Blood Pact Army

I got my entire Blood Pact army out to see how it was going. Not too bad, it seems. I need to do some more infantry and fast attck but that should about do it.

Chaos Sorcerer

I have added a Chaos Sorcerer with a 'jump pack' to my Illuminati army. It is a chaos jump pack rather than a steed because he is not a Tzeentch sorcerer. Illuminati are non-aligned/Slaanesh.

I will probably add a familiar in the shape of one of Black Cat's cats, that theygive out at shows to customers. Black cats are so very traditional.

Grudge Match

This is my two thousand point Illuminati Chaos Warband. A couple of despoilers, one rigged for close combat, the other has a twin-linked lascannon. A Predator rigged as a tank hunter. One unit of marines and one of lesser daemons. A small unit of chosen armed with plasma weapons in a Rhino, six terminators and a unit of possessed. The only fast attack choice is a small bike unit. The army is well eqipped with chaos undivided icons (dameon bus stops) and melta bombs. My HQ choiced are a chaos lord (I use Huron) and the daemon prince Illuminatus.

The army is quasi legal at the moment as I am using the damons as one of the obligatory troop choices. My friend, Shaun, kindly agreed to overlook this.


The Illuminati have a series grudge against the Blood Angels. The Blood Angels hate traitors and heretics. So this is a grudge match. Set up as above. We both have considerable reserves.


I swung my fast moving forces around the left flank, advanced my infantry in the centre, and tried to use my defiler and predator to hold off Shaun's vehicles on the right flank, especially the land raider.


Reinforcements arrive: There is a fall of angels.

Unfortunately, they fall too far away from the main line and fight lonely battles. One group is wiped out by the possessed and my large chaos marine unit.

The other has more luck. I charge it with my close-combat defiler. It has an initiative of three. The Blood Angel assault troops toss krak grenades into its weak rear armour - Kaboom.

Memo: Despite have three dreadnought close combat weapons and being fleet, a defiler cannot go toe to toe with decent infantry.

I move the other defiler into cover in an attempt to give it some cover against the land raiders lascannon.

Memo: Defilers lack the armour to exchange fire with real tanks.


Shaun races his vehicles forward to link up with his remaining assault marines but my chosen and newly materialising damons wipe them out. My terminators deep strike. My last defiler charges Shaun's predator to rip it to pieces with it's claws but cannot penetrate the tank's armour.

Memo: Defilers are not much use against vehicles in close combat.

At this point the Blood Angels withdrew.

Memo: What bloody use are defilers? Anyone got any ideas?

PS I am not convinced land raiders are worth the points either.

PPS Many Roles, Can't do Any.

Whitstable

This week is the occasion of my birthday so Mrs John and I decamped down the M2 to Whistable to lunch at the Elizabethan Tea Rooms. These were the favoured haunt of Peter Cushing, actor and wargamer. Whitstable is only 90 minutes down the line from London so is a favourite of the theatrical profession. We once bumped into Allan Davies, Jonathan Creek, there. Davies had his first gig as a stand up comedian in the cafe underneath the railway arches at Whitstable. Funnily enough there is a windmill converted to a home on the hill above Whitstable.

The town is a retirement place, seaside tourist town and is famous back to Roman times for its oysters. The pic above shows the oyster fishery harbour.


The channel was a bit wind tossed.


Seafront huts on the seawall.

And me eating an oversized ice cream - a rare treat. I paid for it by having indigestion all night.

The wooden object behind me is a memorial chair to Peter Cushing.

Pot of Gold

Somewhere in the Romney Marsh is a pot of gold. No point looking though, it is bound to be Fairy Gold which turns into a sub-prime mortgage at daybreak.

Bloodcrusher

My plastic Bloodcrushers arrived the other day and got put on the 'must do them soon' shelf. Meanwhil;e, I did have a metal bloodcrusher whose paitjob could so with a refresh, so Idecided to try out some colours. Results are as you see.

Achtung Minen

Land mines get their name from the placing of explosives in tunnels underneath enemy troops or instalations. Like so many things, they were invented by the Chinese - mines being used in 1277AD against a Mongol Army.

Modern land mines are typically small explosive charges concealed in the ground and triggered by the pressure of the weight of a human body. They function by blast, typically blowing off the foot of the unfortunate person triggering the device. The aim is to maim rather than kill as it ties up resources. The latest versions of this unpleasant device can be hidden above ground, directional, and triggered by a tripwire. A particularly unpleasant version is the bounding mine. A charge fires it up to chest hight before it explodes scattering shrapnel over a 200 metre radius.

