Modeling the Duke

Today we will look at a step by step on how I converted my own Duke Sliscus. He is a really cool charater and I think the dual swords are kick ass. I'll just warn you, this post is long and pic heavy. Feel free to skip to the end for some more shots of the finished model. If you still with me, I'm gonna get right into it
                                
What you need:     Dark Elf Lokhir Fellheart Model
                             2 X Power Sword from the Wych Kit
                             1 Splinter Pistol bit from Warrior Kit
                             1 Head from the Warrior kit
                             1 Blast pistol bit from the Warrior Kit.
Step 1: Take off the Head

Now, i suppose if you wanted to, you could keep the head. It doesn't look bad. I find the biggest mistake people make in converting is keeping the small things because they can. The kraken helm is a major part of the Fellheart Model. If you want a  Duke model and not a "Lokhir model your using as the Duke" then head has got to go. This is actually one of the most annoying parts of the conversion, especial if your using a hobbydrill and sprue cutters. Just be patient and it should go fine.I left the very bottom tendrils of the helm and I wand to paint them to look like clasps for the cape.

Step 2: The Head

I really love the head I used. I had it on my archon before I started using Vect. It just has a sort of ninja look. It also goes with the fluff that he does not like to share the air with lesser species. You must cut the head to fit the cut made for the body. After that you simply glue the head to the body. This is what mine looked like.

Step 3: The Left Arm

The left army on th body is molded on. You could just alter the knife the the sword, but i wanted to duke to have Dark Eldar gauntlets  to distinguish him as an Dark Eldar instead of fantasy elf. You can easily cut off the left arm up to the cape. Sadly I forgot to get a pic at this point. Sorry.

The left arm bit is easily fixed. Just cut the arm off just above the glove end.

Before

After

Step 4:  Now the right arm is a little more tricky. The body needs no work but the right arm sword will be tricky since the arm bit is left-handed.  You could just use the Lokhir arm and sword, but it just wouldn't look right. To me, twin blades means identical twin blades. Also, this conversion really needs a lot of Dark Eldar cues to pull it into the 41st millennia. 

First you take the Splinter pistol bit, and the second Wych sword bit. Now you want to cut the splinter pistol off the arm. Make sure to do this delicately and try to remove the trigger guard from around the finger.Later you will need to cut the arm off just above the gauntlet, but for now leave it on so you can get a good handle on the bit. Then you want to cut the top of the sword of just about the hand, but below the hand guard. Make sure to hang on to the hand bit, as you will need it in order to use the sword hand on the new arm. 

Then just glue them together. I recommend you use Plasti-Zap or some other form of plastic cement. These parts are too small to pin and super glue just won't cut if for a robust model. After that, clip the pistol handle off the new arm. Then cut the sword handle off the old arm and glue it on to the new arm.

Now all you do is cut the arm of just about the gauntlet and that arm is ready to go.

Step 5. Blast pistol:  As the Duke already has his hands full, the best way to model his blast pistol is to have it hanging from his belt. Take the blast pistol bit and cut off the arm. If you are careful you can cut the hand away leaving a reasonable handle behind. This will mostly be hidden so it doesn't have to be perfect. You may even have to trim the handle and bit to get it to fit well. Next simply glue the blast pistol to his side like so.

Step 6: Glue on the arms and Presto! you are read to take the Duke to battle! Here are some more pictures of the finished product.

So what do y'all think? Do you like or dislike it? What particular parts do you like or what could I do to make it look better? Comment and criticisms are appreciated.

BUY A @#%!&! CASE ALREADY!!

I know this hobby can be quite expensive and we all cut corners when we can, but a good figure case is like car insurance. Sure, it may feel like you don't need it and it is a waste of money, but once you have it you feel protected. And when something goes wrong and you don't have it, you really feel the sting.

When I first started, i was hell bent on not spending too much money. I played necrons so I only had to buy two colors of paint, Mithril Silver and Boltgun Metal. For the longest time I refused to buy Snot Green to add a little color, Refused.

It was the same for miniture storage. At first I used an old tool box my dad had. Of course, everytime i went somewhere I broke models. And everytime I had to glue them back together and it was very frustrating. When I finally did buy a case, I bought the cheapest thing I could find: a Reaper Mini Case. Full of foam $50 Bucks. After about six month, the low quality foam started falling out, i knew I made a mistake. After that I when back to caring things in tackle boxes. It was so frustrating. I finally realized that I had spent $100 and  countless hours and loads of frustration instead of getting what I needed the first time.

So I finally after years of frustration, i broke down and bought the biggest Sabol Army Case they make, and I am telling you it revolutionized the hobby for me. My army is always ready to go. I don't have to worry what is broke in my army. It is absolutely amazing.

So I get my brand new dark eldar and what do I do? I go out and buy foam immediately, right? I mean, I've learned my lesson, right? WRONG!!!

