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Wednesday, 29 November 2006

The missile can fly

Sharp-shooters! A way of partially-compensating for the discrepancy between my bs4 'grenadier' troop choices and my bs3 support squads. I've taken it over xenos-fighters: tyranids to give the army more of a battlefield-kick, and as I will encounter 'nids very rarely. It was a nice touch, but I would've wanted it for orks and eldar too as squats are entirely fuelled by hatred. Oh, how 'second-ed'.

This is the third version of my list. It's a radical departure from last week now I've changed my doctrines drastically. I'm also rather chuffed with the presentation of the list. Need to find a better stencil font though.



Click for readable.

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Posted by Curis at 9:58 AM

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Tuesday, 28 November 2006

And rockets blazed through the sky

Had a great idea this week while I was doing the obligitary army list rewrite: GRENADIERS!

Yes, this doctrine drastically alters the whole feel of my army. The squats' current outings to date have felt slightly wrong. The infantry stood around and acted as cannon fodder while the rest of the army ... well ... my entire army was infantry. They didn't feel like the mean-lean (by which I mean 'damned podgy') ballistic machine squats were. But grenadiers! Grenadiers! I can field my infantry platoons as troop-choice storm troopers, and I need not sing of how rock storm troopers are. They're sufficiently rock for squats.

One problem is the lack of heavy weaponry, but since everyone's been telling me not to field such firepower in infantry squads then this problem is just another step forward.



I've found some meltguns for my bikers, and I'm currently converting up their vet serg, though it peeves me slightly he can't get a power fist. He might be a candidate for the Honorifica Imperialis now that I've stopped taking my Hearthguard as hardened vet's.

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Posted by Curis at 7:11 PM

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Thursday, 23 November 2006

Eventually, time corrodes the brain to rust

I took on Ben's Tau Empire last night, and lost.

But it was not as much of a panning as I got at the hands of Matt's Night Lords last week. We played Cleanse, each had a our own plus a neutral quarter - but Ben won by about 300 VP's of casualities. The game was good, but it was raining so the floor of the club began to flood, destroying my copies of the giard codex for the second time (glad they're only copies). Uuuh, it's a grim place that cellar.



I had a completely legal army this time, and slightly more balanced now I've replaced a lot of the heavy bolters with anti-tank weapons. I didn't feel under-gunned against all the Devilfish and Hammerheads, and the fire support squad's heavy bolters were able to chew up fire warriors.

My bikers (counts as rough riders) need an overhaul. Someone (maybe Tom) suggested I could give them hunting lances by sticking tiny spikes to the bikes' fairings. It would have the double advantage of obscuring the bolters and making them more wysiwyg. They desperately need them, and some meltaguns, and maybe a vet sarg with a powerfist to lay down some carnage. They're woefully ineffectual at the moment.

Going to see if I can paint an entire infantry platoon for next week, they look really muddled on the battlefield now the novelty of being all stripped ans shiny has worn off.

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Posted by Curis at 1:32 PM

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Monday, 20 November 2006

Like I could shot the moon

Caro's got a lovely new camera with supermacro, and it takes photos of my squats that are so sharp it really shows up my dodgy painting. (Well, it's not dodgy, it's just army-standard). Here's some pics of my first fully-painted squad. Yup, they're all ever-so-slightly different schemes because I was experimenting with different mixes, buy I like the slight variety it adds and I may implement it throughout the army.



This isn't quite a proper command squads, there's no medic or standard. It's really just my 'junior officer' (with that grey beard?!) and four random infantry.

I've also been rejigging my infantry squads now I've go a tonne of plastic arms and weapons stripped. I shall be fielding a legal army this week, which should perform fairly-solidly against marines now I've slipped in some more rockets and plasma guns. I'd like to get some meltas, but I don't have the models (I can find at least 3 with meltas in the catalogues). I do have a few multi-meltas though, but I'm having a dilemna whether they'd be wysiwyg or not.

Talking about wysiwyg I'm trying to remove all the boltguns from the army. I planned to do it after I had reached 1500 painted points, but now I've found this fantastic brake-fluid which strips all my old plastic lasguns I can do it straight-away. It also saves me painting models that I will eventually phase-out. I just wish there was a way of getting the model into the army as I love them muchly.

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Posted by Curis at 12:47 AM

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Thursday, 16 November 2006

Too many Rhinos

My squats had their first battlefield outing last night - versus Matt's Night Lords. They were massacred, the 1500pt army reduced to just 2 models at the start of my fifth turn. All their heavy bolters really struggled against the power armour of the Night Lords they were facing, so I'm going to switch them all for rocket launchers and keep heavy bolters in the fire support squads. Main reason I lost was because I suck.



The list I took had lots of mistakes in, like standard bearers in infantry platoon command squads. I will correct all the mistakes and seriously tweak the list for some more games next week. At least the hilariously-bad performance was only in front of Matt. One thing did go right though - Warmaster Gorun! He was power fisted to death by a biker champion, but came back thanks to his bionics (his jewelled eye). Yehah! He was one of only two models that suvived, the other was Trooper Doublehard McBiker.




Well, some experience, and I'm glad I got the army to a sufficient state it can see the battlefield without any missing limbs or weapons or models. And at least it's in a better state on its first outing than the majority of armies that regularly get fielded at Workshop's games night.

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Posted by Curis at 8:08 AM

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Wednesday, 15 November 2006

In the decision of existence

Another late night stripping paint. All the bare metal makes the army look rather unified, and gives a glimmer of hope that the army will look superb all painted up in the same scheme. I've got a load of plastic arms and weapons soaking in brake fluid at the moment, which also strips beautifully.



Stripping the models reveals a lot of their flaws.. Some of them are white metal, most of them are lead, and a few are really ancient lead that never held detail well. But all the lead figures are so easy to clean up mould lines that I half-wish Workshop would switch back over to it. Easier to drill as well.

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Posted by Curis at 1:32 AM

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Monday, 13 November 2006

The Beginning

Last time I collected a 40k force (Waaagh! Robobeard) I kept a diary with photos to chronicle my progress. I thought I'd do the same for this squat army so I could record the evolution of the army from its hunble origins to its full tournament-pounding majesty.



Here it is in its early stages. It's not the very beginning as I already have most of the models, and they have seen battle before. But I find that with every army I collect they only get off the ground after many false starts. My squats have now reached the critical mass of interest and effort that will push them forward into being a proper tabletop army.

The pic's of some gnarly half-stripped Ironclaw squats. I found them in the garage in a jar having started nitromorsing them about 4 years ago. They should clean up nicely despite the complete state they're in. I think this picture nicely sums up the state the entire army is in at the moment.

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Posted by Curis at 9:32 AM

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