Tournaments - Be on time

With so many local players at Hulls Angels spaces playing against York Garrison were limited. I was the last person in, so missed a slot. I am unhappy that I missed out, but best of luck to everyone playing and hope you have a great day.

I will keep honing my lists for next time...

The whole Ultramarines Chapter list

OK, so I don’t have a full roster as yet and I will not be positing individual points values, but earlier this year I played out a Battle for Mcragge using roughly 20,000 points.

All in all the force contained units from 1st Company, 5th Company, 7th Company, 8th Company, 9th Company, 10th Company and support from the armouries. I tried to drop a complete breakdown in here, but it broke blogger, so I will have to spend some time making it more web friendly.
I have cobbled together a summary of all marines and tanks I used from codex Space Marines and the below is what I got. If you read through you might say to yourself, “only one Rhino?” and I thought something was up too until I remembered I was fighting from trenches, so left the blue boxes at home.

Assault Marines	120
Captains	5
Chaplains	2
Chaplin Casuius	1
Command Squad Veterans	25
Devastator Marines	120
Dreadnaughts	13
Drop Pods	11
Ironclad Dreadnaughts	2
Land Raiders	2
Land Raider Crusaders	2
Land Raider Redeemers	2
Predators	6
Rhino	1
Scout Bikes	10
Scouts	90
Sternguard Veterans	20
Storm Raven	1
Storm Talons	2
Tactical Marines	160
Terminator Assault Marines	20
Terminator Captain	1
Terminator Marines	30
Thunderfire Cannons	3
Vanguard Veterans	30
Vindicators	3
Whirlwinds	2
Total miniatures	684

On the way

The bikes are taking me longer than I expected, requiring a lot of momentum to keep them going, but they are on the way! Here is a snapshot of the bikes I am putting together at the moment. Looks like a complete mess, but there is a method in the madness and I have been batch assembling them. After a quick count up it seems that I am still a few short of a company, so I will be back to the hobby store for another couple of boxes. One of the outstanding sections are the command squad veterans, who I am still deciding how to equip. I could go with a lot of combi weapons and that seems to be the prevailing opinion on the internet, but I like the idea of tooling them up with power fists and storm shields, making them a real close combat threat to the monstrous creatures 7th ed seems to be based around. Comments on the subject are welcome.

Tidy up

Like any other gamer I have a heap of sprue in a box which I keep telling myself I will get around to sorting. Some of it is spare parts, some of it is parts that I have bought and deposited there until I get chance to get around to them, some of it is from the periodic clearing of my desk.

My box is a tall plastic container and has been looking rather full of late, so last night I decided to have a crack at tidying up some of this heap.

Clippers in hand and bits box at the ready I dived in and a bin bag full of empty sprues later I had found 15, yes that’s right, 15 space marine bikes and a drop pod!

I honestly did not expect to find a small army when I started on it, especially as I know I have had at least 4 bikes out of there for my tournament forces.

I have started putting all these together so I expect to have an almost complete 6th company when I am done with it. I will get a company picture up here when I am done.

Back to back tournaments

With two tournaments crammed close together it is a bit of a rush to get ready for the next one. I literally got home from one and submitted my list to the organiser of the next. I am really looking forward to trying my list against the guys from York. There are a few combinations that will take me apart, but with a bit of luck I will get opponents I can deal with and give them a good fight.

Tournament roundup

So I came a solid second and I am happy with that, although I think the dice gods were against me in my last game as I failed a lot of saves and couldn't kill a riptide in 6 rounds of combat. It was still really enjoyable and three solid and challenging games.

I think I dodged a bullet by not having to face the tournament winner who was running around with 5 flying monstrous creatures. I had a couple of ideas to try and counter the list, but it would likely be too much all at once.

I need to crack on with painting it all now as I would have lost due to the points I dropped being unpainted even if I had won all three games.

