Painting Challenge - using the containment to reduce the stock.

Ave Dominus Nox!

As you are all aware, special containment decisions have been made all across Europe to limit the dissemination of the new COV-19. It is our responsibility to stay at home, work from home and limit our travel. 

As a result, I, and I pretty sure you too, will have lot of time to paint all these nice minis that we have. You know, the one that we bought and then let in some boxes because of all the other projects that we have. 

It means that this containment is the perfect opportunity to work on them! And as it will last for at least a couple of weeks more realistically a month, it will be my painting challenge. 

At the moment, I am working on some Drukhari raiders and I hop to finish them today or tomorrow. After that, I have the below list to do:

Drukhari:

- a 6-man squad of Reavers

- 16 Kabalites

- 2 Talos

- 1 Venom

Blood Pact:

- 1 Basilisk

- 1 Manticore

- 2 Scout sentinel

- 10 guards (but I think I am missing some bitz for them)

Orks:

- 30 Stromboyz

Night Lords:

- 1 Raptor Gunship

- 1 Leviathan full closed combat

- 10 Breachers

- 10 man-squad with meltagun

- 10 Night Lord Raptors

- One Praetor with Jump-pack

And I also have some terrain to finish for my table, a gang of Esher and a team of Skaven for Blood Bowl.  

What do you think I should working on? I think I will do some of the tanks for my Blood Pact army. 

Drukhari - first battle report against Chaos!

Ave Dominus Nox!

First battle report with the new Druhkhari a couple of days ago against a Thousand Sons / Alpha Legion army, we played the scenario 4 of the new ITC rulepack.

My current army:

Battalion Black Heart: 2*Archon, 5 Kabalites, 9 kabalites, 10 Kabalites, 2*Ravager, 2*Raider, 1 Void Bomber

Outride detachment: 1 Succubus, 2*6 reavers, 1*5 Scourges, 2*Razorwing Jetfighter

My opponent army:

Battalion Alpha Legion: Lord with power fist, sorcerer, 3*10 cultists, 2*3 Obliterators 2*Scorpius relics whirlwind

Battalion Thousand Sons: Ahriman on disc, sorcerer, 10 cultists, 2*5 Rubrics

I gain initiative and my opponent select vanguard strike for deployment.

First turn:

Drukhari: I started playing by sending my flyer in position to fire against the Scorpius and Obliterators. As my opponent use a stratagem, I cannot shoot the obliterators and focus on damaging a Scorpius and killing one squad of cultists.

Chaos: He almost did not move, but he managed to destroy one flyer and cause some damage to the others.

Second turn:

Drukhari: I did a better turn by killing one Scorpius, one obliterator squad and removing from game 2 cultists squad. One reavers squad manage to do that by engaging in close combat with the cultists.

Chaos: Not a lot of move again, but during shooting phase, the second obliterator squad that arrive destroy my ravager and my flyers take lot of damage. The reaver squad in close combat died by the hand of the chaos lord.

Third turn:

Drukhari: without the ravager and as the plane are damage, I did not do a lot of thing, I kill a rubric squad and focus with the reavers to damage the remaining Scorpius as well as engaging him in close combat to lock him and prevent him from shooting.

Chaos: During the psychic phase, my Void Bomber and reavers died. My raiders follow them after the obliterator shoot at them.

End Game:

At this point, we do not have many units on the table anymore. I focus on scoring as much as I can as well as killing some units outside the enemy deployment area (one rubric squad, diminishing the number of obliterators…). My opponent move to take some objectives markers in order to score.

In the end: 22 victory points for me 29 for my opponent, victory for the Chaos!

Analysis:

I clearly made a mistake during first turn by forgetting to “Vect” his stratagem to protect the Obliterators. I miss an opportunity to destroy them and it costs me one razorwing as an immediate punishment.

Also, I should have send all the reavers in second turn to destroy the cultist/engineer squad. It gave 3 victory points to my opponent.

