Painting and more Painting! Chaos SM

Greets,

Even though Adepticon is well on two months away, my team and I have been working hard on painting our models well in advance so as to ensure we are ready in time. Although we are still working out the final details of our lists, we are no longer bumping around in the dark. So we've been working on painting models which are most likely included into the final product.

I know I haven't mentioned running plague marines personally except for my last post, but I have been painting up a squad of chaos SM to use as "counts as anything" marines. I've been using mostly the models from the dark vengeance set. They actually have a really nice look and dynamic feel and I'm really happy with them.

To paint I've been basing black, then doing bases colors for red, gold, silver and bone. This is followed by a wash of ogryn / fleshcolor wash.  The model is then drybrushed all over with a very dark grey, mechanicus I think. The bone is drybrushed with rotting flesh. Afterwards I start highlighting with a bright gold, red and silver. Then do touchups with a watered down black.

For Adepticon we are using two different chaos SM armies, one is based on The Purge the other is based on Black Brethern of Ayreas.

My half (the brethren) of the army is at the "clean up and highlights" point, except for a few chaos rhinos we need to strip and repaint, for the glory of chaos!

I really like the dynamic posing of the models

Typhus, badass, once tried to get the better of the Lion. Failed horrifically of course, but still tried.

I tried to do some "heroic" posing not sure how that's working out. This is a much earlier in the process shot, note the guys are not even on their bases yet.

most of the crew lined up for a "progress" portrait

even unbased, typhus is a badass

I love the Chaos Icons, so cool

Thoughts on Chaos SM continued

Greetings all,

It's been a while since I've updated, for which I must apologize.

So moving right along.

I changed up my list to practice a bit with other models in the Chaos SM codex and see how they'd perform.

I made an 1850 list that went a little like this...

Typhus
Juggy lord w/ axe and all the goodies

3x 10 plague zombies
2x 7 nurgle marines. 1 squad with melta, 1 squad with plasma. Both squads meltabombs
w/ rhinos with dirge casters.

1x5 Nurgle Spawn
1x5 Spawn
1x Baleflamer dragon

1x mauler fiend w/ lasher tendrils
2x1 nurgle oblits

So I was actually pretty pleased with the outcome. Sticking the plague zombies in reserve for backfield objectives meant I had fearless troops that wouldn't get shot off and run away. Typhus added new tricks to the army and yet another glorious S6AP2 daemon weapon. The plague marines provided a little resilient firepower and forward objective taking. I've played about 5 games with it now, I have yet to lose all of the plague marines though I've come close. It was nice to see they easily go toe to toe with grey hunters (though obviously costing way more, they should be able to!).

I will say I miss my daemon allies quite a bit, but I had to figure out a way to run pure chaos eventually.

So much like my DA list, is it perfect? no. But it felt good and gave me plenty of options.

Typhus - So I've only used his destroyer hive once thus far, in a challenge, with him and 9 enemy models, and it was utter face palm. I'll try it again sometime but still... Other than that he's proved every bit as scary in CC as the juggy lord, though striking last sucks a bit. I guess I'm spoiled because of the juggy lord. What I REALLY like about Typhus though, is the utility he add's to an army. He's not just a baller close combat lord. He's a sorcerer, and his tricks are pretty solid. In this heavily shooty focused meta we exist in currently, weapon virus is a dream come true. Gets hot FTW. Contagion is pretty good too.

Plague Marines - I feel about these guys like I do about the oblits. They feel like they under perform on damage output and die more often than they should. On the other hand they are pretty decent in CC and I feel comfortable when both squads are closely supporting each other that they can handle most threats.

Rhinos - With a dirgecaster I feel like these guys are going to make a pretty good comeback. They've been holding up about as long as I would have expected them to in 5th ed so far. So not disappointing really.


So these three new components, combined with the standard fare of my older stuff felt pretty solid. Good scoring units, good assault, and increased utility from the psyker end. Is it as much fun as pavaning people off of buildings or into turn 1 combats? No of course not, but it's also less dependent on random rolls.

The Juggy lord combo's really well with Typhus. No squad in the game wants to mess with both of them together, especially with their spawn meatshields. If I could figure out some way to get the juggy lord to have T6 escorts, I think I'd be able to call it a day right then and there. As it stands, losing all of your t5 spawn in a devastating single round of manticore shooting makes you very sad. So I may be forced to retire this squad.

I attempted to use a Nurgle jump pack lord w/ black mace after hearing how great he was from Eric. He seems semi-decent, this may be a way to run a solid daemon weapon with a second T6 nurgle spawn squad. The lack of AP2 though seriously hurts.

Huzzah Hobbies RTT Feb 2nd, Recap and photos!

Morning all!


So we successfully concluded our RTT at Huzzah hobbies over the weekend. Everything went smoothly and we got to test out the new NOVA missions plus paint scoring!

A special thanks goes to Huzzah Hobbies for being such a great host! We hope to do another RTT there in the near future.

So recap in case you don't want to go through the wall of text / photos

Winners

Two undefeated

1) Pierre Daze - Space Wolves
2) Robert Tilly - Spacewolves / Blood Angels

Best Overall

Andrew Blackwell  - Space Wolves

Event Staff

James Watkins  - TO / NOVA
Jon Pryts - TO / NOVA

Mike Brandt - NOVA
Mike (Shades) - Paint Judge /  NOVA

Bob Likens - Paint Judge / NOVA
Mike Summerville - Head Judge / NOVA

Ethan  - Photography / NOVA
Chris -  Huzzah Hobbies!

I'm sure Mike will put up his thoughts and event feedback shortly so i'll try and keep it more general.

We had filled our 20 spots, and had several people on the wait list. Day of, only 14 showed up. We called the folks on the wait list and those who were unable to make it to see what was going on. It seems it was just one of those days, ranging from car issues, illness and even one hospitalization.

