Friday, January 3, 2014

New place and new year

Hey everybody! I've not been really active blog wise for few weeks, I'm sorry for that but I got a good excuse. I got a new place! My own flat with a new job and a new life. Been spending quite some time moving in, but now the worst part of it is done.

I got all my miniatures in place and started to organize my new Hobby corner. It's a lot smaller than what I used to have (a whole room) but I guess it couldn't last forever. Here's what I managed


As you can see I've just done it cause it's soooo clean! It tend to get a bit messy with my painting but hopefully I will keep a better discipline there. The only stuff I need to do now is to put some cardboard to protect the wall. I really don't want to mess it and have to pay later when I will leave the flat. All my paints/weathering products are on the tray on the left of my desk.

With me moving in, I realized how much stuff I owned for the painting/modelling part. It's crazy how many boxes I needed to do just for my hobby. Here's how I put all the unpainted parts and all the products I use for thinning/basing.


And finally I gave myself a treat for my miniatures. My first display cabinet. It's really cheap (took it in IKEA) and it does it's job. Only downside is that I underestimated my collection so I will have to buy a second one. 


Anyway, enough with my new flat. I happen to have found something that I found awesome on my blogroll yesterday. The original idea come from ROW40k and it's about making a system of point that allow to reward yourself with money to spend on the Hobby when you finish to paint something. I think it's a great way to motivate oneself with painting. I will use this system to "force" me to paint so the more I paint the more stuff I get (and like everybody I want a lot!).

Here's the chart I will use for the points :

Basic Points:

25mm base : 1 pt
40mm base : 3 pts
60mm base : 6 pts
Monstrous Creature/Dreadnought : 15 pts
Small Vehicle/Flyer : 10 pts
Large Vehicle/Flyer : 20 pts
Super Heavy : 40 pts
Titan : 60 pts + 20 pts for each weapon

Extra Points:

Character : +2 pts
Magnetized weapons : +0.5 pts per weapons
Basing : +0.5 pts per model
New technique attempted : +5 pts per technique
Transfers/Unit marking : +1 pt per unit
Battle damage : +1 pt per unit / + 5 pts per Vehicle
Weathering : +1 pt per unit / +5 pts per Vehicle
Gore : +1 pt per unit
Completed unit : +2 pts per unit

Each point accomplished will earn me 2€ to spend on my Hobby. This include paint/miniatures/extra stuff. I will make update with the number of point made. I can't wait to see at the end of the year how many points did I gather. If you like this idea, share is with your friends and/or adapt it with your paint style or budget.

Take care guys.


Sunday, December 22, 2013

Farsight Enclave Battle Report

Hey guys. Once again I don't do as planned. It should have been a 30k battle report but it ended up with normal 40k game. So it was 1500 pts of Farsight against Renegade Guard in a non competitive set up. As I want to expend into my Farsight Enclave, I decided to brought a list with the models I had and with as much as I could painted ones.

Here's the list :

HQ:
Farsight
Torchstar
Cadre Fireblade

Troops
10 Fire Warriors
3 Crisis all with double missile pod, target lock, 4 marker drones and 2 shield drones
2 Crisis all with double fusion blaster, target lock, 1 shield drone

Fast Attack
Sunshark Bomber with twin-linked missile pod, blacksun filter, decoy launcher

Heavy Support
2 Broadsides with HYMP, SMS, advanced targeting system and 4 missile drones
Hammerhead with Longstrike and submunition round
SkyRay with blacksun filter

Renegade Guard (I'm not an expert so sorry for the mistakes in the list)
HQ
Command Squad with 4 veterans with plasma gun and primaris psycher 

Elite
5 Ogryns

Troops
2 Command platoon
4 Troops squad 
1 Chimera
1 Drop troop

Fast Attack
Sentinel (proxy Blight Drone)
Valkyrie

Heavy Support
Leman Russ Executioner with Pax in it
Griffon
Manticore

We got Big gun Never tire, Hammer & Anvil deployment. Night Fight with 4 objectives as shown. He roll for his warlord trait and get -1 to my reserve roll. We placed the 4 objective in the middle of the board so the game would be more interesting and we would have to go for it. Only one objective was closer to one board edge so one would be lucky.






As you can see, on the grim dark future, there is only Lego ;)

He got to deploy where he wanted and chose the board edge closer to the objective. He also got first turn

Here is after deployment. His manticore and griffon are hided behind buildings.







So I had the Torchstar/crisis unit in front close enough to do something. Broadside and hammerhead on one side, skyRay and fire warriors on the other side. I fail to seize.

