Pleasurereaper of Slaanesh - Model Showcase and Datasheet

This was my project over this last winter break. My plan was to enter this into the Adeptus Arizona Holiday Painting Competition. Long story short, I was the only one who entered in this category, and I won by default. Dean, the owner of the site, was gracious enough to still offer me the prize for "winning" (the cost of the Baneblade), but I didn't feel right accepting.

Modelling this guy was a lot of fun... except for one step. Notice how smooth it is. That's because I scraped off all of the rivets. I spent more time on this one step than on any one other step. I think it took me a total of 5-6 hours to get them all off. Next Baneblade, the rivets stay on.

The "blastmasters" are simply the lascannon turrets plus the warp amp from the chaos vehicle accessory sprue plus some guitar string.

The sonic turret is a combination of plasticard, nylon washers, screen mesh, and more guitar cables.

The pipe organs and their housing is all made of plasticard. I simply took a series of tubes (like the internet) and drilled holes down the center, and then sliced them at an angle. The housing was a little more difficult, but I'm pleased with how it came out.

Painting was also a blast. I think I actually spent less time painting this guy than I did assembling and converting. The black areas are Vallejo German Grey. There is an intial hardline of Vallejo Dark Grey, and then a final extreme hardline of Vallejo Neutral Grey.

All of the pink areas were done with a basecoat of Warlock Purple. I then used various watered down layers of Tentacle Pink, with increasing amounts of Skull White to highlight.

Metal areas were painted with a watered down boltgun. Then I applied a Chaos Black Wash. I picked out the raised areas with Boltgun and then again with Mithril.

The gold areas, were made with Shining Gold, washed with 1:1 Chestnut Ink:Water. I then reapplied Shining Gold, and finally Mithril Silver.

It's yet to see a game, which I'd like to correct soon. Below is an Apocalypse Datasheet for the Pleasurereaper. I'd love some comments on the balance of the datasheet and the pricing. I overestimated the price compared to the Plaguereaper of Nurgle and other datasheets I've seen online.

You can view the PDF below, or you can download it here.

EDIT: I increased the points from 550 to 575 (note: it's now 125 points more expensive than the Plaguereaper).
I also cleaned up some of the special rules (Sensory Overload has a range now, Warp Cacophony applies only to enemy models, both as originally intended).
Also added a special rule, so that it cannot benefit from the Flank March Strategic Asset.
EDIT2.0: Made some other changes per feedback on the net. Price increased, and Warp Cacophony reduced in range and LD modifier.

Read this doc on Scribd: Pleasure Reaper

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Selling My Dark Angels

Well, I've decided to sell my "Doublewing" Army that I could never seem to schedule for painting. Every couple of months, I would plan to work on it and then something else had to get painted. It just kept getting put further and further off.

I painted one test model, and wanted to post it here for posterity, since I will probably never see it again. I was going to paint them up as the Sons of the Covenant, a Dark Angels successor chapter. I really like the green stuff base, and will probably steal that for a future project (maybe some Haradrim warriors for LotR).

Everything else is the army is unprimed and unpainted. If you're interested the auction starts at 5:50pm Friday the 24th. You can find it on Ebay here.

EDIT: Hmm... I just realized that I forget to clean up the headlight. Oh well, not like I'm keeping him.
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Finals? Already?

Today, while in class, I realized that I have finals starting a week from this Saturday. That's right my first final is on a Saturday. I talked with some classmates and they were equally surprised that finals were next week. We all new they started May 2nd, but c'mon, it's April, and May is so far away.

Thinking I had another whole week before finals, my plan was to finish the remaining Easterling infantry I currently own (32) and then paint the cavalry and heroes after finals. I would finish building and basing 8 infantry at a time and then paint them, before moving on to the next 8. That's not going to happen now.

Thursday night (oh my God, that's tomorrow) is the last night I can do any extended hobby stuff for the next 3 1/2 weeks. I just finished putting together and basing 8 Easterlings with Sword/Shield, and I plan to get them painted tomorrow as a last hurrah. After that, I have to seriously buckle down and start preparing for exams.

I will probably try to build and base some of the models during finals when I need a break, but I don't think I can commit to any painting.

