Orks and Imperial Guard vs. Ultramarines, Part I

This weekend's gaming saw a rematch between Carl's Grey Knights and Kevin's Dark Eldar as well as a vicious 1500 point face-off between the Ultramarines and Bryce's and Jon's unlikely Guard/Ork alliance (500 points of Guard and 1000 points of Orks). I've written about this kind of alliance before; it's hard to beat since each army reinforces the weaknesses of the other. These two games were marked by a major change: larger gaming tables. In the past, when most of us couldn't muster much more than 1000 points, we were playing on 4'x4' tables. This time both games were played with 4'x6' of space (one of the tables can be extended to 4'x8'). Given how cramped our games had gotten, this was a good change. It also showed Jon and me that our armies are severely lacking in one thing: transports. The time it takes to footslog across a 4'x6' table while under fire can ruin plans and decimate units.

The Guard/Orks/Marines game ran from about 7:30 PM to 12:30 PM and kept me pretty occupied, so I wasn't able to see much of the Grey Knights/Dark Eldar game. During their previous 1000 point match a few weeks ago, a lack of long range heavy firepower prevented Carl from taking out Kevin's flyers. Kevin was therefore able to dictate the conditions of close combat, avoided nearly all small arms fire, and greatly benefited from his Wyches' dodge saves (which neutralize the effectiveness of force and power weapons). The Grey Knights were wiped out while taking only 200 to 300 points of Dark Eldar with them. After the utter annihilation of the Warriors of Titan at the hands of the Pointy-Eared Perverts, Carl swore vengeance (well, as much as Carl would ever swear vengeance; he's the most mellow of us by far and a great sport).

This time Carl's prior weakness was compensated for by two shiny new Venerable Dreadnoughts with twin-linked lascannons. The Venerables blasted the flyers out of the air, spilling the Wyches out and exposing them to a fusillade from storm bolters and the Dreadknight's Gatling Psilencer. Also, inspired by my past success with Telion and his ability to individually target units of high importance, Carl proxied a Vindicare assassin who did some serious damage. From what I overheard, one of the game's highlights saw a group of Wyches attack a Venerable Dreadnought with haywire grenades. A lucky hit caused the Dreadnought to explode with the resulting explosion killing most of the Wyches (Jon loses a lot of Orks this way, too). By about 10 PM the Grey Knights had won day.

Things didn't go quite as well with the Ultramarines, although I was reasonably pleased with the night's game. Unfortunately, it's been a long time since I wasn't embarrassed. Last time Carl had the majority of his army left when he wiped me out. Going further backward in time we have the game where the Tau got completely clobbered by the Orks, the slaughter of the Tau and the Grey Knights at the hands of the Orks and the Imperial Guard, and back in December we had the massacre of the Tyranids by the guns of the Imperial Guard. In fact, the last time my army put in a good showing was in late December when the Ultramarines defeated the Orks by an extremely narrow margin.

Xenos scum *spit*

I was worried early on when I found myself facing the Guard/Ork alliance again. Fortunately, Bryce took pity on me and brought his Basilisk rather than the Manticore. I've already faced the combination of huge mobs of Orks with furious charge, a large number of attacks, and Marine-level toughness and weapons skill with the multiple strength 10 large blast templates of the Manticore. I would have been tempted to sit out the game if I had to face it again.

The Guard and Orks won the initial roll off. As usual, Jon's army filled their entire deployment zone. In the past I've typically distributed my Marines along the boundary of my own deployment zone. I've since realized that this merely serves to overstretch my forces. It ensures that I can't concentrate my firepower while allowing the Orks to charge me along a broad front over the shortest distance possible. When outnumbered, Bryce tends to sweep the majority of his army in a arc around one side of the table. This allows him to take on the enemy in smaller, more manageable pieces. I decided to attempt something similar while taking advantage of the larger board. Except for my reserve units, I set up the majority of my army in the left half of my deployment zone, which was dominated by area terrain and obstacles that blocked line of site. This had the advantage of distancing me from Bryce's lascannons and his Chimera, protected most of my forces from Jon's Lootas, and forced one of the Ork mobs to march a significant distance across the table while under fire.

I failed to seize the initiative and the Guard and Orks went first as expected. Fortunately the Emperor briefly smiled on me and their first round wasn't nearly as effective as it was last time. Although I was left with most of my army intact, my sniper Scouts were a prime target and I managed to fail four 3+ cover saves. Telion and the remaining Scout did next to nothing during the subsequent rounds, in part because I parked my Venerable Dreadnought immediately in front of them. (I felt particularly stupid about it since it wasn't the first time I've done this.) My missile launcher-carrying Devastator Squad was also a popular target and was killed off pretty quickly thanks to the Guard's "Fire On My Target" rule, which required me to re-roll successful cover saves. Like the Scouts, the Devastators did not earn back their points.

