Zombies and Apithanies!

Hi All

I hope you had a good Christmas and New Year and that 2013 is going well!

Well it has been some time since I was on this blog and I feel a little bad, so I though I would put something up.  It was actually something I was going through last night!

I was thinking about my Vampire Counts as usual and ways to make them really work and kick backside! The very few games I have played with them, I have lost more than I have won and for a tiny time, I got a little down hearted with the fang touting armies of death!

I did think "why do they cost so much in points and really not amount to much?" at times and even considered the possibility of changing over to another army - but when looking at them, the fluff and everything else - I still love 'em and want to kick more ass with them! I just have to get on and play more games - to practise more things with them and so on.

However, last night I was thinking about the core unit which we have and that fact that they happen to be the worst core unit in the whole of Warhammer; the ZOMBIE!

Yes they are cheap but they really are bad at fighting!  This is the first thing that came to my thoughts last night was that even when I use them as a tar-pit, they never seemed to amount to much.

I would go into battle with a HUGE amount of these buggers and still the large units would get cut down in what seemed no time at all.  Sometimes they would tar-pit for maybe 2-3 rounds which is good, but I kept on thinking "why do my zombies always get cut down really easily?".  The only way I used to keep these going was to employ the magic to sustain them - Raise Dead and Invo of Nehek.  Even then they would struggle badly!
So there I was last night thinking maybe they are too expensive at 3 points/model (cheap I know but...) for what they really do; they suck badly at fighting due to always striking last, weapon skill of 1 which is BBBBAAAADDDDD and their Ld means that they will be losing every round no matter what and being unstable, they will take a few more smacks in the chops and I will lose more!
I had another look at the codex for these just to see if there was anything else I could do with them; you have the corpse cart which seriously helps once magic has been used (changing them from ASL to ASF!), but was there anything else which would help matters?  And then I SAW IT!....
The salvation of the rotting ones!!!!....
A rule I completely forgot about and have NEVER used;

THE NEWLY DEAD

Yippee that really helps these guys onto better things.  Coupled with Master of the Dead, Invocation of Nehek and Raise Dead - the newly dead really kicks the enemy of the Sylvanian lords of death in the teeth!

Breaking it down....

The Invocation of Nehek gives D6 + caster level wounds back to each unit near the necromancer or vampire lord.  Not dealing with the non-core units (which get only 1 wound back), the zombies will have D6+level zombies back per unit.  HOWEVER(!), the newly dead only applies to zombies which means you get an extra D6 deadies back horrah!!  So working on averages for example - unit of 40 zombies gets cut down to 25 including unstable rule deaths.  The level 4 dark magic bod rolls a 3 which means 7 more appear - but rolls another 3 for the newly dead which means you get 35 zombies left over and only 5 not being accounted for!
Now for the cleverer lord of black death, they might wish to do something like raising a unit of zombies before Invo of Nehek and then increase the new unit with the Invo of Nehek - so once again averages (and don't forget that this needs no dispelling to be successful and yes I know these numbers are averages which means that you could end up with very little or loads more!!!!!!!!!!). Same as above 40 down to 35 zombies but with the included scenario of raising 2D6 + 3 zombies which gives 10 zombies average made up to 13 zombies average total!!!

The moral of the story....READ and REMEMBER the rules of the units you use!!!!!

Catch you all later!
Andy

War Machines in fantasy

Hi All

A post about some misconceptions regarding war machines.  Having fought against a few, many players have their own ideas on what can and cannot be done!

Tonight I fought against dark elves in a 3000 point standard battle.  My opponent had various nasty units such as witches and the like, but he also took along two cauldrons of blood.  My list in all fairness should have dealt with him fairly well but I lost due to several factors and one of the main factors was the fact that I still do not really know the rules that well!

