From the Painting Bench

I hope everyone had a good and safe Christmas and that they have come away laden with Loot :)

Has been a quiet few weeks. Have painted up the Bolter element of a devestator squad which I am not going to post as really, they are bog standard blue marines.


I have also done up a new Terminator Sergeant. Special thanks to The Prophet for his quick tutorial on how to do the glaive. Also, just to make my friend Matt (aka greatcrusage08 on the B7C)  happy I have given him the skull in U shoulder pad and even painted it red ;)

Also, a few weeks back I finished off some more Honour Guard for Marneus.

                                     

I recieved an Assault Squad box for Christmas which will be done up at some point. I have plans for them. Oh yes, plans.....

Ultrawing spanked by Wolves :(

I have decided to use the DA Deathwing rules to run an Ultramarines First Co Army aka Ultrawing.

Played my Ultrawing for the first time yesterday against a fairly nasty Space Wolf Terminator army and got tabled by round 4. 


Though my dice rolling was fairly horrible (And it was horrible, Belial killed 2 Blood Claws over 3 turns of Combat, Dreadnoughts hit nothing over 3 turns of combat etc etc) I believe the main issue that led to my defeat was :


A: I dont know how to play Deathwing properly yet. This will change as I get more games under my belt and peruse more forums etc. Its a radically different type of game style compared to how I usually run my Marine army.


B: This is related to the above but I have no idea what the ideal weapons mix is. I think I mixed my squads up far too much which made them ineffective in support or assault. Not enough shooty to kill from range and not assaulty enough to mix it up.

Reading through various topics on various forums seems to indicate that you should keep the squads in a full support or assault role with perhaps a single terminator in each squad equipped differently for wound allocation and versatility.


Do the Deathwing players out there agree with that or am I missing something.

The list I ran yesterday (and its pretty much every model I have) looked like this:

Belial with LC @ 130

Interrogator-Chaplain @ 145

Command Squad @ 300
• Banner Bearer
• Apothecary
• SB/PW Sergeant
• LC
• Assault Cannon

Squad 1 @ 225
• SB/PW Sergeant
• H/Flamer + Chain Fist
• SB/PF
• TH/SS
• LC

Squad 2 @ 220
• TH/SS Sergeant
• LC
• Chain Fist
• SB/PF
• TH

Squad 3 @ 220
• Chain fist
• LC Sergeant
• SB/PF
• TH/SS
• LC

Dread @ 130
• Heavy Flamer
• MM

Dread @ 125
• Plasma Cannon

Land Raider @ 250

Total: 1745



As stated before, its an entirely new dynamic playing this army. A total of 25 models including dreads and LR means you don't have the ability to absorb casualties like other builds.


I am hoping to be able to get another squad of terminators for christmas which will hopefully allow me to add some versatility into the army with additional HW's like AC's and CML's which I think will help.

Ultrawing Command Squad

I have decided to take my terminators which I so rarely use and convert them to a "Deathwing" army or in this case an "UltraWing" Army. Have stripped down and repainted most of my termies and have now converted up a command squad, which can be seen below.


I have gone for an Old School look with the hazard stripes and the red bolters. Stripes are a bastard to paint and not as straight as I would like but they will do. I also like that every one in the squad is different which will be helpfull with wound allocation.

Sergeant

Banner Bearer

Apothacary

Assault Cannon

Chain Fist

Lack of Funding

*sigh*

Due to my financial circumstances I am going to have to put my Imperial Guard Army on Indefinite Hiatus. Its not that I cant afford to expand the army, its that currently all my excess funds are earmarked for another project and this will be lasting for the next 20 months or so.

That is not to say that I wont be adding to the army, I will just be doing so very very slowly. Like a squad every 2 months, a Russ every quarter or something like that.

What that does mean though is that I am going to be going back and refurbishing a chunk of my Ultramarines. I have already stripped down and repainted about 70% of my army but now I am really going to focus on it. Specifically on my Terminators. I have enough Termies, dreads and Land Raiders to field a reasonable 1500 point "UltraWing" army. This will allow me to play a different style of army while still being able to use my current minis.