I never did trust these guys

At the beginning of my first turn, I landed a glass bottom stein... uh, my "drop pod", immediately behind enemy lines and within melta range of the Basilisk that had been hidden behind the ruins where Jon's Lootas were stationed. My multi-melta Dreadnought marched out, made the shot, and penetrated the Basilisk's armor. I rolled a two on the vehicle damage table and, thanks to the AP 1 and open-topped modifiers, I managed to... immobilize the Basilisk. That's right, the whole gambit worked perfectly so that I could immobilize a vehicle that Bryce never moves. It wasn't even denied another round of shooting. In the very next turn the Dreadnought was stunned, which ensured that one of Bryce's squads could march right up to it and destroy it with melta bombs. Never has a ploy simultaneously worked so right and yet gone so wrong. However, the tactic very nearly paid off and, had the Guard squad not destroyed the Dreadnought, I could have had a second chance to destroy the Basilisk with a close combat weapon. It's definitely a technique that's worth trying again.

By the second turn I brought the Vindicator in from reserves. Putting the tank in reserves in the first place is what I call a Maginot Line Mistake; i.e., I did with the Vindicator what I should have done during my last game against the Grey Knights. I had been worried about losing it to artillery or anti-tank weapons and kept it off the table until the second turn, which ensured that Jon's Boyz could progress far enough across the board to assault the tank after it got off a single shot. The Boyz were in cover when the Vindicator fired and Jon was able to save most of his mob. During Jon's assault on the tank, a single Boy was able to land one lucky glance that kept the tank from firing the next turn, which would have caught the Boyz in the open. Another assault caused the tank to explode, which actually killed more Boyz than the Demolisher cannon did. If Jon had not rolled that six, the Vindicator might have gone on to do a lot more.

These guys look good even when they're losing

At the halfway point I thought it was going to be a rout. I had lost a Dreadnought, my Devastator Squad had been decimated, and my Vindicator was gone. None of those units had even remotely earned back their points, although the Dreadnought failed to do so only because of the oddities of the vehicle damage table. Jon's Lootas kept my Venerable Dreadnought stunned through most of the game and eventually took both its assault cannon and its close combat weapon (I don't think I ever got the chance to fire the assault cannon). My troops weren't doing great on their armor saves or cover saves and, despite the fact that my forces inflicted a remarkable number of wounds on the Orks, Jon was making an amazing number of 4+ cover saves. It wasn't until the last third of my army was left that the statistics evened out and I started rolling fours instead of twos, Jon stopped making quite as many cover saves, and his leadership rolls started failing. The biggest break I got was that the Basilisk's shots drifted all over creation. Even when the Basilisk managed to hit the Land Raider, Bryce kept rolling "weapon destroyed" on the damage table and the Land Raider kept moving.

Next Time: Will the Greenskins and their traitorous Guard allies defeat the Emperor's Angels of Death?

And My Next Army Will Be... Tyranids?

That's right, Tyranids. Now I know what you may be thinking; "Mr. Nuclear Potato... or Radioactive Tuber... or whatever you call yourself, didn't you write about how disappointing Tyranids were just a few months ago? Wasn't it so bad that Bryce even wrote a sympathetic post about how thoroughly his Guard wiped them out?" Yes, that's all true. However, my decision wasn't rationally arrived at nor does it have anything to do with the army's competitiveness (or lack thereof).

Tyranids? Wait, how did this happen?

For several months I've been thinking about the army that I'll build after I finish the Ultramarines. I've had some difficulty in this since I didn't really feel the same enthusiasm for other armies as I do for Space Marines. For a while I leaned towards Chaos Marines. Later I thought about doing Necrons and was initially excited about the last year's releases. That enthusiasm waned and I began to look at Chaos Daemons, then Black Templars, and then Tau. When rumors began to circulate about 6th Edition Chaos Marines, I had all but decided to start a Chaos Marines army if their new codex significantly improved on the previous codex. All this time I hadn't even considered Tyranids, although I often found myself admiring their models on GW's website and was impressed by the new plastic figures. My slow painting speed discouraged me from doing any kind of horde army and the difficulty that 5th Edition Tyranids seem to have competing with other armies was something I had read about over and over again. The notion was seemingly confirmed when I finally played them.

