Tournament Nears

Picture Unrelated, just some of my models in my display case at home.

     So, April 9th I will be going to my third tournament for this year, and in all time.  As with the other two I have attended it will be held at Millennium Games in Rochester, NY.  Only this time there won't be a snow storm and we wont end up in a snow bank. That was fun. It's okay, Jeep Wranglers have steel bumpers so there was no damage.  Here are the rules as posted at the daboyz forum.

Registration starts at 930 am

Points- 1850

Three rounds

Lunch after round 1

Format : Everything in your codex is considered 0-1 except troops.

Dedicated Transport 0-2

No named characters - This includes characters like Arjac.

Only 1 AV 14 in your army.

You can't take anything that modifies force org to make non-troop units into troops.

We will judge painting. There will be prizes for best painted HQ and Best painted vehicle/monsterous creature.

     To clairfy, you can only have 2 dedicated transports in your army, not 2 of each type.  It follows the standard force org, but you can only have 0-1 of each unit not 0-1 heavy total etc.  I believe you are allowed to take the units which may change the force org in their rules, but you cannot use that rule.


     This should be an interesting tournament and it will be neat to see what kind of builds people come up with.  At the other two tournaments most guard armies have gone with the mechanized melta vet spam which is to be expected.  For the second one, I myself partook and wound up 1-1-1 officially.  However the draw should have been a win, since for my own ignorance at the time I counted a 2 Tank Leman Russ Squadron as 2 kill points.  That game was against Spacewolves and was really a slugfest for both of us. So I should have been somewhere in the 3rd to 5th range, that was decided by dice off in the end. Alas I still got 5 bucks, and a good time, so it matter little.  I'll post further about that tourney next week.

     I've come up with a list more akin to something I would use in the past when playing in a more fluff like manner against my friends.  However I have taken into account what I have learned over the last few months and I think it should still be a competitive list.  We are going to have a couple practice games over the next few weeks so we'll see how that turns out.  I'll be posting my list and some battle reports after the tournament.  I wouldn't want any spies to know what to expect.  I will say one thing, beware the Sea of Bayonets, you had better know how to swim.

     I don't really know what to expect, but I think this list will leave me ready for just about anything.  Since painting is being judged I will need to scramble over the next 2 weeks to paint a few models, but mostly to finish rebasing those which I have not.

     Wish me luck comrades, though The Emperor Protects, I will need all the luck I can get for my cursed dice.

KHADOR! KHADOR! KHADOR!

Orsus Zoktavir -  The Butcher of Khardov

     Today, I am going to show off a little bit of my Khador army,  and where else to start but with The Butcher of Khardov.  A beast of a man, very few could withstand his charge. Orsus was my first warcaster and one for the first models I painted for my battle group, and one of the most enjoyable.

When I first started this army I wasn't sure whether or not I was going to go for a muted camouflage theme or the Khador red.  I obviously ended up going with the red.  I was getting a little tired of painting in drab grays and greens, so I threw it to the wind and chose the red.  Not only that, I do a considerable bit of shading on these models, however I do it rather subtly, I am not really a fan of some of the extreme highlights out there. 

Kommander Sorscha

 Kommander Sorscha was the second caster which I used, though she was actually my first caster model.  I bought my friend's starter set and a squad of winter guard when he switched to Cygnar.  Traitor.  He sold it to me for 25 bucks, which was great, I think he just wanted me to get into Warmachine that much.  I don't use here all too often, but she's a pretty solid warcaster and has some nice abilities.  Not really too happy with the paint job on this one, just could not seem to get it right in my mind.

 

Karchev the Terrible

The second most used caster in my army, well most used if you count using him as a proxy juggernaut.  He is a real beast, warjack and caster all in one!  Amazing!  I really enjoyed painting this model.  The model is really great, but I did not like the cape thing so I did not include that.  He will ruin your day.

Juggernaut

Here's my plastic warjack kit.  It's got all of the options magnetized, and I chopped off the other axe so it could have 2 fists and act as a kodiak.  I also have the metal Juggernaut and Destroyer from the starter kit.  All three of my jacks have lots of chipping, I like the look of both the old metal models and the plastic one, but you can't beat getting so many options with the plastic ones.

