Strike Forces, Character Changes, and Collecting

My name is Adeptgamer, and I have a model buying problem.

Miniature wargaming is a hobby that is so hot right now everyone's credit cards, bank cards, wallets, purses, hand bags, back packs, hell even ATM cards are burning. The companies that produce miniature for everything from 15mm World War 2 to grim dark sci fi are making better and better models with great offers to entice you. It can be a little overwhelming. We all have to find a way to cope. Some do this through focusing on one company, one collection, one faction/nation, a budget, or other strategy. Other do this through making arbitrary, but valuable, rules that monitor their purchasing such as painting a kit before getting a new one or selling old models to buy new. These are all admirable and I think it's great. We each have to find out path.

I love collecting and I love painting and I love battling. I have models made by King and Country that are fifty dollars a piece, 54mm tall, professionally painted and excellent to display. I have Gundam models (Gunpla) that I've built myself and fidgeted with panel lining and mild weathering. I've got scale models I've painted from a mediocre standard to my best ability. Also I have something between 110 and 140 painted Ultramarine models which is my favorite grim dark army.

Not mine, I wish, but not mine. 

I want to expand my collections always though. There are new armies to collect, new forces to display, new models that would be cool. I lack the financial or chronological means to do this but rather than see it as a depressing loss I choose to see the ample bosom of hobby potential as a candy store full of delicious yumminess. I have only a dollar, and that means I can't buy the big candy bars and have to settle for the nickel candy. This is fine, it's still delicious and still fun.

One of the strange occurrences related to this is sometimes I collect more of a kind of model than is needed like Space Marine Captains. I have three of them for my Third Company; the first captain I used was from the Assault on Black Reach starter box an excellent model with a kick ass back banner. Then he evolved into a captain from the kit that fought with a lightning claw and combi-metla, super metal! BUT NOW, now he has evolved into the Captain in Gravis Armor for the Dark Imperium starter set; a fierce looking model  with rippling cape and holding his power sword aloft valiantly! All of these models are the same captain, Artemis, and as I get new models he evolves and the old captain moves into retirement. This lets me get cool new models to replace cool already owned models but have some form of inner chronology and procession.

Of course I also started painting a Fourth Company so no judgement please.

This discourse has led me to what I have kind of started seeing as a sweet spot for my personal collecting with 40K, the fifty point limit. I like having a variety of model because I'm a hobbyist but it's a problem to go "I collect Necrons now!" because often this leads you to be mentally investing your finances more than you may really want to or frankly should. So instead I'm going to limit collecting of a faction to no more than 50 power points, or in other games a rough equivalent of points. Lets go back to the Necron example. I recently obtained the Forge Bane box set of Necrons and that has given me a good starting point of a Cryptek, a unit of Immortals, a unit of Lychguard, and a unit of Wraiths. Also I've got a unit of Warriors in the stash and together this gives me a nice 32 power of a collection. I've got room in point for another unit or two and really I've already got that kind of planned bringing the total to 49. This will give me a nice playable collection, nothing for large battles, but good for afternoon fights. This way I can have a nice collection, get to play with them, and control my spending.

So finally we get to the first entry of the title: STRIKE FORCE ARTEMIS or the current 50 power incarnation of my boys in blue. I like playing games with some efficiency and many of my local players lack the ability to take what I would call "timely turns". It is not an uncommon thing in the hobby. Some people just like to take their time on their turn and that is fine. I feel the appropriate format for this though is smaller games. I've decided to put some multiples of games into a specific strike force to concrete the rules a little in my head. It will consist of the following:

Captain Artemis (Mark X Gravis armored bad ass Primaris Marine)
Chaplain Mordrus (Primaris Chaplain)
Squad Poladris (five model Intercessor squad)
Squad Apollon (five model Intercessor squad)
Squad Castian (ten model Tactical Squad with Rhino transport packing a missile launcher and flamer)
Squad Tarentus (five model assault squad)
Caelum Venandi (stormtalon gunship)

I feel this is a solid two pronged force with a secure infantry body in the captain being backed up by two squads of Intercessors and Mordrus while the strike section of a tactical squad in rhino backed by an assault squad takes objectives. The air support can go tank hunting, troop hunting, or back up either group in a single turn. As this is a battalion I'll have 8 command points to play with which for a 50 power level game is respectable I think. Obviously there are weaknesses but those are found in any strike force and you just have to do your best to reduce their impact right?

And finally, while not meeting my weekly desire I am going to hope to continue to fight for it. Photography right now is difficult for me to complete so some posts will have to do with filler images until I can get the chance to use my feeble camera.

