Scenery for Infinity...

After reading through the numerous forums and blogs covering the Infinity Game, I gone off and started a new style of scenery.  I've used a customized Tau Firewarrior for scaling as I've yet to pick up any Infinity figures.

Procrastination and Inspiration

Procrastination.

It's less than a week away from Great Escape Games' Warhammer 40K Contest of Champions and I'm still getting my Blood Angels army together.  The project this afternoon was to convert the usual power plants on my Assault Marines  into Jump Packs. I had dropped the Packs back in 5th edition to score the Lazerback. Now that tanks have a slightly more difficult time in combat and troops become even more important, I decided to grow the Assault teams 10 deep putting Jump Packs on one and the other ride the Stormraven.  Thing is, where I am, Jump Packs are direct order only...soooo I can either wait two weeks for my Local Friendly Games Shop to get them in...or wait about the same time for GW.  Nah...I decided to just convert them.

Here's a few photos with some pretty basic but important tips when doing something like this. First off,  use a razor saw with a miter whenever you can and be sure to sand off the burs before replacing the stock back in the miter for the next cut.  If you don't, there's a decent chance that the material will lift a bit at the burr causing your cut to be less than perpendicular. At least for this project, everything needed to be consistent and accurate.

See what I'm talking about.  This makes a big difference when you're working at milometers.

Once all the vector thrusters were cut...

...it was time to mark off and cut the intakes.  This didn't take all that long but I did cut extras just in case.

Now that the main form of the Jump Pack was coming together, I went in to some details like the exhaust nozzels shown above and the bit of shielding shown below.  Here's another tip: layout the bits you need to cut so that the cuts can be repeated comfortably and consistently. Here I laid out the shielding so that the last cut would be the one that frees all the pieces at once.

These next two shots show the models with their packs. If you click the images, they'll open up a larger version for better viewing.  You'll notice several other steps that went into rounding out the effect but I figure these are self explanatory.  The main tip here is to make sure that whatever conversion you plan to do on a multi-model scale, you should make sure it's easily repeatable which also means making sure you can gather all the elements you used the first time around.

Of course, I did paint these but figure I'll let you see the final results when I post the display board I'm making for the army.

Enjoy!

Display Base for the Fellowship of the Ring

...And Even More Tyranid Scenery...

This time, there's a digestion pool (not pictured in the last post ) an overrun ruin and a couple of multispires. My goal is to create at least one piece of scenery based on all the organisms not covered in rules and a few "left overs" like the overrun ruins, some dead mycetic spores and spires and few other ideas I have knocking around.  So, first a look at the spires:

A couple of these are updates as the plaster cloth types weren't all that impressive after all. Just as well: majorly messy.  The spires get a satin clear coat to bring out the details create more contrast with the bases.  The gaunt is a test piece for my upcoming swarm...waiting on the meta before I commit to a full army.

And now for the disgusting gory glory of the digestion pool:

Construction began as a large crater with a smaller one for the spire. The goo is mostly scenic rock, these plastic pellets I had horded for Emperor knows how long and hot glue. After the initial paint dried, I glazed it with reds, yellows, browns and some purple. Woodland Scenic's Realistic Water was then poured in and ribbons of the left over glaze worked throughout. The toothy like protrusions up the "fleshy" side of the spire were added then a layer of  "tendons" added.

And now, the ruins:

These two structures can be combined to form a larger building. I painted the rubble around the base of the spire to match the interior of the building and minimized the muck to allow as many minis in as possible.

Expect to see a few more of these especially once I get some GW models to work with.

Enjoy!

Tyranid Terrain

Greetings!  A while back, sometime around 4th edition 40K, I had built up a Tyranid force and focused mostly on Genestealers and Gaunts.  It was a purely recreational force. Eventually, I had made several bits of terrain based mostly on what I could scrounge from the box set Battle for Macrage.  I did make a few spires but modeled them on a more H.R.Giger's style and the Thralls of the Fallen Empires set from Magic: the Gathering.. Here's an older post with picks of the spires and the old Hive Fleet.  There were also breeding pits, hive nodes (built up versions of those found in the box set) and even some mutated vegetation and overrun ruins.  A lot of it got recommissioned into later terrain except for the spires which I put up for sale as they were along with all the Tyranid army since I had begun to play Tau more often.


Now that 6th edition has arrived, and terrain has begun to take on a bit more significance, I've dove back into making Tyranid terrain.  To start off the adventure, I've made some spires. These are two different building techniques. One uses plaster cloth over foam and the other is built up from card stock.  Both are detailed in hot glue. I decided to paint them in Hive Fleet Behemoth's color scheme.

You can click on the above image to see a larger photo.  The black primed gaunt is to show scale. I chose to go seven to eight inches tall since that's about how far up a typical flier reaches above the table.  Next up will be some hive nodes and a few digestion pools along with the tortured vegetation and overrun ruins. 

Imperial Guard Display Board-Elements

This project was to produce several elements for use on an Imperial Guard Display Board.  Marc wanted some sandbags for his Heavy Weapons teams, a couple of Tank Emplacements and a hill for his Command Squad. Since the hill had to be blended in with the rest of the display, it didn't need to be finished beyond a substrate and surface preparation. I did create the sandbags and wall but built these in a way that they could be added after the hill's integration and finishing.  I also included a few camouflage nets to add to the tank emplacements and command hill.  Again, these were not fixed to place so as not to be a speed bump when Marc paints the hills and emplacements to match the rest of his board.

Enjoy!

Battle Report Blood Angels vs Raven Guard

No photos this time as this game was played under a time constraint, so I'll have to rely on my narrative skills to relay the events of my most recent game:

Raven Guard (Marc)
Shrike
Terminators (lightning claw)
Vanguard Vets
2 Tactical squads in Drop Pods
1 Squad in a Laser Cannon Razorback
Dreadnought with two Twin Linked Auto Cannons
Scouts
...I think that's it.

