Smiling Skulls Space Marines

[Guest]

I think I like how it turned out.

[Guest]

^ Second incarnation of the Smiling Skulls Space Marines.

[Guest]

For a Warhammer Store Escalation league, going to see if I can get this little army fully built in the new/old paint scheme:

Base:

Tzeentch Sorcerer on Bike (2x combi-bolters, Force Sword, Warptime, Diabolic Strength, Eye of Tzeentch, Warlord, Undecided Warlord Trait)

Troops Khorne CSM (11, 8x BP+CCW, 2x Meltaguns, Champion w/Fist+CCW, Icon of Wrath)

 

Week 2(I'd be starting late, so week 1 for me):

Painted! Heavy Maulerfiend (Melta Cutters)

 

Week 3

Heavy Slaanesh Hellforged Rapier Batter (3x Ectoplasma Cannons, 6x crew)

 

Week 4 (last week)

Fast Nurgle Raptors (12, 9x BP+CCW, 2x Meltaguns, Icon of Despair, Champion w/Chainsword+Chainaxe)

 

List is mainly a reference for me, so I can keep track of what needs to be painted. EDIT: List Tweaks

[WestRider]

That looks pretty awesome! The red and blue really work together great there.

[Guest]

Nevermind

[Guest]

On 11/7/2018 at 5:27 PM, paxmiles said:

Base:

Sorcerer on Bike (2 combi-bolters)

Troops CSM (11, 8x BP+CCW, 2x Meltaguns, Champion w/Fist+CCW, Icon of Wrath)

 

Week 2(I'd be starting late, so week 1 for me):

Heavy Maulerfiend (As above, Melta Cutters)

 

Got two games in. First was with the base list against primaris ultramarines. Played on a smaller than normal table, which made the turn 1 charge very easy for the Troops. Managed a tie. Game 2 was against Emperor's Children using the week 2 addition. Played that on a full 4'x4' table with 24" no man's land. Troops made a warptimed turn 1 charge. Again, tie. Both were really close games, with only a few models left on both sides by the end. Was fun. 

[Guest]

"Character" Renegade Armiger

[Guest]

Not sure if I like this painting style: I'm deliberately painting worse than I can and in a simplified color scheme for the purpose of expedient painting. And it still takes forever...

[TheBeninator]

Are you skipping priming? Or did you just repaint to what appears to be plastic grey?

I say this because priming, although an extra step, typically speeds up painting as it is much easier to get an even coat when you add color.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, TheBeninator said:

Are you skipping priming? Or did you just repaint to what appears to be plastic grey?

I say this because priming, although an extra step, typically speeds up painting as it is much easier to get an even coat when you add color.

Lol. They are primed Black. The color in question is "Neutral Grey" from Vallejo's Model Color line. They are hand painted.

I think with the strong color contrast paint scheme it looks better than silver would in the same capacity. Granted, both would look a bit better if I were using washes and highlights.

In the earlier incarnation of these, I had been mixing black and white for a rather inconsistent grey, which looked better, but added more time. This incarnation features zero paint mixing, which bothers me regarding it being a shortcut, but it really saves time and that's the goal this time around. 

[Guest]

Current Paint Scheme

 

Primer

Duplicolor Sandable Black Primer (Spray Can)

 

Blue

70.809 Vallejo Model Color Dark Prussian Blue (Been having trouble replacing my stock, so also using 70.965 Prussian Blue of the same line)

> 72.021 Vallejo Game Color Magic Blue

 

Red

70.926 Vallejo Model Color Red

> 70.909 Vallejo Model Color Vermillion

 

Green

72.028 Vallejo Game Color Dark Green

> 72.029 Vallejo Game Color Sick Green

>> 72.032 Vallejo Game Color Scorpion Green

 

Pink

72.014 Vallejo Game Color Warlord Purple

> 72.013 Vallejo Game Color Squid Pink

 

Bone/Scrolls

70.921 Vallejo Model Color English Uniform

> 70.860 Vallejo Model Color Medium Flesh Tone

>> 70.919 Vallejo Model Color Foundation White (Recently Renamed "Cold White")

 

White

70.919 Vallejo Model Color Foundation White

 

Grey 

70.992 Vallejo Model Color Neutral Grey

 

Other Colors (including Black) are largely inconsistent in which I draw from. Sometimes I skip layers, both on purpose and due to accidents. That Armiger above didn't use the Dark Green Step on the Green for any of its portions, and looks like I forgot the Scorpion Green step on the Thermal Spear arm's wires. When I use washes, I use the GW Nulin Oil, though I don't like to use it because it adds a fair amount of drying time to an unfinished model and I tend to only be "able" to paint in bursts/phases.

 

 

 

[Guest]

Oh, and I use remarkably low quality brushes.....Or rather, they are good brushes, but I don't take care of them and often continue to use them well beyond their lifespan. I only recently replaced the brush which I had stepped on and pieced together with green stuff...

