Back from the dead

I mentioned ages ago that I had snapped part of a model in half and thrown away the pieces in a fit of rage. More specifically I snapped the largest piece of the model in half. Eventually I purchased the model again, and after a couple of false starts managed to cast a usable replica of the broken piece. It's severely inferior to the original, but since the original was mainly ragged cloth the cast was passable (with a little work) - had the broken piece been something less forgiving, like a piece of armor, the poor quality would have been more visible.

 Let me clarify I'm not making replicas of models, I'm certainly not selling copied bits, I just repaired one part of a model that I had legitimately purchased. Hell, I had to buy another one that I would not otherwise have bought just to repair the first, so it worked out quite well for GW.

In the photo below you will see several different colours of material used. The original grey plastic parts, the greenstuff/milliput mix I cast the replacement part from (in theory it should be less brittle than pure milliput but stronger than pure greenstuff), some bits of the original greenstuff mold that were imbedded in the cast piece, and pure milliput I used for gap filling. There's also some white grains from a water filter I used to replace the studs on his cowl that didn't get cast clearly, and some pure milliput I used to fill the annoying dimple on the base and generally give it a smoother finish.

You can see in those photos where I had to fix the cowl with pure milliput after it broke just above the base. I installed a pin inside first in order to strengthen it.


After finally putting it all together again, I primed it white then used a very quick simple paint scheme that luckily turned out decent.

The cape is just dark green with drybrushes of lighter greens up to a very light drybrush of white, then given a generous green wash. The hood is dark brown with snakebite leather edge highlighting (in general I don't like edge highlighting for non-solid materials, but it just seems to look better with it than without it). The scythe was basecoated in brown, then stippled orange, then a careful boltgun drybrush along the edges was complemented with some boltgun stippling, then some boltgun feathering along the cutting edge (this came out less fine than I had intended but I couldn't be bothered to try to fix it). All studs were just dwarf bronze.

The staff was initially painted grey then streaked with graveyard earth, but the results were too light so I used darker streaks of brown, then there was far too much difference between the grey and brown, so I tried to colour it with washes. In the end it turned out far too dark, I had been aiming for an "old bleached wood" look and just couldn't get it. Still, it doesn't look too bad.

The bones were just built up to a reasonably pure white then shaded with the rest of the model using Army Painter Strong Shade. It was painted on rather than dipped so I could control where it went. I've found this gives good results on flesh and can work on other surfaces as long as care is taken - if you're not carefully it will pool in unwanted places and it ends up looking awful - even painting on I had to remove some pools a few minutes after I applied it.

In this case, it worked surprisingly well on the bone, the natural brownish colour offsetting the pure white somewhat to give a decent bone colour. It didn't work as well on the robes, with the brownish shade overpowering the underlying green. Next time I use it on cloth I'll apply it first then apply the washes so the colour is more consistent. It didn't do very much anywhere else, mainly because I applied it rather thinly.

The model actually turned out somewhat poorly balanced; the resin side is much heavier than the plastic side, and most of that weight is quite high up (and, due to the way I positioned it, hanging just about right over the edge of the base). Obviously this wouldn't be a problem with the original model, and the problem is negated slightly here as I filled the base, thus weighing it down a little, but still it's a good thing I made this model purely for display.


So overall it turned out well enough, and I learned a bit about rust and quickshade. I see it as a kind of a practice model; when I get around to painting the unbroken one, it should come out a little better (fingers crossed).

The Dark is rising

I bought these guys at the same times as the Grey Knights I spoke of before; on the first day I decided to actually get into warhammer. I bought them because they looked cool and were relatively cheap - in fact these are some of my favorite GW fantasy models. I've basically decided they count as inquisitorial paladins.

I started painting them a few months ago then got busy and forgot about them, so I've forgotten a couple of details of how I painted them. Basically, I wanted them to be very dark - I know I've been saying this a lot lately but it's especially true of these guys. I wanted to try a bit of weathering, mainly the stippling on the cloaks and the worn paint over metal on the shields. I also tried some feathering on the blades. Finally, I was experimenting a little with a unified palette.

