G&G IX: Doom in the Dunes (40K Day)

This ninth iteration of Gaming & Guinness came with some bittersweet undertones, as our host is selling his lovely Ottawa home as a result of splitting up with his wife.  I  am saddened we won't have the opportunity to return to this venue for a future G&G, but Rob did an outstanding job juggling his roles as host, home-seller and attentive dad to his off-site daughter!

Rob was also one of the original Warhammer 40,000 players back in the early 90s in Edmonton, but hasn't had an opportunity to play a battle with his own Eldar models since moving from Vancouver in 2001.

He was also quite concerned about the lack of scenery he had available, but printed out a papercraft hotel, some barriers and a handful of shipping containers that we dutifully cut and taped together that morning.  After throwing the sandy-coloured pool table cover over the ping-pong surface, and throwing some books and pool cues underneath to create some topography, we had a perfectly passable battlefield to work with.  Flipping over a wooden fruit bowl from upstairs to create an organic looking mountain or structure was the final touch.

Despite a lack of familiarity with the rules, Rob threw his Falcon grav-tanks, jetbikes and Vypers fully into the battle, led by his Avatar, a war-god behemoth with a molten heart.  Scott's own Eldar took up position close to the objectives, and the conflict began.  Island Mike's Catachan Jungle Fighters and my Valhallan Ice Warriors did our best to uphold the name and reputation of the Imperial Guard (or, as they are apparently calling them these days, the Astra Militarum).

Objective-wise, there is no disputing that the day belonged to the Eldar;. by game's end, they held two of the four objective points on the field, compared to zero for the Guardsmen.  Still, we mon-keigh took pride in a few highlights, like our company commanders, 'Iron Hand' Straken and Marshall Kratten, taking out Rob's Avatar in hand to hand!  Or when my troop of conscripted troopers rolled a 5 in order to stay in their fight with a squad of Swooping Hawk Aspect Warriors, and then not only breaking them next turn, but wiping them out before they could make their escape!  Good times, good times.

In the end though, our men and armour were not enough to overcome the Eldar's potent combination of mobility and firepower; congratulations, Scott and Rob!  

I maintain part of the problem may have been our use of jungle fighters and troops in winter camo in a desert environment, but that seems more and more unlikely as I consider it.

It was great to have these two armies meet for the first time in G&G history though, and who knows, there may be the opportunity for a rematch at G&G X, even though I could probably go another decade without facing that Avatar again.

Making Tracks: Leman Russ Executioner

So, this is it: the sixth and final armoured vehicle planned for my Valhallan 40K army.  I wish the swan song was a bit more dramatic, but I think I used up all my customization mojo on Cold Comfort earlier in the month.

Despite the game's setting of the 41st millennium, the vehicles I have built so far look pretty similar to tanks of the Second World War, with some present day accessories and sci-fi trimmings (like the hull-mounted lascannon on Snow Tiger), but the Executioner breaks that mold cleanly.  The main gun is the infamous Executioner plasma cannon, and the stowage boxes in the rear of the turret have been replaced with additional plasma coils in order to maintain a high rate of fire.  Space Marine power armour is no match for the fury of superheated plasma, and even Tactical Dreadnought (Terminator) armour can only withstand one shot in three.

Since the other two tanks had a crewman in the open hatch of the turret, I knew I wanted this one to be buttoned up.  I've read enough issues of G.I. Combat to know that if you don't keep that hatch secured, Sgt. Rock is going to climb up onto your track, riddle the commander with .45 slugs from his Thompson, and then drop a couple of 'hot pineapples' down into the tank for good measure.  Besides, the closed hatch makes the tank look a little sleeker.

I kept the tank itself relatively plain, with no sandbags, bedrolls, shovels and the like, because I wanted the centre of attention to be the big plasma cannon.  My reach outstretched my grasp a little, however; although I am fairly happy with the coils themselves, I had wanted to give them kind of a 'glow' effect.  Painting light sources is a pretty tricky business and I am strictly a journeyman painter, but the principle seemed easy enough.  I think it would have worked better against a darker background, but I was unwilling to repaint the entire gun barrel to facilitate this.  Even though the glow didn't turn out even close to what I pictured in my mind, it still gets the idea across, and so I left my efforts in place.  It also suits the name I decided to give the tank: Lux Cathedra (Light of the Throne).

