Khorne Daemonkin vs Tyranids, 07.07.2015

This time, I thought I'd try out something new. With some recent acquisitions, as well as getting some old projects up to speed, I have successfully put 1000 points of Khorne Daemonkin on the table. My opponent was also playing something totally unfamiliar, so it was anyone's guess about how this match would go down.

Mission: Crusade (5 objectives)

Map: Dawn of War

Lists: 1000 points

Khorne Daemonkin: Blood Host Detachment

1. Slaughtercult 
• Chaos Lord with Kor'lath, Axe of Ruin (Warlord trait: Destined for Glory)
• 8 Bloodletters with Bloodreaper
• 9 Bloodletters with Bloodreaper
• 5 Possessed
• 2x Chaos Spawn
2. Auxiliary: Warmachine
• Soul Grinder with Phlegm Bombardment
3. Command
• Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster

The Chaos Lord  was simply destined to become a temporary Bloodthirster, although I was hoping to make him a Daemon Prince in the process. To this end, I was also hoping for the Warlord trait where he passes his Leadership check automatically - and I got it on the first roll!

Tyranids:

1. Combined Arms Detachment
• Tervigon
• Genestealers with Brood Lord
• 15 Termagaunts, 5 Devourers, 10 Fleshborers
• 2 Venomthropes
2. Living Artillery Node
   
   • 1 Exocrine
   • 3 Biovores
   • 1 Tyranid Warrior Brood

So we've got shooty Tyranids against melee Daemons.

Deployment

 

From the bottom: Exocrine (proxied by Wraithlord), Biovores (proxied by painted Warriors), Warriors, Venomthropes (proxied by Neurothropes), Tervigon (proxied by Carnifex), Termagaunts, and Genestealers in the forest (Broodlord proxied by a Warrior).

2 squads of Bloodletters, 1 Spawn and the Grinder on the left flank.

1 Spawn, Possessed (proxied by regular Chaos Space Marines) with Lord (the metallic figure) and Bloodthirster (my old model from ebay, without wings as of yet).

Tyranids, turn 1.

Tervigon spawns, rolls 6 6 5. Unfortunate double on the first turn. 2 Gaunts were also lost, having no place to put them in range.

Very effective shooting from the Biovores and Exocrine annihilated an entire squad of Bloodletters, as well as the champion from the other group - strategically placed in front.

 The Gaunts and Genestealers advanced towards my lines.

Khorne Daemonkin, turn 1.

At the beginning of my turn, I had 4 Blood Tithe points. I could have handed out some Rage or Feel no Pain, but I made the strategic decision to not use anything instead. I knew that the following turn would yield more Tithe, so I was preparing to ascend my Chaos Lord. Alas, I was only partially right. I got off some turn 1 charges (so far unheard of - all of my opponents were toting gunlines and Deep Strikes), but I didn't get any Blood Tithe points in my own turn.

With 12-inch terrain-ignoring Beast-movement, helped by Fleet when charging, the left Spawn reached the freshly spawned Gaunts, and proceeded to bog them down.

On the other flank, I got both my Spawn and my Bloodthirster into combat with the Genestealers.

The Bloodthirster delivered a devastating charge, slaughtering all of the Genestealers and wounding the Broodlord. Iniative step pile-ins failed to get anybody else in combat (wut?), so at the end of combat, I got my Spawn dueling the Broodlord and the Bloodthirster out of combat. There's a first time for everything!

Some inconsequential shooting also happened. Due to 2+ cover (ruins and Shrouding from the Venomthrope), my Phlegm Bombardment killed... 2 Gaunts.

Tyranids, turn 2.

Another round of good shooting annihilated the Possessed squad. Thankfully, the Lord remained alive.

(the Marine figure proxies a spore mine)
Combat was uneventful.
The Broodlord failed a number of attacks, while the Spawn got lucky.

 The other Spawn dutifully killed 1 Gaunt (1 attack even with Grasping Pseudopods).

Khorne Daemonkin, turn 2.

