Saim-Hann Vyper finally done.

Together with the Spiders this was another model that was doomed to the 'Warp Box'. Don't you just love a tournament to get those painting juices pumping. And in all honesty, i wouldn't have completed this Vyper if i didn't need to use it in the combat patrol event. So thank you again guys. I hope you have lots of GW stuff because i intend to repay your indirect assistance in getting me to paint my models. Repay by buying more models to put in the warp box hehehe.

The Vyper is a nice model to build and paint. In Saim-Hann colors, i believe it looks all the more menacing. Unfortunately, their stats aren't that good. That's why i didn't use them in my Altansar list in favor of better performing war walkers. This will the first time i'm using the vyper. Let's see how it fperforms in a combat patrol environment. Armed with a scatter laser it will provide long range firepower for the guardians. At S6 Heavy 4 it should be able to deal with rhino's and similar armored units.

A Vyper is a must build and must field option if you're into the fluff of Saim-Hann. Did not the Wild Host artisans pioneered the light skimmer. I'll need another one to include in my new Saim-Hann list. Speed is always the key.

The Wild Host is now ready to wreck havoc n Penang.

Heads will fall!!!

Warp Spiders are done - Thank you Gameforge Penang

Finally, my spiders are all fully painted!! Got these as a gift from my brother way back in December 2008 and the best they got were a white prime in preparation for this year's Legio Iron Painter. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned and they went straight into the box of 'To-Do' Projects = Warpbox = probably never get done.

That is until Gameforge announced the combat patrol tournament to be held this Saturday, 20th. So thank you Gameforge for indirectly forcing me to paint the spiders.

Not the best of paintjob i admit but they're not too shabby either. I hope they'll do better during the tourney. Luckily, the standard spiders colors are similar to the Saim-Hann scheme so there wasn't much for me to change as compared to my avengers and dragons.

I'm really looking forward to this road trip. Arzmi, Iqbal, Jeff and me to a 40k tourney. A hobby shop which will definitely have GW merchandise. Play combat patrol scenarios. Meet other hobbyist.

Nice.

The Wild Host warps to Penang

The Wild Host will make it's first appearance outside of Klang Valley at the 40K combat patrol tourney organized by Gameforge in Penang. At 400 points its a challenge to design a competitive list since all Eldar units are expensive so i decided to go with theme instead. My list will be based around what the Saim-Hann is famous for ..... Speed. With that, the force that will be wrecking havoc in Penang on the 20th March will be :

1 Warlock on jetbike with embolden
6 Guardian jetbikes (3 with shuriken cannons)
1 Vyper with scatter lasers
5 Warp spiders including an Exarch.

Initially i wanted to go for an all guardian jetbike force but decided to put in a Vyper and some Warp Spiders to act as support.
The guardian will be led by a Warlock with Embolden for much needed Leadership re-roll. I'm sure they will be shot at a lot and without fortune to help them survive, I foresee making leadership check quite often. I hope I'm proven wrong.

Tactics is quite obvious, shoot from afar and proceed to strategically reposition themselves. Warlock is there if i ever need a S9 weapon. Spiders will be fun as harassment unit and i'm still trying to find points to give them deep strike ability.

And yes, the spiders aren't fully painted yet but i have 5 days to go so no worries there.

Legio League 3 Results

The official results are out.

League 3 Champion : Warboss Iskazri

Best Sportsman : Lord Azlan of the Ravenwing

League Fanatic : Lord Alvin of the Alpha Legion

Marksman Award : The Wild Host!!!

Best Appearance : The Wild Host!!!

We managed to get 2 awards. How awesome is that!!!

At the begining of the League we were trying to go for the League Fanatic but just couldn't keep up with the Alpha Legion. You just never knew whether you were playing against Alvin or Iqbal, the whole we are the alpha and the omega thingy.

Anyways, a big congratulations to Warboss Is. We tried our best to stop the green tide but was found wanting. At least it didn' t went as bad as during our first encounter. Perhaps if there's a 3rd time we could get lucky. Perhaps it'll snow in Shah Alam.

Congrats to Lord Azlan aka Sammeal on the Best Sportsman. We had a super fun time dicing words with him during the league and Arenxis campaign. It was a blast. Now that's it over, can you please return the jetbike to us. We do not like to ask twice......