I charged a 40+ strong unit of crypt ghouls into one of his cauldrons.  My opponent then told me that only a certain number of units can attack a war machine very much like fighting inside buildings.  It worked out that 9 of my ghouls could attack the war machine.  I was licking my lips at the prospect of 18 poisoned hits to be dealt out.

Misconception No.1

My opponent told me that after his dark elf warriors have finished slicing and dicing my ghouls (with their many attacks and higher initiative), there would be no rank at the front to fight the cauldron operators.  This is wrong!  The casualties are removed as in usual combat – from the rear and presuming there are enough models left in the unit.  The rear models basically climb over their dead comrades to continue the fight.

Misconception No.2

Only 6 models can attack and no more (of course on the understanding you have at least 6 models in the charging unit!).

Misconception No.3

You strike and attack the war machine itself and therefore use the stats of the war machine.  No this is not the case!  As far as I can see in the rules, you strike against the war machine as a unit but using the operator’s WS, S and T and not the machines stats.  This makes perfect sense when you consider the old days when a cavalry would “charge up the guns”.  They would go for the cannon men and not waste time in denting their sabres against the cannon muzzles!  Shooting at war machines might be different though due to their size.

Now if I knew this, I would have made mincemeat of his cauldron, which would have allowed me to crash my ghouls into the side of one of his nasty witch units.  The battle would have gone vvvvveeeeeerrrrrrrryyyyy differently!

Cheers

Andy

Work in Progress

Hi All
Just a quick post (really must do some more) on various projects I have on the go.  One aspect of my painting which I do endeavour to change is that I see a model or need a certain unit - build it then get roughly 70% through the paint job.  Then another model or project comes along and I start that one also!  Then another and so on, you get the picture!

I do apologise for the photos.  My friend says that I really should get a light box to help with lighting and removing distracting backgrounds.  I will get the lightbox asap!
So here are some photos of various models.

High Elves

Here are some high elves from the Blood Island box.  I managed to get my hands on two sets of the high elf models and will paint to sell them later on.  On these, I undercoated black (due to the level of armour) then airbrushed Vallejo model air gun metallizer (the only time I would ever put a 'z' where an 's' should really go!), then top spray gun and then finished off with a relatively heavy drybrushing of model air silver.

The cloth is layered with three blues from the vallejo model colour range - dark to light.  Faces are quite difficult because of the face guards and helmets.  Vallejo rosy flesh.

Dire Wolves

A useful unit of wolves for my Vampire Counts army.  Base coated in rosy flesh, highlighted with elf flesh then knocked back with GW ogryn flesh wash.  Beasty Brown on the fur, highlighted with bonewhite and then knocked back with GW Devlan Mud.  Gory red highlighted with GW foundation yellow then washed with Les Bursley's APJ softbody black wash.  One slight thing I would warn people about APJ softbody black wash is that leaves a sheen on areas it is painted.  In some of the videos from Les B, you will see him wash the softbody black wash into the recesses in the armour but clear away the excess.  This wash is fantastic as it will give depth without shading the whole paint job, but unless you want a slight shine from the wash, you will need to either remove as much from surfaces as you can or paint over the shiny bits!  Usual bonewhite for the exposed bone parts!

Strigoi Ghoul King on Terrorgheist (in the colours of a zombie dragon)

 This model is fantastic and a real centre piece for my Vampire Counts army.  I bought Zacharius the Everliving on a zombie dragon, so I thought I would not bother to magnetise this model to accomodate both builds.  Gory red blended into black for the wings.  Black blended into bonewhite for the spinal bones. Gory red highlighted with drybrushing GW foundation yellow then washed with APJ softbody black wash for the body sections.  Bonewhite for the bones etc.  I wish I could remember about the Strigoi on the back :(.  I cannot remember, although I remember something green, grey with a sepia wash!

