3/11/14: Finished: Tyranid Monstrous Creature Parade!

Howdy folks!

Whew! Its been a busy week! As soon as I wrapped up that Wraithknight, it was on to the Tyranids! This commission consisted of 2 Hive Tyrants, 2 Haruspex/Exocrine, and 2 Harpy/Hive Crone, fully magnetized, and painted to match a client's existing force! Easy peasy, no sweat! I was given a list of paints, the steps they were done in, and it was pretty much point and click. Went through 3 pots of Seraphim Sepia though just to do this commission; I'm not a wash painter, I mean I'll use them, but not for core shading and bases, so going through that much was a surprise! I'll shut up, and jump right into them, shall we?

Above is the scheme I was told to match. Good looking tabletop force, original scheme, fun to see!

The Tyrants! Every option is magnetized, from the Wings, to the Heavy Venom Cannons and Bone Sabres! The Devourers are just taken from my bits box of old Carnifex pieces from when I was making Tervigon models!

 I need to touch up some of the black; even with varnish, the spikes just love to chip!

My favorite models, the Haruspex is just the epitome of scary alien monster! The icky mouth, the crab claws, the bulk demeanor...*shudders* The mandibles and mouth was just washed with Carroburg Crimson, and really gives that nasty, inner-mouth look.   

Personally, I'm not a fan of my aliens having giant silly cannons for hats, but hey, if its good in game...

You can see the magnets on the inside. 3, in a triangle shape, allow for both the Exocrine and Haruspex to be magnetized! Very simple and easy to do!

The Harpy/Hive Crone! This model proved interesting....

I glued the gun arms in, rather than the sacs or magnetizing them, and just allowed the guns to magnetize on or off. They still look like they're powering the Hive Crone's maw gun, and yet are still more stable than using magnets. 

Ah, the little Spores. These painted up really quickly, and were kinda fun to paint, despite being more of a token than anything!

Man, that's a lot of models painted really fast! Tomorrow will be a day of taxes and working on some personal projects, Wednesday I work at the shop, and Thursday, I'll be on a plane flying to Hawaii with my girlfriend! A vacation will be really nice! As a result, Smells Like Wargaming will be away from the 13th to the 22nd; I'll have my phone and Facebook, but any emails and questions will be answered when I return. When I get back, its Starship Troopers and terrain! 

Stay tuned folks!

Granesh

12/3/13: Smells Like Wargaming: Good Games Farmington Edition

Howdy folks!

So as I mentioned on Sunday's post, I was heading down to Farmington to pick up a new commission and play some games on the terrain I painted a while ago. I packed up my stuff late Sunday morning, and was on the road about 11. Farmington is about an hour from Durango, but thankfully most of the drive is through desert/rocky hills, so the highway is 75-80 mph the entire way. I used to make the drive to Aztec to play every Saturday, so I'm used to it. After a little navigational problems (blame the captain, not the equipment), I made it down there. I ran into some old friends from the area, and we jumped right into gaming!

My first opponent was an old buddy of mine from when I used to drive to Aztec to play; last time we played, Abaddon and his Plague Marines cleared his Genestealer army from the battlefield. This time, we had Arkos and his Faithless facing down a heavy podding Tyranid army headed by two flying Hive Tyrants. I have to say, I've never had a more anticlimatic game as this one. Let me explain.

Yours truly as I watch two flying Hive Tyrants run up into my grill. I completely forgot the rule that if you have no models on the table any time a game ends, its an auto win for the other guy. Knowing I was about to have 3 wound Lashwhip/Bonesword death drop in on me, I gunned the Hive Tyrants down HARD. Both failed their flight rolls and crashed on my turn one, where the Chosen ripped them apart with Meltas and Plasma. By the end of my turn two, both Tyrants were goopy messes, and I won the game. 

I need to play more often, my knowledge of the rules was a little rusty...

My buddy came down and hung out for a bit as well. I had him snag these pictures for me turning my game. My new Helbrute 'Lernaea' grounded a Tyrant before being ripped apart by Devourers and whatever else Tyrants are armed with.

The other Tyrant is behind the building there on the right. Massed Autogun fire and the Quad-Gun brought him down, where the other squad of Chosen got to clean a melted alien monster off their Rhino after the game. Alpha Legion love their Brill-o Pads!

