New Imperial Armour Volume 3 Second Edition

Well there appears to be a new Elysian IA out. I'm leery as I liked the original, but I will get the new IA and see how they are changed.

Although I hear the Tau stuff is updated well and the campaign really needed a revamp.

Revival... Yay... oh dear god what have I done

It begins.... again...

So after being out of it for awhile (40K not just this project). I have decided to take a look at everything again and realized that I actually like 6th edition. Thus the dust was cleaned off bottles and palettes. I've done some painting on models to get back into the groove of things. Did about 1000 points worth of Dark Angels using the new Dark Vengeance set (x2) as my solid foundation. Boy was I rusty when I started that up.

Anyway, time to start this project back up. What better way then with an escalation league. So my next few entries, which will be starting this week, will be about putting together and painting up 500 points of Elysians. The question now is, Vulture in the first 500 or not....

Also I need to see about finding something like this so I can keep track of the colors I paint things. This is a great idea:

I'd like to make this for all the armies I have for the different game systems.

So stay tuned and hopefully I'll get this project completed finally.

1500pts Test for Astro

I met up with a friend of mine to try out a 1500 point list for the upcoming Astro. He too is planning to play a FW army so we thought it would be cool to start tweaking and really getting to know the rules of our respective FW armies.

Billy is a great sport and fun to play. Check out his blog here. He was running a Grot tank army. It was shaping up to look really cool. Luckily Billy allowed me to run with some proxies as the Elysians are not put together yet. I ran cadian's with things like the Autocannon squads became Heavy Bolter squads (Elysian's can't take ACs).

Anyway, it was a real close game. It ended in turn 6 with me being the winner but if it had gone one more turn it would either have been a draw or a downright win for him. All I had left at the end of turn 6 was an immobilized Vulture, 1 Missile Launcher Squad (on an objective), 1 Valkyrie, and 3 guys left out of my Veteran unit that was sitting on the other objective.

He still had a lot of hate and discontent on the table. I'm not sure they could of gotten into objective taking range but he could of easily wiped out the two squads and forced the draw. Our armies lists looked like this:

My Elysians:

1 Command Squad with 2 Plasma Guns, a Medic, a normal guy and the Commander

1 Platoon, 1 platoon command squad with 2 Meltaguns in it, and then 2 squads with plasmagun and the sergeants had plasma pistols.

Attached to the Platoon were two drop sents with Mulit-meltas, 2 Heavy Bolter Squads and 1 Missile Launcher Squad

1 Squad of Vets in Carapace with 3 Meltaguns and the sergeant had a plasma pistol. Mounted in a Valkyrie with Multi-laser and 2 multiple rocket pods.

1 Squad of Vets in Carapace with 3 Plasmaguns and the sergeant had a plasma pistol. They were mounted in a Vendetta (base model)

1 Vulture with Armoured Cockpit and twin linked punisher cannons. That Armoured Cockpit more then paid for itself on the Vulture. I'm thinking I might take the flare/chaff dispenser.

I had other addons in wargear etc, but you get the jist of the list.

If memory serves me right his list looked like:

1 Mek in battlewagon with force field

1 Nob with power klaw and 'eavy armor boyz (20 I think)

1 Nob with a unit of shoota boyz (20 again I think)

1 unit of 3 Kans with rokkit launchas

1 unit of 3 Kans with rokkit launchas

1 Deff Kopta

1 unit of 4 Grot Tanks

1 unit of 4 Grot Tanks

1 Grot megatanks or some such. (looked cool and evil ... spent the vendettas time shooting it)

So a few things I learned in this fight, I need more men for staying power (granted the grot tanks were excellent infantry killers with their blast cannons.) I also need to remember that open topped vehicles allow those evil buggers to assault out of them. I think I might take Meltaguns in my line platoon but leave the sergeants with the plasma pistols. The Plasmaguns were ok but rarely did they get a shot out to 24, everything was within that distance fast.

I might take an addon to the command squad. Maybe the Master of Ordnance to get that big blast template. Also maybe look at a navy flyer... not sure on that yet, but it would be cool ;)

Right now I think my "big" change will be to see about adding a squad in and changing things to meltaguns instead of plasma.

Thanks for the great game Billy and I look forward to several more in the near future :)

Veteran Grenadiers

So I completed my test model for my Veteran Squads with the Grenadier option.

May I introduce Lance Corporal Davis:

He is my Meltagunner from my AT Veteran Squad. They'll be cruising along in a Valkyrie thats equipped to take out infantry. Pop the vehicle with the MeltaGuns and then have the Valk eat the infantry.

