Ramblings, air brushing, new models, painting, and the Torrent of Fire Invitational!

Hey blogosphere!

So I have continued to work on my beast pack project and I also spent some time and whipped up a freshly painted tau commander for my tau-seer-star I so commonly play. I have spent the last few weeks trying to get the hang of using this airbrush a bit (I have a badger patriot 105) and now that I have the right kinds of paints I am getting some nice even coats. Even though I am in no way even good at airbrushing yet I am quite capable of using it to get some very nice and even base coats and primary colors thrown down. I also found that it does a nice job of getting a bit heavier wash on the models without nearly as much splotchyness I was getting when I applied washes heavily by hand. Pictures!!

New Tau commander with double fusion guns! (Ya he looks just like the old one..but I think this new paint job looks much better. He is now not so crazy dark and the base blue was airbrushed on for that nice even look which is just so difficult with a brush. I would show a compare contrast...but I already have the old guy sitting in purple power getting stripped.

So these guys...This is the beast pack I will be using, as I mentioned before the dogs all come from puppetswar.com (his models are nice, little to no bubbles etc, but he takes FOREVER to ship..but on the plus side he sent me a bunch of extra models which I am assuming are an apology of sorts for the VERY delayed shipping) The razorwing flocks are actually flying rippers from forge world and then of course my stand-ins for now as beast masters are just hellions. Oh and then there is this guy....

Yes sir...that is just a tiny bit of free hand attempt on the shield...I want to do something else with the dinosaur hide..it just seems to be missing something...

He may be used as Baron Sathonyx when I use the beast pack since I like that he gives me that same primal feel the dogs do...but I really like my other baron on the sky board so this guy may just be a book shelf model.

So first coat of paint on the dogs looks like this...

And the first test model of a dog looks like...

I did the red base, some metallic details on the chains, off white teeth and claws, a solid black wash to darken up the whole paint and dull that overly bright red, and then an eggshell dry brush over the skin. Is is amazing? no...but I think I am pretty happy with it. Ill toss up some pictures when they are all done and FYI that first one will probably be either redone or at the least cleaned up as I got a bit sloppy while trying to figure out how to paint these guys.

Oh so for the razor wings I tried something but it doesn't show up in the pictures so they might get redone as well...

Basically I was trying to keep them dark and creepy looking but unfortunately...they are a bit too dark. I started with black, heavily dry brushed (honestly almost a wet brush) on purple and then did an actual dry brush of some off white, then usual red tongue, white teeth, and some blue eyes. I think perhaps if I change the eyes to something more drastic that might help or who knows after I finish up the dogs I may just redo the razor wing flocks...I only have the two flocks so it wouldn't be a big deal.

Hmm soo...other news..

I have been messing around with another deathstar type army as ANOTHER side project. I have been playing a farsight bodyguard team which is fun to play. Its made even more fun because I happened to have 6 battle suits so I was able to actually pull this together with complete WYSIWG models...so the list!

Farsight

Shadowsun

x6 body guards (x4 w/ double plasma rifle and target lock and x2 gun drone, x1 w/ double fusion gun and target lock and x2 gun drone, x1 w/ pure-tide, multi spectrum sensor suite, command and control, iridium armor, hit and run, drone controller and x2 shield drone) 

Riptide w/ ion accelerator and early warning

sky ray w/ black sun filter, smart missiles

sky ray w/ black sun filter, smart missiles

hammerhead w/ long-strike, black-sun filter, smart missiles, sensor spines, sub munition rounds

2x10 kroot w/ kroot hound

Eldar allies:

Farseer w/ bike, shard of anaris, runes of warding

1x3 windrider jetbike

Total: 1848

This is honestly a pretty terrible list, low scoring, fairly easy to kill death star from massed fire and poor positioning...but when it works...it works well. I prefer shadow-sun as the warlord as the 3d6 assault phase jumps are fun and honestly due to enemy riptides I feel that deep striking is most of the time a poor choice, however if we continue to see tau disappearing then my mind may change on that subject. Anyway if I remember to take pictures next time I play Ill post up a battle report..I have been playing lots I just never remember to take pictures....

