Sternguard and Terminators Update!

So its been a wee while since I've shown you much progress with my Evandalists, but this past week or so I've been busy on these beauties. I've always fancied Sternguard, the thought of the elite Marines from the 1st company still armed with power armour and (special ammo issued) boltguns made an evocative image and was something I needed. I scoured what I had, and trawled through Ebay. I had decided that as the Sergeant torso was reasonably distinctive with its high collar, ten of these were added to the shopping list. What else? Phobos pattern boltguns! I picked up 9 of these, and also a Ferrox pattern bolter for the sarge to make him stand out a bit more. Also added were parts from a command squad I bought at the Cwmbran GW and plenty of veteran shoulder pads!

 The colour scheme is much the same as my main army, although a few new things were done. With the Veteran pads I did them silver, and when painting the armour after everything was basecoated, I covered the entire model except the face with nuln oil. I wanted a bit of a dirty grimy look to them, and I'm pretty pleased with how they've turned out. So much so that I may revisit other squads and repeat this technique!

Heres two of the Sternguard, as you can see I went for a black skin tone with two of the guys and then a more white tone with the others. I think the black skin tones came out well, and I shall be doing some more! 

Heres the Sergeant with a Powerfist, armed to take out the trickier things these guys may come across that their ammo may not hurt. How I use these guys I don't know, either as a nice defensive unit using the Kraken bolts, or drop pod them down to take out power armoured enemies. I look forward to fielding them though!

Ah Terminators! I've bought 5 ranged Terminators before, but they were the Assault on Black Reach ones and posing them isn't much of an option. I got myself a box of these at Firestorm Games in Cardiff and looked forward to fixing them up.

I posed the Assault Cannon Termie to look like he's balancing against the recoil, and I think its worked ok. Its so nice to have chainfists at last!

Two of the regular Termies. You'll note that I've not done the Chapter badge on these or the Sternguard, this will come when I've practiced it a little more! 

I'm quite happy with how the Sarge's face has come out. I love using Khemri Brown as a base, washing it and then adding little amounts of white 2-3 times to build up the highlights. 

Lastly is my other regular armed Termie, and I've posed this guy twisting as if reacting to a new threat. Needless to say its my favourite one, seeing such a bulky guy in a more dynamic pose is why I wanted to build some of these guys for myself! 

So there we go, some progress to show how the Chapter are growing. I'm still planning on getting some pics of the entire army set up, so eyes peeled for when I pluck up the courage to try and organise this. Don't forget, I'm having a giveaway to celebrate 20k views on my blog, so click here for details! I've got a couple of well known people in the world of gaming entering, so fingers crossed we should have a great gallery. So whats stopping you gettng a self portrait of yourself and your favourite miniature?

Batrep and Sneak Peek

 So first of all I'd like to apologise about the following batrep as it may be a wee all over all the place, as thats pretty much how the battle happened. We all had 700 points, and decided to play a 3x3 game. I believe the mission was Crusade, with 5 objectives. Teams were....

Louis and Imperial Guard, Corey and Space Marines, Mike with Chaos Space Marines.

Myself, Bam and Carl all with Space Marines.

Corey, our youngest member is still getting to grips with the rules so Carl wrote his list and his own, even though he'd never played Space Marines. This led to much confusion later on! Not only this but we were late starting and had to finish a wee earlier than usual, so only four rushed turns were made. It was terrible in terms of gaming, but the weird thing is we all seemed to really enjoy the game somehow! 

I can't recall the forces, so I'll just talk about what I remember as I go through the battle. Wish me luck!

We won deployment and opted to go first, so myself and Bam took the left and centre positions, and Carl took the right with his scout bikers. He'd taken no troops, just three three-man units of scout bikers, a Librarian and a Chaplain. Corey then set up opposite Carl, his termies would deepstrike but he set up his 5 man tactical squad with plasma cannon in the buildings with his Captain and Dreadnought just outside. Yes, 5 man tactical squads cannot take special or heavy weapons. Mike set his Chaos forces up in a central position and Louis took their right flank, facing myself and Bam with his Chimera and Demolisher.

I'll try to remember to main parts of the early stages.... I surged up the flank with my assault squad lead by my captain with jump pack and  thunderhammer, Bam pushed up centrally with his land raider and termies and Carl pushed forward with all his bikers. My drop pod crashed to the ground and a tactical squad pushed out, meltagun aimed at the demolisher but missed. Oops! The demolisher then killed 8 of my tactical marines, who were finished off next turn. My assault squad then charged the chimera in the next turn, and wrecked it forcing the IG veterans to come disembark. Bam advanced more to get into a position to charge with termies and chaplain and Carl charged into typhus with his bikes. Not a good move! 2 units of bikers went in and 2 units of bikers died.

 Louis' demolisher took aim at my assault squad and managed to kill 4, thanks to cover I didn't lose more! Mikes Chaos Marine squad advanced into the ruins to hold an objective, and managed to take 2 hull points off my drop pod. As far as I'm aware Corey advanced with his dread and killed Carls Librarian in combat. Carl thought SM librarians were like GK librarians, and they're not. Splattered Psyker!

My captain and assault squad wiped out the veteran squad in combat and then charged the demolisher taking that out too. The drop pod survived, as the chaos marines who were shooting at it were charged by Bams termies who butcherd them all and cleared the objective. Louis' vendetta came on and dropped a unit off on an objective where Carl had deployed, killing the chaplain and claiming it. We made a last gasp attempt to kill Coreys (who had to leave by now) 5 man tactical marines so the other side had one objective to sneak a win but it was not to be, and we lost on turn 4. Another turn may have made a little difference, but who knows. 

The game suffered from a lot of confusion and a lack of time to play properly, but it was still entertaining and we all laughed throughout. We're going to keep playing some smaller games of doubles and fingers crossed, on our next all dayer play a little doubles tourney! More on that when we've got a better idea as to what is happening. 

Also worth a mention, I should be going to Hammerhead Games Convention with Huw on Feb 10th, near Nottingham. If any of you are going let me know and say hello!

As for the sneak peek I mentioned, this is what I've recently purchased...

Phobos pattern bolters and 10 Sergeant torsos to make a Sternguard unit. I've always fancied having a unit, the special ammunition makes them a very versatile unit and whether sat back using the kraken bolts to lay down fire or drop podded in and taking out power armour with the plasma ammo they'll be used lots! I've also got 10 veteran shoulder pads with the terminator honours on, and a Ferrox parrtern bolter for the sarge. Hopefully some wip shots on the weekend, maybe before!