Tuesday, April 19, 2022

The Avatar Resurgent

With the release of a new Aeldari codex I have not been idle. I’ve been working to update bases for existing units while taking time to crank out some of the new stuff that’s come out. The most notable of these has been the new Avatar of Khaine kit.

While my painting skills are not as capable as they once were, due to the challenges associated with being on the wrong side of 40, I’ve been experimenting with new techniques and new paints to help bridge the gap. The result is after 45 hours of painting an Avatar I’ll be happy to put on the table:

As much as I’ve enjoyed the look of the original avatar design I really loved the new options as well. Since I couldn’t quite decide what option I liked the most I broke out the old Dremmel and magnets and got to work, ensuring I could swap it around as I see fit, even during a game, emblematic of the Avatar shifting forms to correspond with the profile being used for an attack.


While I’m not 100% certain which one is my favourite, I think I’m proudest of the bare head, as I was very uncertain that the final product would be worthy of the model, and it’s such a dynamic and different option compared to either helmets.



If you stumbled upon this blog, hopefully you like what you see and and you’ll be inspired to pick up your own Avatar and get in the thick of it with your painting!





Monday, November 2, 2020

Jain Zar and Drazhar

 It’s taken a while to get my finances back in order to do some real hobby investment, but now I’m ready to start building up a set of “studio” armies and really expand the channel.

I’d like to introduce the new style Drazhar and Jain Zar!

With them now ready to duel, I’ve been hard at work building the background for the slowly growing Drukhari force and in a change for me, instead of leaning into the Grim Dark I’m going with a more comical bent.

I’m excited to try out Drazhar, even if he is facing off against a character in my previous Ulthwe force.

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

First 9th Edition Battle (Written)

 I had my first 9th edition game recently when a friend came by.  To keep things as COVID19 friendly as possible it was all my models.  I made both army lists and let my opponent choose which to play.  My gut instinct was that the Craftworld list was really hard hitting and probably stronger than the Harlequin list, but my opponent had never tried Harlequins before and wanted to give them a shot.  The table had a lot of -1 to hit coverage, and as that was mostly redundant for Harlequins he opted for the other side of the board.  While it's hard to see the Craftworlders have a unit of Dire Avengers hidding behind the corner tower, and a unit of guardians and warp spiders waiting to deep strike.  The Harlequins had an 11 trouper unit also in the web.  Deployement:


The Harlequins won the first turn, and with the mission rewarding holding objectives they pushed forward really quickly to take as much ground as possible and the further back unit being given a bonus to their invul thanks to Prismatic Blur.


With units in place the psychic phase wasn't really momentous.  Webway Dance failed, but one troupe was gifted a -1 to hit.  Meanwhile the Shadowseer cast Twilight Pathways letting a Starweaver slingshot to a third objective and really put the screws to the forces of Ulthwe.


The two units of Skyweavers opened up with their Haywire cannons on the Wave Serpent, and despite a -1 to hit.  Each unit got 13 shots and after they were done the Wave Serpent was diminished to a single wound.  Unfortunately they were not the collective firepower of the Harlequins.  The Skyweavers shuriken cannons took it down, killing one of the warlocks inside.  Meanwhile the Prismatic Cannons of the Void Weavers crippled the Wraithlord taking it down to one wound.  The Dire Avengers under the tower were reduced to a single model by the combination of Cegorach's Lament and Harvester of Torment.  Despite the -1 to hit 9 shots tore through the unit in a savage display.  The bikes were thinned out with the Neural Disruptors and the Humbling Cruelty Jester.  By the time their combined work was done 5 bikes had been wiped away and the unit had a lone survivor.  Without any assaults the morale phase wiped out the last of the Dire Avenger squad that had been savaged.


After suffering a devastating opening round of fire Ulthwe sought to take over the closest two objectives and hope to hold out long enough to last until their reinforcements arrived.  Most of the positioning was in preparation to take things over in the next turn.


The Combined psyshics of the Warlock Conclave and Eldrad wiped out a unit of skyweavers and dropped the save on the Blurred unit of bikes back to a 4+ while bumping their own save to 3+.


The shooting phase was a bit of a bad turn for the Craftworlds which put a couple wounds on a Starweaver and the combined shooting of the Fire Prisms only managed to kill a single of the doomed bikes.


The phase I was most prepared to do some damage was assault.  It got off to a good start when the Wraithlord got a 9" charge at almost point blank range  However, the Autarch only managed a 2" charge, though he was fine with that.  The real issue was when the Dire Avengers rolled a 3 on their charge, followed by a reroll to a 3.  This meant they didn't get the distance they needed, even with their consolidation, to fully wrap the Starweaver.  When it was eventually brought down the Harlequins and Troupe Master all bailed out with only a single trouper trapped in the wreckage.



The Harlequins got their reinforcements and moved for the cous de grace, surrounding the Warlocks and Eldrad, and preparing for the assault phase.


The psychic phase was a total bust with Eldrad and the Warlocks stopping every spell, noteable for the moment a Shadowseer cast Twilight Pathways on a 10, and Eldrad clutched it with a 12 to deny.


The shooting phase was much more suitable for the Harlequins, with the Harvester of Torment mercilessly wiping out a second unit of Dire Avengers, the bikes spiking a 12 in their random number of shots at a Prism and Void Weaver support assisting in taking the tank down.  Meanwhile the Skyweaver full of Fusion guns finished off the heavily wounded Wraithlord.  As the combined fire of three units of Harlequins took down a few more Warlocks the Troupe Master caught the Autarch with a Fusion gun, likely being saved by his force shield.