Tournament rush again

It has been a while since I have had much hobby time, but tomorrow Hulls Angels are running a small tournament to raise money for a cancer charity. As well as raising money for a good cause it is also going to give me a chance to sharpen my rusty game play before we take on York. I have been tinkering with a list that is hard hitting but not as resilient as I would like. I will post more details of it after I play York Garrison to avoid too much meta game, but for now I will say that this list was originally written to face down 6 Imperial Knights and has already proven very effective against battle suits.

York Garrison

York Garrison will be playing the return leg of a competition between themselves and Hull's Angels in just over a months time so I have to plan a very competitive list to take part in this epic struggle. My Ultramarines suffer a pounding when I played against them last with two complete tablings in my first two games.

I am hoping that there will be some home ground advantage as there is fairly static terrain at Hulls Angles where each of the 40k boards are a distinct world and all of the boards have strategies that play to different strengths.

Still whatever edge there is I expect it to be thoroughly tested by York Garrisons excellent play.

It is also a great motivator to get me list building and painting, so I always enjoy the run up to something like this.

Terminator Librarian in progress

At the moment I am working on my Terminator Librarian. I have not finished painting him, so I won’t add any pictures just yet. It is  surprising I have not gotten to painting him sooner as he has formed the vanguard of many on my games, providing a potent  psychic kick in 6th edition Warhammer 40,000 as part of a Assault Terminator death star.

My 1st Company Librarian is the first finecast miniature that I bought. The cast is actually pretty good, although on such a chunky model I think I have missed most of the issues that the early finecast had. I did not like cleaning up the finecast very much, but the rubbery nature of it at least makes him less likely to be damaged by accident.

I do like banners on my sergeants, but worry about them snapping off characters, so I omitted the standing book that can be attached to the top of the suit of Terminator armour, although the Terminator Librarian does not lose much in height as he has the additional Forge World resin detail added to his base like my Terminator Chaplin. The extra thickness adds and extra few millimetres to the overall height making him stand out from my other Terminator armoured veterans. I did have to cut the resin to fit the standard base to keep him tournament legal, which is a shame as there is a lot of detail on this part.

The Terminator Librarian is also pretty unique as he is the only model so far that I have magnetised. I wanted to have the option of running him with a cheap Storm Bolter load out or the more expensive Storm Shield. Tiny magnets drilled into his wrist and the hands on the weapons make this possible.

Oddly enough, despite going to the effort of doing this, I find that the majority of the time I am using the Librarian with a Storm Shield in a squad of Terminators with Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields. He is also now much cheaper in points and this makes him a more viable choice even in small games.

Cyber Cherub campaign token

The new plastic Space Marine Librarian comes with a plastic Cherub servitor that can be fixed t his shoulder. I thought that this would break off ridiculously quickly, so like many servo skulls before it the Cherub was consigned to my bits box. Hulls Angels wargaming club were putting together a campaign and it required everyone to have their own unique marker for their army.
Unfortunately I had too many commitments to join in the campaign, but before I realised this I had already stuck the Cherub to a 25mm base, ready to be my marker.

The poor Cherub has been sat around on my office desk for a few weeks now, frequently getting knocked over by other projects, so I decided it was time to show the mini some love and turn it into my first stage by stage paint. I am not going to win any Golden Demons, but I thought you might like to see how I work.

Base chaos black

So here is stage one, black undercoat and then because I want an odd flesh colour on this odd little servitor I have started lighter than I normally would and put a layer of elf flesh straight on.

Elf flesh

Everything is still rough and ready at this stage. I was planning on using some grey to try and make the skin tone more pallid, but I wasn't happy with the results of that so I mixed snot green and elf flesh to get a slight green tinge. Rather morbidly I like to think that this little servitor has started to go off a bit and is getting a little necrotic. I added the bulk grey colour to the wings and back of the shield and scorched brown to the paper and the areas I was planning on doing metallic gold. I also painted the red on the purity seal and the eyes. I wanted glowing malevolent coals, but they looked nothing like I hoped, so I put them down to clean up later.