Guard turn 1 :
Pax leman russ do 15 wounds only loose 2 shield drones
Ogrý sentinel 3 wounds on broadside but made all their cover save
Guard shoot at torchstar but save all
Guard shoot at fire warrior killing one
Guard concentrate shoot at fire warrior killing two
Manticore kill all but torchstar pinning test ok
Griffon kill 3 fire warrior pinning test failed

Here's the picture after guard turn 1



Tau turn 1 
Skyray put one markerlight on leman russ
Hammerhead penetrate but cover save is made on leman russ
Broadside on chimera put 2 penetrating and 3 glancing only one glancing go through

Here's the picture after Tau turn 1



Guard turn 2
Valkyries fell to arrive
Sentinel shoot at torchstar but saves are made
Guard shoot 30 times killing torchstar
Guard kill one fire warrior
Guard kill one fire warrior
Command squad kill one fire warrior
Guard kill one of the broadside drone
Primaris fail his psychic test
Pax leman russ put 13 wounds on broadside who make all his 2+ save
Grifon shoot at broadside but saves are made
Manticore immobolize hammerhead

Here's picture after guard turn 2



Tau turn 2
Farsight arrive behind griffon take off his big gun
Shoot dead manticore
Fire warrior and sky ray kill 4 guard
Broadside wipe out guard on objective
Hammerhaed only glance chimera...

Here's picture after tau turn 2




Guard turn 3 
Valkyrie arrive
Fusiongun team try to land from valkiry but meet their death in the scatter
Ogryn disembark from chimera
Primaris fail his psychic test
Sentinel weef
Guard and grifon do nothong to farsight
Everything else shoot at farsight and kill all crisis and put him down to 2 wounds
Guard kill last fire warrior, 1 wounds left on fire cadre
Chimera put one wound on broadside
Ogryn charge hammerhead overwatch kill one ogryn and fail their charge

Here's picture for guard turn 3





Tau turn 3
Sunshark bomber arrive
Bomb ogryn
Farsight kill gryfon
Sky ray take off multilaser and shake the valkiry
Fire cadre kill 3 guard
Sunsharj kill sentinel
Sunshark drone kill some command squad and guard with their blast
Hammerhead take off vanquisher cannon
Broadside shoot at ogryn only one guy left who fail morale test
All the other test pass thanks to banner reroll

Here's picture of tau turn 3




Guard turn 4
Valkiry go back in reserve
Vanquisher move
Guard and command squad take one wound on farsight
Guard shoot at farsight double six on save!
Chimera shoot at farsight, save passed!
Vanquisher kill both sunshark drones
Guard kill fire cadre 
Primaris fail psychic test
Guard kill three missile drones

Here's picture of guard turn 4



Tau turn 4
Sunshark doesn't generate any more bombs
Broadside kill 5 guard test is good
Skyray kill 2 guys fail morale test
Sunshark kill vanquisher
Hammerhead penetrate chimera but cover save is made
Farsight charge command squad kill the warlord and run down the rest. Consolidate 6" into building

Here's picture of tau turn 4





Guard turn 5
Valkiry arrive
Both guard and ogryn fail to rally and run to their mother land

Forgot pictures for guard turn 5

Tau turn 5
Hammerhead and sunshark kill one guard on objective they flee out of it
Broadside kill all guard on objective
Sky ray kill 4 guys but the leader hold

Here's picture of tau turn 5






And the game is over as a 1 is rolled.
Guard got 1 point for first blood, 1 point for Slay the Warlord, 1 Point for Linebreaker (Primaris psycher) and he hold 1 objective which is worth 3 points so 6 in total
Tau got 1 point for Slay the Warlord and 3 points for each Heavy Support choice destroyed, so 4 in total
Guard Victory!

So if the game would have continue I would have won but I made some key mistakes so I don't mind.

What've learned during that game :
I should have hided torchstar unit and use their mobility even if I would have wasted turn 1. They were the key unit of my list and loosing them first turn really was a big deal.
Farsight is pretty nice with his buddy to wreck havoc where's needed.
Hammerhead with long strike is still too random for the price. Next time, I will try hammerhead with ion cannon
Sunshark bomber is really nice. Despite all the "hate" our flyers are getting (I understand it might not be the best unit point for point) it is useful in ALL my games. I will continue to field it.
I love Farsight Enclave, it plays different than normal Tau and I can really see myself fielding exclusive farsight army.