The Troupe Master charged into the Autarch while 2 units of Harlequin troupes and the last bikes all charged the Warlocks... and the Solitaire charged Eldrad directly.  The large units that just ported in failed their charge, even with a reroll.


To start the phase the the Troupe Master dispatched the Autarch with complete efficiency using the Twilight Fang.  Then the Warlocks interrupted combat with Supreme Disdain taking down a handful of Harlequins before they could unleash death.  Unfortunately for the Warlocks they didn't take down enough of the nimble warriors.

The warlocks, even with using Lightning Fast Reflexes were cut down by the Harlequins, wiped out to a man, probably after they froze in shock when Eldrad was cut down by the Solitaire using Cegorach's Rose.


At this point, looking at a likely 80 pt deficit by turn 5, with only two very vulnerable models on the table, even the deep strikers would not swing the game beyond the total route it had devolved into.

One thing I learned in this game was that I need to review my terrain to have more central line of sight blocking terrain towards the centre of the board.  But I also learned that Craftworlds are in a really really bad place at the start of 9th edition.  They have arguably the worst troop options in the game compared to points, and suffer greatly in the need for durability.

Another lesson learned was that while choosing good secondaries for a force is helpful, but something you still actively need to account for, choosing the wrong secondaries pretty much wipes 45 points from your game to start.  I need to reimagine what constitutes an "all comers" Craftworlds list, and what secondaries I can realistically pursue since many of them require sacrificing units for any purpose other than performing actions, and when your units get cut down quickly you can't often actively sacrifice performance for a turn.


Friday, August 14, 2020

New Objective Markers (9th)

In the past I had made objective markers to be used showing the entire scoring zone for 8th edition, and designed to work with the 7th edition Craftworld markers.  With the advent of 9th they've updated the zone to be larger, 3" from the edge of a 40mm base.  I've now recreated the markers, but resized for the measurements of the new edition.  I look forward to the ease of knowing if I'm scoring at a glance.


On the "minimum" size playfield they really do take up a considerable amount of space.  When making battle reports they should provide some visual pop in the videos.

Monday, October 21, 2019

Old Banshees Newly Painted

A couple months ago I finally got around to working on some new (2006) banshees for my Ulthwe warhost to update my squad.


With a bit of green stuff I strengthened the base and gave the models some height. I also made sure that the arm placement kept every mode in the unit looking looking slightly different. At the time I started the project I thought it could get my motivation charged up so I could complete the new Spiritseer behind them.

I started to paint them and in a couple days made some pretty good progress (for me).


Then it happened. Before the unit was fully done GW announced new plastic Banshees and a new Jain Zar. My motivation was gone, for weeks. But then, GW announced they would only be in a boxed set I can’t really afford right now. So with months to wait until they are released and the book out now I got off my ass and put on the finishing touches.


And now they are prepared for war, and inspired a tweak to the way I paint power weapons to give them some punch. I’ll do a seperate article about which Exarch powers I’ll use for which units and why.

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Kabalite Bomb Squad Completed!

Well I finally got around to finishing this massive unit of Kabalites.  Oddly enough I was working on a Corsair conversion and wanted to buy six Splinter Cannons.  This resulted in the bitz company accidentally sending me 20 Kabalite Warriors.  I offered to send them back but they told me to keep them since it was an error on their end.  For about seven years they have just been legs on bases... but a few months ago I got off my butt and got around to putting them all together.  While having one token Kabalite unit for Ynnari is okay, I feel like they deserve the same kind of potential game play as my Harlequins.  That means I need to start focusing on completing the Drukhari units I have unbuilt and unpainted.  I just got one large step closer with this unit:


At 20 warriors strong my aim is to use the webway stratagem to pop this unit in at about 15 inches from the enemy and unload.  15 inches is because my paint scheme really fits Obsidian Rose, and since there's no fluff about a specific Kabal working with Ulthwe or Midnight Sorrow I'm going to move forward with that as my Kabal.  With two shredders in the unit I might be able to get lucky and pack two or three reliable kills to the units firepower, compared to my pitiful rolling for poison wounds.  With the way I roll for poison weapons I might as well only wound on a 5+.

At this point I still have ten more Kabalites to assemble and paint, an Archon, a Succubus, and three bikes to paint.  At some point I need to grab three more bikes, and one more court member, and then I can look at picking up two more Raiders.  From there I'll have a functional battalion from a Kabal to build off of, and a patrol of Wyches.  Technically I can make a Vanguard of Incubi and Mandrakes as well, but I much prefer my Mandrakes as one menacing unit rather than two small squads.  It's just a way of farming CP while my force grows.

While I like the idea of a fluffy raiding force with a coven splitting the difference I am not enthused about the amount of work it will take to get there since a coven doesn't play well with Ynnari.  Every time I try and build a 2k force around a raiding force I find myself padding out the basics so much that the force really feels like it suffers against too many army types.  The prevalence of Knights in particular is a worry for that type of classic force.  Don't get me wrong, Knights are not a weak point for the army, but it certainly is for the raiding force, because it emphasises a splitting of resources that dilutes the type of focused list that really competes with knights.