Red planet board plans

I've always wanted to buy some of the forgeworld board tiles ever since they started making them and I've finally given in and bought a few. I recently read Mechanicum and I want a titan legion so badly! This would be silly as I'd spend all my money and then probably never stick or paint them let alone get to use them in a game. So I thought a red planet board was a better idea. It would feel sweet to chuck down my knights on it and have a game with them. (When I er... paint the second and third... or give up and play the one with my guard or BA...). I saw someones blog who used a very nice car paint spray for a great base colour... and if I can find it again I'll copy him... and link him... funtimes.

The plan is to use three realm of battle tiles for the rest. I'd like to have some smaller but taller line of sight blocking terrain for these to contrast the busy but low stuff on these. An imperial sector manufactorum built as a solid building rather than a ruin might fit the bill for one. I also like the idea of a couple of taller rock pieces that could be moved about and tie into the winding canyons in the mechanicum book. These would ideally look like the martian bute pieces the terranscapes boards use (or be them if I can source them). Any thoughts for alternate ideas or easy ways I can get or make some of these rock pieces would be appreciated!

More to come when I get some paint on them.

More Garden of Morr Regiment filler progress for Empire.

A bit more progress on the last two of my regiment fillers. One for my halberdiers and another that was to be for spearmen... but they're just not as good in game as the halberds I've found so maybe they need a rethink.

Heres the Halberd one...

...with a shot of one of the chaps. Man those white bits on his shoulder look messier close up...

This is the other guy.

I'm not convinced about the direction chap number two is facing but it means it'l be easier to transport without snapping his halberd off so he'll probably stay like that unless he happens to fall off and I feel strongly enough about it.

I love this statue.

It's a gorgeous model.

I might put greatswords on it instead, they're very expensive models, although I believe I already got a bit overzealous and ended up with loads of them after I decided to do some Reiksguard on foot, mainly awaiting paint of course. Given what the statues holding maybe this should have been the swordsmen... oh well!

I might go in and paint the plant up, but it doesn't really look real enough to be painted green and red/similar. Thoughts?

 What guys should I put on it? It would be cool to fill out the set so to speak and have spearmen, of course then it might just sit on the shelf forever. More thoughts?

I'm pleased with how these have come out, One day I might make some more to fill out some dogs of war regiments I own that could do with being a bit larger in the new ruleset. Hope you like them!

Codex Blood angels thoughts (rant) and my first1500k list ideas.

I've had some pretty strong feelings about the last cycle of codexes that have been released throughout 6th and 7th from the absurdly powerful eldar and farsight tau books to the money grabbing reprint without all your units so you have to buy more books that were grey knights and imperial guard, not to mention the disgrace that is supplements. So it was with a mixture of fear and excitement that I awaited the blood angels book, my favourite army of all time that I've played on and off for nearly two decades. That makes me feel old. Moving on...

HQ:
Flavour win: Captains can take artificer armour now. For some reason they couldn't last book even though being artisan armour guys was their thing... on the negative. They've still awfully bad value for your points.
Odd: Sanguinary priests are now an HQ with a points cost increase and further massive nerfs to their abilities. (That makes three separate nerfs and a points cost increase and a reduction in the number you can take since they were released in 5th edition. They can't take terminator armour anymore, this makes me very sad having converted two...) In short theyre now awful. Your army gets the +1 I and S on the charge they used to grant without them. the feel no pain is now only to the squad they're with and can through good placement be picked off mid phase suddenly denying your unit the buff. Bad.
Silly: Librarians got a point cost reduction. As if they weren't the top choice before. Librarian dreds are now HQ. this is cool. They don't seem bad for their points cost but its probably easier to protect your standard HQ in a transport.

I'm taking 1 lvl2 lib.

Troops:
WHY?: Assault troops are back to fast attack. time to redo our armies. Having said that razor spam with the now much cheaper tactical marines seems very strong, tactical sarges can now take an inferno pistol so the powerfist double melta squad in a razorback stays the same at actually a similar cost. Scouts are also alot cheaper but seem bad compared to the tactical squads.

I'd take four tacticals with vet sarge. Inferno pistol, powerfist, melta in razorback with laz plas.

Elites:
These are much the same, but with vanguard vets no longer able to deep strike then assault.
Honour Guard are now elites and called command squads. This doesn't make any sense flavourwise, there doesn't appear to be any limit in relation to HQ's so you can take up to four with the blood angels force organization chart list that gives you all +1 I on the charge so you want to. These are so undercosted. They're two attack marines, with a free FNP for the unit, free powersword and combat shield for the company champion that can take triple special weapons... so melta's. Nuts.

I'm taking one honour guard with triple melta in a razorback with laz plaz.

Heavy Support:
Vindicators are still able to gain fast. with the weird fast-ordinance rules these can move 12 and fire and are really silly vs vehicles and infantry alike.

Three please (in larger point games I'd take a stormraven... you know... when I build and stick the one I bought 4 years ago... so in another 4 years maybe?)

The list has a problem with fliers which won't matter in my playgroup but having a stormraven seems like a good idea. I'll have to get around to painting mine. For goodness knows what reason GW didn't see fit to give the blood angels the new marine flier, or the pretty terrible marine anti flier tanks, which won't help their model sales so seems strange meaning its storm ravens or aegis defense lines for AA in the book which is lame. All part of GW giving up on bothering with balance hoping you'l play unbound and buy even more of their books I guess.

My gaming group certainly is getting pretty close to simply writing our own rulesset for the sweet models with increasingly lazy book support GW make. The fluff text in the book is so copy and paste from the old one it mentions how the Blood angels for some reason have so many Land raiders they can use them as line transports however in the list they are no longer dedicated tranports for anything but terminators. This sort of laziness is pretty inexcusable. Did they really not even read the text they were copy pasting to check if it worked?

All in all they've taken out alot of the character of the book and vastly reduced the number of different lists you can play. The power level of the book has probably increased slightly with the flavourless undercosted honour guard spam being possible. I fully anticipate them putting back the assault troops list and possibly the death company list in supplements that will make me angry by rudely charging me another £30 to play the same lists my old book allowed me.