In the time leading up to and during finals I will post pictures of models and armies that I have already completed. I'm determined not to let the blog fall to the wayside during finals.
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New Project: Lord of the Rings - Easterlings

On July 5th and 6th, Adeptus Arizona will be hosting the first ever Lord of the Rings Indy GT (click here for more info) at Imperial Outpost Games in Phoenix, AZ. I decided to do the Easterlings, as I've wanted to do them when they first came out while I was working for GW years and years ago.

So, I have my new project: Easterlings.

I need to paint the following:

• 8 Spearmen (Done)
• 16 Sword and Shield
• 16 Bowmen
• 1 Banner Bearer
• 2 Captains on Foot
• 1 Captain on Horse
• 5 Kataphrakts
• 1 Khamul the Easterling

I won't need everything for the GT, but I want to have various options painted as a develop tactics and strategies for running the Easterlings.

I forgot how quick painting Lord of the Rings models can be compared to 40k or Fantasy. I was able to paint these 8 spearmen fairly quickly.

I based them with the Fine Slate and Medium Slate from the GW's Urban basing kit, to give the impression of the Easterlings marching through the ruins of some city of Gondor. I always base my models before I prime them, so that the priming can help seal the material. I also paint the texture of the base, before I paint the model. I use watered down Codex Grey, then drybrush with Fortress Gray and finally Skull White. I use the straw from GW's Hero Basing Kit.



Painting Steps:

Base Coat
1. Painted the cloth with Scab Red (I could be messy at this step).
2. Painted armor with Shining Gold
3. Painted the square on the shield, the belt and the boots with Bestial Brown
4. Washed everything with 3:2 Flesh Wash:Water

Cloth
1. Highlight with Red Gore
2. Final highlight with Red Gore/Bleached Bone

Armor
1. Drybrush with Shining Gold
2. Drybrush with Mithril Silver
3. Square on the shield is highlighted with Bestial Brown

Black Cloth / Spear Shaft
1. Touched up with Chaos Black
2. Highlight with Vallejo German Grey
3. Highlight with Vallejo Dark Grey

Spear Tip
1. Boltgun Metal
2. Chaos Black Wash
3. Highlight with Mithril Silver
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Back from 'Ard Boys

I had a blast this last weekend. Friday night I played a game of 40k, and a game of Lord of the Rings. Saturday I participated in the 'Ardboyz qualifier at Imperial Outpost and then got in another game of LotR.

The tournament was exhausting. But I had 3 really great games. In the end I took 5th place and so will not be going on to the semi-finals . First place had 48 battle points, 2nd had 47, 3rd had 46, 4th had 45, and I had 44. So needless to say it was really close. Jon Jensen, who won was 1-1-1, and those of us who finished 2nd-5th were all 1-0-2!

Here is my list:

Characters
Wood Elf High Born
Great Stag, Magic Spear w/ Killing Blow, Oaken Armor (Regenerates)
Treeman Ancient
+1 Dispel Dice
Spellsinger (Lvl 2)
Unicorn, 2x Dispel Scrolls
Spellsinger (Lvl 2)
Elven Steed, 2x Dispel Scrolls
Branchwraith (Lvl 1)
Annoyance of Netlings (6+ to hit in challenge)
Wood Elf Noble
Battle Standard Bearer
3+ Ward Save (when it fails its gone)
Sword of Might

Core
Dryads (8)
Branch Nymph
Dryads (8)
Branch Nymph
Dryads (8)
Branch Nymph
Dryads (8)
Branch Nymph
Dryads (8)
Branch Nymph
Dryads (8)
Branch Nymph
Dryads (8)
Branch Nymph

Special
Wild Riders (5)
Full Command, War Banner
Wild Riders (5)
Full Command
Wild Riders (5)
Full Command
Treekin (3)

Rare
Treeman
Treeman

Game 1 - Jon Daly's Tomb Kings
My 3 treemen, were very scared of his Screaming Skull Catapults, since they get no saves from them, and they take double wounds because they are flammable. The rest of my army was afraid of the Casket of Souls up on the hill. With that constant threat, I was unable to stop much of his magic, allowing him to get off the charges he needed, and to take ranging shots with his catapults.

