Of Heresy and Other Ramblings.

Howdy folks,

Long time, no post so lets get down to business. Due to my lack of foresight and general level of s%!t I have had to do lately I am going to attempt to jog my little brain to remember some of the highlights of my last game with my Dark Angels versus Da Masta Chiefs Orks from a while back. It was an awesome game and I had a lot of fun.We played a Scouring game and right out of the gate my smaller army was an asset (fewer possible victory points). I ended up taking what is rapidly becoming my "go to" selection of Dark Angels: two Tac squads with plasma guns and cannons plus a nice chunk of Deathwing to do some killing with and a small Ravenwing contingent to muck about with. In all honesty I still haven't gotten the hang of synergizing the three elements as efficiently as possible. The bikes have proven to be a bit of a curve ball for me to remember to properly use. Like I said previously it was a very fun game and, as always, a blood bath. Thankfully it is a blood bath that ended in my favor fairly comfortably this time. Plasma weapons against, well against most anything really, work much like the Bass O' Matic 76 ( The Bass O Matic 76) from the old Saturday Night Live commercial. They slice, they dice, and after roasting several Orks without an over heat they get to be quite a rush. Deathwing Knights are still pretty awesome but they are not a sledge hammer. I am finding that a more rapier like use is the most effective. Dump them in via deep strike or Landraider, whichever floats your boat, and make sure they shield wall. Then just point them at what needs to die and let the good times roll. Just make sure you have some other units to back them up with fire support and possibly some meat walls as they tend to draw all teh aggro. And if I have missed anything glaringly obvious Chief feel free to jump in here. Check out some pictures of the battle here. 

Holy crap all the Orks!

Squish

 

Deez gitz is leggin it!

Bass O Matic 76. Check the link out too!

 Now on to the next bit of rambling. Recently I made a purchase off of Ebay on a whim. I ordered a set of Iron Armor marines from a seller in Hong Kong for a reasonable price. It was a good experience with price and shipping and the items came as pictured and they appear to be authentic. The only problem is is that two of the legs are off center from the mold. I am not sure what the general consensus is about Forge World but my experience has always been very positive in the quality of the models. Now I can fix the legs with green stuff but after this I believe I will be ordering direct from the mother ship so to speak. The price difference wasn't that significant and if I run in to another model issue I can at least get the stuff replaced. I have had great experience with Forge World customer service in the past. So why did I buy these models you ask? Well gentle reader I have decided to dip my toe in the waters of 30k gaming, with a bit of a twist. I have magnetized the trigger hand on the models and "modern" boltguns so that they can be exchanged. I will be likely painting the models in colors for modern Chapters so I can use the models interchangeably. Right now I think I will paint up a Space Wolf, Blood Angel, Ultramarine, Iron Hand, and Imperial Fist. Of course I will be adding more models to my Heresy era collection to represent the Legions, both loyalist and traitor, in the future. I think my first pure Heresy era army will be a force of Luna Wolves with some Emperor's Children. Mainly I want the Garviel Loken and (when they make it) Saul Tarvitz models to lead my forces. Knowing me I will likely end up with a fore for all of the Legions at some point. This isn't going to be my primary hobby focus, but rather a side effort to be purchased and painted as the fancy takes me. Speaking of fancies, take a look at what my latest one has produced.  

I leave you with this image good reader. Happy gaming folks!

More evidence

More pictures of evidence. And if this was the only time I dealt with these issues I would simply send GW an email with these pics and ask for my money back or a new model. But every finecast has had these same issue. I have made 4 or 5 others I am not quite sure.

Ok notice the hooves, 3 of them are floating if the big base piece is flat on ground, I will probably have to cut off the base to get a true flat surface. If you look on back of box you can see where they had to fill in themselves to get the hooves to hit the ground.

Notice horn is slightly warped, the middle juts out farther than the curve it should have. This one is not so bad and wouldnt be commented on if this was only issue.

Ok now the haft of his hammer is bent up out of line with hammer. This is after I bent it back somewhat. again not worth mentioning by itself.

NOT MY PICTURE, JUST IMAGE ON BACK OF BOX, DONT SUE ME GW

Notice they had to fill in space in back for hooves to rest, so unless I am missing a piece they are admitting on the back of box they messed up.

Fine Cast, yes or no?

Ok, I would like to get some peoples opinions on this one. Do you like fine cast models?
They have some real nice details put into them, and they are light weight, those are the only pros I can come up for them.

They are always always expensive. usually more than a box of the most common unit in that army. If I could find models I liked that were plastic or even metal I would buy them. I hate hate hate resin models

Maybe I am too much of hobby lightweight to get the full bang for the buck out of these models, but I would like them to get rid of the resin all together. I would like to hear from the people on this one.

Cons:
One: They dont paint well, even with good base coats paint doesnt like to stick to the model. In most cases I apply a second base coat over first and sometimes have had to go back and apply a third base coat in some areas by hand, i use the spray  on the first two. Colors never seem to come out right on the resin and I have even had paint come off the model, paint flaked then fell off.
Two: They are a nightmare to put together and keep together. Same problem as paint, glue doesnt seem to want to stick. I have tried crazy glue, super glue, both of GWs light and thick glue, which to be frank i wasn't surprised when they didnt work because they never do. Then when you finally put it together it breaks before any other model. I have even had pieces fall of during the night. left the model standing up after painting, in the morning wake up to paint but find first I have to re-glue an arm on. I even hold the son of a gun there for a good five minutes, and still the glue just doesnt seem to want to hold. I have even tried elmers and rubber cement, nothing seems to work.
Third: Holy cow cleaning the pieces off of the sprue, I spend a good ten minutes picking pieces off and shaving away wherever the press came together and leaves the edging going around. Yes the models look amazing when done but you have to spend too much time to get them to that point. Another thing I have never had to deal with in my 12 odd years of the hobby, my Chaos daemonic mount still had a piece of the foam die they cast the model in practically inbeded in the model, pic to follow, took me ten minutes to pick that crapper out of there. And I always miss some piece of shit sprue bit leftover until i am painting details on the model, my job requires me to spend hours looking at drawings trying to find mistakes of 1/16th of an inch or less, and yet somehow one bastard always slips through