Inquisitor 28 and 40k Skirmish

I have not really gotten to play much Kill Team which is a shame because it's good "invocation" of the Warhammer 40,000 larger game. I'm excited for what the development of Kill Team means for bodes very well for the upcoming Apocalypse rules set.

Anyway Inquisitor was an excellent 54mm table top rpg war game that didn't succeed well enough to find it's way into plastics but it left a taste in gamer's mouths. That was the taste of independence and creativity that can be used by everyone and not the vaunted few. I'm working on producing some pieces for narrative Inquisitor style Kill Team games, and if you're okay with it, i'd like to share :)

This is Gygrax the Eater a possessed Primaris Ultramarine that wields a daemon weapon. It was made from a single post Primaris Intercessor with bits from the Possessed kit, Beast Claw Raiders, and various spines from the Flesh Eater Courts. I think he turned out pretty solid with enough chaosiness to make it clear what he is but the residual blue and gold of the Second Company to see his origins.

These are a couple of Agents, the original elite veteran Astra Militarum and one of my favorite models. Not modified at all I just want to show off the paint work which is meant to be very non-committal. I could use them as Inquisitor agents, Administratum agents, bounty hunters, etc.

I've got some Primaris i'm working on that were never placed with a chapter and instead act like knights errant, also a converted Saurus warrior as an alien mercenary, and a possessed chaos sorcerer.

I hope you enjoyed my post and I hope maybe it inspired you a bit as well. :)

It smells funny in here.

I do my best to limit my model collecting to a reasonable level of purchase. I fail, you fail, we all fail but I give it my best. I am trying this thing where I have one Xenos army, one Heretic army, and one Imperial army for Warhammer 40,000. Guess how that is working out? I will say that mostly in the Heretic/Traitor area i'm fairly focused with a growing collection papa Nurgle's Death Guard. It started with the acquisition of the Dark Imperium starter and has grown with the contents of another such box, some easy to build haulers, and recently a start collecting Nurgle.

Here are some low quality, badly taken photographs for you to squint at!

This is the collection as it stands with plenty of nice disease filled selection of plague marines and pox walkers with a nice collection of daemon engines to back them up; hellbrute, fetid bloat drone, and myphitic blighthauler. As command structure we have a nice lord of contagion, a friendly malignant plaguecaster, a quiet noxious blight bringer, and a chubby daemon prince.

I took others but frankly they are so bad no reason to bore you with them. I have more to paint and I am using a pretty simple system so they should come together quickly enough. I'll practice my photo taking and maybe I can do better next time :)

I played a 700 battle versus Tyranids and they beat me soundly. We played points, but we used open play cards, then he didn't think it would be fair for me to summon daemons, THEN it was double objective twist, THEN there was no way in hell I could score either of them. LOL! I did few casualties, lost most of mine, and ultimately looked the fool. I still had fun though and got some of a read on how to play this army.

GASP!

Almost three years since last I posted on this blog. A lot has happened. A lot of bad unhappy things. This blog isn't about bad unhappy things though so I won't be sharing those things. I will be sharing other things, many of them sooner, some of them later. I have been playing a lot of Dungeons & Dragons, hell i'm swamped in it and it has spurned a lot of nice miniature painting. Also I as very pleased to see the re-release of Titanicus, a game I missed out on before but am not this time. I'm looking forward to posting again, and I hope it has some effect in improving my writing again.

Anyway that is boring, look at pretty stuff!

Shadow Keepers...shhhh.

I obtained some Custodes kits and it was evident to me that the Shadow Keepers was the faction within that was right for me. It's not a large number of models but if you are a matched play person it can calculate up to 1,750 points. I know it's kind of odd for Trajan Valoris to lead them and honestly I want to get another box of the Guardians to make a different general. But I'm not complaining, they have been fun to play.

Some kit bashing resulting in a sweet looking daemon prince, or daemon, or something. I used it for an rpg scenario and the stupid players killed it in one round. Smh.

Little tanks! 15mm tanks, one of my favorite kinds of models. I am interested in large armor battles and there is no better way to do it.

Tyranids collecting. Something I always wanted to do and finally started doing it. Hive fleet Ripley has been growing slowly and is sadly not based as I'm not sure what I want to do yet. More are under way including more monsters and some lictors!

Scale modeling. I dabble in all of it and I never really know what's going to lock me into it's thrall and require me to finish it.

I hope this preview has been pleasant, and I hope you are happy at my return. My goal is to post something weekly at the least, preferably finished models or projects under way, or even cool rpg maps I've made.

And because it's been so long; May your dice always roll in your favor!