EDIT: Ah, yes, I already made a thread to show off my frankenstein-ed brush:

 

[Guest]

8 hours ago, TheBeninator said:

Are you skipping priming? Or did you just repaint to what appears to be plastic grey?

As an aside. I have given serious thought to painting an entire 40k army to "look" like it's plastic grey, with some metal bits, and exposed green stuff - all just painted on. It would be a lot of work, the final result wouldn't be appeciated by others, I don't think, so it doesn't seem worth the effort. If I didn't have so many other model projects...

[TheBeninator]

22 hours ago, paxmiles said:

As an aside. I have given serious thought to painting an entire 40k army to "look" like it's plastic grey, with some metal bits, and exposed green stuff - all just painted on. It would be a lot of work, the final result wouldn't be appeciated by others, I don't think, so it doesn't seem worth the effort. If I didn't have so many other model projects...

It's easier than you might think. Just thin your paints down to 0% pigment and apply layers to taste.

[Guest]

@TheBeninator Don't really understand your point, or maybe you missed mine. The concept would be a fully painted army that merely looks as if it's unpainted plastics and metal conversion bits and green stuff - but it's just painted to look that way.

Anywho, don't plan to do this anytime soon, if at all.

[Guest]

Got two more games in with the week 3 list, though this was "practice" so it didn't count to the league. 1 loss, 1 win. Both very close games. Opponent was using the new Orks. Points were not used, but we did compare them and my army had nearly double his points and I still struggled against the orks. Opponent was Evil Sunz with Painboy, shoota boyz, dakkajet and teleporting "car" for game 1. Game 2 was same culture, but list was 4 differerent "cars," 3 bikes, and 5 storm boyz. Regarding wins and losses, game one I rolled consistently below average and lost. Game 2 I rolled consistently above average and won. I don't really think I did anything better or worse in either game, other than just rolling better.

First time using the Armiger. Plays remarkably similar to the Maulerfiend and has a very similar cost, though the offensive punch both in melee and at range is much better on the Armiger. Game 1, couldn't hit anything for no clear reason, also couldn't make charges. Game 2 was awesome. That said, I might ditch this model for use in this escalation league. This game showcased why having an entire army of ground-based melee units doesn't really work...I think I need a ranged unit for my week 3 addition. In hindsight, should have picked the Armiger for the week 2, but this league doesn't let you change your list after you've played an offical game with the new model.

Warptime proved useless against the Ork Speed Freaks. I just didn't need it. Armiger also can't be targeted via warptime. Should have picked a different power.

Diabolic strength has proven incredibly useful on the marine squad, but not very useful on the Maulerfiend.

Maulerfiend has been Dubbed "Captain Fire Magnet" partially due to his paint scheme being similar to Captain America and partially due to the opponent's odd obsession with focus firing this underpowered model. 4 games now, and they really are focus firing the maulerfiend, though I really don't think it's damage output reflects the amount of firepower being directed at it. My stock marines are much more effective, but are certainly more fragile, so they very much benefit from Captain Fire Magnet.

[Guest]

2 more games in via the GW escalation league. Game 1 was using the week 1 list, and was against a Deathguard Sorcerer with 20x pox walkers. I got a turn 1 charge and completely wipped them by the top of turn 2 (I went second). Game 2 was using the week 2 list and was against Primaris Space wolves with Redemptor Dreadnought, 10 primaris marines, and a grav captain. They crushed me without losing any units.

So far, done 6 games with similar lists due to this escalation league. I have at least 4 left. My melta guns really hit below average, making them highly iffy. My army relies on the opponent lacking armor penetration and being impaired from killing turn 1 (due to charges or being out of range). I haven't needed to use the Icon of Khorne re-roll on charges even once (between warptime and being able to advance+charge it hasn't be hard to cross no-man's land in a single turn). 

But I will say, my complaints about CSM not having enough speed to make melee have really been resolved via this renegade legion trait. Consisely solves the issue. That said, renegade trait does prevent use of the Veterans of the Long War stratagem, deny my characters access to most of the relics and warlord traits. I think it's a good fit, but it certainly is different.

[Guest]

Tweaked the Escalation league list. Trying something new. Finally built a conversion I've been thinking about for a while, a Rapier Battery via the AM Kataphron Destroyers/Breachers and the Ectoplasmic Cannons via the Forgefiend/Maulerfiend kit. Models are finished, but not painted due to the weather not cooperating for priming.

@TheBeninator I talked with another ordo member in person, @happycamper, and showed them a picture of my Armiger, and they too wondered if the grey was the exposed plastic. So appears your take on it is quite normal. I don't get the same response in person with the actual model, but seems like this shade of grey creates confusion in photographs. Annoying, but I like how the model looks, so I'm not changing anything anytime soon.

