Dire Avenger Paint Scheme Decided

Nick speaking,

Now that I have finished painting my Seer Council in my IDIC Eldar colour scheme, I am ready to move on to my first Aspect Warriors to be painted. The first Aspects I want to paint are my Dire Avengers, and if you remember way back on a previous post when I was asking for your thoughts on what colours to use for Aspects, I have now made my decision...

With help from some of the comments I had, and a bit of research that I did whilst I recently painted my next unit of Genestealers, here are the results. First and foremost, I am going to stay with the Dire Avenger blue as the main colour. I like the idea of Aspects having their original colours, and I like the idea of having different colours to paint, so blue it was. Then there was the gun...

The Codex shows a black and gold gun, which looks OK, but I found another older picture of some Dire Avengers with a white and gold gun that really took my fancy. I think the white would match my 'IDIC' purple and white colour scheme quite nicely and generally looks better...

These seem to be a slightly older DA using what now would be a Guardian body! Just to make sure I would like the white gun in real life, I roughly painted up an old Guardian gun in the white colours to have look at it. Whilst I was there I did a second test gun with a black clip as well, but I think the white one is better. I am not sure about the Scope on the top of the gun at the moment, but on these two test pieces I added a scrap piece of plastic and painted it black just to get a feel for it...

To give me the 'IDIC' colour twist on the Avengers, I plan on painting the Tabard's Purple, and doing a purple and white head crest. The Exarch would have his usual white shoulder pads, and I was thinking of a white Tabard for him to make him a bit different. The exarch crest would be purple and yellow instead of white as yellow is the colour of my spirit/gem stones and again it would make him stand out from the normal avengers.

First I base coated them up ready for the paint job. I used two separate base coats to make painting the main white sections easier. The only thing I am not sure about at the moment is how to paint the DA spirit stones? Do I keep to my IDIC yellow colours, or being Aspects would they have different coloured stones? What do you think?

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Space Wolves 1750pt Battle Report (NOT VIDEO)

Nick speaking,

This battle report against Blood Angels, is the first game I played with my previously posted Best Overall Space Wolves list. We rolled for the mission and got Capture and Control with Dawn of War deployment...

I won the roll off and chose to go second, BA put their objective down behind a piece of terrain, about 8" from his board edge in the centre. I stuck mine behind a group of two bunkers on the left side, as it looked like a good place to hide some Rhino's. I put down my Chooser marker from the Rune Priest and then BA deployed one group of Scouts opposite my bunkers and in terrain. He then reserves another group of Scouts and a Drop Pod with another Pod coming in turn one. He then declares the rest of the army to come on turn one. I deploy nothing and reserve two groups of Scouts to flank, with everything else also coming on turn one.

I didn't bother trying to seize the initiative and BA bring down the first Pod just over 12" away from my board edge, just to the right of the bunker to disembark a Dread. I find all the BA Dreadnought's a bit confusing, but my Opponent tells me it's just a normal one with front armour twelve. He then walks on a large Devastator squad into the terrain by his objective, moves on a Storm Raven 24" behind the Drop Pod and a fast moving Baal behind that. The Raven has a Librarian, ten Sternguard and another Dread in it. This time the Dread is the armour thirteen one that gives him re-roll after re-roll (Furioso, I think?)

Going second, and seeing what BA first moves were, got me thinking right away about how I was going to win this game? He only has one group of Scouts left to come in and a Drop pod with another ten Sternguard in it. The first Pod has a homing beacon, and I am pretty sure he plans to send everything at my objective and then hold his objective with his reserved Scouts. The Storm Raven and the Baal would be his back track fast vehicles if needed.

Three groups of Long Fangs aren't ideal in DoW, and I bring them on the right side of the board, BA are already in my face so I know all the Fangs can do is pull his attention from my troops for a turn or two. My plan is to capture his objective and try and take out his only two Troop choices. I deploy one Troop Rhino to the far right side of the board out of vision to everything and wait for my Scouts to come in to deal with the Devastators. My push would be useless unless I can neutralise his missiles. I wanted my opponent to think that I am going to try my best to hold onto my objective, so I deploy two more Rhino's behind my objective bunker, and the Rune Priest Rhino with line of sight to the front Dread. I stick one Skimmer in front of the Rune Dread and bring the other two Skimmers (burrowed from my BA opponent) to the right with the Fangs. All skimmers and living Lighting fail to do anything due to Night Fight and bad rolls.

BA second Pod comes in turn two in front of his other Pod and to the right of my Rune Priest Rhino, and the Sternguard get out to aim up my Long Fangs. The Raven moves midfield and the Librarian and Sternguard get off it. He disengages the Libby so he can use his Fear of Darkness on a different unit. The Fangs take all the shots as one group is wiped out and the other group goes down with one missile dude left. Libby tries to FoD the third group, but my Priest nullifies his power. The front Dread assaults and destroys the Skimmer that I put in front of the Priest Rhino to protect it.