I have so far repainted or fresh painted 13 of the 24 Terminators I own. I have 6 tactical termies to completely redo and 4 Hammernators which all I need to alter is their Crux terminarus colour from silver and gold to white. Also have the Termie Libby to repaint.

At my current speed I should have them all done before Jan 30 which is when I am going up to Cambridge for the B&C Ultramarine sub-forum Ultra Meet No3. Good times for all.

Random Musings

Not much going on at the moment with the hobby but just thought I would put a few random musings and happenings down.

• Have finished a Chimera for my IG army. Only have to put the decals on and it will be 100% done.
• Bought an old metal Cadian command squad off ebay for £12 that I have stripped down. Since the previous owner did not even use a basecoat the paint has come off beautifuly
• Fairy Power Spray is my choice of stripper for both metal and plastic. It works like magic and doesnt harm the models at all. It also weakens the bonds of both super and plastic glue so they are easy to pull apart.
• I HATE CAT FUR!!! I have a very fluffy cat and its fur gets everywhere. No matter how well I tidy and clean my area I find fur in my paint all the time. It floats in and gets on the brush, on the pallet, on the model itself while the paint is drying. Since I dont have my own private space I cannot thing of a single thing to combat this except for eternal vigilence.
• I am busy stripping down and repainting one of my shooty terminator squads. I have decided to go old school with the paint scheme. Red Storm Bolters and Hazard stripes on the Power fists. It looks really nice when it all comes together.
• Painting Hazard Stripes is a devil of a job. Had to strip down my first 2 attempts. My 3rd was acceptable and has gone onto a terminator, mostly because I didnt want to strip down that fist again. My 4th attempt actually turned out really well and I think I have my method now. Used a fine detail brush that had been chopped off square near the bottom. The bristles dont spread out and you get and nice even line. They are also the right width.
• Played my buddies Orks and got raped. 1750 point lists. His army had 4 battlewagons, Ghazghull and 9 meganobs, a nob with custom forcefield, 2 squads of boys and a full squad of burners. My list was not able to deal with that and I got stomped. LC Termies vs Meganobs =/= win :(. Played a second time. Swapped out the LC termies with TH/SS termies and threw in Cassius. Got reamed again. my TH/SS termies destroyed his meganobs but they in turn killed the TH/SS termies. Ghazghull laughed off 27 assault marine attacks. Penetrated his wagons at least 5 times but could not roll higher than a 2 which also didnt help. Thrashed 7 - 2 on KP

And thats about it really. I am going to try and finish off the 3 termies I am working on before the end of the weekend. Next week I will be in Washington DC for a week which will be great fun.

Painter first, Gamer second

There is no real point to this, just a rant on my part…

I am definitely a painter first and a gamer second. There really is nothing more relaxing for me than to put some music or background tv show on and paint / convert mini’s.

However I do like to play on occasion. The trouble is that over the last few months and for the next few months ahead, chances to play have been very few and far between.

I work 60 hour weeks which mean that my gaming must be done on the weekend. Unfortunatly the GW stores near me run events etc on Saturdays which means no tables free. Sundays are spent with my wife doing domestic bits and pieces.  I also am not fond of the majority of the people who frequent my local GW (5 minutes away by public transport). It’s also very small and cramped. The store I used to play at is in central London and takes me about 90 minutes to get to and that’s of the bloody train line isn’t being worked on. I don’t have a car so can not drive to the nearest working tube or train line and the bust takes almost 2 hours.

Playing at gaming clubs has much the same problem as going into London, it takes too damn long to get anywhere.

Another odd problem is this. I am a frequent poster on the Ultramarine sub-forum at Bolterandchainsword.com and recently all the Ultramarine players have gotten together and had games. This has spoiled me as everyone was nice, non argumentative, got along well with others, didn’t smell and were generally old enough to be married (which the majority were). So when I compare that to some of the local…ah…shall we say talent…I find myself quite reluctant to play them

All of which leads me back to the initial problem. I am desperate for a GOOD game of 40k. I am burned out of painting for a while, or at least I am burned out of blue marines and can’t afford to get new guard for a while.

