And so it begins...

Last night we picked territories on the planetary empires map for our campaign. Looks like there will be 8 of us in it. We will have myself, Kyle, Rik, Matt, Kip, Chase, Steve and Digger. This is all for fun and we are shooting for more of an army growing feel to it even though we are playing at 2000pt armies. :)

What we are going to do is something to reward things that happen that are epic during the battles. For instance a space marine battling and taking down a Carnifex. Or an aspiring champion holding an entire space marine squad for a couple rounds. Or a Predator that destroys a lot of armor during the fight.

The way we are going to do this is similar to the way you do in one of the Warhammer Fantasy campaigns where you give your champion an ability once you reach a certain amount of points. Then roll on a chart. Any non-named character can receive these bonuses and they can accumulate over the course of the campaign. It should be quite good as it would allow us to even bring these armies back again to another campaign and use those characters over and over.

The map ended up looking like this after the territory selection...

.... and Kyle said he would paint it up and make it look nice. So I'm thinking the map will look like this next Saturday...

As for my army, it was great to talk to Kip who has the same kind of ideas for his army that I have for mine. He is also playing Space Wolves as Morkai's company. He is an awesome painter and his fist model looks fantastic. I'll get some pictures of them next Saturday. They will blow you away. He is awesome at green stuff and mods... they looked so nice. Anyways, he is going to keep track of his sagas and the play of his army much like I am going to do. It just adds a little more to the gaming experience if you ask me.

We are both going to have journals and whatnot. I can't wait to get it started and get more stuff painted. The stories that we are going to tell will be epic. :)

There will be more in the future on the abilities charts and things like that... more info and pics of the army... and as always check out Distant Battle Grounds for some stuff from Kyle and Rik... whenever they write something. hehe :)

Finecast Models and more....

So my pal Rik and I went down to a local hobby shop last night at midnight to pick up some of the new Finecast models... and I gotta tell ya, those models are just sick. They are so nice. I had went there to pick up the Chaplain with Jump Pack, but he didnt have any in. Rik picked up Astorath and Commander Dante and I got to see them out of the package. I'm already looking at that Librarian in Termie armor, Logan Grimnar and Njal Stormcaller pretty hard even though I dont even need them in the army... they just look that good.

I cant wait to get my Chappy... he is my missing piece for my army to be done... :(

I also finished Prospero Burns last night. What a good book with a really good ending. The Space Wolves are really unique. I can wait to apply an executioner style to my game play. There are no wolves on Fenris.

I got all my mech built and the army is 95% complete now. The preds and Rhino/Razorbacks are all done and make the army look super hot. I'll take some pictures of it this weekend all laid out so you can drink in the awesomeness. :) Check yas later.

Be sure to check out Distant Battle Grounds for other info from my play group.

First Wolf is Finished! :)

Well here is the first test Wolf done. Took a lil while as I havent painted a figure in a little over a year. I like the color of the armor and a complete army of this will look quite good imo.

I'm pretty excited about this army. More pics to come!

As always, check out Distant Battle Grounds for more information on our gaming group here in Arizona. :)

The written word...

First off... I'm not gunna make daily updates to this blog... at least I dont think so... but work is so GD boring today that I thought I would muse a bit over staying up too late and reading books while I should be dreaming...

I recently started reading Dan Abnett's Prospero Burns... prolly when I started my Space Wolves and it is quite a good book. I get my inspiration and play style of my army from what I read. For my Raven Guard army, all I had to go on at the time were lil blarbs in the SM Codex and what was on the games workshop site. That really wasnt much of anything. With these Space Wolves, there are several stories I can read and will be reading to give me a better feeling for my army.

I want to take a more roleplay-ish kind of play style with these Wolves. I would lke to keep track of what pack does what in their battles and progress with army creation based on that. I think that would be a good addition for me and my games. Something different and more in-depth to keep my interest is always a good thing.

The interaction between the Space Wolves in Dan Abnett's Prospero Burns is something I can build on. It is quite a good read and it gets better the further I go. The packs, Jarls and the whole Rout are very different and unique which makes me want to keep reading... even if I lose a little sleep over it.

Anyways... tonight I will be painting my first Space Wolf. I have base coated the entire army (minus the tanks) and will start paiting each one individually. I'm going to be taking some different steps with this army than when I did my Raven Guard. For isntance I am painting the models with the bolters already attached and I am not going to assembly line paint them. I am going to paint them individually to give each model its own attention. This will take me longer to paint them, but in the end I think I will enjoy it more. I'll hopefully have a picture up of it tonight or tomorrow.

