Battle Update, ... and the Music Is My Motivator Song of the Week.

So I played Kyle and his Night Lords on Wednesday night and the game was intense.  We played a Seize Ground mission with five objectives, Dawn of War deployment.  We ended up having to stop on turn four due to the store closing, but luckily we played at Battle Foam (we both work there) so we left our miniatures in place to finish on our lunch break the next day.  Unfortunately we had a lot of things going on that day so we couldn't finish, and we had to call the game a draw.
At the time I had two objective, he had two objectives, and we were fighting over the fifth.  We both went over our strategy for the next turn sequences, and came to the conclusion it could have gone either way.  I learned a lot in this game, and I really like the addition of my Wolf Guard.  I will definitely be using them for the next couple of rounds.

On to the song of the week ....

My song of the week is "Veronica Sawyer Smokes" by AFI.  I heard this song the other day at work.  Kyle had his Pandora tuned to AFI radio and this song came on.  Being a long time AFI fan I knew it was going to be my Song of the Week.  I hope you all enjoy the pick this week.

    

Thanks for tuning in ...

-The Man Behind The Mask-

Rune Priests Bring The Pain !!!

I have been reading Battle of the Fang by Chris Wraight in my spare time, and it is awesome.  This is a must read for any Space Wolf fan.  It is the story of how the Thousand Sons executed a sneak attack upon the Fang on the Space Wolves home world of Fenris, shortly after the demise of Prospero.
I just finished a chapter where the Thousand Sons are advancing on the front gates of the Fang, and the Rune Priest Odain Sturmhjart unleashes his psychic fury upon them.  Sturmjhart summons a tempest that sends countless enemy infantry, and their tanks and transports, hurling to their deaths off of the cliffs of the Fang. The description given was so bad ass that I blurted expletives out loud.  It made me enjoy running a Rune Priest in my army so much more.  Here is the excerpt from the novel that I found to be awe inspiring:

"Feel this.  Feel the coming of the world-soul.  This is power the like of which no witch will ever wield."
Sturmhjart screwed his eyes shut, clutching the staff tight.  His second heart broke into a steady rhythm.  The summoning was painful.  He relished the pain.  Like the searing of irons, it cauterized the deeper pain within.  More clouds rolled into being, tumbling from the crown of the mountains to the north, their skirts flickering with lighting.  In their shadow came the hail, a sweeping wall of ruin, slamming and bouncing into the ground below.  

"Raise your eyes to the heavens, Traitors." 

He saw the sorcerers amid the hosts of the enemy like stars, their psychic essences standing out even through the noise and confusion.  They were powerful, steeped in sickening energies.  He could see their arrogance, their confidence.  Some were physically corrupted, giving in to the terrible flesh-changes that blighted all their kind.  One of them, the brightest star of all, was far down the roads of ruin.  

"You are many, and we are few.  But this is our world, and we wield its power."

The storm spread, breaking across the summits, sweeping toward the Fang in a howling, screaming gale.  The sky had darkened, making the explosions around the mountain look like embers in a fire pit.  The hail hammered down, cracking and bouncing on the stone.

"You think we will succumb to witchery as you did" 

Sturmjhart felt the blood well in his mouth, trickling down to the mass of his slicked-down beard.  He ignored it.  The sharp pain was lost in the whirlwind of psychic power flooding his body.  He was nothing more than the conduit, the vessel through which the untamed fury of the maelstrom passed.  The raw howl of the wind became a bellowing roar.  The flames around the Fang were lashed and pulled into dazzling flares of energy, ripped across the air by the scouring gales.

"You are wrong"

The sorcerers responded, guarding what vehicles they could, sending flickering lightning and translucent kine-shields of their own to combat the danger from the skies.  They were mighty, and there were dozens of them.  Even so, they struggled against the elements, and the assault faltered.  Gunships blazed to the ground like comets, torn apart by the electric sky.  The screams of the dying and the terrified echoed through the rippling currents of the storm.

Sturmjhart relished in the cries.  They fed his power.  They fed the planet's power.  The invaders had brought maleficarum with them, and righteous punishment was the consequence.  

Even as they bled and scrambled for cover, the witches were learning a lesson: the same lesson that had been learned by every Rune Priest since the Allfather had first brought the way of the wyrd to the frozen death world.

Sturmjhart knew it.  He had known it for centuries, and took delight in making it as clear as the ice itself to those who dared defy him.

"We do not defend Fenris.  Fenris defends us.  The world, the people, are one.  We share a soul, a soul of hatred, and now it comes to you, dark on the wings of the storm.  Learn it well, for soon this truth will kill you." 

 Now how awesome is that!?  This is but a taste of the amazing story in this book.  Like I said, it is a must read for any Space Wolf Fan.  I can't wait to finish it because it keeps getting better the deeper I get into it.