I should get a 1850 pts games this week but with a more competitive set up so I might bring some more goodies :)

Thursday, December 19, 2013

No Batrep so let's Hobby Update

My opponent decided to cancel our game at the last minute which is really a shame as I'm getting more excited about Farsight Enclave the more I look at it....

Anyway I decide to show you some of the rest of my finished Tau (all of them actually) as I'm working on my Fire Warriors unit.

So here are the 2 broadside without drones. I  think after the Fire Warriors, I will do the third one as well as the missile drones.


Next is the Sunshark Bomber. I used some decals for first time on this guy and it came out pretty well. The base is not totally done as I need to add few washes on it.


Last but not least, my big baby for the pre heresy Night Lords



Tell me guys what you think about it?!

I should be having a 30k game in the next few days, I'll keep you updated. Take care.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Blog 2.0 The comeback!

Hey guys, long time no see.

I know I know no news for more than a year like I was dead. You all know about it, life... But after quite a break I came back to the Hobby. It's like whatever happen in my life I'm always drawn back to it. So a few months ago I got back into business with our lovely toy soldiers. What made me come back to the hobby was mainly the Horus Heresy.

Forgeworld did a great job in producing a really nice story and game supplement for 40k which happen to be totally different from it, that's why it's called 30k. But like most people which are taking part of the big 30k wagon, it's more about collecting, painting and fluff than really gaming. It's even more the case because it's quite more expensive on our already expensive hobby so it can be really hard to find people which are near by for a game of Heresy.

So after few months collecting my legion, I really wanted to play some game, that's why I decided to start a Tau army. At the time I choose the Fish People for two reasons. I really enjoyed their codex because it's a codex where every entry is worthwhile so I can have fun playing with different stuff and collect them. The second reason was that I never had any Tau and it was a challenge to start an army from scratch.

Few months went by and I've done a LOT of Heresy painting and not so much of Tau as all my time was devoted to the 30k side. A few days ago, I went to a tournament with a friend and I used for first time Farsight Enclave. We went last with 0 points! So much about competitive play.

I then decided to start reading the fluff of the Farsight Enclave and I felt in love with it, so here it is my 40k army will be Farsight Enclave with no Tau or any allies just pure Farsight Enclave. I will try to get some games on and in the next few months share with you my experience and try to get the most of this codex.

I first have to make use of all the models I own as I decided to not buy anything new before everything is painted (and I'm sure you all know how hard this is!). So on thursday I will get a game and I will field some of The Eight to try and see what can be done with them. So I hope you can't wait to see my failure as a general but hopefully you will learn from my mistakes.

Here a bit of what I've been doing on the hobby side lately.

My Tau Color Scheme which is white and red with gold part. I started this scheme as a Tau army so I will have to see if I can add some Farsight Decals maybe. It is supposed to be a fighting force in a snow environment (I will add snow to my bases later). I tried this color scheme on the riptide because it's a big models so I can really have fun on it and it makes it easier with the big surfaces.


And just to show you what I'm talking about when I say Horus Heresy :


That's it for today. And I hope to see you soon with more contents. Take care.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

1750 Points in 1 week!

Hey guys, long time no see, I was busy with my life and it took place on my hobby time but I guess you all know how it works. And I just end up with this situation : I have to pint my all army in one week.

Knowing that I will have to work my ass on for this project I decided to do some small investment I been to the closest handyman shop and bought two lamp with light bubble to have no shadows and real colors to work with.
Here how my set up looks like :

Then I made myself a Wet Palette, which is a must to anyone who have some paint job to do, I could keep my paint wet for a week!





After that let's get painted! Having only a week to do my job, I can't have too high expectation so I'll follow this mindset : first have a global look on my army, then if I got time I'll get more in details for each unit. Pretty simple you might say but I think it's important to do something like that and don't get too focus on the details for now.


Some of my Lava bases in their process, I stop them after I got a simple transition of colors (which you can't see on this picture), I hope I'll get some time to add more details like lava flow.



Here my 3 barges after a first dry brush, I used the new Dry paint from the new GW line, I'll give my thoughts on the new line later.

Here after a first wash.

So I have to come back to my paint job, and for sure this time I'll keep you tuned with my work, because I have to!

