Imperial Reference Cogitator

Wednesday, November 2, 2022

Dreadtober 2022 Week 4

 Almost There…



Another WIP photo of this year's dread.  Body details are finished, now I just need to paint the arms.

Monday, October 17, 2022

Dreadtober 2022 - Week 2

Better Red Than Dread


Dropping this rough workbench photo to update my Dreadtober progress so far.  Most of the base coat work has been completed so I can move on to detail work over the next week.  Lurking in the blurry photo background is my unfinished dread from last year.  Hopefully I can finish him off this month and make this year's Dreadtober a twofer.  Be sure to check out all the goodness over at the main Dreadtober site.  If you enjoy painting classic goodness like the crimson sarcophagus above, Season 4 of the 40K2ndAC is taking applicants. 

 

Wednesday, October 5, 2022

Dreadtober 2022 - First Blood

 'Ere We Go Again...

Hello abandoned readers. As the pumpkin spice flavored weather sets in, I will attempt to use Dreadtober as an excuse to rejuvinate this blog.  For this year's Dreadtober I have been fully immersed in the 2nd edition spirit in anticpation of the impending kick off for 40K2ndAC Season 4!  This season's entry for me will be an abrupt departure from this blog's namesake in order to paint an army I spent many hours day dreaming about in high school - Orks!  

Larger base means mores skulls, carefully following the 41st millenia's strict skulls per square feet of ground ratios.

Since I won't be painting any space marines for that challenge, I am going to cram in at least one more space marine model before getting stuck in with my Orks in December.  This year's Dreadtober model will be the boxy Mark IV Blood Angels dreadnought which was shown in the ad pages of many a White Dwarf issue in the 90's as well as appearing in several Battle Reports.  As you can see from the pictures it will be the period proper 5 lbs of pewter that could be used as a door stop or murder weapon depending on one's mood.

It's only fitting to leverage Dreadtober for blog renewal since I started this blog back in 2019 to particpate in Dreadtober for the first time.   During that fateful autumn I had a lot of hobby energy after attending Nova Open for the first time that year and I needed an outlet for all the excitement I had about the hobby.  Back then I only played once a month at best and other than that one gaming group I was relatively unconnected to the greater hobby community, even though I live in an area where tabletop gaming is very popular.  

It took forever to scrub all the red from its previous paint job out of all the tiny recesses.

The blog began as a way to connect with the larger hobby community and in that respect it was a massive success.  I now spend so much time gaming with friends new and old that I have connected to through the blog, that the blog itself has experienced long periods of inactivity.  Hopefully the upcoming community projects will keep the blog rolling along, and if not I'll just retreat to a social media site where much less work is required to post my hobby progress ;-)

Thank you to readers who have stayed or have just joined, and see you next week with a dreadnought that will hopefully be at least red.  Be sure to head to the main Dreadtober site for all the community's awesome work.  Also the 40K2ndAC Season 4 is taking applicants if you want to become involved follow the link.

Thursday, June 16, 2022

WH40K 2nd Edition Army Challenge Season III - Complete!

Another One In The Bag 


It's hard to believe but the third season of the 2nEdAC has finished!  Since I have been remiss in posting monthly updates, I will roll out the big picture here first and then add some blog updates with the indivdual units completed.  A little reverse order roll-out due to being so busy with gaming and hobbying that typeing about those activities has fallen behind schedule.  My low model count, high points value army has successfully been finished.   I was also able to add a bonus model this time which was a first for me.  Thanks to the good Dr The Viking and his fabulous challenge I now have 3,000 plus points of fully painted Dark Angels, all in a gorgeous technicolor 2nd edition style. This is the largest fully painted army I have owned in 30 years of gaming and is exactly the kind of army I wanted when immersing myself in the 40k universe via reading White Dwarf in the early 90's.

