Perils of the Warp

Greetings from the US of A. The jetlag is starting to slowly die down and it's time to start posting again. This is the carnage that was the result of traveling. Perils of the warp for sure! Luckily everything broke at places it was glued together so it was just a case of bringing out the glue and go to town. Also note that the plastic colored Captain has a little problem, yes, I put the darn flagpole on the wrong way. That had to be fixed too.

And this is the result, now they look dressed for success again :)

And in my excitement I started to paint the dreadnaught as well. Gonna take quite some time to finnish that bugger I'm suspecting. I think that the Ironclad will be painted in parts and then assembled. It's just a better way of doing things for me. Cleaner if nothing else.

Oh, and if you think the quality of the pictures are different it's because I just *had* to try out my new iPhone 3GS :) I will steal my wife's camera in the future as it surely will take better pictures being a camera only type of device, and I did brought my gorilla pod:)

Bye bye Sweden

Time for a real life post. There won't be many, this is a miniature wargaming blog after all. I've decided to keep myself to one broad subject per blog. I am sure nobody wants to read about all the aspects of my life after all :)

This is a big one though, because this is the last evening I will spend in Sweden for some time to come, as I am moving to the US of A tomorrow. One way ticket. First Class. Immigrating. Ad astra, ad infinitum.

I'll be back blogging in a few days. Hopefully with pictures :)

Hej då Sverige!

Playing IG

Got my first chance at playing IG. Felt odd fighting a foe I knew very little about. Guess I'm the type of person who will end up owning all the codexes, just so I can know:) Fought with my normal force, with lascannons on both of the Razorbacks. It felt weird facing so many tanks and models as my army felt a lot smaller.

Ended up with one objective on the far right in my deployment zone, and one directly over the other side in my opponents. My plan was to try the tricksy play style (in the event you read this, you know who you are who inspired that) so I reserved my entire chanterelle fighting force. I was going to let one combat squad hold my objective and use one of the razorbacks to contest the other. Boy did half of that plan go south quickly.

Everything but my dread ended up on the table in the first reserve roll. Go figure! Both my razorbacks got popped real quickly, without dealing any sort of punch first! Yes, epic fail on those two. Two hunter killers fired, both misses, and like 3-4 twin-linked lascannons that utterly failed doing enough real damage. Think I did pop a transport though. That put my two "super" squads on the board instead of their taxis.

One of the lascannon squads ended up killing a vehicle. Good times. My now foot slogging soldiers ended up tying up a squad of walkers and utterly destroying a bunch of IG veteran troops. I love weak IG saves. I especially liked tearing into them with power fists and power weapons. I want terminators :)

For once my dread did his work. It came in on turn four I think, and while on the board it managed to get a weapon destroyed (multi-melta) but not before popping one vehicle with it, and then I was able to assault another vehicle, ending up destroying that as well. Good times, good times.

There was no chance I'd get over to the other side of the board with anything, so we ended up holding our own objectives and it ended in a draw. Razorbacks are too expensive to not fire with, so I move them slowly and they don't end up getting that far before turing into smoldering wrecks (two hits, two sixes, two exploded Razorbacks, bad karma anyone?). I need to be able to get further with them, and I should just dump the lascannons for assault guns. Drive 12" the first turn and pop smoke, and then let that Heavy 4 tear into my enemies with a land raider in there for fun (i.e. my idea of a 1500p IF army).

Last game in Sweden ended up a draw. I'm curious of what my first US game will look like:)

The future of the fists

List building. It's my latest pastime. I've come to that point where list building is a fun idea. I'm thinking of how to bring my IFs up to let's say 1500 points for instance. Like Chernobyl commented I've been thinking of retiring my captains and replacing them with Lysander for some more punch. Not quite sure what his bolter drill would do for me though. I need to fight something else than other marines, they don't particularly die much when shot by bolters for some reason:)

I was thinking of replacing my underperforming dread with a very close combat styled ironclad dread (think two close combat weapons and two heavy flamers) as well, as that would go well with the captain switching. And to bring it up to 1500, well, terminators *do* sound real nice. But what is best, two squads of five or one squad of ten? With Lysander joining terminators. They are dead 'ard, but they can't be everywhere on the other hand.

I have also started to play around with building lists just for the heck of it. As kind of an exercise to understanding the codex better. Through this I've found that it is very fun to try to think up ways of making themed lists with a certain goal. Like the Raven Guard style list I came up with. I am totally sure that somewhere out there there are someone else already having done this, but the idea of a list totally void of mechanized mayhem appeals to me. I don't want to copy somebody else's winning list, I want to make my own, by being creative. Yes, I've been inspired, and you all have to guess by whom yourself :P

Oh, and that play list? This is it:

Shadow Captain Kayvaan Shrike 195

Assualt Squad, 5 extra marines, double lightning claws, Melta bomb 225

Assualt Squad, 5 extra marines, double lightning claws, Melta bomb 225

Assualt Squad, 5 extra marines, double lightning claws, Melta bomb 225

Scout Squad, Sniper, camo, 4 extra scouts 154

Scout Squad, Sniper, camo, 4 extra scouts 154

Scout Squad, Combat blade, combi-melta, melta bombs 155

Scout Squad, Combat blade, combi-melta, melta bombs 155

1,488

And with 12p to spare :) Hmm, that is like 14 boxes and one blister. And lots and lots of more painting. I do wonder if such an army is even viable. No reserves, just infiltrate like crazy, go heavy on the sniping and use fleet of foot to get into assault fast.