First I cut off some horns and spikes where possible to make them less chaos-y. Of course this involved filing the star off their shields. Then I filled in the gap in the fur over their shoulders with greenstuff and tried to sculpt it to match. The results were not great, but I think I got better as I worked, in the end it didn't look too bad. I also filled in the cut-outs in one model's sword.

I painted the armour tin bitz to make it dark, and edge highlighted dwarf bronze. Steel was boltgun washed black and highlighted chainmail. Wooden axe-handles were painted in grey then lined with snakebite leather to make a more colourless , "bleached" wood.

Leather was just scorched brown drybrushed or edge highlighted with snakebite leather. I decided to paint the wraps around the weapon handles as cloth rather than leather, so painted them grey and edge highlighted white. I believe the bone was done in calthan brown then bleached bone, possible with some white highlights and/or a gryphone sepia wash, I'm not really sure.

The fur was painted brown and the cloak red, then both were given a drybrush of snakebite leather. This was one of the experiments I was trying; highlights in a different colour. I hoped it would make the cloth look more worn while simultaneously better tying it together with the fur. I may have also used a red wash on the cloak, though I don't believe I did. The cloak was then stippled black at the base, as were the boots.

The shield was just painted black with the hourglass design in white. Again an adaptation of the Sentinels Eternal logo: no need for the shield since it is already painted on one. I painted boltgun metal unevenly around the edges to make it look as if the shield was steel underneath black paint. I also tried to apply a few fine scratches across the surface.

Ihad initially planned to use army painter quickshade, but eventually settled on washing the entire model in devlan mud, with the exception of the shield which I wanted to stand out. After that I decided the fur needed more definition, so I applied another drybrush of bleached bone. Finally I feathered the edges of the blades with chainmail - I usually paint slim lines, but I wanted a more worn appearance, the idea being that the edge is brighter from sharpening and use.

I had a problem with the matt varnish, for some reason it was very inconsistant. I had to apply a second layer with a different varnish to fix it.

Gloss varnish

The matt varnish did not come out well

A different matt varnish mostly fixed the problem

Unless viewed in bright light they look a little too dark and homogeneous. In contrast the feathering on the blades contrasts too much with the surface, I suppose next time I'll need to avoid washing the blade with the rest of the model. The highlights on the cloak were darkened more than I expected by the wash, and the fur is also too flat, I should have brushed both up to a lighter colour. The armour and the leather are a surprisingly hard to distinguish, perhaps brighter highlighting would maintain the 'dark' look while introducing a bit more definition? Despite all that, I think they look pretty cool.

War is hell

I had a game against a guard army. I forgot to bring my assault marines so I played my old list:

Sentinels Eternal:
Captain with bolt pistol, power weapon, melta bomb.
Tac squad with power fist, plasma cannon, flamer.
Scout squad with sniper rifles.
Dreadnought.

As usual my opponent was not ready for such a small points game and had to write a list on the spot. For some reason he decided to go all-infantry. I believe he had two squads of veterans, some sort of commander who could give orders in a small squad with a banner, and a squad of stormtroopers with hellrifles (I think that's what they were called, they were 18" S3 AP3 rapid fire), who he gave infiltrate and pinning on the first round. He also had three lascannons.

We rolled annihilation. He gave me first turn so I combat squad the tac marines with the flamer and fist together and the cannon in the other team with the captain, then deployed them in the open in order to charge forwards. The dread hugged cover (THREE lascannons?), aiming to walk through a building. After he deployed I put my scouts as far forwards as I could to get at the lascannons, but even with the scout move I needed their first turn to get them in position.

I started by moving everything forwards. My tac marines and captain ran forwards while my dread took a pot shot at the limit of his range, surprisingly killing a couple of storm troopers. He responded by using orders and firing en masse at my marines, but he forgot that he was using vets with ballistic skill 4 and only killed a few models from my plasma gunner squad.