My turn two, and both Scouts come in allowing me to go anywhere. Both come in from the BA table edge to assault the Devastators and his first Scout squad, both groups do well killing most of the units except one or two guy's in each. With the Devastators out of action I move my right Rhino forward and pop smoke. I also move out one Rhino on the far left, keeping the other near my objective. Rune Rhino moves to the right and disembarks to make it look like I want to fight for my objective, but all I want to do is target the fast moving Raven and Baal, so he can't get back to his objective. Rune and his Hunters kill about half a unit of Sternguard, whilst the two Skimmers try to melta the Raven, but fail miserably! The remaining Long Fangs also fail to get through the armour, but one missile does wound and instant death the Libby.

BA turn three and his reserves don't come in as he continues to go for my objective. Raven moves to the left of my bunkers and destroys the Rhino on my objective, with the Dread to the right assaulting the Guy's inside. I do well and my Wolf Guard destroys the Dread with his Power Fist. Both Sternguard shoot my Priest pack killing them all with their AP3 bullets, and the Baal takes out a Skimmer. Both of my Scout packs win and consolidate in the BA assault phase.

My turn three, and I have to take out the Raven and Baal this time! I advance both the left and far right Rhinos at full speed again, moving my last Skimmer to the right for back up to the Hunters inside. The empty Rune Rhino in the centre of the table also moves forward, tank shocking the Sternguard on it's way. One of my Scout packs stays on the BA objective to wait for the second unit of BA Scouts to come in from reserve, whilst the other pack moves to the rear of the midfield Baal, destroying it with a meltagun. The last few guy's on my objective melta the Raven and wreck it, and then assault the Dread, I lose a couple of Hunters, but destroy it with the Guards Power Fist again. I consolidate behind the bunker with just two guy's left.

BA enter turn four with just two units of Sternguard left, one down to five guys and the other at full strength. The reserved group of Scouts come in at last. The Scouts get a bit nervous and come in to the left of the objective, rather than going into the assault with my Scouts and the Wolf Claw Guard. The ten Sternguard start making their way back to his objective, whilst the other five Sternguard head toward my objective.

My turn four and my right Rhino gets ready to capture his objective, with the Skimmer and Rune Rhino doing a Tank Shock/Flamer combo, killing all but three Sternguard and making them run. My midfield Scouts go towards the BA Scouts, ready to assault next turn, whilst the left Rhino moves back to the five Sternguard and disembarks to shoot them down to two left! The game is pretty much over now, but we carry on for fun anyway. Game ends on turn six with me holding both objectives with Grey Hunter full Rhino's, and Blood Angels with just two Scouts left. This game was a really fun, in your face game, and with most of the vehicle damage results going my way, was a nice win for my Wolves.

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Back to my 40k and NECRONS!!

Nick speaking,

Just got back from my three week holiday in Indonesia, and I have seen that the new Necron Codex is out!!! Just imagine my excitement as I walked into my local gaming store to see all the new stuff. I didn't get a chance to read all the rumours and stuff that must have been floating around over the past few weeks, so I am happy to be looking at the new stuff from a totally brand new, uninfluenced point of view!

To be honest, with the jet lag and all, things have been a bit hectic since I got back from my hols, and I haven't had time to sit down and read anything yet, but my first impression of the Codex is 'What the hell has happened to my Necrons?' The picture on the front of the original Codex was why I chose Necrons as my first army, and in turn, lead to my love of 40k, but this new Codex cover doesn't seem to have the same impact on me, Necrons just don't seem like robots any more?

No, seriously, I know that many people found the old style Necrons very limited and boring to play, and play against, and although I never found Necrons to be that way myself, I am really looking forward to having a few hours alone with the book to give it a good going over. The front cover really does indicate that these new Necrons are not going to be boring, and they certainly do look a lot more dynamic. Now to get myself a few undisturbed hours to check it out. I also need to find some time to have a look at the opinions and views of all the other blogs out there that I follow. My Google Reader account says I have over four hundred unread posts to read, so I have my work cut out! Still, it's nice to be back to my 40k, and even better to be back to my Necrons.

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We'll be Back to Necrons?

Nick speaking,

As most of you know I have been away on holiday for a few weeks now, and you are currently reading a scheduled post that I wrote at the beginning of October! Hopefully, when I return from holiday in a couple of days, I will come back to lots of exciting news on some sort of Necron Codex release? I have been waiting for a long time for a new Codex, just like all my other immortal brothers, but will it actually happen this year? Will my Necron models get some GW love with a nice new Codex?

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