In military use, mines are area denial weapons or battlefield weapons to channel attackers into killing zones or to slow down an enemy attack.


These are Games Workshop (not Forge World) resin models mounted on 30mm bases. They are best considered as a way of creating dangerous terrain so treat a three inch radius around a mine marker as dangerous terrain. Note that mines can immobilise vehicles, including skimmers, by damaging the tracks, smashing the anti-grav plates, clogging the air intakes etc. - so test for vehicles also.

If the minefield includes specialist anti-tank as well as antipersonal mines then dice for the vehicle as usual but if a 1 is rolled then roll again on the vehicle damage table. Modify the dice for open top vehicles as usual.

HOTT Now FREE

Regular readers of this column (oh come on now, there must be one or two) will recall that I have always been much taken with Barker's Hord of the Things rule set because of their ease of play, universality to any models and sheer fun.

Well, you can now legally download the rules for free from WRG's site here:
http://bit.ly/c9tNyq

Just to demonstrate how versatile the rules are, I have copied soe army pics from a brief flip around the web. I have also seen Dr Who/UNIT armies, Barsoom armies, Royal Family armies....










Note that you don't have to rebase. HOTT requires a set base frontage, depending on scale of model it could be any size but both armies must have the same frontage for their units. One way to achieve this is to bluetack existing models and bases onto cards cut to the suggested frontage.

Each stand is a unit so quite a decent army can be made from a few models.

Go on, you know you want to........

Plaguebearers - Old & New

I decided to upgrade my plaguebearers with some of the new models. I kept one of the old ones for comparison. I think I prefer the new but the antique has a certain rough charm - as the actress said to the bishop. The old model was drybrush painted while the new ones were wet layered.

1066 and all that

As every phule kno, the Battle of Hastings did not occur at Hastings but further up the Roman road at what is now Battle. The photo shows the battlefield from the point of view of the Saxon defensive line. The Normans attacked up the hill behind David Drake, the famous SF&F author.

Dave and I tend to agree that Fuller was quite wrong in that there is no such thing as a decisive battle. But I sometimes wonder whether Hastings might be the exception. The creation of England can be dated to various events: (1) Cerdic the first King of Wessex (app. 520AD), who has a Celtic name, incidentally; Alfred The Great (871 AD, the only English King to bear that title) who united the Anglo-Saxons; or Edward (899AD), who was the first King of England. However, you can make a case for William the Conqueror, who created Anglo-Norman England.

No Hastings, no King William, no Anglo-Normon England. Would Saxon England have achieved what Anglo-Norman England achieved? Who can say?


This picture shows David standing at the monument on the top of the Senlac Ridge where Harold was cut down (or shot by an arrow - take your pick).


Nearbye is a monument to Harold erected by the French (of all people). Harold may be buried at Bosham where he was born. An Anglo-Saxon coffin in the church was discovered in 1954. The incumbent was an elderly man lacking a head, leg, and second lower leg.

Dave and I are in the photo: I'm the short fat one with the short fat hairy legs.

Essential Supplies

Popped into Bluewater this evening for some essential wargaming supplies: Citadel Graveyard Earth brown to colour match some old models and this.....

A demi-litre of Bombadier Burning Gold Ale from the Wells brewery.

Advertised as the Drink of England: Inspired by William Blake's 'Jerusalem', the unofficial national anthem and battle hymn of England.

You will note that it is 'alive with English passion'.

Cheers!

John

Illuminati Renegade Predator

Sometimes creating an army is just a question of filling in the blanks to make it a viable force in game turns. My Illuminati need a tank killer so I have made a predator. I don't have much enthusiasm for the task but - it had to be done.

I will probably add some decals to my Illuminati vehicles when I have finished them.

OK, back to the war.

:)

Statue of a Space Marine

This is a simple, indeed crude, Citadel plastic kit of a statue of a space marine. The statue has been knocked about a bit (like an English stately home) so I decided to make it old and abandoned. To this end I did not fill in the cracks where the components do not quite fit to give the impression of a statue made up of metal plates that were coming apart. I decided that it would be made of corroded copper (rather like the life size space marine over the Bluewater shop). I base painted it with Tin Bitz and then highlighted with a Tin Bitz/Shining Gold diluted mix. Green sheen was then added using Citadel green wash with recessed areas being touched up with Orkhide Green.

The base was painted dark grey and highlisgted with light gray. It was then painted with a thick layer of Devlan Brown wash.