Just before the dying started

Some pretty cool looking Imperial Guard

Next turn my captain split off the depleted squad and joined the fist squad moving forwards. The snipers fired at his lascannons and actually managed to kill one! I was stunned! I then fired my plasma cannon squad at his commander, and scored a hit! Five 2+ rolls later and the entire squad was vaporised in a single blast of superheated plasma, and with them went his orders.

Now that's just incredibly unlucky

Now bereft of both orders and luck, he was unable to do much damage to my army, with even his hellguns failing to take down more than a couple of marines. My snipers managed to kill another lascannon, then my plasma cannon rolled a 4 on the scatter dice to bullseye the last one. He concentrated most of his firepower on the plasma cannon squad, but a succession of unlucky rolls saw the canoneer himself survive right up to the end. With most of the rest of his army running after losing spectacularly in assault to my captain and fist, and with the store was closing in five minutes, we called it. I had two killpoints (four if you count the two guys retreating), he had none.


It's worth mentioning that I had forgotten my dice so I had to roll with his, and those traitorous little backstabbers betrayed him just about every chance they got. I actually felt bad about winning, his luck was so rotten and mine was so good. My plasma cannon took only two shots but both were on target and killed everything they touched. My captain only had one round of combat, in which his five attacks counted for five dead guardsmen. Even my snipers took out a lascannon on every turn they got to shoot. In fact, even my power-fist sergeant, who in all my games has never managed a kill, took down two guys. His first ever kills, I'm so proud. Could this be the end of his losing streak?

The fact is my win was not down to skill. Had my opponent decided to include some tanks in his hastily written army list, things might have been very different, seeing as I had very few models which were quite bunched up at times. My opponent was a great guy who didn't seem too bothered by his bad luck, I suspect if we play again he'll be better prepared for such a small points game.

Finally finished one

It's been over two years now since I decided to take the plunge and get into Warhammer. Amongst my purchases on that first day was a box of metal Grey Knight Terminators. This was a while back, over a year before I even heard rumours of a new codex. After reading the rules and codex, I picked up a few more terminators and some Grey Knights in power armour, with the intention of taking them as allies in a Space Marine army (I didn't see the point of painting more than a handful of the same models, and to be honest the idea still doesn't appeal to me).

I did some experiments with the models, like magnetising arms, installing bulbs, and using glow-in-the dark paint, but I never got around to actually painting them. This was initially because they were quite daunting with all the detail, and being some of my very favourite miniatures bar none I wanted them to be perfect. Later it was because I was busy, then because the new codex completely turned me off (Kaldor Draigo has the stupidest fluff I have ever read in a GW publication, though I do have a soft spot for Mordak's rules and fluff).

But, as I believe I have mentioned before, I've decided to paint the models that I like rather than worry about army lists, and I still like the GK terminator models. Plus, I don't think I'm going to get much better at painting anytime soon, so I finally decided to paint one.


This started off as an experiment in quick painting, the idea being to use Army Painter metallic spray and quickshade for fast results. I also wanted to paint this one to be relatively dark, and then a Grand Master to be brighter. It ended up taking a lot longer than I expected though.

First of all, I'm not getting good results with the metallic primer. Paint doesn't seem to stick to it very well, so I ended up thinning down some boltgun metal and using it as a wash, combined with a boltgun drybrush, to try to get a better base. The armour was later washed badab black then drybrushed boltgun again. Next time I think I'll I'll just put on a black primer coat and drybrush with boltgun, that should give good contrast and a 'pitted' surface as well as being much faster. I might try edge highlighting with mithril next time, just to see what difference it makes (I didn't bother this time because I normally find edge highlighting on boltgun or chainmail has very little effect, perhaps because they are already quite shiny).

