Thousand Son's Bikes/Raptors/Chosen multi-functional unit!

Its taking me a long long time but I've finally managed to finish off a unit of chaps that I converted up quite a few years ago!

Recently I added some alternative heads and replaced the normal looking chainswords with tombking/Egyptian looking weapons.

So the "boys"

Close up, of the old school heads, 

 and the new shiny versions,

 So when I had the vision for these chaps I was thinking bikes, but then I changed to raptors, and now with the "rumours" that you'll have chosen with jump packs then I might shift there purpose again,

The real bonus is that I get to field them how I like and they are universal models that basically look cool! 

The only thing that I'm not too happy about is how the boots look on the discs, I could be going into OCD mode though? what you think??

For those people interested the heads, weapons and the shoulder pad in the last full pic is from a company call kromlech Ebay shop well worth a look, the crispness of the cast and the detail is lovely.

So any feedback/comments are welcome,

Play testing Battlegroup Commander

So quite a while back a chap call Nick turned up at the club wanting to find players to test a rules set that he'd spent years writing, and a couple of us decided to give it a crack!

Since playing KGN Nick has hashed his own rules with those of KGN and we played the first game last night.

So lots of shiny Brits & Russians

The usual Nascar starting line up, 

Lovely view from the Hind that I nicknamed the Black Ivan part through the game!

 lots of ground to cover,

 so after the first turn, not a great deal moved due to rolling low on the action chit's and I pull a fair few of Nicks out so could trade 3 of the NATO chits for a USSR action. Unlike KGN Normandy you can assign as many action chits to any model but the only restriction is a max of two movement actions, and of course the ammo your burning through, This little rule would come into its own later in the game,

 One of my T-72's spots a juicy centurion hull down in the distance, Nick's been quite sneaky with spotting and your able to use both visual (good for spotting infantry) and electronic (good for spotting armour) your disadvantage is that you have a smaller angle for the electronic acquisition compared to the visual.

 Another T-72 spots some spartans de-busing there infantry and manages to get a tricky shot off and pop the transport, Rather than taking a moral chit for each destroyed unit, you decrease your action chit pool by how many that unit contributes in this case it would be one, If I'd popped his commander it would have been 5!

So whilst the transport is burning the hind opens up with two of the rocket pods and kills 3 guys, I could have fired more of the pods to give me a better chance to hit but they are one shot per game, alternatively I could have suppressed the unit which I only thought about after the game!

So end of turn two, Nick's rolls were pretty poor and the 3 T-72's on my left flank were giving him quite a bit of trouble!

A BMP2 ploughs into a small wood and opens up with its auto cannon on a deploy anti-tank crew,

T-55 & BMP2 cresting the hill and spotting a target rich enviorment!

First kill for the T-72's, towards the end of the game they cleared Nick's flank thanks to a triple shot from one of the 72's and popping every thing it spotted & hit!! Field promotion to marksman!

But Nick did manage to get an airstike on the board, the air stikes work very differently and you call them in like arty, this little tank was about to get an education in air power!

But the Hind was also teaching the NATO boys a thing or two about AT-8's and all that jazz!

I forgot to take any picks after that point as I was getting quiet into the game, Nick did mange to start popping off some of my bits and bobs but was too little too late,

As a initial play test, it went very well just some terminology that needs tweaking and then we can really start trying to break the system!

Nick's also managed to secure a demo table in a couple of months so between myself, Coops & Nick we've a massive game of KGN to plan, bearing in mind that the quality of tables that Nick produces are....

First Look - Warhammer 40K 6th Ed

Well its been out a month or so now so I figured I better get a game in and throw some dice around...

I was up against Stef and his kinda painted marines (chapter name escapes me) but the bits he has got painted are superb!

So 6th Ed, if your an old fart like me you'll have seen 40K grow from 2nd Ed to its present day version and oh hows its been an interesting ride with various changes along the way.

I'll start with is it better than 5th? Simple answer Hell yes! and these are some of the reasons why....