Did you guys also had such a short deadline to paint an army, feel free to share your experience and tips.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Dark Eldars Vs Necrons Battle Report


Hey guys, I was playing with the Idea of WWP list with Grots. When I checked synaps3 blog and he's beautiful army I just get this bump of "I want to do something like that as well". So I started to make a 1750 list taking in account his advices, and ended up with something like that :
Archon : Agonizer, Blast Pistol, Combat drugs, PGL, Haywire Grenades
Haemonculus : liquifier, WWP
Haemonculus Ancient : Agonizer, Casket of Flensing, WWP
8 Grotesques : Abberation with Scissorhand.
5 Warriors : blaster
5 Warriors : blaster
7 Wyches : Hekatrix with Agonizer
7 Wyches : Hekatrix with Agonizer
5 Scourges : 2 blaster
5 Scourges : 2 Heat-lance
Beast Pack : 3 Beast Master, 1 Clawed Fiends, 5 Khymera, 2 Razorwing Flocks
Talos : chain-flails, TL Heat-lance
Talos : chain-flails, TL Heat-lance

I asked my buddy if he could play this army (lot of proxy of course) against my 1750 tournament list which can be found here. So let's check how both army works.


Fairly cover on all the table, Seize ground with 4 objective. One center, one on the left and two on the right. Spearhead deployment, DE win the roll off and decide to go on the right bottom corner, letting the Necrons with the less cover corner. 

Drugs : reroll to wound, DE deployment, Grotesque Haemi, and Archon deploys as much in front as possible, spreading to get a Haemi on each side of the pack.

Necrons deployment, 
Scarabs in front in cover ready to shield. Both AB in front to shoot. One squad of warrior in cover on the back with GA on the side. On the Center, a little bit in the back Warriors,GA, DL and praetorian + C'tan to counter charge.
Flayed Ones, in reserve

No size

DE Turn 1 : Grotesque pack advance 6", both Haemi unleash WWP, one is close to center objective, the other on the right side.

Necrons Turn 1 : WA, GA, DL & Praetorians, C'tan move to the right. CCB Zoom on the right, Scarabs spread to shield AB. The rest stay stationary
All the shooting kill a Grotesque, The Abberation lost a wound, the normal Haemi lost a wound, and a grotesque is down to one Wound.
They're really resilient

DE turn 2:
Reserve roll : One wyches, one kabalites warriors, Scourges with Heat lance, one Talos get in.
Grotesque move forward center, Wyches goes form the right WWP to get cover close the upper right objective. Kabalite come from table edge to get the bottom objective later. Talos come from left WWP.
Wyches run 6" in cover. Grots, Kabalite, Talos run 5" forward. Scourges destroy the CCB, Overlord pass pinning check.

Necrons turn 2 : Flayed Ones come. They go on the right where the Kabalite are in the open. Both AB move back. WA, DL & Praetorians, C'tan move backward a little bit. Overlord move in cover on the right close to the wyches  Scarabs move to engage the grots.
C'tan and Wa shoot to death the Scourges. Both AB, 3 Wa squads shoot at the Talos but only put 3 Wounds on him. GA rapid fire the Wyches in cover killing 2 of them.
Flayed assault the Kabalite unit, killing them all without loosing any of them.  Overlord assault Wyches killing one of them and don't get any wound on him even with the reroll!
Scarabs assault the grots, the Haemi/Archon/Grots put 10 wounds on them before they can attack, all the attack of three bases go on the archon, he fails one of his save, his Shadow Field is gone. Then one more dies and an other is down to one wound because of fearless save. But they've done their job, the grots are locked for the next turn.

DE turn 3 : 
Reserve roll : everything comes except for the second wyches unit.
Talos comes from right WWP to charge the Overlord in combat with Wyches. Beast Pack come from the left WWP. Kabalite come from table edge to shoot the Flayed ones. 1st Talos move toward the AB. Scourge comes closer to the GA on the left.
Talos shoot Heat-lance at the AB destroying it. Kabalite rapid fire the Flayed killing one who didn't come back. Beast Pack run 5" forward. Scourges don't succeed at doing anything to the GA
Wyches put a wound on the Overlord, then he put one on the Talos eventually dying from the Talos attacks. Talos and Wyches consolidate in direction of the objective. Grots finish off the scarabs and consolidate forward.

Necrons turn 3 :
C'tan come closer to the Talos on the right objective. AB, WA, DL & Prae move backward. GA get in position to rapid fire the wyches on the objective. The other to rapid fire the beast pack. Flayed ones move to charge Kabalite.
C'tan shoot at the Talos but he saves thanks to FNP. GA and WA inside shoot at the Wyches in cover killing them all. Cryptek from WA on the top of the board finish the last wound from the first Talos. AB shoot the grots and kill one. One squad of WA, GA and the WA inside shoot at the Beast Pack and Scourges , killing 3 Khymera and putting a wound on Clawed Fiends and both Razorwing Flocks, the scourges die from the firepower.  The beast Pack pass moral check.
C'tan assaults the Talos, then both inflict a wound on each other. The Flayed Ones assault the Kabalite and wipe them out consolidating a little bit backward in case the wyches comes from the portal.