I played conservatively with my treemen, and tried to surf them forward a bit with my plethora of Treesinging spells, but I got shut down. Finally when one of his catapult destroyed itself, I brought them out, but it was too late for them to do much. Meanwhile, one of his princes on chariot, in squad of chariots with a banner for +1 to hit in the first round of combat was running through units of my list. Fortunately I got them below half, and wiped out a big block of skellies, which brought the game to a draw.

Game 2 - Jon Jensen's Empire
3 units of core knights, 3 units of Inner Circle Knight, Kurt Helborg, Volkmar on War Altar, Leopold and 2 steam tanks!!! In this scenario, table quarters were worth 750 VP's instead of the normal 100. That's great for me, because if there's one thing my skirmshing, highly mobile army can do, its claim table quarters.

First turn he shoots his mortar at a treeman. It scatters right on top of my BSB who was hiding behind a forest, out of everyone's LOS. Dead. Then he shoots a cannon at my other treeman. Treeman takes no wounds, but the spellsinger behind him takes a shot to the face. Dead.

So at first I was a little behind in the magic department. But I managed to assassinate his remaining mages, who were in units of knights. He wiped out a couple of units of wild riders and some dryads as we fought over an area of ruins. In the exchange, I also killed some swordsmen, the stupid mortar and the stupid cannon.

I also led Volkmar around by the nose. He is frenzied and so hbas to charge if he's within range. I led him with a unit of dryads for most of the game. The last two turns, I led him through a shallow river, which caused wounds to the chariot.

We also so combat between the 2 steam tanks and my 2 treeman that survived. I eventually killed one of the steam tanks and got the other below half. I avoided Kurt Helborg like the plague all game, and he and his knights just chased a unit of 100 point dryads around.

In the end, I had 2 table quarters, and I got a solid victory.

Game 3 - Daniel Poppe's Orcs and Goblins
So much magic! He had two level 4 Orc Shamans on Boar chariots, and two level 2 Gobbo Shamans on Wolf chariots. This scenario called for placing two loot counters. Controlling each was worth 1500 VP's. One was in my deployment zone, one was in his. He set up his artillery pieces in the center of the board on a hill. I pretty much ignored the center and set up heavy on both flanks. He did the same, except for 2 units of savage boys.

In the early parts of the game, I tree sung the forests to protect the flanks and to isolate his units. I also drew out the fanatics early from his two night gobbo units, hoping they would hit forests or his own units. I took very little damage from them.

On the right flank I charged a unit of night goblins with a unit of dryads, hoping to cause enough wounds to overcome their static combat resolution of 5. Unfortunately he had nets, which make me strike at -1 strength. I lost and was run down. This put him right on top of the counter in my deployment zone. Also on that flank, his general charged out of a unit to hit some dryads. They held the first turn, doing no damage. Next turn, the general failed to cause any wounds, lost combat by 1 and ran away. Unfortunately I didn't chase him down. He wouldn't have any more part in the game, but the points would have been nice. There was also a fight between his giant and my treeman. They both held for a couple of turns. Some dryads charged in later and finished off the giant.

On the left flank, my terror-causing treemen ran off a couple of units and then charged into some big block of orcs. Here is where by BSB paid off. I was quickly whittling down these units, but still lost to static combat resolution. I failed my break tests a couple of times, but thanks to my BSB, I was able to re-roll and held on. In the final turn I lost a treeman, but he was unable to move back onto the counter. I popped down a unit of dryads on it. In that turn he hit them with a couple of spells I couldn't stop, and reduced them to one dryad left in the unit. He then tried to shoot it with his artillery pieces and some bows. But they all missed. And because of how the scenario was worded, I still held the counter and that one dryad gave me 1500 VP's (canceling out his 1500 VP's). In the end it was a draw.

3 great games. I was exhausted driving home, and all day Sunday I was still recovering. I had planned to take a lot of pictures, and I even brought my camera. The games were so intense, I forgot the whole time. I didn't even have much time in between games.

Next up... Easterlings for The Lord of the Rings.


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Friday's Project: Dryads

That's it. The "Extra Wood Elves for 'Ardboyz" project is complete! I was originally going to do a white color scheme on this unit, but wanted to do something a little quicker.

