Sentinels have arrived

Not going to be able to game for awhile so i figured I would just do a quick post to show off my recently finished Armoured Sentinels. These are some fun models to paint i have to say and while working with them 2 were the old plastic metal hybrid and 1 is the new all plastic model. Both were fun to assemble, though of course the all plastic was easier. Unfortunately, the old ones did not have covers for the tops of them and i did not really want to try to make them (since my convert-fu is still rather lacking) so I just left them as is. The new all plastic model has some great stuff namely the very pose-able legs which basically give them a full range of motion allowing you to really dynamically pose these guys, which if i was a better modeler i really could have taken advantage of that. Oh, and the heads of the two pilots that can be seen are from the forge-world Elysian Drop Troop models if any one wanted to know. and well with out further words i give you lots of pictures.
First up group shot:

Sentinel 1:


Sentinel 2:

Sentinel 3:

Random shots:


Hope you enjoyed. Questions Comments and Criticism welcomed.
And as always
May the Emperor Protect

progress update.... or rather lack of progress

ok well over the past two weeks i have been super busy. with uping my self to almost 50hrs a week at work plus trying to study for the GRE and trying to catch up with old college friends and working on my other hobbies (fencing primarily) i have had basically no time for painting this makes me a sad inquisitor.

anyways here is what i am working on at the moment... that is of course when i have a moment.

so lets start this off with the overall pic.


this is everything i am actually in the middle of painting ( i have a little case of painting ADD)
ok so there are 5 projects here one of which is kinda two projects.

so first off a tau XV8.

pretty standard guy all i have left for him is really attaching him to his base and well doing the base. oh and his sept marks.. i need to get my actually camera working and stop useing my phone becasue this thing just doesnt take good pics of metalics and i need to work on my lighting for that matter.

Second i have my test model for my dark elf scheme.


this guys is a very simple paint job. i am trying to just figure out my scheme for these guys and a way to do it simply so i can use it for a full army. so this is really his first coat of paint. i still need to add high lights and some washes and finish the details. after much thought i have decided to go with purple and basic metal as the primary colors for this army. One, because i havn't done a purple army yet and Two, because it looks surprisingly badass on these guys. also still trying to figure out a base, been thinking maybe snow.

Next, my current work for the Hera 51st Mobile Infantry (imperial Guard army) Sentinels.
this is the first Sentinel i have done and is in the same urban-esque camo as the rest of the army i rather like how the model cam out though i dont really like what i did for the base. not really use to haveing all that empty space to fill.



and this is the base and cockpit for my second sentinel. hopefully this base will look better than the first one. though still not super happy with it.

And now for long term big project. Death Guard.
I like these i guys i really do. i have had a group of plague marines for a while now and have been slowly working on them forever and then my friends got my some forge world death guard upgrades (terminators and marine upgrades) i had to start work again. though i have not made it very far and i am not sure how to base these guys at all. i want to do a corrupted ground thing but not sure how to do it.



And Finally my super long term project.
The one and only Inquisitor Lord Karamazov.

i love this model and really dont want to screw it up so i have been slowly working on it for like almost a year now. just every so often working on just one section until it is right not rushing anything about it. i should finish the legs next time i work on it and the feet will be a quick thing and then i am just left with my usually question. how to base it.



Ok well thats all i got for now. maybe i will actually finish something soon.
thanks for tuning in and as always
May the Emperor Protect

Space Marine Scouts

and now for my first post in awhile, and for that matter my first post on the Adeptus Asartes.

Scouts:

Ok so for me i would have to say that my favorite unit for the standard SM codex would be the scouts. i love scouts i think they look cool and all and all add some nice flavor to a space amrine army. now these are the first 5 scouts i have offically done ( i did make some inquisitorial storm troopers with shot gun once but i never really finished all five and i dont think i am going to) and i do like how they came out. now if you look back there is a pic of them from months ago but if you notice there are only four of them because i hadn't finished Tellion yet but i finally based him yesturday so now they are now finished, because i model is never truly done until you base it. so now that the into is done lets talk about these dudes

So what are Scouts?

