The Sons of Caliban

Hello all, Schlemazal here (introduction post here, in case you want to know who I am). Now that the world has decided not to end, it’s time to look forward to the next release for my favorite army, the Dark Angels. The DA have been my primary army, through thick and thin, since the tail end of 3^rd edition (mostly because I’m as stubborn as my terminators used to be), so I’m excited to see an update that will make them actually competitive again. I’m going to reserve any real judgment on the rules (or Matt Ward’s fluff) until I can actually see the codex, but we can still talk about the rumors and some of the models that have been shown off.

I hope this is just a bad photo, otherwise that is some ridiculous motion blur

I’m cautiously optimistic about most of what I’ve seen, so we’ll start with what I see as the good:

1 – Army-wide rule making plasma less dangerous to use. I know there’s some question as to whether or not the Dark Angels really have more access to plasma weaponry than other chapters, but I think the preference has been there since 3^rd Edition when we had slightly cheaper plasma cannons and I’m happy to see this preference really becoming official.

2 – Banners conferring army rules rather than special characters. One of the biggest issues I’ve had with the recent codices has been the emphasis on particular special characters being used to define how an army plays, and I’m very pleased to see that GW is finally moving away from this model.

Azrael approves of banners

3 – Models. I like almost all the new models I’ve seen (with the notable exception of the new landspeeder, but I’ll talk about that in a moment). I think the new flyer (Nephilim) looks very slick, and the rules to go with it sound good for an air-superiority fighter. The new terminator models are amazing as well in my opinion, and I will definitely be buying some. I also like that they seem to have finally picked a monkish theme to stick with rather than alternating between Dark Angels being monks/knights and native americans.

I was in the middle of updating these suckers too

4 – Sternguard Veterans. I’ve wanted to be able to field these ever since they came out in Codex: SM, and now I finally can.

Now the bad:

1 – My main complaint with the new codex is simply the lack of attention to most of the chapter. While this may turn out to not be the case at all, the rumors make it seem that virtually all the new units and models are Deathwing/Ravenwing. I get that they are the ‘interesting’ portion of the chapter, but as somebody who has traditionally fielded a company list, I’d like to see some love for the other 80% of the chapter (Occupy the Rock anyone?).

 2 – Land Speeder Vengeance. In addition to simply being an ugly model, I can’t help but feel like this won’t be a particularly useful unit. No matter what the Plasma Storm Battery actually does, having an armament like that in addition to an assault cannon and a heavy bolter is far too many weapons for a speeder. Land speeders die very quickly, and one with that much firepower will only draw more attention, along with a higher points cost.

The Unknown:

1 – Deathwing Knights. I have mixed feelings on this unit. On the one side, it strikes me as very cool, but at the same time, the idea of arming terminators with weapons that can’t even kill marines is frankly insane. This one really depends on how much they cost and what their special rules do.

2 – The Dark Talon. I’m hoping that this one is as cool as the Nephilim, though I will have to wait and see. The Rift Cannon is basically a giant question mark right now.

3 – The Fluff. With Matt Ward writing the codex, I’m desperately hoping that the fluff won’t be mangled. As always, I’m going to be cautiously optimistic in this case. Besides, he can’t possibly come up with anything more insane than the idea that the Dark Angels are actually a chaos sect trying to stop the emperor’s reincarnated spirit/starchild (Cypher) from reaching the golden throne and slaying his own corpse to set his psychic powers free and destroy the chaos gods, right? On second thought, I’m not sure I want to know the answer to that question.

Ask your chaplain if Matt Ward is right for you before use

As always, comments and suggestions are appreciated.

HUMOUR: "Converted" Necron Flyers (and 300th Post Thank You!)

Probably the shortest post I will ever do, but I got a kick out of these "converted" Necron Flyers.

I think the one on the left is a Night Scythe and the one on the right is a Doom Scythe.

I expect to see these entered in Golden Demon at the next French Gamesday, that is if they make it past the mid-game snack.