I want to play a big points, non apocalypse game where time isn’t  an issue and with a good opponent who challenges me and who I can actually talk to but baring that I just want to play a couple of decent games. Unfortunately, that’s unlikely to happen any time soon.

LC Terminators

I know this blog is meant to be about my new IG but since I dont have any actual cash right now that has been put on hold. I do however have a backlog of Marines that need painting and this is just one such squad.

Bases will be done this weekend when I have some more time

Group Shot

Go Sergant!!

His Posse

Pick up game list

I have played my Ultramarines for over 2 years and without trying to sound like bragging, I seem to win almost all of my games. In fact I tend to win by quite a large margin. One of the reasons for this is my list. My current list seems to be over powered for the groups I tend to play with.

So, in the interests of making it a little more interesting I am thinking of toning the list down. No more named special characters and I am going to remove a dreadnought.

The list I am thinking of running will look like this:

HQ
Captain in Terminator Armour with twin lightning claws.

Elite
Ironclad with H/F, Meltagun, Assault Launchers and Pod
Dreadnought with Plasma Cannon and H/F
5 x LC Assault Termies

Troops
Tactical squad with Fist, Flamer, ML and Rhino
Tactical squad with P/W, meltagun, H/Bolter and Rhino

Fast Attack
Assault Squad with Fist and 2 flamers

Heavy Support
LR with MM
Vindicator

This comes out to 1750 points.

I have not used this combination of units before so I am not sure of how effective it will be. I am sure thought that it is weaker than my older list. Now all I have to do is finish painting up the LC Termies and I will be good to go.

Ebay and the deviltry that plagues it...

Ahh Ebay, once the happy hunting ground of many a bargain hunter. Now a cut-throat "Den of Iniquity" it is becoming increasingly difficult to get what you want at a reasonable price.


When I started this hobby over 2 years ago I managed to acquire alot of my army off ebay. There were deals and sprues to be had and the selection was quite good. However those days have gone it seems. With GW not allowing sprues to be sold by independent retailers and having raised their prices twice over the last while and with the recession on (despite what the government would have you believe) it is becoming very hard to get a decent deal.


Just having a quite look through today I saw horribly built and painted models going for just under or even the same as the retail price. Now I know there are many out there who would rather just get on with it and not have to bother with building and painting but surely there should be some kind of mark down on an old mini? I would possibly pay full price for a built model but only if it was unpainted and the seller included the left over sprues and the decal sheets. And to those silly people who pay more than retail price...well I just pity you, I really do.


Then there is the usual last second bidder. Nothing makes me more irked than to have someone outbid me with 2 seconds to go after I had been the high bidder for 9 bloody days and win the item for an additional 25p. I know its the name of the game but come on!!!


I am also taking issue with people charging excessive postage. Now I realise that is how some of them make their money but to charge £1.50 for a 50p bit seems a tad over the top.


Thats not to say that there are not some deals still out there. I recently acquired 2 IG Heavy Weapons teams that only cost me £4 with postage. However they are in such poor condition that I almost think it would have been better to buy them new since the effort required to put them right has been enormous and there is still much to do. I have also gotten a few marines etc off ebay that were brilliant deals but that has not happened for a long while now.


I guess I am just becoming jaded by my experiences. I hope and believe that many other people are getting the bargains that they want.

Ultramarine Space Hulk Terminator

My latest effort: A modified Space Hulk Terminators in Ultramarine colours. A few modifications and a coat of paint and I now have a very nice Termie Captain / Veteran Sergeant.

Space Hulk Marine

I could not afford (nor justify buying) Space Hulk however there was a mini that I just had to have from the box. So off to Ebay and BitsandKits.co.uk I went and managed to pick up the Lightning Claw Termie for a modest £6 including postage.

I have done a few minor modifications to make him fit into my Ultramarines. I was tempted to cover up the battle damage to his armour with GS but decided to leave it in place for effect. I am also leaving some of the BA teardrops in place which I will paint as normal gems. I wasnt too sure if I could remove those with completely messing up the mini.

