Alamo 40k 2011

So my wife and I have registered and paid for the 40k Alamo tourney this year.
She will be bringing her frothing-at-the-mouth-for-blood-and-skulls Khornate marines.
I've decided to bring....

That's just it. Like a dieter on a cheat day faced with a menu full of goodies, I can't make up my feeble mind. Do I go old-school and bring along my Black Templars, especially now they've received a cool FAQ update?
Do I cry havoc and let loose the wolves of Spaceyness? I've got some Thunderwolf cav foaming at the fang to jump into combat and tear some folks up.
Do I give in to the urge to spread decay and plague and bring along a force of marines devoted to Grandfather Nurgle? My Daemon prince likes that idea.
Or do I try something new and field my counts-as Blood Angels army, the Sons of Saint Arnold. They who thirst for beer, not blood.

All four options should allow for some unique and characterful conversions as I'm not really up to 2000 points with any of them yet. And each one sounds like a lot of fun. To be honest, I hadn't even considered reviving the Templars until just now, but I can picture my land Raiders, driving across the table to disgorge their contents upon my opponents. Jump packing marines, some armed with sword and shield descending to deliver the Emperor's mercy. And let's not forget, the holy hand grenade. 1, 2, 5! 3 sir, 3!
I've put together a 2000 point Nurgle list and it looks so much like my wife's khorne list that I fear we'd be the Christmas pal armies, my green to her red as our choice of chaos power would be the only real difference.
I've attempted to build a wolf list and a blood angel list, but just couldn't quite finish getting it all on paper.
Maybe I'll try my hand at building a Templar list and see if I can finish it. I'll get all 3 together and see which list look likes the most fun.

Happy wargaming.

To Do in the new year and beyond....

Not a resolutions post.
Not a post really in and of itself.
More of a to-do list for myself to refer to on what projects I'm currently working on, what I need to work on, and what I think I want to work on.

Space Wolves

• List - Complete the army list
  
• Thunderwolves and Fenrisian Wolves - Assemble and paint
• Lone Wolves - Assemble 2nd and paint both
• Wolf Lords - Assemble 2nd, repair first and paint both
• Grey Hunters and Transports - Paint 

The Purge

• List - I have 1,000 points, need a 2,000 point list for tournies
• Assemble the 2nd thousand points
• Paint - Finish trim on first 1,000 points, paint 2nd thousand post-assembly

Deathwatch (RPG)

• Ulvir - Paint
• Apoc - Paint
• Maynard - Assemble and Paint
• Bolverk - Assemble and Paint (40mm base with ghostwolf)

KillZone 

• Absorb Rules
• Create Team lists
• Paint Teams
• Start playing at the LGS

Sons of Saint Arnold

• Finish List
• Design Decision (Reg Marines or mix with Dwarf Bits)
• Assemble/Paint

