Blood Angels on pest control

Mission and Deployement

  This mission gives us points for controlling objective markers in no-mans-land and the enemy deployment zone.  Our deployments were the short edges across from each other.  The Blood Angels left a unit of Sanguinary Guard in reserves and placed the other one in a flanking position on the right, while their Captain and Intercessor squad mobbed up in the middle to react in either direction.  The Tyranids placed their big gun bugs to their right and further back to take advantage of the range and cover the advance of the Psychophage.  The Termagants and Winged Prime stuffed themselves into the rest of the deployment zone, and the Von Ryan's Leapers infiltrated behind the ruins to get the jump on the golden-armoured boys.  

The pieces are set

Blood Angels' zone

Tyranids zone

Round 1

  The Tyranids won the roll-off for first turn and immediately leapt foward.  The Psychophage trundled up to threaten the middle of the field while the skittering hordes around it moved up and opened fire.  The Barbguants fired long-range and killed one of the Intercessors, being the only effective shooting against the power armour.  The Winged Prime, also known as the Terror of Vardenghast, flew up to claim one of the objectives and ordered the Leapers to assault the marines.  Following their hive-mind imperative, they dashed up and started slicing the golden Sanguinary Guard, killing one and leaving a second one with only a wound left.  The survivors struck back and killed one of the infiltrating beasts in return.  

  The Blood Angels responded in their turn by choosing the Leapers as their Oath of the Moment and ordered their own assault.  The Intercessors strode forward and shot at the big monster in the middle, causing a couple wounds with the overcharged plasma pistol.  They then charged into the Leapers to support their Sanguinary Guard brothers, only for the xenos to fight first and kill off the rest of them.  But the red-armoured marines killed off the Leapers and re-established control of their side of the battlefield.  

Round 2

  The Tyranids received five points for the Terror holding an objective in no-man's land, to start the turn.  The monstrous Psychophage led the Barbguants forward to press the Imperial deployment zone and claim the other objective in the neutral area, and then unleashed their ammo into the Intercessors, bringing down a few.  The Terror charged in, leaving his objective for the Termagants to hold, and only brought down one more marine.  But this was enough to add more victory points.  Everyone attacked back and hacked down the xenos leader.

  The Blood Angels, sensing the momentum of the Tyranids beginning to wane, moved up to engage the horde of Termagaunts and killed 16 between bullets and chainswords.  While they were busy, the other unit of Sanguinary Guard dropped from the sky in the backfield, stealing the home objective from the aliens.  They had only scored four points, falling behind in the score so far.

Round 3

  Unfortunately, the Termagants failed their battleshock test after the brutal assault and couldn't score more points for the their objective.  Worse, the Terror of Vardenghast was gone, and so the xenos army couldn't score secondary objectives either.  They still racked up five more points for the Barbgaunts' efforts, and those gun-bugs turned their attention to the freshly-arrived Sanguinary Guard but only caused a couple of wounds.  The Intercessors and original unit of golden boys easily dispatched the Termagants but watched as the Psychophage advanced to take their home objective!

  The Blood Angels were now earning points like crazy- 15 points for holding an objective in no-man's land and another in the Tyranid deployment zone!  The Sanguinary Guard that just arrived stood their ground and took shots at the Barbguants, but failed to cause any real damage.  It didn't matter, they were scoring victory points (4 more for the secondary)!  Raldeo ordered the charge of his forces into the Psychophage, which chose to overwatch his acidic breath into the rushing horde, felling another of the golden-armoured attackers.  The Captain claimed his 'finest hour' rule, but failed to cause enough damage to the monster.  Now bleeding, the beast returned the favour and chomped down one of the Intercessors.  It would have been more without the Refuse to Bend strategem.  

Round 4

  The Tyranids were able to score 15 victory points for holding the objective in no-man's land and the Blood Angels home objective.  While this gave them the lead, their hunger was not yet sated.  The Barbgaunts used their Voracious Assault to unleash their living firepower on the rear Sanguinary Guard, causing 14 wounds!  After all the armour save, one golden boy fell.  On the other side of the battlefield, the beastly Psychophage continued to fight with the mob of marines, suffering a few more wounds as it took down two more Intercessors.  

  The Blood Angels were now in a perfect position, scoring 15 more points and retaking the lead by a wide margin.  The rear Sanguinary Guard continued to hold the Tyranid home objective and duel with the Barbguants.  The fight with the Psychophage resulted in the loss of more of the Intercessors and a little damage back.  But the outcome was becoming obvious.  

Round 5

  The Tyranids only gained 5 more victory points, now being outnumbered on the Blood Angel's home objective and losing control.  The Barbguants continued their barrage on the rear Sanguinary Guard, killing another and leaving only one remaining.  But it wasn't enough, as Captain Raldeo and a single Guard finished the massive beast on their own objective.  

Conclusion

  The Blood Angels only had Captain Raldeo and two Sanguinary Guard models left on the table, while the Tyranids still had an entire unit of Barbgaunts remaining!  But the final score was Tyranids 34, Blood Angels 61- Imperial Victory!

Happy Gaming!

Zarkan is complete!

