Progress Update

Well it’s been busy since I last posted, so here’s a quick update of the things I’ve been up to:


Bloodbowl

My Skaven team got in a friendly match against an Orc team. I lost the match 2-1 after some good luck (blitz) followed by bad luck (2 turns of gutter runners failing to pick up the ball for an easy touchdown) at 1-0 up. I failed to top the typical bashy team vs agile team 2-1 grind. However as the match didn’t count towards the league I’m not too concerned. What is a pain is my run of poor winnings, and injuries. Another linerat died and my winnings were so low that after buying a apothecary I don’t have much in the treasury towards buying a 12th player. I’ll be playing with 11 players (including journeyrats) for my next game, not a fun prospect for skaven.

I think skaven really need 14 players to survive the knock-outs and casualties they receive and still compete in 2nd half. I need to get another friendly game in to give me any chance of winning my next team game against Ogres.

Next purchases for the team will be a 4th gutter runner or linerat (which ever I can afford first). Hopefully it’ll be the gutter runner but I need my winnings dice rolls to improve 


40k

For the tournament I’m going to on the 8th May (Small Matter of Honour), my mate and I tried out our 1250 pt lists.

I lost (definitely a trend against my mates), but learnt a bit.

I need to be more cautious with my pathfinders (especially as I only have one unit in my 1250 pt list), and to use the kroot as a screen rather than being more aggressive with them.

The mission was kill points with the quarters set-up. My pathfinders used their scout move to get into a corner adjacent to my deployment zone which meant they were the closest unit to the enemy, and my kroot came on from reserve away from my own quarter to threaten some objectives. Both units were unsupported and gave no support to my main army. As my main army struggled to kill a waveserpent with scorpions in it they couldn’t advance to support the kroot who were left stranded.

I’m finding if I can’t kill what my opponent sends towards my firebase it not only stops my main army advancing but also normally loses me the game. I need to prioritise stopping the enemy getting to my firebase and then move towards objectives. I’ll also have to see if this is only an issue against fast armies such as Eldar, it’s so much easier to use the width of the deployment zone to outmanoeuvre other armies such as marines.

After many army list tweaks I've finally decided how to fit piranhas into my list to give them a try out. Just adding them to my existing two units of pathfinders made the list look like it had too much support and not enough firepower, therefore I have decided to reduce the pathfinder to just one unit of 8, and also lose the suit with a missile pod and twin-linked flamers. This allowed me to up afford a unit of 2 piranhas and upgrade the small kroot unit with 5 hounds (as they wouldn't have a pathfinder devilfish to hide in).


Painting & Army Building

Taking inspiration from here, I have tried to fit in some painting to slowly get my Tau finished and make progress on my space wolves (I’m really slow at getting stuff painted).



A couple of evenings this week I’ve been painting for about an hour and I took my paint case on a work trip to Birmingham which allowed me to paint a bit on the train and in the hotel in the evening. I’ll start taking my paint case to work as I should be able to fit in 30 minutes painting at GW during my lunch hour.

I’ve started to paint a dreadnaught for my space wolves / marine army, and I have to say I’m impressed with the grey foundation paint. Even though it was slightly watered down it went over a red base coat very smoothly.



Also I think I’ve been lucky with my secondary and tertiary colours (space wolves grey and grey), as they go over my main colour (red) very smoothly with only one coat. This is surprising for the space wolves grey with it being such a light colour.

The main block colours are now done, and I have a bit more base colours and tidying up to do before I move onto the detail.



In my painting case I now have 3 crisis suits I bought off ebay that I have to paint up to my army’s colour scheme. My Tau army is fully painted, but as I bought a few units off ebay over the last couple of years it has slightly lost the cohesiveness of the paint scheme, so I’m painting up some crisis suits, broadsides & piranhas to match the main army (colour scheme in pic above).

This will also lead to me selling off some spare models when I’ve finished (crisis suits, broadsides and a hammerhead). I’ve set myself the goal of my birthday (July) to finish all the work on my Tau, and if I succeed I’ll treat my army to a new case that will fit the whole army rather the just the stuff I usually use.


If there’s anything you want me to elaborate on please leave a comment.


Rathstar