Conclusion, I need to play more with this army in order to remember all the rules.

Drukhari - New 2020 project!

Ave Dominus Nox!

New project since the beginning of 2020: a new army! After some thoughts, I decided to start a Drukhari army. I want an army able to strike hard thanks to the speed and firepower of their units.

I used the army boxes sold during Christmas to start this project. It provided me a good basis: 40 kabalites, 2 Archons, 2 flyers, some reavers…

I will call this army the Winter Eternal Kabal and I will paint them using a winter thematic white, snow, cold blue.

The first part of the army must be ready for end of March with a team-tournament objective. I will publish the first version of my list in the coming days just after the deadline to send it to the tournament referees.

 

Before that, I can show you some of the first pieces and the way I painted them following the advice of the best painter of my club as well as my personal research on the internet.

I know it is not the best work ever, but I am not a pro painter, I want to find efficient way to paint this army at tabletop quality. And according to this criteria, the result is decent.

Imperial Knights - Warglaive

Ave Dominus Nox!

Beside my Orks, Night Lords and Blood Pact, I also have a small collection of Imperial Knights. Some of my last addition to this strike force was a couple of Warglaive. These units can be good auxiliary when I want to play an “imperium” soup of my one. Not the most competitive piece of my collection, but they can surprise my opponent! 

And with the Psychic Awakening coming for Imperial Knight (probably in April or May), it is good to have a wide range of heavy walker available. 

I keep the painting simple and respect my house color: purple. At some point, I plan to buy a new Renegade Knight kit and do some kit bashing with the Imperial one to create something to put with the Blood Pact. 

Night Lords : End of new Tactical squad and second Praetor

Ave Dominus Nox!

It has been a while but I finished the second half of the 4th Claw, my tactical squad of 20 marines. I did in the same time the first of my two new Praetor, the one in cataphractii armor. 

With his big Nostroman chainglaive, more a two handed chainaxe if you want my opinion and an integrated volkite caliver in one gauntlet, he is pretty cool. With the new Night Lords terminator coming soon, I cannot wait to have a big squad of him and these new models to send against the loyalist. 

In the meantime, after 3 terror squad, a big squad of “standard” marines is needed. I still gave a Nostroman chainglaive to the sergeant, he will be able to do some nasty stuff in close combat.

Next unit on my list: some raptors and the second Praetor.

Blood Pact : Latest Leman Russ with conversion of Gatling Punisher

Ave Dominus Nox!

The Blood Pact regiment number is increasing with the arrival of a new Leman Russ with a custom gatling punisher.

As usual with the Pact philosophy, they use imperium piece of equipment to weaponized and repair the captured Leman Russ. This one use some piece of assault canon link together to fire heavy salvo of ammo to the servant of the corpse-emperor. 

It is a Leman Russ with the addition of two metal assault guns of some old Blood Angel Predator with a bit of greenstuff to have a more or less clean result inspired by the tank of WW1.

With this one, the grand total of the Leman Russ available for the Pact is 6, 2 gatling punisher, 1 Plasma executioner and a mix of battle and destroyer cannon.

I am currently taking a short break from the painting of the Blood Pact to work on a specific Drukhari project for a tournament in 2020. I will finish a couple of post on other models that I finish recently then start presenting you this new army. 

Night Lords: New Tactical squad and Praetor

Ave Dominus Nox!

I will start working on the new terminator Praetor this week but before that, let me introduce you to the 4th Claw of my company and also to a new Praetor that was nearby!

This is the "standard" Praetor available in the Calth box a couple of year ago. I just paint him in the Night Lord colors, but I don't plan to use him a lot since the release of the other guys!

The 4th claw on the other hand, will be my first tactical squad of 20 marines. I just finished the first 10 models and I will work on their sergeant and 9 remaining models in the same time.
They will all have some swords to take trophies from their enemies! A true Night Lords cannot stay long without some skin and bones on his armor...

Next article: end of the 4th claw and second Praetor.