More Epic Eldar painted

Michelle and the twins were out of town this weekend and so I had some time to get some figures painted and based. Sadly I also developed the cold that the twins had and so while I had scads of free-time I didn’t get as much done as I would have wanted.

I quickly painted up 5 Dark Reaper stands, 4 Striking Scorpion stands and 4 Eldar Fire Dragon stands. I also finished the bases on them as well as the 16 Guardian stands I painted previously. The bases still need a bit of work but if push comes to shove they are usable in a game in their current state.

To finish off the bases I want to add some brown dirt patches to the grey “rubble” bases and also do a test with some of the Secret Weapon Miniatures Cement Wash to see what sort of look that gives to the bases.

In the end I will have spent twice as much time on the bases as I did on the figures :-)

Fir Lirithion Epic army list thoughts

I am in the process of picking up some Epic Eldar Knight miniatures and so I thought that it would be interesting to see what, if any, army lists are available to use the Knights in. The NetEA 2012 army list compendium contains the Fir Iolarion Eldar Titan Clan army list (an older version, the most recent version is available for download) but it has several issues with it that make it less than interesting from my perspective. No disparagement meant to the work that Kalen has done on the list (as he has done some interesting work), its just not the type of list I want to play and I think that it strays from the background in several areas.

Army Builder released for the Mac

Great news. Wolf Lair have released the beta for a Mac version of Army Builder. And it appears to be entirely stable and reads the existing AB files without a hitch. I’m working on a 40K Eldar list right now.

Bad news. It looks exactly like the PC version.

I am sure that there is a technical reason why they had to do this (keeping the code as consistent as possible across platforms jumps to mind immediately) but I thought that the app looked like junk on the PC so the transfer of the UI to the make is a bit saddening.

Still. I can make Epic: Armageddon army lists on my Mac now as well as 40K lists so I am a happy guy.

Skaven triumph in vicious battle

Run! Run! Stab! Stab! continued their home season with a game against those vile pretenders to Skaven glory, the “Rough” Ratters.

24,000 fans with little to do on a late, cold evening showed up for the game. Despite having the home field advantage the Ratters brought more fans. Slaves will be “enrolled” for our next home game. Fearing the vast horror that is the Stabber’s fan favourite Rat Ogre Mr. Fluffy, the Ratters hired their own anemic, sickly Rat Ogre in an attempt to counter Mr. Fluffy’s talent on the field.

The Ratters paid a higher bribe and so “won” the coin toss and elected to receive. Ratter’s fans started the game by tossing a hail of, hopefully, rocks on the field stunning Stankwhisper. In rapid succession the Ratters managed to score two TDs using a very suspicious tactic that involved thronging the sideline and running their cowardly Gutter Runner along the sideline for a TD.

More Epic Eldar painted

Spent some time last night getting my second formation of Eldar Guardians and a set of four units of Dire Avengers done for my Epic: Armageddon force. The miniatures need a layer of highlights and the Farseer stand needs some details but those should be done tomorrow and then I can base them and have them ready for gaming.

After that I want to finish a set of four Dark Reapers and then some Wave Serpents for the Aspect Warriors to travel in. I started one Wave Serpent as a test to determine how I want to paint them and the difficulties involved in getting them done. Once I have that figured out I can quickly get the other seven done and ready to game with.

Adepticon blog

In order to stop filling this blog with 40K and Adepticon related posts I started a separate blog to cover my plans to build and army for Adepticon 2013. So if you are not too interested in the endeavour you can still haunt this blog with little fear :-)

On second thought …

Well there is nothing like sticker shock to make one changes plans. I was originally planning on building a Necron force for Adepticon 2013 but then I started checking out the price of the new models. A unit of Wraiths is going to set me back something like $100. Individual Spyders are $40 and the Immortals and other elite units are $40 for five models.

Now when you consider the parts in the kits these aren’t actually bad prices. The Immortals box has an insane number of pieces and the Spyder kit has all the parts required for three different types of units. I will not fault GW for giving you value for your money in this regard.

Value aside, I don’t have the funds to build a Necron army from scratch and so I will have to look at repurposing some existing figures for an Adepticon force. I have Marines, Eldar and Imperial Guard available but all of the have their issues.

The Marines would be the easiest to paint but sadly the force I already have built is based on 30mm round-lipped bases and not the standard 25mm GW bases. While this isn’t an issue for friendly play I suspect that it would be problematic for a tournament. I have a suitable start to a Guard army but I really don’t know if I have the time or energy to paint a Guard army. The models I have are all unpainted and all my vehicles are still unassembled so that force would be quite a challenge. That leaves the Eldar. I should be able to trade some of my existing models to get the figures I need to fill out my existing collection of models. I primarily need some vehicles and a few walkers. I have most of the troops and a large number of Aspect Warriors.

So it looks as if the plan is still a go but I now have to catalogue what I have for Eldar figures and start working on trading for the rest of the army.

Adepticon 2013

As of today I am officially going to be attempting to build and paint a 40K army and take it to Adepticon 2013.

I am not sure what the underlying reason for this is other than it seems like a hell of a lot of fun and I have always wanted to go to an event like this and just game for days on end.

So that means that I will be starting a 40K force. I already have some painted Marines and some Eldar but both of those forces have been built for 40K Second Edition. I have a strange fondness for the new Necron models and vehicles and so I believe that I will be planning, building and painting them.

I need to start trading to pick up some of the core models though so if you have any Necrons lurking about that you don’t want check out my trade list and see if I have anything you might want to trade for them.

Epic gaming

Mike and I met at Sentry Box for a 3000pt game of Epic: Armageddon. I brought out my new, and wholly unpainted, Eldar force to try out and also avoid having an Ork v. Ork battle.

Playing Epic Eldar

I started painting the first troops for my Epic Eldar army. All the infantry have had their bases sanded and are primed and I put the base coat on the first Guardian formation last night. I am doing some tests with various washes to see which one I will be using on the rest of the troops and at the moment it is a tie between Secret Weapon Miniatures Soft Body Black and Baal Red.

I have been trying to figure out how to tame the official Swordwind Biel Tan army list. It is quite powerful and I really don’t want to put people off the army and/or the game by stomping them with the list. The official Eldar list is very friendly to new players but experienced Epic gamers or people with a lot of experience with the Eldar list can easily crush their opponents.

I checked out the NetEA Eldar list that was created and posted on Tactical Command. There are things that I like in it but there are a few changes that I think are, to be blunt, ham-fisted. There are things that I like about it but there are enough questionable changes to it that I can’t really justify using it.

So what I am going to do is make two changes (both from the NetEA list and also suggested some time ago on the old play testers forum) which is to remove the Spirit Stones rule and also, once I get Firestorms, to remove the AA ability from the Fire Prism. Those two changes should be enough to make the Eldar more fragile and also make them a bit more susceptible to aircraft attacks.