Congrats also to Alvin. First time joining a League ( i think) and already a fanatic. Well done bro. I hope to see your eldar in the next league. Then you can doom me all you want. LOL

My sincerest appreciation to all whom I played against during the League for the painting scoring. I make no qualms that it is nice to be appreciated over something that you worked so hard to produce. This Saim-Hann list is my 2nd after the Altansar that i fielded during League 2. And i must say the only reason i was motivated to get it done was seeing all the other nicely painted army that i went against during League 2. Who can ever forget Jeff's and Azlan's army?? There were many others too that put my Altansar to shame.

So this Best Appearance in essence should go to all you who have participated in Legio's League events. Make no mistake, we have set a new standard in the Malaysian gaming scene.

Well done to all.

Thank you.

Ave Legio !!!

The Marksman belongs to The Saim-Hann

Legio's Marksman Tournament to pick the last player for League 3 Finals was held last Saturday, 5th Dec. I am proud to announce that The Wild Host of the Saim-Hann came out victorious!

Wow! This is my first ever win for in 40k!! Not bad for an army which was actually built for Inquisition Wars. Those late nites of rushed painting did at least amount to something in the end.

A brief run down on the Marksman event. I really have to buy a digital camera and get a habit of taking pictures of the games i played. So apologies but just words this time.

1st game : Shazli Ultramaries. Seize ground-Dawn of war.
I won this game by controlling 1 objective and contesting the other 2. Managed to kill his most expensive HQ and unit. 17 - 5 to the Saim-Hann.

2nd game : Alvin Alpha Legion CSM. Annihilation-Pitched battle.
THE most awesome game of 40k i've played so far. One because Alvin is such a nice guy to play against and two because the game was truly brutal. From turn 1 units and vehicles were exploding and being destroyed everywhere.

The highlight is my dire avengers unit saving 9 power weapon wounds from his 2 chaos champion. 1st invul save was for my count as Eldrad on a 3+ which i made. Balance 8 wounds on the avengers on a 5+ invul from the exarch shimmershield. 1st roll saw me getting seven 5's or 6's and only 1 unsaved. Coz the unit was fortuned i get to re-roll. I rolled a 5 and shouted out loud!!!!! Had so much fun playing with Alvin. We were both laughing our heads off sometimes.

In the end i got around 8 or 9 killpoints compared to his 6. Managed to kill his most expensive HQ and unit so another 17-5 to the Saim-Hann.

3rd game : Iqbal Alpha Legion CSM ( hey...didn't i just played against the Alpha Legion?) Sieze ground-Spearhead
I knew going into this game i had the lead over Iqbal so decided not too take any unnecessary risks like in the game against Alvin. It was also the most heavily terrain-ed table i've ever played on so movement were very restricted. Having better long range weapons i decided to camp near my objective and shoot his forces from afar. Seer council would go out alone to contest his objective and make a nuisance of themselves.

Since killpoints would be counted in the event of a draw i decided to get early points by targeting
his rhinos and other soft units. In the end i managed to destroy 3 rhinos, 1 oblitz squad and 1 termie squad. He only killed my 5 man dire avenger unit before time ran out.

A tie but i won on killpoints score. 15-5 to the Saim-Hann.

3 games and 3 victories saw me getting the Marksman Award! Very nice! Now i get to go to the finals and meet Iz and his unstoppable orks.....groan...

Thank to so much to Shazli, Alvin and Iqbal for the game. I had great fun.

Thanks also to Jeff for organizing the tourney.

Did i not say that heads would roll??? LOL

Magnets

My first knowledge that there were tiny magnets for hobby use was when i was introduced to a miniature air combat game called Airwar C21 by Scott over at Wolf's. He had these really nice 1/600 scale aircrafts which were affixed to small GW flying bases. I thought they were so cool. The magnets were small and stuck to each other very well.

So i bought some magnets to start my own Airwar C21 game but found the best use for them being on my jetbike seer council and guardians. And i've never looked back. These magnets are fantastic. Being so small in size(3mm x 1.5mm), there is no limit to their uses.

I got mine from http://www.domsdecals.com/ at around 34 cents a piece. Also got the aircraft decals from him. Nice guy and no shipment problems.

The clicking sound when i attach my councils to their bases is pure heaven. Its like hearing a harlequin concerto. Which none of you guys could probably understand...right Dann? hehehe

The sound as i detach them cause they got killed however isn't nice. So i would really really appreciate it if you guys show them some love when you next see them on the table. They're just eye candy and isn't really much of a threat. That's why i need to fortune them up every turn and turbo boost whenever i can.

