Salute 2013 Part 1 - Anvil Industries

This past weekend saw Salute 2013 go off at the Excel Centre in lovely London. It was my third time at the event and the most fun I've had there to date. Part of that is probably due to amount of toys I came home with, the first of which I'm showcasing here.

The floor was fairly dominated by retailers this year and there was a fair amount for sale to fans of 28mm gaming. The first thing that really caught my eye was the Anvil Industries stand. I have, in the past, enjoyed the Horus Heresy novels and it has been fun seeing Forge World come out with models to match. I really like the more baroque styles of armour and weapons they have been putting out. Their prices though are something else. Now, I'm not saying Anvil are making their own version of FW's stuff. But it is extremely 'compatible'. That is, it shares enough similarities that, I reckon, you could use Anvil's 'Exo Lords' in your 40k or 30k games, but with some different twists.

 

It was the Black Ops squad that first attracted me. They look like knights in space (notice I didn't say 'space marines' there?) but with a Halo accent. Extra ammo pouches, more streamlined weapons, but still like dark ages suits of armour with power packs. Perfect, I decided for bulking out my Blood Angels Vanguard Veterans in time for some Apocalypse games this summer.

The only hangup was realising the Black Ops packs only come with rifles - not close combat weapons. Luckily you can buy most of Anvil's range 'a la carte' - mix and match legs, torsos etc. to get the look you want.

Now, get ready for really the cool part - the complete set of five miniatures cost me £14.50. For all five. I then bought some 'Silver Wing' jet packs from Max Mini at £6, meaning I now have a full assault squad in cool armour for twenty quid. A similar sized set up from FW would run to £33. I added some chainswords and purity seals from my bits box to get some extra Blood Angels flavour, but this is still a massive saving.

 

The guys running the Anvil stand were also really friendly and helpful. Every part I chose they showed me several different styles they had for sale and I felt like I was really getting the models I wanted, rather than the ones they were trying to sell me.

 

There are options for 40k players then - at least if you play marines or, maybe, guard. Not so much Eldar or Tau and it would be nice to see a few more companies in the market with alternate parts for those races. Maybe the Chapterhouse/GW legal tussle is keeping companies out of that arena for now, although recent depositions and testimonies would suggest GW doesn't really have a leg to stand on when it come to some of their copyright claims.

So, now I've told you all about the alternatives to expensive Forge World resin, my next post will be about the Eldar Lynx I bought :)

Tabletop Nation 'Eastern Edge II' Tournament

Thanks to deciding to skip Black Library's Weekender (more on how money-grabbing and unfriendly BL have been in a later post) I was able to instead go to the Eastern Edge II tournament at Tabletop Nation today.

This was a one day, 1200 points, 40k tourney. The aim was for four games to be played, hence the low points limit. It turns out however that there is some kind of hard limit of points in 40k, whereby any points cost over said limit does not really reduce playing time. Thus, even with small armies, we still only managed three games each in the time allotted.

Lets get the good news out of the way first - I came second :) I got a nice little voucher to spend in the store and a certificate to add to the trophy shelf (there isn't really a trophy shelf, I just put it on a bookshelf for now). I was actually genuinely surprised to do so well. I had thought I was in with a good chance at best painted army, to be honest. But still, a prize is a prize :)

There was a fairly good selection of armies at play. Alongside three Blood Angels armies were Orks, Daemons, Space Wolves, and Necrons. Daemons placed first with three wins out of three while the Orks came in just behind me.

A brief summary of my list and three games then.

I took a Librarian with psychic powers from the BRB, going with Prescience every time and a random TK power too that never got used. I had a Furioso with Frag Cannon and two Sanguinary Priests as Elites. Two tactical squads for troops, one with a las-cannon, one with a plasma cannon, and, finally, two Stormravens, each with plasma cannons and Typhoons, one with sponsons.

Top: difficult to budge Tactical Squad and Bottom: fleeing Grey Hunters!