If I was a bit gutsier, I would have tried to paint some sort of glowy starburst down inside the barrel, like the heart of the Doomsday Machine from Star Trek.

Now *that* is intimidating.

There may even be a tactical advantage in Lux Cathedra's stock appearance (which I will now lose by pointing it out): each piece in the Warhammer 40,000 game is worth a certain amount of points, which serve as the currency which keeps the games evenly matched.  A base-model Leman Russ starts at a modest 150 points, and then you pay extras for accessories like weapons sponsons, extra armour and so on.  If you've ever purchased a car from a dealership, you are already familiar with this principle.  Lux Cathedra, with its lascannon in the hull and plasma cannons in the side sponsons, weighs in at about 260 points.  (It would have been 275 but I decided I didn't need the undercoating.  What the heck do I care about the resale value of a tank which stands a significant chance of becoming a burned-out hulk by the third turn for heaven's sake?)  This is not a complaint, as it will earn those points back the very first time it runs across a squad of Terminators in the open, but the bottom-liners in the Departmento Munitorum will be keeping a wary eye on the Executioners they commission, as will the enemy, so it bodes well to draw less attention to one, rather than more.

Still, the glowy green energy weapon in the turret makes it hard to be anonymous.

I did try to add a little distinctiveness by adding some patches of snow to the rear cargo box and sponsons.  I bought some snow flock for the horde of foot soldiers I will be painting next, and thought this made as good a time as any to experiment with it.  Again, it would have been more distinct against a darker background, and I definitely need more practice with it, but since I will be painting about a hundred man-sized models (if all goes well!), there will be plenty of opportunity to improve.

Six tracks in six months is hardly anything to brag about in the big scheme of things, but I met my deadline of having all the vehicles out of the way by February, and they all look pretty consistent.  Hopefully I can keep up the same pace on the infantry, and maintain the dream of playing with the army at least once before G&G VI in May!

Making Tracks: Leman Russ Tank

The latest addition to my Valhallan armoured element is a second Leman Russ tank.  Unlike the Vanquisher I built previously, this one uses the standard Russ battle cannon, so it is not limited to an anti-vehicle role.  In fact, since it has a hull-mounted heavy bolter and two more in side sponsons as well as a heavy stubber on the turret,  it's actually better suited to anti-personnel work, and should make an ideal 'objective clearing device'.  Since I wanted a proper Latinish Imperium name for the final tank, I wanted this one to be a bit more generic, and ended up calling it Cold Comfort as a reference to both its frozen homeworld and the cold steel of its armour.  (Cold Hard Truth was in the running right up until I painted the letter 'd' in cold, but it just felt too unwieldy.)

There are six different variants of the Leman Russ, and since my 22nd Valhallan Armoured regiment will have three of them by the time I'm finished, I wanted one of them to be the base model with a standard turret.  This vanilla Russ also makes a nice foundation for things like the two tank riders, the commander and a bulldozer blade.  The 'dozer blade makes it easier for the tank to move through difficult terrain like forests and such without becoming immobilized by throwing a track or some such.  The tank riders have no rules but I find them especially evocative, since there are historical examples of this from WWII Russia, and I think they bring a great deal of character to a stock model such as this one.

The Silly Putty masking technique is still working well for the initial camo, although shading the white portions does take a little bit of effort, and the consistency to the other vehicles may leave a little bit to be desired.  Still, I probably ended up spending more time on the three human figures than I did the rest of the tank. 

Some smaller accessories are meant as small telltales to the stoic preparedness of the Valhallans, such as the holstered pistol within reach of the tank commander, the packs and rucks affixed to it, and even the axe affixed to the front hull.  After all, 'Be Prepared' is the Boy Scout marching song, right comrade?