I then painted the details dwarf bronze (I may have used a layer of tin bitz as a basecoat, I don't actually remember), and a few things in tin bitz (like the storm bolter housing and sword handle), but I applied it in very thin layers to try to stop it from clogging the detail, so it took many coats to get a strong colour. Plus I kept missing hidden bits of detail and needing to go back. It was washed black at the same time as the armour. In all the White Dwarf articles they always highlight gold with mithril silver, so I thought drybrushing them boltgun at the same time as the armour should work reasonably well and save time. It didn't. The drybrush robbed all the colour, and they ended up looking too close to the rest of the armour. Fortunately a wash of gryphone sepia brought the colour back, and the end result was not too bad - though next time I'll paint them after the armour and just leave them bronze with a watered down wash.

The eyes were simply white with a blue wash to create a very weak glowing effect (it's much easier than painting lenses, which look better when they're done well but worse when they're not). The paper was done the same as usual; bleached bone with white edges followed by a gryphone sepia wash (or maybe it was ogryn flesh). The purity seals were just mechrite red with a devlan mud wash ( I wanted them daker than usual). The book on his right hip was just calthan brown then scorched brown, then given the same wash as the paper.

I decided that the symbols on his shoulders and the book hanging from his waist were not actual paper and leather, just painted to look like it, so I used skull white and tin bitz, and washed them black with the rest of the armour. I also painted the sword symbols mithril afterwards to make them brighter than the rest of the armour. The freehand on the books is of course the two elements of the Sentinels Eternal symbol, just split up for a change.

The sword itself was slightly modified by removing the 'power weapon mechanism' normally found at the base of the blade to give it a much more traditional look. I hate that bit, it makes the sword look less sturdy. The blade was painted chainmail, washed black, the drybrushed up to mithril to make it brighter than the rest of the model, so it would stand out and serve as a focal point. I'm not partial to the power weapon effect on the current 'official' paint scheme, in fact I'm not completely sold on power weapon effects in general, so I'm just keeping it simple for now. Plus of course the whole look of the Grey Knights is very old fashioned, so an old fashioned sword looks the part to me.

I decided to leave this one glossy, as it makes the metal look more shiny. I agonised a bit over this decision since I was supposed to be going for a 'dark' look, and when I look at him I'm not sure I like it (it doesn't help that I applied the varnish rather thickly so it fills up the detail a bit, making it look almost laminated), so I'll try a matt varnish on the next one to see which I prefer.


As you can see his name is "Tighten". It's a reference to Megamind, if you've seen the movie - and you know about Grey Knights - you'll get it. I hope. I might be using him as a ghost Knight - not in actual gaming, but just in terms of the unit I'm painting. I've been experimenting with glowing spray paint and getting somewhat usable results so a part of me is tempted to use it on 'ghost knights', but I don't think I'll use it on him. Maybe the next one, we'll see.

Blood for the Blood.. er.. Emperor?

Played another 500 point game. I swapped out some tac marines for assault marines in my list:
Captain, bolt pistol and power weapon.
5 tac marines (all bolters)
5 scouts (all snipers)
5 assault marines, power weapon
dreadnought

He played blood angels:
Captain, plasma pistol, power weapon
5 tac marines (4 bolters, pistol & chainsword)
5 assault marines, power weapon, melta gun
Contemptor dreadnought with assault cannon

As you can see his army was almost completely analogous to my own, but with the points I spent on scouts put into the contemptor dread (he asked if I minded and I said I didn't). In the game we ended up with his captain and tac squad in assault against mine, and his assault squad against mine, so it really did feel like fighting a reflection. My scouts spent the entire game repositioning to try to get a shot (the only unit I had a chance to shoot at was the dread, but with armour 13 there was no point, even rending hits couldn't even glance), while my dread was knocked out early by a single shot from his assault squad's melta after they entered by deep strike (he did not even get a single shot off).


He got the charge off on both assaults - the first because I forgot you can assault after rapid firing (which did nothing), the second because I completely misjudged the distance and just plain rushed my assault squad towards the action.

