Artic Ork test model

I almost had this guy done when I dove into the stormraven, so instead of finishing the magnets today I decided to finish him. Much lighter blue then my previous Icy Ork and I think it came out much better. Also I put a lot more detail into the rest of the model, including rust and highlights.

Stormraven WiP

Mostly built, next step is to magnetize the weapons.

Projects complete

Finally finished my Predator. Yay! Now to do the rhino. Probably won't finish it by the time the Stormraven arrives, but it should be close. I also finished basing my bike squad. Had not planned on doing any of the painting at this time, but ended up washing all of them with badab black. Turned out pretty well, so they will go on a back, back burner.

Tournament afterthoughts

Tournament battle reports

Well I played my demeched orks in an actual tournament. They had 2.5 hour rounds, or I would not have played the list I did. I had enough time to finish each game..but just barely.

First round I played against another ork player, with a very similar idea..lots of boys...plus nobs and burnas. He had a list that could potentially do a lot of damage to me. Despite being a new player, he made 1 mistake, and didn't play differently then I would have. The only mistake was moving his battlewagon 7" then getting out instead of moving up farther and getting out. Even as it was, the burnas still obliterated my 20 boy unit, but if they had been farther up they could have done damage to the shootas behind as well. This left the shootas to wipe out one large boys unit. However that left the burnas in the open, and died to lobba fire. Shooting and snikrot took out another large unit, and the nobs took out the third. His nobs took out one of my large units and my lootas, but I had done enough damage back that the final assault into my mek and tankbustas finished them. My tankhammer boy insta-killed his warboss :) The nice thing, despite being a newer player, he had a firm grip on the rules and I didn't have to explain anything. I got full 20 out of 20 on this game.

The 2nd game was at top table, as only 2 people got max point first round. Me and the guy I drove up with, with the all-foot slogging wolves that I played a couple weeks ago. This time though he had Ragnar, and Saga of the Warrior Born really worried me. Fortunately he had to walk into my shooting..the tankbustas, lootas, and both units of shootas wiped out the entire unit before it could assault anything. The nobs were good here, but not as good as they could have been due to all the S8 shooting I had to deal with. 2 nobs died to ML fire, and 2 died to lone wolf power fist. This didn't leave me much left but they still wrecked whatever they touched. In the end I had shot most of his army off the table, leaving only 1.5 long fang squads and a handful of gray hunters. I still had my grots and ~50 boys. A higher consolidate roll would have won me this game. We tied, 9 out of 20.

Last game, again at top table, put me up against a very similar idea ork list, only he had a few vehicles. This game the nobs absolutely wrecked face, wiping out a 30 boy unit, stormboys, and lootas. I rolled A LOT of 1's for terrain however otherwise I would have easily won this game. What should have been a game-winning assault, taking out his last boys unit, instead resulted in dead nobs. My warboss, a pk nob and the painboy charged into about 20 boys a long with 8 boys and a pk nob from my small unit. I lost the painboy on the charge to terrain, and the small unit of boys failed the charge! The result was only 1 dead on his side (really bad rolling on the boss) and both boss and nob wiped out. Because of this, I could not control the objective despite having a lot more of my army remaining. The game ended on a 1 for turn 6 just as time expired. I got 8 out of 20 points.

I did get 12 out of 15 painting points, with my only points lost were to the lack of high-end painting. I was the only player there with a fully painted, detailed, converted army with a matching display board. This netted me best appearance and $50 in store credit I used on a Terminator assault squad I was planning on buying anyway.

Overall I ended up with a total of 49 points out of a possible 75 and 4th place. 3rd was 50pts, 2nd was 51 and first was 54 so it was close at the top.

Unit thoughts:
Nob bikers: Completely wrecked face all day long. Worth every point and then a whole lot more.
Snikrot: Completely changes the dynamic of how the list plays. It makes it so the opponent can no longer sit back and wait for me. I need to drop something to get him in my 1750 list.
Tankbustas: I never faced a tank-heavy army. They did blow up a looted wagon and a battlewagon the first game, but only a trukk the 2nd before getting wiped in assault. I think I could have used them differently, but not sure. The jury remains out on these guys.
Grots: remain completely useful, for the low low price of 49 points. Don't leave home without them.
Lobbas: 84 points of pure win. Obliterating burnas, pinning gray hunters was just the beginning. Love this unit.

2000pt tournament list

Going to Gameforge in Auburn, Washington for a 2k tourny. Bringing the demeched orks, nob biker version.

HQ: Warboss, Bike, pk, cybork, squig, bosspole
HQ: Mek, KFF, cybork, burna

Troop: 5 Nob Bikers, 2x PK, 1x Big choppa, waggh! banner, painboy, cyborks, grenades
Troop: 20 Sluggas, Nob w/PK & Bosspole
Troop: 30 Shootas, 3x rokkit, Nob w/PK & Bosspole
Troop: 30 Shootas, 3x rokkit, Nob w/PK & Bosspole
Troop: 13 Grots + Runtherd

Elite: 13 Lootas
Elite: 10 tankbustas, 1 tankhammer, Nob w/Bosspole, 2xBombsquigs
Elite: 10 Kommandos, 1x burna + Snikrot

Heavy: 3x Lobbas, 3x ammo runts

Have not played this at 2k yet, but adding Snikrot gives me a lot more flexibility then I've have before.

OK I Like the Stormraven

It seems I'm in the minority when it comes to the new stormraven..I actually like it. I'm getting 2 for sure.

GW even has a 360 degree flash for your viewing pleasure.

So if I get 2, what am I going to do with them? It would require playing my BA completely different then I do now, with low model count and would require much more precision then I like.