Lastly...Torrent of Fire Invitational is this weekend and I am a bit nervous. Check it out here: http://www.torrentoffire.com/tof_inv a

This event is pre-bracketed so you can actually look and see all the possible people I might play..needless to say if I make it past the O'vesa star list...which to anyone who knows me knows I loath after a fiasco of a game against one in round one of the NOVA invitational last year...but even if I make it past that I have a gauntlet of potential and likely games against names such as Tony Kopach and Nick Nannavati. In any case I suppose we will have to wait and see how the event goes I just hope I am not the one guy who goes 0-5!

Also since all of our lists are available I'll toss up my ToF Invite army list:

Eldrad

Farseer w/ shard, warding, witnessing, bike

x9 warlocks w/ 2 spears, x9 bikes

3x3 windrider bike squads

1x3 dark reapers w/ exarch, night vision, fast shot, x3 starshot missiles

Bastion w/ quad gun

Tau Allies:

Buff Commander w/ x2 fusion guns, target lock, vectored retro, puretide, multi-spectrum, iridium armor

1x10 kroot w/ kroot hound

riptide w/ fusion blaster, ion accelerator, early warning, velocity tracker

Sky ray missile gunship w/ blacksun filter, sensor spines

Regards,

Farseer Tsarith

Current Modeling Projects, Spring Events, and General Updates!

Hello Everyone!

Just some hobby updates for anyone following...

So I'm currently working on building up my dark eldar allies. As many of you loyal readers know I was running my seer council with baron and company for most of 5th edition and for all of 6th all the way up to the release of the tau book. Anyway...my current project is the construction of a beast pack which may or may not find its way into some of my tournament lists. I am using these lovely models from puppetswar.com for the khymarae's:

And I will be using these forgeworld models for my razorwing flocks:

I am still awaiting some of these guys to arrive but I am very excited to start work painting all these guys up. I also considering taking some Fantasy Dark Elf cold ones to make some better (and much cheaper!) beast masters. Possibly going so far as to use the Dreadlord on Cold One mount as a stand in for the Baron!

As far as the hobby aspect goes that is about all I have going on...but on to my favorite part of the hobby....

Tournament news!!

The next few months are about to become very VERY busy for the DC area 40k scene. I have 6 events I plan to attend between now and the end of april and then a few more that should be taking place over the summer. The list of places I will most likely be are:

Feb 16th Huzzah Hobbies RTT

Torrent of Fire Invitational  March 1-2 (NOVA Invitational Qualifier!)

March 16th Huzzah Hobbies RTT

Adepticon 2014!! (NOVA Invitational Qualifier!)

De-La-Warr Open 2014 (NOVA Invitational Qualifier!)

April 20th Huzzah Hobbies RTT

Then a bit further out, but already on my radar:

IFL Road to the NOVA Open League (NOVA Invitational Qualifier!) (I'll actually be returning as the reigning champion from last year, hopefully I can defend my title!)

Killadelphia GT (NOVA Invitational Qualifier!)

I doubt I will get to all of those events...most likely I'll attend all of the GT's listed and Ill probably jsut have to sacrifice the RTT's. Especially the one in March and the one in April (I doubt the lady friend will allow me to be gone for Adepticon, De-La-Warr AND an RTT all in 3 back to back to back weekends.

Lists are a huge debate at the moment for me, I am having trouble being satisified with my lists at the 1850 level after the string of fall events which were all geared for 2000 points. In any case you can all most likely expect to see me and my lovely orange and blue seer council at most of the spring events. Who knows perhaps I can even claim a spot in the 2014 NOVA Invitational!