Black Templars

• Build List
• Finish Painting

Orks

• Build List
• Finish Assembly
• Paint

Beastmen

• Assemble and paint Minotaurs
• Paint Gors
• Repair and paint Shaman

Dwarves

• Finish Painting

Hobby Project: Sons of Saint Arnold

     Another hobby project in the works. My own Blood Angels' successor chapter, the Sons of St. Arnold. Time for a history lesson (according to a combination of our good internet-friend Wikipedia, and the fine folks at Saint Arnold's brewery in Houston Texas):
Saint Arnold, in the Roman-Catholic Church, is the patron saint of hop-pickers and Belgian brewers (why only Belgians, I dunno, but as Belgian ales are my favorite, I'm not too concerned). This guy is excellent to base a chapter around as he was a career soldier who retied to an abbey where he became abbot, and then later after rising to bishop, founded another abbey where he became a brewer of beer. He encouraged local peasants to drink beer instead of water because it was healthier. At the time, the beer actually was healthier than the water because during prep for brewing the water was boiled, killing many of the pathogens in the water.
     So with the Sons of Saint Arnold, what we have here is, a chapter of warrior-monks who brew and consume beer. To 40k it up, all we have to do is make Saint Arnold an imperial saint, a brewer from the agri-world Bel'Gia who provided the populace with the ability to make their drinking water safe to imbibe during the Age of Strife by brewing it into beer. The chapter was a 'Start-up' chapter. An experiment by the Adeptus Mechanicus in creating new chapters without a primarch from the geneseed tithed by the chapters for purity-checking and archival purposes. The chapter was named in honor of the Saint whose agri-world the would-be marines, or Bel'Gians, were recruited from. Little did they know the chapter name would prove quite apt as red thirst of the blood angels was transferred through the geneseed used. However, due to a mutation in the oolitic kidney caused either by mistake from the AdMech while growing the organs, a flaw inherent in the geneseed itself or, as the AdMech claims, a result of local Bel'Gian food and beverage on the processing functions of the oolitic kidney, the Sons of St. Arnold or SoSA Marines crave processed, brewed hops and grains: Beer!
     I love the Sanguinary priests of the Blood Angels and their ability to give Feel no Pain and Furious charge to those around them. I love that the Blood Angels are so gung-ho about assault squads and dreadnoughts (especially the blood taloned ones) as my favorite part of the game is the assault phase. I just never could grow comfortable enough with the emo space vampires to allow myself to consider playing them. And I hate red. Can't stand it as a color. So this gives me a way to use the very cool, very appealing rules set of the blood angels without having to use them at all.
     For an added twist, I'm thinking about making Bel'Gia a high gravity world and converting up my entire army from Fantasy dwarves or Dwarfs as GW calls them. Hey, that's how they originally explained the squats, and what better way to reintroduce squats to my gaming circle than as short, angry, beer-drinking marines.

Hobby Project: DeathWatch

So, the rumors flying around are that the Grey Knights will be coming out in 2011.
I'm looking forward to it. Not because I want to play it, but more because I love the Inquisition of the 40k universe, their organization and the background story and fluff. Ok, maybe I want to play, a little.
     However, the Ordo Malleus 'ain't my bag, baby' so I've gone and got meself an idear. I love the ordo hereticus. Maybe it comes from my first army being Black Templars, but the witch hunting inquisitors are my favorite. I'm not wholly enamored of the bolter chicks of the sisters of battle, but give me a suit of power armor, a tall wide-brimmed hat and a combi-bolter/stake-crossbow and whee... Hours of enjoyment. The mention of the Grey Knight book losing many of the iconic inquisitorial units has saddened me somewhat, but when they finally get around to the ordo hereticus we'll see what we shall see, I guess.
     My focus here though is on the random thoughts percolating around in my brain currently. The spark that popped up at the thought of a new book of marines running around with inquisitors. Ordo Xenos and the Deathwatch! The DW role playing game has just released this year and with it has seen a resurgence in my local gaming circle of people buying deathwatch shoulder pads and converting up figs for their RP games. Back in the day, I pointed up (and started converting) a deathwatch unit for my Templars.  The idea of a specialist unit with different ammo, suspensor-assisted heavy bolter and non-termie lightning claw craziness appealed to me immensely. With the recent trends of 'counts-as' armies, I asked myself, "why can't I do that?" and couldn't think of a good answer in the negatory.
     So it looks like one of my next personal projects (once I finish the wolves; and I promise myself I will finish the wolves) is going to be a Deathwatch 'counts-as' Grey Knights army once their codex hits. There are a few more projects on the project list and hopefully those posts will be up soon. Putting these down on 'paper' as it were, helps me focus on what I need to accomplish these things and actually makes the projects seem more real to me and less a pile of ideas that I'm never going to do anything with.

Minos in Progress...

     Started on the minotaurs last night.
I'm going to need a second box. I LOVE the great weapons they provide for these guys. I think I'll be converting up some of the hand weapons as Frost weapons for my space wolves. Or at the very least, power weapons.
     So far I only have the musician complete, but I'm planning to assemble the champ and standard bearer this evening after arriving home from work.
My only complaint about the figs are the feet. They look like human legs and feet with hooved 'toes'. And yes, in traditional greek mythology the minotaur was simply a man with a bull's head, but this is my goat-man army! The minotaur art in the army book on page 35 shows hooves and goat legs. Sheesh, the giant box set has a hoofed foot option even.

     Ah well, it could be worse. These guys are a definite step up from the last minotaurs we had access to from GW. I've got more minos to work on, and another box to pick up... As always, happy modeling.