Allies - At last you can use that "new project" that you've had kick around for ages and field it next to your main force (terms and conditions apply)

Better Missions - kill points are kinda gone, but the secondary missions are a lovely twist, I'm liking them alot!

Far better psyker rules - ok so its not going to be as good as dark millennium but the previous few versions for psykers were pants at least this way you get a lot more choice, blatantly lifted from warhammer but I like it, Finally my thousand sons sorcerer can do something useful with his spells apart from turning people into gibbering loonies!

Pre-measure - At bloody last!! its the 41st Millennium not the dark ages! you can navigate across the Galaxy but not know the range of your weapons!

Random charge distance - counter balances the pre-measure superbly, I'm sure all the hardcore torney players will be spitting feathers but I'm not a torney play so actually like it, I rolled mental last night and one unit managed a 10" charge!! Only downside is that if you don't roll high enough you stand still. Maybe the lowest number on the two dice is your movement.

Page 6 of the book has a woman playing a game! about bloody time they realised that women game too....

Shooting just got funky! - Snap shots, focused fire, overwatch fire and focused fire lovely stuff!!

Cover saves - the difference is much better only a small change but that's enough!

Challenges - Nice and fluffy, and if you've a independent with a unit champion, challenge with your unit champion and let your independent clear up the rest of the enemy unit ;)

Universal Special rules - ye gods! they've changed only when having a second look today at various rules did I discover that furious charge doesn't give you +1 int anymore! sorry Stef!! theres a lot to take in from this section so worth spending some time to suss out what your stuff can now do!

Bikes are suddenly very tasty! - ignore difficult terrain, +1 toughness, hammer of wrath, jink & relentless = ding dong!

Jump units - again they've had a boost with the hammer of wrath, and a re-roll for the assault phase but you only can use your pack once per turn, so 12" move or re-roll assault and hammer of wrath not both.

Flying monstrous creatures - enough said!!

Melee weapons now have an AP value, kinda makes sense its now worth using termis without the stormshield spam.

Hull points on vehicles - another no brainier, and finally vehicle squadrons won't blow up there own tanks etc if its immobilised they carry on and it sits there waiting for the AA to turn up.

de-bussing from your transport - bit of a double edged sword, you deploy 6" and shoot or run but no assault, makes assault or open topped transports worth there weight in gold now!

Flyers - Only been on the receiving end of them and my 4 missile launcher havoc squad is now my "mastercard" unit. I'm waiting on the chaos codex before splashing out on a hell blade though.

Terrain  - its got some funky stuff like the fantasy rules, and you can buy a bastion!

So onto the game...

The set up, landraider with kharn and his boys, the slannesh choosen waiting to be infiltrated, and the plague marines making ready to hold the right flank, with the noise marines and havocs centre stage,  

The havoc's with a cracking field of fire!

And the noise marines ready for some walking....

Kharn and the boys ready for there big day out!

So first turn the choosen jumped into the terrain that Stef's techamrine had reinforced, much to his dismay ;) the land raider chugged forward and tried to hide behind a building!

The landraider was immobilised my the vindicator and forced kharn and the boys to walk!

A couple of turns later the choosen & berzerkers had reached stef's line and partied hard! The plague marines decided that the big forgeworld dreadnought was fair game and the noise marines and the havoc's made plenty of noise but didn't do any massive damage due to the scouts save in cover with night fight!

The mayhem in stef's deployment zone! bikers came on and help clear the area and the techmarine & kharn ended up killing each other, kharn with his 7 str 7 ap2 attacks teh tech marine with his powerfist!

So there was bugger all left at the end! 

The game itself was quite brutal and the crazy mofo delivery system worked quite nicely, All I need to do is convert a khorne landraider and the jobs a good un! but with the rumours that I've been reading about the new chaos landraider can hold a few more models so I'm tempted to wait and see what they bring out kit wise, if not I'll look at a stormraven or spartan assault tank.

