ØRNULVS JANUARY 2011 PROJECT # 2 Re – revisiting the Ultramarines 2.

While waiting for my last order from MS, I found that this Sunday (after a long walk) was the day I would face up to the task of painting squad markings on my Ultramarines.

This is no easy task! I remember Jørn telling me how he struggled with the shoulder pads for his Word Bearers (hand painted flames with skulls, that looks awesome). Jørn sent me pictures from the 2. Edition of the Space Marines Codex (thx Jørn), showing how it was suppose to look. The only problem is that the proportions in the artgallery do NOT mach with real life decals! I would have to improvise.

My first go was the Tactical Squads. I made a decision (after looking at various roman design examples), to use bars. Anyway, this is how they turned out (only showing Sgt for example):

(The Sgt of 2. Squad have a shoulder pad with motive)

Then I started working on the Terminators. I decided on dividing them into three squads (because of weaponry). Ordinary Terminators in squad 1 and 2 and Assault Terminators in Squad 3. It was no way I could hand paint the numbers inside the Chapter design, so I had to improvise, keeping faithful to the numbers being yellow.

Nightmare! The centre of the Fast Attack marking and the top of the Devastator marking are small areas I found very difficult to apply the numbers on. Anyway, after several hours and remakes, this is how they turned out.

After "painting" over 150 models, I now look forward to building supplement models.

ØRNULVS JANUARY 2011 PROJECT Re-revisiting the Ultramarines 2.

Fore some time I have worked on ideas on how to expanding and improve my Ultramarines army.

Recently having finished my Skaven army, it was time to start working! Last autumn I painted scripts and added skulls, purity seals etc to all of my tanks. It was time to update my 3 Land speeders armoured with Assault Cannons and Heavy Bolters. Seals, I recon, would probably be torn of during “flight”, so I settled for scripts and additional high lights, as well as enhancing facial features.

Back in 4^th edition of 40K Heavy Bolters where “defensive weapons”, and therefore a nice complement to the powerfull Assault Cannon who got rending on a D6 to hit of six. But that was 4^th edition….. Currently running at 90p, I find them expensive (for my new concept army anyway) as they need to move to stay alive, and therefore seldom can fire more than one weapon. And with more and more emphasis on “armour” I therefore decided to build 3 Land speeders with “Multimeltas” (only).

Lets go guys…

….. and we shall know no fear…. (sorry to say so, but this phrase has lost its oomph for me after it was abused in a particular movie; my opinion anyway)

Apocalyptic Battle!

Jørn vs Trond, Word Bearers vs Biel Tan Strikeforce
5500 pts a side!

The weekend is over, the tables have been emptied and and the armies are laid to rest in their respectable storage compartments. So what happend?

Well we did broadcast almost the entire evening on friday at Ustream.com
and after a very intersting meeting with mr Tullamore, we stopped playing after my turn 3, and decided to kick it of agian on sunday afternoon.

That said. Jørn did get the upper hand early in the game, though I managed to take out almost all of the long range firepower of the Word Bearer army by turn 3. As always the two army commanders know one anothers strenghts and weaknesses, and again it turned out just as close as it can be. The mission being played was objectives. The bigges surprise at least for me was range. Well range is range always, but now with 6x8 feet table, range 36 was kinda short.... I even had to check range with my fire prisms with range 60!

When we stopped playing I had all my reserves committed, all but one unit of warpspiders which where delayed in the previous turn be a deepstrike mishap.
Jørn still had about 40 lesser demons and 1 greater demon tucked away in his sleeve, so Sunday was gonna be pretty interesting.

By turn 3 I had gotten rid of 1 defiler, 1 vindicator, 2 landraiders, 1 dreadnought, 10 Berzerkers, 4 Oblitirators, and reduced a noise marine sqd down to 4, a chaos spacemarine sqd down to 2.
My casulaties where limited, but my fragile warwalkers where engaged with both chaos terminators incl a lord, and 1 defiler. (Kept that flank busy for a while :)) I had lost all but one of my firedragons, one sqd of warp spiders, all my striking scorpiones to the assaulting noise marines, half my shining spears sqd and on or two warlocks. All of my 4 wraithlords where down to their last wound. My Avatar also had lost two wounds.

Jørn now controlled 2 obectvies - kinda, and I controlled 1.