In the end he won both combats. By the fifth turn I only had my scout sergeant left, who finally managed to get a shot off, rolling two sixes in a row to land a rending hit on his captain. Who subsequently failed his invul save and lost his last wound. The game ended there on a roll of a 1.


As usual a few mistakes were made, but less than usual I think. He forgot about the captain's plasma pistol, for what that's worth. He didn't have a copy of his dread's rules so we played the assault cannon using the regular stats. Oh, and we initially forgot the tac sergeants had an extra attack.

My luck was actually not bad (even if every single run roll I had was a one), but the loss of my dread to a single melta shot was a big blow. If it had survived it would have attacked his assault troops, allowing my own assault squad to get the charge later. Not that it would have changed the final outcome, as it would have needed a fair bit of luck to take down his own dread.

No, I lost because he outmanoeuvred me. I let him him get the charges, split my forces, and made bad decisions with my snipers (apart from just taking them in the first place) - honestly, I don't know what happened there.

In terms of strategy, I need to try to anticipate more, and I'm thinking I should stop splitting up my forces. In terms of the army list, I'm going to try dropping the dread in order to bring my tac squad back up to full strength - the added durability (and power fist) should make them useful again, as right now they don't do very much. I do have some ideas for lists I want to try, but it'll have to wait until I get the models.

Why won't you just die already?

It's been a while, but I finally got around to playing a game. 500 points, my usual space marines against a composed-on-the-spot Necron list.

Sentinels Eternal:
Captain with bolt pistol, power weapon, melta bomb.
Tac squad with power fist, plasma cannon, flamer.
Scout squad with sniper rifles.
Dreadnought.

Necrons:
Overlord (I think) with warscythe.
Warriors, Cryptek with eldrich lance (I think).
Immortals (gauss), Cryptek with eldrich lance.
3 models that I think were wraiths: they were S6 W2 3++ jump infantry, and two had whipcoils.


Having heard a lot about the new Necrons recently, I was interested to see them in action. To keep things simple, we played for killpoints using standard deployment. Unfortunately the game was a little static as we were both using mostly shooty units, also he was taking it easy on me and I was playing like an idiot.

First of all, having been underwhelmed by the performance of all my units in previous games, I decided to sit back in cover and make him come to me. I put my captain with my tac squad in a defensive position on my right, put my dread in the center of my lines behind a ruin where he would get cover but still be able to shoot and advance (through the building, heh). I originally wanted my scouts on his side of the board where he would have to split up his forces to deal with them, but couldn't find a good spot so I left them on top of a ruin off to my left.

They didn't move for the entire battle

He put his overlord with the warriors in the center and his immortals in a ruin facing my tac squad. His wraiths were mostly hidden behind a ruin, but with line of sight to the left side of the board to limit my scout deployment.

Basically, he advanced his troops enough to shoot at me while I sat back and used the enhanced range of my sniper rifles and plasma cannon to... do absolutely nothing. His wraiths headed towards my scouts, while My dread advanced through the ruin, pulling off some very lucky cover saves while managing to insta-kill a wraith.

Over the course of the game the plasma cannon managed to kill a few immortals (it would have been more except for their cover saves and reanimation protocols, which he had a tendency to roll well for). The rest of the squad didn't manage anything with their bolters. The scouts only managed two or three kills over maybe four turns of shooting, of which at least two got back up. My opponent forgot wraiths don't take dangerous terrain tests and spent several turns working his way through the ruins to reach the scouts. Of course they murdered them when they finally got there.

His biggest mistake was moving his warriors, with Overlord attached, too close to my dread, allowing me to assault. He managed a glancing hit with his warscythe, but it just shook the dread, who then insta-killed the overlord. I was quite surprised that the overlord didn't have an invulnerable save.