Grey, red and brown

 I used bleached bone over scorched brown on the areas of paper and then built that up to a more solid white, with ceramite white. I also added some detail and definition to the wings using white. I cleaned up the black areas ready for the boltgun metal and I also added some writing to the parchments and the purity seal. I think it came out reasonably well. The white in the picture below is very bright, but I found that bleached bone was very close to the skin tone and I felt that I had to make the difference between the skin and parchment more distinct.

Progressing to white

As you can see at this point I  have reduce the Cherub's optics back to the single red eye in its forehead. I guess the Mechanicum did a rush job on this one and thought 50% of the optics was suitable for something with 50% of the size.

The back of the sheild here is Enchanted blue and I had a bit of a wobble and decided that the whole thing looked better as a single colour, so I wrapped it around in the next stage. Below you can see that I added the metallics and also added a snow flock and PVA glue mix to the base to get a thick layer of snow on there. Now that this is all matched up with my Ultramarine army I am very tempted to throw the little fellow in as a filler in a command squad at some point. For now he will be joining the odds and ends in my glass cabinet.

Finished front

If you spotted the cable to the left of the head is not cleaned up, I did spot this, but it was after I had all the photos together. Below is a rear view shot for all of  you who have been wondering what has been going on back there. The answer is cables and the white on the wings, which I find is surprisingly easy to do and looks really good. That is all for this post. Come back for more progress on the army as a whole.

Finished rear

Terminator Chaplin

One of the first miniatures that I bought for my Space Marines and also one of the first that I painted was my Terminator Chaplin. As Chaplin of the Ultramaines 1st Company his main job in the last edition was to provide a combat bonus and punch to a Terminator death star, now his job is the same, although he is much cheaper in points and often ends up as a challenge shield due to his low AP Crozus.

Ultramarine Chaplin side view

He stands a little taller than my other Terminators thanks to his Forgeworld base. I like the dark and gritty feel of this miniature, I really enjoyed painting him and managed to get a nice glossy look to the skull helm.

There are a couple of interesting differences between my Chaplin's paint scheme and the overall scheme I have used for the 1st Company. You will notice that his Storm Bolter is black instead of the throwback red that I use on my other veterans. I think this adds to the overall darkness of the miniature, making the gold and the purity seals stand out better.

There are also a couple of issues that the better painters out there have probably picked up on already. The devotional scrolls and parchment scraps on the miniature are all blank. I was so happy with the look of the miniature that I did not want to spoil it with my rough and ready attempt at writing on the scrolls.

Ultramarine Terminator Chaplin

The other thing you might notice and it is a bit more obvious in the picture to the left is I did not paint any blue on his pauldrons. This is the only Ultramarine I have with no blue on whatsoever! Don't worry too much though as I will go back and deal with that after I have filled out more of my less complete miniatures.

If you have any tips on how to do writing on scrolls and purity seals please drop them in the comments below.

Black Reach Dreadnought

My Black Reach Dreadnought has been sitting around in my collection with a blue base coat and a few splats of colour on for a while so I thought it was about time I finished him off.

One of the few things that make my Black Reach Dreadnought a little different are the brass bits that  have made their way onto his main armour plates and the small pile of skulls from the basing kit that are my attempt to fill the 28mm void that is his flat base.

I have tried a couple of things with the brass disk Ultramarine icon on his greave, but they have not worked as well as I liked. In the end I took it almost back to the original brass colour with Beastal Brown and Shining Gold and then picked out the details with green and white.

Most of the other work was cleaning up and adding a little consistency with my existing Dreadnoughts, painting the power fist red and colour to some of the cabling around the sarcophagus. I based it using a snow flock and PVA glue mix to add a bit of texture.

Overall I am happy with the finished item and it fits well with the rest of my painted miniatures.

2nd Company blues

The Ultramarines 2nd Company have been a bit of a challenge for me as I have been trying to match the types of armour and armaments used in the Space Marine Codex's depiction of the 2nd Company.