First game was against Space Wolves. It was Kill Points. My opponent had Grey Hunters in Rhinos and Long Fangs with rockets and Long Fangs with plasma, which might have been problematic had we not got a) deployment at the short edges, and b) night-fighting on the first turn. So his Long Fangs were neutered on turn one, and unable to hit my flyers on turn two ( a combo of templates-can't-hit-flyers and poor dice rolling there ). My flyers and long range shooters, by contrast, were able to take out two Rhinos and suppress the third. We did end up with a couple of combats but, surprisingly, his GH packs, even when, on one occasion, being backed up by charging Thunderwolf cavalry, could not shift my tactical squads. I even got one squad to run away! Cut to Turn 5 then, and my Furioso dismounts and frags a Long Fang squad to death. The two Stormravens nuke another couple of Rhinos for more easy kill points and its a win for the boys in red.

Second game was the saddest of all things - red on red violence. My opponent this time also had Blood Angels but in a list I wish I had had. For one thing he took and Aegis. At 1200 points I didn't think anyone would want to fit that into a list, but then he also had five man assault squads taking las-preds with 35-point discounts so it all fit. Two Librarians too, one on a bike, also spelled doom for my boys, with both of them taking Divination powers to make their shooting infallible. We were playing the Relic and I combat-squadded my troops to have a better chance of grabbing the relic. But it was not to be - giving his quad-gun Ignores Cover and his assault bikes rerolls to hit made short work of my army. A Stormraven was predicatably cut to pieces by the quad on arrival and it all went downhill from there really.

Third game was a bit more fun. Fun for me, that is, because it generally went all my way. I had chosen to take BA's over my usual favourite for competitive play, Space Wolves, because the last tournament winner at TTN had taken 'Cron Air. Five flyers had apparently made easy work out all comers so I wanted some built-in Skyfire. Today's 'cron player only had one flyer though, and no other competent anti-air. Playing Big Guns Never Tire, with five objectives on the table, I started claiming two, one of which, in ruins already, improved my cover save by one. One of his was sabotaged so he had to shift off it pretty sharpish. My Stormravens were able to polish off one of his Heavy Support tank-things (sorry, I really can't remember all the silly names GW gives their toys) for First Blood and a bonus victory point. And, for me at least, it was all uphill from there. The 'crons just couldn't stand up to marine shooting or the Stormravens - Power of the Machine Spirit is the only thing GW failed to nerf on these machines. I even hit the 'cron flyer with my las-cannon in the last turn causing it to fly off the board and onto the post-game kill points column. A good win.

Salamanders vs. Space Wolves. Not everyone brought Space Marines though, honest.

Just time for a couple of quick observations and thoughts on the armies I saw and played today then.

As I suspected, the Stormraven does now largely suck as a transport for anything without jump packs. In 5th you could roll halfway across the table and then charge out of its belly to assault your enemy. In 6th you can only do this if it moves 6" or less. It excels as a gunship though. The rules for flyers work really well for the Stormraven - it has so many guns, plus PotMS, and can put out massive amounts of firepower, lots of which can be twin-linked. Lots of talk has been made of melta being redundant as noone takes Armour 14 any more. the necrons have great access to Arm 13 though and, sometimes, I wish I had had las-cannons on the flyers. But even without them, the SR has loads of rockets built in, the option for more, is hard to hit when flying and can Evade, is easier to hit when hovering but can Jink. Its got everything you want from something with 'Gunship' in its name.

The Aegis line with quad-gun is just great. I highly expect to be buying one soon for use at 1750 and above. There is no reason not to take one and, particularly if you twin-link it with a psyker, has the power to ruin an enemy's day and list.

Assault marines and more Predators are pretty nifty too. They make a staple of 5th, one which is still very valid in 6th, very cost-effective. Thinking about the great value they are and how deadly my las-Pred Space Wolves are makes me drool a little.