I love you guys. My singing spears will show you just how much next time we meet.


One magnet on the flying base.








One underneath the jetbike.









Viola!!! Farseer on a jetbike. Heads will fall!!!

My Counters

Ever since i started playing my eldar army i knew i had to devise a system of tracking the psychic powers i was throwing around. Being spoiled with using 2 farseers in my list, 1 of them being Eldrad, i was throwing a maximum of 5 psychic powers per turn. Some powers like fortune and doom lasts for 1 round so keeping track of which units were affected was helpful to both my opponent and me. Plus it's a good control method to stop me from casting more powers than i'm allowed heheheh.

After much thought, i came up with counters. I used our Malaysian 1 cent coins which i had and still have in abundance. How come i have so many 1 cent coins??? Its quite simple to make actually and very cheap. But most important...it was effective.

From left to right, top to bottom.

1. Wash the coin clean.

2. Base with fotress grey.

3. Color with blood red.

4. Make the saim-hann stripes

5. Varnish with humbrol semi-gloss varnish. You'll notice that the red turns a darker red.

6. Paint the required psychic power initials with skull white.

VIOLA!!!! Super cheap counters done super quickly!!! I usually have a couple of them on standby in case i need more.

To show the powers of each warlock. D = destructor, En = enhance and Em = emboldenn.

Quiz : Dire avengers bladestorming with fortune and guided.

Chaos termies are doomed.

Will the termies survive?

Masking 101

Ever since i changed color scheme to saim-hann i've been getting a lot of questions on how i managed to get the stripes/lines to be so neat. Simple answer : airbrushing and masking. I know for a fact, beyond any doubt, that i could never produce the same result using a brush. I am hopeless with a brush. That's why most of my models are airbrushed. Due to my experience with aircraft modeling.

How it's actually done is as follows. It would work the same if you're using brushes to paint the lines. Here i'll show how i made the black stripes on my fire prism.

1. Primed the surface with codex grey.

2. Sprayed black on the areas where i wanted it to be black.

3. Using a 1cm wide ordinary masking tape, i masked the area where i want the black stripe to be. Weaken the tape's adhesive by sticking it to paper or slighty dusty surface before applying to the surface.

I usually allow the paint to dry 24 hrs before applying the masking tape but if time is of essence, then i use a hair dryer.

4. Mask all the other area i want to remain black.

5. Another coat of codex grey to remove unwanted black area.

6. Sprayed 3 coats of blood red.

7. Carefully peel off the masking tape. Peel the tape at a 90 degree angle to prevent the tape from peeling the paint off. Some paint might/will be peeled off but this can be repaired using brushes.

8. Using oo brush, carefully paint in the segment lines with black paint.

9. Carefully paint outlines using blazing orange along the red areas. And that's it.

10. Coated using semi-gloss varnish. Blood red would change to a dark hue.

11. Final product. I know its a big leap from Step 10 but just wanted to show how it looked like when finished.

Hope this helps. I have done some commission work for friends in the past. Wouldn't mind doing it again just to help you get your models painted ASAP. But only for spraying base coats, primary colors or stripes/simple designs. Minimal fee. Neatness guaranteed. Hehehehe.

Legio Inquisition Wars

It was an awesome event!!! I had so much fun. Where do i even begin...

1. My army preparation was as well as it could be. I'm happy that everything was completed well before the tourney date. This will be my number 1 principle for all future tourneys that i enter.
'Complete painting 1 week before tourney date'.

2. Tourney organization - EXCELLENT!!! We got a t-shirt and a TAC ruler upon registering. Tables were awesome. I loved the city table best and was hoping to get a game there but wasn't destined to. Scenarios were modified 40k but i esp loved the 2 game scenario were we had the every turn exploding warp stones that we had to contest. That was a very nice twist.

3. Players were very nice. Atmosphere was friendly.

My 1st game was against eventual Tourney Champion, Lim Soo Jin. You would not believe how good his army is painted. Most guys commented on the freehand painting that he did on his landraider but to me...the best was his converted attack jetbike. Those 3 models are .....unbelievable!!! It is so so nicely done and painted. Being a Saim-Hann player who uses a jetbike council, i am humbled by his rendition of the space marine att bike on gravs. You have to see it to believe it. Back to work on my jetbikes..... I lost this game.