In addition to making my army buidling dreams come true, the challenge has opened up a new community of gamers for me to enjoy games with as well.  As I write this post I'm preparing for a game against my usual challenge opponent, the Wachtmeister.  My panoply of characters from season III will take on his most recent contribution, a few Valhallan squads and a BANEBLADE!  New challenge participant Valhallan Winter also lives in our area and will stop by to see how our tanks versus heroes challenge will turn out.  Stay tuned to this space to see if you can use 7 second edition characters to kill a super-heavy tank.  Thanks for reading after such a long hiatus, and be sure to follow all the links in the texts to check out fun contributiuons to the great hobby!
 



Thursday, June 2, 2022

Imperial Entanglements Part II

 And Now The Thrilling Conclusion ...



WM: Imperial Guard – Turn 3: The majority of the army continued their advance towards the Dark Angels deployment zone or shuffled around to create better fire lanes.  The infantry squad in the center of the table, whipped to a fervor by the exhalation of their commissar and accompanying priest, charged the scout squad in the middle of the table!  The Legion of the Damned troopers opened fire on the remaining members of the Devastator combat squad, opening the flankfor a final drive.  Once again the Terminators outside of combat weathered the fire of almost the entire Guard 

army.  Almost.  The missile launcher team, detached from the squad charging up the center, opened fire and struck the assault cannon armed terminator, which promptly failed its save!  I’m not sure two turns of firing was worth a single Terminator but it sure felt good when one finally died!  The Librarian must have been struggling to control the warp in the close combat phase as he failed to kill any of the mortar crew members he was fighting.  The Priest's zeal was a little misplaced as he was cut down by a Scout in close combat, buta pistol shot through the eye brought down a scout!  The Deathwing were also having a hard time making their superior skills pay off and only killed a single Infantryman in close combat.  



Follow along after the jump to read the rest of the battle report


Monday, February 21, 2022

Imperial Entanglements Part I

40K 2nd Edition Battle Report!!!!

Next on the list of projects: a bed sheet sized matte painiting to hangup behind the table on game days for better looking game photos.

The Wachtmeister and I had a chance recently to play a game with all the forces we had painted for the first two rounds of the 40K2ndAC.  We both wrote up a report on the battle, with the Wachtmeisters report being slightly more chronological and mine is a little more after game analysis.  I will switch back and forth with our relevant paragraphs and intersperse with a few photos taken mid game.  The Wachtmeister is a much better photographer than me so be sure to click on his name and check out the report on his blog for a lot of great pictures.  

Follow along after the jump for the first half of the action, then tune in later this week for the thrilling conclusion...

Thursday, February 17, 2022

WH40K 2nd Edition Battle Report Incoming!

Forces Preview 



An opportunity recently arose to play an amazing  2,400 point game of 2nd edition WH40K and it was fantastic.  My opponent and I both wrote up our takes on the battle plus we took plenty of photos so an expansive battle report is inbound.  In order to ensure the whole report does not turn out to be TL,DNR I am splittling it up into several parts to make it more managable to read.  The glorious attention grabbing photo of my army above is to lure you into today's post about the army lists involved.  Our opposing forces were made up of all the models The Wachtmeister and I painted for the first two seasons of the 40K2ndAC.  It was awesome to play a game with fully painted models and scenery all with a 2nd edition flair, it felt straight out of the battle reports of old that I encountered when first reading White Dwarf in the early 90s.  Click on the name of the unit to find out mopre details about them from their original appearance on this blog. 