Finally 'crons. I was not super-impressed by these guys. The units that came into range of my tactical marines were really easy to kill. Even the big hard ones with shields went down to plasma bursts and a Frag Cannon  quite quickly. The Deathmarks were probably the scariest, hitting marines very reliably and with some silly rule that allowed them to wound me on twos. But ten marines in cover, with a Priest, turn out to be very hard to shoot to death. In return they obliterated the 'marks in two turns of shooting. The flyer was a bit more worrying, largely because it is very manouverable. It also has that silly beam-down ability which could be a problem if it is filled with the right unit. I think it managed, over three turns, to take out a Stormraven, and nearly did some major damage to a tactical squad before being las-cannoned off the board. Again, Aegis line....

Overall then, a good day out. For what was billed as a 'casual' tourney, some players played remarkably aggressively and not everyone took losing in, shall we say, and 'admirable' fashion. Some were out the door as soon as the last dice settled when they had lost a game, i.e. they didn't think they could 'win' the tournament so there was no point in sticking around. But most people had a fun few games, drank a lot of coffee and rolled a lot of dice. Many many plastic men gave up their lives, often repeatedly, for our pleasure and enjoyment, and that, after all, is what its all about.

Good old fashioned Blood Angel Terminators (with NMM)

I had a great day at Wayland Games/Tabletop Nation today, including a sweet game of 40k where my Eldar/Corsairs tabled a bunch of Grey Knights :) More on that tomorrow (I think). For today, here's some Blood Angel Terminators I painted a while back.

 Having painted nearly thirty Space Wolf Termies before this lot, it was kind of a relief to build and paint models with pretty much the same armour and equipment. Paint for the armour is the usual recipe of Mechrite Red, Blood Red layer, Blazing Orange and Vomit Brown highlights and Graveyard Earth shade.

 The Storm Shield has a very basic Codex Grey base. I forgot what I used for shades and highlights. I believe the cracked effects are just lines of Codex Grey/Chaos Black mix, with a very fine highlight of skull white (maybe a very light grey?) to give that 3D effect.

The 'nid skull is a spare from a genestealer sprue. Its a happy coincidence that the few 'nids I have painted have been that colour as it matches the colours on the termies really well. Almost as if I planned it...

 Side view - so you can see the Forge World shoulder pads. The sculpt quality is pretty good. You can keep the ribbons and parchment as far as I am concerned, but the winged blood drops are really sharply cast - very easy to paint up with a striking contrast between the recesses and raised points. I don't think the Blood Angels pack is nearly as good as the Space Wolves one - it would have been nice to see a proper conversion kit, rather than just an upgrade style pack. But they are still a nice way to mark out your BA terminators out as different than the plain boxed ones.

 So here I wanted to show the blend I did for the NMM effect on the Thunder Hammer. There's something about taking pictures with my phone when the light is really strong though, hence that bar effect you can see. I suspect its just that the light is too strong for my camera, but hopefully you get the idea. For a steel effect, I often start with a base of Hawk Turquoise/Bleached Bone. I then blend up to Space Wolves Grey, then through to White. I blend down to Regal Blue.

Getting this NMM effect is, in my opinion, easier on smaller pieces, like these blades or Dreadnought claws, than on big pieces of armour. Thats because you only have to worry about light coming from one direction. Often my NMM blends can actually look really crumby until the very last step - the edge highlight and notching. I often do this with my lightest blend of the base but you can do it with straight white paint too. Basically, you overbrush the edges (every one!) so you get a fine edge highlight and then add a few diagonal streaks. Depending on how you do it, you can get either the effect of the blade being pitted from striking hard objects of seeming to shine with reflected light.

You don't have to do a NMM blend to get this effect either. Even if you use the old Boltgun Metal/Badab Black wash, followed by a drybrush with Chainmail technique, you can add a degree of verisimilitude to your blade by adding these notches/streaks. The trick is getting the lines thing enough to look natural and then knowing when to stop :)

PLEASE do feel free to ask any questions. I know you are reading this :) If you have any questions about any of the stuff I have painted or written about, leave a comment. Unless you're going to be rude, of course. In which case, move on - this isn't the place for you :)

Back from Holiday - Here's Something I Made Earlier

Ok then, I'm back from a week overseas in the sun. I got to read the entire Sigmar Omnibus (Graham McNeil is the God-King of fantasy) as well as the Dragonlance Legends Trilogy. Dragonlance is an under-rated, perhaps even unheard of franchise these days, but the story of Raistlin's quest for Godhood and Caramon's quest for, well, his self, is a great one.

