Fully Armed and Operational...

I haven't *completed* the Terra's Virtuous Wrath yet, but it's definitely ready for the table. I want to put more detail on the barrel of the defense laser. Just a little texture and maybe some wiring type detail.

I'm really excited about the Apocalypse game next weekend. I have been working on terrain all week, and have half my walls (including the gate) primed to paint this evening. The players are starting to get geared up too, working on lists and stategems and such. Yay!! I'm a happy camper.

I just finished the two wall sectons and the gate. Behold! Not exactly fancy, but sufficient, quick and very very inexpensive! I'm still going to add some flock to the bases but right now table quality is the desired result.

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine

Is also going to be a PC port!! Yay! I found the review to be okay, but the images shown in the video make up for it by far.

Rawr!!

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/warhammer40000spacemarine/news.html?sid=6273134&mode=previews&tag=hotslot%3Bimg%3B1

Terrain - Walls!

So these were pretty easy to make with the right tools. All that's left to do on them is find some of the macreme mesh for the top of the 4th wall , add some braces to the underside of the platforms atop the walls, slather them with a watered down glue and then paint :D I must apologize for the poor lighting, it's the only spot in my work area that isn't a nightmare of a mess.

I've had the styrofoam for ages, but couldn't find my foam cutter. So I made one. I found a power supply from an old speaker set or something, and my hair dryer that had a switch burn out in. Strung the element from the hair dryer across a coping saw, attatch the power supply and presto! that thing is a million times better than my old battery op one.

I made the walls in 12" sections, 4 complete walls, one gate section with removable gate, and a destroyed section. I was wanting a second breach section but didn't have the base for it. Hopefully the attackers in my Apoc game won't be so keen on blowing up more than one section of wall. :)

The defense laser is now on a base, but I don't have a photo yet. It also needs a smattering of glue and then it's painting time. I probably should add rivets to it and the walls to give them more flavor.
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Next on my list is to build some craters. There will be firestorming and orbital bombardment fun! I've got several bases for these and will be using Model Magic to sculpt them since it's lightweight and so easy to work with. It's the same stuff I made my Mycetic spores from. I found a neat way to cut multiple circles when using the jigsaw. Draw them in a line, then cut out the entire line at once. You can then make 'V' shaped cuts and once that's done just cut them apart. Thusly:

More photos will come as I complete items. I may build another few buildings custom fit for some monstrous creatures to hide in if I have time, and I'm thinking that the defense laser might just need a 'ruined' version as well, but that may be too daunting a task for my upcoming week.

Sunday, Lazy Sunday

Today was nice and lazy, no big battles, no hurries. There were only 4 of us at our host's house today including our lovely host, so kind of him to have us over since our game store is gone. We'll call him Devin. We sat around and geeked out and just enjoyed one anothers' company. I love this. The three of us that don't live there, D and N and myself had all shown up a little bit late and no one really wanted to commit to a large scale battle that would take us into early evening. The discussion of Kill team came up and with it of course Devin's nigh-unstoppable Tau team. N is constantly trying to come up with ways to beat it. I gave up after the wraithguard embarrassment. However a 4 way battle was joined. N proxied 9 warp spiders; D chose 5 thunder hammer/storm shield terminators; I brought 3 vypers, 2 with starcannon and one shuriken cannon and Devin brought 3 crisis suits with missles and plasma.

We each started on a corner of a 4'x4' board. I had first turn. I was also first out of the battle. I managed to kill one spider, starcannons bounced off that accursed 3+ invuln of the termies. N split his forces, but in trying to stay in cover to hide from those tau plasma, he killed several of his own guys. He did manage to wound one of the crisis suits though. He killed the shuriken vyper, the other lost it's starcannon and headed away, flat out, the remaining vyper took up a position placing him between it and the terminators (who had lost one to plasma fire) but they teleported around and blew that vyper up, but it took 2 of them with it in the ensuing explosion. Having nothing else on that side of the board D turned his terminators towards the Tau. N's remaining spider took a risky jump into cover, failed to hurt it, and then rolled very poorly for assault range failing it. The crisis suit promptly cut him down for his error, but not before one of the other crisis suits immobilized my remaining wounded vyper, and since I'd gone flat out, that was upgraded to 'wrecked'. The terminators slowly advanced on the Tau position, but of course crisis suits being much more maneuverable, made short work out of the poor terminators.

Work on the Defense Laser has slowed a bit, mostly due to my being distracted by other things and wanting to add too much 'cool' to it. I am nearly ready to basecoat it though. I now have the wood to put it on, just need to get it cut first. I also have a project to do after, making walls for the apoc game, but the bases are cut already, so that should make things easy, and I have rethought how to make them a little faster. I've had to push my battle date back by a week, so I've got a little breathing room.

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I've been weighing on how to establish objectives for the Apoc battle. Apocalypse or Planetstrike. I think however I've decided to make my own army-based objectives. Each side will have specific tasks to accomplish that will be secret from one another. I'm hoping that I can do this in a balanced way that doesn't leave too many holes.

Terrain - Terra's Virtuous Wrath Ep. II

Well she's coming right along!

I'm still not excited about the Defense Laser itself. From looking at a lot of other folks' constructs they have a much smaller barrel, so I think I'll try and taper it down a bit. I'm also not settled on the pipe placement, I think I'm going to back the longer section up a bit. Everything else I'm quite pleased with, especially my angled tower pieces. I have a few more larger parts to fasten down and then we can start working on the details. Doors and windows please? :)

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I'm wondering why the Apoc entry doesn't list a troop capacity. I'd think something this size would double as a bunker or bastion. I imagine the fluffy answer would be 'power gubbins' or some such. I'm currently debating leaving the flat area (behind Mr. Dire Avenger) open. I have one particular Falcon pilot who likes to perform daring rooftop deployments.