With the Blood Tithe provided by the destroyed Possessed squad, it was time to ascend the Chaos Lord! A Bloodthirster was also summoned due to the axe.

 Of course, they're both useless for two turns, having arrived using Deep Strike.

I moved the remaining Bloodletters into cover, hoping to survive longer:

Finally, I had the most successful shooting phase in the game, instakilling a Venomthrope and a Warrior using Phlegm Bombardment.

Tyranids, turn 3.

Witnessing the firepower of this fully armed and operational Soul Grinder, the Gaunts were sent in to bog it down in close combat.

Tarpitting at its finest.
The Bloodletters and the Bloodthirster were targeted with shooting. 4+ cover for the win.

Khorne Daemonkin, turn 3.

Time to move up the baddies. They both went to gliding mode.

The Bloodthirster jumped out from cover and charged the Tervigon...

... whiffing most of his attacks and delivering 1 wound. Yay.

The Gaunts finished one Spawn, and the Broodlord finished the other.

Tyranids, turn 4.

Time to shoot the Gliding monsters!

Fortunately, nothing consequential.

The Gaunts moved in to save the Tervigon, but I focused all my attacks on it, and managed to deliver a Decapitating Strike using my Axe of Khorne, causing Instant Death.

For added hilarity, the other Gaunts went out of synapse range (even with Dominion) while piling in. Loosing 2, they failed their Morale check and fell back to the center of the table.

Khorne Daemonkin, turn 4.

I couldn't have the Broodlord sitting there, holding the objective. So my temporary Bloodthirster jumped there and murdered it. It then died at the end of the turn.

 The Daemon Prince assaulted the Warriors, but left one alive, not eliminating synapse.

Tyranids, turn 5.

The Gaunts regrouped and grabbed the middle objective.
The Bloodthirster finished its combat. The Exocrine charged the Daemon Prince intent on tarpitting.

Khorne Daemonkin, turn 5.

The final step of the grand plan swung in action. I summoned Flesh Hounds to hold the far objective. The surviving lone Bloodletter ran out from the ruins towards the objective in the crater. The Grinder holds the one in the ruins on the top right.
The Bloodthirster charged the Exocrine and murdered it.

At this point, my opponent conceded. The remaining Tyranids on the board were the Gaunts, 1 Venomthrope and 2 Biovores. I was holding 3 objectives, and had Linebreaker and Slay the Warlord. The Tyranids held 1 and had First Blood, bringing the score to 11-4.

Green stuff: first encounter

Introduction

Ever since I've bought my headless Bloodletters from ebay, I've been waiting for the chance to try out some green stuff. (Don't know what that is? Check out this page.) I obviously didn't want to try full-on sculpting for the first time, so I decided to rather use it as a filler for small gaps on some miniatures.
Here are the first three uses I've found for it:

1. Filling the gaps made by cutting mistakes

Problem: I've got a half-way assembled Blood Throne in my workspace. (I want to build it using magnets, so that I can also use it as a Skullcannon, but more on that when I finish it.) While cutting the pieces off the sprue and cleaning them with my hobby knife, I made a mistake and cut to much off of one piece. When assembled, this left an ugly gap.
Solution: when putting the damaged piece into place, use a bit of green stuff instead of glue. With just the right amount, it will fill in the gap without overflowing (although you could just trim it off). It is also a really strong adhesive, so you don't have to worry about the piece falling off.

2. Filling the gaps made by kitbashing

Problem: At the beginning of my Warhammer adventures, I bought a box of Chaos Warhounds to use as proxies for Flesh Hounds of Khorne. I decided to kitbash one of them to produce a suitable proxy to use as Karanak (the three-headed Flesh Hound character). Now, the warhound models are pretty simple - easy to assemble, but prohibitive against conversions. I couldn't produce a three-headed model, so I decided to just stick some additional pieces on it from a Chaos Spawn box - specifically, a large tail with poisonous barbs and some Khornate headgear. The tail was easy to glue on - the places where it doesn't exactly fit are obscured by the rear legs. For the decoration on the head, I scraped off a piece of the hound's head until I produced a reasonably flat surface. Then I proceeded to cut off  the lower part of the additional head piece, until it looked like a tiny skull embedded into a Khornate symbol. I glued it on using a generous amount of glue, but there was still a large gap in-between.
Solution: I strained and tensed the headpiece until it came off. As above, I applied a piece of green stuff on the surface where it goes, then stuck it back in place. I used more this time, so that in the front, I had a round surface. I used my hobby knife to carve some curves on it - I will try to paint it black, and make it look like part of the hound's fur.

