Heavy Rifle teams: Done

I figured I'd whip these out tonight. I'm not a huge fan of their rules, but I own them for the sake of completion. They sometimes see the table in the NQ p.Vyros tier to allow me to advance move an extra jack.

I do really like the models though. Shame two of mine came without their back-gear. I'll have to get replacements soon and finish them off.. I just use them so rarely that I haven't been in any hurry to get replacements.

Warjack painting turtorial

I've been getting asked fairly frequently how I paint my warjacks, so I figured I may as well knock out a tutorial. I apologize for the poor pictures but it was the best I could do. I really wanted my Gorgon to be useful in some way (since they're horrible in the game) so he got volunteered for tutorial duty. Having said that, this is my first ever painting tutorial so please bear with me.

If you follow this guide you can get your jacks to a tabletop level very quickly. The total painting time for this gorgon was about an hour and a half excluding drying times. Normally I paint several of my jacks at once, but for the purpose of this guide I just did the Gorgon by himself.

Enjoy! I hope this helps someone out there.


STEP ONE: Prime that sucker black. I use vallejo surface primer with an airbrush, but you can use whatever black primer you like. You want to get pretty good coverage. If you like to add gravel to your bases before you prime, go for it.

STEP TWO: With the airbrush I then give a fairly solid coat of Vallejo German panzer grey surface primer. You can cover up most of the black or all of it really. If you don't have german grey, any dark grey will work.

STEP THREE: Using vallejo's Grey surface primer I do a zenthial highlight. You want to make most of the grey and black disappear from most angles. It's not a true zenthial from a 45 degree angle, just spray till you feel he looks good. This step is probably the most vital in painting the model. As before, if you don't have this color available you can use any light grey. I would suggest purchasing this if you intend to paint a lot of retribution, I use it quite a bit for everything.

here you can see the undersides of the model after the grey primer.

STEP FOUR: The final airbrushed highlight is done using Vallejo white surface primer. I thin it a bit to keep it from being opaque. THIS IS IMPORTANT you don't want to over power the grey from the previous step, only lighten it. This was sprayed sparingly till the grey was tinted a lighter color on the raised areas.

STEP FIVE: This part is optional, you can skip it if you don't have an airbrush (which makes me wonder how you got to step 5) or if you don't like the look. Using heavily thinned vallejo model color Blue Green, I punch in where I want some glowing. You want it heavily thinned so it is still a bit transparent and it will be easier to control. PRACTICE THIS ON A SCRAP PIECE FIRST. If you aren't careful, you will blast this color all over your white and have to start over! That's not fun!

STEP SIX: Switching to a paint brush, I paint Blue green into all the lines where there are the metal nodes. After that, I wash all of the node's cracks with Asurman blue from GW. This wash is no longer available, so any dark blue wash you have will work just fine.

STEP SEVEN: I lined all the cracks between the armor plates with Dawnstone. Any mid-tone grey will work fine. Codex grey, Neutral grey and so on. You can be a bit messy with this step, the next one will clean up any mistakes you make.

STEP EIGHT: Using a pure white, I then line all edges of the armor plates. This is the reason why we didn't want our final airbrushed highlight of white to be opaque.. If it was, you wouldn't be able to see the highlights at this step.

STEP NINE: Now it's time for all the metal bits. I painted all of those using plate mail from army painter. It's fairly new to me, I find it pretty close to chainmail from GW. You can use whatever metallic you like at this point. If you make any mistakes and spill onto the white, leave them for now and fix them after step 10.

STEP TEN: Give those metals a bath. I washed them with a 50/50 mix of secret weapon's soft body black and blue-black. I then added an equal amount of matt medium from liquetex. This should give the metal a dark blue tint without turning it blue. If you made a mess of the white in any areas, you may clean it up once the wash dries.

STEP ELEVEN: I painted the inner rim of the shoulder pads the same olive green I use elsewhere on my retribution. I used the 4 greens from the new games workshop line. Once they were highlighted, I washed them to tone it down a bit.

STEP TWELVE: I painted the face plate and blade housing's black. Some people prefer a metal color. It's up to you!

If you have your own way of basing your models, you're done! If you would like to base yours the same way that I do mine, continue reading

 STEP THIRTEEN: Glue down your sand. Get annoyed with how long it takes to dry. Be sure you let it dry completely. Remind yourself to glue it down before priming next time. Use rubbing alcohol to thin the white glue in the hopes that it dries faster. It still takes forever... I would suggest taking a break and doing something else at this point.

STEP FOURTEEN: After waiting 230982098 hours for the white glue to dry, paint your base black.

STEP FIFTEEN: Realize it takes a zillion years for paint to dry on sand as well. Once it's dry paint all the sand battlefield brown.

STEP SIXTEEN: Once the brown is dry, drybrush all the sand with menoth white base. Any bone or tan color will work as well. Go bonkers. This step takes about 5 seconds. I spend longer cleaning my brush after this step than I do drybrushing.

STEP SEVENTEEN: Paint the cork and any large rocks a dark grey color. Anything will work, if you don't have a dark grey just mix some black and white together till you have something that looks good to you. Once that dries, highlight it by adding in white and drybrushing or just highlighting. I often switch between the two from model to model depending on how patient I'm feeling that day. The effect is pretty much the same either way.