In addition to weathering, I wanted this tank to sport some battle damage.  The bullet holes under the driver's viewport were done by holding the tip of a nail in a candle flame with a pair of pliers and then pressing it into the plastic repeatedly. 

The larger shell craters were achieved in similar fashion, but used the heated head of the nail instead.  This gives a nice rippling affect like you might get from a HEAT round or plasma bolt that hit the armour at an oblique angle.

I do have to be careful in traversing the turret however; with the main gun at maximum elevation I can avoid knocking off the hunter/killer missile on the starboard sponson, but the turret rider will boot off the rider on the hull if it goes the other way!

This model took me longer to complete than I anticipated, but if I can finish off the last tank by the end of January, that will leave me February, March and April for the foot models and air support element.  I will need to stay focused if I want to have the army field-worthy in time for G&G VI, but if I can actually get a game in with the army before that, so much the better!

Making Tracks: Chimera APC

My Valhallan army, when completed, will have six armoured vehicles, of which this Chimera is the fourth.  Heading in to the back half of vehicle construction has me looking at the various bits, bobs, sundries and accessories I have collected over the years that might be affixed to a vehicle.  Clearly the time has come to 'use it or lose it', and as a result, this troop transport has over a dozen such additions to the stock kit.

It's also important to understand that from a practical standpoint, an armoured personnel carrier (APC) for the Imperial Guard is kind of a ridiculous concept.  Every other race in the Warhammer 40,000 universe is either faster, stronger or better equipped than the puny humans who make up the rank and file of the Guard, and often in more than one category.  The idea of using an armored transport to get closer to the foe is more than a bit foolhardy.

That said though, 40K is still a game, and you can't win the game by hanging back and shelling the foe into compliance (sigh); objectives have to be taken and they have to be held, and shielding some of your troops with a protective metal shell could be the difference between them getting to the objective with enough strength to hold on to it, or getting there in the first place.

And then of course, there is the aesthetic side of things, which gives me just as much enjoyment as the game-playing component. I only have one Chimera, and figured it would go to either my regimental command element or my veterans. Once I saw that the veterans could be upgraded to a demolitions team (hands up if Crazy Harry is one of your favourite Muppets!), my decision was made for me.

Because the Chimera is not a fighting vehicle per se, I opted for a distinctive paint scheme, different from both my artillery and tanks.  My plan is for the squad that rides this track to be very much a 'character' unit, something with a cachet like that of 'The Dirty Dozen' or 'Kelly's Heroes'  (failing that, perhaps 'The A Team'...), so I thought the Chimera should reflect this as much as possible.

I also figured that if this vehicle was going to be right in the thick of things, there was no better place to depict this than in the turret, with a crewman blasting away with the heavy stubber, clearly trying to keep enemy infantry at bay while his comrades use the assault ramp in the rear to get out and plant their deadly melta bombs.  Using a Valhallan heavy weapon crewman as the commander also meant that I had to make a decision regarding the camo I will use for my infantry, and I went with a simply pattern of grey and black blotches, since I will be painting an awful lot of it.

The extra-large searchlight also seemed to fit the theme of both mine-clearing (which a demo team might reasonably be expected to do) or just blinding enemy troops inside a bunker while the bombs and flamers come into play. 

The Demo Team vehicle needs a an evocative name, and I ended up choosing Petrograd Express, and painting this just below the turret on the starboard side.  (I realize Petrograd was what they called St. Petersburg back in the days of the USSR, but as a pseudo-Slavic version of Oiltown it proved impossible to resist. Still, I think I will be leaning heavily towards more Imperial themes for my two remaining tanks.)  Both sides of the Chimera's hull include auxiliary fuel tanks as well as racks of spare lasguns in case ammo should get low or the situation become sufficiently dodgy. 

The pick, shovel and crowbar are all meant to cultivate an aura of preparedness as well as independence; after all, none of the other units are going to want to get too close to a squad carrying that many explosives, even they don't happen to be in a minefield at the time.

