Blindhamsters Blood Angels & Blindhamster Jrs Tyranids

[Firedrake Cordova]

It looks like he's coming along nicely  

 

9 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

Bit of fun with a captain (one of many in progress)

If they're multiplying like that, it does sound like they're in danger of becoming the new Primaris Lieutenants  

[Razblood]

Good to see you still plugging away at this army, despite the optical issues.

 

Look forward to seeing more.

[Blindhamster]

So, eldest and I played our first "proper" game today.

 

it was about 560 points each:
Tyranids
- winged tyranid prime (enhancement for fnp)

- ripper swarm

- 2x 10 termagaunts

- 10 hormagaunts

- 5 barbgaunts

- screamer killer

 

Blood Angels

- used sons of sanguinius detachment

- primaris captain

- primaris chaplain

- intercessors

- assault intercessors

- death company intercessors

- hellblasters

 

We got the empowered points primary mission and used tacitcal objectives for secondaries. Mission rule gave us the opportunity to get extra CP each turn. He got first turn

 

I deployed quite aggressively, he deployed less aggressively (I didn't actually take a photo of deployment), but here is part way through my turn 1.

 

Something of a turning point in the game happened turn 1 with my pulling off a 9" charge with the DC Intercessors into the screamer killer and actually managing to kill it. The chaplains litany of hate coupled with the extra attacks and strength for the marines and then devastating wounds on one of the DC went a long way to slowly wittling it down, if I recall correctly I also hurt it with a plasma pistol.

 

 

Throughout the game he made excellent use of the respawning gaunts, but this point (his third turn) saw him bring on an almost complete unit of termagaunts and hormagaunts as a result and really helped him pull that side back over the turn.

 

 

We stopped at turn 4, because it had been about 2.5-3 hours at that point due to rule checking etc and the little man was getting tired. However when we ended we realised it was 58 points a piece, we thought blood angels would probably have won the next round as the captain and intercessors controlled an objective which would have gotten him 15 victory points turn 5, but perhaps if the winged prime was lucky, he might have wiped the marines and resulted in nothing to me and 3 potentially to him for the one where my two remaining assault intercessors likely wouldn't have survived another round.

 

 

overall good fun, a lot to remember for us both, we think he needs some harder hitting things, I was surprised at how weedy hormagaunts are in melee (though they did have a good round where they killed 2 DC intercessors AND the chaplain before he could fight...)

 

We logged the game as a tyranid win as it was narratively more interesting (plus, it'll save me more money long term on the off chance I end up winning a prize draw for the first time in my life lol).

 

Hopefully we can get more games in soon.

[ZeroWolf]

Looks like some fun was had! Yeah hormagaunts were always weak, but it was the mass of them that you could attack with that brought the pain. Back in 3rd/4th, you could field 32 of the buggers, and supposing you were lucky enough to get them all into the attack...you'd land 96 attacks on the charge.

It was bliss.

[Blindhamster]

28 minutes ago, ZeroWolf said:

Looks like some fun was had! Yeah hormagaunts were always weak, but it was the mass of them that you could attack with that brought the pain. Back in 3rd/4th, you could field 32 of the buggers, and supposing you were lucky enough to get them all into the attack...you'd land 96 attacks on the charge.

It was bliss.

In one turn they did manage to cause 8 wounds on the DC and their chaplain, enough to finish them off

[Firedrake Cordova]

Sounds like a fun game!  I like the amount of terrain you had, too!

 

I seem to remember that the gaunts were generally a case of "individually weak, but strong en-masse"? 

[Blindhamster]

42 minutes ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

Sounds like a fun game!  I like the amount of terrain you had, too!

 

I seem to remember that the gaunts were generally a case of "individually weak, but strong en-masse"? 

Yes for sure, though the fleshborers are strength 5, which is quite cool. Their huge thing is being able to keep coming back, really bogged my death company and assault intercessors down. 

 

also realising that all the gaunts can move and advance and still perform their role (shooting for terms and melee for horms) was quite cool. We will remember that for next time as we only realised mid game.

