Finecast Terminator Librarian - Unboxing - Now updated!

Hi all,

Many of you may have seen reports that Finecast is terrible, will ruin GW, likes to kick cute puppies, or refuses to release its real birth certificate. From what I have seen, none of these are the case. (Although I am vaguely suspicous re: this whole birth certificate thing. When will you release the REAL one, Games Workshop?!?!?!?!)

Anyway, here's some pics:




As you can see, quite a bit of flash. But that's to be expected, I think. I found one bubble worth mentioning, which you will see just above the model's face. Annoying, but I can deal. Everything is in one piece, and the details really are great. I also had a chance to look at some of the other Finecast models. From what I could see through blister packaging, they all looked great as well. I did see some small bubbles here and there, nothing outrageous though. One model in particular, Astorath, looked great in resin. All the insane detail on the model really popped in the resin.

I have not started working with the model yet, but am going to play with a piece of sprue and see just how heat reactive the resin is.

Bottom line, it's not perfect, but not the end of the world either.

Update: I've taken the model off the sprue and began cleaning it up. I found several more bubbles, though most are on the underside of the model where they won't be seen. These were most evident on the bottoms of the skulls hanging from the scroll cases on the book/shrine/whatever thing. Very clear description, I know.

Unfortunately, my storm bolter was indeed pretty messed up. I just didn't notice until I got it off the sprue. There are several areas of the model where it seems as if the resin didn't fill in. See pic below. There are also some problems on the ammo belt for the combi-plasmagun. Several bubbles that aren't that big, but still big enough to make several rounds on the belt look pretty bad. (Not that I would build him with it, but still.)

So, a day after getting the model, I have to say the jury may still be out on Finecast. I think over time, these issues will get ironed out and it will be a decent product. But we'll have to wait and see. For now, I'm debating whether to contact GW for a replacement, or suck it up and do some conversions.

Devouring of Reth Campaign - Cities of Death & Campaign Finish

So we finished the preliminary campaign for Reth and will complete the whole campaign with a giant Apocalypse game on June 12th at GS. All in all this has been a very interesting campaign with a lot of chances to see new armies and play new opponents in new types of 40k games!

The final two weeks we played were City Fights. We used the Cities of Death rules and modified them for 5th edition pretty successfully. The only real rule hangup was the Cities of Death specific rule where models can both move forward and down/up depending on what they rolled for moving through terrain.

Army composition played a very large part in this game type. Bunches of tanks really didn't work out, as they'd get all stuck together and eventually destroyed in melee combat. They also couldn't shoot as well as almost everything received a cover save. I would say transports were nearly useless, but if you have any thoughts please post them!

Xenos (Two tyranids, two orks, eldar, two chaos space marines) won 4-3 both weeks. We had a lot of hordes on our team and the missions were both objective based, so we had a leg up on that. My whole army in our last game had the move through cover USR; this really helped quite a bit (although my genestealers didn't have assault grenades. Worst representation of fluff in 40k!).

A few stratagems I noticed weren't used and could have helped my opponent in the last game. Siege shells are STR10 AP- and can knock buildings down. If my opponent had used these on the first few turns it would have helped him quit a bit. Instead he chose to go for the AP value of the regular shot, I got my carnifexes across the field (I had one left, with 1 wound left!) Once the carnifex and the hive tyrant and genestealers got into combat with that squad of Leman Russes they were toast.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed Cities of Death. I would definitely recommend it for a home game or a once in a while thing to break up the monotony of the 3 missions and 3 deployments. The visual of all the buildings and your dudes running through them is something that can't be beat.

I'll keep my wrap up of all the regular games short and sweet. We had 2 weeks of combat patrol first. These were fun and a lot of the people had never played combat patrol before so it was a good way to show them a new way to play. We used the Adepticon Combat Patrol rules and they worked out really well (no punishment of Tyranids!).

The 3rd and 4th weeks were Battle Missions. I was stunned by the amount of people that told me they wouldn't buy the book for it (c'mon, it is cheap and has tons of fluff and new ways to play! Man up!) but would spend a ton of money on new models. Eh.

