in my completely unplanned quest to make this gentleman of a Helbrute look something different than the stock model I decided that the very prominent "halo of horns" should be changed. I liked the multi-level mouth thing, but the big rack is too much. So I cut that piece in half...

 ...and the result definitely reveals the crazy face better. It has more of a dreadnought feel too. The other Helbrute I have uses the horns, so this one should look different.

 One thing I never noticed us how much that front armor piece looks like a cyclops face. Also, his many, many abs kind of resemble the roof of a mouth. Maybe if I...

Oh yeah. Big scary mouth ready for more converting. It's just poster-tacked in right now, and I can't decide whether to remove the large horns. I could also add a tongue. Since I already have one Slaaneshi Helbrute I figured when I bought the thing that I would make this one Nurgle. Now as I convert him I don't know which direction to take. Deciding Nurgle or Slaaneshi would definitely affect how I model a tongue.

Anyway, this continues to keep my attention, so stay tuned for more!

Converting the Helbrute With No Plan .. Part 2.5

Not quite enough for a part 3. I worked on the scourge base/ends some and modded up a Reaper Autocannon for him, and I'm getting happier with the results.

Maybe I'll sacrifice a plasma cannon from my loyalist venerable dread for this guy, or maybe a devastator plasma cannon. I will probably scratch built lascannons using styrene and vehicle sprue bits.

No more converting tonight.... part 3 sometime in the future!

Converting the Helbrute With No Plan .. Part 2

So last we visited this guy, he had lost his multi-melta barrels and his power fist arm and gained a couple styrene tubes on which to mount future weapons (I guess everything in 40k counts as "future weapons" but that's not what I meant.)

I still don't have a plan. Well, I have the most basic of guidelines... "make him look different."

Okay, the gun arm needs some changing. Let's saw it off. It's almost like this model was designed for straight saw cuts. I'm really liking the alignment of everything.

This would be much more difficult without a saw.

 Next, that odd "left arm up" pose needs to change more, so let's cut the legs off.

Count the arms, the legs, the heads and then divide by 5

 Now put the legs back on, but trying now to give him a more upright posture. To accentuate this I elevated the right leg a little and cut the integral basing off the left leg. I positioned him squashing a Striking Scorpion. Someone had given me the model without a sword arm, so I cannibalized one from a Harlequin (assuring the Harly that he would get a H's kiss later) and semi-buried the sword to look as if the SS is being embedded in mud ... or something.... I didn't have much og a plan.

That said, the posture a quite a bit different. I decided to keep "crazy face" as is. That's a little too much conversion for me right now. Maybe on another one I'll just make that a big mouth with a tongue coming out. Hmmm. Maybe I'll still do that....

Next, I figured I'd give him a power scourge. S8 AP2, and it lowers the weapon skill of models in base contact. While this may be good against a small unit it falls apart against anything with more models engaged (within 2" of a model in base contact) than actually in base contact. Since you use the majority weapon skill of the engaged models, this guy won't be getting an advantage from the lower WS on any unit larger than about 5 models. Those in base contact use their actual WS to attack, so theoretically he could get hit on 5+ instead of 4+ or on 4+ instead of 3+. So why take a power scourge if it costs 10 points more and is on the whole worse than a power fist? I don't know! You act like I had a plan in all this! I just wanted it to be different.

In coming up with a mounting for the power scourge, I ended up gluing the arm that I had just cut off right back where it was originally. That's the risk when you don't have a plan I suppose. I then cut the arm at the armor point and carved down the back of it enough to fit the forearm shield over it. Cutting left a hole in the arm, which I used to connect the individual lashes of the scourge. I wanted something blade-like at the end of each, so I cut the fingers off the power fist and attached them.

The end result? I hate it. 

Seriously awful. Let's see what we can do to fix that.
First, I shortened each of the lashes by about 30%. Then I rebent them to go up instead of in front of him. I was really hoping to avoid the pose with the left arm in the air again, but oh well.

Is that better? I'm pretty sure that's better. I still need to do... something to it. Something on the end would be good. Maybe I'll thread styrene tubes on makes a more mechanical looking connection for each of the lashes. Also, I use Privateer Press palette paper but not the Privateer Press wet palette. It's pants.

So, more unplanned conversion to come! Maybe!