EDIT: WOAH, this is my 300th post! That is amazing. Well, I don't plan on stopping any time soon, and I only have a few more months in Japan, so there should be an escalation in the number and quality of posts in 2013 (assuming we all survive past Friday, thanks for that one Mayans). I started this blog 4 years ago, and it has been great. Here is to another great 4 years and I hope I can continue to provide quality hobby related material for all my readers. Thank you everyone for stopping by and listening to my mad rants and rumblings and complimenting me on my work. Some special shout outs to Ron from FTW (really gave me my start with the FTW network), the BOLS guys for keeping my blog on the blogroll while I am on deployment and not posting (allows me to get right back on the horse when I am back) and some cool guys like Admiral Drax, Soviet Space, Mordian 7th and my other truely dedicated readers/commenters (at 0130 I can't remember your names, if I do later, I will try to retro add them. Sorry!). As well, thankyou to my friend Discordian for contributing so much and ranting so well! And thank you Schlemazal and Mesdoram for continuing to talk 40k to me, despite a continent and ocean between us. Last, but certantly not least, thanks to my Beautiful wife, Mrs. Gothmog, for putting up with this crazy hobby of mine and my obsession with it.

On Zues' Anvil: Resurrection of an Imperial Thunderbolt- Part Two

So a while back I posted the begginings of my work to rebuild and ressurect my Forge World Imperial Thunderbolt Flyer. Most of the progress made is in that post (hyperlinked), including what I did to reattach wings, fill in missing parts, prime, and start painting.

Below is just an update on what I have done so far since then. Not much other than to have put down the majority of the basecoat and painted the inside of the cockpit.

Base Coat pain courtesy of Lowes.

Flight Lt Gabriel Constantine at his Controls

And a quick look at those controls

Yes, before you ask the helmet was inspired by this:

I said inspired, not identical

Blood Angel Assault Marine, Honour Guard and Sanguinary Terminators WIPs (CONVERSIONS)

SO sorry I am a little delayed after my last post. And I haven't go to work on my Blood Angels at all since then either, though after this I am watching an episode of 20th century battlefields and doing just that.

BUT for now some WIP photos.

This is just a simple paint update: 10 assault marines in progress. You can notice some kitbashing through out, as well as chapterhouse helmet and a FW chainaxe.

Next for some more COOL stuff. So my angels are based around 2nd Company. As such I need a captain and honour guard. And I need an honour guard to paint a freehand 2nd company banner for to do a tutorial. So here they are.

To run through, the captain is on the left and is based off an Ultramarine champion. He has a little bit of work left to make him a full on blood angel, but I can't wait to show the final results. He will be pretty convincing in my opinion. Next, in back, you have a banner bearer and a Sanguinary Priest. The bearer is kit bashed Death Company and Command Squad with an old metal Death Company Power Sword. The Priest is just an old metal apothecary with a new Death Company chainsword.

Now the two in front, those are currently my favourite of the squad. So the center one is the Tech Adept. For you old BA players, you'll recall that old staple of the honour guard. Well I still adhere to that fluff as discussed some time ago.

So he consits of Sanguinary Guard legs (the tech adepts had artificer armour after all), a tank crew torso, FW character upgrade arm and plasma pistol and Storm Raven pilot helmet. The Axe head is cut off an old trashed techmarine I had lying around and glued to a plastic assault marine axe. I think he looks awesome and I plan on giving him one of the Chapterhouse Studio jump packs (turbo fans!).

The other guy is just a veteran, but a cool one at that.

Sanguinary Guard legs again (it is what I had, plus they really worked for the pose). The torso is from an old metal space marine biker. Just the way he is holding the plasma gun is great. Sure plasma guns may not be the best for jump pack equipped models, but I don't plan on using this squad in game very often at all. They are more for hobby purposes and show than gaming. Anyways, finished up with a normal bolt pistol that went really well with the flow of the model and a knife on the belt for that added umph of detail.

NOW FOR SOMETHING REALLY COOL (well at least to me).

So I really like the new Cataphractii (sp?) terminators from Forge World. They are pretty cool. BUT I thought I could take it a step further and make some really Blood Angel looking ones. Here is what I have so far.

So these just take a normal Terminator Assault Squad for the backs, part of the front and the legs. I then chopped off the front of each torso and added the Sanguinary Guard torso (slightly trimmed in back) and Grey Knight heads.Still have a little green stuff work to do with some gaps, but you can't really see that in the photos.

To finish them they are going to get Chapterhouse Studio shoulderpads and thundershields (all will be TH & SS termies)

SO there you go. Just a quick update on my work.

