Big Boss 'ead BBQ Shed

I got my hands on Games Workshop's Big 'ed Bossbunker. It is a nice Orky terrain piece, I think it will look good with the new Ork buildings from Kill Team. It makes a convincing command and/or BBQ bunker. Depending on the day, of course. 

It assembled with ease, and took paint very well. Some days it's hard to paint random and slapdash, yet clever. I think I did okay, we will find out when it goes on the table in a few days for a quick battle.

I have a few more home-made Ork terrain pieces I am working on. I'm going to for that Ork junk-town mek scrapyard feel. 

Go Fling Some Paint

Make it Spontaneous, but Well Thought Out

 

Danger: Sticky Cthulhu

 

This Halloween we played Iello's new release, Sticky Cthulhu!

No. It's not a Japanese tentacle-porn thing.

Mostly not, but it does have sticky tentacles. Oh yes. 

(Sorry for the lack of pictures, but my camera has given up, and I haven't gotten a new one yet.) 

Two to Six Players compete for Mighty Cthulhu's favor by eliminating various creatures that are bothering the Big C. This is done in a fun and very chaotic way: Flinging your sticky tentacle at the target and pulling it back to your clutches without nabbing a pesky Investor.

The target is determined by rolling two dice, one picks the target, the other its color. Then everyone is cleared to fling. You may try and steal from another player, but you may only use the tentacle to do so.

 Herein lays the danger: In our game we had six people flinging wildly at the little cardboard pieces, causing them to fly off the table if not hit squarely. 

And by flying I mean across the room. One made it into the kitchen. Some are still missing.

When two tentacles meet...the players naturally pull back, putting great tension on said tentacles.

One will pull off and snap back at the player with great force. Seriously, someone almost did lose an eye.

The other problem with the game is the target die has the kind of monster on it, but not the shape of piece. Which makes ID'ing the target troublesome. 

So, personal danger, parts that will be lost, kinda confusing gameplay. But it does have sticky tentacles!

Yes, it's fun, but it is a play a few times and done type of game. I can't even sell it on eBay because of the now missing parts...

 

Go Roll Some Dice

With Eye Protection

Doomsday: Countdown Painted

 

I managed to get all 10 figures from Doomsday: Countdown painted. These are the first Ultramarines that I have done. They came out pretty good, if a little dark. I used Contrast Blue over Wraithbone, which made it far too light, so I...did a second coat. Yup, now just a bit dark. A light drybrush of a lighter blue did help a lot. 

The Cultists were a lot of fun to paint. I decided to keep them with a uniform look, which works out well. I have a second set from Blackstone Fortress, that I may give a more rag-tag look to.

Next up I shall do a play-through of Doomsday: Countdown.

Go Sling Some Paint

So You Can Save the Day in Style

Raven Guard & Eldar Vs. Necrons

 

Another good battle, another dead Monolith. Raven Guard have allied with the Eldar to combat the newly risen Necrons. 

The Eldar and Necrons swarm to seize the objectives, while the Marines hid in the ruins and shot the heck out of the zombie robots. 

The Raven Guard are very good at shooting, and very hard to get out of cover. My Deathmarks arrived from hyperspace and were promptly out-snipered and wiped out.

The Monolith deep struck, (as one does, but shouldn't) did a fair amount of damage to the Wraithknight. Just not enough. The following turn my Monolith was removed by force. Again.

I committed my reservers for a last-ditch grab for the center objectives. A Wave Serpent full of Striking Scorpions quashed that plan. 

Then the Raven Guard broke cover to claim the final objectives and sealed the non-robot victory.

A fast and brutal game. One of those matches were it felt like I deployed every unit exactly wrong. 

The firepower of the Eldar and Marines is quite daunting, and I could not match it. A more cautious use of the Monolith would have helped at a lot, but where is the fun in that?

Execute Shift-Alt-Kill

Need to Update First

 

Doomsday Countdown Unbox

 

Foul Chaos Cultists have set an ancient Doomsday device in the center of city hive Vanitine. Three Space Marines must save millions from certain doom!

I found this at a local Barnes & Noble bookstore as I was wandering through it. I vaguely remembered that this game was coming out, but I thought wasn't for a while yet. Happy to be wrong.

Doomsday Countdown is the third in the line of Space Marine Adventures game. Easy and fast playing co-op board games. This is the first one that has miniatures for the bad guys, the other two used counters to good effect. This is just a quick unboxing, I will do a gameplay review in a few days.

Inside the box you will find three Space Marines, seven Cultists, a few stacks of cards, some six-sided and one twenty-sided dice, markers, and the modular map pieces.

The mins are of the push fit type, and assemble very quickly. Production value is very good overall.

The cards and the map sections art work is well done.

The three Primaris Intercessors include a Sergeant, and dude with auspex, and a bolter Joe.

Hailing from the Blackstone Fortress expansion, there are seven Chaos Cultists. Four flunkies with autoguns, one with a grenade launcher, a heavy stubber gunner, and a champion with pistol and chainsword. Really nice figs. 

The plastic tray is cleverly designed to hold all the game components snugly. 

