Thoughts on my first game played with the Catachans.

I just came back from my first game at the local club. The game ended in a loss to the Catachans, but i learned alot from my first game and we already planed another game next Thursday against Jørgens Space wolves. We played 1000 points and we are both new with our armies and the game in general, here is what i learned.






1. Space Wolves in Rhinos and bikes cover the board extremely fast! Even without tubo boosting his bikes  managed to roll up and devastate Harkers devils which is stupidly did not put in cover. He killed 6 lasgunners and Harker, 1 flamer and the the 2 meltas ran of.... Harker managed to save a little face, by gunning down a wolfen on a bike. His Rhinos where in front of me in my turn 2!

2. Infantry squads can put down some hurt if given orders. My platoon squad and infantry squad almost wiped a full biker squad in my turn 1(with ALOT of help from the dice gods! Alotta 6, but still!)


3. Auto cannons are not as powerful as i was let to believe.. Next game i am switching half my Heavy weapons teams to rocket launchers. Their ability to use either Krak(strength 8 or Frag missiles strength 4 but blast template) would come in more handy than a strength 7 team with 2 attacks..

4. Ogryns hit damn hard with Strakens aura but 3 ogryns are not enough to win a close combat against a full grey hunter squad. I am gonna boost it up to 5 and i found out i really need a squad to first engage the enemy and then move the ogryns in for the deathkill. I am thinking about putting the Heavy weapons teams between strakens command squad and the ogryns near him. Bring it and ill stomp ya silly! Straken can then call bring it down on the two HWT teams, which i saw is deadly!

5. Marbo can do serious damage!... if he don't scatter his demo charge;) i could have taken out a full squad Grey hunters, but it scattered 4 inces and it only covered 2(which died) and he then got hammered by a melta afterward...

6. My sentinels are very good as a speed bumb, they lasted for 2 turns engaged with 7 marines(one with a powerfist) and there was still 2 left when Straken cleaned up.

7. Straken is a beast in close combat! He nailed 4 marines on the charge. His ability to ignore armor saves makes him the bane of marines. WS 5 along with strength 7 on the charge is insane!

8. Guardsman break very easy in close combat even when they are in greater numbers against space wolves.

I had a real blast with my first game, i was smiling all the way home and i am very excited about starting to play the game. I was so carried away that i forgot to take any pictures, however i will make sure to take pictures next week. Now i just need to find out what to paint for the next months goal(other than my last auto cannon HWT).


Thursday revenge belongs to the Catachans! Space Wolves beware!

Ras signing out.

Guardsman Marbo

So i know that the plan was to paint the last heavy-weapons team BUT! I ordered Marbo and Straken cause i need them for Thursday, when i hopefully will play my first  1000 points game at the local gaming club. When they came with the mail there wasn't much to do that to start on one of my favorite special characters in Warhammer 40k.. Marbo! Here is how he came out.

Lets have a look at his stats line and  gear.

Guardsman Marbo
WS 5 BS 5 S 3 T 3 W 2 I 5 A 4 Ld 7 Sv 5+

Unit Type: Infantry (unique)
War Gear: Flak armour; Ripper pistol, Envenomed blade, Demolition charge; Frag grenades and Melta bombs.

Now thats alot of gear for one guardman! Well hes not any guardsman but he is guardman Marbo!

Ripper pistol: This is sniper pistol with range 12 ap 2 and as all sniper weapons strength X. Correct me if im wrong but this means that in close combat he will gain another attack cause he is equipped with a pistol and a blade? if thats true thats 6 attacks if he charges!

6 attacks with with strength 3 might not be that lethal bit now comes the killer!

Envenomed blade: Marbo carries a big knife coated with all sorts of venom which wounds on a 2+ ! This means that he will have 6 attacks on the charge with WS 5 that wounds on 2+ with Initiative 5!!

Last but not least my favorite of all his gear...! His.. 


Demolition charge: Marbo have with him a demolitions charge that range 6 strength 8 ap 2 assault 1 with a large blast.. That is some serious damage.. But wait! it gets better. Lets take a look at his abilities.

Special rules: Fearless, Fleet, Hit and Run, Move Through Cover, stealth, loner and Hes behind you!

Lets look at the last two rules closer.

Loner: You cannot give Marbo orders from the officers.. okey fair enough.. lets look at the other rule.


Hes behind you!: Marbos skill at infiltrating is second to none in the Imperial Guard. Marbo always starts in reserve, even if the missions do not normally use this rule. When he do come in he can be place up to 1 inc from any enemy unit! He may not assault or move that turn although he can shoot normally. 

"In battle it is said that fighting Marbo is like fighting a shadow. Enemy commanders have sworn  that such attacks cannot be the result of one man and that an entire army must have ambush them".

I cant wait to use this guy in a game! Ras signing out..

Harkers Catachan devils done

I finally finished the last 3 plastic devils. Now the interesting thing, how do they look next to the metals ones or even compared to them. There is no reason debating the detail difference on the metal and plastic Catachans, but how do they look next to each other?

From a while away i cant seem to tell the diffrence, only if i pick em up can i see. This makes me happy, means that my army will look good togeather and i have the metal models for the eye candy if you look close.

