WH40K – Andrew Waite's World

Dark Angels – Greenwing Rising

I’ve been working on my new Dark Angels force for around six months, whilst theres been plenty of activity on my Flickr feed covering my progress I’ve been slow to write up any of the progress in any meaningful way. This is the first in what should be a series of posts hoping to correct this.

When I started painting the tactical squads I had available it was with one purpose in mine; Force Organisation Chart requires two Troops choices for a legal army, and Tactical Squads are the stalwart of any Space Marine list. After finishing work I’ve come to really like the look of the unit both in pictures and on the tabletop; and after a handful of games I’ve found my mundane core troops to be far more reliable than the more exotic elite options in my force.

After a bit of trial and error I’ve settled on a quick, easy and repeatable method for the Greenwing elements of my force:

Spray basecoat: Caliban Green – GW’ recent release of coloured sprays are a godsend (or Army Painter’s range will come to your aid….)
All over wash with Nuln Oil for shading – You can be more careful and just shade the recesses of the figure, personally I found this overly time consuming for limited improvement in effect. Your mileage may vary depending on how ‘clean’ you want the final miniature to look
Drybrush: Warpstone Glow
Drybrush: Moot Green – If you follow the Dark Vengeance painting guide these steps should be edge highlights with the detail brush. Personally I’ve not got the patience nor steady hand for that method, I like the drybrushed effect and have had favourable feedback for the end result so far.

If you’ve followed the above, without additional detail your mini should look like this:

With the basics out the way, and without further ado, I give you: Dark Angels, 5th Company, Squads 1 & 2:

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Unit (numbered shoulder pads) and company (left knee) insignia are freehand; I’ve not given sergeant, heavy or special weapon figures unit markings to allow flexibility with lists if I need to swap different weaponry in to counter specific threats. Bases have been a quick and effective processes, essentially broken cork board – but I intend to cover the basing scheme for my Dark Angels force separately at another time.

Armoured transports are currently a work in progress, but teaser/progress shots have already leaked – watch this space…..

— Andrew

Necrons – Royal Court

I’ve finally finished HQ for my Necrons, just in time for their next outing at the weekend: 1750pts vs Tau.

Not completely happy with the finish; with the benefit of hindsight I shouldn’t have forced through the end of my Skull White spray can, the finish isn’t as smooth as it should be. Planning to strip and repaint at some point to correct, but for now I need fully painted and based units on the table-top.

Unfortunately not the best quality shots, didn’t have time fully setup my usual lighting rig. I’ll try to get some better shots added to the Flickr set later, for now.

From left to right: Lord with Warscythe, Despair Cryptek, Nemesor Zahndrek, Lord with Warscythe and resurrection orb.

Both lords have the option of a Command Barge, but I’m currently preferring running these as Annihilation Barges

–Andrew

Necrons – Annihilation Barge

Annihilation Barge

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Like the Ark kit, the barge kit can be made into two different nits; the heavy weapon platform Annihilation Barge or Command Barge, both are AV13 skimmers making it fairly difficult to deal with quickly. I like the strength of both units, but am currently favouring the heavy option, especially as it’s only 90pts – bargain.

The twin-linked Tesla Destructor has the potential to dish out some serious hits; S7, assault 4, and as it’s Tesla it triples wound output for any to-hit roll of a 6. If that’s not enough, if it generates at least one hit, the Destructor can ‘arc’ into any unit (friend of foe) with 6″ of the target unit on a 6, causing additional damage to secondary units.

I’ve fielded one A-Barge in battle so far with a respectable return on investment, thanks to birthday gifts my Necron force now fields two for added tesla goodness.

–Andrew

Necrons – Arks of the Covenent

I love the Necron Ark kit, one of GW’s first multi-option kits. That is, until I started building my first Ark, this kit lives up to it’s reputation as one of GW’s trickiest kits.

Ghost Ark

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The Ghost Ark forms the core of a Necron warrior phalanx, providing transport, firepower and even the ability to re-animate fallen warriors. Getting the Ghost Ark into a premium firing position can be tricky as the vehicle’ weapons can only broadside so you risk exposing rear armour to the enemy, but as the Ghost Ark is open-topped it also allows a full unit of warriors (or Crypteks *cheese*) to fire from the platform. The pay-off is if you can position the Ark between multiple enemy units the volume of fire can be withering; in my last game it took out a full SW blood claw and long fang unit in a single turn, not a bad damage output.

Doomsday Ark

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The Doomsday Ark is the heavy weapon variant of the kit, mounting the rather frightening Doomsday cannon; 72″ range, S9, AP1, large blast. Not much can withstand that level of punishment. Unfortunately that statline is only relevant if the Ark remained stationary, if it moved it’s reduced down to 24″, S7, AP4 standard blast; not as devastating, but still no slouch if you need to reposition the Ark for a better tactical position.

