Hobby Update: Savage Orcs

I've been working on my one big must-do project and that is getting my unit of Savage Orcs (and Savage Orc Warboss) painted.  The stumbling block has been the color. I didn't want the same blue I used on the rest of my army, but wanted a kinda hybrid Blue-Green to show the (relatively) recent addition of the savages to the Clan of Gork's Snowshoe.

I mixed a lot of colors, many times. What I did find is that no matter the ratio, the greens would always dominate the blues, like the green pigments are always much more powerful.  It was really frustrating.

So I had abandoned the idea and decided to jump into painting them starting with Sotek Green.  It's very close to the old Hawk Turquoise. I then washed using my favorite Coelia Greenshade and then layer up with Sotek Green, then highlight twice with mixes of Sotek Green and Space Wolves Grey.

This got them painted but left me wholly unsatisfied with the result. Then I decided to try something completely out of the blue: I washed the first models with Thrakka Green.  This *almost* gave me the result I wanted.  Almost.  Next day I hopped on down to the game store and picked up the Waywatcher Green glaze.  This worked great, getting me very close to the vision I had in my head. 

First time I had really used a glaze, but the learning curve is pretty short. 

Still need to do the warpaint.  The other issue with these guys is now simply tedious they are to paint. Bone, leather, stone and skin.  Browns and beige oh my.  I was able to speed up the process by going to a drybrush on all the bone parts. 

Another part of that is getting in more color.  Reds really add to the look of the unit, but it's hard. There is some lizard skins on some of the models so doing red and green skins helps a lot.  I also painted the standard as they show on the GW website, with a transition from red to yellow.

That's about it for now.  I need to finish assembly on Farsight, then get him going.  Plus I'm getting the scratch building itch again, who knows what will come of that...

Tournament cancelled; Hobby overload.

So sad, the tournament I was going to was cancelled due to lack of turnout. At least I didn't have to drive down there.  Still not happy, was really looking forward to it. Oh well.

I spent the weekend staring at stuff. There is so much I want to do, that I'm locking up not able to decide how to proceed!   I did however, make progress on two things. I assembled all my Warmachine models. I now have an official 15pt list ready to play.  I think I'm planing my list along the lines of the way I play 40k. This could be fun, or a complete epic failure. Not sure yet..

I also actually started on my Savage Orcs! I'm still not 100% sold on the skin, but it's close to what I had in mind and easy to do.  I plan on doing a simple job, and if I have time go back and add layers. I have two months to finish 35 models.  They are, as expected, easy but tedious...so getting motivation is hard. If I don't get them done I'll mix in some of my regular dual-hand weapon boys to fill the squad.  It will look funny, but be painted.

It will look better after the basing with snow.

I have the savage orcs to work on. I have a bunch of kits and bits to try and build another Dakkajet. I have the warmachine models to work on.  I have ideas for Chaos allies for my Orks. I have more firewarriors to paint for Ork allies.  I have my Farsight to work on. Ugh. I want them all done now! 

Plus with Eldar on the way, I might try to pick up some of that for Tau allies..

Anyway for now I'm trying to focus on savage orcs, but who knows how long that will last..

1250pt Tau tournament list

Yay! I got permission to head on down to Ancient Wonders for a 1250pt tournament.  Just for fun, no entry fee and no prizes.  Love playing there though, I've always had good games.

Just paring down my current list. I'm surprised how much of it I was actually able to get in.

HQ (60): Cadre Fireblade

Troop (125): 11 Firewarriors; Shas'ui w/Markerlight, blacksun filter
Troop (159): 6 Firewarriors, carbines; Devilfish with SMS, disruption pod
Troop (129): 17 Kroot, sniper rounds; 2 kroot hounds

Elite (94): 2x XV8 each with flamer and TL-Plasma

Fast (87): 7x Pathfinders, Sash'ui
Fast (195) 3x Piranha, 3x Fusion blasters, 3x disruption pods
 (Ya it's an expensive unit)

Heavy (170): 2x XV88, 2x HYMP, 2x Velocity tracker
Heavy (131): Skyray, disruption pod, blacksun filter

Fortification (100): Aegis w/quad-gun

1250 exactly

I have a lot of skyfire for 1250pts. I'm thinking someone might try to get in 1 or 2 flyers, as most armies can't deal with them at that points level.  Tau can.

The Piranhas are expensive. However it does give me 2 units.  Because they are taking fusion blasters, there is no reason to keep the gun drones attached. They will detach right away, and try to sneak up for contesting or other shenanigans, and if they die, it's irrelevant.

Pretty happy with this. We'll see how it goes.

Getting close to finishing cleaning up Farsight. He's not as perfect as I originally though, but it's still a very good casting.