This past week, while I was recovering from gallbladder removal surgery, I found myself with some time on my hands and decided it was time to get serious about planning the rest of my Ultramarine army. With only the Codex to limit me, I began to develop a series of 2000 point lists in anticipation of future games against members of our cabal. Each of these lists included a Sternguard Squad that I've wanted to build for a while. I had decided to build this unit when I saw that a number of Ultramarines players online were building them as Tyrannic War Veterans. Since then I've been collecting fancy shoulder pads, unique helmets, and other bits with which to decorate the squad. Bryce has also given me a variety of Tyranid pieces to serve as trophies from past battles. I planned to build a suitably decorated Razorback/Rhino for them and bought a pewter Chaplain Cassius to lead them.

My fate was sealed when they released
the Hive Tyrant in plastic
[Model by Games Workshop]

After planning builds to fight horde armies (Jon's Orks), artillery armies (Bryce's Imperial Guard), and highly mobile armies (Kevin's Dark Eldar), I decided to have some fun by making a list designed to fight a force dominated by monstrous creatures. After all, you can't have a squad of Tyrannic War Veterans and not expect them to have to face the occasional army of monsters. In addition to the Sternguard and Chaplain Cassius, I included a number of monstrous creature-killing units like Scout snipers, Razorbacks with twin-linked lascannons, an Annihilator pattern Predator, a Vindicator, and a standard Land Raider. I put in a lascannon-equipped Venerable Dreadnought when it occurred to me that I could also build it to be a Tyrannic War Veteran. The list was inspired by pure Ultramarines fluff and instantly became my favorite.

There was only one real problem with my monster hunters list: none of our players actually uses an army with a significant number of monstrous creatures. Bryce has quite a few points of Tyranids dating back to the 3rd Edition, but he has no interest in playing them when he has his Imperial Guard and his Eldar. It seemed like I had a army with no one to fight. That's when the little voices in my head started to have a discussion:

I've always liked the Tyranid models. And the new plastic Hive Tyrant and Tyrannofex/Tervigon models are awesome. It probably wouldn't hurt to have one or two just to paint.

I could never paint anything like the Hive Fleet Leviathan models that GW is always showcasing, though. They look great but I couldn't ever do such a white-dominated army. But Hive Fleet Behemoth and its offshoots have the cool red, black, and blue coloring. That would be a lot easier to do and would be appropriate for an anti-Ultramarine army.

I've promised myself that I wouldn't build a horde army, but the Tyrannic War Veteran list is for monster hunting and I could load up a Tyranid army with monstrous creatures to reduce the model count.

But 5th Edition Tyranids are often considered to be non-competitive, especially Godzilla army builds.

What does competitiveness matter to me? Our group plays for fun and I like the game mostly for the models anyway. I want a Tyranid Godzilla army to fight my Ultramarines...

And maybe I could slowly expand it to include horde elements over time. Termagants and Hormagaunts look like they could be surprisingly effective...

I was doomed.

Nothing ruins your day like a horde of Tyranids
[Models by Games Workshop]

The truth is that, for me, 60% of the fun of Warhammer 40,000 is in building the models while only 40% is in playing the game. And the only reason I build the models or play the game is because I enjoy the sci-fi setting of the 40K universe. Although I've been very impressed by the models that Games Workshop has been producing for Warhammer, I would never actually buy them because I'm just not interested in the fantasy storyline. In contrast, I love the Ultramarines models and their history. And although I'm not convinced of their effectiveness on the game table, I've admired the Tyranid models since I started playing 40K and I like the amalgam of 60 years of sci-fi/horror concepts that makes up their fluff. As luck would have it, the story of the Ultramarines is directly linked with that of the Tyranids.

My previous problem in choosing a second army stemmed from the fact that I was listing the pros and cons of the other armies and was deciding to wait and see if they got better or worse with 6th Edition. I was trying to come to a conclusion rationally and never got the gut response telling me 'I want to do this army'. However, I was immediately excited by the thought of building a Hive Fleet Behemoth army. (Actually, I was giddy about the idea, but that was probably the influence of the post-surgery pain killers I was taking.) I had briefly played the 5th Edition Tyranid codex and found it lacking, yet I didn't care about the codex's weaknesses. I wanted to build a Tyranid army, both for its own sake as well as to have an enemy force to go against my Ultramarines. If 6th Edition makes the Tyranids more competitive, so much the better, but it isn't the deciding factor.

Given the recent release of Tyranid and Space Wolves models, it's unsurprising that this month's White Dwarf features those two armies. What is interesting, though, is the fact that the Painting Workshop section of this issue includes a detailed tutorial on painting a Tervigon in Hive Fleet Behemoth colors. Clearly fate (or the Hive Mind) has decided that the Tyranids will follow the Ultramarines.