Well Scouts are basically your new recruit marines fresh from train cutting their teeth on combat for the first time. so of course they are not as experiance as a full battle brother which is shown by their lower BS and WS but other wise their stats are the same as a standard marine. they also don't wear power armor, and this is for several fluffy reasons. first power armor is reserved for full fledge members of the chapter (which scouts do not count as) whom are fully trained and capable of being entrusted with these holy relics. and second scouts are supose to learn the arts of tactics, tracking the enemy, recon, and stealth (and well power armor is not very stealthy i hate to say). as well as learn to not rely on their equpiment to get them through conflicts but rather their strength of will, ferocity, intellect, or strength or blah blah blah whatever.

the point is these guys are suppose to be your first line troopers finding the enemy and reporting back to hq as well as support troopers helping the primary troops in any way they can... so they are basically the interns of the far flung future.

What can they do?
well for starters they have the same basic equipment as normal SM except they have carapace armor so only a 4+ save and all the same special rules plus move through cover, infiltrate and scout. these rules make them very versitile basically allowing you to start them anywhere on the board or just outflank the enemy with them. with scout or infiltrate you can basically set your scouts up for a possible turn one assault if you do it just right (though this is risky).
Scouts also get some fun add on. first they can get camo cloaks which gives them all stealth which greatly increases their survvability. and they can also take sniper rifles which as you can see my scouts have both of. i feel that scouts make wonderful support snipers and are very well suited for this roll.

i mean setting up anywhere on the board with a +1 cover save and a sniper rifle is just a good idea in my opinion. they can aslo all take shot guns (for some fun quick shooting) or comabt blades for a more melee orientated squad. they can also take eithe a standard missle launcher or a Hvy Bolter. the nice thing about the M launcher is the versitily it allows by being a good anti tank and anti infantry weapon. the Hvy Bolter also is killer because of its option to also shoot hellfire shells (HVY 1 blast, 4+ posion) which is another fun horde killer. though they dont have the best bs or ws (both being 3) they still excel at either roll as long as you remeber they are a support unit so use them as such. don't spear head an attack with them unless you want them to die. have them float on the flanks wiping up weaken squads or sniping enemy troops from a safe distance.

Tellion

Probably my favorite part of the new scout entry is their special character upgrade. the guy can make your scouts better at any of their rolls but you know with his load out that he is meant to be in a sniper squad. the guy is almost a vindicar assassin but with a squad of dudes to back him up. first off the tellion model is awesome.
i love it, the grizzled old sarge look is great and once you get rid of all those ultramarine U's he'll fit in any SM army. the really nice thing about him though is his BS6 and the fact that he can give that to any squad member for a turn if he choses not to shoot (like say that missle launcher dude who you might be depending on to pop that enemy rhino so your assaulters can get at the juicy infantry center). If you do choose to shoot with him though he may declare who he is shooting at (much like the vindicar) so he can kill sargents or Hvy Wpn guys while the rest of your squad just massacre things.

All in all i think Scouts are great. they start off 3 points cheaper than standard marines and only have really two draw backs from that. 1) +4 instead of +3 save, 2) can't take a dedicated transport. i really dont see their ws3 bs3 as that mush of a disadvantage honestly i mean if they are equiped with sniper rifles A. they technically still have the same chance to hit as they did in 4th ed (+4 to hit) and B. if they have rifles they shouldn't get into assault unless things go sour and even then ws isnt as important as S, T, I which are all 4 or armor which is their real week spot in CC.


Well Until next time...
May the Emperor Protect

(up next.... Sentinels...... i think)

the Engine of Penance

PENANCE:
Sorry for not posting in some time, real life got in the way a little and I have not been able to finish any new projects for awhile now. In fact today I am going to talk about a model I made quite some time ago The Penitent Engine!
Now the Penitent Engine is one of those models that I think any one that like to just build and paint models should have. Its big, it’s unique and just full of all those things that just scream 40k. I will say that it is by far one of my favorite models. The only two major short comings of it are that it is not very customizable out of the box, and you really really really should pin this thing or it will most likely fall apart. For customizability all you really have are two different “pilots” for it, and male and a female, I chose to use the female mostly because tried to use the male pilot for a kit bash of something else and failed horribly. And you can also mess with the arms and legs a little to affect the pose but that’s really it. So if you have more than two of these guys, unless you've added stuff on from other sprues and what not, they are going to all start looking alike. The shape of it also makes it very fragile, like I said earlier you really need to pin it or it will fall apart. For pinning I would recommend definitely pinning the torso hip joint and the arm joints if you can. Though the later can be hard since you might have to drill through three separate pieces to really secure the arms right.
Since we have looked at some ok pictures and gotten an idea of the model itself you might be wondering “well, how good is it in game?” To that I say, well what do you want it to do?
First off let’s look at this baby’s stats.