Anyway - I've managed to get in my second game of 40k since I got back, but no painting, so here's some stuff I painted a while back.

 This fella started life as a Black Reach dreadnought. He's had a few paint jobs, all poor, before I decided what I really needed for my Blood Angels was another, fourth, dread. He's painted with my usual BA recipe of Blood Red over Mechrite Red, with Blazing Orange line and Vomit Brown edge highlights, and a shade of Graveyard Earth in the recesses.

 In case you're not familiar with it, the Frag Cannon is awesomeness incarnate (at least, it was in 5th). You get two rending template hits worth of bang for your buck and this guy  has been something of a unit-assassin for me in the past. Flying around on a Stormraven, he likes to jump off, blast a 'safe' unit in a building, maybe assault them if they haven't all been minced by the cannon, then jump back on the 'raven and do it all over again.

 As I said, the body is the Black Reach dread. But I had enough spares in my bitz box to give him a BA fist.

 At this point, with a few thousand points of BA's in the box, I'm running out of synonyms for rage. This dread got good old 'Anger' on his scrolling. And, to be honest, I couldn't be bothered to think of something clever/paint that small for his glacis nameplate so he's just got some random squiggles there. Dont' tell anyone.

 Another nice view of the Frag Cannon. I'm also quite pleased with how the decals came out on this model too. The yellow is perhaps a tad overbright for the dark red plates, but this emblem, the skull on the shin guard, and the numeral on the other shoulder all look natural and painted.

 One of the things I love about the latest BA codex is the versatility of the army list. You can have a jump pack army, a flyer army, a dreadnought army, and a fast tank army. This one is unique to BA's too - the Baal Predator. Once again though, you can see my slight shortage of enthusiasm for names in the lack of a title for the nameplate. I've only used it once in a fight though, so I guess eventually I'll be inspired to name it.

 As well as being fast and having Scout, the Baal can be equipped with lost of flamers. A Flamestorm on the turret and heavy flamers in the sponsons. Great for clearing buildings - a possibly increasingly likely target in the new edition of 40k.

 I used Forge World's Black Soot weathering powder around the vents and exhausts for a nice little effect. The barrels were washed with increasingly dark washes of browns.

 The yellow decal on the turret didn't bed down quite as well as I would have liked - you can still see the edging on the drops in the right light. Unusually, repeated treatments with Micro-sol didn't help any either :(

 The decals on the front came out a little better though. The extra weathering the received might have helped, being a mix of weathering powder and sponged on Mechrite Red.

So thats a couple of my BA vehicles. Tomorrow (probably) - Terminators!

Review: 'Fear to Tread' by James Swallow

Another great positive from going to GW events is the chance to pick up pre-release copies of Black Library titles. The period of the pre-release varies and, most of the time, I'm happy enough to wait until the titles are on Amazon, thus being able to afford almost twice as many books.

But I'm fairly addicted to the Horus Heresy series, particularly when a title features a chapter I collect and play with. So 'Fear to Tread' was a must-buy for me.

I finished it this afternoon and I can happily say its quite good. Not amazing, but a decent read overall.

For my money, Graham McNeill and Dan Abnett are the kings of the Heresy titles. Noone else seems to elevate their style and standard of writing quite so effortlessly when tackling the grand themes and great icons of the 30th millenium. But James Swallow comes close.

