Make your way to the Deathwing, sir.

Due to problems with blogger, this post is about a week later than intended, which is actually quite relevant, since talk of 6th Edition is really ramping up now, making 5th Edition based posts even less prevelant, none the less, I'll still put this out there.

Deathwing is still an army near and dear to my heart. Its deeply satisfying to put down 30 models all in 2+/3++ that, barring some oddities, always have an answer for questions asked of them, unlike the world of mech. For much of 2011 I played with a very set and "honed" list, however, revisiting now, the list would look quite different. Today I am going to talk about some of the changes I would make to previous lists that I have run. With the dawn of 6th Edition and the rumours that terminators could well be on the rise again, could it be time to think about re-making the deathwing?

Shameless Self Promotion?

I promise I'll be getting back into 40K stuff promptly. I am far from burned out on the subject, in fact incredibly busy! Right now I am deep in project planning mode, I finally settled on both a codex and a theme, and right now doing an absolute ton of research and logistical planning for it. Atreides is becoming my on hand consultant as I do plan some small scratch builds and conversions, and actually try and push myself.

In fact, I am only just back from 4D Models in Tower Hill, dropping £50 on some plasti-card sheets for scratch built Razorbacks (or heavily converting my current ones), some tubing (got some awesome bits with this!) for some scratch built cannons for my razorbacks, and some mesh wiring for basing ... and some other bits. I was very close to getting resin, I am on the fence with this stuff. I'd love to cast some of the bits I need for the models, but resin is absolutely shocking stuff, and really I don't think I care to mess around with it. 

All in all though, this does mean my "predicted on the table top" time has been pushed back a bit. I originally wanted this army up and running by end of November with three colour minimum, but that is looking like the new year really. I will be constrained for time soon, but I plan on trying to get this done both well, but quickly.

So, that pretty much means THE WING are on the table for the remainder of the year. 

The Hammer Returns: Deathwing HO!!

Well, after what feels like quite a round about trip, I've settled on what I'll be playing for the foreseeable future. As the title suggests I will be returning to my Deathwing. Inevitable? Ok Venerable and Bringer of Death may have called it after Brighton, but it took a lot of games before I just couldn't bare to be away from my 4th Edition boys much longer. It doesn't help that I've just rummaged around my bits boxes and found some fantastic bits to add onto the force, more on this in a second!

With this return to the Deathwing, it has reinvigorated me to pick up my Deathwing Tactic/Deployment series. As much as anything I've found it quite a productive exercise for putting some method to my madness in playing the force - ironing out the exact reasons why I do things, and sometimes (quite often actually) noticing things I can do better, or finding new tricks.

Lots of Lists! Dear lord what to play!

Howdy! So its been a little while since I've chimed in on the gaming side of things on this site, outside of a couple of lists. In honesty, its been because I've been a bit stuck recently for ammo, purely because I've just been playtesting/learning some Grey Knight lists. Not to mention when I had full intentions of getting a couple of posts up while Venerable was away, I got struck down with the worst case of food poisoning. But anyway, apologies for not getting anything up over the weekend!

Right now, I am sort of stuck as what to play. Its not quite burn out, I still am eager to go down and play, but I can't quite get set with what I want to use. Grey Knights have been taking up most of my gaming time, but in honesty I can't quite get settled with them. Its leaving me in quite a bad position of indecision. We have Brighton coming up in early November, which means if I want a new army I do need to get started on the painting side soon. I'll certainly have another event after Brighton, and maybe look for 1 or 2 more before then (looking like maybe Tolworth Mayhem in October if I can get a place).

So the long and the short of it, I desperately need to settle, and quick!

Son's Commission's: Bully underway!

As venerable alluded to in his last post, I am starting to do some commission's. Really it came out of no-where and still feeling it out as a process. Most people do commissions I guess as a form of a side job, but really for me, its just a way for me to improve my painting skills by forcibly diversifying my pallet, and secondly stop my army attention disorder by people letting me paint some fantastic models across many ranges.