I keep saying to my self I'll buy it later and look what happens. I break vital bits on 2 -$50 models.  This is what i like to call a 'Stupid Tax'- you were stupid, now you must pay for it.

Anyhow, the moral of today's story is, Go buy a good quality case to keep you minis in. Get either a Battlefoam or a Sabol. Battlefoam is the best. Sabol is cheaper, but high quality and you won't be dissapointed with it. In the long run it will save you, time, money, and whole lot of heart ache. See ya'll next time. I'm off to order some foam.

ALIEN ASSAULT!!!!

As a new member of the FTW Bloggers Group, I was browsing through some of the great bloggers featured and came across a great article on Stillfrosty Conversions about Alien Assault. Alien Assault(or AA) is freeware strategy game made my TearDown. AA is about "orbital marines" that board "abandoned space ships" completing mission why fighting four limbed alien creatures know as "The Swarm." By now I hope this storyline is beginning sound familiar. This game is a computer adaptation of the ol' board game we all know and love. In fact, though my experience with the board game is limited, I believe the game play is the exact same.

The game has been out for over a year now, but since I haven't heard of it till now, i figured I would help get the word out. I have spent hours today playing the tutorial mission and it has been an absolute blast. Head on over to TearDown's Website and check it out. What do you got to lose, it's free!

'Saturday Gaming Results' and 'Stevo likes 'em naked'

The Battle Barn is having a whopping, humongous, 2500pts. tournament in March.  This will be the biggest tournament, points-wise, that I have ever played in. It's actually quite daunting. Each round will have a 3 hour time limit, meaning by days end, we should see about eleven hours of gaming. uhhhh!

About now is the time that everyone starts building test lists and practicing for the big event. I got to play test everything my list today against my good friend The Griz, and got to try out my new unit that I always wanted to try, The 'Naked' Nob unit. First I will give you my list:

   

   HQ   

 Thrakka   

 Big Mek -Kustom Force field, Power Klaw, Cybork Body 

   ELITES   

 15 Lootas   

 15 Lootas   

 10 Nobs    -       Waaagh!! Banner, Painboy, Power Klaw ,Stikkbombz 

                  Battlewagon-       Deffrolla ,Red Paint ,2 X Big Shoota, Amour Plates 

 TROOPS 

   7 Nobs Bikers- Cybork Bodies, 4 Power Klaws,  2 Big Choppas ,Painboy 2, Combi-Skorchas,  2 bosspoles,  Waaagh!!! Banner   

 18 orks nob Pk Bosspole   

 18 orks nob Pk Bosspole   

 11 grots   

 FAST ATTACK  

 2 Deffkoptas-  2 TL Rokkit Launcha,       2 Buzzsaws   

 HEAVY SUPPORT   

BattleWagon- Deffrolla,  2 Big Shootas ,Red Paint  

 BattleWagon- Deffrolla, 2 Big Shootas, Red Paint     

            Total-2499

The Result of the game was a solid ork win. We played  pitched battle, Sieze Ground (5 objectives). We called the game at the bottom of the 5th turn because Griz only had 3 models left on the board and I easily held two objectives. Don't be fooled by the end of the match results though, the battle was very close. Had a few key rolls went different, the game could have easily went the other way. One of the many highlights of the game was Thrakka. After calling the Waaagh! and killing a Death Company Dred, he was counter charged by The Sanguinor, a Libriain, the Super captain, and 20 Assault marines and didn't take a single wound!!! Waaagh!!! baby. Waaagh!!!

But the Real reason  for this post was to talk about my new favorite unit...

THE 'NAKED' NOBS!!!

Now to be honest, I had my doubts. The concept of running Naked Nobs is not that you run them with absolutely nothing, but that you run them with the bare essentials, usually painboy, bosspole, waaagh banner, and 1 PK. This way you get a powerful unit at a bargain price The counter strategy to this is running Nobs uber decked out with different equipment in order to take advantage of wound allocation. The Nob biker unit list above is a great example of this strategy. Of course, the down side to this strategy is that things get expensive quickly. For a comparison, the nob biker unit runs about 560pts, where as, the 'Naked' Nobs come in at aprox.280pts.   

Like I said, I had my doubts. I've got my codex pretty well figured out, and I am, by nature, resistant to change. I had to remind myself that this is a horrible mind-set for a gamer to have and after a friend reminded me about 'Naked Nobs', i figuired it was time I gave them a try. I actually expected to play a couple of games with them, get mad, and put them back on my  shelf. The results......

They did AMAZING!!!!. Them and the attached big Mek killed the following, in order......

10 man Death Company

Master of the Reclusiarch

10 man Assault Squad

The Sanguinor

And politely walked a 6 man Assault Squad off the back edge for the win.