Bit of yellow is the foam, notice the frills on the mail lower in the picture and a little extra yellow in the folds of the mails lower edge



 Lastly: the cost. They are always more expensive than a whole box of plastics if I could find models I liked in either plastic or metal i would buy those instead; maybe I am just too much of a hobby lightweight to get the full bang for my buck from these guys, I would not mind at all if they got rid of the Fine cast line or resin I have had that bad of experiences with them. Would really like to hear back from other people on this one. If you use fine cast resin models let me know what you think. I promise to listen to your side, at least as much as any one on the internet listens to someones else's argument they dont agree with

Dark Angels vs Tyranids

 Howdy folks!

Bob here with a brief discussion of my first game using the new Dark Angels Codex in battle a few weeks ago. We had an odd number of players in the shop so I ended up fielding 3000 points of Dark Angels versus two 1500 point Tyranid players. I was not expecting to have to play at this point level (but god knows I have the models to field 3k or even higher) so I did not have a list read. Here is what I ended up throwing together: Also I can't remember if this is all of it.

Belial with a Deathwing Command Squad with a company banner, champion, apothecary, and an assault cannon (320) mounted in a Land Raider Crusader with a multimelta and Deathwing upgrade (290).

Tactical Squad 1: plasma cannon, plasma gun, veteran sargent with a plasma pistol (195)

Tactical Squad 2: plasma cannon, plasma gun, veteran sargent with a plasma pistol (195)

Tactical Squad 3: plasma cannon, veteran sargent. (165)

Deathwing 1: 2 lightning claws, assault cannon, chain fist (250)

Deathwing 2: plasma cannon, chain fist (250)

Deathwing 3: chain fist, cyclone missile launcher (255)

Deathwing Knights: (235)

Dark Talon: (160)

Ravenwing Black Knights: grenade launcher (126)

Ravenwing Attack Squadron: 6 bikes, plasma gun, veteran sargent with a power sword and melta bombs (206)

Landspeeder Vengeance: assault cannon (160)

And arrayed against me were two "Nidzilla" lists. I have never fought Tyranids before but I know the basic tactics to use against them (i.e kill the big ones and the little ones). I don't remember my opponents exact lists but they had at least one Trygon, one Mawloc, a Tervigon, Tyrants and Hive Guard and Tyrant Guard, Gaunts, a Carnifex or two, some Zoanthropes, and lastly a Doom of Malan'tai (more on this abomination later).

The game type we rolled for was relic. It was placed in the center of the board in a narrow piece of terrain.I won the battle in the end thanks to secondary objectives and Belial's The Hunt Warlord trait (his command squad killed one of the Hive Tyrant warlords). The game ended at the end of turn 5 and I had somehow managed to deny my opponents the relic. To put this in proper perspective I had only one model left on the board at the end of the game but a brave plasma cannon Tactical Marine had lived long enough so that when the game ended he had just died and the Tyranids did not get to pick up the relic. Check out a few (bad quality) photos of the battle. 

So what do I think of the new army? In short I love it. The Deathwing Knights performed as they should have, i.e. they were tough as nails and killed anything they fought, but they just don't work against large numbers. Use them to kill monsters/vehicles/characters etc. The Land Speeder Vengeance is pretty awesome. If you can keep it alive it can dish out a lot of plasma template death. I never used the large blast as the multiple smaller templates worked better against the Nids. The Dark Talon wasn't all that impressive but I don't think I know how to use it to its full potential yet. Unfortunately the Black Knights didn't live long enough to do anything as they ate death from the Doom very early in the game. And speaking of the Doom of Malan'tai, if you see this thing kill it quickly. The amount of death this thing can deal is stupid. It basically accounted for my middle section of units before I could kill the damn thing.

Thanks for reading folks and as always I welcome your thoughts and comments. My next battle themed article will be Dark Angels v.s. Orks. Cheers and happy gaming everyone!

PRETTY PICTURES!

Yes I have been doing some gaming down in Atlanta, hasnt gone well for me because I am waaaaayyyy behind. But will show you pictures of my current undersized warband.

Warband Champion Lvl N00b

back of sir newb

Took exalted hero model, hacked off old weapons gave him stuff from Chaos Knights box, then shield and sword on back from warrior box. I like the look.

P.B.I. Poor Bloody Infantry

 Yeah marauders good at dying and running away

meh

Chaos Warriors are completely underwhelming when fighting other chaos models

thats 'Mister Drools a Lot' to you

 Good old spawn, handy in small games, easily overpowered in more recent games. My only model with real hitting power right now.

All my guys get the mark of Tzeentch, or spawn of tzeentch, giving them an almost worthless 6+ ward save, or breath weapon for spawn. really need more guys in warband.

and because one time I rolled to get this guy but did not have the model DAEMON PRINCE, now that I have one I will never roll to get him again

lots of reposing went into this model

 and for one battle someday I will get to bring this mamba jamba