-Tsarith

(just a cool image I found in the 11th Company photos of my Riptide and Wraithknight hanging out with my seer council)

Escalation Battle Report 1850

Hey guys,

So as I said in the last post, I TO'd the last huzzah RTT...but I did manage to squeeze in a game while the event was going on. My buddy Deathsalvo and I played a game using the escalation book.

He brought:

Chaos Space Marines:
Lord of Skulls
Juggy Lord w/ Axe of Blind Fury (some other wargear, invulns etc)
5x Khorne Spawn
landraider w/ dirge caster
2x10 cultists
4x chaos terminators w/ power axes and mark of khorne
maulerfiend w/ magma cutters


I brought:

DEATHWING!!!!
Belial TH/SS
1x10 Terminators w/ 3xTH/SS, 2xCML
2x5 Terminators w/ 4x TH/SS, 1xHeavy Flamer
Landraider w/ multi melta, dozer
Landraider Crusader w/ multi melta, dozer
Vindicator

So..I had no expectation of a victory in this...but I thought it would be fun none the less...and OH HELLZ YEA IT WAS!!

So the mission was mission...3 from the escalation book (the set of missions designed for just one player to have a lord of war)

It was 3 objectives each worth d3 victory points determined at the end of the game, first blood, line breaker, slay the warlord, and something that gave 1 victory point for every 3 hull points removed from the lord of war (this is crucial to use one of these I think, it goes a long way to making the titan less OP, since i not only kill half his army when i kill it as he costs 900ish points...but I also can get 3 full victory points for killing it as it has 9 hull points!)

turn 1:

So deathsalvo goes first:

He pretty much shuffles around moves toward me, he shoots but his guns are mostly ineffective.

Me: I'm pumped...I have loads of s8 and above guns so im hoping to wreck the titan and maybe get a sweet as catastrophic explosion to end the game on t1...but no such luck... I deepstrike my 10 man unit of terminators behind his army and attempt to shove some krak missiles up the lord of skulls poop shoot....but after a whole turn of shooting I have only removed ONE hull point from the titan. Mostly I failed to penetrate alot and he made a few invulns/covers...I pass the turn back to him...and I'm very scared....

Turn 2:

Deathsalvo: He moves his lord of skulls up to get ready to shoot my vindicator and charge a landraider and his spawn and khorne lord turn around to go kill my terminators. The lord of skulls stuns the vindicator and charges and blows up my landraider. The khorne lord and spawn charge my 10 man unit with belial, only killing the sergeant and I returned the favor by killing all the spawn.

Me: I move both my landraider squads into position to charge the lord of skulls and pretty much prepare to meet my maker....

Those boys are brave...

My terminators surrond the khorne lord!!

I charge the lord of skulls...and fail to kill him..but he ony kills 3 of my terminators with that lovely strength D axe...so ill take it...

Turn 3:

Deathsalvo: He moves his mauler fiend through some terrain and gets ready to charge my remaining landraider...and belial and the juggy lord get ready to fight an epic challenge...So this is where it gets wonky...So at the beginning of his assault phase the table looked like this:

So...afterward it looked like this...

Basically...the maulerfiend blew up my landraider..then the lord of skulls had a catastrophic meltdown and ended up killing all but 1 of my terminators and the maulerfiend....we laughed very hard about this. On the other side of the table my terminators killed all of the chaos terminators and a few cultists. Belial inflicted 3 wounds on the khorne lord..who failed all 3..but passed all 3 feel no pains (that was the boon he got from killing my sergeant in the first challenge...) 

My turn: My 1 remaining unengaged terminator runs over and flames the cultists you can sort of see in the picture above...my vindicator attempts to hit the landraider and whiffs all over AGAIN!!! (good thing I have 2 of these models..this one needs a LOOOONG time out). So...we fight another round of the juggy lord and cultists vs my terminators. I actually end up inflicting 4 wounds on the juggy lord..who promptly ends up taking just 1... so he lives..with 1 wound...I'm sad...the juggy lord obviously kills all my remaining terminators.

