Big Yellow

Oh Yeah!

I've painted the best part of a battle company over a period of years. My Marauder chapter of marines show the development and progress (quiet you!) of my painting ability. Yellow, what the hell was I thinking????

The majority of the chapter were painted by base coating dwarf flesh and highlighting up until just shy of pure white and then washing with yellow ink. On the face of it, this was a pretty reasonable solution for infantry figures passable for dreadnought and bikes and absolute dog sherbet for vehicles. It's what finished the Marauder chapter short of a battle company. I just couldn't put up with the poor quality and the endless repainting of the vehicles in an attempt to get an acceptable standard. I drew a line under my favourite army, planned another marine chapter for 2009+ and move onto my Eldar army. Lovely, lovely Eldar.

Today I was knocking up some Wolf Guard (metal) to get on eBay to clear space for my new emybonic Wolf Guard based on the new plastic Terminators, yes for 2009+. It pays to plan ahead. For those of you that don't possess an encyclopedic knowledge of marine paint schemes or iconography the right shoulder pad is yellow. Did I paint as per my decade old scheme, did I bowls! I painted the shoulder white, two very thin coats of sunburst yellow, a wash of Ogryn Flesh and then highlight up with sunburst and increasing amounts of white. And the result? Simpler, quicker and better than the inking method. Which is good as there is no longer a yellow ink and no yellow wash to replace it.

Flicking Bell!!!!

Will I now finish the Marauder battle company? Ha Ha Ha No!

A threesome is never as much fun as it sounds...

Its been a low turn out for Wednesday night fighting of late. It's more usual to try and work out what we'll do for the 5th, 6th and occasionally 7th player as we have 12ft by 4ft of gaming surface. Last Wednesday there were only the three of us, Lordy, Binx and I.

There are new guidelines for three way games in the new 5th edition and we thought we'd give that a go. The scenario is three factions are meeting in the wilds of beyond and the fragile parley falls apart and a big fight breaks out. Whoever goes last automatically goes first the following turn and the remaining players roll off for 2nd and 3rd. On the first turn each unit becomes active on 4+ and there are reserves.

We set up in the centre with an Ork Warboss, a Daemon Prince and a Marine Captain. Lets be honest a parley was never going to work was it? Each of the factions had a 'base' as an objective to hold whilst attempting to secure the central objective, where the parley is held, or another base from the other forces.

The forces of chaos went first and elected to attack the Marine Captain, Binx being too scared of fighting the Warboss. The Daemon Prince paid for this mistake and was dead on turn two. Below is a sequence of pictures that showed the ebb and flow of the battle. Despite a few moments solid counter attack, the Marauder marines were hors de combat by turn 2. . The Orks were left wholly intact until turn 3 and went on to win the game by one objective after losing the Warboss in close combat with the possessed of Slaanesh.

Ultimately, in my opinion, a three way game isn't viable and if you are in the same situation, the normal solution of one player having double the points of the other two is much better. So I would like to finish by saying, I will never, never, ever eat a tomato!


Meeting up for a chat...!


The green tide begins


Hot Plasma Death about to rain down on the Noise Marines - 8 dead!


The Orks get stuck in


Battle in full swing

...and where, ah ha, is your horse?

I wanted to be the first to publish my completed unit for 'Tale of many, many gamers' but I have been busy finishing of figures for my 40k 5th Edition marine army. I managed to scrape a loss last Wednesday against Tomarse's Grey Knights and my bikes were key in allowing me to come second. Anyway enjoy, hopefully, my complete bike unit and a Captain on Bike. Well still the static grass to go on but that doesn't really count. Does it?

On your bike!

With only days to go until the 'Tale of as many gamers as you can wave a stick at' starts I am doing the sensible thing. That's correct painting bikes for my Marauder Chapter Marines.

Work in progress...

5th Edition Marauders

With the 5th Edition of 40k only weeks away I have been giving some thought to my Marauder Chapter Marines. I have a reasonable selection of units to choose from and have always favoured Tactical squads so no immediate problem with taking 'Troop' choices to secure objectives.

However the new Marine Codex is being issued in October so I don't want to make any significant changes, in the form of new models and painting, until the rumours of the new book are confirmed or denied. So, with this in mind I have devised a 1500 point force to enable me to learn the 5th edition. I intend to play this force unchanged until the new Codex release.

Marine Captain – Bike – Combi Plasmagun
Terminator Squad 5 Terminators - Assault Cannon - Heavy Flamer
Tactical Squad 1 Vet Sgt - Power Fist, 9 marines - Heavy Bolter and Flamer - Rhino
Tactical Squad 2 Vet Sgt - Power Fist, 9 marines - Lascannon and Meltagun - Rhino
Tactical Squad 3 Sgt - 9 marines - Plasma Cannon and Plasmagun – Rhino
Bike Squadron 4 Bikes – Flamer
Assault Squad 5 Jump Pack Marines – Flamer
Predator Destructor

I still need to finish building and paint these figures but I've had plans to do these for a while. I'll add pictures of the new units and the complete force over the next couple of weeks.

Chaplain

I've had twenty Terminators for my Marauder chapter of Adeptus Astartes built and painted for some time. All they needed to be finished are a Chaplain and a Librarian. Both of these figures have been built and undercoated for months and have been mocking me from the figure cabinet. All I needed was a bit of uninterrupted time and one of them was going to get done.

With an enforced holiday, a box of the new washes and an idea I wanted to steal I was ready to get the beardiest Marine heroes completed.

I'm happy with the result, the worn effect of the armour doesn't show very well in the photos and my over talented wife said "What are you going to do with the black bits?" but it's come out the way I wanted it to. Not at all "Oh? It looks like you've just caught your brush on black parts of the model" which was her response to my explanation...