Death Guard Progress

So in an effort to keep my blog alive, filling it with imagery and witty pose (don't laugh...wait maybe you should i'm supposed to be witty) I thought it would be appropriate to post a progress entry.

If you didn't know I'm climbing into Horus Heresy collecting and probably gaming but i'm not rushing into it. I got a Betrayl at Calth box from Origins this year and in looking into what it provides this turns out to be about 1,300 points of army. After strongly considering building the thirteenth legion, Ultramarines (of course), I realized I really needed to challenge myself a bit so instead I went with the fourteenth legion, the Death Guard, and I would be the bad guys!

In an very unusual move for me I've decided to paint each model individually, meaning one at a time, trying to do my best within a reasonable time period. Effectively i'll be working towards making this collection the finest I an make it in my present skill level.

If i'm honest I also like the idea of space marines battling space marines. It seems to me like that will allow for some very interesting war game opportunities where the tactics of your game are a little more important than they are right now in 40k. A lot of the current game is about army special rules, which is in Horus Heresy a little, but not as much.

That aside this is a finish model, the first, with my planned basing...

...for basing I am testing out this Martian Ironearth with some patches of dead grass. I usually either go for classic green or brown dry brushed sand. I'm still experimenting with the techinal paint, it's not as flaky as I expected and I don't know if that is good or bad. I like the way it's looking through but any feedback you might have will be appreciated!

Out of the Dungeon

So I have been deep in the dungeon of life, hacking away at work, slaying problems, and looting the treasure hordes of my...I don't know this has kind of run out of steam.

I don't blog much anymore because frankly I find difficulty in both motivation and time. I am still working within my chosen hobby though and have been working hard to help with organizing my community into something great and that is going along pretty solid.

I don't write as much now, I feel very defeated there and that makes it hard to try to write.

All that said I've been getting quite a lot of modeling and painting done as well as some really good gaming. Allow me, if you will, to share some pictures with you :)

I've begun slowly working my way into collecting Horus Heresy after obtaining a Betrayal at Calth box set. Originally I was going to go deep into my favorite Ultramarines (or the XIII Legion)  but ultimately decided to challenge myself with a Legion that had white armor and went with the Death Guard. This is the first model I completed and I'm over all pretty happy with him. I am targeting finishing a 10 man tactical squad as a first goal.

My Necrons have climbed back out of storage. I had shoved them aside after selling off choice pieces out of need and began my collecting again starting with some battle against the invading Grey Knights. This is an action scene from that fight and if you ask me it looks like that Purifiers squad is about to get sliced and diced. 

My army for the year, Astra Militarum, is continuing to grow. This is most of the Militarum Tempestus platoon in it along with a couple of Commissars. 

Also I had a chance to play an "all in" game with my brother. He has a considerably large Ork collection and I brought out my entire Ultramarine army (with accompanying Hellhammer) to face them. It was an open fight, no points calculated, and we used everything we had painted. My entire force was able to deploy at the start of the game but his was not. There was no definitive winner except the both of us who thoroughly enjoyed the game.

More to come soon hopefully. I am trying to take more photos of the games and models I do and try to get back into the hang of blogging. Hopefully this is a good re-start :)

Tanks Everywhere!

So in the months since my last post, okay well 40 days since my last post, I have been busy in many ways that are great and many that aren't so great.

As a blog about modeling and painting it is always hard for me to post when I don't have something to show you. I regularly finish models but I rarely take photographs because i'm so busy and usually don't have the time to take good photographs. But today I do have a couple to share.

If you are a 40K player you may be getting tied into the Tank Shock events that GW has promoted. Their first organized play event is pretty...minimal...on their part. You'd think that such a massive company would have some excellent OP support but really it's just some tokens, buttons, and certificates. They are nice and the over all event structure is cool but it's not as good as say Wizkids STAW support, which is very good.

Anyway we have 15 people signed up for the Tank Shock stuff but only about 10 actively participate. The first event was held at the end May, the next at the end of June, and so far i've only been able to get one tank for it. Ironic I know, but life is what life is. Here is my sweet Leman Russ Vanquisher...

...this is actually the first and only Leman Russ model I have ever assembled and painted. I have always felt kind of odd that the LR's haven't been part of my inventory in the past and I have to say it is a fine model that I have enjoyed playing.

There were a lot of really nice models there but I feel a need to share this man's on my blog...

...he has been modeling for decades and I hope one day I can reach this level of awesomeness!


Also I attended Origins again, like always, and had a good time and got some great stuff although I did try to keep my control a bit. I ended up getting into Sails of Glory but am unsure on that. Also picked up the new TANKS game from Galeforce 9, which is like tanker's version of x-wing.

This is Origins...this is what you are missing.