 

similarly, I didn’t use my captains free stratagems at all, or the assault intercessors rerolls to wound. Nor did I make much use of stratagems (I LOVE the blood angels one to fall back and charge though, very handy for reinstating the charge bonus). 
 

I love scenery, hate painting it haha. Have a fair bit. Once we are at a 1000 points we will switch to full table so I’ll get photos of that too :)

 

I feel like the unit cards would be handy, all the big pieces of paper everywhere was annoying.

 

my son built his von ryans leapers and his psychophage last night, and plans to build the remaining 10 termagaunts today. So will only have 10 neurogaunts and the neurotyrant left to build them.

 

ive been slowly working through building the leviathan marines, have a couple of terminators and the infernus squad left to do, then just 5 more desolation marines, 5 heavy intercessors and I’ll leave the black Templar bits for now and possibly use those alongside new scout kit when that arrives, so it’ll be back to painting for me instead 

[Blindhamster]

Bit of an update, have done more than I'll bother posting, mostly because the rest is fairly straightforward building and undercoating lol, I'm working through the contents of Leviathan at the moment, it's all built, a few details added to models here and there throughout. But I decided to paint the tyranid bits on my bases to match my sons chosen colourscheme, albeit I've tried to push it a bit further, so experimented a bit (i've tried to stick to techniques he can reasonably learn and use on them too, so primarily contrast paints, and drybrushing, with some glazes and actual edge highlights that I'd not expect him to worry about till he is confident enough).

 

Anyway, Nid hunter:

 

I quite enjoyed doing this one because the brain bug thing was fun to work out as my son hadn't yet. Opted to use aethermatic blue glazes getting stronger toward the end of the tentacles with pure contrast for the actual nodule things, the brain was the basecoated grey seer and done the same, then highlighted and done again with aethermatic.

 

I also did the screamer killer on the captains base

 

Nothing fancy, same style as he wanted for his army, but I did a broad drybrush of wraithbone over all of it and then a red glaze on the skin and the carapace has more layers of volumpus pink, edge highlights, more volumpus pink and then shysh purple in the recesses.

 

My son has not been idle either:

He has now got all the termagaunts up to skeleton horde, is doing the hormagaunts currently, he wants to get everything to the skeleton horde phase then he'll go back and do the volumpus pink - not my idea, but I quite like the fact he's decided to batch paint all by himself.

[ZeroWolf]

Poor neuroloid, we hardly knew ye.

 

Great stuff here, good luck to your son!

[Blindhamster]

Some more bits of progress:

 

The other gravis captain:

I didn't bother doing any conversions on him outside of the head swap, honestly I don't think i'd be too likely to use him as I generally prefer my other two gravis captains, but if I want a fist version, I've got a model for it now I guess.

 

Phobos Librarian:

One of those models I've had in the to-do pile for ages, started blocking in colours on him, he'll have the same sand coloured robes as my eleminators. With grey leather for the gloves and under tunic thing.

 

Brutalis

A very blood angel dreadnought, it was pretty horrible to build as it had mold slippage, but I got there in the end and it looks decent now its basecoated.

 

 

Sternguard

started blocking stuff in on these, a few head swaps, a bit of blood angel bling added here and there. Narratively I imagine the two at the back are firstborn that crossed the rubicon, the sergeant is a "young" upstart primaris marine that is just gifted enough that he's the sergeant anyway I'll be going for dark grey tabard things on them, I like the general look of that for blood angels.

 

Infernus squad

Shoulder bad swaps and a few bits of bling here and there plus a few head swaps, I quite like these actually and think they'll probably be fun in a game.

Terminators:

Very minor additions on these, a knee swap one got a sculpted blood angels symbol, couple of blood drop pendents. Crimson paladin sword on the sergeant

 

Terminator Librarian

My son keeps calling him Thor, I really like this model. I didn't bother converting him at all as honestly I didn't think he needed it.

 

A "primaris" Astorath

This is a 3d print I've had sitting around for a long time now, very cool model, the creator doesn't seem to sell anymore. I decided to dust him off as he's killing a nid and my son took up nids :P

 

Captain

I did some progress on his base, I've also removed the right shoulder and switched the arm up so its magnetised

Edited July 30, 2023 by Blindhamster

[Firedrake Cordova]

31 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

A very blood angel dreadnought, it was pretty horrible to build as it had mold slippage

Oof, that sounds frustrating! As long as it didn't make you succumb to the Black Rage    

[Spyros]

Lovely models, nice conversions!

