6th Edition First Impressions

Welcome, welcome, as we set sail into the heart of the unknown, aboard the Folly of War. These last couple of weeks have been busy ones both with work and with painting. My Blood Angels army is steadily growing (I'm verging on 1500 painted!) and I have been feverishly playing games of 6th edition to try and smooth over any rules issues. So far I have played a total of 4 games and have won a grand total of... 0. However, this has not in anyway been a bad thing. Each game has given me a new aspect to learn or changed the way I have interpreted the rules. For example, I found out that jump packs must decide which phase they will jump in (movement or assault). If they jump 12" in the movement they do not get the hammer of wrath rule or re-roll to charge.

Another area where the game has changed dramatically is aircrft (I am trying to stop calling them Flyers as it makes me sound like I have the vocab of a 10 year old child). Now, I have a bit of a soft spot for aircraft, as my dad used to work at Heathrow and my girlfriend's dad works at Duxford. So, when an opportunity to include models that add an extra dimension to the gaming table I flew (pun intended) at the chance to make plane noises during the movement phase (they should've added something along the lines of this in the new book. "You must make a neeewooaaaah noise every time you move an aircraft else the engine stalls and it crashes").  Using aircraft is so much fun and can really freak out your opponent if they have no AA. Watching the desperation of an army unload the entire contents of their guns just to bring down a single plane is very entertaining... right up until the point that your opponent does hit your Stormbrick and it comes crashing down, killing the majority of passengers insides (damn you Jamie!!!).

I leave you with pictures of my Librarian dread. I have used the same chipping technique as before but I wanted to go another step forward with painting the Force Weapon. Using blending and washes I gradually built up a crystalline looking blade. Using 1:1:1 mix of Hawk Turquoise, Bleached Bone and Regal Blue (or equivalents if you cant get them any more) I gave the blade a solid coat then added more Bleached Bone to highlight and used Regal blue wash for low lighting. Lastly, streaks of white were added to create a reflective shimmer. Next, on the to do list of the angels is 5 scouts, another dread, a drop pod and the one I am putting off the most 7 Sternguard. Right, those marines won't paint themselves. Navigator set course to the Baal System we need reinforcements!!

Storm Ravens (It doesn't matter how hard that pilot flaps his arms it ain't taking off!)

The Storm Brick!

Power down the warp drives, seal those bulkheads damn it! Welcome aboard The Folly of War having only just made it out of Warp Space in one piece (Derbyshire). With no communication relay or astropathic choir I have been a drift in that god forsaken place known as the Eye of Terror AKA The Peak District. As we all know time flows mysteriously in the north and my painting hands have not been idle. My Blood Angel Army is taking shape and after calming down about not being able to take a storm talon I took the plunge and brought its bigger cousin the storm raven. Its a good job I got one too, as the price increased by a whopping 25% last week and only I missed the price hike by a matter of days. 

Que Damnbusters Music!!

Love it or loath it the storm raven is a huge kit but to me has the aerodynamic finesse of brick with go faster stripes painted on it. It was time for a quick refit. Now I'm not saying that my conversion work has turned this model into something as sophisticated as a euro fighter but it is a damn sight more believable than what it was like. First thing to go was the tail and with the help of Jose' in Heroes and Legends I extended it to give it a more helicopter look. Secondly, I added stabiliser fins to the nose so that it would give the front more lift therefore not ploughing into the ground as soon as it took off. These were made from the unused tail wing. Finally, I removed that awful turret from the top and placed the las cannons under the wings. Now I know that in game I should have the turret but the aesthetics of the model needed addressing (in games I will just measure from where the turret used to be). I mean, why can't you save the galaxy from the alien and the heretic and look good at the same time?

Note the tail has been completely
reworked using plasticard.

I have also built and painted a assault squad. Pictures next week as I want to base them before I unleash them on the world. Whilst up north I also managed to make a quick visit to Warhammer World and pick up some MK 5 Heresy Armour. I am a MASSIVE fan of forge world and the new (old) armour that they are producing. Mixing these with the MK 3 Iron Armour I have I'm going to use them as Sternguard. I especially love the alternate pattern bolters I got as the have chain bayonets Wooo!

Right then, off to make repairs to the ship and hopefully I'll have her up and running by next week. Till then May the Emperor Protect.

The Death of an Army

The Storm Talon

And so it came to be... Silence in the 40k Universe. The death of my Black Templars. Now is the winter of my discontent (and other Shakespearian melodramatic prose). My hopes for the 40K flyers were simple.

1. Could the Black Templars use the Storm Raven?

2. Surely they could use the brand spanking new Strom Talon... surely?

Tragedy. This months White Dwarf did not deliver either of my dreams and therefore have condemned the Templars to a life of "friendly games" and being stuck in their case for an eternity of penance (or until they get a codex update). Surely all White Dwarf had to do was print a little sentence saying "Can be used by Codex marines, Space Wolves, Dark Angels and Black Templars may use this." Not hard. It did even take me very long to type.

However I am not keen on GW bashing so what I will say is can we give them a round of applause for the Dakka Jet. The sculpting is superb and I feel of all the new flyers it really captures the background of the Ork army. This all points to the release of 6th Edition 40k. Are flyers going to be a new class? Are we going to see more anti aircraft. Are Skimmers going to be harder to hit? Has anyone noticed the fighter ace rules? Why the need to separate skimmers? The way this is written makes me feel that skimmers are going to become 6's to hit across the board unless they have some additional rules in a models codex. Who knows except for the creators, not long now though!

!st Squad of the 3rd Company

So what to do? Well on the up side I have continued to paint more Blood Angels and have now finished my first tactical squad of the army. I have found that all of the free hand work that I did on my Templars has given my marines more of an individual style. After some practice I have started to free hand a modified chapter symbol. This has been fun to paint and I hope to finish my next assault squad soon. Well I'm of to give my figure case a space funeral (like Spock). See ya next week.