At this point I have 1 terminator left...and a vindicator with 1 hull point. 

Turn 4:

Deathsalvo: He shoots my vindicator with his landraider killing it. Then he moves the juggy lord over and assaults and kills my last terminator. He also moved his cultists onto the an objective.

Game Fin.       CSM Win 5-4 (we gave the CSM linebreaker since he could have just played another turn by himself and gotten the juggy lord into my deployment..also since he did TABLE me we thought it appropriate that he actually win ;P)

Oddly enough all the mission stuff came into play...deathsalvo only held one objective but he rolled the d3 and got a 3 pointer! And of course I got 3 points from killing the lord of skulls. I got first blood and he got line breaker and the slay the warlord! All in all it was a really really fun game. Hopefully Ill get a rematch next time :D

-Tsarith

Huzzah Hobbies RTT 1/19 Results

Hello everyone,

This week I actually TO'd the Huzzah Hobbies monthly RTT my buddy Jon (Deathsalvo). We had a blast, ran some cool new missions....and also got to play a very fun game on a side table using the new escalation book and an amazing looking Lord of Skulls.

So first off the RTT:

We ran a new format mission for round 1. This mission had players get a victory point for every turn they held an objective starting on turn 2. It actually worked out really well! Most everyone liked the mission and actually requested more like it in the future. Also the battle points were awarded in a really cool way:


Each player takes the difference in victory points and the winner adds the difference to 10 and the loser subtracts the difference from 10 (20 being the most you can ever get and 0 being the least). An example being, I score 5 victory points while my opponent scores 3. So we have a difference of 2 points, I win (I had 5 points to your 3) and I get 12 battle points and you get 8 battle points. This worked out very well in my oppinion as we had much closer games over all. Also as we saw at the end of round 2, the top 12 players from the first 2 games were actually all still in contention to win the day. All in all I think it was a huge success!

Results:

These are the winners!

We ended up giving out 5 prizes:

First: Brad

Second: Joe

Third: Charlie

Fastest Player: Reid (We actually had all the players write down start/stop time stamps for game turns)

the "Please don't quit 40k" award: Justin

Some general pictures from the day:

Huzzah Hobbies RTT Sunday 1/19

Everyone should attend this RTT! It often gets a smattering of highly competitive players and is great GT practice!

Huzzah Hobbies RTT

Rules:

1850pts

0-1 Formation

All dataslates

Stronghold assault models which are not AV15, have D-weapons, or are networked systems.

NO ESCALATION

www.huzzahhobbies.com


as always - registration starts at 10am, first game at 1045. Entry is 15 and covers lunch. The rest is rolled directly into prize support. As usual we do not require any painting or fancing basing.

For those interested in proxying models, as long as you don't have any other models of that type in your army, and they have a passing resembelance to the models being proxied, proxies are O.K.

Updates!! League!! 11th Company GT!! Army thoughts and my innermost dreams!

Hello all,

I apologize for the lack of consistent posting of late. I have been traveling quite a bit for work but due to the holidays I will actually be home (hopefully blogging!) most of the next few weeks. Also the title lies...I wont be sharing my inner most dreams..but I will share some army lists!

Anyway....some highlights!

First off the "Great Fall" league has ended, I attempted to try out some variants of my list which did not do so well and I ended up missing out on the finals. However! I got some good games in which I am sorry to say I wont be battle reporting.