As we rolled night fighting that gave the scouts a 2+ cover save which in the end I bypassed them and played with the razorback instead,

The only negative point for the game was the constant referring to the rule book for various situations, sargents in a unit taking a wound and we didn't do wound allocation correctly so I'm going to have to start remembering that!

Overall yea its a good version, but it'll really start to shine once I start using fliers and defences.

KGN / BGK 20mm Germans nearly Finished!!!

Well this has to be a first with the 20mm Russians last week and a finial effort with the 20mm Germans this week I've finished another army!

So the Pak 40's well hidden with foliage... 

 Got these from Grubby tanks back in April at salute, SS crew as they only had long coat winter crew, 

and the final piece... the Tiger that I reviewed a while back, I've done the basic paint job and gonna get one of the local chaps to have a play with his air brush on it, and depending how well it comes out I'll pick up another 2 for Kursk and splash the cash for my own setup.

Modern Russains done and dusted... (maybe!)

So after cranking out all the armour I decided it was time to finish off the support functions for the infantry,

So the bits that I got from S&S

A couple of AT4 teams, nicely detailed models dead easy to paint and hopefully are going to be a pain in the ass for Nick & Coops ;)

 The traditional mortar, the likely hood of this ever being fielded is "slim" but its for one of those "humm" lets try try games. 

 and a couple of SAM teams, I only wanted one, but with a bit of a mispack and one email later it was sorted so well done Shaun for his ability to get it sorted, I've had harder times trying to explain stuff to the "special" people at work!

Now the joint on the at ease chap is very clever and went together with out the usual cursing that you get when trying to glue metal to metal on small models, 

Finally I've got the Hind done, the kit was lovely to stick together and the size of the model is huge! but the paint job isn't my finest and if I was to do another I'd either collar Coops for his airbrush or buy a pre-painted job and the job is a good un!

So is that the Russians finished?? Well not quite I've a couple of Trucks that I need to bang together to use as supply resources and these models are the worst things I've ever come across I might just bit the bullet and look for something else, and the other kit I've still got kicking about is a BMP BREM recovery, but again I'll see if S&S have something like this in the pipe line as there other bits are top notch!

So onto the "Pledge"

With a week to go before a very wet July disappears the scores on the doors are as follows,

Bought  18
Painted 40!

Difference 22

I've not included the tank riders for the BMP's as the difference still would be 22 and there part of the model, but with the thousand son's bits that I did the other week I'm working on some Emperors children bits that I've been promising myself that I'd finish so assuming that I don't get too distracted I'll get those done hopefully,

But I do have a few things on the "geek" calendar coming up..

Chaos Codex and general sexy stuff in the next 4-6 weeks
Drop zone commander hits the streets next week
An interest in 15mm Gruntz with I'm gonna blame all on coops nothing to do with...

Yup Russian's in space = Winner!

He will rip your arm off and beat you to a pulp, That's my kinda of Prime minister...

Mount up!! (20mm Modern Russians)

So it started with a few odds and sods for Force on Force cold war gone hot....

 And then it "happened"....

After a email chit chat with Shaun from S&S this lot landed on my door step,

so after some sticking, spraying, drybrushing, inking and weathering I was let with this lot....

So enough BMP 2d's for my infantry and rather than the usual russain APC's I decided to go whole hog and get the BMP tank riders and pimp em out!

so a close up of the tank riders, I mixed and matched the numbers so that it didn't look too uniform, 

Plastic T-55's scrubbed up really nice, 
 

Close up, I've used the techincal paint that I tried on the Thousand son's rhino and it works lovely,

A BRDM, jeep with 4 chaps, and a Shilka

dead simple kit, carn't wait to blow the crap out of Nick's & Coop's choppers with this bad boy! 

I'm sure I can get this slotted in some where... 

Long range Recce, and I've been in a 1:1 scale one and there a tad snug inside!

So the plastic T-72's 

They were a bit of a bitch to put togeather but I'm happy with how they look, 

So apart from a couple of anti-tank teams, SAM teams and a mortar team the Russains are ready to rock and roll for the test game aginst nick in a couple of weeks, so should be intresting to see how they perform.