I enjoyed the first game, Labyrinth of the Necrons. I haven't picked up the second game, Rise of the Orks, yet but I will correct that soon.

Go Roll Some Dice

Purge All the Cultists While You are At It.

Outbreak Detected

 

The Zombie Horde is coming soon! I have decided it is time to dive into the putrid forces of Nurgle. 

I have always wanted a big zombie horde roaming the streets of a Imperial city. Just in time for Halloween...

Dawn of the Smiling Dead

Well, Not Quite Dead. Yet.

Special Ops Orks

Da Ladz are here! Well, the Kill Team Ladz, proppa Ladz in two weeks...

I built the Ork side of the new Kill Team set, and damn, they are very cool. I made every one of the specialists and two "normal" Kommando Boyz. Lots of good bitz left over to customize even further.

They are of the not-quite-interchangeable parts school of sculpting. Everybody has a good pose, but only a few variants within that pose. Some parts do fit on other poses just fine, some need encouraging. 

My only gripe with the build was the instructions got real vague for the last two Boyz, and a few parts seemed like they should go somewhere, but I couldn't find them listed anywhere in the instructions. Nothing showstopping, just a minor annoyance.

They should be  lot of fun on the table. I'll get to the Death Korps Veteran figs in the next few days.

Sneaky and Shooty and Stabby

Just as Gork Intended

 

New Kill Team Ork Terrain

                              

I got the New Kill Team box set yesterday. I'm going to read all the rules and have a few battles before I make my verdict on this new version. Today, let's look at the fancy new Ork terrain.

What is this new stuff? Well, it is the very nice rubble and barricade frame from Speed Freeks, an Orky Oil derrick (or brewery) and two sets of the two Ork compound frames. I assembled the terrain, and it looks like this:

Not shown are the rubble and barricades. I left them on the frame to make it easier to prime/paint them.

The buildings are all very well detailed and suability Orky. You get two planks to make nice little walkways between buildings. Oddly, it doesn't tout the cool fact the terrain set can also do this:

That's right! The chunks are cut in such a way that they will snuggle up to each other, and two floating pieces that fill in the gaps. This makes the terrain much more flexible to set-up.

I will get some paint on it, and get to (New) Kill Teamin'.

An Ork Hangout At Last

And a Craft Squig Ale Brewery

New Dice Tower

 

Mrs. Blackheart got a fancy resin 3D printer. A Elegoo Saturn. It's really amazing, I will be showing it off a lot. The learning curve on it is not too bad. Tons of great tutorial videos on the YouTube.

No one really needs a dice tower, but they are fun, and after seeing this one, I really want to give it a try. We have a small collection growing. The best one is a 20 pound beast made out of steel. I'll have to do a post on all the dice towers here at HQ.

This was a project to see if we had gotten most of the mistakes out of the way. Short answer was no...we still needed a bit more practice on generating supports for the print. Second try on the staircase went much, much better. 

The hardest part of the project was finding the correct sized plastic bottle. 

Go Try Something New

Robots are Fun. Mostly.

High-Tech Brush Holder*

 

*Well, the holder isn't hight-tech, but the way it was made sure is. It is a 3D print from Mrs. Blackheart's Pursa FDM printer.    

For the sharp-eye folk out there, yes, it is a half scale replica of the business end of a Avenger GAU-8 30mm gatling gun. The one on the A-10 Warthog. 

I first it saw it on the Internets, somebody had printed it out as a quarter scale display piece. I though, "We should make it twice as big and use it as a brush holder!" As one does.  It was a bit of a hunt to find the STL file so we could rescale it and print one for my very own. 

The muzzle prints as one piece, no supports. Took nine hours, but the Prusa servitor did just fine by itself. 

It was printed in black filament, but I wanted a bit of contrast to it. I found a picture of a GAU-8 sexed-up a bit for an airshow, so I went with that color scheme, not quite as shiny though.

After a bit of creative masking, a quick couple of passes with some Titanium spray paint, it looked great!

Those are cotton balls stuffed inside the vent holes.

Not only a novelty piece, but it does function quite well as a brush holder.

Attack Your Stack

Brush Holder Go BRRRRRRT

Flying Robot Bikers

 

The Tomb Blades are a unit I didn't think I would end up loving. I bought some many eons ago because you needed them in some fancy formation or some such nonsense. Of course I promptly didn't build them and they sunk to the near bottom of my Stack. Now, with new and improved Necrons, I vowed to do something with all the models I had accumulated. Most got built AND painted, some were sold and traded. I am very glad I kept the Tomb Blades.

Not a super-great-must-have unit, I think they are cool looking, and fun on the table. They give the Necrons a much need fast flanking/harassment unit. 

My one complaint is (big surprise) the base is too damn small. They are very top heavy for such a undersized base (25mm). I will have to try out a few things to see if I can fix that.

Sons of Annihilation

Necron 1%

Low-Tech Paint Holder

 

It could be the best $13 I have spent on my hobby. I wanted a way to organize and be able to see my paints easier. I looked at fancy wood racks, complicated high-tech plastic and metal set-ups and more. 