I hope you all enjoyed this post as much as I did, and as always .....

Thanks for tuning in ....

-The Man Behind The Mask-

Jägare Våldsam, The Unseen Death.

I have just finished the last addition to my revised list.  This is Jägare Våldsam, The Unseen Death.  Jägare is the paternal twin brother of Järv Våldsam.  Jägare finds no better satisfaction than to stalk his prey, unseen for as long as necessary, waiting for the right moment to deliver the perfect killing blow.  He believes that the perfect hunter can dispatch any prey with one well calculated strike.
Jägare will lead the second pack of Wolf Scouts in my army.  His addition will give that pack the edge they need to become all the more dangerous.  Wolf Scouts are awesome because they can come in from reserve from any table edge, but their 4+ armor save can see them quickly taken care of in most situations.  I am hoping that with the addition of Jägare this pack will have more staying power in my future games.  His ability to, potentially, dispatch up to four opponents each turn will keep the opposition at a low.
I constructed his frost axe out of Plasticard, Green Stuff, and bitz from the sprue.  I used a power drill to achieve the round edges of the interior of the blade.  The rest was shaved down with my hobby knife.  I will work on a video tutorial of my method here in the next couple of weeks.  I will post it on my blog if it works out.  
Until then, here are the WIP pics of Jägare Våldsam, The Unseen Death:

  

Thanks for tuning in,

-The Man Behind The Mask-

Music Is My Motivator...

Hello and welcome to this Friday's edition of "Music Is My Motivator".  This week's song is "Get it Right" by our local boys Authority Zero.  I heard this song the other day on the radio and I knew it was going to be my song of the week.  These guys are awesome, I have not heard one song from them that wasn't good.  This latest song of there's just has a great sound all around.  The riffs are awesome, the chorus and the verse are catchy as hell, and it just kicks ass.  I hope you all enjoy it as much as me!


I will have some more WIP shots coming soon.  I have the third Wolf Guard built, and started on my Thunderwolf calvary.  I will have WIP of those as well.

Thanks for Tuning in!

-The Man Behind The Mask-

Another Addition to the Great Company of Morkai

I would like to introduce Trogen Svärdstrejk, personal Wolf Guard to Rune Priest Herren Ijungeld.  Trogen is armed with a power sword and will be adding four more devastating attacks to Herren's Pack.

I chose to add a Wolf Guard to Herren's Pack because I didn't want to lose any extra special weapons in my other two Grey Hunter Packs.  In my opinion this will be helpful though, now Herren's unit will be seven strong and will include his Runic Axe (Force Weapon), a Powerfist, and a Power Sword.  That combination, along with the Counter Charge special rule, should tear a nice chunk out of any unit that wants to charge them. 

This model proves that not all conversions need to be difficult and complex to be effective.  Sometimes all a conversion needs is a little tweak here and a small addition there to get the job done.  The original arm is posed straight out and limits the options for posing.  I wanted Trogen's pose to be more of an "at the ready" stance, not a "Charge!!" stance, so the arm had to be modified.  All I did was cut the sword of the original arm (hand still attached) and add it to a different arm that suited the pose better, simple yet effective. 

Here are the WIP pics of Trogen Svärdstrejk, The Sword of Faith:

        

Stay tuned for the WIP pics of the third Wolf Guard to be added to Morkai's Great Company.  Friday's "Music Is My Motivator" song of the week is also just around the corner as well. 

I must sign off now, but as always ...

Thanks for tuning in,

-The Man Behind The Mask-

Bolstering The Packs

In my latest round of our campaign I was pitted against a relentless Tyranid Swarm.  We played a Dawn of War Capture and Control mission on a city fight table.  In this match I had to play with 100 pts less than usual due to my attempt to take the Hive city.  The game was exciting and I was barely able to pull the win off in the last turn (thanks to moving an extra 6” on the roads and a roll of a 1 for turn extension), I held one objective and contested the other one.

After this game I realized that it might be a good idea to remove the Speeder for now and disperse the points to bolster some of my other units.  This will give my opponents one less potential kill point and it would make a couple other units more deadly.  I chose to add three Wolf Guard to my army, one for each of my scout units, and one for my Rune Priest’s unit.

This post will focus on the Wolf Guard Järv Våldsam.  Järv is armed with two Wolf Claws, and he will join my Scout Pack that includes Erik Morkai.  I wanted Järv in this unit so he will benefit from Preferred Enemy, then I can choose to re-roll wounds with his Wolf Claws.  This will be a brutal addition to that Pack, they can potentially enter from any table edge and have Eight Powerweapon attacks, four of which are rerolling failed to hit and to wound rolls!  This will be the perfect unit for assassinating Independent Characters. 