Space Marine Army Planning: Scouts

For me, much of the fun of 40K is planning the army. (I have plenty of time to plan since it takes me so long to make the models.) Since the primary reason why I play the game is because I like the fluff, I tend to plan my army around its backstory as much, if not more, than I plan around practical considerations. I know there are some players that look down on this approach, but I have the good fortune of playing in a buddy's basement with a great group of guys who are there to enjoy themselves first and foremost, even when they lose.

As I've been building my Ultramarine force, I've been looking more and more at Scouts due to their impressive degree of flexibility. All have the Scouts and Infiltrate special rules. They can choose between boltguns, shotguns, sniper rifles, or bolt pistols/combat blades with no increase in point cost. For only ten more points a Scout Squad can have a heavy bolter or missile launcher without being limited by the ten-man minimum requirement that the Tactical Marines have. For a mere three points per model (or by bringing along Telion for 50 points) a squad can have the Stealth rule, giving them a 3+ save in most cover.

The primary reasons why I'm considering a Scout-heavy force are a lot less practical than weapons variety or special rules, though. As cool as the power armored Marines are, I really like the look and style of the Scout models. Even more important for me is the fact that, per the fluff, the Ultramarines have one of the strongest recruiting bases of any Space Marine chapter. They should therefore be capable of fielding a larger number of Scouts than any of their brother chapters. The Ultramarines even boast the best-known Scout trainer of all, Sergeant Telion, who is frequently seconded to other chapters to aid in their training programs.

When I first started playing 40K, Bryce emphasized the importance of dedicated squads, warning me that a squad which tries to do everything could easily be good at nothing. For that reason, I've decided to use the flexibility given to Scouts to build a variety of squads, each with a dedicated combat role. When our cabal starts playing larger games (i.e., ones in which we could actually fill all six troop slots), I plan on bringing two 10 man Tactical Squads while filling the remaining four slots with these specialized Scout Squads. Additionally, I plan on fielding a Scout Bike squad to fill a fast attack slot.

Squad I (75-140 points):

[Models by Games Workshop]

1st Squad will be a five man close combat squad with bolt pistols and combat blades. Although Scouts were slightly weakened between 4th and 5th editions when their Weapons Skill was lowered from a 4 to a 3, I actually think that it makes sense fluff-wise that neophytes without power armor have a slightly lower Weapons Skill than their more experienced battle-brothers. Using Bryce's models in the past, I found that the extra attack a bolt pistol/combat blade combination gives them tends to compensate for this and makes them more useful than Tactical Marines in a melee. Their superhuman Strength 4 and Toughness 4 give them reasonable survivability and the ability to inflict a good deal of damage on weaker races (e.g., Tau, Eldar). Although their armor save isn't as good as that of full Marines, it's still equal to or better than the saves of most other armies' troops.

I intend to use the close combat Scouts as a quick-strike, opportunistic force intended to attack light armor and heavy weapons troops as well as to slow down enemy forces until reinforcements can arrive. Since the squad is intended to deliver as many close combat attacks as possible, I may eventually expand it to a force of ten Scouts. They wouldn't require any heavy weapons due to their specialization, nor would they require camo cloaks since they would spend little to no time in cover. In other words, the 1st would be an inexpensive (and largely disposable) squad.

Squad II (100 points):

[Models by Games Workshop]

2nd Squad will be a five man mid-range squad with four bolters and one heavy bolter. Until I can prove otherwise in practical play, this may be the squad with the most questionable value since they seem to be little more than a Tactical Squad with a lower Ballistic Skill. I must admit that I'm somewhat depending on 6th Edition to restore the Scouts' BS 4. While I can see Scouts as having a lower Weapons Skill than full-fledged Marines, I would think that the genetic enhancements and training the Scouts have already received should give them the same Ballistic Skill. (The fact that Scouts with sniper rifles only have BS 3 is even more inexplicable.)

However, I think that the mid-range Scouts can still fulfill a useful role. First and foremost, they can field an inexpensive heavy bolter regardless of their numbers. The Scouts and Infiltrate special rules allow them to be placed within bolter range immediately. And since their camo cloaks give them a 3+ save in most cover, they would have greater survivability in a firefight than even power armored Marines (our group seems to have a lot of AP 2 and 3 weapons on the table, nowadays). I see 2nd Squad as a nuisance force meant to whittle down the enemy early in the game. Given that much of the 2nd's advantage over a Tactical Squad would lie in being able to take a heavy bolter in a five man squad, it's unlikely I would ever expand the 2nd into a 10 man force.