I played one more game while down there, a two v. two 1000 points a player match between against two Tyranid armies. My friend brought his 40k stuff, but as he's just getting into it, we had to proxy some stuff for him. I wish I'd gotten pictures of the 24kt Dark Vengeance Chosen proxy-as Sniper Scouts! Needless to say, two Doom of Malan'tai make it hard to do anything against the big bugs strolling down the field towards you, and I lost HARD. 

Thanks again to the guys down at Good Games for making me feel like a rockstar while I was down there. There were a lot of positive comments on the terrain, as well as my own pieces. My artistic statement is to create the cinematic element of the game through fully painted pieces and terrain, and, for the first time in a long time, I got to experience that again. Speaking of terrain, though,...

...here's their next wave! Not included is 2 sets of resin barricades, but this should be a quick, fun commission, just like the last one....as long as the weather will cooperate for the next two weeks! Colorado weather in December doesn't lend well to spray-painting. But I digress! They want a taiga-tundra theme on these bad boys, so lots of spray paint and some tricks will get their new set looking sweet and sexy for gaming!

Assembly work has already begun, but if the weather plays nicely tomorrow, expect updates on the Battleboard, as well as the Citadel Woods! Stay tuned folks, I can tell this is gonna be one hell of a terrain set already!

Granesh

7/4/12: Granesh’s Thoughts on 6th Edition: SLW turns Two!

Hey guys,

So I figured I’d follow the grain here and do a post on my initial thoughts on Warhammer 40k 6th Edition. I got my first game in last Saturday against my buddy Nate, and it was a hard fought game to the end.
He was running Tyranids with a Tyranid Prime, a bunch of Warriors, maxed out Hive Guard, Hormagants, and a Carnifex for some hitting power. I was running a list nearly identical to my usual CSM list for 5th, but I’ll break it down:

• Daemon Prince with Mark of Nurgle, Wings, and a Pyromancy Spell (ended up being Fiery Form)
• Chaos Sorcerer with Mark of Tzeentch with Pyromancy (spontaneous combustion) and Telekinesis (Vortex of Doom)
• Khorne Berserkers X8 with 2 Plasma Pistols, Personal Icon, and Champion with Fist/Plasma Pistol in a Rhino with Extra Armour/Combi-Melta.
• Alpha Legionnaires X10 with 2 Meltaguns, Chaos Glory, and Champion with Power Fist/Combi-Melta.
• 5 Summoned Lesser Daemons

Deployment really doesn’t change, though the missions are a nice touch. Having Primary and Secondary objectives help add points and really keep certain builds from hurting too badly.
Just from the picture above, I can breakdown a couple of things:

• Random Charge Distances Hurt: This affected my buddy more than anything, but while the opportunity for a 10” charge is nice, you can still roll those snake eyes and miss a crucial charge. My Daemon Prince charged everytime he needed to without problem, but my friend’s Warriors died to Overwatch and missed their charge.

• Overwatch and Snap Fire are still nasty: BS 1 doesn’t matter when you’re rapid firing Bolters into a charging enemy. I prevented combat with Hormagants by Overwatching into their assault and cooked them off. Charging is a dangerous endeavour now, especially if the enemy has a lot of shots.

• Squishy Transports are Squishy: Necrons are laughing at vehicles, but it only takes 3 glancing hits to take out a Transport, and 4 to drop the mighty Land Raider. None of my Rhinos lasted past turn 3. The drop to 5+ obscured hurts too, but is definitely a necessary drop. I expect to see more Techmarines and Techpriests, as their repair ability allows them to restore Hull Points.

• Mysterious Objectives are…interesting: Easily bypassable for tournaments, they add an extra level of worry and strategy to the games. We had one that would blow up occasionally, while my Berserkers controlled an array that granted rerolls of 1 to shoot, which benefited a unit with three Plasma Pistols. The worst, though, was my buddy controlled one that only let him shoot via Skyfire. That would hurt something crucial like Marines with a Missile Launcher or Vets with a Lascannon. Hopefully, we’ll see more flyers in the near future.