 

[Ish]

Back in 2e/3e I used to have a small Space Marine Demi Company of my own custom chapter — The Grey Ghosts — who all had power armor that I lovingly and carefully painted in WWII inspired stiengrau... And everyone thought they were plastic even though they were mostly pewter miniatures.

Something about certain shades of grey just don’t “read” right on models of this scale. 

[Guest]

13 hours ago, Ish said:

Back in 2e/3e I used to have a small Space Marine Demi Company of my own custom chapter — The Grey Ghosts — who all had power armor that I lovingly and carefully painted in WWII inspired stiengrau... And everyone thought they were plastic even though they were mostly pewter miniatures.

Something about certain shades of grey just don’t “read” right on models of this scale. 

Thanks. Yeah, run into things like this before. Prior to the HH release, I was running RT Dreadnoughts as Dreadnoughts and a typical response from the opponent was, "Is that a conversion from warmachine?" And now I get comments about the height of my metal marines, due to GW's model height increases over the years (the primaris line really didn't help). 

Anyway, onto other things.

I finally noticed that the Forgefiend with 3x ectoplasma costs the same just under 200pts that a rapier battery costs with 3x ectoplasma. They are very different units, other than weapons and cost, but it may be worth running some comparison tests with both in the same list.

[Guest]

On 11/7/2018 at 5:27 PM, paxmiles said:

Tzeentch Sorcerer on Bike (2x combi-bolters, Force Sword, Warptime, Diabolic Strength, Eye of Tzeentch, Warlord, Undecided Warlord Trait)

Troops Khorne CSM (11, 8x BP+CCW, 2x Meltaguns, Champion w/Fist+CCW, Icon of Wrath)

 

Week 2(I'd be starting late, so week 1 for me):

Painted! Heavy Tzeentch Maulerfiend (Melta Cutters)

 

Week 3

Heavy Slaanesh Hellforged Rapier Batter (3x Ectoplasma Cannons, 6x crew)

Got a game in with the above. Did a 3-way game. Opponents were Orks and Tau. Also a Learning game for the Tau player. As with normal 3-way games, players divided their forces between opponents, and ultimately attacks whatever was closest/the biggest threat.

I sent my Sorcerer on a suicide mission to assault Long Strike in a hammer head, which surprisingly didn't get him killed. I took to full solid shot to the no-invulnerable save sorcerer and survived with 2 wounds remaining (of 6 due to Unholy Fortitude), then dealt 3 wounds with my Force Sword to the T7 tank with my S7 sorcerer. Yeah, surprising good luck for him. Sorcerer somehow survived the firewarrior  pulse blasters, and, much to my amusement, was an invalid target to shoot at with long strike due to Ork vehicles being closer targets. Sorcerer died via a charge from one of the new ork go-karts (nose mounted drill version).

First time running the a full Rapier Battery and first time with these weapons. I'm probably using their rules wrong. Super confusing ruleset for these guys. So the first thing of note is that the Ectoplasma cannons on the Rapier Battery have a different profile from the Ectoplasmic cannons on the Forgefiend.

Forgefiend version is Heavy D3 24" S7 ap-3 d3 damage.

Rapier version is Heavy 3 24" S8 ap-3 3 damage and get's hot on 1s (in this case, getting hot scores a single mortal wound on the firing unit).

Getting hot was a weird one because it is unclear if the intention is that the crew loses models or if the guns lose wounds. For this game, I considered the guns to lose wounds. I lost 6 wounds to getting hot, which was 1.5 guns (4 wounds per gun). Unit obliterated two Ork go-karts.

Maulerfiend and CSM infantry were ultimately worthless this game. They got bogged down by ork boyz, failed two charges, and were too far from the TAU to be helpful. 

Game was ultimately lost because the Ork player was afraid to charge TAU....

TAU crushed us with zero lost models and only a few wounds lost.

[Guest]

Been delayed because my brush died, but to avoid the impression I'm doing nothing:

Biker sorcerer (gotta redo the text and the one shoulder pad)

Added "wings" to my prince:

Almost done painting a chaos rhino:

Still working on an Icarus quad autocannon with csm gunner:

And very close to done with 3 Hellforge Rapiers with Ectoplasma cannons (crew is not as close)

[WestRider]

I particularly like the "wings" on the Prince!

[Guest]

So despite the Rapier Battery looking awesome, it's rules turn out to be entirely broken. I don't mean overpowered, they just don't work as written. There is an FAQ for them, but it doesn't address the problems and further confuses the issues.  Ran into some equally difficult players and we got into a big debate during deployment and never even got to play the game.

Entire encounter left a foul taste. Might take a break from my chaos for a while. 

[Ish]

What are the issues with the unit? It doesn’t strike me as especially “broken,” in either sense of the term.