The most striking feature of the Express however, is no doubt the mine plow on the front.  This is an add-on made by Dragon models for use on an M1-A1 Abrams tank, and is called a 'track-width mine plough'.  The scale is not precisely correct, but is certainly close enough for me.  Ironically, the instructions for this one accessory are actually more detailed than the vehicle it is attached to, but I managed to get enough of it completed that I could mount it to the piece that normally holds a bulldozer blade on the Leman Russ.  The black and yellow 'danger stripes' I added for no better reason than I just thought they looked wicked, and masked out the stripes with tape, my first time doing so.  It was by no means a perfect job, but I left the marks where some leakage occurred on the advice of my wife, who rightfully pointed out that I was going to weather and chip the blade anyways, and would never achieve such organic results intentionally.  I'm certainly glad I listened to her!

It's a long ways from perfect, but I am already looking furtively at the approaching deadline, and I am pretty happy with the Petrograd Express given the time I had available.  I don't anticipate having a lot of painting or building sessions in December until my Christmas holiday begins, and I have to crank out two more Leman Russ tanks before the end of January if I don't want to be rushed painting my infantry or their air support (dun dun DUN).

Making Tracks: Manticore

A manticore is a mythical beast with the body of a lion, wings like a bat, the face of a man and some manner of spiky tail; sometimes like that of a scorpion, in other renditions, able to shoot the spikes at its prey.  All the Imperial Guard artillery is named after some sort of monster (Basilisk, Medusa, Hydra, etc), and with its 4 massive Storm Eagle rockets mounted on a rearward turret, this Manticore comes by its moniker honestly enough.

This was the first Imperial Guard model I ever purchased; although the Manticore is now available as an all plastic kit, for the longest time it was initially only possible to build one out of a Basilisk kit and then replacing the big Earthshaker cannon with a resin add-on kit by Forgeworld containing the turret, missiles and hull extension.  Having the opportunity to buy one of these kits while at the US Games Workshop HQ in Baltimore, I immediately gravitated to the Manticore for its Red Square May Day parade aesthetic; the immense firepower was only the most distant of associations.  In fact, it is only allowed a maximum of four shots per game, but many of my tanks get blown up well before that anyways, so that hardly seems like a setback.

Resin is a chore to work with and is also somewhat dangerous.  (True story: the head of sales for GW Canada told me about visiting Forgeworlds' production facility and his guide had him wear a full-on dual can respirator like you'd see them wearing in an autobody shop.  When Gary asked why, the rep told him that the resin dust was carcinogenic.  'Why aren't you wearing one then?' Gary inquired.  His guide smiled and said, 'It's too late for me, mate.'  Brr!)  I used my Dremel tool to sand off the unnecessary bits and mold webbing, and did it on my front step, with the wind at my back and a dust mask firmly in place.  Once that was done and the hull extension glued on, it primed and painted up the same as any other vehicle.  I left the missiles off until the very end, since they would be hard to reach around once they were glued in place.

The driver is another Forgeworld model, bought when I was exploring a Steel Legion or Death Korps of Krieg army, who all wear gas masks.  When I placed my final staff order with Games Workshop in 2007, I knew I had to get as much of my Guard army as possible, or it was never going to happen, and the knowledge that my 'Commie Rocket Tank' (as some of my co-workers referred to it) was languishing in the wings led me to choose the similarly Russian-inspired Valhallan Ice Warriors.  Still, I thought the gas-mask tanker was distinctive looking and made a degree of practical sense given the amount of fuel and exhaust he would be likely to encounter in the course of hauling those Storm Eagles around.

In the universe of the 41st Millennium, our modern day languages have been ostensibly replaced with High Gothic, Low Gothic and a host of lesser dialects, now that humanity exists on almost a million worlds.  In naming my vehicles I could probably get away with using a Russian word or two, but it's better to sneak in the occasional Cyrillic-looking letter and Eastern European name, like Little Anechka here.  I'm largely happy with it; it is certainly an imposing presence even if it doesn't match the picture in my mind's eye, but it got to a point where I had to weigh putting more effort into it now versus the disappointment of having it destroyed before even firing a shot later on during gameplay.  Most importantly, after more than ten years in a box, my Manticore is finally ready to take the field.