(Note. The hound is now partially painted. Unfortunately, I painted it before realizing that I need to cover up the gap. I'll do a post on it when I'll finish the job.)

3. Filling random gaps

Problem: I traded some Magic: the Gathering cards for a 5-man squad of Chaos Marines. Nifty, isn't it? They were partially assembled (as in, they've fallen apart) and a hand was missing, but it was still a bargain. When gluing them back together, I noticed that, on two models, the waists weren't fitting perfectly. I don't know whether they are faulty casts, or maybe I just didn't do a proper job of scraping off the old glue. In either case, both models presented a visible gap just above the waistline.
Solution: Rub a tiny piece of green stuff between your fingers until you produce a long, thin piece. Place it along the edge of the flat surface where the waist of the miniature joins the upper body. Place the upper body in place and press down. Finally, trim any excess green stuff with a hobby knife.

Things learned:

- Green stuff is really, really sticky. I read about this, but at first I disregarded the warnings and went ahead. It kept sticking to my fingers and my tools. The solution is to keep some water close-by, and wet your fingers and tools before touching the green stuff. It will only stick to dry surfaces.
- Very little green stuff is enough for a lot of things. I chipped of a tiny piece, kneaded it together, and I used it for everything described above, but still had half of it left. I slapped it into the freezer along with the rest of the stuff - don't know how that turned out yet.

Next steps: sculpting!

No, really. I have some Flesh Hounds missing legs and some Flamers missing hands. Also, there are some unfortunate Daemonettes with broken limbs due to the vigorous scrubbing applied when removing the paint off them. I can't wait to fix them up!

Warhammer workout update

I have been keeping up my workout regimen. Due to the weekly games I play, the table has been expanding - slowly, but surely. I have got to the point where each exercise step is pretty lengthy. So after this Tuesday's match, instead of drawing a line, I expanded the table with a new type of exercise. Thankfully, I've won. Otherwise, I would have also drawn a line in the new row!
So for my current score of: 5-5-3 (40k) and 2-2-0 (Fantasy), here's the updated workout table:

Chaos Daemons/Chaos Space Marines vs Ultramarines, 30.06.2015

First time playing against the new Space Marine Codex!

Mission: Contact Lost
Map: Dawn of War
Lists: 1550 points (as requested by my opponent to get the requirements for all the formations)

Chaos Daemons: Combined Arms Detachment

• 3 Nurglings
• 10 Pink Horrors, instrument
• 3 Screamers of Tzeentch
• Kairos Fateweaver, warlord
• 2 Heralds of Tzeentch, both lvl 3 Psykers, one exalted reward
• Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, exalted reward, greater reward, lvl 3 Psyker, armor, wings

I got a mix of Change and Divination on the Heralds, which didn't matter much. One also got the Portalglyph. The Tzeentch Prince got Change powers and Smite, with the Grimoire of True Names and Hellfire Gaze (S8 AP1 Lance shooting attack).

Chaos Space Marine: Allied Detachment

• Daemon Prince of Nurgle, lvl 3 Psyker, armor, wings, the Black Mace
• 5 Chaos Space Marines

The Nurgle Prince got Summoning, Weapon Virus and Endurance besides Nurgle's Rot.

