New Year, New Army

Well I've decided that to ring in the new year in style I will be starting a new army. I had mentioned Wood Elves earlier but then I started re-reading A Song of Ice and Fire series by George RR Martin and the idea of knights just stuck into my head. Go figure. So I will be trying to build and paint a 2,000 point Bretonnian army this year, all while starting my marriage, trying to get into law school, working, finding a career, moving home, starting law school, starting a new job and trying to keep my head stuck to my shoulders. I'm either bold or mad, or both, we'll find out. Later today I'm going to sit down with a planner and try to work out a schedule on a weekly and monthly basis to try to stick to. I'll post updates as to how I'm sticking with it. Maybe I'll tell Julie and she'll force me to stick to the deadlines because she is great at keeping me on task.
Won't have much hobby time coming up in the next month or so. Finals are next week so I'll be working on those. More importantly though, a week from tomorrow Julie and I will be getting married! We first started talking about all this more than two years ago so it's crazy to sit here and know that it's only 8 days away! I'm nervous about some things but I am just so excited and happy to be marrying the woman I love! Needless to say, with the wedding and then the holidays right after I won't have much time to work on assembling and painting my toy soldiers.

Dwarves v. Chaos v. Chaos

Last night I managed to get a game in against 2 other guys from Hell's Crucible. We only had 3 people though so we decided to fight a three way battle. I'm still trying to get the basics down and advance my skills a bit so this was a stretch for me but it was lots of fun. I had a 4' by 2' rectangle on an 8' board edge and the other two were in the corners opposite me. I tried to spread out the warmachines and quarrelers evenly so that I could slow down both sides and then move my infantry blocks to help out whichever side was going to get hit first. I didn't make notes of their lists or even what specifically happened each turn so I'll just give some of the highlights and then some reflection on what I could have done better. The army to my left ran some Chosen Knights and Warriors with a big block of Marauders. He used Valkia with the Warriors. On his far corner was the Troll King with 6 troll friends but they ignored me for the duration of the game. On my other side were 2 huge blocks of Marauders, a small unit each of Marauder horsemen and Knights and then a unit of Chaos Chosen. His lord was a Daemon Prince that was pretty nasty up until about turn 3.

My early turn shooting didn't do much, I think I took a wound off of the troll king with my bolt thrower and that's about it. By the end of turn 1 I had a DP throwing some nasty spells (his treason of tzeentch got max power and hits both times it was cast) and by the end of about turn 2 my unit of Hammerers was down to 2 plus the Lord on his shieldbearers. After bringing that unit down a good bit the DP killed my bolt thrower crew and then tried to kill the organ gun crew but left one man standing. That same turn my Ironbreakers got flank charged by Chosen Knights and then by Valkia in the front. 5 IBs dead and nobody dead back and I was running for the hills, their short little legs failed them and they were run down by the Knights. Well there went the left flank. He would have overrun into the Organ Gun but he wanted me to gun down the DP, so I obliged the next turn and managed to hit and wound with all 10 shots, of which he only saved 3. Demon prince splatter mark. Next few turns weren't too exciting. In turn 5 my longbeards and thane got a flank charge in on the chaos knights from my right-hand opponent. I did one wound and the knights broke from combat. He rolled a 3 for his flee and I was actually able to run them down! Go longbeards! That turn my lord and his 2 hammerers left charged the chaos chosen from the right-hand opponent and locked them into combat for the remainder of the game. In my final turn I got them below half-strength so at least they took some VP for me. In turn 6 I also managed to line up an organ gun shot between two units right at Valkia. She got the same treatment as the Demon Prince. Both lords fell to the might of the organ gun, I can't get enough of this thing. I also managed to burn down a handful of marauders with the gyrocopter and take them below half strength.

My turn 6 exploits managed to put me into 2nd in VPs for the battle, it's not a win but I'm still quite happy with it. For next time I really need to re-do the runes on the lord's weapon as he really lacks any killing power as I have him set up right now. Organ gun and gyro were wonderful, again. I'm not sure about the cannon and the Bolt Thrower. They both caused some wounds but nothing tremendous, then again it is probably user error here so they will stay in the list. I want to keep the list the same as far as models go right now and just modify who has which runes (though the lord is really the only one who needs it) and maybe give the longbeards great weapons instead of HW and Shield.

Losing my mind?

So this morning I received a package from the WarStore (my plasticrack dealer of choice). Inside this wonderful box was a new battalion of warhammer fantasy troops. Clearly I have lost my mind, these were wood elves! Yes indeed, I am delving into the forest of Athel Loren and starting a Wood Elves army. I love the idea of a smallish army made up of somewhat elite troops with lots of archers and then some trees running around for good measure. This doesn't mean the end of my dwarves though. I am planning on alternating painting for the two armies so that I can end up with two fully painted armies just in time for the new Empire and Orcs and Goblins that are rumored to be in the works for next summer. I was up in the air about what new army I wanted to work on. The skaven have been a personal favorite for me but the sheer numbers of models would be too hard on my budget and my already limited amount of painting time.