The one thing, unfortunately, is that I won't be doing army commissions, and will only accept the odd unit commission. Now while this probably will just bring the bushiness down to "zero", there is no harm in asking. I don't see any point in doing Ultramarines Squad 1 for example, but if someone wanted a unit of Harlequins, Mandrakes or Incubi with Venom for example, I'd certainly be up for that, as it fits both gorgeous model category and also bits I don't paint typically.

So really what am I looking for? Primarily "independent character" fodder. Individual center piece models. So could range from your Trygon to your Space Marine captain from *insert chapter*, Even something like a tank or a landraider would be great as they are brilliant canvasses to work off!

But worst comes to worst, fire an email my way and I can answer questions.

Sons off to Brighton ...

So we've got the Brighton Warlords rocking up this weekend for pretty much everyone here at the blog, we've all got our lists submitted and probably making our last touches to the armies (except Atreides!).


Confirmation came through today that there definitely will be a team tourney element to it for a "fun aside" - but it also, on what seems a rather possitive note, looks like teams won't be paired against each other - certainly not in the first round, as Pete has stated:

"Can you start letting me know teams please

I may do the 1st round draw on Thursday night if I know the teams"

That's good as with 5 of us down, even in a 50 man field, there's always that chance your going to be putting a crimp in a team mates day, it happened to Ven and Atreides game 1 at X-Legion earlier this year. 1st round pairings are literally 1st person to turn up vs the last person and so forth (or at least it was last time). I do wonder if Pete will maybe look at avoiding team mate vs team mate in the next couple of rounds, both KS and Ven playing each other in R3 of Brighton - though with 6 rounds and 50 players split into at least 10 teams, I doubt he can do that round on round.

The Son's of course are representing;


Andy (Venerable) with his hybrid, quite infantry heavy, Space Wolves

Andy (Atreides) with his Stormtrooper Imperial Guard
Steve (Bringer of Death) with his Strike Squad heavy GK's
Alex (KillSwitch) I think will be repping us as well with his GK's
Myself (Bully!) with my Doublewing

Would you ever "re-do" an army?

So just a quick(ish) update from me on what's going on (*self edit* turns out its not so quick, not even ish!). Obviously I am trying to pump out a bit of a deathwing tactical series - this will be fractionally on hold until after Brighton Warlords next week - but next up in that is the second basic deployment article in the phalanx - which covers some variations as well, hopefully pretty cool - also have some quick articles about Ravenwing, Belial and Upgrades - one of these might see its way to the site in the next week though.

I've got a few bits I need to do the the army before I go down, nothing major - just make sure those bikes are what I now will refer to as "stupid WYSIWYG" because not only does GW explicitly rule that you do not need to represent standard wargear on a model (I.E anything that's not an upgrade and comes as standard) but when I put the GW provided grenades on, that apparently wasn't enough either! All I say is good luck to anyone with Grey Hunters - Bolt Pistols, Grenades, CC Weap and Boltgun on every model?! Heaven forbid you run a Ork army with Cybork units lol!

Anyway it shouldn't be too much work. I need to repair two models and have some minor paint touch ups. If I feel particularly bored I can re-do some shoulders and arms. I do need to finish off the banner bearer as well as some little touches to the command squad that I missed last time round. So its basically a case of v.easy stuff to get 99.9% complete, a lot of monotonous small bits to get 100%!


But once its done its done ... or is it?

Recently I've really been thinking about completely redoing the entire force. I really love the army itself, but I have to say I did rush it a fair bit, and have some really cool idea's for a new version. When I made it, I did it as a sort of a "theme without a real theme", but I have to say right now I really want an army that either has an extremely strong theme (I.E fluffy count as) or is straight up Codex scheme and painted to the best of my ability. I have a few idea's that I'd like to run by you and see what you guys think.

Honestly - I am contemplating starting this army again - would you ever think of doing this? Anyway - on to my thought process.