You know, once I have painted up an army for it to support...

Making Tracks: Leman Russ Vanquisher

The Leman Russ tank is the workhorse of the Imperial Guard army, appearing in more than a half-dozen variants, with weaponry ranging from a stock battle cannon to the Executioner plasma cannon.  The Vanquisher is a dedicated anti-armour tank, and draws heavily on the German Tiger of WWII as its inspiration.

All Russ variants are built from a standard chassis, so modeling a lower profile hull requires more time, energy and experience than I am prepared to expend.  I settled for using the resin turret I purchased from Forgeworld ages ago, which not only sports the immense Vanquisher cannon, but is also about one third lower than the standard turret.  To keep the aspect lean and mean, I left off the optional side sponsons, which, while increasing the firepower, also brings a matching increase in the points value of the tank.  I did opt to upgrade the hull-mounted heavy bolter to a lascannon, so if the turret should become disabled, it can still serve as a tank-hunter of sorts.  I added the track-guards initially out of esthetics, but also use them to reflect the extra armour upgrade, making the tank a bit more resilient. 

I was unsure exactly how I was going to set up the camo pattern on my tanks, but a staffer at The Game Store in Red Deer (great place if you get a chance to check it out!), told me how he had used Silly Putty as a mask on his WWI models, so I bought a couple of eggs worth at Toys R Us.  After priming the entire model white, one egg was sufficient to cover about half the hull and turret in a vaguely striped design, which I then sprayed with a can of positively ancient Shadow Grey spray, which has been out of production for many years. 

It only took about ten minutes of shaking to get the marble loose enough that I was willing to gamble using the spray; removing paint from plastic models is exceedingly tedious and not always effective, while re-priming the model always results in a significant loss of detail, so I was a little skittish, but it turned out pretty well.  The Silly Putty worked well and came off fairly easily once the spray was dry.  The only down side was that the colour of the spray was not only different from the Shadow Grey I had in a pot, but required a mix of Shadow Grey, Space Wolf Grey and a touch of Scaly Green just to get close!  This meant touch ups and corrections were going to be a real chore.  On the plus side, the colour settled well and left its own highlights on many of the edges and high points, so I will definitely be using it again.

I used a wash of Devlan Mud to weather the hull , but it didn't dry evenly, and made a bit of a mess in some places.  I was mostly able to cover it up, and where I couldn't, it ended up looking like a little more grease or grime, and did help to contribute to making the tank look more lived in.  I added some black triangles to reinforce the disruption pattern of the camo and to provide a little contrast as well.

I had already decided to use white uniforms on my officers and veterans, so I painted the tank commander likewise.  He had more detail than I expected to find, which made him a bit more difficult to paint, especially as I was trying to complete it before Sunday's Halloween and birthday shenanigans.  Still, I am pretty happy with how he turned out, and intend to use him as tank ace Knight Commander Pask.  The tank itself I intended to call 'Snow Tiger' from the get-go, and added the name to the turret, with some Cyrillic letters thrown in here as well as in the tank number for good measure.

Looking at it now, I realize I still need to finish off the backpack sitting on the back of the hull, and also want to find a space to add some 'kill markings', but it is certainly ready for the tabletop as is, and those additions shouldn't take more than a moment or two next week prior to varnishing it.

Having had some of the pieces for this army for over a decade (like Snow Tiger's Vanquisher turret), and the rest from when I left Games Workshop in 2007, it feels really good to finally be putting paint to it, and and more importantly, to be excited about painting the rest of the army as well.  Last week I traded some product still in shrink wrap for the rest of the vehicles I need for the army and did a quick tally of the 80 or so foot models that will make up the non-tracked complement.  It will be a bit of a slog in places (i.e. 80+ foot models), but I am confident I will have a field-worthy force by the time G&G VI comes around!