Lesson to all of you out there in the future, always show up if you want to go an event! PEOPLE ALWAYS DROP THE DAY OF!

It was ok though, 14 people is still a good event, it just meant we could not give out an invitational ticket for the winner ( as we needed the full 20 ). But it did mean that the prize support we had could now be spread out a bit better.

We started the day off with 3 dozen doughnuts from shoppers, which in case you have not seen, are enormous and amazing. Games started at 11:10, and we broke for lunch at 1:50. We got pizza and sodas for the entire crew, and apparently hit the supply needs right on the nose as there were only 3-4 slices left over when the dust settled. Games got off without a hitch, and the last game ended at 8. We had people out the door by 8:30. So all and all not so bad time wise.

Other than the notes I'll add for the photos below, I'll just mention that I personally find it really difficult to be a TO. It has nothing to do with my ability to judge, make rules calls, organize, or talk to people. I just get agitated because when I see all those games, I want to play too! So it kind of grates on me the entire time as I constantly want to jump in on the action. So its not difficult in a bad way.




The gaming hall prior to games!

Badass display board with working fountain!

game 1, Lances Eldar vs. Orks

Chaos SM vs. SW / BA - round 1

The mighty asteroid board

More SW vs. Chaos SM round 1

round 1 - sw vs. IG gunline



Round 1 - SW vs. IG gunline

round 1. Orks vs. Eldar

round 1 - Seer council Eldar

Round 1 - SW vs. IG

round 1 - Chaos SM vs. SW

round 1 - Tyranid

round 1 - eldar



Round 1 - SW vs. IG

round 1 - orks vs. eldar

round 1 - chaos sm vs. SW

round 1 - orks vs. eldar

round 1 - jetseer eldar vs. SW

round 1 -  chaos SM vs. SW

round 1, epicness

Lances cool eldar display board, with working fountain and live plants

Lances cool eldar display board, with working fountain and live plants

Round 2 - Orks Vs. SW



Round 2 - Jetseer vs. Tau



round 2 - chaos SM vs. Tyranid

The NOVA staff hard at work

misc round 3 games

MISC round 3 games

round 3 - IG vs. TAU

Round 3 - top table, the begining

round 3 - top table turn 1

Round 3 - chaos SM vs. IG

round 3 - SW vs. Eldar

Round 3 -deep in on top table

round 2 - SW vs. SW

round 1 - orks vs. Eldar

round 2 - misc gaming

round 3 - top table, jeetseer vs. SW

round 3 - top table, jetseer vs. sw

NOVA 2013 REGISTRATION OPEN!!! Also RTT on 2/2

Good Morning all,


I want to post a general reminder, the NOVA OPEN, which is kind of a big deal, has just opened its ticket sales!  http://www.novaopen.com/

In addition brand new for this year for NOVA.

MAGIC the Gathering!

Even more Basic Black Seminars!

I would really strongly suggest going to the Basic Black Seminars if you can, they are fantastic. I signed up for last years and was not disappointed. If you ever wanted to learn practical defensive lessons from a man with real experience, that's your ticket. Seriously can't encourage it enough.

A lot of people don't help run major tournaments or have a real feel for how it is to be staff on an event like this, so I'm going to pass on a few things here.

 I really want to emphasize that the NOVA is really a good event focused on giving everyone who attends the best time possible. Not just those who win the events. The guys who win are going to be happy almost no matter what goes on. The point is for everyone else who shows up to have a good time. Every time there is a meeting, this is something that MVB goes out of his way to stress to the staff.

 There is a great deal of effort behind the scenes by dedicated individuals who also have full time jobs and families to support. Everyone works as a volunteer, with no compensation. A lot of people just sort of see the face of the event as MVB, and yes, he's a huge part of why the NOVA happens. But there are a lot of guys out there who show up out of a love of their game of choice, and a genuine desire to pass that on to others. So when you see the NOVA, it's not just one guy, its one guy plus the 10 to 25 other guys (and gals) he has helping run it. Everyone does the best they can in this regard.

There are monthly meetings, and for some of the staff its more frequent than that, to plan the entire event, make goofy promotional videos, determine prize support, gather donations from sponsors, design missions, build terrain, and deal with the contracting side of it (hotel and stuff). This cycle starts within weeks of the end of the previous NOVA. It's putting it lightly to say there is a lot going on.

Burnout is common too, both at the NOVA and leading up to it. At the event itself, it can be stressful to wake up at 7am, judge an invitational, a GT, then run the TRIOS, Narrative, then go on trash pickup / cleanup from midnight to 2am, before crashing to sleep for a few hours. After a few days you can start to run ragged.  Not to mention, you have to keep your energy levels high, you're constantly on your feet. People are talking to you, asking questions, depending on you to settle stressful rules disputes for archaic questions that you've never imagined could come up. Not to complain, but it's often something as an event attendee, one might not think about.

MVB and the staff try to run the best event they can. I encourage you all to come out and see it!

Registration is here -- > http://www.novaopen.com/?page_id=2995

In other news, the RTT for tomorrow is all set to go. We have our ducks in a line as it were and it's almost go time! I'm very excited to see all the gaming and competition which will be occurring tomorrow. Needless to say it's going to be a very heavy competitive gathering based on the sign ups we have. At this moment we are full up, with about 5 people on the wait list. I wouldn't let that discourage you from dropping by though as it is an RTT, people do drop without notice. Worst we can say is no right? =0

Sign ups start at 10am, we will distribute missions at 10:50ish and games will start rolling around 11. We expect 2 hours and 30 minutes a round, with a 40 minute break for lunch, and a 20 minute break in the evening. We should be wrapped up and bundling you out with any prizes you win around 8!

I look forward to seeing you all there.