Deathwatch - new army plan.

New 40k armies are not something to be started lightly. I should know I start them and wish I hadn't all the time. Hopefully this time it will be easier and smaller. Why I hear you cry.? Well put simply I already have one.

Ruleswise Deathwatch it a supplement to the Space Marines codex. Other than a few key units it uses the same models as the Space marine army I already own. Those models are already in a very similar black power armour scheme admittedly without the sliver veterans paldrons of the "chapter". Mine are all bronze and don't have different chapter  devices on their other shoulder. Other than that I could just say these marines are deathwatch.

 So boom! Bought the rulebook. Done. I have a Deathwatch army right?...... 

..... Well.... 

 Firstly as a narrative player not painting those details in makes my fingers twitch. Secondly I couldn't take all my Characters and just go well they're in the deathwatch now. The deathwatch have their own lore, heraldry and weapons I need to show.

 Basically this means I need to get more space marines. 

 The Deathwatch supplement works by taking units from the Space marine codex and then adding the deathwatch key word as their chapter. They then get access to a number of goodies in terms of chapter tactic super doctrine and stats. They have five unique units really.

The watchmaster. Their cool commander. Definitely getting one of these guys.

The deathwatch veterans. These are the unique troops with special weapons and gear on top of the normal sm load outs. Another definite. 

Deathwatch bikers. These guys can take chainswords in addition to a normal 1st born bikers load out making them mini outriders with better gun options 

Deathwatch terminators. No specific models but they get some upgrades over the normal chunky boys.

Captain Artimis. Special character. Not interested. 

Next thing they have is unique troops section called "kill teams". It's after these that the small skirmish game was named so to save confusion as I may talk about kill team the game I will henceforth call these squads KT squads. 

KT squads use a base of either Deathwatch vets, intercessors, heavy intercessors or Infiltratators as their first five members of the team. Depending on which of those you pick let's you add in other marine types. This opens my options to use my existing forces. I can get deathwatch specfic starter teams and then supplement them as required with Death Tempter troops to fill in the rest of the squad. It wouldn't be perfect but it would give me great flexibility. 

I could get something like the blood angel combat patrol box with its five intercessors, five infiltrators, 3 Aggressors, Librarian and impulsor and turn them into deathwatch with the help of a upgrade sprue. 

That would give me a HQ, two starter squads and the rest could be used in my own chapter and cross used as required.

Proteus teams have the vets and let you take all the 1st born marine types from terminators to vanguard vets and the bikes.

 Having a proteus team is therefore a must in my mind. 

I want to keep this small covering the basics. If I need to go bigger I can draft members of the Death Tempters.

Impromptu terrain

Ever had that moment when you're painting and before you know it your semi pained force is launching an attack through the stacks of unwashed cups of tea, coffee and unidentifiable sludge?

This happened to me but one side got to use the pile of semi painted terrain while the other had just my water jar. 

Never one to see my brave lads at a disadvantage I used the pile of offcut card I had sitting there to knock up weird little tower thing. 

It was a very enjoyable process with no real end design in mind.  I had three large hexangonal pieces from a modular terrain idea for coke cans I had (which failed) in the stack. I used these to make the basic shape and then added the scrap pieces around them

Then I painted it.  I lake's the idea of hazard chevrons on the top so printed out some and stuck them down. 

The ladder was made out of match sticks stuck onto card and then built up.

 it works really well.  I covers the top in a lot of modgepodge to hopefully seal it from spills. 

Finally  I printed off some text saying water tower and used it as a stencil. Didn't come out perfectly but much better than my previous attempts.

All in all very pleased. 

Fire Dragons

I had a go at repainting my fire dragons

I had to buy a "new" exach to fit the rules

Orange base coat

Inspired by

Exarch 

Final

The Patriarch

I've had the broodcoven for a while and the Patriarch has been sitting on my pile of shame a bit unloved for a while. With the Genestealer cult army recruiting more troops I need to get him off the dust pile and looking more serviceable.

Death Tempters vs Drukhari patrol

Another 500pt game same Drukhari force versus a new opponent using 8th rule set some time ago.

 The Death Tempters. 

The battlefield was setup with a single storey centre building and two larger double storey buildings in each deployment zone. Units placed on top of those can see the whole field. On the ground the centre building blocks Line of sight. Centre building was the objective. 

Space Marine Turn 1.

 The Space Marines went first  Cautious shuffling to get good lines of fire apart from the dreadnought who stomped forward with the Captain following up to keep the re-roll bubble for it and the troops behind shooting up the kabalites on their tall building opposite them. Murderous fire destroyed 9 of them leaving just the dark lance left. 