Daemon Prince

I have finished my plastic Daemon Prince model. The kit is great and goes together easily despite having a large variety of interchangable bits. I assembled and painted it so it could lead my Illuminati Chaos Space Marines as well as a 40K daemon army.

The purple areas were base painted in Citadel Liche Purple and highlighted with a Liche Purple-Elf Flesh mix. They were edged in Cote d'Arms Shocking Pink. The metal was base-coated in Citadel Tin Bitz and highlighted with layers of dilute Shining Gold. Edging was done with a Citadel Shining Gold/Gold mix. The model was washed with a Liche Purple/Leviathan Purple mix.

The base was base-coated in Citadel Scorched Earth and highlighted in Revell Terracota/Ferrari Red mix. The liquid flow (it's blood, I tell you)was made by dripping a variety of purple, yellow and red paints into Citadel green wash. It was coated in a generous cover of Citadel gloss varnish to give a wet look.

I used the painting guide in the current White Dwarf but simplified it. My experience is that a mundane painter, such as myself, ends up with a bloody mess if they try to paint with the detail of a professional commercial artist, so I simplify. I did got to town on the face, using a Revell Ferrari Red/Citadel red wash mix.

Romney Marsh

The Romney Marsh is now largely drained and farmed but was famous for its smugglers. You may recall the Dr Syn stories by Russell Thorndike. The above picture is of St Clement's Church. It is close to the better known St Mary's in the Marsh, but St Clements has been less updated.

I believe the tree on the right is a Yew. Yews are the longest-lived organisms in the British Isles. They are the witching trees, the sacred trees of life and death. You find them in Churchyards often. The place may have been sacred long before Christianity.

The interior is shown in the pic below.


David and Jo Drake on the sea wall of Dymchurch beach. Dymchurch is a classic seaside town for working class Londoners on the South Coast. Dr Syn was rector of Dymchurch in the novels. Note the traditional seaside donkey rides. The flag of a red cross on a white background is the Flag of St George, the national flag of England (as opposed to the United Kingdom).

Sex, Dice & Gamer Chicks

Latest offering from Mongoose.

http://bit.ly/9jRvXr

Further comment from me would be superfluous.

John

Warjack

My mate Shaun has been painting Warjacks. I loved the rich colours on this one.

John

David Drake is on Holiday

Enjoying cool showery English summer weather.

Iron Brotherhood Angel - Adeptus Mechanicus

This is a Micro Art Studios miniature from their Iron Brotherhood range. These are very Adeptus Mechanicus. It is mounted on an Iron Halo Deus ex Machina resin insert. The resin of the model is very clean but it needs roughing up where sections are to be glued as superglue does not 'bite' well on the smooth surface. I used the old Milliput dodge to attach the wings. You put a layer of superglue in the socket, then a small ball of well mixed Milliput epoxy-resin clay, and finally another deab of superglue. The wing attachment is then pushed into the socket. The result is a fast, strong, attachment.

The model has a very simple layered paint job. It was sprayed with Citadel white undercoat then base painted black and Citadel mechrite red. Layers of Citadel tin bitz and shining gold were used to build up highlights on the metalic parts and Revel fiery red on the red sections. The base is Citadel scorched brown glazed with fiery red.

Pegasus Hobbys River

I am putting together some terrain pieces for an industrial wasteland setting for Malifaux and 40K. Pegasus Hobbies do a plastic painted river set for a reasonable price with two long, two short and two curved sections. The painting is a bit token and toy soldier-ish, with bright blue and white water. I toned it down with a series of Citadel washes to give a toxic, polluted canal effect.

John

Rotten Belle - Malifaux Resurrectionist

I spent most of the day cleaning out the garage so we have a safe environment for our three legged bunn to practice walking. However, I did take an hour's break to eat lunch and paint the first of my Rotten Belles for Seamus the Mad Hatter's gang.

I am rather pleased with it - OK, I am not an artist but, for me, this ain't a bad paint job.

I hope to do another one tomorrow.

John

Kitbashed Grot Tank

I have painted my first Grot tank. I decided to lay on the corrosion, even the rust has rusted. Burnt Umbar oil paint was used to add grease and dirt, and Mig powders for flaking rust.

Blink!

Yet another new (at least to me) British miniatures company, Crooked Dice.
http://www.crooked-dice.co.uk/minis.html
They have a line in minis that look strangely familiar - I wonder of WHO they remind me.

They also do some rules for whacky English 60s TV.

The brilliant Kevin White, of Hasslefree, was the sculptor on a number of the models.