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I went shopping today, first time in months. I missed getting a paycheck. I digress. I found an X-acto circle cutter for $7. Thought that was pretty nifty and wish I'd found it before starting this project. I'd almost decided not to get it for that reason, but I plan on doing some Eldar terrain after this, so that tipped me towards it. It's also a handy tool to have. I didn't see any replacement blades for it, and that was a concern, but it does appear to accept standard blades, but at the cost of accurate measurement. It also is limited to 6" circles maximum, but the smaller circles are the harder to cut.

Battle Report: Planetstrike!

I like Planetstrike. I think it's my favorite of the 40k expansions so far. I haven't played in some time however, and with a big Apocalypse/Planetstrike campaign ending game coming, I felt like I needed a bit of a refresher. I thought I had the perfect recipie for a prequel campaign fight too, as my 'Forces of Disorder' general was going to be making a showing, and hopefully wanting to push some bugs for me. I only wanted to watch and coach as a rules refresher. Sadly my general didn't want to partake, so I broke out my Eldar. I also forgot to pack my camera today, so I have no visual evidence either. My Eldar opponent from last week's rematch was my opponent again this week, so we drafted 2500 point armies; he as attacker and I as defender. We did a simple Planetfall mission, 3 objectives. I simply forgot somehow that I could place some of my things in reserve, but fortunately had enough tanks to load everyone except my Autarch, Farseer Elorrah (both on bikes) and my wraithlord into one or into a Bastion. Firestorms didn't do much, both my jetbikes were hit but saved by invulnerable saves, I think two of the falcons were 'can't shoot' results. 3 Fire Prisms, 4 Vypers and 2 squads of Fire Dragons showed up first turn, and though one of the FD squads was shot down with interceptor fire, 2 of my bastions were blown up. Both my Dark Reapers and Pathfinders were inside, with both of my strategems attatched, now gone and useless. One wave serpent (Dire Avengers) got immobilized. Striking scorpions showed up too, but were misplaced landing near the wraithlord (*whistles innocently*). However the wraithlord was distracted when an Avatar was dropped from orbit right beside all 3 falcons.

It was a very fun game, and it's very late so here are the highlights...

• Banshees won the scorpion v. banshee argument. The scorpions have to be painted the next time they show up if they want a rematch. However banshee on banshee is the worst sort of fight!
• Avatars can take a crap-load of fire (took 3 wounds), but they just make Pathfinders mad, and they know kung-fu. (killed 3 of mine, but doom got his last wound in the end)
• Fuegan apparently brought a cap gun to this battle. His axe worked fine though, if a tank was already on the ground. He did take out my wraithguard early on to his credit.
• Eldrad does whatever he wants.
• Fire dragons raining from the sky are not healthy for bastions, or much else for that matter.
• Tank shock works very well for my opponent. Those watergun wielding pathfinders were sent running off board.
• Wraithsight pops up at the WORST times.
• My Dark Reaper exarch can survive a Fire prism blast, but not a shuriken catapult??
• My Autarch showed the shining spears that there were entirely too many missles in her reaper launcher.

All in all a great game! I'm hoping to get another in before the big game.

Terrain - Terra's Virtuous Wrath

I have an Apocalypse game coming. It's the culmination of the map based campaign I ran at our local gaming store (R.I.P.) last year. Not having a common venue has been detrimental on getting the original players back together for the last few turns and the endgame. I decided to advance things a bit and go ahead and narrate it a little so that we (perhaps just I) can have some closure on it. I even wrote a little fiction to that end. I am thinking of starting a 2nd campaign, but instead have it narrative rather than map-based. Before I can do this though, I need to have the first one out of my hair.

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In this final gambit, there is going to be a defense laser involved. I've always wanted to build one, and this was the 'oomph' to get it done. So despite being distracted by WarGames con photos (I found ProdigalSon's army there!) I managed to get the main gun bashed out. Above is the beginning stage. I wanted a rounded turret something similar to the USS Monitor and had originally planned to carve out 3" worth of the pink foam. Forgetting that it was 1/2" thick and not 1" I soon became dismayed. I don't freehand cut circles very well, and end up with those rough edges and now I was looking at twice as much work. I had planned on sanding the edges down smooth once I had them glued together but my foam supply wasn't going to go the distance (not to mention my fingers from all that cutting). I thought for a moment and came up with an alternate plan that would solve the smoothness and supply issue. I wound up using card stock to make the outer edge laid over a skeletal framework as seen here. This doubly serves the purpose of making the turret lighter, because I had every intention of making it swivel. I mean, what good is a defense laser if you can't shoot behind you!

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I am finding great success with the tops of containers. Even my swivel mount will be using the top of a shave gel can. I've cut a hole in the bottom of the turret, and will attatch the plastic top to the building and presto. It's large enough to keep the turret from toppling over, yet the

smooth plastic will allow it to slide. I haven't fully attatched the gun yet, since I'm trying to figure out how to make it able to go up and down with enough friction to keep it in whichever position it's placed in. I considered a counterweight, but I'd have to have a lot of weight in the end of it in order to make it work. I want to be able to carry the terrain for goodness sakes!!

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Well that's all for now, I'll be posting more as it comes along.

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Oh and a special shout out to all my new followers! Thank you for visiting!