...but I didn't manage to keep the blog going. Boo!
Since then, I've played with the Assault corps army loads more - it's a great fun list to use. Here's some pics of it in action, defending an imperial airbase from an onslaught of Paul McCabe's devil robots:
I still took all the WIP photos and so on, because I knew I'd like to come back to it one day. In particular, people really love my extendable flying stands, so I think one of the first tutorials I'll do is on how to get those done.
But that's for next time! For now, more pictures of shiny aeroplanes strafing robots in the desert.
I'd write a battle report, but there's not much more to say than - devil robots appear with evil teleport machines, cackling with evil binaric laughter...and then get bombed & strafed to pieces by cheating superfast shiny aeroplanes.
It was like a "refight" of the Dresden firebombing, if the bomb shelters were snowglobes, and the orphans were evil technowizards. You get the idea.
Remember me? You probably don't as I've commited the ultimate in blogging crimes, I stopped blogging. I know I know, the law of blogging says you must engage with the online community, write pithy and interesting content regularly and refrain from libelous content. I've still been writing, just not on here.
So what's happened since 2010? Busy, busy, busy is the answer... But that's all quietened down now, so hopefully I should be able to get back to telling stories about my models. Especially the ones with rocket packs.
It's been a busy week for me here in media-land. Haven't had much time for Toy soldiers, if I'm honest.
With no new updates on the army, I am starting to worry I might not get it done - as I now have seven weeks to get it all done! Still, I've booked a full week off in October to paint, so as long as I can get it all built by the last week of October, I should be fine. Fine.... yes, fine I tell you.
In the mean time, I'd just like to share a couple of things with you:
1st: - Invincible Pole Fighters
Now, some of you may be unaware of the classic of Chinese cinema that is the Shaw brothers amazing movie "Invincible Pole Fighters".
Well, have a look:
Why am I bringing this up?
Well, today I came across an excellent article entitled "Spear vs. Tank". Could a Pikeman destroy a tank as often happens in Civilisation Four? Well, maybe the average Pikeman, no...but an invincible pole fighter?
Of course.
2nd: -
The awesome game that is Hordes of the Things - HOTT - is now free to download!
It's one of the best games I've ever played. A great little system, perfect for very quick games. It's cool because you can do pretty much any period army you want - you haven't lived until you've seen Space Nazis fighting WW1 brits, for example. In that particular game, Biggles shot down a nazi UFO, and a MkV tank crushed a platoon of werewolves - amazing.
It's a lovely excuse to do a cool army you've always wanted to do, but knew you could never find an opponent for...e.g. Napoleonic, Roman, Gods of Rock, Somalian warlords... whatever.
so, now that my army is largely built, I played my first test game.
The drop on Tau Sept World "Cemia"
I trotted down to GW Kingston, and looked for a game - a charming Tau player offered his army up to be the first game I played.If I'm honest, this isn't going to be much of a battle report - it wasn't much of a battle, as my opponent conceded at the start of his third turn.
What happened was I deployed first, and got the first turn. My opponent deployed his army - a hammerhead, a squad of broadsides, two squads of crisis suits, two units of fire warriors and a squad of pathfinders - in a ruin opposite me. He left 20 kroot and 3 crisis suits off the board.
I used my 24" scout move to move straight ahead, closing on him. He didn't manage to steal the initiative. I then moved everything forward, deployed 50 odd guardsmen at point blank range, and let fly with an army-wide, four orders barrage.
This killed most of the army - the broadsides, most of the crisis suits, all of the infantry, both of the tanks. After that it was just mopping up, really.
It taught me a few things though:
1.) Valkyries are big. Not just big, HUGE. It was a struggle to deploy six on a 6"x4" board. It was a struggle to keep them squadroned near terrain. You can probably exploit this with terrain if you're playing against a Valkyrie army.
2.) The guard are horribly vulnerable once out the Valks. I mean, I knew this anyway, but it's still shocking to see 130 pts squads all die to one flamer shot.
3.) If your opponent starts with units off the board he's making a mistake. If you're using reserves, go all or nothing. All off board denies the valk player the alpha strike; nothing off board gives you the forces to counterpunch. The way the Valkyrie army wins is by isolating parts of the enemy and destroying them in detail.
just a quick post to A.) show you the work thus far on the air transport and B.) the work thus far on being able to transport the air transport...
Progress:
I've now built six (!) Valkyries. The are lovely models, but very, very big.
Above: Ride of the Valkyries, is an optional but recommended music choice.
To finish them, I need to mount them on car aerials, base them, and then work out the best way to apply the natural metal scheme I want - but step by step tutorials on all of that later.
For now, I just want to deal with the thorny issue of transport.
Lots of people struggle to transport their Valkyries from place to place - my solution is the humble 50 Litre plastic storage box.
Observe.
3 go in, layer of foam, 3 more go in, voila. Easy to transport flying things!
As long as you leave the stands removable, you can probably fit 8 into one of these. With the addition of a humble strap, you have a tough, durable case. Hurrah!
Ah ha, that's a joke. In Eastern Europe, football hooligans are referred to as "Ultras"; the picture above is actually the "fans" of a Serbian football team burning down their own stadium in protest at missing a free kick.
No, in all seriousness, here's the pictures I promised last week of the inspiring, lovely, Ultramarine army:
Gorgeous. And even though the owner lost, at no point did he set fire to anything. A true gent.
Game 3 was Dawn of War, with Capture & Control - (rolling on the board turn one, with two objectives).
When the other chap got his army out its case, I was stunned. Not because it was outrageously cheap as an army list - in fact, it was a pretty standard Vulkan based marine list - but because it was one of the most beautiful armies I have ever seen. I will put up some pictures of the real thing soonish, but suffice to say, it was like playing a game against the marines from the video below.
They were stunning - every marine painted to Demon winning standard. The chap playing them was lovely. We had a great game, very close, coming down to the last dice roll to determine whether it was a draw or a win for me.
I was the lucky one - not just because I won the dice roll (Killing Vulkan's at the end of the game, giving me one objective to none). I was lucky because this game reminded me what going to tournaments is all about - playing great games against people you'd otherwise never meet, and seeing other people's beautiful toy soldiers.
Game 4 - one the morning of day 2 - was Dawn of War (rolling on the board) with Seize Ground (lots of objectives).
I was playing against a slighty worrying looking guy - 6'6", muscular, covered in tattoos and piercings, with a mohawk. Being a slightly chubby stylish London media type, I wasn't intimidated (I've been in real wars and everything, you know) but I didn't really know what to expect.
His army was 25 Space Sharks Terminators - using the Deathwing list. Essentially, he teleported in (bing!) and I ruthelessly, ruthlessly gunned them down, outmanoeuvring him totally, killing every model he had while not losing a single man.
Twas a black day for the Space Sharks, obviously. Still, we had an awesome time. I;ve seen him posting on a couple of forums, saying that my game was the best game he had all day, because although I gave him a thorough pasting, we both had a laugh, thoroughly enjoyed it, and created a narrative to the game.
This game had some particular moments I'll always remember - from killing a Space Marine Chapter Master with a single Battlecannon round ("Load AP for this one, Jenkins") to being able to say "Now I'm going to destroy you in a staggering display of military professionalism" - then moving every unit in my army 12", disembarking every troop unit, contesting all five objectives, and issuing four successful orders to kill the entire opposing army, to which my opponent replied "Why aren't all Imperial Guard regiments like yours?"