Here is the preliminary OFCC 2011 list I came up with. The only things I would have to do is the stormravens, get CC arms for my terminators, and make a terminator priest.

HQ (100): Librarian Shield, rage

Troop (235): 10 assault, 2x melta, fist
Troop (170): 5 assault, melta, meltabombs, Las-plas razorback
Troop (170): 5 assault, melta, meltabombs, Las-plas razorback
Troop (115): 5 death company, 1 power weapon
Troop (135): DC Dead, talons, Heavy flamer

Elite (160): 2 Priests 1 in terminator armor, 1 with jump pack
Elite (165): Furioso, talons, armor, grapple, heavy flamer
Elite (215): 5 Assault terminators 2x LC, 3x TH/SS

Heavy (200): Stormraven, MM, Lascannons
Heavy (200): Stormraven, MM, Lascannons
Heavy (135): Predator AC/LC

2000 exactly

My plan would be to set up a 3 prong attack. First is the long-range fire base with the predator and razorbacks, protected under the shield of sanguinius. Next prong is the jump pack assault squad, while not a true hammer unit can still dish out a lot of damage and take a fair amount with the priest. Last is the 2 stormravens filled will all kinds of goodness: 2 blood talon dreads and furious charging terminators! Wee!

Blood Angels Captain

Finally finished my captain. A very unused HQ choice in the BA codex, for the price I think he packs a lot of punch...with jump pack and dual lightning claws its 155pts, and with Furious charge he's 5 attacks at WS6, I6, S5, with re-rolls to wound. Oh and he has a 4+ invul.

The arms are magnetic so I can change out the gear in the future. A power weapon and infernus pistol is the exact same points and an equally viable option IMO.

The problem is getting the right hand power armor lightning claw. The only place to get one, is metal, and in a particular veteran blister.

Flakkatrukk now complete

Finished the flakkatrukk, after weathering the wheels. Enjoy!

Oh no not another learning experience

1750pts Orks vs MechDar

So I lost this game. I should not have. About the end of turn 4 I realized why I lost. I gave my opponent somewhere to hide, on the back side of the big ugly terrain piece. I should have sent my nob bikers up the side of the board instead of up the middle, and one of the units of boys. This would have forced his tanks into range of my lootas and tankbustas instead of being able to completely hide from my entire army.

I simply had not factored in the terrain in my plan. It should have been obvious the only place to hide was on that edge. I could have even put the lootas in the ruin instead of lobbas which would have been really fun.

So an important lesson learned. Look how the terrain effects how your opponent will play given what you know about their army.

flakkatrukk next stage

Finished the painting and weathering. Phew. That was actually quite tedious.

Now I need a wash, it's lacking depth. might try spraying it on.

The first thing I noticed was the red does not stand out much versus the red. But it looks great if you get close..

Gunner and grot are done as well.

An unexpected wrinkle..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9YsQ81Yx7A

My first game of 2011 really threw me for a loop. I ended up playing an all footslogging Space Wolf army.

yes, a 40k game with zero vehicles..say that out loud: zero vehicles!?

I made a last second change to the list, dropping a bike and a grot to change the warboss to wazdakka. Not sure if I will keep this or not, but it make the bikes scoring which could be really good if I don't get too aggressive with them like I did in this game. I'm not sure if trying to reach the other flank with the would have worked out any better, and I might have lost the unit without doing any damage. At least they wiped out a scoring unit.

I really did not anticipate going against this list when building my de-meched orks but I should have considering how good and popular it has become. I need to develop an over all strategy specific to this build.

Since this was an objective game, my goal was to keep as many orks alive as I could, while getting ready to sprint for objectives near the end of the game. My opponent pretty much played exactly the same. Both my giant units had taken virtually no losses throughout the game. This kind of wolf list has very little anti-infantry shooting, and since I concentrated loota fire on his long fangs he didn't even get out a lot of templates.

My one unit of lootas was absolutely devastating. Of course it helped I only rolled 1 shot each once, in turn 6. After the first turn where I took out 4 out of 5 missile launchers in the first logn fang unit, I wasn't too worried about templates. On the other side, the long fangs were basically useless. They are meant to take out vehicles. I love facing a lot of lascannons with my list. I think the long fangs killed more orks when assaulting then from shooting..

The first thing that he targeted was the tankbustas. No vehicles meant their S8 Ap3 shooting was free to fire at will. Obviously they had to die first, and their sacrifice took an entire turn of shooting off the lootas. mission accomplished.

I think in a killpoint mission I would have been even more aggressive, not hanging back trying to claim objectives.

There is also a variant with thunderwolves as a hammer/alpha strike unit. That kind of list would fit right into my overall strategy - bait the hammer unit into my leading screening unit, and then wipe them out with massive shooting - so I wouldn't need to change anything for that.

But overall this game shows the goal of demeching - to render the opponents anti-vehicle shooting a waste of points, giving me an advantage. That is exactly what happened.

Trying something new

Instead of jumping into the battlewagon and risking it, I am practicing on my flakkatrukk.

Mainly I'm trying out the hairspray weathering/rust effect.

First, a heavy drybrush of boltgun metal.



Built up the rust with scorched brown, vermin brown, and blazing orange.



Hairspray sprayed on with the airbrush, and salt sprinkled on while wet.



Ran out of hobby time tonight so will be spraying the main color in a couple days..tomorrow is game night.

Tactical Squad done

Completely finished the tactical squad. This is the config I will most likely use if I use them at all.

Fist, combi-melta, melta, lascannon



All the models




The magnetized options..I love magnets!



Captain is done sans the LC arm I have on order...

Started working on my Predator but will probably swap over to a different project for the 40k forums January Challenge.