Squaduary Week 4- Deathwatch Veterans complete!

Today marks the end of Squaduary, the month long painting challenge to get a squad completely painted in February. 

The event was run by Rory over at Stepping Between Games, and was a great way to get my Deathwatch Veterans complete and to see the hobby progress that other bloggers and gamers were making too!

Birthday Bash Bound!

Tonight after work, I will be heading over to Southport in preparation for Birthday Bash 2.0. 

The Deathwatch are all ready to purge the Xenos at the event, and it looks to be a lot of fun. If you are heading to the event yourself, be sure to come over and say hello. Always great to meet some fellow bloggers or 40k addicts! 

Squaduary Week 3- Painting complete

This week I have finished the third week of Squaduary, completing the painting on my Deathwatch Veterans. 

Squaduary is a month-long Hobby challenge to get a squad painted up over the month. The event is being run by Rory at Stepping Between Games. 

This week, real life has got in the way, so I only got the painting finished yesterday evening. I am quite happy with how the squad has turned out. There were a few errors In noticed when taking the photos, so will try and correct them this week. 

Monster March!- Path of an Outcast Hobby Challenge

Today, I wanted to highlight another awesome hobby challenge that I will be taking part in next month- Monster March!

I had a lot of fun taking part in Squaduary (run by Rory over at Stepping Between Games), painting up my Veterans squad and seeing all the other hobby content by the many participants. 

Monster March is a hobby challenge to get a monster model painted up over March. The event is being run by Swordmaster over at Path of an Outcast. These monthly challenges are a great way to dust off your unpainted pile collection and show some love to a model that has been waiting a while to get painted. 

I decided to sign up with my Terrorgheist for my Vampire Counts army. This model was purchased back in March 2015, so has been two years with only being assembled! With my plans to get back into Age of Sigmar, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to finally finish it. 

So, head over to Swordmaster's introduction post and sign up if you are interested in taking part. It doesn't have to be limited to Age of Sigmar. There are various different game systems you could pledge a model for, even the 40k universe has a range of great monsters that could take part. 

Please be sure to check out all the Monster March posts next month. These events are great for building the blogging community and finding and following new blogs. Also, be sure to check out and follow Path of an Outcast. This is a brilliant blog that focuses on Kings of War, with some great battle reports, and Swordmaster has recently started posting some fantastic hobby posts. 

Better Know a Blogger: Part 31- Quietly Raging

This week's Better Know a Blogger features Dave (@nerodine) from Quietly Raging. 

Dave's blog is primarily a hobby blog, showcasing his amazing painting skills across a large number of gaming systems, many of which I have never heard of.

His most recent series has been painting a large number of characters and models for Colony 87. These are some amazing and characterful models, and Dave has made a great job of them.

You will find a whole range of interesting and unusual models on display on the blog, including those for 40k and Bloodbowl. Be sure to check out the blog and waste many an hour poring over the great work on display!

Here are Dave's answers to my questions:

1. What age did you get into gaming and what started it off?

I was 12, and it was White Dwarf 103. A friend handed it to me toward the end of school term and the Rhinos just blew me away, and that's the moment I realised I needed 40k in my life. A copy of Rogue Trader quickly followed (I still own it too), and that fired all the synapses in my brain at the same time and I was hooked from that point onward. Fast forward a brisk(!) 29 years and here we are.

Hobby Sunday 19/02/17- Cityfight Ruins

This week, I decided to make a change and do some work on some Cityfight ruins that I had lying around. 

I've been busy for the past few months getting my Deathwatch painted up and trying to finish up my unit for Squaduary most recently. I though I would take a look at some neglected terrain that has been sitting for ages. 

I have had these pieces built and undercoated black for a long time now. I recently purchased some grey primer from GW, so got to work undercoating them with grey to save me having to paint the entire surface. I then gave them a quick highlight with white. This is my standard technique for painting ruins. They could be used in a game as is, but I will go back and pick out some details in them.

Fracture of Biel-Tan Review: Part 5- Formations and Forces of Ulthwe

Welcome to the final part of my Fracture of Biel-Tan Review. This section will look at the new formations that are available in the book.

Ynnari Formations
Triumvirate of Ynnead
This consists of Yvraine, the Visarch and the Yncrne.