Deathwing Tactics - The Alpha Strike Deployment

Who remembers when DW were black?!

Righto guys, another post in the series of Deathwing Tactics and Deployments. Having drafted out some of the Mission/Deployment posts, I found myself referring to a couple of concepts more than once, and from this, felt really they should get their own article. These two concepts are as follows.

• Alpha Strike Deployment
• Phalanx Deployment

Now both are strikingly different deployment types, and I find generally speaking I do just use what I refer to as the "Phalanx" deployment. While there are various other deployments (and variations upon both), and nothing is set in stone, I do find these are two of the archtypes I look at when looking at the board/mission. From this I can look to my opponents list, how the board is set up, what he might want to do, what side he gets, and potentially how he sets up (if going 2nd). With so many foot models (26 40mm bases, 6 biker bases, 2 60mm bases) there is potential to clog up or be forced into difficult positioning just on pure size of units alone, despite the model count of your army. I mean we can change things up as well, for example, kill point games against say a mech heavy rhino / pred's / vindicators, you can plonk two squads in the corners, couple in middle and just cover the entire board with good fire lanes and essentially out range him / side armour etc.

Deathwing Tactics - An Introduction

Dakka Dakka - posted so I don't have to look at Bully's DW again -Ven.

Righto Champs, 

So I've wanted to put pen to paper on this for a little while, especially now I feel reasonably at grips with the army, or certainly the doublewing aspect of it. While my juices are flowing over some various other bits of 40K, the foreseeable future I am putting Deathwing as my best foot forward, purely as I have, certainly in 5th Ed, the best experience with it - couple of tourneys and plenty of practice.

So what am I going to cover? Well I want to look at some general concepts of the army, then some more specific unit tactics, plus an overall view of missions and deployment - a bit of everything really.

So lets start off, the Basic's - what to think about with Deathwing, actually lets call it an Introduction to Deathwing and Doublewing.

Blog Wars Game 2: Deathwing vs DE Part2

So guys, we've all read Venerable Game 2 Battle Report vs Deathwing, which is the account of our match up in table one war. We had a chat and felt we felt he could recount the game much better. There is still some "haze" in the later part of the game where a bit of action went on but we can't remember sequences, but the effect and intent of the report is there.

The game was a cracker, but I don't feel I can add much to his report, other than pictures, and me doing my own account will only generate the same content. However, as I say; I do have more pictures than Andy, so today I'll share some of those with a sort of "too long didn't read" report to go with it.

At the end as well I want to examine some of the mistakes and key points in the game as a learning tool. There is some stuff I could have done during the game to win, certainly. But I can only offer Ven the same hindsight chance as well - so it renders the "if I did ..." moot in my opinion. I offer them only as a learning tool, and allows me to see mistakes, that in the future I will hopefully not repeat.

The game was a blinder, and as we know came out 8-8 draw, which was a good result for both of us, between my lack of experience vs a good Dark Eldar army, and the tough match up for him. But any way lets  get to it - my "tag on" to Ven's report:

Blog Wars Game 1: Bully vs Blood Angels

Righto chaps, my first report up from Blog Wars. For those that don't know - it was the event held by From the Fang inviting over pretty much most of the UK's bloggers for a rumble in Mansfield with their pretty Special Characters!

I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend, and I say weekend as I got to meet Andy from Iron Wolves on the Saturday by happen-stance on the table beside us! I had an awesome doubles game with him vs Atreides and then some dinner and a trip around the Warhammer Hall of Fame. There's been a good bit of banter since the weekend, largely positive, while it is a little disappointing to see a couple of the comments, it can all be taken in good nature. But I think on the whole most people are really geared up for the second one, and really have a good idea of what they want to do (Ezekiel will be trying to Mind Worm Draigo in our rematch on Table 1 next time Marc!!).

Anyway, onto my report. I plan to do a mini-user profile of the guys I faced up against and spread the love a bit, all 3 rank up there with some of the nicer guys I've had the pleasure to play against.

