Angry Griffin's Oldhammer

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  • 9th Ed 40K Battle Report: Raven Guard vs. Chaos Space Marines

    Last night saw the Raven Guard face off against Chaos in a 500pt Combat Patrol game. Raven Guard won on points, though they were certainly losing in terms of casualties.

    Takeaways: The new ruined walls set of six was the MVP as far as terrain goes, with just the one set making a meaningful difference to each side of the mid-board. Tactics-wise the RG were managed horribly. The army makeup was more based around what was painted than what was effective, and it showed – a second lieutenant ended up being wasted points in this particular battle as he didn’t make a single point back for. the ~75pts expended.

    The lack of AT weaponry also hurt when it came to taking out the Rhino, which Mrs. Griffin positioned inconveniently right in the face of one of the Intercessor squads. Auto bolt rifles were disappointingly ineffective against a squad of CSM in light cover (15 shots and one wound? Aaaaaa) yet the Stalker bolt rifle squad of Intercessors kept on rolling 2s to hit. Yeesh.

    Terrain ideas: Need some multi-level ruined buildings to contest in the center of the battlefield. Also, I need to assemble some Eradicators/Hellblasters/Plasma Inceptors/anything that has more shots and better AP.

  • Holidays! Again.

    As I’d expected, storage has become a problem.

    Mr Griffin is printing paint holders to make the paints visible and manageable and due to the sudden influx of paints we’ve added some additional shelving. Doesn’t really take care of the Vallejo textures since they’re in 200ml tubs but we’ll have to figure out what to do with those in the near future.

    Another possibly more pressing issue is dust. We don’t seem to be able to keep the miniatures dust free in any effective way. There’s a reasonable amount of construction nearby and the dust just seems to get everywhere.

    Current shopping list:
    Citadel Contrast: Black Templar
    Citadel Layer: Fulgurite Copper
    Citadel Base: Rakarth Flesh
    Citadel Technical: Lahmian Medium
    Citadel Technical: Stormshield

    The weather is still unpleasant, the Little Griffins are working on their miniatures and generally creating havoc. Mr Griffin is adjusting the design of some paint holders to try to limit the number of Citadel paint pots that are meeting their end on the living room floor. The kids are as careful as kids can be but it would seem that creativity and chaos are still too closely intertwined.

    Bunnings have some big carpet squares, perhaps this can save my sanity and carpet in one simple purchase.

    Our interest in the intricacies of miniature painting has waned so we’ve moved onto so alternative painting fun!

  • Battle Report: Kill Team 2020-06-29

    Primaris vs. Primaris this time around! Raven Guard took on Space Wolves.

    Takeaways for the Space Wolves – the Easy To Build 3x Reiver + 3x Intercessor squad combo lacks punch vs. a more customised set of Primaris marines.

    Takeaways for the Raven Guard – Thunder Hammer + Intercessor Sergeant = very threatening. Auto Bolt Rifles seem to be superior to Stalker Bolt Rifles, at least in this game – the former dealt out a handful of wounds where the latter didn’t succeed in wounding once.

    The Raven Guard sergeant with the Thunder Hammer took out two of the Reivers single handedly – the AP and damage of that weapon certainly makes it a threat to Primaris.

    General takeaways – need to come up with some rulers and a score counter. Oh, and some tokens.

  • Paint Day 9

    Shopping Cart:
    Warhammer 40K Space Marines Devastator Squad
    Citadel Shade: Athonian Camoshade
    Citadel Base: Agrellan Earth
    Citadel Dry: Terminatus Stone
    Citadel Layer: Yriel Yellow
    Citadel Technical: Spiritstone Red
    Citadel Shade: Agrax Earthshade
    Citadel Layer: Skullcrusher Brass
    Citadel Decorative Skulls
    Warhammer: Age of Sigmar Shattered Dominion: Large Base Detail

    Miss Griffin assures me that all Gryph-hounds require many skulls littered around them such that they are clearly trampling their many fallen enemies. For entertainment, and perhaps to feel like I’m contributing something to our family hobby, I am modelling some alternative greebles in Blender for her.

    She’d also like it if the Shattered Dominion large base elements would fit on her 40mm round bases and isn’t interested in the logistical difficulties.

    Turns out buying textured bases is an option but seems a bit expensive given that we’re just learning (some of us, anyway) and we’d need quite a few. There are some CC options on thingiverse which might be worth a whirl – not specifically what I’m looking for but it will be interesting to see how they hold up to FDM printing.