For the elves I am going to use an autumnal forest color pallette. In my package this morning I also had 2 Reaper paint triads, one is Autumn Browns and the other is Bloodthirsty Reds. I'm thinking lots of brown (obviously) with some reds, oranges and yellows here and there to break up the monotony a little bit. I am nervous about painting the horses though because I have never had to paint cavalry before.

Some progress

Just finished up 5 Ironbreakers. This includes the entire command for the unit. I'm really happy with how quickly they came together. One day of painting chainmail all over and then another for all the other colors and details. Badab Black wash is fast becoming one of my favorite painting tools. Ever. I really love the sculpts for the IBs, so old school but still awesome, they hold their age much better than some of the other old sculpts. They were a lot of fun to paint and I just can't get over how cool they look. I don't think my wallet or my fiancee would appreciate doing an Undrin Ankor force? Ahwell.

Also started thinking about doing a Wood Elves army today. I know, elves! The idea of a force themed around a forest at the height of fall is so cool though. Lots of brown but with subtle reds, oranges and just a hint of yellows throughout. I don't know much about the elves so I will read up on them but my next purchase might just have to be a WE codex and battalion.

space wolves have arrived

got my codex and one pack today in the mail. hopefully building and painting should keep me busy for a bit. my goal is to not buy anything else for them until i'm finished painting one unit. we'll see how that goes

Longbeards done!!!!

Finished the 24th Longbeard for the unit! The thane that goes with them is still bare metal so he looks a little out of place but they are done! In the long term I'm looking at doing a magnetic movement tray for them but for now I am just happy to be done. Next up on the painting table: Ironbreakers! Then when they're done I think a couple of characters or a war machine!

Space Hulk and some rough 40k

Last night went out to the club and got a few games in. Played Mission 3 of Space Hulk as the terminators. It's such an awesome game, I don't know why they're making it limited edition, I think it would be a really great tool to get people into the hobby. Rambling... Anyhow, I won the game as the Space Marines. I don't remember all the gory details, but I do remember Brother Goriel holding a hallway against about 12 genestealers all by himself to put the final nail in the coffin. Very impressive. After that I got in a game with a rough mechanized SW list against the tyranids. My army wasn't exactly optimized for killing bugs and it showed. By turn 2 I had genestealers running rampant in my backfield and only one squad of GH and a Landspeeder left. I made a dumb mistake and forgot all about one of my GH squads and left them off the board b/c I think I forgot to take their Rhino out of my tank box. I don't know how much help 8 more GH would have been but you never know. I think if they had had a drop pod I could have held them reserve until the end of the game and at least contested my opponent's command post thingy. I think the next time I play them I'm going to put a ring of tanks around lots of GH and then a few packs of Blood Claws to mop up whatever gets through. Hopefully destroying the tanks will pile up the 'nids and make them vulnerable to flamers and the like. Ohwell, every game is a learning experience, especially the losses. I think a learned some new tricks for the next time we show down. The club's starting a Planetary Empires campaign that I'll be playing the wolves in. Should be interesting to see how that goes.

More Dwarves

Painted 3 more Longbeards today (with the exception of their washes). I also decided to change up their paint scheme a little bit. I had the shields in Dark Angels Green with DA green accents on their armor and then a few different colors of green for the tunics that they're wearing under their armor. I changed it to be DA green trim on the armor and Orchide shade foundation paint on their tunics and shields, which will also include mechrite red in some form or another. This particular unit has the red and green quartered but different units will have different patterns. I was initially worried that the red would be too bright as I'm going for a darker, earthier color pallete but I really like the way it came out, it makes the shield pop a little bit more which helps break up some of the monotony of the model as a whole.

The joys of rank and file

Got 5 Longbeards about 90% finished today. I don't have my washes with me so when I get them I'll be able to finish out the 5. That brings the unit up to 15 painted out of 25. This will be the first unit in the army that's fully painted, and shamefully, my first fully painted unit since I started playing. Gaming next weekend at Hell's Crucible if I don't have to work. I have a core army list that I am trying to get the right balance as far as runes go so I will keep tweaking that. I'm still learning the tactics and some of the trickier rules but I feel that every game I play I learn more and more and have more success the next time I play.

Saw some more Space Wolf rumors yesterday, as much as I am trying to avoid them I couldn't resist. I want to have a "pure" experience with them when I first get my hands on the codex so I'm trying not to spoil that by reading rumors.

I have 1 squad of "veteran" grey hunters (Sternguard models wolfed up) and a rune priest painted in the scheme I will be using for my whole army. I also have about 2 full squads of Grey Hunters painted in an old, terrible color scheme that I am trying to decide if I should strip the paint and salvage them or just wait until the new models come out and have a complete force of the new ones. Maybe a mix of the two? We shall see.

Will try to get some photos of the longbeards in all their glory once I can put some washes on the 10 in the unit that do not have them.

Intro

Well, I've been in the hobby for about 9 years now but have just settled down with 2 armies: Dwarves in fantasy and Space wolves in 40k. Hence the title, both love beards and beer. I plan on updating this with my forays into learning how to play both systems and my trials on both the battlefield and the painting table.