Converting the Helbrute With No Plan .. Part 1

The helbrute is a fun model. I don't know what the general consensus is regarding the sculpt, but I rather like it. The way it fits together is clever without being crazy (I'm looking at you Chosen.) Still, his dynamic pose is way to distinct to field more than one without them looking like they are background dancers. He's not the most egregious example of this I've seen, but being plastic I decided to chop him up and see what happens.

Oh, yeah. I don't have a plan. Oh, well. Let's get cutting!

First step, cut off that power fist arm! I assembled it and then sawed as straight and cleanly as I could to make a flush connection on the body. Next, I cut the multi-melta barrels off. I want to be able to interchange the weapon but don't want to lose the option of the multi-melta so I tried to cut as clean as possible. What was left were two holes big enough to glue styrene tubes into. There! Pegs!

I put the original barrels on the pegs and glued a tiny square of sprue between them to keep them together. They stay pretty well. Okay! Gun mount ready to make more guns! But what?

I put the front of the 'brute on just to see how it all fits, and the armor plate on the front doesn't intrude on the place where I cut the arm off. Hmmm. Maybe I'll convert that into a power scourge. That would give me a very different looking model.

Next I'm going to have to do something about that lopsided pose. But what? I don't know! I don't have a plan!!! I'm just cutting and guessing and gluing!

More in part 2.

Want: FW Chaos Sorcerer and Spawn

I don't experience ForgeWorld lust.... often. Sayl the Faithless and Nightmaw on the other hand is 90% ooooooh and 10% whuuu? Slap Ahriman's backpack on this guy and he would be an amazing CSM Sorcerer. That left arm though is a mystery. Check out the FW page I linked for closeups. Never have I seen such a "I rolled some green stuff and wrapped it around a staff" sculpt at FW. I almost expected to see fingerprints left in putty. So if I get this guy I might chop off the staff and replace it with something better. Maybe a Kromlech Technomage staff.

Is $35 a little steep for this model? Maybe, considering I still have quite enough Chaos Sorcerers to last me a while.

Plague Toads as spawn though? That would make me really happy like.

"Great" Unclean One? Not so much.

I assembled and based the crappy recast Great Unclean One that I thought was such a great eBay find a few months ago. He is tiny, to say the least. Next to my Slaaneshi Sorcerer the lack of mass is rather obvious. Sure, he's pretty porky but he doesn't have much more heft than terminator armor. He certainly doesn't seem to inspire "greater daemon" status. If prowess as a daemon was measured in the number of mouths you have, this fellow would rank pretty high. I think this model has at least 10 mouths in various places, including fingers on the left hand.

So now I'm wondering what to do with this fellow. I just liked the model when I acquired him and had not started Chaos Space Marines at the time. Now I'm thinking either Daemon Prince of Nurgle (sans power armor, maybe add psychic levels) or as just a spawn. Spawn-hood seems an ignoble end for a former greater daemon model. I already have a Daemon Prince of Nurgle in the form of an Ultraforge resin model, so this guy would only really be useful if I wanted to run two DP's as my HQ.

Here's the comparative sizes. Now that I'm looking at it the basing may be accentuating the differences somewhat. Then again, the Ultraforge Greater Plague Daemon dwarfs the Ultraforge model I'm using as my DP.

I keep adding photos to this post... Okay, here is the Ultraforge greater daemon for comparison.

The Ultraforge model is easily 5x the volume of the metal one. Even if I end up starting a Chaos Daemons army to ally with my Chaos Marines, I would use the Ultraforge model for my greater daemon over the recast. I just don't know where he fits best.

So... thoughts?

A Guide For Selling Recasts On eBay

Old miniatures can be hard to come by, and often collectors want an exorbitant amount for them, so if you do find a rare gem why not reproduce and sell the thing yourself on eBay? There's no reason why you can't profit on things that people can't buy directly from the manufacturer, right? Of course, nobody wants to knowingly buy a knock-off of the original so you'll have to make sure you avoid mentioning the mini's origin. Here are some handy tips for the aspiring recaster:

1. Make sure you have plenty for sale

Nobody can buy something if it isn't for sale, right? Make sure you have lots of stock ready to roll. Scarcity is an artificial concept in this global economy, right? If anyone is suspicious as to how you just happened to have 30 Games Day minis to sell, concoct a tale of getting them surplus from a GW store that closed or something.