I’ve yet to use the Doomsday Ark in a competitive match-up, but I’m looking forward to seeing it make it’s first kills.

–Andrew

Necrons – Stalkers and Hyperspace Hunters

Triarch Stalker

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The Stalker is, in my opinion, a very cool looking model; and thankfully it has some useful abilities on the battle field. I’ve provided mine with the weapon loadout unique to the Stalker, the Heat ray.

Like the Doomsday Cannon, the Heat Ray has two alternate firemodes, providing some great levels of tactical flexibility:

Focused Beam: 24″, S8, AP1, Heavy2, Melta – Perfect for popping heavy armour
Dispersed Beam: Flamer template, S5, AP4 – Perfect for handling infantry hordes

If the heat ray wasn’t enough, the Stalker adds to Necron’s pool of AV13 armour AND if the heat-ray hits an enemy unit, all other Necron units targeting the same enemy unit count their weapons as twin-linked thanks the the Stalker’ target relay ability. Synergy FTW.

Deathmarks

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Deathmarks are essentially snipers, with all the offensive capabilities that the sniper rule brings to the table. Increasing deathmarks’ kill-ability is the Hunters from Hyperspace ability, pick an enemy unit when deathmarks enter the battlefield and they gain bonuses to ability to take out chosen unit even more easily than usual. Filter in deep-strike with the ability to arrive in the opponents turn thanks to Ethereal Interception, and deathmarks can definitely become a thorn in the opponent’s side.

–Andrew

The Necron tomb awakens

To get inspiration for my Word Bearer host I read Anthony Reynolds excellent Word Bearer Omnibus. As the Necrons are the recurring antagonists it sparked my curiosity in the futuristic undead, they became an obvious choice for my next project.

Despite the ease of painting (and my own shortcomings in the area) one thing I want to avoid was a monotone metallic force so went off in inspiration of alternatives. Fortunately the GW site has an article challenging a selection gamers and modellers to design a new scheme for a Necron force in just one day. Dan Harden’s attempt immediately caught my attention due to a distinct lack of metal, serving as a great design base I swapped out Dan’ purple (which I really liked) as I wanted to continue to make use of the translucent green gauss barrels from the warrior set.

Without further ado: Single warrior

Full Unit

And matching scarabs

More of the tomb should awaken shortly…

Introducing the 25th Host

Since about 7 years old I’ve been a table-top gamer, with game of choice being Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000. I’ve not actually played for many years since my weekly club closed (if any fellow alumni from Tudhoe/Spennymoor’ Friday night group are about, say Hi), and anyone who ever played with me will know I was never much of a painter, either in quality or quantity.

For the last couple of years I’ve been trying to change my painting habits, starting by building up a force of WordBearer Chaos Space Marines. Several of the units started life as test cases, so the quality currently varies from unit to unit, but I have started to find a style that works for me. I’m not liable to win any Golden Daemon awards any time soon, but the end result is better than I’ve had in the past, and more than acceptable for gaming with.

So without further ado, I introduce: The 25th Host.

At the core (and several of my practice units) are the Chaos Space Marine units. Several weapon options available, and are providing a core force to keep my Host in-line with most (all?) Force Organisation Charts for gaming

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Jo bought me a Chaos Defiler as a gift (admittedly, asked for) which is one of the reasons I started with Chaos, love the look of the model and hopefully I’ve managed to do some justice to it. On the battle field, I’m hoping it will provide some serious firepower with it’s battle cannon, as well as provide a scary enough target that opponents focus on it, leaving the rest of the Host free to go about their blasphemous deeds.

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Adding to the theme of walking firepower comes in the form of a ~~Dreadnought~~ Hellbrute. Whilst a little extravagant I immediately took a liking to the WordBearer Dread available from Forge World. It took over two weeks to complete the paint job, I’m pleased with the end result, making a good centre piece to the Host, both visually and in the midst of combat.

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For some close combat punch there’s a small unit of Possessed, like the rest of the Host, mostly because I just like the look of the figures.

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And Khorne has provided a boon on the close combat front with a unit of Berzerkers

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For the time being, the Host is without a Dark Apostle (scandalous, I know) with command falling to the illustrious Fabius Bile (mostly caused I’ve loved and owned the figure for years). Ol’ Fabius is actually one of the first figures I started painting, I’m generally happy with the end result but definitely areas I want to improve on when I have time to give him a make over.

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Recent interception by the Astropathic Choir indicate that the 25th Host may be expecting re-enforcements in the near future, thanks to an un-opened Dark Vengeance boxset and a unit of Mutilators thanks to a Christmas gift from Alex. Updates to come….

—

Andrew