Black Legion 2.0

I finished assembling the Chaos Havocs squad last night and managed to put together one of my objective markers as well. This brings my model count up to 20 pieces, plus an objective! I've now got two HQ units although one of which I no longer plan on using other than to practice painting this color scheme. A squad of 10 Chaos Marines makes up my Troops selection, and another 5 dudes from the Havocs squad who form a single Heavy Support unit. Finally I have 3 Chaos Spawn assembled that constitute a Fast Attack unit but who do not use up one of the available selections from the Force Selection Chart. I'm set to begin work tomorrow on the Chaos Vindicator, which I then plan to follow with the second squad of Chaos Marines.

As I mentioned before, I have revised the initial army list that I am building towards and so Black Legion version 2.0 can be seen below. Even though this list does not include my unit of Chaos Spawn, my plan is to switch them in every now and then to replace the unit of Havocs as they are worth the same amount of points. I would like to use them both in bigger games but I feel like I could do without that extra bit of randomness when I am first learning to boss around my new team. Here then is the 1500 point list:

Chaos Sorcerer: Lash of Submission, Mark of Slaanesh, Terminator Armour.

5 Chaos Terminators: Power fist, Chainfist, Combi-melta, Combi-flamer, Reaper autocannon.

10 Chaos Marines: Icon of Khorne, Meltagun, Flamer, Aspiring Champion with Power fist and Plasma pistol, Rhino transport.

10 Chaos Marines: Icon of Chaos Glory, 2 Plasma guns, Aspiring Champion with Power weapon, Plasma pistol and Meltabombs, Rhino transport.

10 Summoned Lesser Daemons

5 Chaos Bikers: Meltagun, Aspiring Champion with Power fist.

5 Chaos Havocs: 3 Heavy bolters.

Chaos Vindicator

Points Total = 1500

10 Kill Points

Cry Havoc

Sorry about the lack of updates, my computer's power-cord died on me and so my access to the computer has been limited a bit. But other than a trip to visit relatives last weekend I have had some time to keep working on the Chaos Marines. I decided to skip around with the order of construction and have been putting together a squad of five Chaos Havocs for a while. I've become stuck on their backpacks and still have four more to clean and prepare. I feel like I am ready now to finish them up and so should hopefully be done in a day or so.

Fortunately the time that I have spent dithering on this step has not been entirely wasted but instead has produced a new HQ unit, my Chaos Sorcerer wearing Terminator armour. I eventually planned on removing the Chaos Lord on foot from my army in favor of one with jump pack so that he doesn't have to take up a spot in another unit's transport. I am not ready however to address the conversion work necessary for him and so thought that my Sorcerer would be a simpler project to complete. I've reworked my 1500 point army list using him as the mandatory HQ unit, which conveniently frees up that spot in one of the Rhinos and thus allows me to use two full 10-man squads of Chaos Marines. It's been a long time since I used psykers in any of my armies (well, except for Nids but that's an entirely different beast) and I don't know if I've ever had one as my sole character model. This should therefore be an interesting experiment and has also spurred some cool plans for themed objectives as well, but I'll save that for another time.

My, My, My... Hematoma!

Good morning and happy Columbus Day to you! I saw my GP last Thursday who diagnosed my chief complaint as being a hematoma, and believe me brother it is huge on the hematoma scale. It looked like surgery was going to be called for but my surgeon thought it would be okay to wait and see if my body would eventually start to break it down. So I'm scheduled for another surgical consultation on Friday even though I'm right now supposed to be leaving town that day. Oh well, that can be worked out I'm sure. My butt is still really swollen and sore, at times getting quite painful, but fortunately I think the pain-killers that the surgeon prescribed for me seem to be helping a bit.

Meanwhile I have been assembling more of my Black Legion forces, having finally finished putting together my first Chaos Space Marine squad on Saturday. I spent the rest of the weekend working on my Chaos Spawn for a change of pace despite not planning on including them in any low point-total army lists. It was just that I didn't want to put together any vehicles yet and the Spawn kit looked like a lot of fun with which to play around. I did have a blast with the four Spawn that I could build out of my two Chaos Spawn boxes, although it was a bit tricky trying to make them look balanced as there are so many places to add random bits to your hideous mutants. In fact I realized too late that it is possible to get carried away and add too much to your Spawn. Of the four I assembled, I am really only happy and content with three of them as the fourth is just too busy for my tastes... too many arms, too many tentacles, too many spines.