The missions went OK. Both were pretty heavily stacked vs the Xenos teams but they were still fun. Campaigns aren't supposed to be fair, just fun. I encouraged everyone to bring new models that they have never used or would never use (I used lictors!) in order to provide a more fun environment for everyone. Weeks 5 and 6 were Cities of Death. I posted my thoughts above.

The Apocalypse game will feature two 8x8 boards with 6 people on each at 3,000 points each person and a 4x4 space hulk board with two people on it. We'll be using the Boarding Action rules from Imperial Armour 9 for this. I'll have to re-listen to the Independent Characters podcast about IA9 and Boarding Actions. While you're at it check out their Cities of Death review.

I'll have the fluff up soon that will detail the situation of the apocalypse battle. It is going to be really, really, really cool.

Oh No

This can't be good.

Summer Vacation - Team Tournament Results

Geneguard and I played in a team tournament today at The Gamers Sanctuary and had a lot of fun. There were 8 teams, 16 people total. I had imagined that we would be middle of the pack or lower as usual (I have never placed in a tournament before!) since neither of us are really that competitive when it comes to list building and play.

GS recently adopted an Adepticon format to more allow for more competitive play and better scoring (great!). The tournament had 8 teams, so we only did 3 rounds (great!). The missions were really, really, really cool and allowed for a lot of strategic thought. First, the FOC rules:

Teams will consist of 2 Team Members. Each Team Member's army will consist of 1000 points or less, using the Limited Force Organization chart as outlined below.
o 1 HQ
o 0-1 Elite
o 1-3 Troops
o 0-1 Fast Attack
o 0-1 Heavy Support

The rest of the rules can be found here.

My list:

1000 Pts - Summer Vacation

• 3 Carnifex - 2x TL Devourers with Brainleech Worms
• 10 Termagant Brood - Adrenal Glands; Toxin Sacs
• 2 Tervigon - Cluster Spines; Catalyst

One tervigon was in the troops slot.

From what I could tell, Geneguard (Bill)'s list was as follows:

3x 30 boyz mobs with nob with power klaw
3x killa kans
10 lootas
1 big mek w/ kff

I don't know much about Orks so don't quote me. Anyway if you can tell, I didn't really plan to be super competitive because 3 carnifexes with devourers costs 570 points. It was more of a fun gimmick list. The theme was Summer Vacation.

 

We hadn't really planned out any strategy. I was to draw as much fire as possible giving FNP to carnifexes and gants. Bill was to do whatever he could to try to make us win. We both fielded fully painted armies.

Game 1 was versus Tau and Black Templars. They had a really cool list idea and they didn't really make any mistakes; we forced the Templars to make a lot of saves and the Tau didn't have enough high AP to bring down the big MCs. 

The lineup for game 1.

It was a great fight. I soaked the Templars with biohoses and they eventually died out. We won this battle, accruing a bunch of KPs.

The steel wall was super intimidating.

Game 2 was versus an Imperial Guard steel wall list. I was really scared about playing these guys because they had two large units of Leman Russ tanks and a lot of Chimeras. This battle was truly won by Bill's use of a Waagh and great run rolls. He got into combat on turn 2 and started rolling up tanks and guardsmen. I basically soaked up some shots and killed some dudes and we won. Great opponents and a close battle.

Our last battle was against Dark Eldar and Space Wolves. I was again intimidated (we didn't think we'd win one game, let alone 2!). I hadn't ever played Dark Eldar before and I had heard they were really nasty to MCs. I forgot to FNP my carnifexes one turn and they took 3 wounds; what really sucked was losing two carnifexes to JotWW (such a dumb power).

We managed to hold onto enough objectives to win the game. It was very close, and our opponents were very smart with target priority and shooting. I was very lucky in that my tervigon didn't die to JotWW.

All in all, a great tournament! Bill and I won first place and the most kill points awards. I used my store credit to get 3 chapterhouse tervigons, a chapterhouse mycetic spore, and 3 carnifexes that were sold to the store. Awesome!!

Team Tournament Today - Gamers Sanctuary

Hey all - just a quick note to say Geneguard and I will be at Gamers Sanctuary today for a long team tournament. We plan on bringing the dumbest list possible, so look for us at the lower tables.