My 2nd opponent was eventual Tourney Best Sportsman, Ang Hongxi from Singapore. He played a choas IG army, the 1st for me. The scenario had a special twist whereby D3 +3 warp stones/objectives counter would explode every turn with no cover saves allowed. I had so much fun in this game from the exploding warp stones. The element of having to contest an unstable objective is genius. Ang was a pleasure to play against and truly deserves the best sportsman award. We even traded numbers afterwards for Sporecon next year. I won this game.

My 3rd game was against Abdul Kadir. Kill point game. By this time my feet were already aching due to amount of time i spent standing up. This was a see-saw battle which had me having the upper hand early but was eventually over-ran by his superior CC units. Highlight of this game came after when i shared with Kadir a trick us golfers use to handle the Mrs after spending a day away from home rolling dice. I hope you tried the trick bro hehehehe. I lost this game.

I ended in 14th out of 24 players. My points were 27 victory points, 9 for appearance and 5 for sportsman. Although i'm humbled by my appearance score, it was ouch for sportsman. But still 5 out of a possible 9 is considered average. I will definately work hard on this aspect of my gaming.

4. Lessons learnt.

My 1 regret during the tourney was not finding the time to take pics. I was so involved in my games that i failed to actually make time to take pics. My fault entirely. This i will rectify for the next.

Wear comfortable shoes. You'll be standing a lot during the games and by the 3rd game my feet were already starting to ache and i had minor cramps that nite.

5. Army composition. I liked the way my list played. It was fun and mobile. The seer council was a joy to play and became a fire magnet every turn...i honestly don't know why??DA's are not good in CC even with the exarch having powerweapon, shimmershield and defend. Fire prisms didnt do to well. I'm thinking of changing them to more council and walkers or banshees..

Overall it was an amazing day. My heartiest appreciation and congratulations to Jeff and Azlan for organizing this tourney. Well done guys!!!

Khairul 2.0 Craftworld Saim-Hann

I decided to change craftworld around March this year. The main reason was because i was unhappy with the color scheme and painting standard of my Altansar. This time i decided on one of the major craftworld only to be able to use the decals provided. It finally came down to Ulthwe or Saim-Hann. Beil-Tan and Alaitoc were already represent in our gaming community and i wasnt too keen on Iyanden color scheme.

Ulthwe because i wanted to use Eldrad. Saim-Hann because of the jetbikes. I had decided i wanted to start a jetseer council so the red and black of Saim-Hann would really strike out compared to Ulthwe's black. Plus making those stripes using an airbrush would be both easy, quick and produce a clean neat finish. So Saim-Hann it was. Looking back, i'm glad i choose Saim-Hann. The stripes turned out beautiful and blood red was perfect after a spray of semi-gloss varnish

1750 The Storm Riders

Farseer Khairul (count as Eldrad).









Farseer on jetbike - jetbike, fortune, spear.
This was a shining spear exarch model. I cut the helmet side wing tips and glued one at the back to turn him into a farseer. His right arm comes from a banshee exarh model to represent a singing spear. The cowl for all the council is black, the opposite of guardian jetbikes. And I painted gold stripes to differ him from the warlock jetbike council.




Jetbike council - 5 warlocks; jetbikes, 2 destructor, 2 embolden, 1 enhance, 5 spears.
All are shining spear models painted in Saim-Hann colors. The right arms are from dire avenger exarch power weapon arms. Again to represent singing spears. Cowl is black with red stripes.

Dire Avenger (10 inc an Exarch).

Exarch has power weapon and shimmershield, defend.

Dire Avengers squad B (5 avengers).

Guardian jetbike squad (6 guardians).
2 with shuriken cannons.

Fire dragons (6 dragons).

Wave serpent - transport for farseer & DA squad A.

Stones, brightlance.

Falcon A - transport for fire dragons.

Holofield, stones, brightlance.

Fire prism Blue.

Holofield, stones, shuriken cannon.

Fire prism Green.

Holofield, stones.

This will be my list for the Inquisition Wars tourney held at Legio this Saturday. It's quite fragile but so much fun to play. Except for the DA squad B, all elements are fast and meant to either shoot from far or zoom around.


Jetbike seercouncil has got to be the cream of my list. If my dice rolls are good then they're awesome. They're a fire magnet though and could die easily from concentrated fire.


I'm still tinkering around with this list and thinking about getting rid of a prism to get 1 or 2 more warlocks or maybe another squad of guardian jetbike.

Here's hoping my Storm Riders ride into the storm this saturday and come out triumphant!!!