As It arrived in the post

Minor Modifications Completed

Completed Squads

his week I managed to complete my first squad of IG and I think they turned out quite nicely. I still need to come up with a way to paint them faster as they took me far too long. Still, I guess with my current budget thats fine as I will only be able to afford a squad a week.

First Squad of 1st Platoon

I also finally finished stripping down and repainting my Ultramarine Assault Squad. Its taken me a couple of months to do as I only stripped down 1 or 2 at a time to ensure that I always was able to have a viable squad.

7th Squad of 2nd Company Ultramarines

History and Organisation of the 768th

This is what I have come up with so far about my new IG regiment. It is very much a work in progress and will be added to as I carry on with this army. I am going to try and weave the results of games that I play into the narrative.

History and Organization of the 768^th (Calths Own) Heavy Foot

The 768^th Heavy Foot Regiment has a short yet distinguished history. The Regiment was formed from elements of Calth PDF formations that were severely depleted during the Legendary “Battle of Macragge” in 745.M41.

Though none involved survived, there are elements that formed the backbone of the newly formed 768^th who can boast that their brothers-in-arms were there at the Polar Fortress and who fought and died alongside the Ultramarines First Company.

This pride at the achievement of their comrades and indeed the pride of the individual achievements of each trooper, squad, platoon and company ensured that there was an excellent “Esprit de Corps” when the new regiment was formed. This meant that the usual bickering and friction normally to be found between unassociated units at such regimental founding’s was not evident. There has since been an excellent rapport to be found within the regiment.

Since then the 768^th has seen action throughout the Segmentum Ultima and in one instance have even gone as far afield as the Segmentum Solar. Their prior experience and expertise gained against the Tyranid Hive make them a welcome addition to any force battling the scuttling monstrosities. The 768^th  have also fought many, if not all of humanities most bitter enemies at one point or another.

The 768^th has been involved in some notable victories such as Ichor IV, 2^nd War for Armageddon and the Purgation of Cygnus III as well as numerous minor engagements.

Organisation

The regiment is almost pure infantry with only a single artillery battery within its structure. As such, there are not many Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFV) in its inventory, though chimeras are assigned to those units that require them. Such as Command Squads, Psyker Battle Squads, Veterans and other special weapon and support teams.

The regimental structure is a traditional one with the regiment being broken down into 4 Battalions. Each battalion is in turn, broken down into an HQ, 3 rifle companies, a support company and an artillery company.

Each rifle company is then broken down into a Company HQ, 4 infantry platoons, a platoon of Veterans with chimeras. Pysker support is provided on a “as and when needed” basis. The psyker support can range from a single astropath relaying information right through to an entire choir depending on mission requirements.

The veterans primary role is that of Force Recon. They are tasked to range ahead of the company and gather intelligence about the Opfor and then use the speed,  survivability and long range radio ability of their vehicles to return that intelligence to the HQ.

Each Infantry platoon is broken into a Command element of 5, 4 squads of 10 men and a heavy weapons squad which is traditionally composed of 3 weapons teams.

This gives the each regiment a total book manpower of roughly 4600. In reality however, this number is far larger as the regiment also has the usual group of cooks, MP’s, admin staff and camp followers who travel with the regiment. This group adds up to almost 1000 addition personal.

The 768th has traditionally fought alongside 2 other notable regiments from Calth. The 42^nd (Iron Fists) Mechanized Cavalry and the 6^th (Red Devils) Airborne. These 2 regiments provide armoured (MBT, Superheavy and sentinel) and storm trooper support when needed.

Transportation is provided the Munistorium and air support is via the Imperial Navy

Doctrine

Unlike the Ultramarines, who are said to have a fairly structured and rigid battlefield doctrine, the 768^th pride themselves on a tactical and strategic flexibility. Each commander, right down to individual squad sergeants are trained and expected to act on their own initiative – to size up each individual scenarios and act accordingly. Due to this, the 768^th has been able to accomplish all their missions far more efficiently than those units who favour quantity over quality.

It is also this approach that has ensured that in the whole history of the regiment it has never become combat ineffective due to loss of manpower.