Blood Angels (Moi')
Terminator Librarian (Fear of Darkness, Unleash Rage)
Death Company (Hammer, 2 Power Swords, 2 Chain Swords)
Death Company Dreadnought (Mag Grapples, Blood Claws, Melta, Heavy Flamer)
2 Assault Squads of 10 models with Laser Razorback (2 Melta, Power Fist)
Sanguinary Priest (stock load out)
Baal Predator (Flamestorm, Heavy Flamers)

My strategy:
Combat Squad for any mission having 4 or more objectives.  Everything starts on the board (except Dawn of War) with Baal in reserve to outflank.  For Dawn of War, only Death Co. and Librarian deploys.

Terrain Agreement: True Line of Sight.  No area terrain (there weren't any ruins or trees) only two of the 3 spires are impassable. No dangerous terrain.

We roll: Seize Ground (5! Objectives!  C'MON!) Dawn of War.  Objectives get grouped at the south end of the board.  I loose the initiative but he elects to go second.  Death Co. deploys as far forward as possible but I divide them: Dread mid board and Jumpers at the south side.  Razor back with 5 models deploys across from the Death Co Dread.  He then drops infiltrators: Scouts and Shrike attached to Terminators and loiter at the north end with scouts in difficult terrain.  I start to think about how to remove Shrike, The Terminators and the Scouts before turn 2.  He goes to seize the initiative...rolls a 3.

Turn 1, Blood Angels.

I combat squad my Assault Marines putting the Meltas and Fist of each in their respective Razorbacks and march one towards the nearest objective making a clear and open challenge.  Also moving are both Death Co.  Then I tank shock the Terminator/Shrike unit with Razor 1 and force them to fall back. Another tank shock from Razor 2 against the scouts pushes them out of difficult terrain.  The fourth combat squad comes in behind the scouts.  Everyone jumps out of the Razorbacks and start pouring into the scouts and Terminators.

Turn 1, Raven Guard
Shrike and Terminators fall back some more. Drop Pod hits the north end, Auto Cannon Dread marches on.  His Laserback grants the Death Co. Dread the Emperor's Peace. Auto Cannon Dread starts to work on the Death Co. Jumpers and I start loosing models.

Turn 2, Blood Angels
Those that can, embark and a Razorback launches after the retreating Shrikenators.  The second Razorback hurls itself at the newly arrived Tactical squad but they dodge it.  The assault squad that marched in at the north end begins a sprint towards the objectives at mid board.  The Death Co. moves in on the Autocannon Dread.  More firing into Shrikenators thins the unit out a bit. The Librarian introduces the tactical squad I couldn't shock to the Darkness and they break.  No need to assault.

Turn 2, Raven Guard
The Shrikenators and Tactical Squad continue their retreat. Second of his Drop Pods hit along with the Vanguards using Heroic Intervention.  More shooting thins down the Death Co. to just a Hammer, Lemartes and a Power Sword.  The Vets throw themselves at the assault squad camping out on an objective and reduce them to one guy with a chainsword.

Turn 3, Blood Angels
Baal comes in from reserve outflanking.  My plan is to rush the newly arrive tactical squad at the south end of the board and vaporize them.  Then, when my last assault marine in the nearby close combat falls to Lightning Claws, fry the Vanguards.  Only I roll the opposite direction so the Baal comes in at the north.  At least it can help push the retreating units off the table.  I claim the objective near my Librarian and make for the mid board objectives.  The Death Co. Assault the Auto Cannon Dread and does nothing.

Turn 3, Raven Guard
The retreating units inch ever closer to the edge of the world.  Only cursory shooting from drop pods and Dreadnought to no real effect.  The retreating Tactical Squad does manage to break an Assault Squad and they fall back towards a Laserback.  The Laserback breaks for the south east objective and deploys it's five marines on it.  Death Co. finally in sight and range of a target they could fight...but no...they're too busy raging against the machine.   Vanguards mop up then hop north to contest objectives.

Turn 4, Blood Angels
The retreating Assault Squad Knows No Fear and manages to get it's head back in the game and its collective rumps back in a Laserback.  Said Laserback then Mach Vs to the mid board objective and lands its.  I'm telling you, dozer blades are so WORTH IT!  The Baal mimics and manages to put itself between the two retreating masses of models and withing 6" of each. The rest of the forces push towards objectives which, at this point, may as well be on another table.  The Deatch Co Jumpers chase the Autocannon Dread some more.

Turn 4, Raven Guard
More retreating.  The Autocannon Dread pulls back into the south east corner. The vanguards are on their way to the Librarian (it looks like that, though he could break east and go to the mid board objective). The south board tactical squad claims that objective.  Then the Laserback launches up the hill and bumps into my Laserback nullifying my claim on the mid board objective.

Time gets called and the game ends.  Raven Guard wins 2 to 1. We both agree that the Baal's missed opportunity swayed much of the game, but it was my reaction to Shrike, Terminators and Snipers that assisted.

Overall thoughts:

So keeping the Dozer Blades.  May be thinking of starting the board with the Death Co. Dread and Deep Striking the Jumpers so that they don't get too distracted. The other option is to loose their packs and stuff them in a Rhino until the time is right.  Ultimately, I like to put the Jumpers in a Storm Raven and DoA on select targets but the tourney I'm playing in has a comp and it would cost me.  It may also be prudent to start the board with the Baal. It's fast and could easily catch up and support if a deployment goes against my expectations.  I'm considering replacing the Razorbacks, or at least one, with Rhinos so I could get the whole assault squad down board if needed when I don't combat squad them.