40K - Abandoned Hive City

On the weekend I painted my Abandoned Hive City. This is a destroyed city which has been left to the encroaching jungle. Up until now the Citifight terrain had just been basecoated and drybrushed but I took the opportunity to paint the details and finish the pieces off.

When Sam bailed on our game Sunday - something about being scared of the nasty Dark Eldar - I got to spend the day painting. As well as the Citifight terrain I had some very old resin barricades GW made at the time of release of Citifight (circa 2005) so painted them up. They have the same Manufactorium, Administratum etc pieces incorporated into them.

I've purchased a Gamemat.eu "Swamp" battlemat which is jungle-themed.

The next table will be an urban ruin table.

40K - "Hammerhead Down" Table

As part of the prep for FOB NZGT I am working through my terrain collection and getting them ready for the event.

Each of my terrain sets has its own gamemat and comes in its own plastic storage crate. This means I can have a tailored table which has its own narrative. I'm trying to ensure a certain level of terrain coverage which includes LOS-blocking pieces in each set. The final set will be to add matching scatter terrain.

Here is my "Hammerhead Down" table which goes on Gamemat.eu's Sands of Time Mat. I've had these mdf building from CNC Workshop for 10+ years but decided to revamp them to give them more character. A few hours with the airbrush has achieved this.

40k - Blooding the Field Base

Blooded the Field Base today in a Maelstrom Mission down at the Warlords. My Dark Eldar took on Alastair's Tau in a rematch from Call to Arms.

The Tau went first and inflicted some damage on the DE forward units. However the DE were able to gain the initiative by focusing on the elimination of Fire Warrior units. The game went into Turn 7 and the Dark Eldar were able to score a lot of late game objectives for a clear victory.

However all did not go their way. The Black Heart #2 Archon was brought down in combat by a combination of Fire Warriors and Darkblade. Oh, the ignominy.

40k - ITC Field Base Terrain Finished

Finished another table of terrain for the Fields of Blood NZ Grand Tournament. This time it is the Frontline Gaming ITC terrain I built last week.

Here is a table set up - just needs some scatter terrain to break it up. It is sitting on a Gamemat.eu battlemat.

Pretty happy with the finished result - both attractive and functional.

Weekly Hobby Update

The weekend saw me working on getting the ITC Field Base tabletop-ready.

I use Rustoleum x2 Primer to seal and base coat my MDF buildings. The next stage was an airbrush session where I used one of my old "Master" airbrushes to detail the buildings. I was pretty happy with the colour modulation I achieved. Then yesterday it was onto brush work to do the detailing. I'm at the stage whereby I think I can finish the full set over the next two evenings.

The other thing I have been doing is watching video battle reports. "Tabletop Tactics" and "The Long War" are my two favourites and I'm a supporter of both these channels. I've also bought a subscription to "Deployment Zone" but have a backlog of videos to watch.

Over the next month terrain building will be a key task for me as I seek to get material ready for Fields of Blood NZGT. The key is to build on "a table basis" rather than piece by piece. This allows me to ensure that a table can be themed and that there is sufficient LOS blocking material on each battlefield.

40K - ITC Terrain Constructed

Earlier this year I purchased a table of Frontline Gaming's Field Base terrain.

This is flat-packed MDF terrain that you construct with PVA glue.

Here is a picture of the full set. It is constructed from 3mm MDF following instructions posted on their website. At the rear is a GW Harlequin Starweaver box by way of size comparison. You can see that they do provide some line of sight blocking cover for all but the largest models.

Here we have the main Field Base Strongholds, Barracks and containers. I have glued the roofs down, mainly for resilience reasons but also for functionality.

The Bunkers and Communication Towers. There is plenty of opportunity to place models in firing positions, cover.

This weekend I intend to paint them. I will use a mix of rattle cans and airbrush with brush for detail work.

This full table worth of very functional 8th Edition terrain cost approximately $300 NZD. I think this is very good value and it should look great on a neoprene mat.

40k - A Weekend With Drew Carey

Last weekend I played at Call To Arms, a 1750 point event of 5 rounds over two days.

Game One - Alick Harris (Astra Militarum)

This could go one of two ways. Alick had 9 Catachan Hellhounds, a Tank Commander and three units of Scions. I was lucky in that I manage to split the squadrons up and have them attack piecemeal. As in a lot of my games my MVP was Khloe the Haemonculus with her Vexator Mask. She managed to get off 3 charges during the game which saved a lot of dead Eldar. My Archon got into combat for the only time of the weekend, failing his Shadowfield at first attempt.

Win 31 - 9

Game Two - JJ Economu (Custodes)

On paper, Custodes are one of my two worst matchup ups - their silly 3++ Shield Captains and Storm Shield saves. JJ came forward and I removed two Bikes to shooting. He only charged one unit in exploding a Venom. I was able to reduce the second bike unit to one while five units charged the second unit of three, killing them. The next few turns I removed the 3 Custode infantry squads leaving him with only the two Shield Captains.

Win 40-0

Game Three - Alistair Helm (Tau)

My other awful matchup, Tau. And we were playing long ways and he went first. I put four units into the Webway and hid the rest. I didn't come out until Turn 2 and then managed to remove a Ghostkeel. Initially behind on progressive points I attacked the two centre objectives while laying down covering fire. On Turn 5 I went ahead and was able to push on and get Tertiary Objectives.

Win 25-15

So overnight I was lying 5th with three wins and fate smiled kindly on me.

Game Four - Louis Thomson-Gregg (Dark Angels)

Marines! Two wound Marines! T6 Flyers! I was pretty happy going into this. I even won the roll to go first. Louis did STI but I rolled 4++ saves like a 12 year old. I lost a Talos Turn One having but anything mildly unresilient in the Webway or similar dark space. When it came down it did what Dark Eldar do to Marines....Awful match up for Louis.

Win 40-0

Game Five - Dave Hodgetts (Tau)

Great I'm on the Top Table with a chance to win. But I'm playing the NZ Masters' Champion and he's playing Tau. He gave me first turn, it took 40 seconds then back to him. I weathered the storm then brought down the DE Webway force. This combined by Khloe + Grotesque assault put Dave on back foot. I pushed him to his baseline but we ran out of time. Came down to a fight for the centre objective where (with last battle round) Dave could throw everything forward with no Turns 5 or 6. I got a little unlucky with my saves and we contested the objective. However Dave had 4 models to my 3. I had been slack moving my Archon forward thinking I'd survive the storm. Great game. Nice when a tournament comes down to the last die roll and one model. Unfortunately for Dave I did enough damage to him to push him into 2nd Overall.

Loss 10-30

Overall I came 4th. If I could have been bothered to get my display board out of the wardrobe I would have squeaked into 3rd. I was happy with my play as I thought I only had one advantageous matchup.The list is good.....really good. It is very forgiving. Given more practice I reckon I can squeeze a lot more out of it. My biggest gap is the number of games I play. Important to play the full breadth of armies so I know where the threats lie. At the moment I'm still strategising on the fly.

MVP - Khloe the Haemonculus with Electrocorrosive Whip, Hexrifle and Mask

Warhammer 40k - Call to Arms Results

Call to Arms was held over the weekend in Wellington, hosted by the Warlords.

Craig and Carson did a great job running the event.

The results were as follows:

Congrats to all the prizewinners. The results have been uploaded to the rankings.