Tourney Details

Hit me up at the tournament and we'll get some photos of your army for the blog! This is an Adepticon-style tournament so it should be fun.

Devouring of Reth Week 5 - Cities of Death

This week we did Cities of Death (adapted to 5th edition using the Dakka Dakka walkthrough) using the mission "Firesweep". I'll save my review of the format later, just some pics this morning!

 

Games Day - Chicago, July 30 2011

Just a quick post. Games Day is in Chicago this year which is pretty close for most of us Michigan folks. (A lot of Michiganders think Chicago is this super pristine city and it is so great... I went once. It was pretty decent, but lots of beggars! It was weird).

I went to Games Day last year in Baltimore as part of a large trip to DC and Virginia. It was pretty cool. Lots of stuff to do, see, and hear. I'm not really interested at all in a tournament con because I don't really play 40k competitively; seeing all the displays, playing in huge games, and seeing new stuff is really cool.

I'd recommend going if you haven't been before. I wouldn't recommend bringing your army because there just won't be time or space to play. Games Day is really only one day; if you want to get in the ForgeWorld line it'll take some time. I recommend going after lunch when all the new stuff is gone - it only took us 30 mins of waiting that way.

There are really cool sessions with Black Library where they read new books. ForgeWorld has a couple sessions talking about new models. All in all like I said I'd recommend going at least once and checking it out.

I'll be entering my Harpy in the Monster Conversion Contest. Don't really expect to win anything, but it'd be nice! Let me know in the comments if you're going and we'll meet up and bro around for a bit.

Angels VS. Daemons - Devouring of Reth GS Campaign Battle Report

Gamers Sanctuary: Devouring of Reth campaign – week 4
Wave assault battle mission , xenos attacking, 1750pts.
My Chaos Daemons; led by a Lord of Change and Bloodthirster, 11 units in total.

Adam’s Blood Angels; lots of mech and terminator armor. (A fast mech army – basically a Chaos Daemon player’s worst nightmare…)

Adam deployed and I randomly chose my first wave of three (which ended up being the one I wanted last), made up of the Lord, Daemonettes, and some Flamers. They were going to be my mid-game monkey wrench for all his mech… but so is the will of the Dark Gods.

The Flamers bit the dust pretty quickly after doing some weapon destroying and stunning. Meanwhile (in my best Super Friends narrator voice), the Lord miraculously made 8 or more invulnerable saves against waves of assault cannon and lascannon spam, one of the only Daemon high points of the match.

Then, on turn 2, assault troops made a move on the Lord after its failed attempt to crack some armor. The force of so many attacks resulted in the Lord being pulled back into the Warp (although he did take a few souls for Tzeentch with him).

My turn 2 wave of exclusively Khorne units made a successful drop and made a push on the various BA mech targets.

But, as expected, they bobbed and weaved their way out of my reach and continued with the unrelenting spam.

Meanwhile (again, in my best Super Friends narrator voice), Daemonettes survived a couple of rounds, even rending a few Terminators. However, the end result was a one-way ticket back to the Warp for them as well.

My third and final wave of Fiends, Plaguebearers, and a Soul Grinder went okay.

However, a dangerous terrain test failure left my Soul Grinder immobilized. Bye-bye assaulting fleet heavy slot choice.

Even though he got off a few shots of Phlegm, it wasn’t enough to save his hide in the end, with a single bastard exploding him using some BS Blood Angels psychic ability that provides S10 in CC. Booo!

By the end of turn 3, all was but lost. You’ll notice lots of red, not enough of it Bloodletters.
Turns 4 and 5 were just kind of a blur of invulnerable savings rolls for me that didn’t go much in my favor.