'Fear to Tread' is a Blood Angels novel as much as a HH title. It deals with a central theme of the army's codex and history - the Red Thirst/Black Rage, also sometimes known as 'the flaw'. A couple of brief flashbacks provide the setting - Horus is aware of the flaw, while few Blood Angels other than Sanguinius's inner circle are, and uses this knowledge to set a trap for the Angel and his sons. Part of this trap involves exposing the genetic weakness in the bloodiest of marines and using to destroy the chapter, or the Primarch, or perhaps both. Also lots of daemons. Gunplay ensues.

This is probably the maddest title in the series so far too. Glimpses of the real horror of the warp have been seen in 'Fulgrim' and 'The Mirror Crack'd', but 'Fear to Tread' leaves the reader in no doubt - allying with the warp is not just an alternate lifestyle choice for disaffected Astartes, its a deal with devils, with the emphasis on 'evil'. There's some pretty gruesome stuff in this book.

Sorry if this is a spoiler (it really shouldn't be), but Sanguinius at least does survive the trap set for him. But not without he and his chapter making some hard choices and some major sacrifices. While possibly beginning to answer one of the big questions that hangs over the Heresy series (clue: how does Nikaea tally with what we know of the 40k universe?), the end of 'Fear to Tread' leaves the reader desperate to know what happens next.

Some parts of the book did seem to drag a little bit - notably some of the exposition feels a little stilted and forced. But the action is well written and generally well paced.  There are a few incidental characters who don't seem to serve any real purpose, but then this occurs in quite a few HH books. Maybe the reasons for these characters inclusion will become clearer in future titles.

For fans of the Blood Angels then, this book is required reading. An unparallelled insight into the Primarch and the roots of the chapter we know and love today.

Its possibly less essential for general followers of the Heresy. I don't think there's much there that is truly pivotal in how the war turns out, although its quite revealing as to how Horus and Sanguinius feel about each other and does set the scene for that battle barge showdown nicely.

Next up on the pre-release pile: 'Path of the Outcast' by Gav Thorpe :)

Slightly more traditional Blood Angels list

I have made a habit of playing some frankly ridiculously small Blood Angels armies. Using Dante's ability to make Sanguinary Guard into Troops, I've fielded two squads of them, two Stormraven's, two Furioso librarians, and five Death Company with a Dreadnought.

As well as providing a tactical challenge (to both players), this has largely been an excuse not to have to paint a lot of miniatures. More recently I have pushed that tactical challenge even further, replacing Dante with a Terminator Librarian, along with assault termies in a Land Raider. That means 0 scoring units - I can only win by tabling the opponent (although I tend to take draws as a win too!).

I even went so far as to tell a friend I would not buy any more Blood Angels, particularly not Tactical Squads. My reasoning there was to keep my army lists themed around what I see as the flavour of the codex - fast moving squads with lots of deep striking and jumping around the board. Tactical flexibility over tactical marines, if you will.

But one should almost never say never. This week I have ordered two tactical squads and a couple of special models in order to field the following list:

HQ
Librarian

Elites
Furioso Dreadnought with melta and frag cannon

Furioso Dreadnought Librarian

2 Sanguinary Priests

Troops

6x Death Company with Boltguns, one of whom is Lemartes

Death Company Dreadnought with Blood Talons

Tactical Squad with flamer and plasma cannon, sergeant has a powerfist

Tactical Squad with a plasma gun and a las cannon, sergeant with chainsword and pistol

Heavy Support

Two Stormravens, each with las cannons, multi-meltas and hurricane sponsons, plus extra armour.

This list is based on one that appeared in White Dwarf last March. The thrust of it is a two-pronged killing machine assault with the Death Company in one 'raven and a tactical squad and dread in the other. The Death Company are more or less guaranteed to clear any infantry unit in the game off an objective, leaving it to be held by the tactical squad.

In addition to the Dwarf list I have two Priests to give Furious Charge and Feel No Pain to my marines (and possibly the dreadnoughts too). I have taken Lemartes because a)I have the model and it looks cool, and b)he has cool rules and makes those raving loonies he's with even more insane in combat.

