Tag: storm raven

An Unkindness of Stormravens

Finished up my second Stormraven.  Though not without some issues.  The major problem was me carrying it downstairs to photograph with it still on the flight stand and having it fall down a flight of stairs and smash into a bunch of pieces!  Luckily I used super-glue to attach the wings on and they snapped off where they should have.  Some dings and dents, but I just like to think of it as battle damage.

Lamenters Stormraven
Lamenters Stormraven
Unkindness of Stormravens




Painting a Storm Raven

So with one Storm Raven down, I figure I should learn a few things from the first build and painting that I could really do a better paint job, with much less effort.  The first thing was not gluing everything together, rather do sub assemblies that can be combined when the majority of the painting work was done.  So I built the wings, engines, and hull separately and then primed and airbrushed the base coat.  I’m much better with the airbrush now as well, and the finish on this one is much better.  I’m using Vallejo GC Heavy Ochre as my base color (thinned down about 1:1).

I also masked off a couple parts of the model that will have the checkered pattern on it.  I used blue painters tape, and then cut squares out and laid out in the area to do the black.  Much easier than free-handing all of them, though I will need to go do some cleanup.  I’m planning on adding more black and red details to break up the yellow and give it some nice contrast.  This model is also magnetized, and I made sure the polarity lined up with the other Storm Raven so I won’t have to keep the different bits separate from each other.  The result should be finishing the model in a fraction of the time, to a higher quality.




Birthday Presents

For my Birthday I got a little cash in addition to the other wonderful presents.  With the price increases coming I decided to pick up another Storm Raven and Land Raider before they become prohibitively expensive. The Land Raider will be build as normal, but I would like to do something special with the Storm Raven.  I’m not sure exactly what yet, maybe try and convert it to a Storm Eagle or just a simple weapon swap.

Also ordered some conversion bits from Chapter House Studios though they have not arrived yet.  I am most excited about the jump packs which I am going to use with a Death Company kit to make some Vanguard Veterans.  At this point I’m winding down the purchases for the army.  I still would like to expand a few more options out, getting a couple Land Speeders, some shooty terminators,  and getting up to 40 assault marines.  Another Baal Predator and Vindicator wouldn’t be bad, but I have enough to keep me busy for a while and for some crazy reason I’m thinking about stripping and repainting my Eldar force as I’m really not very happy with the paint job or color scheme.




Storm Raven Finished

So I have finished up the Storm Raven for now.  I’m really pleased how it came out.  I of course found a few areas I need to touch up after taking the pictures, but overall it’s done and ready for action.  I tried some new stuff with this, using my new airbrush for the first time for a vehicle (absolutely wonderful compared to hand painting the large flat areas).  I also did the blacklining on the model with and oil paint wash after gloss varnishing the model, that let me wipe off the paint from where I didn’t want it, which is huge when working with yellow.  I also magentized all the option on the kit so I could change out the various weapons and side sponsons.  
Storm Raven w/ assault cannon and hurricane bolters
Plasma cannons

  

Side view with lascannons
Magnetized Lascannon and armor plating.
Magnetized hurricane bolters.
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Lamenters vs Tyranids

So I managed to get a game in today after a month and half or so of not playing.  I played Mark from The Overlords Podcast and we played all three mission types in Bay Area Open style.  We did do a few things wrong, in that we did all five objectives for Seize Ground rather than just three, and we did an even distribution Nova style instead.  I would be interested to play the “correct” way in the future.





Lone Terminator holding out against Swarmlord


HQ: Librarian in Terminator Armour – Epistolary, Unleash Rage, Sanguine Sword

Elite:
Furioso Dreadnought – Heavy Flamer, Talons
2x Sanguinary Priest – Jump Pack, Power Sword
Terminator Assault Squad – 5x Lightening Claw, 5x Thunder Hammer
      1 Land Raider Crusader – Multi-Melta

Troops:
Assault Squad – 2x Melta, 1 Power Fist, 1 Infernus Pistol
Assault Squad – 2x Melta, 1 Power Fist, 1 Infernus Pistol