STEP EIGHTEEN:  Glue down a couple army painter tufts. Or whatever tufts you use. Or some static grass. Grass is grass, right? You're almost done now, so you're probably at the point where you don't care anymore like me

STEP NINETEEN: Make sure there aren't any children around, or priests, or elderly folks for the amount of swearing you are about to do. Glue down secret weapon leaves. They come in a variety of colors, I think I have the summer pack. They run about $5 a bag and will last you forever.. I only put a couple on a base, I feel less is more when it comes to these. You want just enough to break up the sand/rocks/grass. Try not to get glue on your model, or your fingers, or all over the place. Needle nose tweezers are extremely useful here.

At this point, paint the rim of your base and your front arcs in a way that you normally do and you are done! Thanks for coming along, I hope you found this helpful.

Vyros army list

So here is a Vyros list I have been messing around with:

P. Vyros +6
Banshee 10
Sphinx 7
Sphinx 7
Aspis 4
Sentinels+ua 11
x2 Arcanist 2

It's pretty fun so far. It doesn't have any tricks or gimmicks really, but it does attrition fairly well.
It's also got just enough shooting on the warjacks to pull off random bird's eye assassinations if you get close enough and are fighting against a low armor caster.

The idea was to have several cheap jacks and the reach is just icing on the cake. I've debated dropping the aspis in favor of a pair of Magisters or sylas and lynissa for the free upkeep and free charges. The aspis is usually shield guarding vyros or the sentinel officer and providing flank when needed.

Over all it doesn't have a ton of hitting power, but the list is fun to use and can jam warjacks fairly quickly under mobility.

I'll have to tinker with it some more

Hyperion: Done!

So I finally finished her off. I also got in two games against some Circle over the weekend using Rahn's new theme force from No Quarter.

All in all I'm very impressed with the colossal. It was able to tank the middle of the board and take a ton of abuse all while dishing out plenty of it's own the entire time. Oddly enough I only got to shoot with it once, but it spent quite a bit of each game in combat punching away.

Garryth 35

So this is an odd list I've been messing with. It look's like Rahn should be at the helm, but it's actually a lot of fun with Garryth.

Garryth +5
Sphinx 7
Chimera 6
Sentinels+ua 11
Battle Mages 5
x2 Magister 4
x2 Assassins 4
Wishnailer 2
Arcanist 1

Basically, what I did was Mirage on the sentinels and upkeep that for free with Wishnailer.
I would then Arc gallows with arcane secrets into a hard target to have the sentinels crush it. If the model had a high defense, I'd do a boosted shot with the sphinx in order to debuff it.

If there wasn't a good gallows target, the sphinx would debuff a target for the magisters and battle mages to do their thing on it.

Otherwise, it just grinds through threats bit by bit until Garryth has an opening. Usually he is hanging back and using his pistols every turn. If a charge presents itself, or the mages and magisters can drag a caster into charge range Garryth will have his way with them.

All in all, it isn't a super competitive list. But it definitely is fun to use.

Jacks: DONE!

So I've finished off all my warjacks.

The list is:
Discordia
Hypnos
x2 Phoenix
x2 Manticore
x2 Hydra
x2 Banshee
x2 Sphinx
x2 Chimera
x1 Griffon
x1 Gorgon
x1 aspis

I still want to get a pair of Demons for the sake of completion.

A couple of more Griffons for E.Vyros

And a pile of Gorgons for mangled metal silliness

Ossyan 50

I had a weird idea for a list. Everyone is talking about using the new E. Vyros as a jam list, so I came up with a similar concept using Ossyan. It's a way to combat E. Lilyth and some Hordes. The idea is that he is a bit more versatile and not so reliant on his jacks. While the list may not hit extremely hard all the time, it can have a nasty feat turn picking off their vital pieces. After that it should just be a process of mopping up whats left or looking for an opening to their caster.

Ossyan+6
Discordia 10
Hypnos 9
Aspis 4
Invictors+UA 12
Destors 11
x2 Destor thanes 8
x2 Arcanist 2

Reinforcements would either be x2 stormfall archers or a Banshee

The idea is quickening goes on the destors giving them spd 10. With a 20" run and 2" engagement they should be able to tie ranged beasts or units up. After the Destors have engaged something, I'll likely swap quickening to the Invictors.

Admonition would likely go on discordia or hypnos.

Shatterstorm is probably on the invictors for early turns, later they'll probably switch to quickening.


Breakdown of what I took and why:

Discordia: The battlegroup will probably brick up around Discordia giving any ranged element a hard time trying to take out my jacks. With the aspis loitering nearby it can cover either disco or Ossyan himself should he come under fire.

Hypnos: Obvious really. Why wouldn't you take this jack with ossyan? Void lock is amazing.

Aspis: Ossyan needs to get up close to get the most out of his feat, so the aspis will act as a body guard for him and eat the odd high power ranged shot for himself or discordia.

Destors: I'm not a huge fan of this unit. But with sr2012 scenarios, spd10 cav with reach can jam the other guy extremely quickly. Once engaged, the armor 19 isn't bad either. I don't expect them to do a ton of killing, but if they're a pain to take out and can keep the other guy from moving onto objectives or shooting.. They've done what I want.

Invictors+UA: Normally I'm not a huge Invictor fan. But they are bringing versatility to this list. Good enough armor to not sweat blasts (especially with discordia) high stats with CRA or flank, and hitting power. Their role will adapt to what I'm matched up against.

x2 Destor thanes: These will basically act as bullies. Hunting down solos, support models or small units. They get some pretty good benefit out of the feat. Their speed will enable them to bring their firepower to bear where needed. They can also jam if necessary similar to the Destors.

x2 arcanists: I believe if you have more than 1 jack in your battlegroup, you take 2 Arcanists. Period.