Similarly I have the Librarian dread in the list because a)I have two of them and they both look cool, and b) they are dreadnoughts with 20ft long force weapons! (On a more rational note, the Blood Angels have access to some great psychic powers and the only thing better than one powerful psyker is two!)

Another strength of this list is the amount of firepower it can put down in a turn. Angelus boltguns are great and all, but I have looked on in envy as my fellow Marine players have have used their two or even three tactical squads to gun down vastly superior numbers. With this list I have lots of strength 4 shots, plus lots of really nasty close combat power. The dreaded ork hordes may not be a problem any more!

Actually trying to take and hold objectives with two full sized squads is going to take some getting used to though and don't get me started on combat squads - the potential to take on four objectives all at the same time? Unheard of!

I started repainting an old dread as a Furioso last night and the other new models are on the way. Should be able to start playing them next week :)

Its better wet

I know I started this blog as a Space Wolves diary, but... I couldn't resist the temptation any longer and started a Blood Angels army at Christmas.

The major turning point for collecting Blood Angels, or Space Pimps as I usually refer to them, was the Stormraven. Yeah, I know lots of people hate it and its not exactly fashionable to speak in its favour, but I really like it. A Space Marines vehicle should be bulky, it should be severe, and it shouldn't be all sleek and curvy. Leave that sort of thing to the xeno's! We're using 10,000yr old designs here, from a time when man could barely get out of orbit, let alone look good doing it!

So I put Space Pimps on my Christmas list and was given a box of Sanguinary Guard and the Sanguinor. To that I've added another squad of SG, Dante, 2 librarian dreads, 5 Death Company, and a DC dread, the last two units being carried in a Stormraven. Its a compact list and is designed to table you rather than go for objectives.



It's turned out to be quite good at doing that, wiping out 1500 points of Eldar and a more traditional BA list recently. I have enough high strength weapons, especially if I give both libby's lance, to pop a lot of tanks, and there's not a lot that likes getting assaulted by SG, rabid Death Company, or, shudder, the irresistable force of a DC dread with blood talons. That thing has happily chewed through Dire Avengers, Sanguinary Guard, and Astorath the Grim (isn't he supposed to be in charge of rounding up these guys after the battle?)

When it came to painting the dreads I noticed the GW showcase one has had its force weapon done in NMM. I decided to try to emulate this using a homemade wet palette for the first time. I know you can buy these off the shelf so I'm glad I found this video first. They are really cheap and easy to make - you just need a plastic box (I used a takeaway curry container), some kitchen towel, and some parchment paper. I paid about £4 for 50 sheets of the paper on ebay and each sheet gets cut down to make two palettes.

A wet palette does two things for you: it keeps your paint longer and it helps you make lots of mixes, great for blending or layering. It does this by creating a reservoir of water beneath the paper that slowly gets absorbed on the top surface. Your paint, which would quickly dry out on a dry palette as its water evaporated, instead absorbs this fresh water so it stays wet for longer. I have some paint on my palette now I put there two days ago and its still perfectly good. Mixes stay wet longer too, meaning you can mix up your gradients of colours before you apply them and go back to them to retouch layers you need to fix. No longer do you need to go try to remix a colour to match a layer you've already laid down - the original mix stays fresh on your palette for ages (depending on how much you made in the first place of course).



So I now have two nicely blended force weapons to show off :) They're not 'eavy metal standard of course, but they're still pretty sweet.

The next big blending project will be doing the second squad of Sanguinary Guard in NMM. I had a dry run at it on my Sanguinor and it looks, well, ok. Not great, not awful, but ok. The biggest hiccup in the project was washing on thin layers of dark flesh as shadows around the highlights I had already painted on. I wasn't convinced it was the right colour to use and as a result put it on too thick or thoo thin. So parts of my Sanguinor look a bit, well, wooden. And of course I couldn't go back to reapply the layers I had obscured because I was using a dry palette and the shades had all dried up and I didn't have the energy to remix them. I'm hoping using the wet palette, plus having a little more experience of NMM will make my next attempts a little more convincing and natural looking.