Nonetheless I am very pleased with the other three which is just enough to satisfy my warband's needs. I had such a good time with these Spawn I now expect to eventually add at least another bunch of three, although for the time being I am satisfied with waiting as I certainly have enough other models that need my attention. I next plan on addressing my other Chaos Space Marine squad so that I have a game-legal force, followed by either the Havoc squad or the Chaos Vindicator to support them with some serious firepower. Even though the Chaos Rhino transports are really key to how I plan on using my Chaos Marine squads, I do not plan on assembling them until I know I am ready to paint them as I intend on painting their interiors as well. I've never bothered with the inside of Rhino's before so I see that as being a big step for me, and I'm still a little intimidated by it which is probably another reason why I'm delaying. So I've got a plan and I'm even making some progress. Woo-Hoo!

The Pain Continues

The swelling from my fall has not gone down at all and has instead slowly increased, as has my discomfort. I haven't noticed any lessening of the pain either and think that it may be strengthening as well. So upon the advice of my wife and my chiropractor, I have reluctantly agreed to go see an MD about it. I am embarrassed and just don't want to accept the idea that I am that injured, although my current condition seems to be less a result of the injury itself but instead some defect in the healing process. Well, I have no idea really. When I fell, I hit really hard. Early on I said I did not think that I had broken anything, but I have never broken any bones before and so I have no point of reference. Therefore I cannot say for sure whether or not my tailbone feels broken. How am I to know? I may have gone to medical school but that isn't something they could have taught us. I don't want to have to see a doctor about this, but this has gone on long enough and caused enough discomfort that I am finally willing to do what I probably should have done a week ago.

I have not gotten a lot done on the hobby front, although that has as much to do with my injury as it does with my latest addiction, FarmVille. In three days I've harvested close to 700 crops and have rocketed up to Tenth level, and I'll be an Eleventh level farmer in the morning when I harvest my pumpkin patch. (And now my swollen and bruised ass isn't my most embarrassing admission in this post, distraction complete). I don't know how much the treatment for my injury will affect my daily routine so I cannot make any predictions as to what I will be able to get done with my Black Legion army. I am slowly assembling the second half of my first Chaos Space Marines squad and have them about half put together. So long as I don't have to go to the hospital I hope to have theses guys glued in a day or so, then I'll be ready to paint... 'bout time too, I'm eager to finally get back on the painting horse.

Grand Scheme of Things

Wow, I am so relieved that it is now October! The past month ended up being fine overall but there were most definitely times when it was putting me to the test. But we made it through and Mercury has moved on along its heliocentric wanderings. I am still suffering from having fallen down the wooden steps in front of my house but otherwise I think the worst is done and I am looking forward to a great month... I love the Fall.

With the start of October here I feel it would be helpful for me to lay out my plans with regards to my army projects for 40k. I know I've been talking a lot about Chaos recently but this does not mean that I have forgotten the other armies that I had mentioned since getting interesting in Warhammer again. This all started with me talking about how I wanted to put together an Ork Stompa and how I had a bunch of Imperial Guardsmen already assembled, but it now feels as though I've drifted widely since then. I've begun the process of founding my own Space Marine chapter as well as started the actual work on a new Chaos Space Marine army, which will in fact be my third such collection. I've even mentioned briefly that I had some interest in a Craftworld Eldar army themed as an Alaitoc force. So with all that in mind, what am I to do?

Well, I have decided to still collect and paint all five of those armies. For someone who has trouble making progress on even just a single project this may prove to be an overly ambitious undertaking. Nonetheless this is how I have chosen to direct my hobby efforts and I can only imagine how cool it will be to have my display cabinet filled with all those painted miniatures. My first goal is to get a small collection finished for each of these armies before I start to fill out any of them so that I can start playing low-point matches against my brother and friends. I will probably still give extra attention to the Chaos Marines so that I can begin playing games at my local gaming store. I think my Black Legion will be best for this as I already know for certain the colors that I'm going to use, as well as having sculpted shoulder pads which should make getting them table-ready even faster. Plus having two other complete chaos armies helps as I will be able to recruit extra units for service in my growing Black Legion warband.

Once I have finished with approximately 500 points for each of the five armies, I will then start adding to them in whatever order appeals to at the time. Ultimately my goal is to have these armies brought up to at least 1500, after which I can further pursue those that have proven themselves to be the most enjoyable to paint and use in games (or perhaps even those most in need of a really big Stompa). I've been tinkering with lots of army lists and now have a pretty strong idea of where I want to go with the different collections. I'm still sort of shaky with regards to the Eldar and have a fairly generic target goal for them, although that will probably result in leaving myself the most room to change their list as I go. Oh yeah, and I want to tie all of the armies together by putting together a completely new set of terrain using my Realm of Battles gameboard, all of the buildings I've been assembling, and the various other scenery kits that I have hanging around. Fun!