Crimson Sundown

Maybe we can bring back the light

In a move that shocked the world, my wonderful wife Katie agreed to help me paint some figures.  Now I know, you are just as shocked as I was!  What is even more shocking is that, is the fact that Katie asked to paint some of my figures, I didn’t have to bribe her.

This is not the first time she has surprised me with Warhammer related activities.  It was a few months back where I needed a partner to play with as my Tyranids were going against a Tau / Space Wolves team, and Katie picked up my Orks and helped me to victory.  The more I have told her about the Orks, the more fun she had with the models and the fluff.

So of course when she wanted to paint last night, I gave her one of my Trukk’s and said, “Have fun!”  I think she’s doing a great job with it, especially considering my limited painting pot colors that I currently have.  With her painting my Orks I set back to work on finishing up my Tyranid Warriors and got 5 out of 6 finished.

Overall I am really happy with the fact that this nerdy little hobby of mine is something that I can share with the woman I love.  Have some fun as you take a look at some pictures from the event!

[View with PicLens]

I first bought my Tyranids as a side army, something to work on while I played with my Chaos Space Marines.  Over time, I grew tired of the my little Chaos crew.  I did it mostly because after playing a few games in the Campbell basement, along with playing in a Rogue Trader tournament, I just didn’t feel like I had any more desire to look at a MEQ army.  What I do look fondly on are the times that myself and Chris spent in his basement where we spent so much time working on building and painting our Chaos forces.

While I had fun painting regular marines, it doesn’t mean I was great at it.  As you can see, I definitely had some room for improvement …

Not terrible by any stretch of the imagination, but not fantastic either.  I didn’t work at all with any sort of watering down of colors, no washes, no drybrushing.  For the most part, the only thing that had changed from when I was working on my Orks back in High Schools, was that my hand was a bit more steady.

With the Tyranids, what drew me to them was the models look fantastic, they play more to my balanced style, and from what I had heard, they were easier to paint.  As I have spent the past few years working on them, I can now say that I absolutely love painting them.  While my quality could only be best described as table worthy, I am still having a lot more fun with it!  What I wanted to present to you tonight was a look at the kind of progress that I’m making and hopefully people can offer suggestions.

I am do this fairly standard as I started with Hormagaunts and Ripper Swarms, the basic troop choices.  Now I am starting to move up in Tyranid Warriors, and I can already say that I’m love the bigger models.  More space to work, more detail to work on, and they simply look fantastic even by my standards.

At this point, the figures had been assembled for years.  Time for Prime!

My favorite unit, Genestealers, start to take their icy color.

Hormaguants lead the assualt as the first painted units.  The Warriors are soon to follow.

Hormaguants, Genestealers and Warriors, oh my!  Now the army is starting to look fearsome!

This past weekend as I part took in Paul’s Basement League, Week 2, I went into the event knowing that I was trying things that were out of my comfort zone.  I was taking a bevy of new units that I had never used before, including Gargoyles, Hive Guard, a Tervigon and the mighty Trygon Prime.

I was also playing Pedro one on one for the first time in 3 years.  The last time we played, different armies represented us.  He was protecting his rune priest as he rolled with his Space Wolves, and I was attempting to out Close Combat him with my Chaos Space Marines and their upgraded Chaos Lord.  He beat me on that day oh so long ago, but the match was close.

With all of that in mind, Pedro and I strode up to the snow table at Paul’s and the match was setup for Dawn of War deployment, with a mission type of Capture & Control.  With the exposition out of the way, now I can get into my specific thoughts on how the new units did, and how I feel like my Hive Fleet is doing through three games.

I did two things that I don’t normally do.  I used Deep Strike with the Trygon, and that worked out ok.  I’m not necessarily sold on the concept.  He came out and fired 12 times at the closest squad and did some damage.  He was also tough enough to survive small arms fire and some close combat, even with his average initive 4 going last against the fast Eldar.  I just would have prefered fleeting him up I think.  I think he would have done more damage.  Then again, the effect he had with being that close to the enemy, is pretty good as a psychological factor, not to mention that it is a fire magnet to take off the heat from my many other figures.

The second thing I did, was use outflank with a brood of Genestealers coupled with a Broodlord.  That entire squad worked out perfectly and I can completely understand why Josh and his Imperial Guard use it so much.  They came out on exactly the right table edge, kill a group of Pathfinders in front of them, held the enemy objective, and were able to kill off a weakened Harlequin unit gunning for them.  I feel like I will be doing this a bit more often in the future, and feel like it can most certainly help me out against other opponents.

The biggest thing that this new balanced list has going for it, is that I am able to make an opponent go on the defensive very quickly, and it’s tough for them to prioritize what they should take out first.  By the time the Genestealers and Trygon had come out in the enemy backlines on turn 2, I already had Gargoyles, Flyrant and Carnifex starting to take pot shots at the front of the army.  Add to that, my Tervigon which spawned a total of 34 additional Termagaunts when the game was over, and it’s insane to try and figure out what to shoot at.

Speaking of the Gargoyles, I really felt like my change from Hormagaunts to Gargoyles for the same amount of points worked out really well.  They offer consistant speed with their 12 inch movement, and also have automatic wounds (AS allowed) on to hit rolls of 6.  Plus from a fluffy standpoint, they really work well with my Flyrant and give the army a really great look.

The list has a bit of swarm, and a lot of monsterous creatures to keep people occupied for awhile.  The hive guard which I tried out, didn’t get a chance to do much as the Dawn of War deployment really had them moving a lot more than they should.  I still believe in them and feel like they can give me the necessary tank busting that I need.  With them, Carnifex with Venom Cannon, and the Flyrant, I feel like I can take out tanks when needed.  I haven’t had too much of a problem, but we shall see as I face more mechanized armies in the future.

Overall I am pleased with the codex and feel like it is a very balanced effort from Games Workshop.  I can only hope that the rest of the codex releases this year are as on point as this.

If you’ll excuse me now, I’m off to think about the potential for an all Tyranid Warrior Brood.  =P