    Is this an excuse to buy a resin printer maybe?

  • Paint Day 8

    No painting today. It’s a little less wintery outside today and the Mini Griffs are keen to play outdoors after school.

    In other news, apparently dry brushing is what my life has been missing.

    Found some snazzy examples of textured bases on the GW website and they look very cool (perhaps well beyond my ability) but I do have to wonder why bases don’t already come textured. I’ll have a proper look at those next time we sit down to paint.

  • 40K Raven Guard: Where are the Mor Deythan?

    Gav Thorpe’s Corax anthology provides an explanation for this in the Weregeld story on p. 461:

     

    It used to be that the Shadowmasters had hunted in squads, using their unique Corax-gifted abilities to sow discord and terror amongst their foes. Now they worked alone, their number reduced to a handful amongst all the legionaires of the Raven Guard.

     

    That particular story takes place during the Horus Heresey, not too long before Horus makes his advance on Terra. So, after the decimation of the XIX Legion on Istvaan V their numbers would have been somewhat depleted – the number of surviving Raven Guard was something like 3,000 from memory – and it would seem that attrition had reduced the Mor Deythan numbers further throughout the remainder of the Heresy.

     

    That does not answer the question as to why more were not found amongst the future geneseed-enhanced warriors of the Raven Guard, though…

  • Warhammer 40K Raven Guard Paint Scheme

    Trying to figure out from lore what the various “correct” paint schemes have been for the Raven Guard. This will be updated as I get to painting the various models.

     

    Sergeants

    While the GW painted models show them as having white helmets, the stories I have read so far don’t ever mention this – and while it looks good on the models (imho) I think it flies in the face of the Raven Guard doctrine, unless you use some kind of head-canon adjustment. Perhaps the sergeants are so good at being sneaky that the white is not an impediment – would the Mor Deythan have been significantly hampered if they were parading around in white?

     

    Librarians

    P.381 of Corax by Gav Thorpe one of the Horus Heresy-era Librarians is described as having a blue right pauldron, where the rest of his armour is presumably the typical Raven Guard black.

  • Paint Day 7.1

    Turns out sand will ruin my brushes. Now that I think about it, that should have been obvious.

    Shopping cart so far:
    Citadel Mouldline Remover (maybe easier to manage for little hands?)
    Citadel Shade: Casandora Yellow
    Citadel Shade: Fuegan Orange
    Citadel Base: Celestra Grey
    Citadel Base: Thousand Sons Blue
    Citadel Layer: Fire Dragon Bright
    Citadel Layer: Stormhost Silver
    Gundam 1/144 FG Gundam
    Vallejo 26213 Diorama Effects Grey Pumice 200ml
    Vallejo 73818 Weathering Effects Brown Engine Soot 40 ml
    Vallejo 76505 Model Wash Light Rust 35 ml Acrylic Paint

    *sigh*



  • Paint Day 7

    Today it’s been made clear to me that the bases are meant to be painted as well and for some reason this has made me infinitely sad. I could hazard a guess that the sadness is due to my lack of dedication and my feeling that I was actually close to being finished.

    In fairness, all the other Griffins are thoroughly enjoying our new family hobby. I can’t imagine that I’ll be worse at basing that I am at painting, but honestly, anywhere there’s room for improvement there’s room to miss completely and be worse.

    I did some reading and found some interesting how-to’s and articles about using things typically found in the home to make textures for bases and it seems that I can start with glue and sand. Hopefully, my inner arts and crafts guru will come out and I can redeem myself after my not so successful painting expedition.

    We’ve been playing some Settlers of Catan and the Mini Griffs have really enjoyed that. The time taken to play the game is a slight problem for us, though, so I’m looking for some alternatives that don’t take quite as long to play.

  • Paint Day 6: a day of sad realisations.

    Painting sounds like a mindfulness exercise, like colouring for adults, but I’m finding it to be a source of constant frustration at the moment. I understand the theory, but it doesn’t seem to translate into any recognisable result.

    I can draw well enough, and sculpting in 3d? No issues. But paint? No, sir. Not me.

    I think it’s time for me to admit that I might just be bad at this and let it go.

    Shopping cart so far:
    Citadel Base: XV-88
    Citadel Layer: Evil Sunz Scarlet
    Citadel Base: Iron Warriors