The special rules for this formation include Heralds of Rebirth. This makes any non-vehicle unit within 12" of two members of the Triumvirate are Fearless. In addition, if all three members of the Triumvirate are on the table, all friendly Ynnari models are Fearless. This is a pretty potent special rule. Generally, you will have Yvraine and the Visarch together to benefit from their special rules, as the Ycarne generates a 12" Fearless bubble anyway. Making all your Ynnari models Fearless when all models are on the table is also a very powerful bonus, giving you a big incentive to keep them alive for longer.

In addition, if all three models are on the battlefield, you get to add 1 to the special Ynnead rolls that the three new special characters get. This means that Yvraine and the Visarch re-gain a wound on a 3+, or the Ycarne on a 2+ when an Aeldari model is killed within 7" of them. This gives them a very good chance of regaining wounds if your units are getting killed.

This formation is great if you are planning to take all three models, providing them and the army with some very nice bonuses.

Fracture of Biel-Tan Review: Part 4- Forces of the Ynnari

Welcome to part 4 of my review of the new Fracture of Biel-Tan supplement. This section will look at the new fraction to join the 40k universe- the Ynnari. 

This army features a combined force of Eldar, Dark Eldar and Harlequin units to combine into an Aeldari super-force to use on the table. 

Warlord Traits

As is common with many of the 40k supplements recently released, the Ynnari get a new Warlords trait table to roll on if they choose. 

Lord of Rebirth- The warlord gets It Will Not Die. Useful for keeping your warlord alive for longer. Added to the wound recovery methods that the new Ynnari special characters get, this could boost their durability even further, helping to keep them alive for longer. 

Warden of the Forgotten Wisdom- If your warlord is a psyker, you get to choose your psychic powers rather than rolling for them. This is amazing. Given how powerful the Eldar and Harlequinn psychic powers are, as well as the powers in the various other shared disciplines, removing the random nature of the roll and getting to choose the best powers for the situation is brilliant. Do Eldar have access to Telepathy? If so, you now have Invisibility. This would work really well on a level 3 Farseer, allowing you to choose the best 3 powers from the various disciplines at will. 

Walker of the Many Paths- Each turn, your warlord gains a special rule of your choice from Furious Charge, Hit and Run and Move Through Cover. This is pretty awesome too. Hit and Run is an amazing special rule, so getting it guaranteed on your Warlord's unit is going to be very effective in the game. 

Battle Report 96- 1500 pts Deathwatch vs Crimson Fists

This week's battle report sees my Deathwatch take on Maurice's Crimson Fists army at the Newcastle Warlords gaming club. 

Maurice was recently getting back into 40k, so we decided to play the Relic Eternal War mission. 

My army consisted of:

Combined Arms Detachment

Watch Captain Artemis (with VV)

5 Veterans- 4 Frag Cannons, Storm Shield (V1)

Drop Pod (DP1)

5 Veterans- Meltagun, 3 Combi-meltas, Auspex (V2)

Drop Pod (DP2)

5 Veterans- 5 Stalker Pattern Bolters (V3)

5 Veterans- 5 Deathwatch Shotguns, Storm Shield (V4)

Rhino (R)

4 Bikers- Power Weapons, Meltabombs (B1)

4 Bikers- Power Weapons, Meltabombs (B2)

4 Vanguard Veterans- 2 Heavy Thunder Hammers, 2 Pairs of Lightning Claws (VV)

Corvus Blackstar- Inferno Halo Launcher (CB)

This list was based on revision to my tournament list that I had recently made to my Deathwatch army. My warlord trait was set with Artemis, giving me an extra change to the Mission Tactics.

Fracture of Biel-Tan Review: Part 3- The Yncarne, Avatar of Ynnead

The third part of my review of the new Fracture of Biel-Tan book covers the Yncarne, the Avatar of Ynnead. 

The Yncarne

The Yncarne is a pretty potent monstrous creature to add to an army of the Ynnead. He is a potent combat character, a powerful psyker and provides some nice buffs to any army that he is a part of. 

First off, The Yncarne has a pretty impressive statline. For combat ability, he is WS9, S6, initiative 10 with 6 attacks. His Relic sword, the Sword of Souls is AP2 with Fleshbane, Armourbane and Soul Blaze. This makes him a pretty potent force in combat. He will be generally be striking before most models/units in the game, hitting on a 3+ and wounding on a 2+ with no armour saves allowed. He will even be able to take on vehicles fairly reliably thanks to Armourbane. As a result, he will have no problem taking on most combat threats with ease, with only good invulnerable saves or feel no pain saves providing him with any trouble. He also gets Fleet, giving you a better chance of getting into combat with your charges.