2012 Goal Status, Looking towards 2013

So 2012 is nearly over, and possibly the world with it if the Mayans have it their way, but this isn't a cosmic burger king, so I think the world will go on.

Most likely explanation IMO

2012 has seen ALOT for me. I am a dad now! I have a 3 month old son and he is AWESOME. Backtracking on that thought, that meant for the first 9 months of 2012 I had a pregnant wife. Career wise I have been underway somewhere around 6-7 months this year. I got my Officer of the Deck qual back in march, my Surface Warfare Officer qualification in June and I promote to LTJG in less than a week! I have traveled all over (Korea, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Guam, Phillipines, Okinawa and all over Japan). It has just been crazy.

In all that time, I have had very little time for Warhammer as you can imagine. Plus I have nbo one to play, and that makes motivation tough to work on models, especially painting as I have no one nagging me. But I haven't forgotten about it and I look forward the work I will be doing this month.

So lets see how I did against my Hobby Goals for 2012.

1- Finish painting/basing my 2000 pt Blood Angels Army.
STATUS- INCOMPLETE: I have made progress but not nearly enough, for all the above reasons. Plus 6th ed really shook this up as I wasn't sure what to paint. And my Sanguinary Guard really slowed me down. They took forever and were tough. This inport period. is dedicated to an Assault Squad and Terminators though. And what awesome terminators they are. Tomorrow I will have some WIPs up. I have actually been working on painting 10 marines this week and I am about 30% done with them. This will eb a great leap forward if I get them done. Goal date by 18 dec (1 more week).

2- Finish buying/building my Genswick army to accommodate all list variants.
STATUS- 85~90% Complete- This would be more complete had I not changed some aspects of the project, such as my plan for strom troopers. However, I am close to owning everything and just need to put a few things together. Work on my Thunderbolt also stepped in the way of this one, but with 6th ed, that may yet become a vital piece (as well expect a WIP update on this this week). As a break/distraction from BA I have 2 half done Savlar that I will finish and post up. Test schemes. As well, I have a cool idea/update to do about this army in the near future. Lets just say I was inspired by the book Angel of Fire.

3- Start posting tutorials online.
STATUS- INCOMPLETE: I do have one planned between now and January however. A Freehand Banner Tutorial. I WILL paint my second company banner. I will I will I will. Overall I am sorry on this one as it benefits the reader the most. The first paragraph really explains why this didn't happen.

4- Continue expanding my Terrain collection.
STATUS- 50% Complete- So I have more terrain then I had in the past. But I virtually had none in the past. I also need to paint/flock what I have. I also want to get some GW plastic buildings, but that is more of a money issue and will happen in due course.

5- Resume some of the old blog series I did.
STATUS- INCOMPLETE: In all honesty I doubt I do ressurect these dinosaurs. The only one really worth saving IMO is the Free Missions. As I get more into 6th ed, this is more likely to happen, but I really have to familiarize myself with it. And find a place to store them online. The only thing I will likely do more of is book reviews.

6- Try to write a short story for the BL summer submission window.
STATUS- MISSED. Being on the ship really hampers this one. I have some brainstorms and basic outlines but nothing more concrete. Luckily this one can just roll over if I get on with it.

7- Give my Specialist Games forces some love.
STATUS- INCOMPLETE. Really didn't get enough done on the first two, so why move onto this. I will likely break this down into a smaller chunk for 2013. Probably just stick to my blood bowl team (I hope to find/start a league when I get back stateside, which will happen in 2013).

8- Speaking of requiring a little love: My Bretonnians require alot.
STATUS- THEY STILL DO. Yep, nothing here. Move along folks. I am really out of date on the fantasy scene. I will hold onto these guys for now, and would love to get them into a playable force . I know fantasy can be a great game, but I have heard the current edition is GARBAGE. Really I have heard magic is, but that is a huge part of it isn't it. Back burner indefinately for these guys, and if nothing goes on the up and up, maybe Ebay, but lets not hope it comes to that.

OVERALL- I did pretty poorly, BUT in terms of what I was faced with this year, not to shabby I guess. I will sit and think on what I shoudl do for 2013, and likely scale this all back. Expect to see the new goals on the 1st.

I am the ice cube and an entirely painted model collection is the Titanic