GAME ONE: Capture and Control - Spear Head

I faced up against Andy (Fudal) from Claws and Fists and the first thing that struck me was how much more organised they were than us. With Ven failing to get us our T-Shirts, the C&F guys turned up with both the tee's and dice! 

And we're off to Blog Wars

So Atreides and I are off to Blog Wars tomorrow morning (yup a day early ... thats how dedicated we are). Actually we're making the trip to WHW for a few games (will be nice to not get shuffled off our table at the normal GW store) then rock on to Maelstrom on the Sunday morning ... looking forward to it.

So I've been some what lethargically painting out the rest of the Deathwing - given my lack of enthusiasm this time round (I really do have one eye on the Grey Knights) I am actually some what pleased with the results. Though due to my lackidastical attitude - I've not got every thing I wanted done and had to short cut some stuff as well. For example I planned on cutting off all the normal storm shields and replacing them to my winged one.

Any way I thought I'd post up the individual models and some of the bits I've done this week, and as a bonus some of the test models from my armoury to show you some of the schemes I've been playing around with for my mech as I move into Grey Knights territory.

Hobby Saturday: Deathwing Command Squad

So since my previous post I've decided (some what predictably) that I would use the "Double Wing" list - meaning it had the least amount of hobbying to do to add the additional models required for 1750 - simply a new squad. Now this gave me a chance - two weeks to paint a single unit - I looked at this way - Belial (to the left! - he's now getting some more suitable company!) was around 4 or 5 hours of work taking away the base coats - I have a couple of days this weekend and then a entire bank holiday weekend - not to mention evenings (especially being on earlies next week I have quite a bit of time free). So? This is a chance to paint up a nice looking command squad and "extend" my focal point of the army beyond a single model. If I get time I am going to make a little display tray as well (nothing crazy, literally just a dinner tray cut down a bit to fit into the bottom of my bag, plenty of varnish and PVA glue to make sure the flock and sand doesn't go any where).

Now I've been working slowly on these guys for a little while - but by that I mean I simply remodelled two of the legs and made about 3 of the bases - so there was a lot of the models that had to be done this week. I really wish I did spend the past few weeks on them as I had plenty of leg spares and what not to faff around with reposing, but it was not to be. I did have a "vision" to to speak with the squad and I wanted to achieve it as much as possible. I wasn't far off - but I think my vision might have been a bit ambitious for my conversion skills - so in short time it wasn't bad.

I figure what I can do is a "stage by stage" WIP of these gents, so todays stage one is simply "pre-painting" - each individual and how I wanted to portray the model.

Last hurrah for Deathwing at Blog Wars?

So - a couple of topics I want to discuss, first off, as the title suggests is the impending Blog Wars, which I have to say is creeping up rather fast on us, and second is my next/new project which I am about to get under way. Not really going to cover any hobby side of things today - I'll hopefully get a post up this weekend with some sponge/marbling technique guides (if not it might have to wait until after Blog Wars).

So onto blog wars - we've got this in little over two weeks - and I am still in a bit of a "no-mans land" over this. I decided quite some time ago I'd defiantly be taking my Deathwing to the event (if you hadn't guessed that from above already), it fits with the spirit of the day, and definitely not a case of WAAC painted plastic grey toys of doom. It really comes down to what list to take. With time fast running out, and really not being able to get nearly as many games in recently as I'd have hoped (since BWL I think I've played 5 or 6 times, only 1 of which wasn't with Deathwing).

In terms of it being the last hurrah - I've enjoyed the Deathwing - really have, and am really glad I have this army now fully painted (well for 1500, soon to be 1750) in the case ready to rock. But it was always a stop gap. The last Brighton Warlords coincided with the Grey Knights release - which was going to be the army I did next (and had been for a long time)  - which meant I had to make a choice for BWL - play the Mech BA that I had become a bit disheartened with, or do a pet project that I had fancied for a long time. I opt;d with the Deathwing pet project, shelving the Blood Angels, but when the GK codex came out it was a bit of a non-starter for me initially. But more on that later, onto the Deathwing for Blog Wars!