Squad III (148-200 points):

3rd Squad is the six man sniper squad I finished recently. The 3rd is equipped with Sergeant Telion, four Scouts with Sniper rifles, and one Scout with a missile launcher. The snipers have already proven to be a useful asset that I intend to employ on a regular basis. Telion's ability to pick out individual models that would normally be hidden in a squad is indispensable, as is his ability to lend his BS to another member of his squad (I can think of quite a few situations where I would have appreciated a missile launcher with BS 6). Since Telion gives his whole squad the Stealth rule, his presence eliminates the need to buy individual camo cloaks. Thus, I may expand the 3rd to a total of nine Scouts led by Telion, which would save me 27 points worth of cloaks.

Squad IV (100-180 points):

[Models by Games Workshop]

In my opinion, the range and abilities of the sniper rifle make sniper Scouts some of the most useful units I can field. The rifles wound anything on a roll of 4 (making them useful against Carl's Dreadknight or Bryce's Wraithlord) and are rending and pinning. Thanks to the rending rule, a sniper rifle can glance armor as high as 12, which should make Kevin's Dark Eldar nervous. And sniper Scouts can use Infiltrate to place themselves in an ideal sniping location after the enemy has set up, making it harder for him to predict where the threat will be coming from.

Given these advantages (and the fact that Bryce has explicitly said that the idea makes him nervous), it only makes sense for me to have a respectable number of sniper Scouts on the table. 4th Squad would be a five man sniper squad with four sniper rifles and one missile launcher. In larger games, 4th Squad could see an increase to ten Scouts.

Squad V (95-145 points):

[Models by Games Workshop]

5th Squad would be a three man Scout Bike squad equipped with two Astartes grenade launchers. One bike would retain its twin-linked bolters while the sergeant would carry melta-bombs. I began to see a need for such a unit while playing against Bryce's Imperial Guard, whose long-range heavy guns blasted any anti-tank forces to kingdom come before they could cross the table. However, like Scout troops, Scout Bikes benefit from the Infiltrate and Scouts special rules. These abilities, combined with the Bikes' 12" move and Turboboosting special rule, could allow a Bike squad to reach a tank within the first turn. If a straight run at a tank can't be achieved, the Bikes can still attempt to outflank the opponent and approach from the side. Although the Astartes grenade launcher is powerful enough to penetrate weaker armor, the goal is to use the Bike's speed to assault the tank quickly and plant melta-bombs on its hull. Even if such tank-killing strikes prove to be suicide missions, a three Bike squad is cheaper than most tanks and should be able to earn back its points.

On top of tank-destroying duties, Scout Bikes also have a number of other useful advantages, equipment, and tactics. If three Scout Bikers prove to be useful, I may choose to expand the squad to five Bikes. Given the limit of three grenade launchers per squad, I doubt I would expand the 5th much farther.

Now if only I could actually build this many models within a reasonable amount of time.

Ultramarine Scouts First Night Out

Last night the Ultramarines faced off against Carl's Grey Knights. Unfortunately my army is still a vanilla build of vanilla Marines. Combine that with the fact that one of Carl's Venerable Dreadnoughts and a Land Raider exploded one Vindicator and immobilized another in the first shooting phase and you have one very sad bunch of Ultrasmurfs. I wonder if it wouldn't have been a lot more effective to hold both Vindicators in reserve, thus encouraging him to move his Purifiers and Paladins closer to my troops, and then roaring the tanks in to deliver some mid-field blasts. Come to think of it, anything would have been more effective than getting my heavy support blasted to kingdom come in the first round of shooting.

*sigh*

On a much more positive note, my recently completed sniper Scouts had a pretty decent first outing. I had originally intended to sic them on a Dreadknight, but when Carl brought two Venerable Dreadnoughts instead, I had to change my plans. The five snipers were able to do some damage to a Purifier squad, which nearly earned their points right there. Unfortunately, I soon failed four 3+ cover saves and lost most of the squad in a single turn, leaving one sniper and Telion. Despite those losses, that lone sniper would have finished earning back the cost of the squad had Carl not made a cover save against a rending shot.

He's got a bolter round with
your HQ's name on it

However, the Scouts' shining moment came when Sergeant Telion used the Eye of Vengeance rule to target Castellan Crowe in the middle of his squad and knocked a wound off him. If you count a half-wounded Crowe as a half-value Crowe, Telion earned his points in a single shot. Had a couple of Telion's later rolls been rending, my 50 point sergeant probably would have killed a 150 point HQ.

I definitely need more sniper Scouts.