Army list Dark Angels 4th Company — 2,390 points total with 50% points cost increase for teleporting terminators - Floyd Lawton

Company Master Zakeal Korlael 133 points

Bolt Pistol, Power Sword, Conversion Field, Member of the Deathwing


Techmarine Hephaestus 48 points

Servo Arm, Plasma Pistol


Terminator Librarian Azathor - 207 points

Storm Bolter, Force Axe, Member of the Deathwing


Tactical Squad Zanthor 362 points

Veteran Sergeant Zanthor with Chain sword and Bolt pistol, 7 marines with bolters,

Marine with Meltagun, Marine with Missile Launcher plus Frag and Krak missiles


Tactical Squad Astelan - 362 points

Veteran Sergeant Astelan with Chains word and Bolt pistol, 7 marines with Bolters,

Marine with Plasma gun, Marine with Missile Launcher plus Frag and Krak missiles


Devastator Squad Scalprum - 485 points

Veteran Sergeant with Power Axe and Combi-weapon: Bolter and Meltagun, 5 marines with Bolters,

Multi-Melta, Lascannon, Missile Launcher with Frag and Krak missiles, Heavy Bolter


Deathwing Terminator Squad Cadmus - 387 points

Sergeant Cadmus with Power Sword and Storm Bolter, 3 Terminators with Power Fist and Storm Bolter,

Terminator with Assault Cannon and Chain Fist

 

Scout Squad Rhellion - 109 points

Veteran Sergeant Rhellion with Chains word, Bolt Pistol, 4 Scouts Bolt Pistol and Combat Knife 

 

Catachans Imperial Guard Army – 2, 376 points – The Wachtmeister

 

Command HQ w/Colonel w/Power fist, bolter, comm-link operator, Plasma Gun, Grenade Launcher 159 points

 

Commissar w/ Axe, hand flamer 47 points


Infantry Squad – Sergeant w/chain sword, bolt pistol, Heavy Bolter Team, melta-gun 120 points


Infantry Squad – Sergeant w/chain sword, bolt pistol, Heavy Bolter Team, melta-gun 120 points


Mortar Squad 120 points

Stumper Muskstart 45 points

Basilisk 175 points

Leman Russ w/ Heavy Bolter sponsons 205 points

Command Squad w/ Lieutenant w/bolter, Vortex Grenade, comm-link operator, 2 plasma guns 152 points

Infantry Squad – Sergeant w/ laspistol, power sword, Missile Launcher team, melta-gun 140 points

Lascannon Squad 150 points

Demolisher w/auto-launchers, dozer blade, plasma sponsons, storm bolter 275 points

Hellhound 165 points

Ratling Squad 80 points

Legion of the Damned Squad w/ Sergeant w/bolt pistol, chain sword, Heavy Bolter, Flamer 413 points

Priest 10 points

That wraps up the introduction of both army lists, tnue in this week to get a battle report in a few parts.  Be sure to check out the blog that started all this madness, Dr The Viking's C0wabunga

Tuesday, January 4, 2022

And We're Back

 My Dreadtober Project Is Really Running Late...


Wow! That was the longest publication break in this blog's short history so I appreciate anyone who has come back after the hiatus.  A combination of a lot of Real Life activity and an addiction to Boardgame Arena online led to the severe lack of posts.  Fortunately I was stilll hobbying and gaming while not posting so there is plenty of content in the pipeline.  My Venerable Dreadnought above is almost finished but way behind on the end of Dreadtober deadline.  In other fun hobby news, the 3rd Season of the 40K2ndAC is underway and I am painting a charatcer heavy 1,000 points this time around to give my Dark Angels 2nd edition army a bevy of heroes to choose from to lead them into battle.  I have finished the first months contribution of two librarians and will feature some photos of the finished models this week.  Thanks for rejoining our program already in progress and stay safe out there...
My low model count project for season 3 of the 40K2ndAC


Saturday, October 16, 2021

Dreadtober 2021 Week 2

The Walking Dread...


This week almost all the base coats for the many details were finished.  I'm feeling like it's about to crest that wave where it goes from looking a mess to the downhill side of model painting where it finally looks like something and you're continuing to improve its appearance each time you paint.  The next step will be washes and highlights.  Check out all the great fun over at the main Dreadtober site.  Also, thanks to Marc over at Old School Gaming who is coordinating all the action for Dreadtober.