Sanguinary Guard

Well after my defeat at the hand of Robs Iron Hands last week I decided to to take the plunge and buy some Sanguinary Guard for my Blood Angels. Not that the defeat had anything to do with the purchase (I doubt they would have been much help anyway) It was always a unit I planned on purchasing and last Thursday in GW Cheltenham seemed like a good opportunity.

Upon opening the box I was again struck by the current quality of GW's plastic kits. The models are fantastic with some beautiful detailing and some great building options. It almost seems a shame to let my sub par painting techniques anywhere near them (not that this will stop me).

Codex wise I think I will be building them as follows:

Saguinary Guard. [200]

Death Masks. [25]

Chapter Banner [30]

1 x Infernus Pistol. [10]

All that for a total of 265 points. I know it's a lot but hey I'm building a theme army and that's what I want :P

Blood Angels vs Iron Hands report

well instead of giving a finely detailed report on the ins and outs of the battle I will give a nice concise report

I got my arse well and truly whooped!

I made a few significant errors during the game which lead to my army being destroyed by what I still think is an inferior force.

Error 1)

I got entirely fixated by a Land Raider Redeemer, throwing unit after unit against it when if I had kept my distance it would have posed very little threat.

Error 2)

Not understanding the rules made me ignorant of how dangerous flamestorm cannons are to even power armoured infantry. I also underestimated how hard it was to crack the armour of a Land Raider or Ironclad Dreadnought. wasting precious troops in assaults they had no chance of winning.

Error 3)

Well to be honest there isn't an error 3 as the first two mistakes lost me the game. If I had concentrated on getting troops on objectives instead of charging down the barrel of a flamestorm cannon it would have been a more even fight. I also think that some more anti armour units would be a good idea as I had real trouble with the aforementioned Land Raider and an Ironclad Dreadnought, I have already got a bike squadron on its way from ebay (it's going to need some TLC though judging by the pictures), fitting them out with melta guns is the way I'm going with them maybe add an attack bike at a later date.

As a whole it was an enjoyable battle and I will take away a number of hard learnt lessons from it but hey you can't win them all right?

BA vs IH

Tomorrow will be the first battle for my full 1500 point Blood Angel force. My opponent will be Rob and his Iron Hands and I'm really looking forward to it. It's been a good few years since I've played in a decent size game of 40k and I can't wait to see if my Blood Angels perform as well on the tabletop as they do in my head.

I hope to make some notes during the game, maybe take some pictures too so I can write a nice battle report.

Thought for the day.

Running out of Chaos Black spray paint is a great way of making sure I finish painting the models I already have under coated.

Rifleman Dreadnought

Just spotted this in my google reader.

http://weemen.blogspot.com/2011/03/relictors-mortis-pattern-rifleman.html

Basically its a Space Marine Dreadnought with double autocannons. I'm guessing it's name comes from the Battletech RFL-3C Rifleman (itself based on the Macross defender)

Macross Defender

Now after a quick search around the web I have realised that this is quite a popular modelling choice for Dreadnoughts however I have never felt so inspired by a model.

Funds permitting I am hoping to get add one to my Blood Angels soon (hey I realise its a Dark Angels only model but I just love the look of it). Maybe this is the time to throw some cash Forgeworlds way.

Brother Raidar will get to fight for the Imperium again

WAAAAGHH!!!

Well I'm back online at last and thought I would start of by introducing my new army:

Gitstompas 'ard crew.

With my Blood Angels force being themed around a task force from the second war for Armageddon it made sense for me to create an opposing force of Orks. Hence Gitstompas 'ard crew was born. Now to be honest I hardly have the cash to build my Blood Angels force up so any Orky goodies will have to be bought probably on ebay or begged and borrowed form other sources but I already have a great start thanks to the models in the Black Reach set and the fortuitous find of all the Orks and Gretchin from my 2nd edition boxed set (20 Orks and 50 Gretchin) so without even trying I have about 800 points of Orks. I have painted ten of the Orks so far and am happy with the results.

2011 so far

Well so far this year I have been without internet at home for six weeks, the reasons are multiple but mainly due to the incomptent company known as Talk Talk. Needless to say when normal service is resumed, my ISP will no longer be Talk Talk it will be BT (best to deal with the organ grinder as they say, or the owners of the infrastructure in this case).

My Blood Angels are growing at a steady pace with 1500points of the little blighters ready for battle, financial issues are preventing from picking up the new Storm Raven :(

The Traveller game I am running is into it's third week and the players seem to be having fun. I think people like the feel of the system compared to the more structured system of D&D (or maybe its the haphazzard half arsed way I run RPG's, who knows!) either way its going well.

Due to the afore mentioned financial problems I have, I havn't bought any new games in a couple of months, rather I have revisited some older titles I nver really gave the attention they deserved. The three games I have mainly been playing are Madden 10 on the 360 (inspired no doubt by the Super Bowl the other week), Command and Conquer 3 on the 360 (mainy skirmishing) and Wipeout Pulse on the PSP.

As a further note my older brother has recently moved in with us for a while bringing with him a love of old PS1 games. He spends the nights playing C&C Retalliation, GT2 and Panzer Generals. Our family has taste (except my mother when it comes to hats!)

Anyway I hope to be fully back on line in a fortnight with more info on the Blood Angels (and news of a new job I hope)

- Ben