Now, I'm off to get in a game of Lord of the Rings, and then some sleep... maybe. Tomorrow: 'Ardboyz!
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Thursday's Project: Battle Standard Bearer

The last of the characters is now done. I cheated, and didn't do the back of his banner. I guess I just have to make sure he doesn't flee, so my opponent won't see his back. Tomorrow, I head for Phoenix. I plan to work on the Dryads in the afternoon and try to get some 40K games in to practice at 1500 points for an upcoming tournament. Almost there, then on to the Easterlings!
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Wednesday's Project: Lord on Great Stag

Brand new lord for my wood elves is done. I really enjoyed painting the stag, but not the lord himself. He reminded me too much of painting wild riders, and I've done enough of that.


Programming Note: I will not be painting the Noble on Horse tomorrow. Instead I will be painting the Noble Battle Standard Bearer from the Wood Elf Army Box I got, when the army first came out. He's very excited to finally get painted after all this time. That's it for today. I feel like I'm just cruisin' along!
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Tuesday's Project: Treeman

So first off, I just found out today that I made the Law Journal at my school. I was preparing myself mentally not to make it, because apparently I psyched myself out. Boy was I surprised when I found out. Okay, on to the painitng...

Truth be told, this guy was really easy. I planned to work on him tonight specifically because I knew I had a lot of reading to do for Wednesday. Basically he's painted with Dark Flesh, Vermin Brown, Vomit Brown, 1:1 Vomit:Kommando Khaki.

Here's all three of my treemen:

Left: The one I did tonight.
Middle: My first treeman. He is a stock Citadel Treeman. I used a circular saw attachment for a dremel to chop all of his legs and torso in the middle. I then extended them all with wire hanger (No more wire hangers!), and filled the extensions in with green stuff.
Right: My first scratchbuilt treeman I did a month or so ago when I first taught myself the method from the GW US Online article.
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Monday's Project: Spell Singer on Horse

If you read Wood Elves - 'Ardboyz Additions Built, you'd know that I have 5 projects to work on this week for the 'Ardboyz tournament this Saturday. So, if you do the math correctly, it works out to one project per day (good work, Rain Man). I finished today's project, a Spell Singer on horse. Nothing too fancy here. The paint job is adequate, nothing phenomenal. But it is good tabl top quality and should mesh well with the rest of my force. I did do some extensive green stuff conversion to make this Glade Rider into a scroll caddy. Here's how:

I took a Glade Riderset of legs and torso, and put them together on a flying stand. I so this so I can paint my horses and riders separately. Notice on the legs there are three distinct layers of cloth. Since this was a mage, I wanted him to be wearing robes instead of the Wood Elf Peter Pan leotard.

I began by extending the cloth that was underneath the other two layers.

I then proceeded to lengthen the middle layer.

Next I lengthened the outermost layer. I also began constructing the torso portion of the robe. Basically, one layer just folds over the other.

I thought the robes were a little short, so I went back and further extended all three levels of cloth.

Next, I added the head and the cape. I also used some green stuff to extend the joint oh his right arm. With the extra thickness of the cloth on the legs, the arm needed to be out a little farther from the body.

Next, I started working on the mage's staff. I used the Glade Rider banner pole. I whittled down the top end to a point, so that it would act as the armature for the jewel I would be putting on top. I decided to use brown stuff instead of green stuff, as it is a little more durable. I just created the rough shape of a mounting, and a rough shape of a jewel.

Once the brown stuff had fully cured, I used an x-acto blade to form the facets of the jewel. It was the first time I had tried this and didn't come out quite how I expected it to. It works, overall, I guess.

I then put on the right arm and used brown stuff again to form the right sleeve of the robe. I tried to make it look as if it were naturally hanging down from the army.


I made another sleeve for the left arm. I also sculpted on a crown. Overall it was a lot of work to do for a simple Level 2 scroll caddy. In fact this is the second mounted mage, I've had to convert because Games Workshop has made a mounted mage model for the Wood Elves. Oh well, I don't think I'll need anymore...

Tomorrow, my third treeman!
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New Poll - Which Uber Daemon of Mine is Your Favorite?

This is probably just an excuse to try out the Poll feature, but...