Drukhari turn 1. 

 The Reavers jumped forward looking to take out the dread with their blasters helped by the dark lance and all three missed or bounced off the Dreadnoughts toughness. The Reavers tossed themselves into the Reivers (?) to try and hold them up and paid the butchers bill despite the T5 drugs. The two squads of wytches and Archon moved up to the centre. One squad held tactically back for the counter charge if needed.

Space Marine Turn 2. 

 It started to go from bad to worse for the elves as the Reivers backed up and let the Dreadnought annihilate the Reavers after first shooting them with its assault cannon and the follow up charge with its fist.

 The stalker bolt rifles finished the dark lance and the Talos started taking fire from the heavy bolter half of the tac squad. 

The flamer tac squad held and dared the wytches to come at them. 

Drukhari Turn 2

 With the dreadnought now pushing the left flank the talos moved to engage it a lock that heavy shooting down. The elves only had blast pistols to take him and little else. The Archon got caught out of position and couldn’t fire. The hexatrix took just one wound off of it with her pistol before diving to the left and charging into the flamer squad to try and avoid the assault cannon ripping her to bits next turn. The Archon failed his charge leaving the two remaining wytches now in combat screwed. The dreadought and the Talos had a brief fight where the it failed to do anything again and the Dreadnought just crushed its skull removing its tragic life from the world of tears.

Space marine Turn 3.

 The Dreadnought then proceeded to stomp around the central building and laid waste to the second squad of wytches looking to support the first and hold the Marines off the central objective. The Reivers advance moved. Ready to charge in and take it and the Captain moved forward too. The wytches held in there against the tac marines and the reivers were unable to fire on the Archon as the wytches were closer and in combat.

Drukhari Turn 3.

 The Eldar had two models left.

 The final insult both blast pistols failed to do anything and the Archon swept in looking to take as many mon keigh with him as he could. Although he dropped a Reiver. The Captain heroically intervened and the Reivers took out his shadowfield leaving him on a +5 up save. The Captain made short work of him and the tac sergeant finished the Wytch. A wipe in 3 turns for the dark kin. 

Karandas the shadowmaster revamp

So there is a super-awesome post on reddit about a re worked Karandas model from halfof1half.

My own model from the 90s does not look anything like this (see below) nor do I think I could even come close now. 

But I want to give it a try as part of the Eldar restoration project. 

 The paint came off super easy compared to the plastic /metal models I've tried before (must be the lead content) one day in the detol bath and he was silver again. I've therefore dumped a trio of Dark Reapers in there who also need a desparate repaint.

In searching for a good colour scheme I ve gone through the usual sources, Google images, Pinterest. Kind of like this one all in green.

While he was sat on my desk waiting his turn to be rebased and primed he just looks so tiny compared to the new minis

So I got one of my spare 40mm bases (still not sure where they came from) and tried a DAS modelling clay sculpted base. I used clay as I didn't want to clip the metal stand so wanted it to slide into something.

 I used Green Stuff to cover up the centre slide. Waking up the next day and putting the grit layer on the base I feel I made a mistake and the feet have been buried into the base too much.

There was a bit of play in the stand still so I tried to wedge some grit under the feet to raise them up a bit.

 I'm kind of pressed for time on this bit as there is a break in the cold weather coming up that will let me prime my next batch of miniatures. The pile of shame is really mounting up. With Christmas on the way I've probably got enough painting to do to last me until June.

 I get the priming done and I do like the way miniatures look when primed. Shame Black and white Noir is not a thing. Maybe I could scheme him more that way... 

Colour scheme wise I went back to traditional green I went with a dark paint and thinned it with water to get some transparency so the brightness from the priming comes through. I wanted to avoid yellow. I've had success with my genestealer army but most other applications it's just gone horribly wrong. I tried using bone for the main helmet look. This would mirror the white of the priming noir. 

The bone came out too white even after a shade with earth's-shade. To bring it down a notch I made a glaze with rhionx hide (brown)and laminium medium and  pushed it into the cracks and pushed it over the shaded surfaces to bring down the tone. 

 For the metallics I went with gold but was a bit worried about the colour pallete particularly on the shurkien pistol of the claw. 

 I therefore adjusted the amount of gold on there by painting more of the gauntlet green amd then blending rakarth flesh into the gold edges to make it look worn. 

The jewels also received more layers to bring them out. 

Sadly the back wasn't looking as good as I'd like. 

Jdj

Jndnf