STATS
First off this thing is an open top walker with front and side armor of 11 and rear of 10, which sounds kind of fragile but you will soon see it makes up for this a little bit with its special rules. Next we see that the darn thing has a BS of 2 which sounds like total bull crap but fortunately the engine only has a template shooting weapon so the crap BS is not a big deal. Ok but hey WS4 that’s decent and hey look it gets D6 attacks and has S5 (10) so this thing can totally lay down some beats… but wait ohhh it only has I3 so it’s a little slow.
So all in all stat wise it is at best ok really just being a scout sentinel with close combat skills so now let’s see if its equipment and special rules might make it better

Weapons
Ok so here we have not one but two dreadnought close combat weapons (which is why it has a (10) in strength. Unfortunately it does not get an extra attack for two weapons... oh well. It also has two flamers which fire as one heavy flamer (score!) which is pretty cool. Now the part I really like about its weapons is that the rules tell you how it losses weapons (in other words if your opponent scores a weapon destroy on this thing the rules say what goes not the opponent). So on one destroy it losses one arm which reduces its attacks by one (to a min of one) and brings it to S5 and only a flamer instead of a heavy flamer, and On the second destroy roll it losses the flamer minuses another attack (still to min one) and no longer ignores armor (cause you just lost both your dread arms). So all in all so far for 80pts a model your getting an off the bat heavy flamer and D6 S10 power weapon attacks which isn’t half bad. But now let’s see if the special rules make the engines any better


Special Rules
ok first we got rampage. This rule helps a lot because it means the engine ignores all shaken and stunned results for vehicle damage. Which considering it’s a low armor open top thing will happen pretty often. So this helps your close range beat stick get to the fight. Always a plus.
Next we have battle frenzy. All this does is force the engine to always fire its weapons if in range (and did not run) and lets it roll a D6 for number of attacks each turn as shown in its stats. So all this really does is force you to be a little aggressive with it, but frankly you were going to be aggressive with it anyways so this doesn’t affect much.
Last we have holy rage which has been changed in meaning several time on the WH fact and at this time should go with the book version though sometimes games workshop switches it for the rage universal special rule. Anyways what holy rage does is if the model is not already in close combat they move an additional D6 towards the nearest enemy which is not affected by difficult terrain and they must always charge if able to do so. As a note according to the last time a read the FAQ this extra D6 is done during movement phase so the engine can still run if it so chooses (as in if nothing is in range to be fired at) though of course if it runs it can’t charge. But this rule does make the engine very fast allowing it to go anywhere from 7 inches to 12 just in the movement phase giving it a minimum max distance of 8 inches and a max speed of 18 make the engine one of if not the fastest walker in the game.


Discussion
all an all I say that 80 point per model for a one to three vehicle squadron as a heavy weapon slot with all of this stuff is pretty cool. Though are a bit fragile, easily killed and hard to control with them running at whatever is closest at the time, when they do get into combat they can potentially do some pretty awesome stuff. I would say that the key to this is deploying them well in the beginning to face off against basic troopers or light to medium vehicles. They also make a good distraction since they have to run at the enemy you might as well let them and hope you opponent wastes some fire at them or makes the mistake of ignoring them and gets slammed. The only real down side I see to them is that you must take a priest in your army to allow you the option to use them. And well I feel the priest is usually a point sick and there are only a few squads really worth attaching him to so it can rather constrain your list a bit (I will discuss the priest at some later date and all my feelings him).
All in all I say if you what something fluffy and unpredictable I say yeah take a penitent engine it will be loads of fun. its a pretty decent though not great assault walker that i would say would probably more effective in squadrons that way you can hopefully have a few to die off and assure that one makes it into close combat. i will say staring down 4 or more of these guys from across the table could be a pretty scaring thing. And well if your more into cold long term planning and tactics you might just want to paint this one up and put it on the side or have it count as a chaos dread for your slanessh army or something because its rage rules will force it to move in specific ways which you may not want it to. then again this could make for some interesting strategic planning on your part.


Well until next time
May the Emperor Protect.