Ultramarines Sniper Scouts WIP, Part III

Once a model has received it's basic paint job, it's often tempting to put off finishing it. I mean, it's obviously playable; does it really need more work? My Terminators sat for several weeks before I finally gave them their final washes and highlights. I was also tempted not to finish Sergeant Telion. Given how new most of our players are to 40K, we rarely play games larger than 1000 points. At 50 points, Telion is a significant investment in a smaller game. However, having already spent a ridiculous amount of time on the Scouts, I decided not to delay in completing them.

Scout squad with Telion (2/9/12)

Telion got my full attention once the other Scouts were fully assembled. The special character represents my first pewter model. I quickly learned that paint doesn't like to stick to pewter quite as well as it does to plastic (Bryce warned me about this) and realized that I had to be very careful about rubbing paint off of points or edges. Additionally, I had read that watery glues like the Krazy Glue Craft I've used for all my other models (and which I like very much) doesn't quite work as well for metal figures. Instead I used Krazy Glue Craft Gel Formula to attach Telion's bolter and head to his torso. I followed that up by allowing some of the watery glue to seep into the crevices of the joints. This seemed to work pretty well.

Telion is painted in similar colors and in an identical style as the rest of the squad. The primary difference is that the inside of his cloak is three layers of Gore Red painted over Calthan Brown. (I learned the hard way that Gore Red does not easily cover black while painting my Captain last year.) Telion's beard is a layer of Codex Grey with watered-down Skull White highlights.

Telion closeup (2/9/12)

I took the assembled and mostly painted Scouts to our game last week to show them off to Bryce, Jon, Carl, and Kevin. The squad didn't get the chance to fight since I played proctor to Carl and Kevin early in the evening and wasn't in any condition to play in the latter half of the night when I was hit by a particularly nasty gallbladder attack (it's a long story).

I finished off Telion and the squad over the week following the game. I used heavy doses of Badab Black on the armored portions of the Scouts and Devlan Mud on the fabric portions and over gold areas. In the end my models look positively filthy compared to Games Workshop's examples. I do this because it's easy to apply a wash over the entire surface of a model and because I can't imagine that armor that's supposed to see continual combat while being hundreds if not thousands of years old can be anything but horribly dirty. (GW's professional models may look pristine, but all artwork depicting Space Marines shows their armor to be chipped, spalled, cracked, scorched, and smudged.) Although achieved with a different technique, the "grimdark" Eldar look showcased at FTW reminds me of how I like my Ultramarines.

I dry-brushed some simple highlights over the washes, which also served to slightly lighten up the models. I've attempted to do bolder highlights in the past but have been dissatisfied by my inability to produce smooth, consistent lines. The armor was dry-brushed/highlighted with Ultramarines Blue, the fabric with Bleached Bone, and the black regions with Codex Grey.

The completed squad (2/18/12)

I really like the color scheme for Ultramarines Scouts. However, it makes me laugh to think that troops that wear giant gold winged skulls on their chests and off-white trousers could ever be stealthy, even if they do use camo cloaks. Telion has the Stealth special rule and he has the most garish armor of them all.

Finished sergeant (2/18/12)

Completed Sergeant Telion (2/18/12)

Telion's base is decorated with a bullet-punctured Ork skull provided in the sniper Scout box. The Bleached Bone-painted skull was weathered using Badab Black and Devlan Mud washes and then highlighted with watered-down Bleached Bone. Given that Telion was supposed to have played a crucial role in the Black Reach campaign and that one of our regulars plays Orks, I thought it an appropriate addition.

Now that I've finally finished the Scouts (about two and a half months after I started them), I'm having a hard time deciding what I should build next.

Ultramarines Sniper Scouts WIP, Part II

As you can see from the right hand side bar, this blog is a member of the FTW blogger group. Anyone who visits FTW will see pictures of fantastically painted and detailed miniatures produced by very talented individuals. As a newcomer to 40K with limited modeling skills, I was reluctant to join the group. However, I have been encouraged by those posts which compare hobbyists' earlier models with examples of their latest work. I hope that my WIP posts will illustrate my evolving and (hopefully) improving modelling style. I expect that they'll also get a few laughs from older 40K modellers who have years of experience using techniques I've just discovered or who have progressed well beyond the simple methods I'm so proud of.

Late last year I wrote about building a sniper Scout squad for my Ultramarines army. After searching for a proper primer, I finally undercoated the five Scouts and Sergeant Telion on Thanksgiving Day. I'm rather ashamed to say that, thanks to the holidays, family visits, long work days, a change in my painting style, and the fact that Scouts have a significantly more ornate paint scheme than power armored Ultramarines, I am just now finishing the squad.