On to other things though. I also attended the 11th Company GT in Myrtle Beach, SC. which was by far the best GT I have ever attended. I was a bit turned off on the idea of going due to the 8 hour drive but my buddy Birdux and I road tripped it down and it was a blast! I ended up 5-2 (my loss of consequence in round 4 was actually to Alex Bessinger who ended up winning the whole shebang! I also got a chance to play a good friend Ordo-Bob who plays my most hated of rival armies Chaos Daemons. (fun fact I actually lose almost exclusively to chaos daemons at GT's...) I would post my battle reports for the 11th company now but I still out of town and do not have my game notes with me. I will hopefully get around to posting the reports of the 7 games this weekend so keep your eyes peeled for another post soon!! I want to do a shoutout to Birdux though for winning best painted at the 11th company and making top bracket all with his very nasty spawntide chaos space marine army, so to anyone who thinks CSM are dead...you should check out his blog over at birdux.blogspot.com.

As a teaser for anyone who reads my blog and is curious about the 11th company games my list is below:


Farseer: Shard of Anaris, runes of witnessing, jetbike, Warlord (rolled on iyanden traits woot woot)
Eldrad
9x warlocks on bikes w/ 2 spears
5x3 windrider units
wraith knight
3x dark reapers w/ exarch, fast shot, night vision, and s8 missiles all around
imperial bastion w/ quad gun
Tau Commander w/ iridium, multispectrum, puretide chip, 2x fusion gun, target lock, vectored retro thruster
1x10 kroot
riptide w/ early warning override, fusion gun, heavy burst cannon, and velocity tracker

So it was pretty similar to most of my lists. I actually have no complaints btw of how the army worked. I know most who look at it go "ewww Eldrad and buff commander are soo slow!" but honestly if you pay attention to where you place your models and consider where you want to be on later turns early then its not a problem. I have actually fairly consistently used him since the new book came out and I have not once had a game where he caused me to lose because he was too slow. It takes extra thought which is something most bandwagon eldar council players dont want to deal with. But I rarely leave home without him. However as I contemplate returning to the realm of 1850 games I am debating actually giving him up just to avoid losing other things.

I have also been toying with a grey knight list with some eldar allies:

Coteaz
xenos inquis w/ grenades
tech marine w/ grenades
7xdeathcult assasin w/ axe/mace, 2x crusader w/ axe, 1x banisher
7xdeathcult assasin w/ axe/mace, 2x crusader w/ axe, 1x banisher
Storm raven w/ las cannon and multi melta
Storm raven w/ las cannon and multi melta
3xwarrior acolyte in a rhino
sky sheild landing pad
Autarch
2x5 dire avengers in serpent w/ scatter, ghostwalk matrix, shuriken cannon
wraith knight

I like that I would get to use some of my currently painted elements (all the eldar stuff) and I actually have access to most of the required grey knight items. I plan to convert the deathcults from some spare dark eldar kits I have sitting around and the crusaders I will probably just buy since i actually like those models. Anway stay tuned for the 11th Company battle report to come this weekend.

Lastly I want to shout a big "Good luck!" to all the NOVA players I know going to Da Boyz this weekend! I wish you all the best of luck in your games and I hope one of you brings home the gold!

-Tsarith

"The Great Fall" 40k League update and some general thoughts!

Howdy folks!

The DC gamer fall league known as "The Great Fall" has started up. I am running a bit behind and actually have yet to play my first two games even though we are in week 3. I am planning on knocking out several of the games early next week so sit tight for some battle reports!

I thought I would toss up the specific list I plan to use for the list locked games. For those who don't know we are allowed to play the first two games with pretty much what ever we want (the only requirement being that we use our chosen primary detachment). But for games 3 through the finals my list is set to be:

1 Farseer (Runes of Witnessing; Eldar Jetbike; Warlord; Fearless)
   1 Shard of Anaris

1 Eldrad Ulthran

1 Warlock Council
   1 Warlock (Singing Spear; Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Singing Spear; Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)

3 Windrider Jetbike Squad

3 Windrider Jetbike Squad

3 Windrider Jetbike Squad

3 Windrider Jetbike Squad

6 Swooping Hawks

2 Dark Reapers  (Reaper Launcher (Starshot))
   1 Dark Reaper Exarch (Reaper Launcher (Starshot); Night Vision; Fast Shot)