2. Don't worry about cleaning the original model

Mold lines and vents are just part of the original sculpt, and you want to reproduce the original sculpt as faithfully as possible, right? Leave the original in exactly the same condition you acquired it in to preserve the integrity. Smash vents as flat as possible to the surface of the model rather than trimming them off before making your original mold.

3. Don't worry if the recast isn't as good as the original

Most people buying these probably haven't even seen the original, so how are they going to tell? For all they know the original sculpt had that deformed hand or was missing that spike. Most people just paint detail on anyway.

4. A little "used" look goes a long way

Make sure to soak the finished recast in simple green for a few hours to tarnish the surface, or put a three color paint job on the model so thick that details are obscured. If it looks like it was painted up many years ago or just sat around tarnishing in a box people are more likely to accept that it's an original model.

5. If you take a photo make it a bad one

For your eBay auction, make sure you take the worst possible photo that still shows what the mini is. Using a web cam or an old camera phone with a flash are the best ways to do this. Alternately, include no photo of your own but just use a photo from the manufacturer's web site.

6. When confronted, feign ignorance

"I didn't know. I got that in a trade a few years back from some guy at a bit swap," you can claim. Most buyers will just bite the bullet and accept that you sold on good faith.

7. Enjoy life to its fullest

...because there's a special hell for people like you. Special hell.

Black Crusade Sale (35% off GW)

Check this out. Ministomp.com is having a Black Friday Crusade sale. All GW regular stock items are 35% off until December 9. I don't typically post ads here (Kickstarter posts aside) but I think there will be a lot of interest in this and I know the owner.

Email blackcrusade@ministomp.com and you'll be shared a personalized Google spreadsheet for your order. Fill it out and email them again when you're ready to buy.

Trying DIY Havoc Autocannons

After assembling my new box of Finecast Havocs, I find myself drawn into the trap of wanting four of every field-able Havoc weapon. Since GW has not deigned to release a Havoc box yet with the value of the Space Marine Devastators I have the option of buying four boxes of Havocs (ouch) or converting my own. Cheapness ... uh, I mean creativity! won out.

 Here is iteration #1, based on (what else) the heavy bolter that comes with every box of CSM. I would still like to mount an ammo box under it and re-position the ammo feed to look like it's feeding into the cartridge ejection point, more in line with the "official" autocannon.

You can see that they really aren't dramatically different side by side.

I pretty much free-handed the holes in the barrel, which leaves them a little wonky. The square mount at the front is just a section from a chainsword with the sides filed down. If there's one thing I have plenty of it's chainswords.

 Okay, so for the next one, I wanted to try to make the holes more even. To that end I created a fixture of plastic to lay the tube in and mark the holes. I pinned it to increase strength.

The next step was to mark the placement of the holes, based on the original Fincast Havoc.

 To mark the holes I laid the barrel tube into the V of the fixture, then laid a small rod next to it. Getting a straight line would have been hard without that extra spacing. I used an awl to poke holes at the marks.

 After drilling out each of the marks, I can't say I'm entirely happy with the results. It's certainly closer to being in a straight line, but not quite there. I was able to make both barrels look better with a little selective pin-vise work, but of course didn't take a picture. I'm thinking maybe gluing a small square piece to act as straight edge instead of the rod. If I make the square piece 1/2 the diameter of the barrel that would give me a very precise spot to mark. Of course by the time I get this fixture perfected I will be done converting autocannons. I suppose I could use them to make Ork big shootas or something.

I still have two more to go, so more improvements should be made. I plan on trying a pistol arm for the next one that should more closely resemble the official autocannon's grip.

Slaaneshi Helbrute WIP 1

Fresh off my victory with the new Chaos Space Marines army, I put a little time in last night on the Helbrute. You can't give them specific marks of chaos, but I decided to paint mine up Slaaneshi. I will probably convert another one to be Nurgle at some point.

So here it is at present, press fit for the picture. The only conversions currently are the power fist and the head, which I wanted to have a helmet rather than the crazy face that comes with it. 

 I'm using human flesh tones for him, and given how much exposed flesh he has it should be a little disconcerting. I put a random shatter pattern on the purple armor plates but I'm not happy with how indistinct the lines are. I will probably go back and edge then with darker purple to clean them up. The base is cork and corrugated styrene (my new favorite basing material) and styrene tubes with Vallejo black lava fill.