One of these things is not like the others

At some point (perhaps around the fourth turn) it dawned on me that my Captain was not being very useful, so I ran him forwards alone. Luckily he made it to the central combat unscathed. Next turn his surviving Wraiths piled in, but couldn't get into base contact with the Dread and so couldn't use their whip coils. My captain claimed a few warriors and lost a wound, my Dread failed to do very much. He did lose another Wraith to fearless wounds though, so things were looking up for me.

We counted this to be the end of the sixth turn and the store was closing, so we called it here. He had a killpoint off my scouts and I had one off his Overlord, making it a draw.

The ref called time so they all shook hands and went home

Overall there were surprisingly few casualties: by the start of the fourth turn I think I had lost about two marines and he had lost a wraith and maybe a warrior? By the end of the game I was only down three or four marines and the snipers, and he probably had more than half his models left. I guess both our lists were resilient but not very offensive, and we both played a little defensively.

So he made a couple of mistakes: first by moving up to the ruin my dread was using for cover so it could hop out and assault without weathering a round of lances sans cover save, second by not splitting off his overload and thus allowing me to take the killpoint. Even then, I would have lost if my dread hadn't been very lucky - even a single weapon destroyed would have stopped me from killing the overlord.

Of course I completely forgot about my Captain, and was too scared to get my tac squad with fist into assault. I also should have focussed my fire more to try to wipe out the immortals, there's a chance I could have earned a killpoint there? Actually, probably not.

I'm basically not happy with my list because it's not fun to play. The dread doesn't kill as much as he should, but in these small games he can be real problem for enemy units. The tac squad is boring and the plasma cannon unreliable - but sometimes quite useful. The captain adds some punch, but less sometimes than I expect (s4 hurts here). The scouts are awful. I really want to work some assault troops in, but there's just no points unless I swap the tac squad for scouts (I don't want to lose the dread). Actually, that's not a bad idea, swap the tacs squad and snipers for two small units of assaulty scouts and an assault squad. The problem really is painting them...

Traitor Legions

I played a 500 point game at the GW store yesterday, and this time I took pictures! I played the same marine list as last time:
Captain, power weapon, melta bomb 120
10 tac marines, fist, flamer, plasma cannon 200
5 scouts, sniper rifles 75
Dreadnought 105

My opponent decided to play a Khorne list, with two units of Khorne berserkers in rhinos and a champion (I think) with daemon weapon.

I actually remembered to keep track of the turns this time... almost. I may have missed a turn near the start. We rolled capture and control, normal deployment. He placed his objective on my side so he could rush over, assault me, then grab the objective. I placed mine on a ruin so my snipers could sit on it. He went first and put his rhinos as far forwards as he could. I combat squad my tacs and put them near his objective, set my snipers on the ruin, and put my dread where it could get side armour shots on the rhinos as they rushed towards the objectives. Then I remembered rhino side armour is the same as the front, duh. In retrospect I suppose I should have put it between my tacs and his rhinos.

I didn't try to steal initiative, thinking he was probably out of range anyway. Stupid me, a six inch move and twenty four inch multimelta, thirty six inch snipers and plasma cannon, I should have tried at least. Anyway, he drove forwards and ended his turn. I moved my dread, fired the multimelta... and rolled a one. The snipers failed to rend. Then I decided to fire the plasma cannon. I rolled a one for overheating. Then a one for my armour save. Sigh.

So the first casualty of the game was my canoneer. This guy is clearly in need of help of some kind - two games ago he shot himself in the head, if you recall.

Next turn my opponent drove his rhino up to my tac squads and ended his turn. I walked closer with my dread and surrounded the nearest rhino as best I could with my marines - the plan was to destroy it with shooting (hoping that some traitor marines would not be able to disembark and be destroyed) and assault the unit to rob them of furious charge, or failing that destroy it with the fist and assault the contents with my second squad and captain.

The black marble is the objective.

"Surround it men!"

The dread fired... and rolled a one. The scouts got two hits but no rends. The sergeant's squad attacked with three fist attacks and four (I forgot the canoneer was dead) krak grenades but needed sixes to hit, which they didn't get. The second squad attacked with a melta bomb and five krak grenades, but didn't manage to hit a thing. So I had just set my whole army on a single rhino without so much as a single glancing hit.