I'm still pretty new at painting miniatures, so my technique is very basic and produces passable tabletop quality figures at best. In other words, I'm definitely not going to be winning any awards anytime soon. I originally intended to finish each Scout one at a time since I've found the assembly line approach to be effective but tedious. However, as work progressed on the sergeant (I consider the Scout with the open stance to be the sergeant when Telion isn't part of the squad), I realized that I would take months to finish the six figures at the rate I was going. I therefore switched back to my usual assembly line approach for the five Scouts while I worked on Telion at a different rate.

The Scouts and Telion with a Rust-Oleum undercoat (11/26/11)

As I've said before, I don't fully assemble figures beforehand so that it's easier to paint them. This means 1) that my figures are almost entirely painted by the time I put all the pieces together and 2) a significant period of time might pass before I consider the figures playable. This is in sharp contrast to Bryce, who bought an Elder army, assembled it in a week, and played the entirely unpainted army the very next game night. For Bryce, 60% of the fun is in playing the game and the other 40% is in making the models. For me, those numbers are reversed. For our Dark Eldar player, Kevin, a full 70% of the reason why he got into 40K was to paint miniatures. This could explain why he has the most detailed figures and the smallest number of playable models.

The fully assembled sergeant and parts of his squad (1/22/12)

Being pretty unimaginative, I replicated the paint scheme shown on the box. The armored pieces are three coats of Mordian Blue painted directly over the black undercoat. For the fabric portions of the uniform, I painted a layer of Calthan Brown over the undercoat, which I then covered with three coats of Bleached Bone. The camo cloaks are two to three coats of Charadon Granite painted directly over the undercoat with Codex Grey and Fortress Grey markings. All gold portions are painted using my favorite technique; a layer of Calthan Brown painted over the undercoat followed by two layers of Burnished Gold.

Earlier I mentioned that I'm using a new painting style. Actually, all I've been doing is thinning my paint by quickly dipping the tip of my brush into water before dipping it in the paint and occasionally between strokes of the brush on the model surface. (I believe Bryce uses a variant of this method.) My earliest models suffered from obvious brush strokes and lumps of prematurely congealed paint. By wetting the brush frequently, I've been able to apply smoother coats of paint, although it also means that I have to use more layers to cover the undercoat.

The fully assembled squad (2/2/12)

Much of the time I spent on the Scouts was spent on their faces. In a mostly ineffective attempt to vary their skin tones, several of the Scouts' faces started with a layer of Dwarf Flesh over the undercoat while others began with Calthan Brown. Over this I painted two to three coats of Elf Flesh. I then painted the eyes. Again, since my skills are limited, eyes are represented by simple brown or blue dots. An Ogryn Flesh wash darkened the Elf Flesh and gave the faces a more natural tone. Finally, I used thinned Elf Flesh to highlight the nose, cheeks, jawline, and forehead of each face. I think I could get better skin tone variation if I use the lighter Gryphonne Sepia wash on a few faces rather than Ogryn Flesh.

A close up: the Ultramarine logo is hand-painted

Since I've never had much success applying decals to curved surfaces, all chapter and squad markings are hand-painted (I'm rather proud of this). The left shoulder pads of three Scouts are exposed, meaning that I had to paint three inverted omegas. Unlike those talented individuals who can easily paint a free-hand omega, I start by painting a rough circle with a bar over it. I shape the logo as necessary with the tip of a sharp hobby razor and clean up lines with a little Skull White or Mordian Blue where needed. This process used to take about an hour and a half of work per logo when I was painting my first Tactical and Terminator squads. By the time I did the Scouts, I'd gotten it down to about 45 minutes.

On the two exposed right shoulder pads I painted the squad number. Since I intend to do at least four Scout squads, and because all non-sniper Scouts have exposed right shoulder pads, I decided to give the sniper Scout squads higher numbers so that I'd only have to paint "III" or "IV" a couple times. Close combat and mid-range combat Scouts will be marked with the more easily painted "I" or "II". I also intend to do a three man Scout Bike squad which will get squad number "V".

Another close up: squad markings are also hand-painted

Next time I'll cover Sergeant Telion and the final detailing of the sniper Scout squad.

The Emperor's Angels of Death

A few days ago I suggested to Bryce that he post on why he chose the Imperial Guard as his primary army. I would then follow it up with why I chose Space Marines in general and the Ultramarines in particular.

When I first started playing 40K, Bryce didn't even have an IG army. I'm a pack rat and have to overcome severe inner struggles to get rid of anything. Bryce, on the other hand, doesn't keep anything he doesn't use regularly. Since he was rarely playing 40K at the time, and because it was nearly unbeatable and drove away potential opponents at the local game store, Bryce sold his Death Korps of Krieg army mere months before I finally agreed to give the game a chance. After we started playing on a weekly basis, he decided to build a new IG army; i.e., his Steel Legion. What Bryce didn't mention in his last post is that he has recently added about 1000 points of Eldar to his collection.

