A Painting Challenge

So we are currently doing a Battleforce painting challenege here in the office. The rules are simple. We have 4 weeks (ish) to paint a Battleforce of our choice. The deadline is december 16th - also fuddle* day and Secret Santa day...
If we forfeit the challenge, however, everything we've managed to paint will be smashed and we have to buy a pint for everyone who has completed the challenge. Hhmm...

I went for Space marines, so I can add some more Space Marines to my Space Marines, and so far it's all going well. I've got 5 Tactical Marines still on their sprues and 5 built that need painting, and that's all I've got left so It's going well.
I also played a game against the new Necrons. Actually old Necrons with new rules, as Laurie from BL hadn't finished any of the exciting new stuff but still handed my arse to me on a big arse-plate. Shocking!!

*Fuddle - where evryone brings in an item of food and we spend the day eating, eventually becoming fat and sassy.

Anyway, some pictures...

A quick group shot...

Moar War! Minotaurs vs Night Lords now with added pics!

So I have chivvied and goaded the lovely Rachel Docherty into expanding her Night Lords over the past few months, and so today we played a 2,500pt game in which I deployed a veritable wall of Tactical squads and, I'm ashamed to say, thrashed her 7 kill points to 2. I do feel bad about this, as her army is properly gorgeous...

Some Devastators, earlier. Not shown is a
Terminator squad getting all shot up

Moloc once again did his thang and messed a bunch of stuff up including a stand-in Tyberos the Red Wake who made assault marines led by a Chaplain outrageously nasty - doing over a squad of 10 lightning claw-equipped assault terminators in a single turn!
Plus, as Rachel deployed a Tactical squad and totally beat down on part of my thin bronze line, there was this awesome sight:

Land Raiders square up against each other...
but wait...
THAT ONE HAS EYES!!

Yes, I'm aware that there were no Thunderhawks :)

So here we be. I'm rocking a new laptop and have spent much of this evening playing Dawn of War 2 instead of building Spehss Mehrinz... I have 30 sets of Tactical marine legs on my hobby desk. Some will become Boarding/Siege Assault marines, others will replace some of my older models in tactical squads, and I'm not sure about the rest.

Anyway. I have a game against Nids tomorrow/today, 2,500pts to be exact. I hate playing Nids. So, here are some more pics - Thunderhawk, as promised, and some BFG... including my still to be painted conversion of the Dedalus Kraetyr itself, the Minotaurs' relic-flagship. I should get Alan to write some rules for it, really...

The Divine Justice

I did not hand-paint the lettering...

Some Dreadnoughts, yesterday

Que 'hammer time' gags.

Dreadnoughts and Tanks and Thunderhawks, oh my!

Well, I am back from various foreign lands, and to celebrate I have a feast of images. Less infantry, more armour - that's today's watchword. So, without further ado...

Land Raiders a go-go:





Deus Ferrum, Mars-pattern MkIII
Land Raider Achilles

Strength of Ares, Hekate-pattern MkIIb
Land Raider Redeemer

Iron Rain, Phobos-pattern MkIII
Land Raider Helios

Tempered Will, Phobos-pattern MkIII
Land Raider Prometheus







Relentless, Deimos-pattern MkIII
Land Raider Redeemer

 I do have quite a few Land Raiders, in fact. There's a standard Phobos-pattern on the way along with what I'm hoping will be a fairly cool looking modified Hekate-pattern Redeemer; MkIIb-style side sponsons with a MkIII-style assault cannon mount. More details to follow. I also have these:

There are only two Whirlwinds in my squadrons because they are a bit dull. Some day I'll consider adding a third, but finally for today we have this gem. I only use it in Apocalypse games when Codex legality doesn't matter as much, but after the artists drew a Lamenters Baal Predator in IA9, and Alan gave it the telling description 'captured by the Minotaurs Chapter', I started adding a few more bits of Blood Angels equipment into my more recent squads and units. This is the Voice of the Martyr:

 

War!! In the Canteen no less...

No pics today, boo.
So Venerable Brother Kolkhis, my Contemptor-Mortis (who shall hereafter be known as Venerable Brother Fail) got his first battlefield outing this evening in a 2000pt game against Rachel from BL (whose stuff you can see at a much better blog than mine) and he was teh suxor!1!!

In possibly the smallest army I've ever fielded, he was totally outmatched by Ol' Man Steve, rocking two Kheres Assault Cannons for Heavy 12 Rending goodness. This may be a preview of the rules but sshh! it's our seeeekrit. The list is below if anyone is interested. Veteran-heavy, it could be said. We played the objectives mission with Speahead deployment - it ended in a draw, with one objective apiece and the detritus of epic deqathmatch combat over the third objective, right in the middle as was traditional. There would be photos but Rachel did not have her camera.

Man of the match was totally Chaplain Enkomi (of IA10 fame) for holding off Sevatar and a heap of Night Lords assault marines for THE ENTIRE GAME... finally dying to a sneaky chainsword. Those sneaky Night Lords!

Anyway it kicked ass, so I thought I would talk about it. In other news I am off on holiday for a week, before deep striking back in for UK Games Day then boarding the FW Thunderhawk for Games Day Oz in A Land Down Under. No vegemite for me though.

List fun:

Brother-Captain Leonidas, Keeper of the Labyrinth                        170

Space Marine Captain (100), Relic Blade (30), Storm Shield (15), Artificer Armour (15), Digital Weapons (10)

Command Squad Polynikes                        190

Apothecary and 4 Veterans (115), Company Standard (15), Company Champion (15), pair of lightning claws (30), power sword (15)

Brother-Chaplain Ivanus Enkomi                        145

Power fist, Crozius Arcanum, Auxiliary Grenade Launcher, Rosarius, frag and krak grenades, Jump Pack

II Tactical Squad Gaius                        195

Sergeant and 9 marines (170), bolters, plasma pistol (15), plasma gun (10), missile launcher (free)

Drop Pod (35)                                    35

III Tactical Squad Praetus                        195

Sergeant and 9 marines (170), bolters, plasma gun (10), power sword (15), multi-melta (free)

I Veteran Squad Alkaios                        160

Veteran Sergeant and 4 Veterans (125), Lightning Claw (15), 3 Combi-Plasmas,  Combi-Melta (20)

I Veteran Squad Actaeon                        435

Veteran Sergeant and 4 Veterans (225), Jump Packs (50), power fist (25), relic blade (15), lightning claw (15), 2 power swords (30), storm shields (75)

Deus Ferrum                                    300

Land Raider Achilles (300)

Venerable Kolkhis                         175

Contemptor-Mortis Dreadnought (155), 2 Plasma Cannons (20)

The exciting first post

Having received more than a few e-mails along the lines of 'can we see more of your Minotaurs' and lacking any other online galler, it seemed that this was the sensible option... so without too much of my rambling, some lovely pictures:

This is my conversion of Asterion Moloc, the Minotaurs Chapter Master and all round Badabass ;)

Devastator Squad Thoul sporting looted stuff from the Lamenters after the Battle of Optera

Contemptor goodness, for when you absolutely, positively, have to kill every Space Marine in the room

My re-built Sternguard squad

Counts-as Kantor