In response he disembarked his champion from the nearly-surrounded rhino (I hadn't managed to block the rear hatch), leaving the unit behind. The other rhino disgorged it's contents then drove off to block my dread. He charged the champion into the fist squad and the other unit into the captain's squad.

Let the slaughter begin!

The Dreadnought is unable to reach them.

It seems his champion rolls 2d6 extra attacks thanks to the daemon weapon, but loses a wound for every 1. I think he rolled a 10 for a total of something like 14 power weapon attacks, wiping all four before they could hit. The other unit directed an unholy number of attacks at the tac marines and ignored the captain, wiping them out. The captain, striking at the same time, failed to cause a single wound...

In my turn I tried to circumnavigate the offending rhino with my dread in order to get closer to the berzerkers, before shooting at and assaulting it. Between a point-blank multimelta and three S10 attacks I managed to immobilize it. Sigh. The snipers shot at the other and did nothing. In assault my captain finally claimed a kill (my first one I think)... then took three wounds and failed two of the 3+ saves, losing the combat by one, failing his leadership test and running off like a little baby.

His full rhino gave chase while the squad moved over to his objective, trying to block my dread from getting in contesting range. Eyeballing it, it looked like my dread was already in range, but just to be sure I tried to move closer in my turn. After watching my captain flee the battlezone and disappear, I pointed the dread at his berserkers, giving up on the rhino. Firing with the storm bolter and multimelta point-blank, I rolled well for a change, scoring three wounds, but he saved the bolter shots. Still, that was my second kill, and my snipers added a third with a rending shot. In assault the dread landed a single hit... and rolled a one to wound. Sigh.

Now we were on turn 5, to the best of our knowledge. In his turn he brought the occupied rhino back over towards my scouts and disembarked his second squad of berserkers, running them as close as he could (which was pretty close). The assault with the dread went nowhere again; I couldn't hit against the berserkers higher weapon skill, and he couldn't roll consecutive sixes for his krak grenades.

In my turn everyone failed to do anything at all. He rolled to see if the game would continue, and it didn't. His berserkers were sitting on his objective with my dread contesting, and my scouts were sitting on mine with his other berserkers contesting, so officially it was a draw.

The snipers were spared when the ref blew the ending whistle and the Khornate Berserkers turned around and went home.

My kill tally. Not impressed.

Sigh. Humanity's Finest my foot.

Having said that, in another turn my scouts would have been wiped out, giving him the win. Besides he clearly wasn't playing seriously - he never fired a single shot all game, at one point he contemplated ramming my dread but decided to just stop in it's way. Also, his list had no anti-tank at all, not even a power fist.

Clearly my team performed terribly. The Dread just kept missing, at one point he landed a single hit on a berserker and rolled a 1 to wound. His finally tally was 1 single berserker and immobilizing a rhino. My Captain really let me down, only killing a single marine before failing two saves out of three and running away. My power fist sarge failed to land a single hit. Again. That's four games in a row now, for a 100% failure rate. And these guys are supposed to be heroes of the Imperium? In contrast I expect my snipers to be crap, which they were. Oh, and the plasma canoneer screwed up again. Maybe he'll do better when I finish painting him.

So what did I learn? Well, next time I'll set my troops farther back and force them to come through my dreadnought. Also, snipers are useless without Telion. I'm sorry, I can't pretend anymore: long-range shooting (pretty much the definition of sniping) is extremely difficult and demanding, so why would you assign the task to your worst marksmen? Let me guess, it was a typo in the Codex Astartes, and only the Space Wolves are rebellious enough to ignore it. In the future I'll go for bolters or CC weapons, and possibly a sarge with power fist and shotgun.

Anyway, it was a fun game despite my rotten luck, my opponent was great fun to play against and just hang out with, and I remembered to take pictures so a good time all round.