With  Harkers Boys done, i can start the last heavy weapons team and  will have reached my goals, when its finished for this month. After that i wonder what to do for next month. I am considering the command squad and then treat me to one of my Ogryns!

I might have revise my army list before that tho, since i am thinking of bringing a flamer instead of the heavy-flamer and then add some grenade launchers in the 2 normal squads for some extra firepower. Time will tell what i end up with.

Ras signing out..

Catachan Devils WIP

Finished my 4 metal Catachan devils a week ago but i wanted them varnished before showing them of. This is the first time i varnish any of my models and i ma VERY happy and relieved about the result. I spend hours painting one of my models, some people call me insane for painting IG footslogging army in such a high standard, but that is the choice i picked when looking for my first Warhammer 40k army to actually play with. So naturally i was very scared about varnishing my models. I had heard horrible horrible stories about varnish ruining the paint job on models after being applied or changing the look of it... So it took me ages to find out how i would do it and still it was a frightening experience varnishing my first model.


BUT and that is a big but, it came out amazing if i may say so myself. It didn't change one bit of the paint job and was very easy to apply. Here a shot of my first completed metal Catachan devils after being varnished.

Next models coming up will be the 3 plastic devils. It will be fun to compare the new plastic models to the old metal ones standing side by side.


Ras signing out!

Oldschool Junglefighters, Catachan Devils and last Autocannon Heavy weapons team WIP.

lately i been shopping Catachans at Ebay for some of the older metal models, as i am crazy about their looks. They old metal models where one of the big reasons why i even started this Army. Sadly they are rare in hobby shops now a days so ebay or by pure luck is the only ways to get em. However i am in the lucky situation that very few people actually collect Catachan so i managed to get some not only amazing models, but they where also cheap!

Now i wanna mix the old models with the new ones for a more diverse look of my army. A few squads might compose of pure plastic as i don't wanna use the same looking metal models together. I am guessing i can collect about 10-12 metal lasgunners, one of each of the weapon teams(flamer, melta, plasma and grenade launcher), the 2 heavy flamer teams, the demolition teams. The sniper teams(thinking of using these 3, converting another 7 to use as proxy for ratlings(The codex says that the catachans are renown for their sniper teams but they are the same stats as cadians(BS=3)3?). I also got some of the metal Commanders and sergeants(still got a few more to get), which i will show later when i start painting does.


The first squad i will mix metal and plastic is Harkers Catachan devils. I already got harker and 2 more painted, although i am considering painting camouflage on their skin(got an idea on how to paint some interesting camouflage from the IG codex) and i put together the rest of the devils yesterday evening.

As you can see on the pictures, Harkers squad consist of: 2 meltas, vox caster, 1 heavyflamer, 6 lasgunners and big bad Harker himself. I just noticed by looking at the pictures, that i need to drill the gun barrels of the meltas and heavyflamer, but thats quick and easy. The plastic models i used for his squad came from the command sprue and one of the HWT sprue.


Now the last thing i am gonna talk about is my last of the auto cannon HWTs. I am gonna try to duplicate last months success and convert a HWT on the move. This time they will be moving through the jungle instead of being in the process of setting up. I wanted to capture the team moving, on the way to the others. First guy is pointing and picking up pace, while the other just looks up to see why his mate is


hurrying and apparently shouting for;) Now like the others i always put em on the small bases for painting purposes and then after painting them, putting them together with the gun itself. The Auto cannon fits in the front guys raised hand and the back guys lowered hand, but for the above mentioned reason i just put it next to them so you can get a feeling on what i am trying to do.


I might put the guy behind on a slightly taller piece of group so it will look as they are moving downwards, but you will have to wait and see what i make up my mind to do.. So this is the goal for September. I am waiting on 6 bottles of Modelmasters Dullcoat varnish to come from my local hobby shop so i can varnish the two pieces of terrain i made. One of them being a small forest base. All the trees for it i got from a friend who was kind enough to give them to me from his own bit box(thanks again Adam;)) and i got just enough trees for one more. The Terrain will be posted in a future post, when i get em varnished.

Rasmus signing out.

How many models to get started?

I am getting closer to the goal of getting some games in under the belt. I am hoping in latest 2 months, i will have my 500 point army all painted up and ready to test at the Local club. Very exited about this!!

So what i have left to paint:

Finished
Started on
Not started on

HQ

CCS (5) (vox)(Melta.)

TROOPS
PCS (5) (vox)(grenadelauncher)
(finished the Vox caster and grenade launcher)

Infantry squad (10) (vox)

veteran squad + Gunnery Sergeant Harker (10) (vox, 2 meltas, 1 heavyflamer)
(finished the Heavyflamer and 1 melta)

-Heavy weapons squad (auto cannons)
(just need 1 more HW team)

Infantry squad (10) (vox)

FASTATTACK

Scout sentinel (auto cannon)

I am feeling confident that i will get it done in 2 within two months. After that i will just have to varnish all the models(have 6 bottles of Modelsmaster Dullcoat on the way from my local hobby shop) and to fit them into my army case.

I just finished my second piece of terrain today and all i need to do is to wait for the varnish to arrive so i can varnish it before applying the static grass and bushes. I will post pictures as soon as i get the two pieces varnished.