Bah. I need to play more :)

First game

Two games of Warhammer 40k played today. Basically the list I posted before (hellfire rounds did jump over to the other captain though, since I didn't have the right gun on the other one, and one razorback got the twin linked assault cannon). The first game was more of a warm up play thing. Played 2 vs 2 players in teams with a fifth player deep striking randomly in the center of one of 1/3rd of the game board. Sounds confusing? It was, but it was mostly a test thing to get going. Funny enough my team won and I lost two marines in a razorback if I recall correctly. But oh well, it was just not that proper yet.

On to the second game. 1000pts, Imperial Fists vs Chaos Space Marines. I was facing two rhinos, one squad of Berserkers, one squad of Plague Marines and a Predator. I felt that reserves was a bit too advanced for me quite yet so I deployed pretty evenly over the field with the lascannons in the corners and the razorbacks and dread in the middle.

The lascannons definitly were the starts of the show. They popped a rhino and the predator. I concentrated my guys on first the bikes and then the plague marines, whittling them down on by one. Now the start of the show was definitely the captain with the power fist who took a few turns to turn them into mince meat. By removing or suppressing his long range firepower I stayed away long enough to fire a lot of shots by be fairly unaffected by his shooting. The dread and one razorback got immobilized but continued to punish the traitors.

I won by 4 killpoints to none and I lost in total one flamer marine and one standard marine. Pretty good for a first game but I felt that this is far from my trial by fire. Never the less I got a feel for the rules in action and we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

State of the Fists 4

Tomorrow is the big day, tomorrow the Fists go to war for the very first time. I have a firm grasp of the general rules, but there are several minor rules that I surely won't remember. I just hope that my opponents are forgiving (they might see me as an easy win, but I will fight back:)) and I will try to focus on using what I know and see how it goes. My goal is mainly to get to play the game and get some playtime in before I move. Which is soon now! I have actually gotten my US visa approved:)

Here we have my two lascannon guys. The missions will be Annihilation so I'll probably pop vehicles with them and then concentrate my fire to try to break morale. I don't expect their 4 fellow marines will do much unless my enemy either kills them or gets within 24" of them :)

I painted the "thingie" at the back green and give it a *very* liberal wash of Thrakka Green. Then I decided to put a violet was over Fenris Grey on the other one. Not too happy with the result of that one though. The other Fenris + purple combo (leviathan purple I think) turned out great. I.e. the hose and the, ehm, thingy on the barrel. Also went for a very black backpack. Anything having opinions?:)

My second Razorback. Looks like it was pretty much seriously rushed out of the manefactorium, big time. But it *will* be finished in the future and hopefully looking ok. I plan on numbering it II while the first one gets I. No big surprises there:) Like the interior? It's the same as #I with one minor difference. Unfortunately it's impossible to see on this picture unless you know what you are looking for. Maybe maybe I'll change #I to look like #2 :)

The Dozer blades are fully magnetized on both of them now. Looks neat and works neat. Here you can see the fairly large magnets hidden inside the Razorback. The stick on quite well. I have to magnetize weapons, doors (on #2), and well, that's it I guess. But it has to be done never the less:)

And now for a blurry with flashlight group photo! Don't they look chanterelle-tastic? I should hook them up with a better photo op when I have painted more of them. I am considering switching out the AoBR Dreadnaught for a new one so I get some more weapon options. Or switch the bugger out completely and get some Land Speeder Storm love and people seem to love those Predators and Land Raiders. Hmm, what is a Chapter Master to do :)

I'll return with a brief report on how things turn out tomorrow.

State of the Fists 3

Woot! My Fists now have one more Razorback that has the interior painted fully (I have realized that I have no Purity Seal sprayed in there on either. So I will have to remember that!). Other than that it is black and have no magnets or weapons. Have to work on the weapons when I get back from Stockholm.

I will put magnets in for the Dozer blade just like the other one, but this time I will remember to take a photo before I seal it all up. I've got two pretty strong magnets glued in the drivers compartment that easily should hold a blade. I just have to incorporate magnets on the blade in a cool fashion. Thinking of going all Boltgun metal crazy on the blades, so it should fit right in unpainted though. Magnets are so nice.

I will just throw the weapons together so I can play. Thinking of having them put together with "häftmassa" (blue-tac?) so I can play as I don't want to glue all of it as I want the ability to switch weapons. Might even get hold of an Assault cannon! Which would be awesome sauce for sure! A Heavy 4 should give me more crowd killing after all.

I have also assembled (and painted!) one of the Lascannon Marines and a second one is well under way. Pictures will come! I need to base the last lot and I still need to put on the transfers. Guess I've been reluctant because I fear failure. But what the heck, I'll throw them on soon:) I am also thinking of somehow getting the black up arrows on the right shoulders as well. But that wouldn't work well with my Devastators though. Then again I don't think that I will ever play them as such, but rather have options for lascannon, heavy bolters, and rocket launchers for my marines. I do wonder if heavy weapon guys in Tactical Squads have the Tactical Squad or Devastator markings. Hmm.

I will put up a group photo of the whole force as soon as everything is assembled. I will push on and paint everything after gaming is done. The dread might be replaced soon as the AoBR model somehow ended up getting the arms glued, so I can't even switch weapons around. *wops* Might pick up one of those nifty Ironclad Dreadnaught boxes soon, maybe even get two and replace one of the Captains just for fun, or just use it to expand towards 1500. I do dearly want those storms though, but I am starting to think that a scout squad with sniper rifles isn't a good idea in one of those. It's going to be contest / objective grabber after all.

Next post will have pictures, promise :)