The first part of this was a substantial order of Forge World items. I literally went through counting legs and built from that. The Forge World parts are really nice, detailed and add a lot of variety, but in retrospect I wish I had not chosen the legion assault packs, as although I got some of the really cool jump packs with turbines and great close combat weapons I also ended up with running legs and torsos that have the harnesses modelled on.

I find that the Forge World resin is tricky to work with and that really slowed down the rate at which I have been putting together marines. I am using some high strength super glue Zap-a-Gap and it is the best I have found so far for what I am doing but needs to be handled with care and the parts need washing, there are no short-cuts working with it.

It also takes a fair bit of time deciding what parts to use and where I can and should make compromises. For example, while all of the special weapons are right, they are not necessarily the right variant. I am using Godwyn pattern bolters as I did not want to push up the cost even more with the bolter packs.

At this point I am about half way through assembling the company and it is one of the ones I am really looking forward to painting.

Working like a grot

Just a quick snap of my work area. I have just finished assembling 8th company and am grabbing a break before I finish 1st and 10th

Links with Lincoln

My local Games Workshop only had one box of scout bikes in stock, typically I needed two and lack of planning meant that I had no time to order them through club, but it just so happened that I was off to Lincoln...

Lincoln is a  great looking town in places but a little bit up and down when you are on foot. We only only had an hour from when we parked due to other commitments and the store happened to be 30min walk away, so it was time to pick the pace up. Downhill from the car park it was not too bad to get to the Lincoln store, who where in the middle of a re-shuffle, but had the scouts  that I needed. 

Their gaming boards are really nice and if you happen to be in the area I recommend that you stick your head in and say hello.

Then Scout Bikes and a Command Squad  in hand it was a mad scramble back up the hill to avoid a parking fine, then back across the bridge to Hull for some more cutting and sticking.

All nighter

So the shear volume of Marines I have to put together have been taking their toll. After 3 days of clipping and sticking I have had a day of family time, but it wasn't too long before I found myself back at my desk working away as I try to pull together units for airbrushing tomorrow (or is that now today?). I was just going to sort a couple of bits... Well now it is after 3 in the morning. 9th Company is finished to my satisfaction and 8th is much further on than I thought it was. So with three days to go it looks like I only have about 100 Marines to finish!

I just need to be sure about the parts I need for the 2nd before I do any more with that and I need 1 more command squad for the 1st although I mainly need it for the banner.

Hobby Holiday

I am taking a hobby holiday from work, culminating in the battle of Mcragge and a celebration of the Nid's new codex, where I will be fielding no less than 18,000 points of Ultramarines and probably a few more, so expect a flurry of posts over the next few days while I throw together roughly 600 miniatures and try and get them looking good for the tabletop.
We march for Mcragge!

Venerable Dread

So I have had hands on a Venerable dreadnaught kit for the first time. There are only two frames in the box but there was a lot of detail on them, with three head choices and a number of different options for sarcophagi.

There are two variants of power fist, Storm Bolter and Flamer as you would expect and 3 main weapon options including a Plasma cannon, Lascannon and the stalwart assault cannon.

I opted for Gothic arches on as many surfaces as I could. I may regret that later when I come to fill in the painted detail, but I think it will look great. I have left the sarcophagus detached to make painting easier. Here it is under-coated and ready for base painting. Another Venerable I bought assembled is in the background.

Battle for Mcragge

On the 25th of Jan to celebrate the release of the new Tyranid codex Hulls Angels are having a 40k game of 40k. I am providing 20k of Space Marines who will be duly butchered as they hunker down in trenches and try to repel the gribbley invaders. This epic undertaking requires that I complete 5 companies of Marines in just 2 weeks. I am finishing the 1st, 8th, 9th and 10th and building the 7th from scratch. It might not all be painted, but I am looking forward to some time off work and this epic undertaking.