So lets have a quick refresher of the list's. 

Hybrid Deathwing List Thoughts plus some hobby shots!

So I was going to take inspiration from Venerable about posting my entire Blog Wars thoughts, but in honesty - the other lists I am looking at taking require me to finish off painting a few tanks plus 30+ marines (couple of IC's in there at the very least will require some loving), and while the temptation is there to speed out another army - I really want to finish off the details on my Deathwing and get a few tanks done to a standard bit better than my rush level.

Incidentally - the image there on the left is one of the testers for my mechanised part of my force - to be used with both my Deathwing Hybrid lists and my Blood Angels / Grey Knights. I've since "honed" the technique, and also discovered another way of doing marble on models (trial and error, gotta love it!) - In fact, it will do me a favour to get peoples opinion on this - here's the Vindicator I've done as a test in "the other" style of marbling.

Deathwing WIP + Finished Product - Part 2 of 2

So here we go, the follow up post to Wednesday, today I'll be covering my favourite bit of my army, Belial, and honestly, the surprise of the project - my objective markers.

Belial! 

Really this is the only model in the army that actually shows some of my standard of painting, so I do sort of fling it in peoples faces when they look at my army closely lol. I do wish I spent a bit more time on him, I had a few more bits I wanted to execute on him, but I'll get another chance, as I plan to make a TH/SS version of him in the near future. 

Anyway - this bit is picture heavy, which I'll let do the talking, along with a few captions! We'll get stuck in with plenty on Belial - my previous posts covered the conversion - it was quite a simple job, mid way through painting him though, that right hand LC did break, some sharp observers might notice it is actually slightly different by the end (as I didn't cut it and position it exactly the same!).
 

Something I just love about this pose - looks like his is readying for the coup d'gras.

Deathwing WIP + Finished Product - Part 1 of 2

So, here is part one of two of the end of the WIP of my Deathwing / Ravenwing tournament army that I cracked out in 5 weeks and took to Brighton Warlords a couple of weeks back.

I do apologise for not actually putting up more posts along the way, but some of the WIP bits were very "samey", especially since it was essentially two different units only used. Additionally, I really did the finishing touches in the final week and a half and just didnt get a chance to write up a post!

I have recently started work on the Blood Angel / Grey Knight "division" of my army, much in the same vein as Venerable (it is essentially just heavy armour / tanks) and these will be some of my next posts, with some list thoughts around them. I also want to go through some list building thoughts again with the Deathwing up to 1750 and some new things I may try with these - as well as look at the performance of the units / army as a whole moving forward.

So anyway, here's the WIP, I'll be throwing up a second post over the weekend to finish it off, so here's part one, which is covering my terminators, bikes and also a tutorial on how I did the basing. The following post will have a hefty section on Belial, and also on my objective markers and some of the painting techniques I used in this as well as a bit of "conversion / kit bashing" work.

Bully's Brighton Breakdown

A bit of alliteration to start things off.

So first off, thanks to Ven for adding me to the SoS team. What you should be expecting to see is mainly Deathwing bits - from lists, tactics, to painting side of things (despite my army not being Deathwing, I will do some tutorials on the various schemes people use with my spare terminators). Also I will be starting a Grey Knight army, because it would be rude not to, and having been a fan of the boys for the better part of two decades, it has to be done. I will be slowly but surely painting up a force to the best of my ability (no 5 week rush on these guys).

So on to the tourney. I had the pleasure of having six fun/friendly opponents back to back that I'd gladly add to my regular crew of opponents, most of my games involved some what social-able chats during the games, despite the environment, and certainly post game banter. My aim for the weekend was to win half the games, and would take a single loss, and I'd have accepted a couple of draws along the way, lets see how that fared.