 

  Well, the Master of Possessions is finally fully painted.  I still have to base him and he's a Word Bearer, not a Black Legionnaire, so the title may be not completely true.  But I finished painting something and had to practice my camera-phone skills some more (I apologize for that in advance, of course!).  

  In my last post about this model, I did a quick paint job on the burning bits but with a green, spooky glow rather than the more common fires.  It was well past time to just paint the robes and rest and get him table ready- especially if this is the leader for my Combat Patrol!  So without further ado, let me show and tell.

Step 1- the robe

  This has been a bugbear since I started painting this model.  The original GW artwork shows him as a Black Legion marine with a red robe (not too shabby, actually!), but I play the most evil of evil Word Bearers.  Now, I can't put a bright red or even black over this area as the robe would instantly get lost in the rest of the details.  And any other colours would certainly have thrown off the balance compared to the rest of my basic-paint scheme army already.  So I had to be really persnickity while still trying to keep the red aspect.  

  First, I mixed equal parts Khorne Red and Abaddon Black, which turned out like the old Scorched Brown colour!  That was exciting to me.  This was applied over every bit of the robe, inside and out.  

  Next, I added more Khorne Red to the mix and layered this over the previous colour.  This was very subtle, but it really laid out the curves and highlights, as well as established that shadowy fade that cloth is great for.  In this case, the pictures definitely don't show much difference.  

  Next, I added more Khorne Red to the mix (seeing a theme yet?) and layered this very specifically in only the high areas and around the borders.  This added the colour contrast to the robe and gave that shading the deepness that I was looking for.  Old-school techniques still work!

  Finally, with straight Khorne Red, I layer- or line-highlighted very specific areas.  Remember that any borders/edges of the robes are going to establish the colour to the eye, so those have to be highlighted even if the light isn't really bouching there.  All about the tricks to the eye...

Step 2- the other details

  By this point, I had the model playable but not done.  I still had to paint the little scroll on his belt, touch up some of the bones (and there were many bones on this dude), and get those eyes glowing.  

First, I layered Zhandri Dust onto the scross, basecoating the entire bit.  Then, I simply mixed a little more white at a time into the mix and layered that on, successively in smaller lines leading to the edges.  With a final edge highlight of the white along the top, bottom, and the middle wrap, that was done.  

  Now it was time for those eyes.  I forgot to paint them when I was working on the rest of the fire, so I had to base a little White Scar into those eye sockets.  

  Once that was completely dry, I had to choose what glow I was going to use.  I could stick with the green that the rest of the army had, but I already have quite a bit of that green all over this model.  I could go with red, but that brings up the same problem as the robes where they would get lost in the other details.  But I still wanted "evil", so I went with orange.  I watered down Wild Rider Red until it was almost skim milk consistency- like, almost transparent!  I dabbed that into the eyes and then brushed it off the center of the lenses.  The effect rocks and is so easy!  It's not the colour, it's the technique.  

Step 3- the finish

  I've dedicated so much time to deliberations and experimentation that I was nearly exhausted.  I needed to just push through this last stage and be done.  This is where the "Touchup" and "Highlight" stages are.  Think of "leg day" at the gym, but for nerd dolls and a paintbrush...  I dislike this stage enough that I forgot to take pics!

  There was the pesky obsidian blade (an 'anathame'?) hanging on his belt.  That took a quick basecoat of Abaddon black and then some sloppy stippling and edging with Sotek Green and Ahriman Blue.

  Then I had the feathers (yes, feathers!) hanging all over his fur shawl (sometimes, GW, you're choice of aesthetics is confounding.)- I really wanted to do those feathers in all kinds of colours.  But now I'm in "get it done" mode, so I thought the Raven aspect would be the most appropriate.  Mixing black and white to make a very dark gray, I layered the feather quills and such, and then mixed in more white to just edge the shape so it would stand out just a tad from the surrounding brown fur.  

  While I was using the gray mix, I also lined in the ridges for the undersuit, painted the handle of the pistol, and drew black lines (with very, very watered-down black) between colours and plates.  Lining-in is old-school, but it's necessary on darker models like this where highlighting too bright can change the entire colour of the model.  

  Now, with everything touched up and the basic highlights done, it was time to cap it off with the highlighting of the silver bits.  That was basecoated with Iron Warrior (or Ironbreaker and then washed with Nuln Oil- I just can't remember and they both end with the same effect) and then edge highlighted with Stormhost Silver.  I wanted to go crazy with this, but I just needed the 'bling' from the table-top standard.  This colour combo does that.

  Now comes the base.  But I have the problem of my Cultists being different than my original plan.  So I basecoated the sane black and will get back to that later.  

Step 4- admire

  I had some fun painting this model because it was very different than the bog-standard marine and definitely a harbinger of the new style when it was originally released.  I'm not trying to make this model win any painting trophies, but he does deserve to look pretty good, and I'm pretty happy with him.  He's definitely stand out while leading his Possessed!

This makes me want to name him "Skeletor" and laugh maniacally... 

Of course, Skeletor has his staff of power- and look at those eyes!

  And that's it!  He's done, he was fun, and now there's more to go.  The squad of marines is sitting on the table...

Happy Hobbying!