Battle Report: Ultramarines vs Tau

Yesterday I played a 2000 point game with my Ultramarines vs Tau.

It was an objectives based game with 5 objectives, deployment was standard table edges. I deployed first.

His force looked something like this

TAU:

Farsight, 2 body guards, 2 shield drones

Shas’o, 2 body guards, 2 drones

2  - 7 Man fire warrior teams – markerlight

broadside team with 2 broadsides and  2 shield drones

2 sniper teams

Hammer head

3 stealth suits - 1 fusion balster

2 piranha – fusion, seeker missiles

Kroot – 19 kroot, Shaper, 12 kroot hounds

Mine looked like this:

ULTRAMARINES

3 tactical squads

2 rhinos

Dreadnought with Plasma Cannon

Venerable Dreadnought with Plasma Cannon

Ironclad

Drop pod

Land Raider with MM

5 Vanguard (relic blade, 3 power weapons, TH)

Cassius

Khan

Vindicator

Speeder (MM, H/F)

Attack Bike – MM

Deployment
Marines in Blue. Tau in Red, objectives are the black circles. Ruins and cover are in grey and the green areas are hills. 

First Turn

Marines -

I placed the 2 rhino with attached squads as well as the speeder in reserve. The Ironclad and pod came down and shoots at the piranha squadron with melta and heavy flamer. The melta destroys a fusion blaster and the flamer does nothing but catches some firewarriors that were in the flame path. The Land Raider moves behind cover and the Vindi angles itself so the hammerhead is hitting front armour. Attack bike moves up towards the hammerhead. Plasma shots from dreads prove ineffective.

Tau -

The ironclad is markerlighted and the Piranhas move up behind it before destroying it with a seeker missile. The Land Raider takes 2 marker light hits which reduces its cover to 6+. The 2 broadsides shoot at it, 1 shot manages to penetrate but I roll a 6 to pass the cover save. The venerable dread looses its plasma cannon to a glancing hit from a sniper squad. I forget to ask for the re-roll.

Battlefield at end of turn 1

Turn 2

Marines - 

The 2 Rhinos come on, both on the left – Marines disembark near broadsides and rapid fire, killing a shield drone. The attack bike moves forward and kills the hammerhead with a MM shot. The LR moves forward and immobilizes a piranha which dies to the squadron rules. Vindi and Krak missile from the Tac Squad shoots at at the second piranha to no effect but it is then immobilised by the second dreads plasma cannon

Tau - 

The Sniper teams shoot at the disembarked rhino squad and kill 4. They fail their leadership and fall back.. The immobilised Piranha fires seeker missile at dread but it bounces off the side armour. The Attack bike is killed by fire warriors and a Broadside kills The Venerable dread. Once again I forget to do the re-roll. His Shas'O team deepstrikes but scatters onto the LR and rolls a 1 on the mishap table – lost in warp. Farsight deepstrikes and scatters close to my   lines. He the shoots and kills 2 marines.

Battlefield at end of turn 2

Turn 3

Marines - 

The Land Speeder comes on  - deepstrikes and scatters almost off board near his fire warriors. Flames 2 fire warriors. Falling back tac squad are less than 6" from the enemy and falls back some more. The Plasma dread, vindi and krak missile fire at piranha and again fail to do anything. Long range plasma cannon / gun fire from the second rhino's fire points as well as the rhino's stormbolter kill off one of the sniper teams.

The LR  moves close to Farsight. Khan, Cassius and the Vanguard disembark. Shooting from the raider and from the squad take out the shield drones. They then assault and kill everything, loosing a single vanguard. Consolidate back towards the LR

Tau - 

The Broadsides kill the Rhino on objective, I loose 2 marines to the explosion. The snipers kill more of the falling back tactical squad.

Battlefield at end of turn 3

Turn 4

Marines - 

The Vanguard get back on board LR and the LR moves up board. The piranha is finally killed by a krak missile and its drones get off. The Tac squad rally and move back towards sniper squad. They shoot the squad the sniper squad, cause wounds and the sniper squad runs off the table. The Rhino next to his broadsides then tank shock the broadsides. One of them takes a Death or Glory shot, penetrates the rhino and destroys the Storm Bolter. The rhino squashes the Broadside. The land speeder moves and flames an entire firewarrior squad and kills them all. The Vindi moves up.