Ultramarines: Gladius Strike Force
2 Demi Companies (almost everything is bare naked here)

• Captain on bike
• Chaplain
• Space Marine bikers with attack bike
• 4x 5-man Tactical Squad in Razorbacks
• 2x 5-man Tactical Squad in Drop Pods
• 5-man Devastators with 4 Missile Launchers (no flak)
• 5-man Devastators with 4 Lascannons
• 3 Land Speeders, 2 Heavy Flamers each

10th Company Taskforce

• Sergeant Tellion
• 5-man Scout Squad with Missile Launcher
• 2x Scout Biker Squads

Everything there has Objective Secured. EVERYTHING. I had no idea how to deal with that. So, although  I won the roll off, I left my opponent to deploy first and go first, and just go from there. Let's see how that worked out.

Deployment

After about half an hour, all the Space Marines made it unto the table.

I'm not even going to try to make sense of what's going on there. Especially since I took the first two photos without flash, so they're blurry. Sorry for that!
* Notice the different color schemes. Some models were loaned from another player. Nobody has that number of Marines!

My counter-deployment:

Basically, the Horrors and two Heralds are holed up in the ruin; their only job was to provide Warp Charges. The Nurglings infiltrated to hold an objective. Chaos Marines behind cover. Fast moving units - flying Daemons and Screamers - in the top left corner, which was the furthest away from Devastators.

Ultramarines, turn 1.

Drop Pod Assault, as far as possible from the Royal Daemons (as my opponent called my 2 Princes and 1 Lord).

Everything moving up to take as many objectives as possible. Land Speeders go Flat Out to catch my Horrors next turn.

All Tactical bolters, Razorback and Drop Pod storm bolters, Devastator krak missiles unload into my Nurglings. Go to ground for 2+ cover. 2 (!) wounds were inflicted.

Daemons, turn 2.

Left flank moves up. Kairos bombards and destroys a Scout Biker squad with psychic shooting, securing me First Blood (the models are in the top left corner, pending removal). He also Perils, suffering 1 wound. He utterly fails a Bolt of Change, rolling 1 for Strength (D6 + 4), thus not harming the tanks.

The Heralds try to take out the Land Speeders, but also fail. At least I immobilized the first one. Foreseeing doom, I got off Forewarning (4+ invulnerable).
I deployed the Portalglyph a bit above the ruin (small blast with flame colors), but nothing came out of it.
At least I scored 2 Objective points.

Ultramarines, turn 2.

Second drop pod come in. Razorbacks move forward. Scout Bikes move up. My opponent was gunning for Domination. Fortunately, my Nurglings were also Objective Secured, so they kept objective 6.

The Land Speeders, on the other hand, devastated my Horrors. Thankfully, the unit didn't die. At this point, the Marines had total board control (holding 5 and contesting 1 objective). Thanks to bad Tactical Objectives, the score was still 3-1.

Daemons, turn 2. An uneventful, and unsuccessful, turn. I drew no objective cards, holding no objectives. I scored the remaining objective from my first turn - Hungry for Glory. The Nurgle Prince charged and annihilated the Scout Bikers - they never got to attack back.

Turn 3.
Things were speeding up, and I didn't take many pictures due to the excitement.

The Marines were taking my right flank, but the Horrors were resisting heroically with Forewarning and Cursed Earth (3+ invulnerable, rerolling 1s). I was advancing on the left, however, with high strength low AP psychics and shooting taking their toll. The Chaos Marines also did their duty, wrecking a Razorback with krak grenades.

Ultramarines, turn 4.

Some maneuvering on the left was going nowhere. The Chaplain failed his charge due to difficult terrain + grav wave generator. The Pink Horrors were annihilated, and a Herald was killed. That last Horror is the remainder of a squad that came out of the Portalglyph.

Daemons, turn 4.

 

Another successful Portalglyph summoning brought my Warp Charges back to 15, enabling a successful push. I have annihilated 3 Tactical squads on the left. Tactical Summoning brought in a squad of Daemonettes to hold the objective abandoned by the Nurgle Prince.

 

Something you don't see every day: Kairos duelling Tellion. I hoped to annihilate the Scout Squad through psychics, but 1 Scout stuck around with Tellion. I charged in, hoping against hope, and did kill the Scout, but 2 attacks just weren't enough.

