The Daemon's Claw

In the proud traditions of Lassie, Axemander - the goodest boy, saved the day and won the Kill Team mission for the Star Striders. With their engine room was invaded with Night Lord Chaos Marines, things were looking grim for our intrepid crew. Chomping two of the chaos marines, he seized control of an objective and counted for scout the field. This brave action represented a 3 victory point swing to the Star Striders and allowed the hard pressed crew a come from behind victory.  The Night Lords have 7 Marines 6 are normal chaos marines and one is a Berserker champion. The Aspiring champion is a leader and has Mark of Nurgle.  The Star Striders form up in the enginarium they are unusual that they get 3 models that are specialists but don't count towards the 4 specialist limit. The heavy gets a rotary cannon that's an interesting mix, they also have a combat machine of a death cultist. The sneaky nightlords are using a veteran with flamer rather than the more typical ...

I have been making some progress on a number of projects These are my Red Scopion Kill team. They are an orthodox codex chapter. There is quite a lot of published material about the. The have probably become Forgeworlds house chapter. They are about 50% done, its onto the highlight colours, trim and then the black and metallics.  The Nova Marines are further along. The basic colours are in place now its the metallics and details. Here are my Copplestone mercenaries, I got them for Zona Alpha but after watching Ash and Owen break it in 2 games. They could be zombie or any other kind of post apocalypse group. The might even fight Aliens or Predators  These are the Elysian Starstriders. They are a ship crew, they make a 100 point kill team and they have a commander. I have ideas about them fighting off boarding actions from other teams or exploring places where things that lurk in the dark call home.  I also found some old models, in some cases 30+ years ol...

I have been having fun making progress on a number of projects. I got thinking about who else I could include as a kill team. So I started painting up the Star Striders, they make up an exactly 100 point Kill Team. Given the Night Lords poor showing against the Marines Errant I will give them something else to fight and set up a boarding action against the Star Striders. I also dug out another couple of Badab War Kill teams, I have some Nova Marines and some Red Scorpions. The Nova Marines blue quarters were painted with some 30 year old GW paint. This came in one of the original boxed sets in a round pot. It still works. I have also been doing some work on some terrain. I have some ruined buildings from Warlord Games. I added some details with matchsticks and some teddy bear fur thatch. I have some more basing material coming from Scott whenever he gets a restock. I also have a unit of scifi mercenaries from Copplestone Castings. I got these for Zona Alpha.

I played a second solo Kill Team game. This saw the Night Lords attacking the gene vaults of the Marines Errant. This is similar to the events in one of the Night Lords novels. I took video of the game and managed to upload a video of the battle to my YouTube channel. I used my iPad with headphones and a mic. I only pulled my ears off once by moving while I had put the iPad down. Downloading the videos to my laptop via iCloud and then assembling them take a while so I might do another one and use my camera in video mode. The camera doesn't have a mic so I will need to test the sound pickup. I got inspired by watching Ash Barker play ye olde classic Space Hulk. I want to try a kill team game on the tiles. I can use the Arena doors. The Genstealers have a sensible AI to control their moves which should be simple to replicate. It's certainly possible to have fun with a game like this

I tried a solo game of Kill Team today. I got to try out a couple of my kill teams I have been working on. I am able to fit a game on the coffee table. In this mission its the Howling Griffons against the Flawless Host. It's the impact of the Griffons plasma weapons against the numbers of the Host. The Griffons are using Ultramarines rules and the Flawless host are playing as Emperors Children. I am using the Arena mission Catacombs. I used random draw of the Arena objectives to simulate objectives and goals set by management with incomplete information, or just being crazy. The Griffons selected Bounty Hunters, Contain (the scenario special objective), Thin Their Ranks. The Host got Domination, Contain, Thin Their Ranks This is the setup before the game starts. I tried to video the game and its harder than it seems to look at the table the camera and the dice tray. The Griffons had Tactical Sergeant with plasma pistol and Auspex (Leader) Tactical Gunner with plasma...

In the endless Sunday afternoon that is the New Zealand Covid response I have still being doing a selection of more hobby things. I have been doing some more work on my slowly growing Roman project. I have bee doing some work on the characterful elements for the Roman camp. Here are some servants ensuring that our heroes have somewhere comfortable to return to after a triumphal day out at the wars. Here is a medicus tending a legionary, assisted by one of his friends.  These are some shields I have been working on. These are decorated with Little Big Men transfers. These transfers work best over a white background. The transfers are different from the old waterslide, you cut them out and then stick them "face down" to the shields, then you wet them to get the backing paper off. I then used paint to colour the rest of the shield to match the transfer and darkended them a bit at the bottom. These are Auxilary Infantry shields. I used the Warlord Games Waterslid...