Knight WIP Update: Red goes faster

I still need to learn how to apply decals and add some bits to the roof, but he looks much more painted compared to the last silver only state. =D

Grime 'em up!

With my Knight looking way too shiny in just base colours, I decided to try my hand at coating a model with a gloss coat in preparation for shade, the idea being to then wipe the shade off all of the raised areas.

The result isn't great, but isn't horrible either. My guess is that I should have left the gloss coat dry more than the 4 hours I gave it. Noted for the next time.

Magnetising monster bases

I use plastic boxes with sheet metal to move my models, I superglued disc magnets under the bigger bases. That works most of the time, but with bigger bases they do come loose depending on how they are removed from the metal sheet. I figure it's the sheering force that the superglue cannot do much against, so I looked into getting some side-ways support going.

I've tested this now on some flight-bases and I am happy with the the result, so here is what I did. Using the hobby saw, I scored a grove into 2mm thick plasticard stock and marked off sections with a marker.

Using a milk can perforator from the super-market as a center punch and a hobby vise as support, I drilled pilot holes and then 6mm holes for the 6x2mm disc magnets I wanted to use for this model. With rough stuff like this, I have no qualms about using the little power tool, the holes end up bless wobbly than with a hand drill and the little toy's RPM is low enough to avoid thermal problems.

Next, I used clippers to weaken the line between the sections and then broke them apart. I also clipped off a corner of each section.

Using plastic cement, I stuck a section into each corner and clamped them with the paper-clips. A quarter hour later, I superglued the magnets in place.

This should hold nicely. ;-]

Two drakes done!

After what felt about three times as many hours as it actually took to do the blacklining, The two replacements for my first drake are finally done.

Shown here following my second fire-drake, banking left as they all do. I gotta collect my first heldrake for a shot of the four of them, but the three will have to do for now.

Heldrake reinforcements

Last year I did my first heldrake in blue and silver, then my second in red, orange, yellow and black. For an Apocalypse game I made another one of these.

Then I had a request for a Tzeench drake - ergo blue with gold trim. The deal I offered was two kits for one painted drake. So I painted a few shades of gold over the silver trim of my blue and sliver drake. Here is a picture that I took before handing that model off to its new owner.

For quite a while, the two new drakes sat in their boxes unopened, but I've recently been clipping, demolding and partially assembling them. Now that my airbrush is back in play, I hit them with primer and will fire them up now. Here a WIP picture.

Since the flame effect takes multiple steps, it is a time saver to do all parts for each step and helps with consistency. That being said, it's time for the red coat to go on and orange and yellow are already itching in their Vallejo dropper bottles. Black for the lines isn't as enthusiastic, but I'm sure with the right TV show running that too will pass! =]

PS: Several hours later, the flame effect is done, the black metal is painted. Chest and eye glow to go, as well as the black lines. I didn't paint the whole time, maybe 5-6 hours ;-]

Edit: Progressing through the edge-lining.

Imperial Knight WIP 2

I had not touched the knight for a while. As my Defiler conversion showed, I kinda like big robots, but chaos being denied knight allies against the fluff is a bitter pill to swallow.

Regardless, I took my new tool, a Noga demolding scraper and went for the kit.

Like with othe kits, I wanted to keep some things flexible and use magnets. My weapon choice is the melta, I didnt bother with making the magazines exchangable. I did however put magnets in the shoulders, elbows,  head, neckplate, stubber, shield, weapon barrels and of course the hips.

I extensively used plasticard to beef up the thickness of parts for mounting magnets. You can see all the white bits in the picture below. I will eventually glue the two remaining arm/weapon joints and their pistons. The armour plates will be glued on strategically after painting.

Iyanden update

Since I learn faster than I can finish an army, I decided to just finish the models to a common standard and give them a common look to tie them together. I got all models based and painted up the rangers and reavers. Also, I finally removed the hairbands holding the upper shell on the serpents. I didn't quite want to glue it, but poster tac came to the rescue. Holds really solid when squezzed between the parts. ;-]

Poppy fields

I picked up some plastic poppies from the model train store today. Boy are those petals small! After some fiddling with tweezers and puddles of plastic cement, they were assembled.

To get a - hopefully - good bond with the base, I punched holes into them with my trusty milk can puncturer and glued the stems in there.

I'll let the result settle in a bit and look at it in daylight tomorrow. At most I'll add a bit more green or more poppies to each base. My aim isn't a happy field like on the packs in the back, but individual flowers showing life and hope in the otherwise dead and barren base. 

Considering that the models are yellow, blue and white, using poppies with their green and red on the grey rubble bases seems a good idea. Also, the poppy as the flower of wartime rembrance is fitting for the Iyanden wraith-warhost being a shadow of the craftworld's former glory.

Imperial Knight WIP

My Imperial Knight kit isn't fully built or painted yet while other players have got theirs all done.

My hope was that the Codex would allow for Knighs allied with Chaos.  Considering that fluffwise that exists it wasn't really too far out. Maybe GW will sell us a supplement, a Chaos Knight Codex or Forgeworld will add experimental rules to a Chaos conversion kit. Who knows...

So, in lieu of any clear direction, I'll build the base Knight and tinker with magnets as usual, but refrain from finishing up with faction specific stuff. I might just go for a nice mechanicum or freeblade look if news are too long coming, buy we'll see.