[Blindhamster]

Thanks guys :)

 

I'm almost at the end of the journey (for now...) in terms of basing and blocking in the correct red/helm colours/skin/hair

 

Today I blocked in the red on the gladiator and eradicators as well as the last captain (the fist and plasma pistol birthday one from a few years back)

I also started cleaning up the gold on Dante.

 

I just have to base the 6 eradicators, finish the base on the balistus, do bases for an impulsor, gladiator, two repulsors and a repulsor executioner.

 

The only models left to build are three bladeguard, a redemptor, five desolation marines and five heavy intercessors. For the bladeguard, I'm currently trying to source some crimson paladin shields. I'll likely sculpt some details on the heavy intercessors (a tabard for a sergeant I think).

 

After that, I think next step will be to block in the ribbing/soft armour on the entire army. That'll be fun lol.

 

Once done, I'll have the following built, base coated, based and some details blocked in:

Spoiler

dante

mephiston

8 captains (3 gravis, 1 bladeguard, 1 terminator, 1 phobos, 1 regular and 1 magnetised)

14 lieutenants (so many…)

1 techmarine

2 apothecaries (1 gravis)

4 librarians (1 phobos, 1 terminator)

1 champion

1 judiciar 

3 ancients (1 bladeguard)

3 chaplains (1 biker)

1 x 6 bladeguard 

1 x 3 bladeguard

1 x 5 sternguard 

2 x 10 veteran intercessors

1 x 5 terminators

1 x 5 death company intercessors

5 x 10 of intercessors 

2 x 10 infiltrators

1 x 10 heavy intercessors

2 x 10 hellblasters

1 x 10 desolation marines

1 x 10 infernus marines

1 x 3 aggressors

1 x 6 aggressors

2 x 3 eliminators

1 x 6 eradicators

1 x 3 suppressors

2 redemptors

1 balistus 

1 invictus

1 tarantula 

1 servo turret

1 x 10 assault intercessors

1 x 10 incursors

1 x 10 reivers

1 x 5 reivers

3 x 3 inceptors

1 x 3 outriders

1 atv

1 brutalis

1 stormspeeder

2 impulsors

2 repulsors

1 repulsor executioner

1 astraeus

1 gladiator

1 hammer fall bunker

 

I am going to start allocating the models to distinct companies I think.

1st company, 2nd company plus reserve companies and 10th company

Edited August 1, 2023 by Blindhamster

[Blindhamster]

Played another fun little game with my son.

 

this time it was a captain and intercessor squad against all of his gaunts, and his gaunts were allowed to use stratagems (like endless swarm). He had 290 points vs my 250.

it wasn’t about winning or losing, it was just about having a bit of fun, telling a bit of a story about the blood angels last stand, and learning some of the rules a bit more.

 

A little shot of his hormagants - he's been making slow but steady progress on them :)

 

A few turns in, I'd made a couple of counter charges, was on probably 60-70 dead nids but they just kept on coming and I was now officially tarpitted.

 

 

after the 5th turn we had to stop so I could cook haha. But we ended with it looking like this: each turn he'd started pulling back hormagants and gradually whittling my numbers down. We said as the camera panned away another wave of gants arrived and the blood angels were eventually burried. My son was very pleased with that story

 

[YoungWolf7]

Making memories like that are the best. :)

[Blindhamster]

So, my son was building his genestealers and then started looking at his minis. He lamented the fact that his termagants and hormagants are easy to paint because I did one of each for him so he has something to copy.

 

I queried if that was an (un)subtle hint, which he confirmed. So I agreed I'd done on of each, but I wouldnt touch his characters or big models as he'd need to work those out by himself - but by the time he's finished the rest he should be able to do so.