1 Commander (HQ) [Tau],  (Plasma Rifle x1; Vectored Retro-Thrusters; Stimulant Injector; Shield Generator; Neuroweb System Jammer; Onager Gauntlet; Puretide Engram Neurochip; Multi-Spectrum Sensor Suite; XV8-02 Crisis 'Iridium' Battlesuit; Feel No Pain; Fleet; Hit & Run)

1 Kroot Carnivore Squad (Troops) [Tau]
   10 Kroot [Tau]
   1 Kroot Hounds [Tau]

1 Kroot Carnivore Squad (Troops) [Tau]
   10 Kroot [Tau]
   1 Kroot Hounds [Tau]

1 XV104 Riptide (Elite) [Tau],(Twin Linked Fusion Blaster; Early Warning Override; Velocity Tracker; Interceptor; Skyfire*)

1 Imperial Bastion (Emplaced Heavy Bolters x4)
   1 Gun Emplacement (Quad-gun)

It is mostly the same as my NOVA Open list with the only real change being that I upped it to 2k by adding the Shard of Anaris and some extra troops. I expect that this will do fairly well but I have some changes I was just considering. I really would like to use a wraithknight in this army and I am considering dropping a kroot squad, the hawks, a windrider unit, and some wargear to add one in. I am not sure as I like the hawks and having more troops is always good but then again with the way this list plays I may be better off just dropping down to 4 troops (or dropping a warlock to keep 5 troops). In any case the changes are all fairly minor. Another option is to use the dark eldar allies. However then I end up with:

2000 Pts - Codex: Eldar Supplement - Iyanden Roster

1 Farseer (Runes of Witnessing; Eldar Jetbike; Warlord)
   1 Soulshrive

1 Farseer (Runes of Witnessing; Eldar Jetbike; Fearless)
   1 Shard of Anaris

1 Warlock Council, 505 pts
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Singing Spear; Eldar Jetbike)

3 Windrider Jetbike Squad

3 Windrider Jetbike Squad

3 Windrider Jetbike Squad

3 Windrider Jetbike Squad

6 Swooping Hawks

1 Wraithknight

2 Dark Reapers (Reaper Launcher (Starshot))
   1 Dark Reaper Exarch (Reaper Launcher (Starshot); Night Vision; Fast Shot)

1 Imperial Bastion (Emplaced Heavy Bolters x4)
   1 Gun Emplacement (Quad-gun)

1 Baron Sathonyx (HQ) [DE]

5 Kabalite Warriors (Troops) [DE]
   1 Venom [DE] (Splinter Cannon; Grisly Trophies; Night Shields)

5 Kabalite Warriors (Troops) [DE]
   1 Venom [DE] (Splinter Cannon; Grisly Trophies; Night Shields)

That is not bad..those venoms allow rerolls on my warlock powers which is useful when rolling on that LD8. But the odds of getting fortune go down quite a bit when you lose out on Eldrads 4th power. I like having both farseers back on jetbikes but I miss Eldrads force weapon and 4th power. I have play-tested and found that both options work quite well but I am just not truly happy with either. I love having the dark eldar elements again (look back in my history and you can see I spent the better part of last year and this year using baron and my dark eldar allies) but the wound soaking power of the commander is amazing. I suppose at some point I'll just have to choose.

Another thought that has been coming up recently is that I would really like to get off of the crutch of playing the seer council. I love the army and I have been playing it since early 4th edition when I started using it as an alternate to playing the dreaded mechdar that ruled the game. I have 6 wave serpents available so perhaps I could revisit the idea of playing a wave serpent mech style army. I watched the BFS finals and saw Mike Brandt use serpents with space wolf allies to great effect. I liked that (it was nice to see something other than 4-5 serpents, 1-2 wraithknights, hawks, and last turn scoring bikes). Anyway..this post is getting far too long so I will shut my trap for now and I promise some quick succession battle reports next week!

-Tsarith