Making Tracks: Valhallan Basilisk

I am hoping to field an Imperial Guard Warhammer 40,000 army next May for G&G VI, and that means I need to start producing some tanks, sharpish.  This is my first attempt at a Valhallan track, the Basilisk, which is not so much a tank (no turret, you see) as it is a self propelled gun.

The Warhammer 40K universe is ostensibly a science-fiction one, with all the trappings like spaceships and aliens and such, but it draws quite extensively on history, both as it was and as we imagine it to have been.  Nowhere is this better illustrated than the Imperial Guard, the hapless, dime-a-dozen garden variety humans trying to defend the Imperium of Man from foul Xenos and heretics. While the far superior Space Marines, who have all the best elements of Dune's Sardaukar and Heinlein's Starship Troopers crossed with Iron Man, get all the glory in addition to all the best kit, the poor troopers of the Guard huddle in their flak jackets and slit trenches while armored vehicles that look almost a century old by today's standards rumble by.  With these simple tools, they are expected to secure humanity against bloodcrazed mobs of Orks,  Eldar grav-tanks and the chittering hordes of the Tyranids.  How can they possibly expected to do this?

1) There are lots of them, and
2) They can produce guns and tanks at an astonishing rate.

There are a number of different regiments of the Imperial Guard, and my advice to anyone starting the army and unsure of which one to choose is to look at your favourite war movie: 
Platoon/Guadalcanal Diary = Catachan Jungle Fighters 
Lawrence of Arabia = Tallarn Desert Warriors. 
Blackhawk Down = Cadian Shock Troopers
The Dirty Dozen = Schaeffer's Last Chancers
Stalingrad = Valhallan Ice Warriors
et cetera

To be honest, I am not that big a fan of the movie Stalingrad, but one of the models I have accumulated over the years is a missile tank that would look right at home trundling into Red Square on May Day in 1982, so I based my choice largely on that.  Plus it gives me the excuse to draw mock Cyrillic graffiti on my tank turrets and scenery.  There is nothing paricularly Russian about the vehicles themselves, but the foot-soldiers more than make up for it,with their greatcoats, slung blanket rolls, wedge caps and fur hats.

Anyone who has ever read a comic story featuring The Haunted Tank will no doubt recognize the inspiration of the Basilisk's main gun as the venerable German "88".  Originally designed as an antiaircraft gun, Rommel used these guns in an anti-tank capacity to destroy much of the British Eighth Army at range.  This later lead to the development of one of the most feared tanks of the Second World War, the Tiger, equipped with the same 88mm cannon.  (Sadly, there is no real 40K analogue to the Tiger, but the Vanquisher comes close, and it is on the to-do list.)

The Basilisk is not really a fighting vehicle per se, however, but is rather a self-propelled howitzer, designed to bombard the enemy from a good distance away (in game terms, up to 20 feet, which is a bit of overkill since most tables are less than 9 feet long) with its 'Earthshaker' cannon.

It is a very fun kit to build, not least because of all the doo-dads and accessories you can add to personalize your model, like tow cables, bedrolls, jerry cans, and backpacks and the like.  You can also raise and lower the cannon, and a tiny geared wheel on the starboard side of the gun obliging copies the movement in miniature.

I had also squirreled away a pair of metal crew before leaving Games Workshop, as well as a resin breech kit which together enabled me to depict the Earthshaker in the midst of being loaded.

This was only my second attempt ever at a camouflage pattern in this scale, and my first attempt at a winter scheme, but I am pretty happy with it.  The nice thing about a sci-fi background is that you can dream up an environment suitable to the most garish colour scheme you can come up with!  I have also taken a swing at some weathering effects, like a little dirt on the treads and lower hull, unlike my Space Marine vehicles which look like they drove to the battlefield direct from the showroom floor.

I hope to get better at lettering and also need to come up with some unit designations, but a Cyrillic letter and 3-digit signifier are as good a start as any.  Since vehicle personnel almost always name the track they crew, I have named the Basilisk Temerity (with a backwards 'R' for flavour).  It will probably be a while before I have enough other forces painted to field it, but hey, that's one down and four to go! 

Oh, and about 6 dozen infantry as well...