Company of Misery Chaos Lord

My 40k chaos army consists mainly of Black Legion, but I didn't want him to be the boring black with golden highlights, so I looked in the codex and found the colour scheme of the Company of Misery - a sort of black armour with blood red splattered from one side.  Bloody red base coat, the other section basecoated with black.  The face (and skin sections) is basecoat purple with white layer topcoat then washed with APJ softbody black wash with make him look rather intimadating! Cloak has a purple basecoat and blue wash made from Magic Blue with GW Lahmian medium.  I really do like the Lahmian meduim, very useful in making you own washes out of normal colours.  The metal sections are gun metal followed by the usual silver drybrush highlight and wash with GW black wash.  Blue metallic model air was used on the backpack skulls then highlighted silver.  I wanted to the banner to be human skin with a chaos icon painted in human blood (well not really human but model human blood!!!!!).  Three skin colours were used from dark to light then washes with Vallejo skin ink watered down.

Lemartes, Guardian of the Lost

I really love the Blood Angel characters and the models GW has for them.  Black undercoat, grey edging with white further edging.  The edging is thick but will be trimmed to much thinner lines soon.  Left shoulder plate, bloody red blended into blazing orange at the top.  The right shoulder skull, usual bonewhite basecoat with white highlights then knocking it back with sepia ink watered down.  I prefer his eye lenses to be red and not blue so they are in the middle of being worked on to make them look optical.

Avatars of War model High Elf Sorceress

 Very nice model from AoW, two sets of blending going on here!  The top part of the dress has two different purples whilst the bottom part of the dress have two blended blues.  You will notice the failed attempt at adequate recess washing with APJ softbody black wash.  I think I will need to remedy this with a darker blue wash made using thr GW Lahmian Meduim!

Anyways, there you have it!  Some models in various levels of completeness!
Cheers
Me!

Start of the new blog!

Hi All


Here is the first beginning of my blog!  Never done this before, so here goes!....

Below are a few pictures I took today of some of my models!  Enjoy!

So what about me?  You are reading my blog therefore it is only fair to let you know who I am!
Well, I am in my early 30's and researching my PhD in Astrophysics and Planetary Science.  I am married with no kids (yet!) but plenty of pets to be getting on with!
I first got involved with Warhammer 40 000 back in the days of the 1st edition!  My brother's friend lent me his copy of the Rogue Trader rulebook and got me into Space Wolves.  From then, 2nd ed came out and the first model I bought for this particular hobby with Leman Russ the Primarch of the Space Wolves!  The model is metal (which I definately prefer) and cost me £5!!!!  I think I can hear jaws hitting floors at the moment!  Yes indeed the model or should I say three models cost a fair price back then.  Good grief hasn't it changed?!

Well, I left the hobby when GW decided to destroy two main enjoyments of the hobby: 3rd ed came out and the characters were axed and the second thing which is sadly still the case, the dilution of the lead content resulting in white metal (which isn't bad really) leading to a massive price increase!  I got back into the hobby a number of years ago and was very pleased to see that characters plus more are back!  So downsides would definately be the simplification of the rules for 40k and the 'newest' model medium - 'fine'cast.

It always seems that GW have to do something in order to justify massive price increases and the lastest one being 'fine'cast resin models in my honest opinion, is the worst thing to happen to the hobby.  I cannot state anymore than I absolutely loath 'fine'cast resin.  I will vent my spleen later on, but for the moment not now!

So what in the hobby do I do now?! I collect my beloved Space Wolves, Orks, Chaos, Inquisition forces and Grey Knights.  But recently as you would have guessed from the pictures, I have been spending rather a decent amount of time on Vampire Counts for Warhammer.  I've just got into fantasy and I am starting to like it more than 40k. The rules are more like 2nd ed 40k!  The pictures include my Coven Throne which took just over a week to do, Vlad von Carstein, an Enigma model called Dark Vlad and some skeletons.  Various techniques have been used on these models and I will like to go through them in due course!

Anyways, I will stop there as I do not wish to bore too much!  So here is the first of my blog!  Yippee!
Cheers
Andy