Game ended on turn 5 with a roll of a 2. We tied on objectives; my remaining two units of Plaguebearers holding on for dear life (death?). But even if I had some more units left, Adam could’ve made all kinds of late game contesting moves on the remaining objectives. So, as it may have seemed even, I never really felt like I had a shot.
That’s okay though! It was still a really fun game and I learned from some mistakes, still trying to figure out how to best utilize some of these units. The Daemon 40k codex isn’t that great and playing them, you have to realize that you’re going to lose sometimes (edit: a lot, and badly). Really though, I doubt Daemons anywhere will ever fair well against an army like this, but it’s always an entertaining time playing a good sportsman like Adam and a nice bonus when everything on the board is painted. And his Angels are awesome; a thing of beauty! (You just can't beat a game where every model on the board is painted, regardless of the outcome of the match.)
I just wish he wasn’t so damn good playing them… lol
Campaign results thus far – Chaos 3, humans 1. On to week 5 - city fighting!!
Post script: We have three (yes, three) mech-centric Blood Angels players in this campaign, basically half of the human roster each week. (Xenos: insert your preferred explitive here.) And I’ve had just about enough of these blurry photos from my inferior camera. Before I buy another Warmarchine model, I’m investing in a decent camera.

Angels VS. Daemons (or The Emperor is a B!#$%) A GS Campaign Battle Report

Gamers Sanctuary: Devouring of Reth campaign – week 4 (May 11th, 2011)
Wave assault battle mission , xenos attacking, 1750pts.

My Chaos Daemons; led by a Lord of Change and Bloodthirster, 11 units in total.

Adam’s Blood Angels; lots of mech and terminator armor. (A fast mech army – a Chaos Daemon player’s nightmare…)

Adam deployed and I randomly chose my first wave of three (which ended up being the one I wanted last), made up of the Lord, Daemonettes, and some Flamers. They were going to be my mid-game monkey wrench for all his mech… but so is the will of the Dark Gods.

The Flamers bit the dust pretty quickly after doing some weapon destroying and stunning. Meanwhile (in my best Super Friends narrator voice), the Lord miraculously made 8 or more invulnerable saves against waves of assault cannon and lascannon spam, one of the only Daemon high points of the match.

Then, on turn 2, assault troops made a move on the Lord after its failed attempt to crack some armor. The force of so many attacks resulted in the Lord being pulled back into the Warp (although he did take a few souls for Tzeentch with him).

My turn 2 wave of exclusively Khorne units made a successful drop and started their push on the numerous BA mech targets.

But, as expected, they bobbed and weaved their way out of my reach and continued with the unrelenting spam.

Meanwhile (again, in my best Super Friends narrator voice), Daemonettes survived a couple of rounds, even rending a few Terminators. However, the end result was a one-way ticket back to the Warp for them as well.

My third and final wave of Fiends, Plaguebearers, and a Soul Grinder went okay.

However, a dangerous terrain test failure left my Soul Grinder immobilized.

Even though he got off a few shots of Phlegm, it wasn’t enough to save his hide in the end, with a single bastard exploding him using some BS Blood Angels psychic ability that provides S10 in CC. Booo!

By the end of turn 3, all was but lost. You’ll notice lots of red, not enough of it Bloodletters.

Turns 4 and 5 were just kind of a blur of invulnerable savings rolls for me that didn’t go much in my favor.

Game ended on turn 5 with a roll of a 2. We tied on objectives; my remaining two units of Plaguebearers holding on for dear life (death?). But even if I had some more units left, Adam could’ve made all kinds of late game contesting moves on the remaining objectives. So, as it may have seemed even, I never really felt like I had a shot.

That’s okay though! It was still a really fun game and I learned from some mistakes, still trying to figure out how to best utilize some of these units. The Daemon 40k codex isn’t that great and playing them, you have to realize that you’re going to lose sometimes (edit: a lot, and badly). Really though, I doubt Daemons anywhere will ever fair well against an army like this, but it’s always an entertaining time playing a good sportsman like Adam and a nice bonus when everything on the board is painted. And his Angels are awesome; a thing of beauty!

I just wish he wasn’t so damn good playing them… lol

Campaign results thus far – Chaos 3, humans 1. On to week 5 - city fighting!!

Post script: We have three (yes, three) mech-centric Blood Angels players in this campaign, basically half of the human roster each week. (Xenos: insert your preferred explitive here.) And I’ve had just about enough of these blurry photos from my inferior camera. Before I buy another Warmarchine model, I’m investing in a decent camera.