Sunday: Nobody gains the upper hand! Jørn summones 40 lesser demons and one greater demon. Suddenly he controlls a lot more... His terminators and defiler finaly finishes of my walkers and turn their attention elsewhere. The terminators are too far away to be of any significant threath to me. The defiler on the other hand worried me a bit. Jørn finished of my Shinig spear exarch and the last member of the sqd with his Slaanesh lord and was set on fighting the Avatar of Khain. On the other side of the table the noise marines and one chaos dreadnought assaulted my vypers and in frustration of the elusive Eldar vehicles the dreadnought rolled 2 sixes to hit - auto pentration S 10 vs armour 10, and completed the cc with rolling another 2 sixes for damage exploding the two remaining vypers.
In addition, all but the swooping hawk exarch was killed, and he decided to leave the battle by launching himself high in to the air and out of cc.
So what to do. Well I had to take out A LOT of lesser demons, and it wouldn`t hurt to take out a greater on either. So my snipers picked of two wounds from the greater demon, my other sqd of warp spiders landed - on target, and in one volley killed 7 demons lurking in some ruins. My farseer on jetbike casted doom on another demon sqd, and combined twin linked shuriken fire took their numbers down to 4. Still a lot of demons to go! My harlequins who finally had rallied used fleet and assaulted the remaning two chaos marines in no mans land. 9 dancing clowns against 2 kinda lonesome marines - We didn`t waste time to roll it.
Now it was time to move. My Storm guardians and Dire avengers where both on board their wave serpents and in the moving and shooting fase used their star engines to gain 4 + cover save and contest 2 of Jørns objectives. The last firedragon looked to the ruines and saw the blood crazed figure of Kharn - not lurking but screaming in frustration of no more victims to slaughter. He moved within range and calmly leveled his melta gun, whispering a prayer to the long dead eldar gods, and fired. Kharn was no more.
The avatar and the Slaanesh lord duelled and the avatar scored 2 wounds on the chaos lord on bike, but 1 was saved by his demon aura. The Avatar look with rage and the ancient enemy that so long ago scattered him across the universe.
The farseer and remaning warlocks assalted and viped the lesser demons. And it came to us that we now each had a pretty impressive force fighting one another over...Well none of us could claim the objective... hq, elite and heavy was the only thing present, and my troops where either too far away, or busy guarding my own obejctive. In hindsight I should have loaded up my empty falcon with 5 pathfinders and at leaste tried to claim the objective. The Autarch had left the safety of fortune and strenght in numbers and was killed outright by 2 assaulting oblitirators.
In the following cc. the greater demon was killed by the farseer and warlocks, who after passing an amazing 11, 3+ armour saves use their whichblades to make short work of the raging demon. The Slaanesh lord was agian wounded by the avatar, but his posessed Blissgiver, Demon weapon of Slaanesh, finaly found a way through the demon aura of the Avatar and vanquished him back to his craftworlds restingplace.

After this we looked at the battle field. We had played 4 turns. At this point Jørn had the upper hand 2-1. But we had not set a turn limit or time limit that we at least could remember from friday night so we decided "simulate" turn 5 and the most likely outcome.

I held on objective deep in my own deployment. As did Jørn. Jørn had more or less controll over on objective in no mans land, and I figured that 10 dire avengers with bladestorm should be able to take out 8 lesser demons. 9 warp spiders incl. exarch with 2 death spinners and powerblades should be able to take out 10 chaos marines with shooting av cc. or keep them out of 3 inches of the obective. The other 2 obectives where contested or not claimed by the other.
So the conlusion was again - Draw.
Pictures?? Well we kinda forgott that part ;)
Was it fun? It was great!

Finishing Ørnulvs gaming tables

Last summer “Team Stormbolter” built six 6 X 4 gaming boards. The tables where based and painted, and returned to their owners for “an individual last touch”!

To finish my gaming board I first painted the sides (frame) black. Then I glued small dots of static ordinary GW grass to the surface. After the grass had dried I brushed the grass with an old toothbrush. Then I dry brushed the grass slightly with Snakebite Leather. The city canal was a challange. It is quite long and deep. To get the desired effect (deep still dirty canal water) I decided to use EZ-Water Effect. I had concerns with poring hot plastic into the canal because we had used low density Styrofoam. I decided first to glue all the rubble in place, including pipes and platforms to each end of the canal.