I'm just going for a non-specific industrial ruin look. I'm doing the whole army like this. 

The power fist on the Helbrute is a little stubby for my taste, so I modded it to have longer claw fingers. You can see the severed fingers on the left. The new fingers are the horns from one of the CSM heads on the accessory/champion sprue. It actually the same head that I used for the Helbrute's head-swap. I really like the longer claw look.

Future plans include adding a Slaanesh icon somewhere on the model. Not sure where at this point. Also, I am looking at that multi-melta and I think I could saw it off and leave a generic weapon mount there that could accept various weapons. I know people like to magnetize, but for things like this pins work just as well for me.

Chaos Triumphant!

I have been playing 40k since late 4th edition. In all that time I have, maybe, played a dozen games. I am not a frequent gamer, to say the least. I also lose a lot. A whole lot. As in "Man, you really stink at this" a lot.

But I am getting better.

It started with Warmachine. We play small games about once a week on lunch hour, and I had a terrible record when we just lined up and beat face. My Khador opponent would regularly disassemble my poor Menites with gusto. We started playing with scenario rules, and my entire focus changed. Suddenly I am maneuvering to score VP rather than just weather the armored onslaught. Come to think of it, it probably started when I was playing Malifaux, the only game I've ever played where you can get tabled and still win. Your mindset is all about the VP in Malifaux. Anyway, my Warmachine opponent was shocked to see that I was actually starting to win games.

This Saturday I played my first game of 40k 6th edition, and won 5 VP to 0. I was playing my shiny new Nurgle/Slaanesh list against a plasma cannon heavy Dark Angels army. There was definitely some dice luck involved, especially since I stole the initiative and got first blood from his aggressive deployment, but I had a plan and executed it. The units that I intended for various jobs did them, for the most part. I suppose the dice luck went both ways... his making 9 power armor saves and 14 terminator armor saves in a row defies the odds.

I played a list very similar to the once posted here. Those zombies last forever against a regular Devastator squad. I can imagine a dedicated assault unit giving them a hard time, but when you only get 10 or 11 attacks against them it's a slow grind to kill them all. Typhus was worth taking just for that.

The positioning of models was a challenge for me. I was able to protect my Havoc heavy weapons just fine with the extra marines in the unit, but getting my aspiring champions into combat gave me problems. I was hesitant to put them up front for fear of removing them to shooting (look out sir notwithstanding.) I lost a whole unit of marines to sweeping advance without the champ taking a single power fist swing. Granted they were swept by terminators, which I pretty much know can't happen but I didn't feel like making the guy look it up since it was already late in the game and this fight was not in a crucial area of the board. I simply commented that normal terminators can't sweeping advance, but if Deathwing can then that's an awesome advantage over regular termies. Discussion over. He was already thinking about ditching his army by the end of the game ("Marines suck ass" I believe was his rationale) so I didn't want to add fuel to the fire. As it is, running out of hull points wrecking his land raider took him entirely by surprise. They're not nearly as unstoppable as in 5th, especially if you have a habit of rolling 1's on the vehicle damage chart like I do. I really tried not to be a jerk about winning either. I am a gracious loser, but have less experience being a gracious winner. Or any kind of winner.

So! Next game... when? Who knows? I get about four games in per edition it seems, so no hurry. I have my heart set on playing a friend's Blood Angels. My veterans of the long war look forward to their re-rolls.

Oh, and Warp Kittens cleaned up. Seriously. Whole squads dead before they could strike back. I love that  mark of Slaanesh,

Birth of the Warp Kittens

My kids and I, for reasons I cannot quite remember, came up with this idea of Chaos jump troops with tiny cat heads. Warp Talons seemed the perfect use for this, and so the Warp Kittens were born.

It's a work in progress...

Rough, I know. I haven't sculpted much, especially something like cat heads. These are the first attempts, and will get some changes before they are final. I put them in the Warp Talon bodies for their debut in this weekend's 40k gaming fest.

Silly? Yeah, sure. I mean, come on. It's chaos. If you don't have a sense of humor about the spiky adolescent power fantasy army then go play...uh... well, Marines I guess. The non-spiky adolescent power fantasy army.