 

Some notes:

• this was pretty fun because it wasn't power armour
• it was liberating to not be trying to paint to the best of my ability, but instead painting something to be achievable for my son, so everything is contrast paints, nothing else (per my models earlier in this thread, the same scheme can be enhanced for my own models bases ) and generally its a single layer of contrast paint for each thing (exceptions are the orange areas which is imperial fist followed by guilliman flesh, and the brain stuff which has two coats of aethermatic blue)
• I am unsure on what colour to do teeth and  tongues, any thoughts? Black would make sense for teeth as thats the colour we agreed on for claws and stuff
• I am unsure on colour for the warriors gun, any thoughts?

so:

termagant

hormagant

barbgant

neurogant

neurotyrant buddy thing

von ryans leaper

warrior

[DemonGSides]

I'd do either a straight up pink for the tongues, or make them the same as the gun colors. Then make teeth the same as the claws.

 

Keeps color per model low, and allows bigger more important units to have another avenue that makes them "Different" than the chaff around them if your son decides to go a different route for the big guys. 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Light purple would also work for the tongues - I personally wouldn't do them the gun colour.  As for the warrior guns', the natural answer would seem to be do them the same as those on the smaller bugs - which would suggest that you considered that and weren't sold on it.

[Firedrake Cordova]

They look great  If I'm being critical, the black portions of the Termagant's gun could do with a quick edge highlight to bring the edges out.

 

 

22 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

• I am unsure on what colour to do teeth and  tongues, any thoughts? Black would make sense for teeth as thats the colour we agreed on for claws and stuff

Personally, I'd lean towards white/ivory for the teeth, and something "pinkish" for the tongues. However, your reasoning for using black for the teeth makes sense (I just worry it might make the mouth region a bit dark). Have you considered trying using an image editor on one of the images to simulate the teeth being painted with a couple of colours?

 

22 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

• I am unsure on colour for the warriors gun, any thoughts?

I think using the same colours as the Termagant's gun could work? I think GW previously used to use a "pinkish" wash on the fleshy end of the barrel to make it look more alive?

[Wraithwing]

Go for my new favourite colour for Tyranid tonigues: Doomfire Magenta!

[Blindhamster]

I'll post more photos properly in the week.

 

but last weekend my son and I played a small "just kill eachother" game:

 

Spoiler

He used:

- Screamer Killer

- 10 Genestealers

- 3 Warriors with ranged weapons

- Ripper Swarm

- Winged Prime with perfectly adapted enhancement (attached to warriors)

 

I used:

- Captain (MC bolter and MC power sword)

- Company Heroes

- 3 Bladeguard

- 5 Sternguard (heavy bolter on 1, otherwise all bolters)

- 5 Assault Intercessors with jump packs (power sword on sergeant, plasma pistol on another man).

 

I won this game mostly due to him having his genestealers in a line and me getting the jump on them with the captain, heroes, bladeguard and assault intercessors. We were still just going for practicing rules and the likes, but honestly it wasn't especially close.

 

Today we went to the local gamesworkshop for a "walkthrough" game, using objectives and working on rules learning still.

 

He used (Invasion Fleet):

- 5 Genestealers

- 3 Warriors with ranged weapons

- 3 Von Ryans Leapers

- 10 Termagants

- 10 Hormagants

- 3 Ripper swarms

- Pyrovore

- Winged Prime with perfectly adapted enhancement (attached to warriors)

 

I used (Sons of Sanguinius):

- Captain (MC bolter and MC power sword)

- Company Heroes

- 10 intercessors with 2 grenade launchers, power sword on sergeant

- 5 assault intercessors, power sword and plasma pistol on sergeant.

- 5 Assault Intercessors with jump packs, power sword on sergeant, plasma pistol on another man).

 

Setup:

 

I got first turn, and opted for full aggression and charged forward with most of the army, keeping my intercessors on my objective but otherwise looking to get close enough to contest the middle one that his Von Ryans Leapers had been able to deploy right next to. After a full round of shooting, the leapers were dead, but it did mean I didn't get to do any damage elsewhere! Stealth and cover made them quite tough to shift. I did charge the jump intercessors into the hormagants and was able to quite comfortably wipe those and consolidate into the termagants which attacked but failed to do anything.