I then “painted” the canal sides with “cement filler” mixed with sand and PVA glue. After it had dried I spray painted the plastic parts Chaos Black, and then painted the whole canal, and all the rubble, with acryl wall paper paint (black and brown mix 3:1) mixed with PVA glue.

I dry brushed the canal sides and the collapsed bridge Codex Grey and then Fortress Grey. The bottom of the canal, and all the rubble, where then dry brushed Dark Flesh. The bottom where dry brushed Blazing Orange and then with Sunburst Yellow. Metal parts where given a heavy dry brush with Tin Bitz and then Chainmail. Wood boxes where dry brushed Scorched Brown followed by Snakebite Leather and finally Bleached Bone. Drums where dry brushed with Cartagan Green or Dark Flesh followed by Tin Bitz and Chainmail. Shells where painted Burnished Gold and then dry brushed Chainmail. The warheads were dry brushed with a mix of Chaos Black and Codex Grey.

I used a total of 3 bags of EZ-Water Effect. Day one I made a mistake, as my last go/last layer (bag # 2) did not cower the whole area! Disaster. The plastic dried without an even surface. It was difficult not to spill and to apply evenly, especially around and over the collapsed bridge. I bought a bigger metal cup the next day, melted and pored 1/3 of the bag over the bulky area. It worked – it was level again! Then I melted the rest of bag # 3 in one go, and pored all the content into the canal trying to distribute as even as possible. The heat was intense, and I was concerned some of the material would melt. It did not. The cement/sand/glue/paint held, and this is the result:

Top view:

Now we must decide:

Difficult terrain,

Dangerous terrain,

Impassable terrain,

Special rules for tanks?

Word Bearers 'Noise Marines' (Architecture of Aggression XXV)

Collecting units with a distinctive flavour of their own and adapting them to suit the flavour of the army concept you want to include them in - when that unit doesn't really belong in said army - can be a challenge. Since my Word Bearers now already include most unit types available in the Codex, this is a challenge I've decided I want to tackle this year. I'll be doing several of the unit types I haven't done yet too, such as a Daemon Prince and a unit of bikes, but for January I decided to try my hand at Noise Marines.

I started out with the standard Chaos Space Marine plastics, as I usually do, and added a couple of bits chosen specifically to add a bit of Slaaneshy feel: Dark Elf Corsairs sword for the regular Close Combat Weapons (right) and two Dark Elf Spearmen spears for the Noise Champion's Power Weapon (top left).

Back in the days of 3rd and 4th edition, I played an Emperor's Children army dubbed "Symphony of Destruction" with the previous C:CSM. They relied quite heavily on Noise Weapons. The metal Sonic Blaster is nice enough, but it is a lump of metal on a plastic model so I didn't want any in this squad. I may cook up a plastic conversion for it at a later date, but this squad will be performing Close Combat duties along with my other Assault squad: The counts-as Khorne Berzerkers.

Two weeks of building and painting later, they're done. Weighing in at 250 points, it's going to be interesting to see how they perform next to the Berzerkers.

The bit representing the Doom Siren is the exhaust/incense burner bit from GW's Manufactorum building kit. It is actually a bit that fell off of a Ruin during transport to Kjerringvik a year and a half ago, and a perfect example of why you should never throw any bits away - ever. ;)

Happy New Year!!!

So... Another year gone, and a brand new one just begun. What will 2011 bring, I wonder?

The rumour mills tell of three new codexes and a supplement introducing flyers to 40K. The latter is supposed to be accompanied by half a dozen new vehicle kits too, no doubt to boost sales over normally slow summer months. But that's for the year to come, and all shall be reveiled in due time.

As for the year that's past tense now, here's what I have to show for it:

Most of these models I owe to the Freebootaz Motivational Challenge over at the 40K Radio forums, but I managed to get a couple of additional units in as well. All in all there's 74 models and 7 vehicles - for a total of 2743 points.

I know Ørnulv did a sizeable amount of both Ultramarines and Tyranids. Inger Helene has increased her Orks mob to a massive horde. Trond has finalized a couple of thousand points of his Eldar. Hopefully we can get pics up in the next few days.

We also made new gaming tables (in my garage) this summer. 144 square feet of tabletop, all buildt, based and painted in one go - and able to slot together into a bigger battlefield than most have acces to. We've yet to use this potential, but there's a whole new year ahead of us in which to organize something...

Stay tuned! ;)