Grubnards GT Countdown T-3 Weeks

 ... Or less than a month until the GT....

This past week I was able to finish painting my Dark Apostle. All that is left is to add the basing materials and paint the base. I'm pretty happy with how the tattoo of the chaos star on his head turned out. I was also fortunate enough to get in two games with the guy who runs the monthly events at our LGS. Look for my feedback and thoughts on those games farther down in the post. With this being the last week in October I started to categorize what I still need to paint, build, and play test. So without any further delays, lets look at what I did this past week.


 Painting:

I pretty much finished the apostle but I still need to:

• Tweak Chaos jump pack lord
• Finish 20 cultists

Next on the painting list is touching up my chaos lord with jump pack. I've been using this model for the past few years to go with my raptors and he has been pretty fun to play with.
 

This model was pretty fun to build. The body is the old metal chaos lord with Combi-Melta. I swapped out the head for a Bloodletter champion. For the power pack I cut off the vents and glued/green stuffed two sets of vespid wings coming out of the back so that I have the option of running him with a jump pack. The head  of the axe is from the Chaos Knights kit from the Fantasy range. I drilled out the metal handle and pinned the plastic axe head to it with a paperclip to give it strength. I used the axe head so that I can either run it as the Axe of Blind Fury, a power axe, or just a CCW.

I still need to finish the horns and then high light the gold and brass items to make them stand out.

Scroll Work

Last week I mentioned I was going to start adding scroll work and parchments to my models. Here is a closeup of what the scroll work on my dark apostle looks like.

Here is how I made the parchments:

I took a section of a brown paper bag and crumpled it up repeatedly until it became very soft and looks like leather.

Next I took a paperclip and cut it into small sections to resemble the spike that will be holding the parchment.

So in the case of the Dark Apostle model, it had a join line on the should pad due to the way the model was built. I wanted to attach the parchment to cover the line and then flow out over the shoulder pad.

Joint line in the circle.

 
I drilled in a small hole with a pin vise on the model where the parchment will end up on the model. Then I put a tiny bit of super glue on the paperclip and brown bag to pin it in place.

The arrow points to where I drilled in a small hole with a pin vise.

 Next I cut some small strips from the brown bag and pushed the piece of paper clip through the top.

 Once I have the parchment at the right size and shape I superglue the pin into the model. I also add a little bit extra so that the brown bag will adhere tightly as well. Next comes the fun part.

I mixed some water with wood glue and applied it to the parchment with a small paint brush. Just be sure not to apply too much glue or it can seep onto the model and potentially ruin your paint job. The wood glue, when dried creates a strong bond that will keep the paper from tearing or falling apart during games. While the parchment is moist, I take a pair of tweezers and pinch, twist, and shape the parchment into a unique position, so that it looks like it is flowing. Once the glue dries it will hold that position indefinitely.
I repeat the wood glue application 2-3 more times depending on how it lays on the model.

Here I added a parchment to the back of the power pack.

 Next I will dry brush the parchment to give is an aged paper look and paint on some text lines.
I will be adding the parchment to the rest of my troops over the course of the next few weeks. I'm also going to add some to the Heldrake to help add motion to the model. 


Tyranid terrain revisited

 At last month's events I brought along my Tyranid terrain to test it out and gather some feedback. Overall the feedback was positive but there was a request for more LOS blocking terrain. So this weekend I started working on some large pieces.

The idea behind these pieces is that they are large rock formations jutting from the ground. But I wanted to be a little creative so that I can make unique positions and shapes out of the same two pieces when setting up the table.
 

What I did was create a land bridge that will connect the two pieces. The bridge will have a dowel drilled into it so that it will anchor into each piece but will allow me to pivot the two pieces into any formation.

Or if I want, I can remove the bridge and have two separate pieces.

Here is how large each outcrop is with a Riptide and Crisis suits used as scale.

Large enough to cover most of the Riptide and most vehicles.

 I should have this finished within the next week or so, along with the display board.

Practice Games

I was able to get in two practice games with Smitty, a local Da Boyz member and the guy who runs the monthly events in Rochester. I brought my GT list and he played 1850 points of Space wolves.  I did not have my camera on me nor did I take any notes so I'll just run through what worked, what didn't work, and my thoughts on my GT list. My first game was a win for me and the second game was a loss. Here are my thoughts on the units and how they performed.

Herald of Tzeentch:
Loved this unit and loved using the Grimoires on my Obliterators. In both games I held the herald and pink horrors in the back field and I kept placing the grimoire onto the obliterators to give them a 3+ Invul save. Then take into consideration that the obliterators have the Mark of Nurgle and they are near impossible to bring down. Out of the 2 games, I only rolled a 1 once when attempting to pass the grimoire onto the oblits. In that turn my opponent took advantage of the 6+ invul save and killed one and put a wound on another.

Pink Horrors
They did ok. In the first game they had the Bolt of Change and in the second game I gave them Flickering Fire. They were there to pretty much cast spells and soak up shots. The only thing I did not like is their lack of overwatch but I guess that is pretty common with daemon armies.

Heldrake
The Heldrake lived in all of the games even though my opponent was fielding a Icarus LasCannon in his ageis line and two squads of long fangs. To be fair, his rolling was pretty bad whenever he fired at it and my daemon saves were pretty impressive. Out of both games I only ever suffered 1 wound on the heldrake. Had his rolling been average with the Icarus he would have probably done more damage. In the first game the heldrake roasted a lot of wolves but in the second game my dice rolls were pitiful so it did very little damage but at least it drew most of his shooting and left most of my army unscathed in the shooting phase.

Chaos Lord and Raptors
I love taking this unit but it's hard to get them where I want to without getting mauled. Screening them with the rhinos or hoping for a terrain heavy table is my best bet to get them where I want. Plus they help in missions where Fast Attack can score.

Dark Apostle and Cultists. 
This was an interesting unit. In both games I was able to tarpit the thunderwolves and only in the second game did I lose the Apostle in combat. I like that he grants them fearless and keeps them from running from a battle but having to accept/issue a challenge opens him up to getting pasted. One thing I kept forgetting is that Zealot gives the unit hatred, which may have helped whittle down some wounds on the wolves.

Havocs
They did fine in both games and helped knock out the rhinos.

Soul Grinder of Nurgle
Ok, this beast never took a wound but the one thing I misplayed on him was the range of his phlegm attack. I normally run my grinder as a defiler, which has a 72" range but the grinder only has a 36" range. So in both games I was out of range for the first couple of turns. I'll need to play him more aggressively and possibly consider deep striking him. How do you Daemon players use your grinders?

In the end I like the list and feel it will be fun to play and hopefully my opponents will like playing against it.

Here is the somewhat final list:

 HQ
Dark Apostle
Power Maul, Sigils of Corruption, Mark of Tzeentch, Gift of Mutation

Chaos Lord
Axe of Blind Fury, Mark of Khorne, Jump Pack, Melta Bombs, Combi Melta, Sigils

Troops
8 Marines with plasma gun, VoLW Champ with power axe
Rhino
 8 Marines with melta gun, VoLW Champ with power fist
Rhino
20 Cultists, cultist champ

Fast Attack
Heldrake with Bale Flamer
8 Raptors
Mark of Khorne, Melta Gun, Champ

Heavy
3 Obliterators
Mark of Nurgle, VoLW
7 Havocs
4 Auto Cannons, Champion


Allies
Herald of Tzeentch
Exalted Gift (Gimoire), ML 2

10 Pink Horrors

Soul Grinder
Daemon of Nurgle, Phlegm Bombardment