 

On his turn we learned that we'd been using the endless swarm stratagem incorrectly (till now I'd been letting him use it to put units back on the table, so he was a bit disappointed with that) he made a desperate escape with ther termagants through my unit, the pyrovore lumbered forward and attempted to shoot the company heroes whilst the warriors moved off to the side and opened fire into the jump assault intercessors, killing one. He then charged into the jump assault intercessors with the warriors and killed 2 more, in return I was able to wound a warrior.

 

At the end of the turn I scored 3 VP and my son scored 1.

 

I didn't do a good job with keeping up with taking photos but in my turn I had the assault intercessors move up and shoot at the termagants, but didn't do over much. I made the pyrovore my Oath of Moment target and killed it with the company heroes, the intercessors killed the ripper swarms to avoid them being able to impose penalties on the OC of the company heroes. The assault intercessors charged into the warriors and were able to kill two of them and wound another, in return the winged prime finished off the jump assault intercessors.

 

In his turn, he used shadow in the warp and amazingly caused both the company heroes AND intercessors to fail - no chance of VP for me this turn now. He also restored the missing models to his termagants and added lethal hits to the warriors and precision to the termagants. He then had the termagants move and advance to sit on his back objective so his genestealers could leave it and charge at the company heroes. The termagants shot the heroes and targetted the captain, managing to chip off a wound from him. The genestealers charged and killed two of the company heroes. My assault intercessors managed to kill another warrior and wound the winged prime. The prime then proceeded to kill the remaining assault intercessors quite specacularly. Finally my Company Champion and Captain wiped out the genestealers.

 

At the end of the turn he gained a victory point, I gained none, putting us on 3 for me and 2 for him.

 

My turn was decidedly "quiet" as my intercessors shot at the termagants and killed about half, but their cover helped them out a lot. Lacking most of their ranged punch (heavy bolter and marksman bolter both dead), the company heroes shot at the winged prime but didn't manage to hurt it. As I was no longer battleshocked, I remained on the objectives.

 

In his turn he once again put precision on the termagants and lethal hits on his prime, he shot my captain and managed to chip off another 2 wounds. He then had the prime charge my company heroes, my intercessors fired overwatch and chipped off a couple more wounds, the winged prime only managed to get one wound (2 damage) through to the unit, I thought that would kill the captain as he only had 2 wounds left, but the staffer said actually it goes to the bodyguard as it wasn't precision. In turn I killed his prime.

 

End of turn 3 I had a badly wounded captain, wounded ancient and a company champion plus the full intercessor squad, he had 8 termagants, it ended up as 6 VP for me and 3 VP for him.

 

We then had a chat with the staffer about the game and got pointers on things my son could do differently from an army build perspective and also tactics. He also did the whole battle honours thing and stamped 21 items in the little booklet already so that was nice!

 

 

 

 

[Firedrake Cordova]

Sounds like you two had fun  

[Blindhamster]

I think he enjoyed despite losing. I’ve said we will play again probably on the weekend, I don’t want to “give” him a win, mostly because I’ve never been a fan of that kind of thing, but I’m hoping he does win soon as I’ve no doubt it’ll make him enjoy the game even more. May play with a handicap next time though.
 

if anyone has advice on the sort of units for him to include, we would love to hear. Similarly any other advice such as how to deploy best would be good too. 
 

 

[Rogue]

I can't offer any tactical advice, but I do have a suggestion about approach - it's something that worked for us when I was introducing my wife to 40k.

 

Every time I won, we reduced my force by 50 points (from an initial 500); every time she won, I got 50 points back. For us, it created natural balancing points where the smaller force plus experience meant a good game against a beginner's 500 points.

[Xenith]

Sounds like a great journey you're both going on! 

 

On 10/18/2023 at 12:37 PM, Blindhamster said:

Some notes:

• this was pretty fun because it wasn't power armour
• it was liberating to not be trying to paint to the best of my ability, but instead painting something to be achievable

 

These resonate with me particularly. Nids are liberating, no edge highlights! Can I suggest a matte/satin varnish on them though if you're just using contrast? I've found that as they can go on thinly, they can rub off especially with coarse foam etc. Extremities used to be bare of paint until I got the W&N varnish on them.