Man-O-War Shocktroopers

 Shocktroopers, a staple of Khador's forces.  These guys took forever to paint, it felt as if I was painting a unit of five light warjacks.  These guys are pretty good in game, but they really need an assault order, shield guns are a waste if you don't get to shoot them as you charge.

Widowmakers

 Widowmakers are another great Khador unit, the sniper rule, and being able to automatically do 1 pt of damage is great.  Seeing as they are supposed to be snipers there is considerably less red on these models.  On their shoulder armor there is a red circle painted on with the Khador symbol inside of it.

Widowmaker

I still need to get the solo model, it's pretty damn cool looking and seems to be pretty good in game as well.

Battle Mechaniks

Last up for today are my mechaniks, from what I hear there are to be new models, which is nice to add some variety, but I really like these models as they are.  Since two of them are the same I added some bits to make then more unique, such as the fire extinguisher and some wire and such. The extinguisher is made with half of a cadian flamer tank and some rubber coated wire.  The leader has the Khador symbol tattooed on his bare arm, as any good servant of the empire would.

So, there's a little look at some of my warmachine models.  I've got about 50 pts all told,  but I'm looking to get some more once I finish buying what I want for my Imperial Guard. 

Comments?  Suggestions?


For the glory of the Khadoran Empire!

On another note, I am not a fan of this new post publisher.  The pictures are a pain in the ass the arrange, and you have to edit the HTML to get Enter to work near them if they get too close.  I would really hope they fix this crap.  Not make it worse.

Basing and Rocketry

Okay, so last week I decided to rebase my entire army. So far I have rebased about 50 of my guardsmen as well as my Valkyrie/Vendetta. Before I had a process where I would use different colors of flocks and stone to base them, it was kind of too bright and did not feel urban enough.
The new format uses a mixture of 4 sizes of ballast, sand, dirt, slate chips, and small chips of brick mortar.

I paint this mix, which can be seen on some of the guardsmen above, with charcoal gray, then dry brush on codex gray, followed by, a little lighter gray, and then finish with fortress gray. I keep the brush really, really dry for this and make very swift but heavy strokes. So far I really like the effect as far as being an ash waste/urban rubble theme. Below are two samples I made up first. I also bought several sets of bases from Dragonforge: Desert wasteland sets 1&2, urban ruble wasteland, and wasteland II sets 1&2. They are great and include a lot of bits I could find at the hobby store, but it would end up costing me much more. Plus I got a 60mm base for free, for ordering $30 worth of product.


Next up, some heavy weapons teams, with Missile Launchers. After seeing recently how effective missile launchers can be in game. So, I used mostly Cadian parts, but with the Catachan legs, as they are a little more dynamic. I did not add the shield part to the fronts of the launchers, so I had to drill out the front. I like the way they look this way, more compact and realistic, I suppose. Did a lot with strip styrene on these, using it for slings on the lasguns, as well as to make a missile carrier for the loader. I had to do a lot of pinning of their hands.


Here's a close up of the carrier frame I made for the loader. It's a lot better than just grabbing an armful of missiles, lol. Mounted most of these guys on my new Dragonforge bases, they're really nice, and 2 of them actually have tank parts incorporated in them.

Here's the next team, modeled these guys as being on the move. More strip styrene for the slings and missile rack. I made this one with just one missile left in the rack, gotta change it up a bit.


This last team required the most styrene both lasguns are on their slings, and I had to make straps for the missile holder as well.
Lastly, just a crappy shot of the new squad taking some practice shots at my brother's Storm Raven across our work table. It's too bad my company commander wasn't there to order "Bring it Down!"

Instant Mold

So, just got an order of Instant Mold in the mail. Heated up some hot water, got out the brown stuff and made some molds of power weapons for my Doom Angels. The molds came out with great detail but the brown stuff is curing right now so we'll see how that comes out in the morning.

I'm hoping this will be the solution to my weapons options needs. Meltas, plasmas everything produced from one master. It all depends on the quality we will see tomorrow. I will post some pics of the final product tomorrow evening.