Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Transports

I know it is a kind of dated tactic, but I still love using suicide squads in rhinos, and now that I'm playing space marines and not Chaos, I also get access to drop pods. Double bonus.

I think I own about 8 or 9 rhinos which got shelved with the introduction of 6th edition. 3 of them never saw a lick of paint despite being pretty well modded. Looking at the new SM codex, it dawned on me that they could do a really effective alpha strike using marines in rhinos. With the scout rule being liberally doled out with the Ravenguard and White Scars chapter tactics, I think rhinos are a viable option. They're not as good as bikes but they can still quickly crowd the table with cheap marines, and deliver special weapons where they can do the most damage. For example, my melta squad can scout 12", drive another 6", disembark another 6", and fire their meltas with surgical precision at a target within that range (another 6-12"), all on the first turn. Multiply that by 8 squads with allies and you are talking a lot of pain being lain down before my opponent has time to react (assuming I get initiative which I often don't but that's another story).

The 1st turn alpha strike is the clincher for me. I've never been very interested in winning. 40k has always been about blowing things up. When things go kablooey, I'm happy. With Chaos, I always had to wait for my reserves to arrive before I could do any damage. 6th edition made it worse by penalizing outflank and deepstriking manoeuvres even more than they already were in 5th. In my last three games using my Chaos army, I got tabled without ever doing any damage thanks to the introduction of the Eldar and Tau codexes. Space marines have brought back the fun to 40k for me. Although I continue to lose almost every game, I get to deal out some punishment in heavy proportions as well.

Here are two of the finished rhinos. They saw some action under my Nurgle banners, but never had a paint job to show off their mods. The first is an old 2nd ed. rhino that I got when I traded a new rhino for 3 old ones. People seem to hate them but I like their style. With just a bit of effort, they can look pretty cool.




The second was tricked out when I did some trading with an Imperial guard player and got some armour plates that I didn't know what to do with.




And here is a sneak preview of the third and last rhino in the army. It's from Trumpeter. I wanted a tank like the one I saw in the film "No Man's Land" and this was the closest I could get. Absolutely brutal film, and the model was equally rough to assemble. What a nightmare! Tons of tiny parts. It took me almost a year to finish it because I kept getting discouraged. It's done now, with a few shortcuts. I'm just waiting for a nice day so I can basecoat it.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Tacticals

When I was doing colour tests for this army, I discovered that I could do ten guys in under an hour with this grey scale scheme. I thought therefore I would be able to finish all 30 tacticals in under a week. Turned out the black was a lot more tricky so consequently more time consuming than the basecoat. I also made the error of leaving the backpacks off to paint them separately. It was a hassle getting them on again because I had to scrape away the glue contact points. Then I forgot how long basing takes me with PC7. Long story short, they took me over 2 months to slog through.

Quand je faisais les essais de couleurs pour cette armée, j’ai découvert que je pourrais finir un montant de dix gars en une heure avec cette palette de couleurs. J’ai donc cru brièvement que je pourrais finir 30 gars en une semaine. Malheureusement, l’application du noir était plus complexe que j’ai imaginée. De plus, j’ai fait l’erreur de ne pas attacher leurs paquetages avant que je ne les peigne. C’était difficile de les attacher après puisque j’avais besoin de nettoyer les points de contact pour la colle. Ensuite, ma méthode pour mettre mes figurines sur des socles avec le PC7 est très lente. J’ai donc pris presque 2 mois pour les finir.

I did my colour testing on 2nd ed. marines which I got for free. I was originally just going to do a whole 2nd ed. army, but I always find ways to complicate my plans. Digging through my bits box, I found some maxmini heads I never used and a whole bunch of 4th ed. torsos. So I cut the legs off the 2nd. ed marines and slapped all the bits together. The big heads and exaggerated horse stances make these guys look really stocky. Then I bought a box of the new tacticals and I was stunned with the contents. So many posing possibilities and cool bits. This led me to get a 2nd box on Ebay for only $34 canadian! At those prices, it was a no brainer. End result, my budget space marine army got an unexpected quality boost. And I still have lots of 2nd ed. marines which I'll use for allies.

J’ai fait mes essais de couleurs sur de vieux marines de la deuxième édition que j’avais reçu gratuitement. J’avais cru que j’allais faire toute l’armée avec les figurines reçues, mais je trouve toujours des moyens de rendre mes plans plus compliqués. En cherchant dans ma boîte de bitz, j’ai trouvé les têtes de Maxmini et les torses de la quatrième édition. J’ai donc enlevé les jambes de mes marines de la deuxième édition avec un couteau et j’ai collé tout ensemble. Les grosses têtes et leur position de cheval donnent une grandeur exagérée aux figurines. Ensuite, j’ai acheté une boîte des nouvelles marines tactiques, et j’étais impressionné par les contenus. Il y en a de tellement beaux morceaux. Et peu après, j’ai découvert que je peux avoir une deuxième boîte pour 34$ sur Ebay. Mon armée a donc eu une augmentation de qualité d’une manière importante. De plus, j’ai des marines de la deuxième édition toujours pour mes alliés.

I like the idea of being able to combat squad and then saturate the battlefield with troops. Unfortunately the melta (maxmini) squads require a rhino each to be effective so I keep them split permanently as 2 different squads. I wanted this army to be really obvious in terms of loadouts, so I painted the sergeants helmets' black to make them stand out. The 2nd part of this plan is to give them distinctive squad markings on the black shoulder pads. I haven't found a method for this that I'm comfortable with yet, but when I do, it should be very easy to see which marine belongs to which squad, even in the terrible lighting common in Montreal gaming stores.

J’aimerais l’idée de diviser mes escouades en deux pour saturer le champ de bataille avec les troupes. Par contre, mes escouades de fuseurs ont besoin d’un rhino chacun pour être efficaces. Je les ai donc gardés séparé toujours en peignant un sergent pour chaque groupe de cinq. Les deux autres escouades vont avoir le choix de rester ensemble, ou l'option de séparer selon la mission. Pour rendre les sergents plus évidents, je les ai données des casques noirs. Dans le futur, je vais leur donner des marques distinctives sur les épaulettes de chaque marine pour montrer de quelle escouade il s'appartient. Cela sera évident malgré les lumières faibles qui sont communes dans les magasins de jeux de table à Montréal.

Multimelta squad
Escouade de multimelta (fuseur multiple?)

Tactical Sarge
Sergent tactique

Melta squad
Escouade de fuseur

Squatting dude compliments of Chinese resin
Un gars s’accroupit grâce à la résine de la Chine

Interesting 2nd ed. legs
Jambes intéressantes de la deuxième édition

2 fisted fighter
Combatant à deux poings

1st 5 man squad
La première escouade de 5 gars

Shy guy
Le gars timide

Forgeworld missile launcher
Lance missile de Forgeworld

1st 5 man grav squad
Première escouade de grav

Press molded grav gun with combi grav sarge
Fusil grav à la Instamold avec sergent avec combigrav

Tactical Sarge
Sergent tactique

Tactical Sarge side view
Sergent tactique de côté

New marines have some great posing possibilities
Les nouveaux marines peuvent prendre beaucoup de différentes positions

2nd 5 man squad with missile launcher
L'escouade deuxième de 5 gars avec lance-missile

2nd Forgeworld missile launcher
La deuxième lance missile de Forgeworld

2nd 5 man grav squad
Deuxième escouade de grav

2nd Press molded grav gun
Deuxième fusil grav à la Instamold

Tactical Sarge 2
Sergent tactique 2

2 fisted fighter
Combatant à deux poings

And his bro...
Et son frère


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