• New Psychic Powers Help Older Codices: As I stated, I took three new powers out of the main rulebook, rather than the codex. I’ve never been a Lash of Submission Chaos guy, and after the change of Warptime, I quit running powers. Until now. My Daemon Prince was hitting at S8, Soul Blaze, and had a 4++ Invulnerable Save. Granted I got lucky rolling against Shadow in the Warp, but he was a beast, and I managed to kill a Carnifex in one round of Combat. My sorcerer got mean too, and I rolled up Spontaneous Combustion and Vortex of Doom, and proceeded to mess up both a squad of Hormagants and Tyranid Warriors. Eldar, Dark Angels, Chaos, and even new books get a really nice bonus from the generic powers.

• Challenges are Mean: My regular Champion got crushed by a Bonesword Prime because we wanted to see how the Challenges worked. Next turn, I (unfluffilly mind you) had my Skull Champion back off and let the rest of the unit crush the Prime. Keep an eye out for Independent Characters and, hell, even Sergeants, as they can crush vital parts of your units. That said, I’m thinking Abaddon is going to become a staple in my list to Character Hunt.

Alrighty, there’s my general thoughts so far on the game. There’s a couple of stuff we messed up (randomize Spontaneous Combustion if the roll is over 5, etc.) but overall the game plays a lot like 5th and is a total blast. Hopefully I’ll get some more games in on Saturday and get some more ideas on how the game truly runs.
Finished Magilla’s next Malifaux crew as well, will have pictures up either tonight or tomorrow!
Granesh

EDIT: Holy Frijoles! I almost forgot! Smells Like Wargaming is now Two years old! I'd like to thank my clients, followers, friends, family, and well-wishers for supporting me on this endeavour since 2010. Smells Like Wargaming has no signs of slowing down, and that's all due to my fan base. Thank you all for supporting me this far! Here's to another two years or more!

Branden
Smells Like Wargaming

2/22/12: The Last Hurrah of the SLW Tervigons

Hey guys,

So as you all know, the big chatter around the internet is the announced release of both the Thunderwolf Cavalry and many of the Tyranid creatures people had been waiting for.
For those of you who haven’t seen her, here’s the new Tervigon:



Valkyrie/Trygon/Dreadknight base? Oh yeah. It’s a big, lumbering beastie we’ve got here. So, I figured in response to this new kit, I’d give my Tervigon their last call before being consumed by the plastic wave.



Tervigon #1 was built back in 2010, maybe three months after the new book had dropped. You can see the base is bigger than a regular Carnifex, and the concept of the birthing Gants are all in order. This guy was also featured on Games Workshop’s site in May of 2010. Say, those birthing sacs kinda match…hmmm….



Tervigon #2 was a difficult kitbash out of an already assembled Carnifex I received as payment for the first one I’d built. Not quite as refined, and the use of plastic glue meant I had to stick with the standing posture.



Tervigon #3 was for a client in the UK, one of my first ever commissions for a gentleman. No paint as the guy wanted to paint it himself, but you can see the second Tervigon in the background.



Tervigon #4 was initially done for myself, as I had been playing with the idea of doing the Five Tervigon list at that point, and was debating on jumping headfirst into it. Needless to say, I don’t envy having to paint nearly 200 gants, so onto eBay this guy went.



Tervigon #5 came about as a result of GW forgetting the tail piece in the box of the Carnifex I built #4 with. A call and a week later, I had most of a Carnifex in. Picked up a second tail on eBay and BAM! Tervigon #5. You can see the talon differences in this one compared to the others as a result of the box.



Tervigons #6, 7, and 8, came about this summer for a client planning on a HUGE Tyranid army. Needless to say, the project never went through, but he wanted the 3 Tervigon done up anyways. You can see how well they fit on a Valkyrie base in this shot, and I feel they’d hold up to the new plastic one still.



And lastly, Tervigon #9, done for a current client of mine. As I’d liked how 6, 7, and 8 turned out, I set him up with a Valkyrie base. Gant was thrown in for free, just because I’m cool like that!




You can also see how the carapace was widened this time in order to increase its size and girth. Really
makes the birthing sacs fit better too!



And there you have it! Nine Tervigon constructed over the course of two years. I must say they were a blast to build, and while I’ll be disappointed that I no longer get to kitbash these guys, I’m glad that Nid players are finally getting easy and affordable access (not that SLW isn’t affordable!) to probably the best unit in the Tyranid Codex.

Whew…getting all choked up here….off to get Mike’s pieces finished! Tally ho!

Granesh