Which one do you like the most, based on the paint job? Pick your favorite on the right. Also, feel free to leave comments on why you made your selction.Check out additional pictures of the various demons here.
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Wood Elves - 'Ardboyz Additions Built

Well, I spent most of today building the remaining figures I need to get my Wood Elves up to 3500 points, for the Qualifiers this Saturday. Now, since there is no painting requirement or score, I'm technically done... I wish. As any of my friends at Imperial Outpost can tell you, a tournament is not a tournament, unless I'm up until 4am finishing my army.

Starting in the back and working from left to right:

• My second scratchbuilt treeman (the other one is already painted). I used a technique found here on the US GW website.
• Spellsinger on horse (converted from a Glade Rider - steps of the conversion will be posted tomorrow.
• Noble on horse (took me forever to pin him, plus I lost one of his horns, and I carved a new one out of sprue, then lost that. I carved another one, and watched it like a hawk).
• Lord on Great Stag.
• 12x Drayds

Since there are five units I have to paint, and there are five days until the tournament, I need to complete one unit per day. To keep myself motivated, I will pledge to post the finished product of each unit here on that day (or the wee hours of the following morning).

• Monday: Spellsinger
  
• Tuesday: Treeman
  
• Wednesday: Lord on Great Stag
  
• Thursday: Noble on Horse
  
• Friday: Dryads

Off to bed, I have to a couple hours early tomorrow, because I got none of my readings done for class.
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Headless Easterlings - First Games of The Lord of the Rings

Earlier this weekend I played my first three games of The Lord of the Rings. I arrived at Imperial Outpost Games (in Phoenix) about two hours later than I had planned. I quickly put together enough models to play games of around 400 points. I didn't bother with heads, which is why I currently have an army of headless Easterlings. About every third person would make some comment how my Easterlings shouldn't be at some disadvantage, since they couldn't see without a head. Very "clever"... I would just sigh and roll my eyes at their "cleverness" (you people know who you are).

Game 1:
My first game was against Anthony's High Elves. I made a mistake and tried to sit back and exchange missile fire with his elves. Standard human bowfire has nothing on the Elves, who are the best in the game when it comes to bows. After several turns of losing 3:1 men to elves, I decided to move on his position. I managed to outflank him with Khamul the Easterling on warhorse on one flank and my Kataphraks on the other. Things were going well until I lost Khamul (I've been warned that he's really tricky to get a handle on). Soon my force broke, and eventually I lost.

Lessons learned: Khamul requires more finesse; spears would have been really helpful (for both sides).

Game 2:
Next day I played Dusty's Haradrim. We played Storm the Camp, where you have to capture the enemy deployment zone while protecting your own. I split my force in three: 1) Cavalry 2) Swordmen/Spearmen 3) Swordsmen/Bowmen. The Cavalry tried to advance on a flank. Group 2 went up the middle and Group 3 watched the camp. I didn't use Khamul this game, and opted for a cheap Captain. Long story, short: my cavalry got decimated by a phalanx of spearmen, and Group 2 got overwhelmed by Haradrim. I was broken, and lost.

Lessons learned: Cavalry require more finesse, and should not necessarily charge into a phalanx of spear men; my particular cavalry don't pack a lot of punch, and are better suited in a support role for the infantry; a combined arms approach to the formations works better than keeping all the archers together (unless you plan on volley firing); elements of the force need to be in positions to support one another.

Game 3:
Dusty and I upped the point value to 450, and I threw Khamul back in. Dusty added some Warg Riders as allies. We played Kill the King, where you have to kill the enemy general. For deployment, I created three lines of troops. A line consisted of swordsmen in the front, supported by a couple of spears, with a couple of bowmen, able to fire over their shoulders. I Had one line down the center, with the others on either side. I used terrain to anchor my flanks. My cavalry was in the back, with Khamul.

I spent the first several turns advancing at half speed, so my archers could get some shots off. I also took Khamul down one flank, and my cavalry down the other, trying to draw his warg riders to the flank. When they came after me, I ran them back behind my lines, ready to support the lines against any breakthroughs. My left line and Khamul dispatched with his mounted Haradrim Raiders, while my right line dealt with the warg riders, support by my cavalry. My middle line dealt with a phalanx of pikemen, which I had whittled down with my very deadly bow fire. Eventually I broke him, and after a while I caused his General to run (using Khamul's -1 Courage Area of Effect).