DE turn 4 :
Wyches comes from reserve. Grots move forward. Beast get closer to the warrior squad in cover. Wyches get in cover on the bottom right objective. 
The Ancient Haemi shoot his Casket of Flensing at the WA in front of the DL & Praetorian. But roll 1 to the Dice for wound. Even the blast pistol from the Archon doesn't wound the squad.  Beast Pack run in direction of the WA in cover.
Beast Pack needed a five to assault the WA but only get 4 out of three dices. C'tan and Talos look at each other but don't put succeed to wound the other one.

Necrons Turn 4 :
GA on the right move to get the Wyches which came from reserve in range.  Flayed ones move toward the Wyches. Left GA move between objective to get Beast Pack in rapid fire. AB move backward. DL & Praetorian get close to the Grots to charge.
One wych dies from the GA. WA + WA/GA rapid fire on the Beast Pack killing all the Beastmaster, Clawed fiends and putting several wounds on the razowings. They don't pass the moral test and fall back of 7".  WA/AB/Praetorian shoot the grots, killing one and normal Haemi. 
C'tan put a wound on the Talos, he's down to one, the Talos pass ld check.  DL move to engage the Archon and Abberation, the mindshackle choose randomly between Anciant Haemi, Abberation and Archon, get the archon and fail his test. He finishes off a grots. Then grots and  Haemi Ancient attacks killing the DL and two Praetorians. Praetorians kill the Archon. One dies from fearless but then DL and 2 Praetorians get back up. Flayed Ones don't succeed to assault the Wyches in cover.

DE Turn 5 :
Wyches move to engage the Flayed ones. Beast Pack can't rally because of the GA less than 6" away and fall back 12".
C'tan and Talos fail to wound each other. Mindshackle a grot who puts a wound on his buddy. Ancient Heami kills the DL with his Agonizer, then the grots attacks the Praetorians, and none of them are dead. Praetorians passed 8 3+ saves and then finish off a grot. DE loose combat but pass ld check. DL doesn't come back. Wyches charge Flayed Ones wiping them out and consolidate back in cover on the objective. 

Necrons Turn 5 :
WA in cover move in direction of the left objective, WA from the center GA disembark and move on the center objective. The GA move 12" in direction of the right Wyches to get in range. RIght GA get in range of Rapid Fire. Top Warriors move clove to the Big Assault.
GA on the left and Rapid Fire from GA/WA don't kill any wyches with their 4+ cover save and FNP. Left WA run and grab left objective.
C'tan and Talos still look at each other. Grots and Haemi Ancient finish off the Praetorians and consolidate on the left objective. 

We roll off to see if the game end and it's a 1. So at the end it's 2-1 objectives for the Necrons.

So a really close game, with a lot of stressful moment. Like always my Necrons surprise me, when it comes to the first 2-3 turn I always think how I'm gonna pull off something from all the threat that are in front of me? But Necrons being pretty resilient if you apply coordinate fire power they can really shine. About this game I think I've done pretty good choices to hold back as much as I could and play the mission. I focused on the troops of my friends because I know they're not that tough. I also used my superior speed with my GA which is pretty ironic when you think that my Necrons were faster than the DE. My luck in my dice especially when the Praetorian charged the Grots and hold them longer than I expected really helped. I'm learning more and more every time I'm playing my Necrons (which doesn't happen as much as I would like to), theory hammer is nice but nothing is better than experience. 

About my DE list, I also learn quite a lot, I think I will wait until the 6th edition before buying for more than 100€ of Grots but I really enjoyed how the army turned out. Even if my friend made few mistakes with the army, it's normal for a first time playing it, I would have done the same. There is so much possibilities on the deployment thanks to WWP. The grots mob is really hard to put down even if it's sooooo slow. The DE are really a glass canon army, when they strike they strike hard but can't get much fire power back at them. After I finish my Necrons for the different tournaments I should participate I will have fun painting. I will probably paint a Tyranids unit then DE units so I don't get bored about it. 

And here some WIP of my Ghost Ark, this guy take forever to paint with so many pieces to paint separately. Hopefully I'll finish it this week.