The right flank was all but lost.

... and this is also the final state of the board. At the bottom of turn 4, after 4.5 hours, at 6-2, we called it game.

Post game

• One word about this Space Marine detachment: Objective Secured! OK, that was two actually. The amount of Objective Secured models on the table is horrifying. Had my opponent pulled better cards, she could have lead by at least double the amount of points.
• Otherwise, with almost no special/heavy weapons, they can't kill anything. Tactical Doctrine was used on almost every turn to reroll failed hits, but there was no way my flying Daemons could be hurt. This was the reason many objectives could not be fulfilled.
• On my part: the Daemons performed exactly as expected. Horrors died easily. Nurglings camped in cover. The Black Mace removed entire squads in one turn. However, once again, I was confronted by the liability of psychics. For the first two turns, I barely killed a couple of things in my psychic phase, only to butcher them utterly in the following turns.
• Marines are OP! Had I had anything else but Chaos Marines in there, I would have had no way to destroy that Razorback. Krak grenades are awesome. 

How to paint Seekers of Slaanesh (quickly & for beginners)

This is a How-to similar to my previous How to paint Bloodletters.

 

Introduction

Not much to say really, if you've already read the introduction part of the previous post. I'll keep the techniques simple and efficient, so as to bring the girls to a good standard in a relatively short time. I'd just like to point out that I'll keep them looking as canonical as possible.

Getting to it

Step 0. Extract your models from the sprues and glue them together. Not detailed here.

Note. You might not want to glue them completely together. Above, the riders are placed on their steeds, but they are not actually glued on. It's much easier to paint that way.

Step 1. Prime your models in white

Priming the models in white is even more important this time, since we're going to use that as a half-basecoat. You'll see what I mean with the next step.

Step 2. Purple wash

I don't have a purple light enough to work as a skin color here. I didn't know about advanced techniques (such as layering) back when I painted these models; but even if I did, I was looking for a fairly quick way to do this. (And probably so are you, if you're reading this.)
So here goes: heavily water down Hormagaunt purple until it reaches a wash-like quality. Then apply generously to the model.
I don't have a picture of this, but take a look further down. You can see this color on every model, where skin is visible.

Step 3. Basecoat

Steeds: purple scales, grey claws, green tongues, white horns, leather brown saddles, red eyes, silver anklets, dark green bases. I've mixed up a pinkish color for the frills; this is the same mix I've used for the girls' hair. Also, since no slaaneshi model is complete without breasts, I've applied some fleshtone to the steeds'.

Riders: white horns, red eyes, grey claws on the feet. Silver and black on the armor: I've used black as the base and colored the raised areas in silver to give the impression of black leather framed by steel. Purple on the hands/claws - the same color used for the steeds. Pinkish hair; I've mixed this color using red, orange, white and purple.

Neither the white graffiti primer, nor the purple wash technique is perfect on its own. As I've said previously, the spray paint tends to be too thick. The wash-like paint tends to flow around the model, not leaving a uniform layer. However, these girls look perfect. These aren't historical miniatures - they're Daemons. The small discolorations and imperfect skin only reinforces their otherworldly appearance.

(still not glued together)

Step 4. Black wash

Slightly water down the black wash, then apply over the entire model. This pops out all the details and tones down the colors.

Step 5. Drybrushing

Drybrush every area with the same color it was basecoated with. As per the theory, this leaves the recesses shadowy, while brightening up the middle of the area for a basic lighting effect.
You can drybrush the skin areas with either the same shade of purple, or white; depending on whether you'd like to brighten or darken the skin tone.

Step 6. Basing

For my slaaneshi daemons, I'm going for a green grass / forest soil effect on the bases. They spread happy feelings - right up to the moment they kill you!

Step 7. Glue the riders in place

 

This is final color scheme. I know, it looks somewhat rough. However, on the battlefield, you are less likely to see them up close and well illuminated. You will rather see something like this:

... and the human eye will make sure to blend the colors together, creating perfect transitions for you.