Tau - 

The Gundrones close and shot down the land speeder. The second Broadside takes revenge and kills the rhino.

His Kroot come on and assault the tactical squad sitting on the bottom objective. 20 kroot and 12 kroot hounds gave him something like 65 attacks on the charge. He managed to kill 1 marine. I killed 5 kroot. he failed his leadership and I beat his initiative roll so my squad ran them all down and slaughtered them. It was a combat I should not have won.

Battlefield at end of turn 4

Turn 5

Marines - 

The LR moves up and heavy bolters last fire warrior. The tac squad near the broadsides move up, shoot and then assault broadside. They remove a wound and the Broadside fails to wound but passes its leadership. My Vindi moves up.

Tau - 

His Stealth team come on behind the Land Raider and fires afusion blaster at it but only manages to stun it. His Broadside dies to Tac squad.

Battlefield at end of turn 5

Turn 6

Marines - 

Vanguard disembark and move towards stealth team

Vindi fires shot at stealth team and kills them all

Result: Massacre for me.

I think that this is the first time that I have ever tabled an opponent. I have had people concede when its been close before or have the game end with 2 minis on the table but never actually done it.

Lessons learned

 - I don't normally use venerable dreadnoughts so I forgot to force the damage table re-rolls. I think if I had the dread would have lived a bit longer. As it is it made no difference in the end but had the game been close it could well have done so.

- I am not convinces yet about Khan and his outflank rule. It did come in useful this game but for some reason I find it a little gimmicky.

- I am also starting to think this army list is a little too strong for pick-up games. I may have to redesign it. Perhaps drop a dread and get rid of the special characters. It will still be strong but not quite so vicious.

Test subjects

As previously mentioned I only have a few models done up at the moment. They currently consist of a 2nd hand Leman Russ that I picked up and the 5 guardsman from the clip together kit.

The Russ has undergone a minor conversion. I sliced off the end of the battle cannon, hacked apart a pen and made myself a Vanquisher. I like the look of the Vanquisher and think that with Pask on board it will make a very capable Tank Killer. Nothing quite beats S8 +2d6 from 72" away. Also, with Pask its BS4 and +1 to the damage chart so its essentially like having an extreme long range Multi-Melta.

Colour scheme is simple yet I think quite effective. I wanted something that looks nice but doesnt take ages to do. I settled for a basecoat of Codex Grey with a heavy dry brush of Astronomicon Grey.

The actual guardsman follow this simple scheme. Basecoat of Codex grey with a Bedab wash the highlight the raised areas with Codex grey. Flak vest and helmet in Enchanted Blue with a 50/50 Enchanted Blue / Skull White highlight. Lasgun is bestial brown with Bedab wash then highlighted with a lighter brown( I cant remember the name off hand). Boots are black with a 75/25 black/grey mix to highlight. This scheme means I can do a squad in a couple of hours which is great if you are dealing with lots and lots of troops.

First Post

I am an avid Warhammer 40000 fan, enjoying both the tabletop war game as well as the Black Library literature. I have been reading the books now for over 4 years and have been into the game for a little over 2 years.

As can be seen from the Title of the blog I am a huge fan of the Ultramarines and currently posses over 5000 points of same. I also have 2k of Tau which will likely be mentioned from time to time on the page.

However the main focus of this blog will be the progress of my new guard army. For obvious reasons it will have an Ultramar base, primarily being elements of IG regiments from Calth.

The army is in its infancy as I only have 1 (2nd hand) Leman Russ painted and the 5 clip together guardsman. They have been my test bed to see if I like the army and also to get a colour scheme that works for me. This has now been done.

I am also currently working on the fluff and composition for my army. So far its going to be a combined army (with emphases on troops) with elements of the Calth 768th Heavy Foot and the 42nd Mechanised Cavalry.

Its going to slow process as I dont have access to much funding at the moment but I hope to add a unit or two each month.