Grey Hunter Pack Gamma

More construction. I slowed down the last week or so, as I was pretty sick. There are a bunch of painting and converting tasks I'm going to have to do for my regular Marine army for an upcoming tournament, so there'll impact the timeline a little as well.

I've placed an order for the remaining units from Forgeworld. I can't wait to see the Slaughterer in person! That model was really the inspiration to do this whole army. I've also got a GW order on the way for some vehicle bitz to go on my Rhinos, which should hopefully be ordered next week. Hopefully I can have all of the orders in by the end of Feb so that I can have the whole army put together (and ready for playtesting/painting) by the end of March.

Grey Hunter Pack Beta

Another day, another pack built. This unit only took me an evening - I think my organization is starting to pay off! Here are some pics of the new guys.

I finished up the Wolf Guard over the weekend as well... pics to come soon.

More Progress, And Blood Collected

The construction is continuing. The Wolf Guard are basically done, although I'd like to add a little more bling to their models. Pictures will be posted soon. I've had to take a break for a couple of days tho as I badly gashed my thumb - I suppose that it's only fitting that my own blood is the first collected for the Blood God. :)

I've also just realized that I didn't clean off the resin bits I got from Forgeworld, which means that the paint may not stick well. Most of the bits are on magentized arms, so I can just soak those easily enough. I'll have to basically soak the whole upper body of my Thunderwolf Cav, tho, to get their heads and torsos. D'oh! I'll get that underway today, and start soaking all of the unused bits so that they're ready to go.

I think I've found a way to use spikey bitz. Chaos marines have a ton of them, but they make models tougher to pack around and have a tendency to break. I'm going to experiment with embedding them in the bases of my Wolf Guard and Thunderwolf Cav models to theme things up. That shouldn't affect their pack-ability, but will give the models that much more visual appeal.

Grey Hunter Pack Alpha

One unit done!

One thing I didn't really appreciate when I designed this list was just how distinct each model in this unit was going to be. There's only two basic joe's in the squad - the rest have some sort of wargear. And all of the special gear is magnetized, in case I need to reconfigure the squad later. I'm glad I got it sorted before I started gluing arms on. :)

I'm getting a fair bit of glare off the lights in these pics... I'll have to try to experiment with making the lighting more indirect to remove that in the future.

Target Army List Redux

As I was waiting for models to arrive, I kept myself occupied by experimenting with variations of my target army list. For those who don't remember, my original list was this:

Wolf Lord (Runic Armour; Wolf Tail Talisman; Wolftooth Necklace; Thunderwolf Mount; Frost Weapon; Storm Shield; Rending in CC only; Saga of the Warrior Born)
Wolf Priest (Melta Bombs; Wolftooth Necklace)
Lone Wolf (Mark of the Wulfen; Storm Shield; Thunder Hammer)
15 Blood Claws Pack (Meltagun x2; Power Fist)
15 Blood Claws Pack (Meltagun x2; Power Fist)
10-Man Grey Hunters Pack (Mark of the Wulfen; Wolf Standard; Meltagun; Power Fist; Rhino)
10-Man Grey Hunters Pack (Mark of the Wulfen; Wolf Standard; Meltagun; Power Fist; Rhino)
3-Man Wolf Guard Pack (Power Weapon x3)
1-Man Thunderwolf Cavalry (Storm Shield; Frost Weapon)
1-Man Thunderwolf Cavalry (Storm Shield; Frost Weapon)
1-Man Thunderwolf Cavalry (Storm Shield; Frost Weapon)
5-Man Wolf Scouts (Mark of the Wulfen; Melta Bombs; Power Weapon x2; Meltagun)

This list has a lot going for it. However, as I went over the list I gradually became less and less impressed with the Blood Claws. Sure, they're a big scary mob of guys, but:
- they're only WS3 so they'll waste a lot of attacks
- they're on foot so they're slow, and
- they really need a wolf screen to increase their survivability on the long march in.
I tried to trim out some fat in order to cram a unit of Fenrisian wolves in, but I was never that pleased with the results. I'd have to cut one of the Thunderwolf Cav units (which are going to be the centerpieces of my army) in order to free up a Fast Attack slot for what was essentially a meat shield. So, it became pretty clear that the Blood Claws should go and be replaced by Grey Hunters.

At around the same I discovered (via the excellent Space Wolves blog) that Wolf Guard powerfist upgrades are cheaper than the Grey Hunter versions, so some swapping of loadouts was in order. And since I've got the hood up already, I might as well look into keeping the troop units to Khorne's number (8), for no other reason than it's fluffy. Why not!

After much tweaking, here's the new target list:

Wolf Lord (Melta Bombs; Runic Armour; Wolf Tail Talisman; Thunderwolf Mount; Frost Weapon; Storm Shield; Rending in CC only; Saga of the Warrior Born)
Lone Wolf (Mark of the Wulfen; Storm Shield; Thunder Hammer)
5-Man Wolf Guards (Melta Bombs; Combi-Meltagun x5; Power Fist x5)
7-Man Grey Hunters (Wolf Standard; Meltagun; Power Weapon Mark of the Wulfen, Rhino)
7-Man Grey Hunters (Wolf Standard; Meltagun; Power Weapon Mark of the Wulfen, Rhino)
7-Man Grey Hunters (Wolf Standard; Meltagun; Power Weapon Mark of the Wulfen, Rhino)
7-Man Grey Hunters (Wolf Standard; Meltagun; Power Weapon Mark of the Wulfen, Rhino)
7-Man Grey Hunters (Wolf Standard; Meltagun; Power Weapon Mark of the Wulfen, Rhino)
1-Man Thunderwolf Cavalry (Storm Shield; Frost Weapon)
1-Man Thunderwolf Cavalry (Storm Shield; Frost Weapon)
1-Man Thunderwolf Cavalry (Storm Shield; Frost Weapon)
5-Man Wolf Scouts (Mark of the Wulfen; Melta Bombs; Power Weapon x2; Meltagun)

With this list, I get
- 8-man Grey Hunter squads, when you add the Wolf Guard to each unit. Fluffy!
- powerfists on the Wolf Guard and power weapons in the Grey Hunters. More points-efficient for the same loadout.
- plasma pistols for the Grey Hunters. Not cheap but very characterful and cool looking

The only part of the list I'm still unsure of is the Lone Wolf. He's a complete beat-stick, and my opponents'll be hesitant to take him out as he'll give me a victory point. However, he can't deep strike so he's going to have to footslog his way across the map making him the slowest part of my army by far. And with terminator armour, I can't even pop him into a Rhino to hurry him along. I'll have to try him out for a couple of games and see whether or not he fits in with this list.

[edited to remove plasma pistols from Grey Hunters, because I apparently can't count >.<]

Construction Underway

Now that all of the orders have finally arrived, I've started gotten construction fully underway! I taken over a good part of the living room in the process. :)

I'm slowly seperating out the bits and pieces of Berzerker and Chaos Warrior bitz and distributing them around to the various squads-to-be. There should be enough variety to keep each unit distinct, but with enough common parts to keep them contected in theme.

I got the Possessed squad built - they're going to be the marines with Mark of the Wolfen. The original plan was to take some parts (like the arms, etc) and use the basic marine bodies, but they models look so good I couldn't resist. Here are a couple of pics.

As you can see, I also got my photo cube assembled. The pics look a lot better with the right lighting. Here are my Thunderwolf Cav again, with shots taken from the booth.