Fast Attack:
Baal Predator – Flamestorm Cannon

Heavy Support: 
Stormraven Gunship – Lascannon, Multi-Melta

Tyranids List (from what I remember):
HQ:
Swarmlord with Tyrant Guard Attached
Elite:
3x Hive Guard
3x Hive Guard
Troop:
30x Termagants with Devourer
10x Termagants plain
1xTervigon
8x Genestealers w/ Broodlord
Fast:
3x Shrikes w/ Lashwhip and Bonesword
3x Shrikes w/ Lashwhip and Bonesword
Heavy:
Trygon
Trygon
We had spearhead deployment and I won the roll, but elected for Mark to go first.  He deployed everything except his Trygons.  I deployed everything, but the Storm Raven full of Terminators plus Dreadnought and outflanked the Baal.
On his first turn he moved most everything up, and shot a few marines dead with the Hive Guard.  On mine I moved up, skirting to the side away from his infiltrated Genestealers on my right with the Assualt marines and moved the Land Raider up to let the Terminators get an Assault on the Hive Guard and giant Devourer termagant group.  I managed to kill on the Hive Guard with shooting and then multi-assaulted the HG and termagants with the terminators plus Librarian.  They managed to wipe out the Hive Guard and put a bunch of wounds on the gants as well.  The fearless wounds killed off the last wound on the Hive Guard and took a few more of the little bugs out as well.
On turn two both of his Trygons came in, one on each side of my Assault Marines and had some ineffectual shooting.  He brought a unit of Shrikes into the Terminators, but was just short of getting the Swarmlord into the Terminators.  He did kill the Librarian rather easily and another of the Terminators.  On my turn the termagants were finished off, as well as the Shrikes, but he was able to position his Swarmlord to charge them on the next turn.  I unloaded both assault squads into one of the Trygons and then assaulted it.  One of the squads was at BS/WS: 1 because of a psychic power but actually managed to hit more than the unaffected squad.  They did just enough wounds to kill it and consolidated in opposite directions towards different objectives.

On turn three he wiped out both of my troop squads, one with a Trygon, the other with the remaining Shrikes.  His Swarmlord charged into my Terminators and killed two, leaving one lone Terminator to fend for himself.  It was looking nasty for the Lamenters but both the Storm Raven and the Baal managed to come-in from reserves.  The predator outflanked into his deployment zone and roasted the 5 termagants the Tervigon has pooped out on the first turn.  The Storm Raven moved on and split the Terminators off to one side and the Dreadnought off to the other.  The Furioso toasted the Genestealers with a heavy flamer and then assaulted, and I got to see the magic of the Blood Talons which chewed through the entire squad.  The Terminators charged the Trygon and brought it down, while the Land Raider zoomed up to shoot at some Termagants that were running away to grab an objective.

At this point my only hope for even a tie, would be to kill off his troops remaining: 3 termagants on the other side of the board, and the Tervigon on the other side that was down a couple wounds from pot shots.  He charged in and immobilized the Land Raider, while I made a desperate gamble and jumped out the Sanguinary Priest inside to shoot and charge the Tervigon.  Brought him down to one wound, which he then destroyed the Land Raider and priest in retaliation.  The Baal zoomed up and flamed the Tervigon as well bringing him down to a single wound.  He immobilized the Storm Raven and killed off all but one Terminator as well.  On turn five I was down to one Sanguinary Priest, One TH/SS terminator, and an immobilized Storm Raven.  I shot and killed the Tervigon from across the board with the Storm Raven’s Lascannon and then made  a beline across the board with the Sanguinary Priest in the hopes of catching the two termagants still alive to kill of his last troop.  It went to turn 6 and I managed to shoot and kill one gaunt who fled off the board bringing the game down to kill points.  After counting up KP’s I had killed 10, while Mark had killed 9.  Victory was mine.  Though at a horrible cost.  Only a lone Sanguinary Priest was alive!  He will definitely be getting his paint job improved as a reward!

I had a ton of fun playing, and Mark really helped me play better.  He had a bunch of suggestions as we played and helped me understand the army much better.  He’s a real stand up guy and a ton of fun to play against.




Strike Force

Lamenters Strike Force

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My currently fully painted Lamenters force.  Small, but the initial momentum is done and I have a lot of stuff that is really close to completion.  Having that painted core is great, because it really inspires you to flesh out the army.   Right now I can field just shy of 1500 points, though that would not be an even remotely competitive army.  I am almost done with a number of units and vehicles that will let me field a decent little army though.

Near completion: Baal and normal Predator, Land Raider Crusader/Redeemer (magnetized for either option), 10 additional assault marines, Sanguinary Priest with jump pack, and 5 lightening claw terminators.  Each unit will take a couple hours in the evening to complete.




More Storm Raven WIP

Had a little more time to work on the Storm Raven. It’s coming together nicely, but still a lot of details to paint. The main challenge tonight was working while the wife was also working on a sewing project. We were sharing a long folding table in front of the TV and when she started sewing it felt like I was trying to paint in an earthquake. Her sewing machine is older than she is and really starts to shake things up. So much to the point I spilled a new jar of paint while trying to paint. I had to give up after a while, but did manage to get a nice coat of brighter yellow on the top of the vehicle. I did manage to do a little shading, though I think I will try and gloss coat it and try using oil paints to do the line shading.  I haven’t decided if I”m going to do weather or not yet.





On the Table

A quick update on what I’m working on right now.  The Landraider and Storm Raven.  Still a lot to go, but they are starting to come together.  Also put together a Vindicator and got a box of Death Company.  Not a ton of progress, but we spent a couple weeks out of town.