Although he didn't have a Guard force at the time, Bryce still had Tyranids, Tau, between 1000 and 1500 points of Space Marines, and the beginnings of a Grey Knights army. Before he even directly invited me to play, he was trying to get me to decide on an army. One night he left me a mysterious message on Facebook asking if I preferred 'aliens or Space Marines'. My response was "uh, Space Marines?"

And they shall know no fear

As explained in the oldest post on this blog, I finally agreed to play the game once in the hopes that he would leave me alone about it after I had given it a try and told him that the game wasn't for me. When I arrived at his home, I found a small force of Raven Guard Space Marines set out for me while he had set out another small group of Tau for himself. It didn't take me too long to figure out that he had handpicked the Tau force to allow me to win pretty handily. Even then, Bryce's plan worked perfectly; after one game I was hooked on 40K.

I quickly developed a preference for Space Marines during that game and those shortly thereafter. Just about every aspect of the Astartes appealed to me: they're genetically engineered neo-medieval troops in enormous suits of armor covered in parchments, wax seals, ancient relics, and trophies. Their suits make them look like the love child of Darth Vader and Iron Man, they drive around in ancient tanks covered in ribbons and banners, all their equipment is painted in bright paint schemes that say "come get me!", and they decorate everything with gold eagles and skulls. The worst armor save you get is a 4+ on models that still have toughness 4, a single Marine can carry weapons that other armies have to mount on carriages and vehicles, and many HQs can take on a Hive Tyrant three times their size and kill it with only a little luck. Their elite troops are more survivable than most tanks and carry giant energy-spewing hammers. Space Marines can enter combat by dropping from orbit, teleporting in, infiltrating, or descending from the sky with jump packs. It's like GW took real world marines (awesome in and of themselves), hosed them with testosterone, and gave them weapons dreamed up by wild-eyed, caffeine-fueled pulp sci-fi and fantasy writers. It's pretty hard to top that. On a different note, I liked the sense of brotherhood among the Space Marines. Even the titles used among the Astartes reflect this; e.g., "Brother-Sergeant". For this same reason I often think that the Clone Troopers of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars series, who treat their fellow clones as brothers, have some of the most interesting storylines and are easier to relate to than the overly aloof Jedi.

The cannon in his left hand is considered a pistol

So, why did I choose the Ultramarines? After that first game Bryce gave me a box of unpainted Marines, many of them built using the Black Templar upgrade parts. (Apparently Bryce will often keep armies around for the purpose of giving them to friends and thus luring new players into the game. The fiend!) However, I had never done the kind of detailed painting that 40K figures require and I didn't want to practice on the upgraded models. I was also intimidated by the idea of painting pre-assembled figures. I'm not particularly good at painting around corners and I seem to have a psychological need to paint surfaces that you can't even see. Thus, I decided to gain some experience by buying the Games Workshop starter paint set that includes five Space Marines with Ultramarine markings. My original intention was to build a Black Templar force and to include the five Ultramarines whenever I needed more troops.

Closer! I want to hit them with my sword!

As I built and painted the figures, though, I found that I really liked the paint scheme of the Ultramarine's 2nd Company; i.e., blue armor with gold trim and white inverted omegas. My wife has pointed out that the Ultramarines' colors are similar to those of our alma mater, Brigham Young University, and has suggested that there may have been some sort of subconscious influence. Additionally, I was still unsure about how much I wanted to get into the game and was reluctant to spend money on Black Templar upgrade sets on top of the already substantial cost of the base models. Given how much I've already spent on my Ultramarine army, and how much I plan to spend in the future, this concern over the expense is laughable now. The real clincher, however, was that GW has given the Ultramarines a lot of attention in the form of numerous named characters and a relatively extensive history. It was the backstory that got me interested in the game in the first place, so I ended up choosing the Marines about whom we know the most.

Could the Black Templars be next?

Ironically, as I begin to look for my next army, I've found myself looking at the Black Templars again. I like how different their organization is from Codex-compliant Marines and the blessed hulls of their Land Raider Crusaders (which make them immune to the lance effects of Kevin's dark lances and Bryce's bright lances) could prove useful. To top it off, the armor of the Black Templar officers and elites is some of the most ornately decorated of any Marine chapter and would look pretty sharp on the table. My final decision will probably depend on the quality of their inevitable 6th edition codex.