Lessons learned: I used Khamul more effectively, but he is still difficult to use efficiently; the combined arms approach does seem to work; when you have numerical superiority, do your best to try to "trap" enemy models to get extra swings at them (Dusty was gracious enough to keep reminding me of that tactic, when I failed to employ it).

I really enjoyed the system. It is a very simple and elegant system. What I really like about it, is that artificial tactical bonuses are minimized. Tactical advantages are conveyed through maneuvering, positioning, fighting the enemy with the right type of unit, and supporting your units. The priority system is really interested. It dispenses with the YouGoIGo system, and gives the game a more dynamic and fluid feel. I'm very excited to get some more games in, and to paint my headless Easterlings.
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Eldar Farseer

Ever since I stopped working at Imperial Outpost, I have not been able to full satiate my cravings for the hobby. The solution has been to find a "sugar daddy." I'm not proud of this, not at all. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to get your fix. I've had a couple of contracts for Anthony, and I'll post some of these models as time goes on. This was the only model that he didn't have to pay for. I gave it to him for a birthday present, and I'm afraid it's set a dangerous precedent, because he's expecting another one this year. Don't hold your breath.


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Thousand Sons Dreadnought

Still working on that motion response. It' due Friday at 4:30pm, but I'm leaving for Phoenix around 2pm, and I have class in the morning, so it pretty much has to get done tonight. Problem is, I'm pretty burnt out and am wasting a lot of time goofing off on the interweb. So I figured I might as well post something.

I forget why I made this. Might have been a painting competition, might have needed it for a tourny (back with the 3.5 codex, wouldn't come near a dreadnought with the new codex), or maybe I needed a doorstop.

Anyway, I was really impressed with the Forge World Thousand Sons Dreadnought, but I didn't want to shell out the cash for it. So, I thought I'd have a go at converting one from the loyalist Space Marine dreadnought.

The head is one of the heads from the defiler. The head dress was made from plasticard. A main structure, with strips glued on both sides. I used more strips of plasticard to form the banding around the armor.

The dreadnought close combat weapon was made using two smoke launchers as a mount, and then the blade was made with plasticard. I was unsure how to make the teeth for the blade, fortunately my friend T.J. had the great idea of using a triangular file to create the teeth. Oh, now I remember. I was going to use it for a team tournament with T.J. But we decided to drop the dread and add a Predator instead. Wow.

The back banner was made from brass rods and plasticard, melted with my heat gun .

Finally the ouroboros (snake eating its tail), was made from greenstuff.

All in all, it's not bad. I would do the gold a little differently. Maybe I'll bring him out when the next Chaos Codex comes out.

Okay, back to work.
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Death Guard - First Squad Finished

So right now I'm supposed to be polishing up a motion response for my writing class. But instead, I'm goofing around on the interweb. I saw some great death guard units over on BolterandChainsword, and decided to put mine up as well. This is nothing new if you've already seen them on AdeptusArizona.

Here's a quick rundown of how I painted them:

Armor:

• Black undercoat
• Orkhide Shade over the entire armor
• Knarloc Green heavy drybrush
• Rotting Flesh drybrush
• Green Ink:Yellow Ink:Water - 2:1:6 - over the entire model. I had to play with this mix a bit to get it right. Some came out a little too yellow. This step tends to clean up some of the drybrushing.
• Rotting Flesh:Water - 1:2 - this was painted on clean as a highlight
• Rotting flesh hardline

Rusted Metal:

• Boltgun Metal, watered down
• Brown Ink
• Scorched Brown, stippled on
• Bestial Brown, stippled on
• Blazing Orange, stipple on

Gold Trim and Details:

• Shining Gold
• Green Ink:Brown Ink:Water - 1:1:1 - covers all of the gold and also used to "blackline" the armor

Flesh and Decay:

• Mechrite Red
• Chestnut Ink
• Tallarn Flesh - depending on the type of surface, either drybrushed or layered on.
• Bleached Bone

Bone and Horns:

• Scorched Brown
• Bubonic Brown
• Bleached Bone

Basing:

• Ah... for another time. I get asked about my Chaos bases all the time, so I think I'll do my first tutorial on the bases later this week.