I stumbled across this solution. A nail polish display rack. 13 bucks from the evil empire. (link down on the right side.) Easy to assemble, stable and lightweight. Holds 60 Citadel pots, a bit more if you are using Vallejo droppers.  I use it as a kind of project pallet. Looks good, works great! Worth a try if you are in need of such a thing.

Go Sling Some Paint

With some '70s Style

Monoliths Making Poor Choices

 

So I just completed my second Monolith. Now I have two! Hahahaha! I will be unstoppable!

Turns out...that is not the case. The CP drain on taking 2 Lords of War hurts a bit, but the real problem is that people hate Monoliths. 

Especially when you Deep Strike behind them. Oh, it's fun for a turn, seeing their reaction and near panic. Then, most of their army shoots/assaults the poor Monolith and boom, winner for shortest time on the field...again.

We had a War Machine Rumble (Only vehicles, bigger the better) the other day, Orks with a Stompa, Morkanought, and lots of Dreads vs two Monoliths and assorted other Necron vehicles. I managed to lose BOTH Monoliths in back to back turns to the Stompa in melee combat. The high point was when the second Monolith exploded and took the Stompa with it. Still lost badly. 

I have played four games with a Monolith in my army so far, and have yet to win a battle, or even have a Monolith survive, but they are so much fun, I'll keep trying.

Go Make Bad Gaming Choices

And Have Fun Doing It

Admech and Supply Chain Issues

 

I picked up the new Adeptus Mechanicus Codex and  Skitarii Marshal this morning. I didn't get the Datacards or the themed dice (I totally don't need). That is because Games Workshop is still having huge supply chain issues. The reasons why are murky, but the people's comments in my LFGS are a bit on the crazy side. 

GW is keeping it for themselves for big profits! Even though all the new stuff is sold out on the website...Big online retailers are getting too much of the products! Maybe? But they are also getting less than what they ordered. Brick and mortar stores are hoarding and selling it on eBay for big profits! (Minus eBay's 10-12% fees) Maybe? I don't know what the issues really are, but it is a little annoying. 

Not like not being able to get toilet paper or cat food, but still. We are here to talk about playing with dollies and not the horrible reality that is life.

On that note, I have given the Codex a quick page through. Same format as all the rest of the 9th edition Codexi. A bit of nice new artwork, and good fluff for some of the Forges. 

We play Power Rating here at Warlords HQ, so I will only be dealing with that. PR has gone down for most units, and that is a very good thing. Weapon stats have also mostly improved. Some options got a bit narrower though. The Rangers can now only have one of each type of special weapon for example. 

Two new HQ choices. The Skitarii Marshal, who I think is a great idea, and The Technoarcheologist! Yes, that character from Blackstone Fortress. Kinda cool. Especially since I already have him painted up. 

The Lords of War are no longer in the book, but you may take a Questor Mechanicus Auxiliary Detachment for every one of your Adeptus detachments. Save a few Command points, and the Questor Kights get to use their own special rules, so a win for everyone.

I had been holding off building my Admech until this new Codex came out. Now it's time to pick a Forgeworld and get busy.

01010100 01101001 01100111 01110010 01110101 01110011 00100000 01010010 01110101 01101100 01100101 01110011

Leftovers

 

"He's right behind me, isn't he?"

Sometimes I start to take some pictures during a battle, but then don't take enough, or many shots are unusably bad, and there isn't enough to do a full post. Every once in a while I will post these orphaned pict captures for your enjoyment.

I win. I touched the crash site first.

Never trust the Ork Parking Valets.

The newly promoted Boss Grot did as well as the previous one.

Go Roll Some Dice

And Get Some Pics While You Are At It.

Happy Aliens Day

 

Happy 4/26 everyone! To celebrate let me show you the final models from GF9's ALIENS: Another Glorious Day in The Corps game. 

Get Away From Her You B***h expansion comes with 5 models and a ton of game components. I will cover the game parts in another post. 

The Queen is a really nice fig with good detail and is easy to assemble and paint. Ripley in the Power Loader, looks great, but was a bit tricky to assemble. You must paint the parts before final assembly or it will be nigh impossible to finish well.

The other three miniatures are: Everyone's favorite non-homicidal android, Bishop! In two versions no less. Well, one version is less, about half-off! (cue drum snare and booing) The third mini is two figs in one, super pissed Ripley holding Newt and combi-weapon in movie poster pose. It really is a cool figure, can't wait to see how badass she is in game.

Go Roll Some Dice

Everyone Can Hear You Scream at the Table

Post Addendums

 

If only for completeness sake, here are the missing bits from two recent posts. Editing is important kids!

I had also built five more Wolf Guard out of the excellent Assault Intercessors box set. Good poses all around and many weapon choices for the Sergeant. I have been running my Intercessors in five man squads (instead of ten) and having good results that way. 

From the sub-assemblies and Space Wolf posts, just a bit more on the Invader ATV. I found it very useful to spray the main parts Wolf Grey (Army Painter) and the tires and weapons black. This sped up the painting process tremendously. I did similar with the Gladiator. I spray painted the hull and turret Wolf Grey, and the guns and grav-plates black. 

Go Rattle Them Cans

Just Make Sure it's Not Too Cold