Monday, March 30, 2009

40,000 Points of Apocalypse: Pre Organization

Our FLGS, the lab, recently had a mega apocalypse game. This game was our third large scale apocalypse battle and I believe the largest yet we have done. An earlier event got pretty close to 40K points. This time we had 41,000 points spread on 3 tables and I hope everyone had fun. The biggest problems were probably at the side tables so I will do a post specific to them in the future.

The event went pretty smoothly except for a lag on the start time due to over 1 month of preplanning. I am in no way taking credit for the event since I was not the organizer, but want to talk about how it was arranged and set up to allow others in the future to build on it. The game was organized by the head of our local GW club, League Subterranea.

1. Poll your local community for interest. Using either a local forum, news group, or even bulletin board at the store to see who is interested in the event. Probably 2 months out even before a date is actually set. Make sure everyone knows this is an all day event.

2. About 1 month using the list of people interested start trying to find a good date and time. The first 2 times we played these battles they were on Sunday since there is free parking downtown but the store is only open 5-6 hours which really is not long enough for a really big game. This most recent one last 9 hours but I personally left after 6 since I was on a side table and neither my opponent or I had any scoring units left to hold the objective.

3. 2 Weeks finalize the players and assign teams. Since most players can only field a few armies at 3K points levels the teams are not usually done with a story in mind. 3K points per player is a good number. The player can get a good size force with several formations but it is not yet impossible to keep track off. We generally tried to balance Super Heavies and Flyers and made people say if they were bringing either. We seem to keep a race all on one side so the sides for this recent battle was Imperial (4 Space Marine Armies) + Eldar (2) + Orks (1) vs Tau (3) + Chaos SM (1) + Nids (2) + Necrons (1). It is helpful to find a backup player if someone has to drop out. This happened to us when a Chaos SM player dropped but luckily one of the Tau players knew someone interested in taking his space.

4. Once the teams are finalized it is up to the players to choose a captain and try to work out an rules issues with the other team and organize the strategy of the armies. It is helpful to gets list ahead of time to assign assets and try to work on making your combined army as nasty as possible. While cheesy is not the goal, raw destruction can be pretty fun. Nothing like running down 800 points of necron warriors with Pedro and Vanguard squad.

5. Lastly, make sure everyone knows exactly what special rules are in place for the game agreed upon by the organizer and the captains. Since Apoc is about fun, you can change any of the standard apoc rules if the organizers and captains agree.

How many objectives? 4, 6, 1 per player
How are the tables going to be laid out? Long line, Circle, Plus sign.
How are you doing the deployment? Bid, Fixed time with dice off for first turn.
If you are using side tables how exactly do they influence the main table? Objective for total, Bombardment, etc.
Are any rules getting changed?Necron Phaseout, Hits on Flyers glance or cover save, scoring units, army interactions.

This is the basic pre organization plan. In another posts, I will go into my observations about several of the issues I have seen while playing in big games.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Belial Back Shots

Here are images of the Dark Angel Dreadnought Greaves as shoulder pads. As I said earlier I got this from Matt at ArchAngels but I did mount them the other way with. This choice mainly was determined by the purity seal looking funny on the other arm sort of floating in the air.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Belial Model

Here is the built and based Belial for my Deathwing force. Components are all Plastic: SM Tabard Chest from Black Templars, Black Templar head, Assault Terminator Plastics legs, back and Sergeants claws, Dark Angel Dreadnought Greaves as shoulder pads (Stolen from Matt at ArchAngels). The greenstuff work is poor but fills the gaps in the side and along the collar.

Side view. I tried to make him unique but avoided banners or anything since I only have 5 other assault termis for my normal army, I might be forced to use him just as a normal squad member.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Dime Bags

We got our group order of Forge World stuff in so I had to go by the FLGS to pick my part up. This is my first experience with Forge World so I started small. I got a Dreadnought Plasma Cannon and some Imperial Eagle Rhino Doors. The side and back door will go on a Rhino/Razorback I will build next week while the front plate will go to a predator on order.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Last Honor Guard


This is hardly even worth posting. Picked up main body of the master of recruits model as my last honor guard. I toned him down compared to the normal model by using a normal bolter and shoulder pad. The backpack is also standard. I used an almost normal helmet. It just has a few rivets along the brow. This is from the Black Templar box. Now that all the 10 members are done I am going to recompile the posts into a bigger and more cohesive series.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Starting them Young

My 2.5 year old examining daddy's recently assembled new toy. I used to be able to work at the kitchen island while she played but now she moves a chair over to watch and help. Since what I spend the most time on is cutting plastic and using superglue, she is not yet old enough to really be involved. I do have a set of Assault on Black Reach Orks for her to start painting soon though.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

WIP: Belial


Here is my work in progress counts as Belial model for my Dusk Hunters Terminator Army. Plastic Termi with a power armor tabard from the Black Templars upgrade box. Idea of using this will a Termi is from Dave Taylor in WD 310. Filed off the templar cross from belt buckle to be replace with a skull logo. The arms are ready to go but I was not careful enough in cutting the pieces so I have some gaps to fill with a little green stuff. If he was not going to have such an open pose I could probably avoid it but his claws are going to be held somewhat up so the joint will be in full view.

The head is also from the Black Templars box. I really liked that box for these type of more unusual bits. If you are getting ready to start a marine force, it might be useful to get one to make your army stand out.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Another Honor Guard


This is the crusader Honor guard member. I kept some of the smaller black templar crosses but removed the big ones from the shoulder pads. I am not totally happy with the sword mounting angle. I changed it up some since I already had 2 Honor guards holding there power weapons out at like eye level with their left hands. This is trying to be more of a rallying pose. "After me lads."

Here is a shot of the backpack. It is dark angels with the dagger holding the skull removed and the logo removed from the back. I forgot to replace it with something else so I will get to that tommorrow. I cannot have that much empty space on the center of the backpack.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Mk IV Honor Guard

Here is the first Honor Guard made from the bits in my new black templar upgrade box. He is significantly less embleshed than the other honor guards but he makes up for it with his unique armor. I have one more head and chest like this which I think will be going to my Vulkan conversion. I noticed in the close ups he needs a little more clean up. Giving credit where credit is due the pose was stolen from WD310 from an Angels of Absolution conversion by John Shaffer.

Side View showing the shealth power weapon.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Shroud of the Dead Honor Guard

Here is the seventh member of my Honor guard unit. He is clearly made up of dark angel veteran parts with a few extras thrown in. In the Sons of Twilight Chapter, full robes are award to sole survivors of units to honor those lost in battle. Survivor guilt of those who have these generally leads them to heroic actions in an attempt to join their fallen comrades. This either leads to a quick end or rapid advance into veteran units. While marines who wear the shrouds of the dead may earn terminator honors they are almost never put into command roles like veteran sergeants or captain lest they lead whole units on suicide missions.

Here you can see that the shoulder pad matches the backpack topper and the holstered bolter for WYSIWYG. The metal power sword is from the veterans MKII box.

A little shrine in the back to close it off.

I just got my black templar upgrade box to make at least 2 more honor guards and probably finish of the master of the deathwing.

You can see more of my assortment of honor guard members on the right the labels section under honor guard. I think each one has its own character.