One Month Later (I'm Sure I've Said That Before)!

Yow! (As Kwazii would say.) It has been a whole month since I last posted; suffice it to say that I have not been idle despite my lack of updates.

The main event, as it were, of the communications blackout, has been a trip to Warhammer World with my old mucker Jellicoe of the NHS to fight an Apocalypse 40,000 game. I contributed about 3,000 points of my Righteous Fists, while he threw in 9,000 points of Angels Sanguine (Blood Angels by another name) and a further 12,000 points or so of Hive Fleet Scheer. All in all about 24-25,000 points on the table in the end, with a scenario written by me. As so often in these things, the first run through of the scenario threw up a glaring error: Tyranid deployment was too far (four feet) from the Marine deployment, with the depressing but inevitable result that they were forced to walk towards the enemy and were shot to pieces in the process. But when they did reach the Marines, well! There was some bloodshed then.

Lunatics of the match, however, must go to the Angels Sanguine Death Company, who killed a Heirophant bio-titan in close combat... twice!

 The Tyranids. All bar about 500-1000 points worth in the bottom left corner are Jellicoe's Hive Fleet Scheer.

Tyranid deployment. Note Heirophant!

The bio-titans lead the right flank advance supported by the Heirophant's firepower. Note the Fists dug in to the left, and the Angels Sanguine sat there looking all smug with their ridiculous firepower.

 Heirodule versus Mephiston (AKA Beatty)... there can be only one winner!

Inevitably it was Beatty. A real monster of a character.

The Death Company bring down the Heirophant for the second time...

...then the survivors go toe-to-toe with a Termagant swarm.

This is quite late in the game; the Fists' air support has arrived and is busily engaged in strafing Carnifexes. Note the total destruction of the Tyranid right flank!

 I kept deep striking tunneling creatures but their lack of shooting and my inability to close with the main force meant that, without exception, they got shot apart before they got a chance to assault. In the background you can see the high water mark of the Tyranid advance; Carnifexes to the fore!

 I swamped Beatty with Termagants in a futile attempt to kill him.

Endgame: a decisive victory for the combined Astartes force which saved the world from being exterminatused by the Inquisition. 12,000 points of Tyranids and they killed barely anything. Had we deployed 24" apart instead of 48" I am sure the story would have been different. Perhaps next time!

As well as that, I took part in another two sessions of the Dragon Age RPG that AC is running with SB and MC. We defied death (again) and defeated the monsters within the caverns, getting some loot and preparing a plan for the last stage of the adventure that we are yet to play through.

Widget the elf and Hass the mage duel with the blood mage on the steps, while Iorek the dwarf slugs it out with a demon.

After much blood is shed (most of it Iorek's), the crazy Dwarf axes the blood-mage in the face. Gloating commenced.

In terms of stuff that I've painted, well:

I made a start on the Whirlwind, finishing the gunner (how he enters and exits the bloody thing I don't know, and doing it when the tank's been hit and is, say, on fire, must be a thing of miracles).

I painted the first five of my Lamenters' Death Company, the Lost. They are simply armed, as I intend to add more exotically equipped figures later to bulk the squad size up to 11 plus a Chaplain. They will be delivered into battle via a Stormraven gunship.

(Acting) Chapter Master Florentine and his command squad - the chaps in gold helmets are the remnants of the Honour Guard, the Marines who should really make up the entirety of Florentine's command group. To bulk up the numbers he has seconded Sergeant Leon and Brother-Veteran Thoros, as well as having an Apothecary from the Chapter Apothecarion. The banner is something I'm quite proud of; it's all free-handed and while not perfect certainly does the job!

Another Lamenter. This is Veteran Brother Damaskan, one of the 14 survivors of the 1st Company. Armed with a hand flamer and a power sword, he's wearing a real mix of armour as well as honour peteruges. I love how he's turned out - he looks really brutal and uncompromising.

 These are a birthday present for my friend CH; a squad of Knights of Justice scouts. He recently came into most of a Space Marine army, so I wrote him a list and rummaged around in my various bits boxes, coming up with a squad of Scouts, a Tactical Demi-Squad to accompany his Captain, and a Devastator Squad.

Here are two of the aforementioned Devastators - they are from the 7th Devastator Squad (see right pauldron), 9th Company (hence the blue helmets). Quite proud of these guys; they're an exercise in simple paintjobs - black undercoat, block colours, black wash, apply transfers, base, done.

Phew! After all that it's time to get back to painting and sorting; my other half S has made the salient point that I really should organise my soldiery into 'Keep', 'Sell' and 'Wha...?' What I do with the stuff that falls into the 'Wha...?' category will, I think, vary. Hopefully I will get my blog updates a bit more regular from now on (HA!, say the voices off)!

Painting Points: 19
2013 Total: 286 (196x 28mm, 2x 54mm, 10x vehicles, 2x spaceships, 3x 28mm cavalry, 2x flags)