Painting Challenge work.

About a week ago I accepted a challenge over at B&C to paint an addition to my army. It had to be at least one complete unit but had no maximum limit. Of course, there is a deadline and if you fail that deadline a banner will be placed in your signature telling everyone that you have failed. On the other hand, if you succeed then you get a different banner proclaiming your triumph. I vowed to complete a Chaplain in Terminator Armor and two Drop Pods.

The Chaplain took me about...two and a half hours total from unpackaging him to painting and basing him though I could have gotten it done a half-hour earlier had I used a quicker drying glue on his base. The Drop Pods are taking longer. First I had to assemble them (which I have done, though it was not the most enjoyable part) and then I had to prime them for painting. I do not like painting an entire figure Black, it just gets tedious; would I have attempted an entire Drop Pod then I might have gone mad, you never know. Instead I purchased some Black Spray Paint for a buck and used that. I am still working on that part since I need to allow the paint 24 hours to completely dry before adding more than the second coat or else it will wrinkle.

So once they dry I will begin painting them with the other colors. I need White on various parts, I need to get the highlighting done, I need to paint the wires and buttons and what-not, and it should take me only about 3 hours of work.

Remember, the Deadline for the Painting Challenge is August 21st, I need to get painting!

Heros of Helsreach, a quick review.

Greetings.

Over the past four days or so I have purchased and devoured the Black Library novel: Helsreach. I thouroughly enjoyed it (though there were a few parts that I didn't like and one habit of the author's style that should have been fixed) and recommend it completely to anyone who is a fan of the Black Templars.

The action didn't get repetetive, the characters were believable (well, as believable as towering Astartes could be), it was discriptive, a very good read. I especially liked Grimaldus's first speech.

That is all.

Vassal

For any who don't know: Vassal is a program that allows you to simulate a game of 40k. It uses sprites instead of Minis and has all kinds of neat-o things like a system to calculate hits and wounds, a dice-roller, and so on. While it does not replace actual games it does allow, if you are like me and don't have a built army yet, to get some practice games with lists that you have made.

I have already been enlightened to a couple of things, such as how a list I'm currently trying to improve plays and how I like it as well as a few things that needed to be fixed on another of my lists.

I might get a Battle-Report in sometime, we'll see. But that's all for now.

Oops, I almost forgot. Since I talk about how cool Vassal is, I might as well provide a link to where you can learn more/install it.

http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2011/01/21/40k-abuse-getting-started-with-vassal-a-how-to/

Uphold the Honor of the Emperor.

Okay, I was just looking at one of the Primer articles on YTTH and noticed in the recent comments that Stelek had posted something about Black Templar. Being a fanatic, I went to check it out.

He had made a list that used Lascannon/Heavy Bolter Predators with PotMS to fire each of the guns at their preferred targets. I had thought of that before but not too closely and didn’t try out a list that utilized them because of the price they come by. But what was interesting about it was that he had chosen ‘Uphold the Honor of the Emperor’.

Now, I normally despise that Vow. At the cost of cover saves you get a measly 6+ Invulnerable save. If you want a cheap Vow then Abhor the Witch is just 10 more points. But he made a comment about it. “Why Uphold? Meh, they wanna fire [censored] missiles at your Marines, go nuts. The vehicle swarm thanks you…” -Stelek

At first I was kind of curious about why he specified missiles, then it hit me. We gain cover saves only against weapons that are AP3 or better. Which is limited to (in our arsenal) Lascannons, Melta, Plasma, and Krak Missiles. Plasma excepted sometimes, those are all weapons that would be doing much more good aimed at vehicles. He had 6 Razorbacks, 3 Predators, 3 Land Speeders, and a Dreadnought. So you won’t have trouble not being able to take cover saves (if you do, then you are already going to lose and a few saves won’t win the game…probably). In fact, you don’t even have to worry about placing them in cover at all, which means you can get positions which afford greater vantage points or more protection against enemy melee units.

Uphold the Honor has a use and a place that it did not have before. Would Abhor be a better option? The only way he could get Abhor would be to decrease his Anti-Vehicle fire, which he is kind of light on since he has Heavy Bolters on all of his Razorbacks and his Land Speeders aren’t Typhoons. But that’s all I have for now.

I return, and two realizations.

I’m back.

I had an amazing time this year and I even had a night off each week (Woo-Hoo!). We only had two days that we changed the schedule due to the heat (rather than the 5-7 from previous years) and not a single negative comment from any of the scouts or scout leaders in their reviews. Not a single one! A phenomenal success.

But now back to more important things. :)

Alright, I apologize for waiting so long to post but I got out of the habit during Scout Camp and it took a while to get back into it. I finally began to return to the swing of things yesterday when I went to B&C to check a personal message I had received. The message directed me to a thread I had commented on a few times and from there I got busy. But it made me realize something:

No matter how much you love a hobby, no matter how much work you have put into it, no matter how set it is in your routine, there are always chances to go do something else that will pull you away. But if someone asks you about something, or asks for help or simply tries to discuss the particular subject, then you will continue with it. Community does wonders.

But now to the meat of this post. It has to do with an article recently done by Nikephoros. He was talking about Offense vs Defense and how it affected his Metric system. His focus was primarily about how Defense and Durability is limited primarily by points, whereas Offense or Destructive ability is limited more greatly by the Force Organization Chart.

But what I found most interesting was the illustration he used with MSU. Using the Max Bodies approach, you could have 4 Crusader Squads of 8 Initiates and 2 Neophytes with Frag Grenades and a Power Weapon in a Rhino for 904 points. Or you could take 6 Crusader Squads of 5 Initiates with Frag Grenades and a Power Weapon in a Rhino for 918 points. But the second choice is not less survivable, they have 2 fewer Initiates and no Neophytes but you do have 2 more Rhinos in addition to the extra Power Weapons. So you gain 2 Power Weapons, but lose a minor amount of survivability.

I know this may sound obvious to you, but to me this is an amazing thing…humor me, I’m easily entertained.

Sometime next week I’ll post a list that I’m trying to work on. It is an important list so I’m putting a lot of effort into it. Until then, have fun!