Here are the first WIP shots of Järv Våldsam.  I had to remake the Wolf Claws because I can’t stand the regular pose.  I used a combination of arms with the chainswords cut off and the base of the Wolf Claws.  I then drilled holes into the claws big enough for the arms to slide in, this allowed me to rotate the claws until they reached the desired position.  I used Green stuff to scuplt the power cords along the back of the arm. 

I will post WIP pics of the other Wolf Guard throughout the week so be on the lookout for those.

As always,

Thank for tuning in,

-The Man Behind The Mask-     

Music Is My Motivator...

First I would like to apologize for the lack of posts this week.  I have had a lot going on that has soaked up all of my free time.  I am however going to be posting quite a bit of WIP pics of my Space Wolves here in the next few weeks.  I am currently working on three Wolfguard that I am adding to my list, I will go into more detail about my decision to do so in a later post.

For today though, I must post my “Music is my Motivator…” song of the week.  I am deep in Space Wolf mode these days, so naturally I have been brushing up on my knowledge of Viking history.  While doing some late night research, I was reminded of an old Viking related video I saw awhile back.  I cruised on over to YouTube for a quick laugh, and half way through the video I knew I had to post it as this week’s post.  This is my Space Wolf motivator of the week,

"Brothers, this night we must ready ourselves for battle !!  But on this night we will go to war not with axe or blade.  We will bring only our instinct and dexterity, for this will be a battle of DANCE !!   For The All Father, For Russ, For Fenris !!!!!" …..  

Music Is My Motivator ...

As I said in the first of these posts, music is a big part of my hobby, so I am going to start posting a weekly "Music Is My Motivator ..." segment on Friday's.  I hope you liked the last one, I think that song is amazing. You will notice that the songs I spotlight will cover all types of genre's and styles.  Music is the driving force of my life, and I love sharing my favorite songs with other people.  Feel free to comment with your opinions about the songs I pick, or comment with a suggestion of your own pick for the following week.
This week I chose "Boy With a Coin" by Iron & Wine.  There is something about the melody of the guitar that just strikes me.  The song has such a unique feel to it, I find it a bit mesmorising.  I urge you all to dive into this song as well, and feel free to comment with your opinions.  I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.  





As always,

Thanks for tuning in,

-The Man Behind The Mask-

Heroic Action Table ... in Action

I am almost finished with the FSA fleet I am painting for Romeo, which means I should be posting progress of my Wolves quite frequently.  I did however want to talk about the benefits of the Heroic Action Table (HAT) in our Campaign.  If you weren’t familiar with it, you can read it in detail at the following link: http://distantbattlegrounds.blogspot.com/2011/06/heroic-action-table.html . 

I have found that the HAT table has added a whole new aspect to our campaign by making character development a big part of it.  I was lucky enough to be the first player to earn a roll on the HAT with my Rune Priest.  I achieved this when I played Kyle and his Night Lords.  By the end of the fourth turn my Rune Priest had successfully cast Living Lighting four times with a total of 17 shots, I hit with all 17 shots (I don’t run a Chooser of the Slain, so I was hitting on 3+).  He destroyed two Rhinos and finished off a squad of knight lords giving him a total of 3 of my 6 killpoints of the game.  At the end of the game he had only missed with two of his 23 shots.  Kyle elected that I would be making a roll on the shooting portion of the HAT due to my incredible accuracy.  I ended up gaining the ability to re-roll one miss per game (I was hoping to get +1 BS or +1 to my shot profile, maybe next time).  I found myself immediately searching for a suitable name and background for him, he is now known as Herren Ijungeld, The Fury of Fenris (pronounced: Haren Yulengeld, it is Swedish for “Lord of Lightning”).  I am working on a proper background which I will have up when I finish Painting him. 

The HAT not only adds character to the campaign, but also to my army in general.  I now have a name for my character that means something, not just one that I made up. I will always remember and document Herren’s accomplishments (which is fitting of The Space Wolves and their sagas) from here on out.  I would definitely suggest using the HAT in your campaigns as well it will definitely make things more exciting and fun.

Be sure to stop by tomorrow to see my “Music is My Motivator” song of the week, I will be posting them every Friday. 

Thanks for tuning in,

-The Man Behind The Mask-

Music Is My Motivator

When I am engulfed in a project I tend to use music to get me into the perfect mood.  I like watching movies while painting, but I tend to get distracted (stupid ADD) by them.  I find that the perfect playlist not only puts me right where I need to be creatively, but also keeps me focused on the project at hand.  I wanted to share one of my new favorites of an old favorite (The Deftones have been in my top five favorite bands for about 16 years now).  The song is called "Sextape", it's off their latest album Diamond Eyes.  I thought I would share it with all of you ..... ENJOY!!