Well, here they are:

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Adding to my Wood Elves for 'Ardboyz

On Saturday, April 19th, Imperial Outpost Games will be hosting an 'Ardboyz qualifier. I have about 2250 of Wood Elves painted. So here's what I need to work on before then:

• 2x Treemen (one is painted, one needs to finish being modeled)
• 12x Dryads
• 1x Lord on Horse
  
• 1x Lord on Stag
• 1x Spell Singer on Horse (needs to be converted from a Glade Rider)

Now, I know that painting is not a requirement for 'Ardboyz, but I have a disease, which prevents me from playing with unpainted models in a tournament. Plus painted models perform better than unpainted models. Lots to do.

Also, here's some old pics of the initial 2000 point army after I finished it.

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Uber Daemons Part III - Scabieathrax the Bloated

Ol' Scabby is the final Uber Daemon I painted. An'ggrath was so massive and Zarakynel required such a high level of precision, I figured because Scabby was a smaller model, and because he was Nurgle that this guy would be cake. He was not. I spent at least double the time on him, than I did either of the other daemons. It was the sheer number of different things he had going on his body that was so tedious. He is just a big blob of resin. Heavy as hell. One could bludgeon someone to death with him if one were so inclined.

Zarakynel is my favorite, maybe because I use her all the time in my standard tourney army (though I think she's a little annouyed with me for relegating to the role of a generic greater daemon). However, Scabby is the best painted of the Uber Daemons (I think, anyway). He'll get to come out and play when someone hosts a 2000 point tourney, since the way I run my Deathguard doesn't do well in smaller games.

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Uber Daemons Part II - An'ggrath the Unbound

An'ggrath was the second Uber Daemon I painted. He was going to first be used in the 2007 'Ardboyz Qualifier Round at Imperial Outpost. He would just be a regular Bloodthirster (this was under the C:CSM 3.5, not the current 4.0). Since there was no painting score, I decided to just put a basecoat on him the night before. I just kept painting, and 6 hours or so later I finished him. He was the easiest of the Uber Daemons to paint,

He performed pretty well at the tourney, and I took 3rd place, which allowed me to proceed to the next round of the 'Ardboyz. Since then, I've only brought him out for Apocalypse games using the fullblown An'ggrath Rules (888 points!). His most memorable performace was when he walked up to Anthony's Baneblade and scored 13 penetrating hits on it, cleaving it in two. Next turn he got assaulted by 4 Wraithlords and some Warlocks. Both sides traded blows for the rest of the game.



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Uber Daemons Part I - Zarakynel, Bringer of Torments

Over the last couple of years, I purchased the 3 Forge World Greater Daemons, though I like to call them Uber Daemons.

Zarakynel was my first FW piece, and I was a little intimidated to work on her. I started putting her together and almost had a nervous breakdown trying to put the spikes on. Fortunately, Dan Stoltz, who we call the Dark Mechanicus around Imperial Outpost Games, stepped up and spiked her for me. I should have realized that this was an indication of her cursedness; she truly is a bringer of torment.

In the summer of 2006, I ran a 40k escalation league at IOG to coincide with the Medusa Campaign. I decided to get my Emperor's Children painted, including Zarakynel. My brother (14 at the time) was visiting from New Mexico. He walked in with a 64 0z. soda and... dropped it on her head. I had been flying through the Emperor's Children, but once this happened, I lost all interest in working on them and her. She got shelved.

Finally, she came back out in preparation for the 2007 Vegas Grand Tournament. She was a blast to paint... after I put her back together. Actually, I left the dreadlocks separate until they and she were painted, then I pinned them on.

A couple of months ago, I was driving up to Phoenix. Zarakynel was with in the car with me. I used to transport her by placing her in a plastic bag, which hung from the hook in my back seat. Sounds ghetto but worked surprisingly well, considering all of her appendages, spikes, etc. She survived the trip to Vegas this way, and a number of other trips to Phoenix. But now, I had several suitcases and other bags in the backseat, and some bag got dislodged and bumped into Zarakynel. Her hand broke in several pieces and her sword was severely bent. She's fixed now, and rides in style in a cushioned tupperware container.

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