The last hurrah for 5th edition

I took a weekend away from my busy figure painting schedule to attend a localish gaming tournament. It was run by a chap called Nick Jenkin who's torunaments go by the name of Von War. This particular event was held at Triple Helix Wargames in Westbury and was called 'Attrition'. As it was organised some time ago Nick decided to keep to 5th edition rules and so this was the last time I would likly play this version of the rules. Not such a bad thing as I already prefer the 6th edition rules even after just a few games.

So a joint down the A303 and A36 and I arrived bright and early to get stuck in. The format for Attrition was for 4 custom scenarios with an ever decreasing army list. You started with a 1500 point list, then had to loose 250 points a game, eventually going down to 750 points. You could only deduct from the origional list and could not add or swap wargear or units. I took my standard 1500 Point Vulcan Marine List. It is a reasonable flexible list but can struggle against horde armies.

My first opponent had a good looking Imperial Guard army, with medusa and a couple of cyclops (did I mention Attrition allowed Forge world units). The objvective in the first game was variable value loot counters. It was a blast of a game. My deep stiking Dreadnought and the assault terminators decimated his centre and left flank in a couple of turns. The Vulchure came on in time to decimate a comabt squad and also to reduce one squad to a single lascannon. The best moment of the game was when the last remaining cylops handler (now without a cyclops) shot a laspistol at lasccanon toting marine a killed him. This was after he had survived a round of exterminator fire, a round of vulcher fire and a shot from an off table earthshaker. I won the game convincingly but my opponent did go on to win most sporting opponent and also the wooden spoon.

The second game was against a very small Grey Knight army. The mission was to capture the opponents ambassador. I was up against it in this game due to the Grey Knight army having 2 dread knights which could jump straight to the amabassadors on turn 1. You got a point for each turn you held an ambassdor. I had big problems with this game especiall as Draigo and a squad of Paladins pounced on my own terminators and spent a few turns kicking them to death. Draigo used a force weapon to fell Vulcan and his Storm Raven spent the entire game not dying and destroying units. In fact I got tabled by 9 models without manageing to destroy a single unit. My most majestic failure!

After a lunch break consisting of a bowl of chilli, it was on with game 3. This was a kill point mission, with variable value kill points. I was up aginst Andy Driver from Sad Muppets with his Orky boys. This included Ghazghkull, a mob of 5 Meganorks in a battle wagon protected by a Kustom Force Field Big Mek. To add to my woes it was also night fight at the beginning of the game. Things did not go as badly as expected mainly due to Andy failing to get the charge in with Ghaz and his meganorcs. My charge with my dread, assault terminators and Vulcan wiped them out with whilst only loosing 3 terminators. The battle wagon was shot to bits and the big mek hacked to death by tactical. Another big victory as I won 10 - 0 on victory points.

The final game was also going to be against orks. The idea was to get to the centre of the board and get a point for each unitin the centre at the end of your turn. This was a hard game and my poor saving did not help. I came up against a mob of gretchin tanks which were pretty funny to play against. I was basically whittled down to nothing. A very tough game but fun none the less. EVen being wiped out did not mean a loss according tot eh scenario rules, so I managed to get a draw by the skin of my teeth. It was also a great looking Ork horde I played against.

4 great games, and I finished 10th out of 30 which is a result. My Space Marine force will now be taking a bit of a breather after a couple of years constant use. I will be now using Orks for a while until I have a chance to review my Marine force and swap it all around under the next codex.

In other news I managed to sell an old Imperial Guard army for £137 on ebay yesterday! So I will be picking up a Realm of Battle board from a friend who has a brand new one he no longer wants. Just something else to paint.

More painting than you can shake a squig at.

If you had not guessed from the title, over the next few months I will mostly be painting Orks. I have really put off painting a horde for many years. Even my Imperial Guard armies have been small affairs with no more than around 60 troops per army. But after much persuasion by the missus I decided to create a greenskin army. Now not being one to do anything the easy way I decided to go for a converted army. I spotted an cannifex that had been converted into an ork killer can or some such beast and that was my inspiration.

This is not the exact one that inspired me but its close enough. Now I have been doing this army for around 18 months and it is not as near ready as I would like. I currently have around 20 boys to paint, plus 12 tank bustas, 5 Megaorks to build and paint and a Truckofex to paint (more on that later).

I will post up some images of the work so far as I get them based and each squad is completed. I want them to be completed before January, and at my current rate of building/painting I will be cutting it fine.

There are also some extras I want to do to make the army really stand out at any trounaments I go to so a mini book is being prepared which is just another thing to add to the list of bits I need to complete along with custom objective markers. To add to that I am trying to build up some better terrain so my son and I can have some decent battlefields to play over as we both learn the rather fantastic new 40k 6th edition. Well I best go and pick up my brush. These Orks will not paint themselves.

In the beginning .....

Welcome to my blog. I can't promise anything world shattering but just thought it would be somewhere to display my weird and bizarre miniature conversions that I seem to come up with. I'll also have things about games I'm playing and armies I'm collecting.