Officio Assassinorum: Back In Black

Welcome back to the Vault my fellow Imperial Commanders! My hobby time has been practically non-existent this week, although I have managed to find a few minutes to flick through Vigilus Defiant (yes, I am late to the party on this book) and start plotting how to use some of the cool rules with my Space Sharks, and I've drafted a mission for the upcoming Mayhem tournament which should get a play test next week. More on both of those in future posts.

Today I'd like to share a painting tip I'd picked up from an online conversation; "washing in" colours.

Officio Assassinorum: The Killers

Time to Venture into the Vault once more. In today's post I'd like to look at some of the most feared units in Warhammer 40,000; the Imperial Assassins.  The Assassins have received a "mini Codex" in the latest White Dwarf magazine, and the killers have all received a number of buffs! All the Assassins tick the Rule of Cool for aesthetics and theme, but are they good enough Games Rules wise to see time on the table top?

Imperial Players now have an option to select an Assassin to add to their force during deployment for the measly sum of 1 CP and 85 reserve points, using the Operative Requisition Sanctioned Stratagem. This allows a canny player a lot of flexibility as you can now apply a level of tailoring to your opponent's force!

I don't intend to cover every rule and statistic for these models (there are plenty of reviews elsewhere on the interweb, plus go buy White Dwarf), but I thought it would be fun to muse on the rules that stick out to me. So let's have a look at the various Assassins, starting with the master marksman, the Vindicare!

Kill Team: Painting the Arena Terrain

Salutations, my fellow Kill Team Leaders! In this post we'll be visiting the latest Kill Team expansion set; Arena. 

I must confess that when this boxed set was first announced I wasn't really that interested but having watched a couple of review and play through videos on YouTube my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to jump in.

Arena is pitched as a "competitive" variation of the Kill Team game, exchanging the usual 3D terrain  for a more "board game" like experience, with fixed symmetrical board layouts to promote a more balanced play set up (in theory the terrain set up does not favour one player over the other).

Arena contains four boards (representing different Kill Zones) and a number of terrain pieces, which should be built to specific configurations. I figured getting these pieces assembled and painted would be a fun project, and playing my first Arena game on a fully painted board will be a great reward.

Let's open the doors and see what goodies we've got!

The Gift: Session 7 Adventure Log

The session begins with the characters advancing slowly through the long narrow chamber. This room differs from the previous caverns they have explored as it is obviously man made, though long disused. The party surmise it may have been used as a store room long ago.

A door is located in the northern wall; the party open it and advance into another rectangular chamber. There are two doors in the northern wall, a wide alcove to the north east, a set of stairs to the south east and a second set of stairs to the south west.

Of more immediate interest are a set of horrific implements of torture; a rack, brazier, manacles and chains and so on. Footsteps in the dusty floor indicate that something has been moving through the chamber.

Nanny Ogg investigates the south eastern stairs; they descend a short way to a small antechamber and the door to a cell. The wizardess advances to the door only for it to spring open and a horrific undead creature to burst out and attempt to pounce on her!

Power Armoured Paint: Carcharodons Astra Intercessors

The Carcharodons Astra have returned from the depths of the Void to receive welcome reinforcements in their unending war against the Xeno and the Heretic. Today the Space Sharks welcome the first of their Primaris brethren to their numbers.

I've enjoyed some hobby time recently both painting up some of the new Primaris Marines and using them in a Kill Team evening at First Founding.

First up is the Intercessor Sarge:

First Founding: The Big Build Evening

Welcome back to the Vault my fellow Venturers!  Tonight's post combines two topics close to my hobby heart; terrain and the First Founding Games Club.

Our club is very lucky to have on site storage space for our gaming boards and terrain, and a load of scenery for our 40K tables (as you will see).  However a lot of the pieces are starting to suffer from their years of long service and the cramped conditions of the storage cupboard.  So a call to arms was issued to the 40K community and a number of the regulars gladly exchanged their armies and games for an evening of sorting, gluing and painting as part of our first Big Build.

First up, we pulled all the terrain from the cupboard. There was more than we realised:

Power Armoured Paint: The Lazy Persons Guide to painting Deathwatch

Welcome to the Watch Fortress Commanders! I'm still riding a hobby high from last week's 40K Doubles Tournament and I've been building a load of 40K models in my spare time.  Long time readers will know I am something of a Power Armour Junkie, and so having enjoyed playing them in some doubles practice games I've been reinforcing my Deathwatch Marines!

I love the lore behind the Deathwatch; the Best of the Best, a thin black line defending Humanity against the danger of Xenos-kind. The Deathwatch recruit from many different Chapters and so the army present an opportunity to build and paint a bunch of different Space Marine styles.  Whilst I've done quite well in the "buy and build" category, I've utterly failed to paint any of my Deathwatch models. Until this weekend that is; I've painted a test model and I'm quite taken with the scheme!