I'm really pleased how he turned out, although the flash washes out a lot of his detail work. Still I'm liking him.

Now to paint a heck of a lot more. Ugh...

At least I now have paint schemes for my troops and my "spec ops" guys. I really like the look of these STs over the newer Kasrkin models.

Community Thoughts

Greetings all,

I wanted to know your thoughts on something.

I'm looking to take a Vulture to this year's Astro with my Elysian army. I know it's not necessarily the greatest heavy choice, but I think it looks cool. So with that said, I've been tempted to go ahead and load it out as a horde killer. I'll have Vendettas as my AT firepower, as well as a couple squads with meltas and melta bombs if I really need it.

So what do you think, Twin-linked punisher Cannons. Giving me 20 twin-linked S5 AP- shots or should I go with the twin-linked ACs (for popping Transports and Light Tanks) and Multiple Rocket Pods. Nice thing about the Rocket pods is they are considered Defensive weaponry since they are only S4.

I feel that 20 rerollable shots might be a bit better then the dual purpose ACs and rocket pods.

So thoughts?

Astro-Dallas

Astro Dallas is coming up soonish. Sure it's more like 6 months away, but I have got to get started on these Elysians so they are ready for the Astro.

What I have to paint:

30 Elysians (normal troops)

2 Heavy Weapon Squads (12 total)

2 Valkyries

1 Vendetta Conversion

20 Storm Troopers (which will be Vet Squads)

1 Drop Sent with Multi-Melta

1 Drop Sent with Heavy Bolter

I need to buy and paint

Vulture (not sure how to load this one out yet, thinking Punisher Cannons for Anti-Horde duty)

That's pretty much it. I need to tweak weapon load outs and such and possibly drop the Vulture for something else (but I like the coolness factor of it). I have a few points left over and will probably tweak weapon load outs, who rides in what Valk/Vend and of course if I want to scrap it all and go with something else (I like those Tauros vehicles, might replace the sents).

Anyway, that's whats coming down the pipe. Already have a Valk built and primed white, need to magnetize the wing hardpoints (multilaser and lascannon already magnetized). And then get painting on it. Keep an eye out here for that and also my Vendetta Conversion. I'll be putting that together this weekend I think. Long weekend for me so I'll put it to good use.

Paint Scheme Redeux

So with a huge delay in getting pics, here's one finally. I present to you Trooper Callahan:

New Paint Scheme

So back to working on my Elysians. Going off what Col. Hessler's idea of washing the entire model in badab black I tried it. Did not like the way it looked, so added some sepia to the wash and it gave me the shading I liked. Basically I've also changed paints, I'm using Tamiya paints. I am using Desert Yellow as my base coat, which I then wash with the black/brown wash and then highlight with I believe it's Deck Tan.

I'll see if I can get some good pictures this evening and post them. Right now the clothes are the only thing painted since I wanted to insure that I got good colors.

Painted Test Model

Alright so here's a test model. What do you think?

Paint Scheme

Ahhh my paint scheme. I need to post a pic of it tonight. Basically I went with Tan fatigues and olive green armor/pads. I think it looks real sharp. I used Reaper's paints for this, starting with Tanned Shadow on the face and then Tanned Skin followed with Tanned Highlights. My first flesh paint job without washing it. To be honest I'm not sure about the results. I'll post pics later to get a feel for how you all think it is.

For the cloth I started with Dune Shadow, Desert Khaki for the mid tone and then Desert Sand as the highlight, did the pouches and such in the same tones. For the green I worked with Olive Shadow, Olive Drab and Worn Olive. This was done to the crash padding on the uniform as well as on the armor bits. Boots and gloves are black, the grav chute is a dark metal color, parts of the lasgun are Olive Drab and Worn Olive, the magazine, hand grip and barrel area are the same dark metal as the Grav Chute. Over all I think it's a nice scheme.

I'll post pics as soon as I can. That's all for now. Once I get the process down prepare for more pics and paint log.

The legend begins

Tossing around ideas on my second army. Thought about doing an offshoot of the Mordant 13 that I started playing last year. While I thought it might be cool, I realized that I should do something else. Something a little bit different.

Enter the Elysians. They will be my next army. I'll have core troops and storm troopers. The platoons that are already on the ground will be the guys that secured the LZ and moved onward. I'll have to use Valks and Vendettas as my tank hunters and possibly sentinels as well.

Should be fun. :)