As always, checkout Distant Battle Grounds as that is Kyle's blog. I will have a bit of stuff on there along with other players in our play group to keep our gaming up to date.

Here we go...

I guess I should introduce myself as I was asked by a bud to give some of my awesome insight into this fun hobby of ours. My name is Mike, I am married and I have a couple teenagers (one daughter and one son) who also play this game. I just got into the hobby a couple years ago when a local store opened that was run by a friend Kyle. I bought some Space Marines and made my own special Raven Guard. I ripped some faces off and all that good stuff and then took quite a while off until recently when I started a new army, Space Wolves, to play at Kyle's house.

Getting back into this hobby is not an easy thing to do. I mean, hell, its just like any other hobby. To do it right you gotta pay through the nose. So I start getting back into 40K and BOOM they shit on our chests with a price increase. I'm pretty sure that was the last reason why I quit playing... but this time I'm going to power through it. We have a nice little group going where we get together and play and I want to do that as much as possible before I get sucked back into an Online MMORPG playing which is my other hobby. 

This will be the beginning of a constant blog update of my Space Wolves, building them, painting them and finally playing games with them. I mean, who doesn't want to hear funny stories of me ripping the dicks off my friends? I mean, its what I do. Run tell that.

So here we go to kick this off. Here is the base for my army and the reasons I picked them. Feel free to comment at the end on what you would change or add as I will be changing and adding to the army in the future. This is just the base army. (Remember that you douchers... don't go apeshit on my list...)

HQ -

Bran Redmaw (Ragnar Blackmane) - I love Furious Charge. Thats it. Plain and simple. If I can somehow get it, I want it. I find him kinda expensive, but when you combine him with 3 other power weapon characters you can get some crazy damage going. Lets say you hit 3 on his D3 roll.. thats 8 S6 hits, 6 S5 hits, 6 S5 hits with claws and 5 S5 hits... all power weapon with preferred enemy... then 45 or so regular hits? WTF yes... run tell that.

Wolf Priest w/ Wolf Tail Talisman - Preferred Enemy is hot sauce. Put him with Redmaw and the 10man Grey Hunters in a Land Raider. Yummy.

Elite -

Dreadnought W/hvy Flamer - I love Dreads and they can do so many different things. For the same points I can put on a Missle Launcher so its flexible in the list.

5Man Wolf Scout Pack W/ Meltagun, Melta Bombs and 3 Sniper Rifles - Scouts off any table edge? Cmon thats like a no brainer. You gotta take that. They will be blowing up armor... hopefully.

Wolf Guard -

(1) Dual Wolf Claws, Melta Bombs - Goes in the 10man Grey Hunter unit.

(2) Powerfist and Bolter - Goes in a 9man Grey Hunter unit.

(3) Powerfist and Bolter - Goes in a 9man Grey Hunter unit.

Troops - 

10man Grey Hunters w/ 2 Meltas and a Power Weapon. - This unit goes with all the badness in the Land Raider. The first list had Blood Claws, but with Redmaw I dont need the Blood Claws so it changed to Grey Hunters. That would make 4 characters with power weapons, furious charge. +D3 on the charge and Preferred Enemy. The one weakness is no Powerfist (which I dont like using in a Furious Charged unit) and only one Melta Bomb... but really... I dont think I am going to be charging this unit into an Ironclad or anything like that.

9man Grey Hunters w/ Meltagun and Power Weapon in a Rhino. x2 - These are my basic objective taking troops. They cover most any problem with the Power Weapon and Powerfists along with the Meltagun.

5man Grey Hunters w/ Razorback and TL Lascannons - This is the defensive objective holder for the army. People may say that Las/Plas is the way to go, but I roll so shitty that I need that twin-linked action. hehe

Heavy -

Land Raider Crusader w/ Multi-Melta - Eat it bitches. 13 First Great Company warriors running into your face and eating your heart.

Predator w/ TL Lascannon and Lascannon sponsons x2 - Why? Stormravens suck. I love them if I play with them (which I dont) and I hate them when I play against them (which I do). So eat all my Lascannons you Grey Knight and Blood Angel homos. (Thats you Rik and Matt) I got your ceramite armor right here! (I grabbed my junk even though you cant see it.)

So here is some of the army... all the troops, Land Raider, Dreadnought and Rhino before priming. I already have the other crap ordered so just waiting for it. I should have it all built by the weekend. More pics and updates to come. :)