I used a different point for the hip joint than I saw in the WD and online since I didn't like a fragile,  wobbly or deteriorating connection between the dome on the hips and the torso. So I put a magnet pair between hips and that dome.
To do that I had to put a piece of plasticard in the dome to hold the magnet. I cut a circle with scissors from 2mm thick plasticard and drilled a small hole in the center. Then I mounted the disc in my Dremel using the cutting disc shank and screw. In a lathe like fashion I then sanded the disc round and to the exact dimensions needed. I used two 6mm×6mm rod magnets for this.

Battle reports - lose some, win some!

When I started playing Iyanden, I had a series of wins and posted some battle reports. After that, RL intervened and my leisure time allotment shrank a bit. My Iyanden list got quite some play and I still got some painting and modelling done, but I didn't go for elaborate battle reports.

Obviously, the series of victories was unlikely to continue - and it didn't. I still won some games decisively and some by points - but on the flip side there were defeats. I did not document each game fully, but I'll just highlight some losses here.

 I lost to 186 or so HPs of Ork boys with my list reduced in points to match the lower point limit. That cost me one serpent. Facing a number of 30 boy mobs each with a power weapon as threat in it. While I was able to slaughter the orks with gay abbandon , there were simply too many of them for the amount of individual shots I could offer. Having to kite the orc mob also meant that I couldn't use my wraithguard effectively. I lost the game by points with the game ending early. I might have won with another turn or two, but clearly there were too many wounds marching over the table. 

I got stomped by chaos deamons. Twice. The first time a combination of various deamon flavours smashed my forces - in cases of the serpents and FMCs quite literally - while my wraithknight fell to a plague bearers special sword via instant death and my farseer got swapped for a herald by the warp storm table. The second round was even worse. Four squads of rosa horrors with heralds, guide and banners unleashing 20D6 S6 24" shots to start with. Add in fire deamons, two FMCs, the grimoire of true names and the portal glyph producing a 4-5 horror squad behind a building. In addition, the deamon player was rolling awesome and lucky, while I had FAIL on tap. =] 

Luck and bad luck respectively nonwithstanding, I clearly couldn't deal damage effectively to the deamons. Outgunned and faced by a load of invulnerable saves making my AP irrelevant, my space pansies were even more doomed than they are supposed to be. Oh, and the warp creatures had their invul saves improved the first two rounds... Khaine wept. 

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Recently, I fought a Forgeworld Army for the first time. In this case, an armored company. We got the kill points mission and diagonal deployment, I had initiative. I deployed on the line to the nomands land, eager to get my wraithguard in range. Imperial high command deployed conservatively behind an Aegis defense line. To begin with, I faced three Hydras, an Executioner, two Leeman Russ's and one Atlas. I'll use the following pictures to illustrate what these can do. ;-]

The following picture shows the end of turn 1. I moved forward, shot at the Hydras - did either no damage, hit the Aegis or had the damage done nullified by the Atlas and the two techpriests, which get to repair hull points on 5+ and may do that twice and reroll fails within 6" of the Atlas. Awesome!

On the flip side, the Hydras have a special rule (not ignore cover, specific to them in the IA book) which prevents me from using my jink save on my Serpents. They have only skyfire, but that USR does count skimmers as valid targets for full ballistic skill. Ouch.

Also, the HQ and Commissar Leeman Russ tanks were sporting Beast Hunter shells. Those are S8 AP2(?) small blasts, but they have instant death against anything with hit points. Since a part of my wraith knight was visible through the building, it was a valid target, got hit, wounded and failed it's cover/invul 5+ save. Dead. OUCH!

Here is the end of turn 2. My second wraith knight arrives via deep strike, but is displaced a perfect 12" away from the enemy lines. My Serpents are mostly scattered across the landscape and my wraithguard are foot slogging but of course not sized for that. Imperial reinforcements arrive and mow down my footies.

Blessed by my farseer with a 4++, the second wraithknight is lucky a number of times. The beast hunter shells either scatter, fail to wound or I make the saves.

With only a few wraithguard and a wraithknight left alive, I finally get to carry the battle to the enemy.

Who deftly manouvers to avoid me jumping his HQ tank and places other vehicles in my assault path.

Even thoug I got spanked big time in this game, it was fun to see the guard be awesome instead of an also died in a Space Marine story. ;-]

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A few weeks later I got my rematch. Same army lists, same deployment and initiative for me again - by chance. I kept both wraithknights in reserve this time. Imperial HQ got a warlord trait that allowed granting outflank to a unit, which was given to the commissar Leeman Russ. Punisher, two Chimeras and the flyer stayed in reserve.

My first turn consisted of advancing my serpents by 30", thanks to 12" normal movement and 18" turbo-boost. Imperial forces killed one of the Serpents, but the rest survived thanks to luck and the serpent shield.

The following picture shows the table after the movement phase of my second player turn. I got lucky with both wraithknights showing up and not scattering too badly.

And here we see the table after my shooting phase. With multiple wraith knight units being in range, some tanks - including the HQ tank - got destroyed. Funny enough, the bunch shooting at the executioner missed all but one shot.

This pretty harsh alpha strike pretty much called the game in my favour in combination with all of the heavy Imperial reserve rolls failing and only the Chimeras comming in. This allowed me to dish out some more before the flyer and the commissar tank arrived. The commissar insta-killed a wraith knight, but got nuked in return.


Taking a step back, it is quite obvious that moving forward agressively and actually using all the wraithguard from turn two onwards was the way to go. Nobody can plan for dice, but with 30" movement in turn 1, 6" movement of the serpent in turn 2 and 12" weapon range, clearly it is possible to reach quite far indeed, even if some range is lost due to the serpent exit point and shape in combination with the up to 6" disembarcation move.

TL;DR: won some, lost some, had fun! =]