Khalil, Captain of the 7th Company on Bike with Thunder Hammer and The Shield Eternal

Khalil has been in pieces for several games, so I prioritized getting him painted up and ready to go.  Here he is!  Doing a sweet sideways skid as he climbs out of the seat to swing his Thunder Hammer.  Two Storm Shields on the faring of his bike represent The Shield Eternal.

Math time!  Bike characters start at 5 wounds.  With the Warlord Trait “Iron Resolve” it bumps him to 6 with a 6+ FNP which is functionally a 7th wound.

The Shield Eternal halves all damage, rounding halves up, so D6 weapons like Lascannons instead do the equivalent of D3.  On average, two apiece, so you’d need 4 Lascannons to get through the shield to kill him.

The Shield is a 3+ invulnerable, so you’d need 12 total wounds.

Toughness 5, so a S 9 Lascannon wounds on a 3+ so you’d need 18 hits.

Guardsmen are BS 4+ so you’d need 36 Guardsmen Lascannons, or 27 Space Marines at 3+, excluding any re-rolls.  That’s hearty!

Conversely, those 7 wounds could be eaten by about 54 Ork regular close combat attacks, which one squad of Orks could do in a turn.  That’s how a Smash Captain goes down; force of saves!

Next, more painting!

Land Speeder Heavy Flamer Gunners

I’ve been using these gunners a lot (6D6 auto hits, S5, -1 AP and +1 to wound with Flamecraft) but they’ve always been bare plastic.  Now they are fully painted.  I even jeweled all of the eyes!

Next: more painting!

I Scouted

So, I’ve been a bit busy.

More than a year ago, Lexington dumped his Space Marine army in favor of Chaos.  I inherited his bitz box which contained a wealth of plastic Scout bodies but no arms.

Several weeks ago, AFK games in Holt had a bitz trade.  I gave a unique model I don’t know where I got (a con?) and ten bucks for some plastic sniper scouts in pieces and an incomplete regular scout sprue.

I put together a few of the snipers, but then I realized I could do more with Lexington’s bits.  So, I made:

• Four Scout Sergeants with Sniper Rifles and Chainsword/Combat Knives, and Camo Cloaks
• Five Scouts with Sniper Rifles and Camo Cloaks
• One Scout Heavy Bolter with Camo Cloak
• Three Scouts with Bolters and Camo Cloaks
• Four Scouts with Bolt Pistol/Combat Knife and Camo Cloaks

A total of 17 more Scouts to add to my 10th company, bringing the total to more than 60!  Plus, with Camo Cloaks on all, it will let me have more variety when choosing cheap troops to hold objectives.

To keep it from being too same-y, I did some conversions for the poses.  This required partial rebuilds of the arms with paperclip pins, and putty work to rebuild the sleeves.  I like the result.

That being said, although the plastic Scouts are much better than the two poses of the old 3rd ed pewter scouts, the poses are still extremely same-y and static.  I wish a few of the arms had been a pistol pointing at the enemy, or a bolter upslung to the sky so that the other arm could be free to dramatically point, or perhaps a combat knife held upside down in a dueling fashion.

Oh well, the new plastics are still nice.  Next: painting!  Is it too late to strip and re-paint the Flames using contrast paints?  YES.  But is it too late for the Orks? We’ll see…

Ork Big Mek on bike with Kustom Force Field

I haven’t been active on fourstrands lately because my camera is broken, but I just finished this and thought it was awesome, so I used my iphone camera.  It’s a Big Mek with Kustom Force Field on a bike, based on the old Skorcha!  I got a KFF bit from a friend at AFK Games in Holt, a Skorcha from ebay, and kitbashed the rest.

I’ll have batreps and painted stuff soon, but I might look into a new camera first.