A sad day indeed...

Never before the release of the Tau codex would I have imagined this day would come.  It really saddens me.

Tonight I tore off the railguns from my Broadsides.  Cleaned up the superglue, put in magnets and then painted over the scars like they had never been there.

It's hard for me to call it a nerf, considering just how overpowered broadsides have been in 6th.  Especially against Bastions..teehee.. even more so combined with 30 lootas..teeheehee..

You can just see the sadness in their faces..

I'm still working on scratch building some high-yield missile pods, but what I came up with so far is way out of scale to the crisis suit..even though it's probably close to the size of the actual bit from the new Broadside. So for now I'll just pop on some missile pods I have already.

Now I really need to re-think the allies for my Ork army, and what I'm going to do about AV14.  S10 broadsides have served me so incredibly well over the last 10 months I'm almost at a loss on what to do next.  Maybe I'll go with the Chaos Space Marine thing taking some meltaguns.

Anyway off to bed, ready for game night..

Tau Cadre Fireblade complete!

Finished up this guy tonight.  First of the new models, but not the last for sure. I only have a Farsight for now, but I'll be getting more as soon as the restocks come in to my FLGS. 

This is a GREAT model. I love the dynamic pose, love the complex armor and the cloak.  I combined techniques on it, going for a blend on the cape but line highlighting the armor.   The base color is the old GW foundation paint Fenris Grey, which (fortunately) I bought a new pot just before the paint line migration..so I have plenty for a Riptide.

I should say this guy is very easy to paint, even with the cloak assembled I had no issues reaching everything that needed paint.  IMO the single-model plastic blisters is some of the best stuff GW is doing right now, and the Fireblade is a testament to that.

Tau hybrid list take 2 (1750pts)

Here is my updated list based on the lessons learned in my first game.

I call it hybrid because it has a mix of static and mobile units.  Tau have units that excel at one or the other, and finding the right mix is hard.  I plan on trying out both static and mobile lists as well.

HQ (183): Crisis commander; Iridium armor, drone controller, cyclic ion blaster, missile pod, shield generator, target lock, onager gauntlet.
-His job is to lead the target drones and lend them his BS5

HQ (60): Cadre Fireblade
-same job as before!  Just too good and too cheap not to take!

 Troop (134): 12 Firewarriors; Shas'ui w/Markerlight, blacksun filter
-Goes with the Fireblade

Troop (159): 6 Firewarriors, Devilfish with SMS, disruption pod
-Mobile objective taker

Troop (120): 20 Kroot
-giving these guys another shot, but without the sniper rounds they are more flexible

Elite (94): 2xXV8; 2x TL plasma, 2x Flamer
-suicide deep strike unit. Could go with fusion if I can find the points

Fast (165): 3x Piranha, 3x disruption pods
-Really like how these guys worked out. 

Fast (120): 10x pathfinders, Shas'ui

Fast (96): 8x Marker drones

Heavy (194): 2x XV88, 2x HYMP, 2x Velocity tracker, 2x missile drones
-broadsides are primary damage units until I get a Riptide

Heavy (194): 2x XV88, 2x HYMP, 2x Velocity tracker, 2x missile drones

Heavy (131): Skyray, disruption pod, blacksun filter

Aegis (100): quad gun

1750 exactly

So that's the new version.  Still have a backfield unit, a couple mobile units and a couple that have flexible deployment options. 

Tau: second take after my first game.

So I played one game, of all things against another Tau army.  Let me tell you, Tau are *Brutal*, and Tau vs Tau fights will come down to who goes first...

I learned a lot from this game, especially how badly put together my first list is.  I was trying to spread out the markerlights around the whole army so that I would always have some. But it turns out when you do this, you take away alot ..if not most..of your killing power.  It just does not work out very well.

The only thing that worked as planned was the Piranhas. They are great at a fast moving infantry killer.  I will keep those.  The flyer sounds good, but 6 S7 shots for the points probably isn't worth it.  I'd rather go with velocity trackers.

Going up against markerlights is too hard.  There is so much shooting both quality and quantity in a Tau list combined with no cover save and a BS boost that no unit can survive.

So the way to build a list is to have discreet units of markerlights and killing power. 

There are a couple of things in the book which are are just broken.


First is the missile broadside.  For 89 whole points you get TWELVE freaking shots.
Second is marker drones with a battlesuit commander and a drone controller. Give the guy iridium armor so he's T5 so he's a great shield. A unit of BS5 marker drones that can move-shoot-move is just CRAZY.  oh, and they are CHEAP! And there is no longer a BS5 limit on markerlight shots.  Last night I got hit with a BS10 riptide that ignored cover...

Second try list is coming soon. Man, I really want more play time right now to do some testing.