And the crazy thing is, I lost maybe half of them. Holy Crap, where have you been all my life? I'm so impressed with this unit that I'm gonna try to squeeze it into my normal 2000pts.  Now I many be jumping the gun a bit, and they may do horrible, but for now. They are here to stay.

So cool. SOOO expensive.

Because GW doesn't stand for Grammar Workshop.

Today we are gonna look at the newest Dark Eldar models, the Beast master and it's beasts. First of all, I would like to say i really like the unit. I think it would be really fun on the table top. Just the prospect of the 12" assault makes me wanna give it a try. I think my favorite beasts are the Razorwing Flock. I first glance I thought, "oh, they are like Scarabs" But they are waaaay better. No vulnerable to blasts, 5W, 5A, Rending.

Long of the short of it, I like the unit. One problem. They are all Metal, single blisters. I like math. I also like the concept of opportunity cost. For those of you who don't know what that is, is basically means that when you buy something, you lose out on  the opportunity to buy something else. So, I'm gonna do a price breakdown on the new beastmasters and compare them to other things in the 40k range that you may also want to purchase. All the beast masters units will be maxed out full units.

5 Beastmasters and 5 Clawed Fiends:      $ 186.25
5 Beastmasters and 10 Razorwing flocks: $ 197.50
5 Beastmasters and 25 Kymera:               $ 425.00 !!!!
5 Terminators and Land Raider:               $ 112.00
100 ork Boys                                          $ 225.00
3  Stormravens                                        $ 198.00
3  Valkryies                                             $186.00                       :
3 Ravangers                                            $ 150.00
3 Trygons                                               $ 148.50
Warhound Titan                                      $ 388.00
Standard Warmachine Army                   $ 250.00

That's right a full unit of kymera cost more than warhound titan. To me, I look at this unit and say the opportunity cost is too high. Waaaaay too high. You can buy half of an army for what you'd pay for the unit. And to be honest, id rather just buy a box of wyches for what it does.

The good news is there are many ways to attempt to make this unit cheaply.Good for you, bad for GW. The most notable is that 5 Hellions are only 25 bucks. All you would have to do is make their glaives less glaivey and boom!: 5 Beastmasters. Also, Khorne hellhounds are $41.25 for 5 which comes in at alittle over half the cost of the kymera. Why are they more expensive? Who knows?

I love you GW. I'm a loyal customer and plan to remain so. But every time you come out with new products they seem to get more expensive, and every time they do so, a little voice in the back of my head says, "Why don't you give Warmachine a try?" And quite frankly, the fellows at Mr.Dandy, Mantic, and Chapterhouse have let the cat outta the bag. Other companies are gonna start making models for your games, and somehow they are able to bring them out faster and cheaper than you can. In business that is what we call a problem. Sue Them?You can't fight them all. It's like prohibition.They are too many, and there is too much money to be made. Tournaments? You don't control the tournaments anymore. I've never seen someone turned away because of 'illegal models.' People started running there own tournaments because you don't want to do it anymore. It sounds to me like the only answer is to up your game a bit, and by that I mean make your business more competitive.

 I don't say these things because I am angry, I say them because I care and I want to see you do well, and sometimes, no matter how obvious things are, they need to be pointed out.....

Here it is.

Why you NEED Ghazghkull

Boss Redtoof, cuz ReD Thraka's go FaStA!!!

Your competitive ork list needs Thraka. "Not wants", "or would be better by", but needs. Here is why:

6' waaagh move : once you get used to having this, without it, you feel like you went to war without yer choppas. With Ghazghkull, your waaagh is no longer a random prayer to Gork(or possibly Mork). Your Waaagh! Move becomes a usable, devistating tool.

 ON Demand: One thing I feel that should be mentioned seperately, but effects all of Ghazghkull's abilities, is that Ghazghkull waaagh can be call at ANYtime. That's right any time. Most people miss this at first glance. I know I did, till a very good player pointed it out to me.  This is the true source of his abilities. In fact, many of the best times to call the Waaagh is during your opponent's turn. And since it lasts for two player turns, you always get your 6" move.

Fearless army, ON Demand:  Orks use the mob rule in order to fight their low leadership, however many of our most expensive, effective units are rarely taken in squads above ten. I'm off course talking about Nobs, despite their bosspole, and Lootas, who really have no way of fighting their low leadership, save taking full squads of 15. Just a few casualties or a lost combat can see Lootas run off the board, or Nobs overrun. If you are called upon to make such a test, especially one that the game depends on, simply call the Waaagh!!! This will ensure you boys will remain 'stuck in' and Lootas firing. Don't forget though, that you will take fearless wounds in assault, so don't try this trick with anything that isn't well armored.

Big Shoota!!: Just kidding. Moving on...

He can beat anything! (almost): During the Waaagh, Ghazghkull has a 2+ invul. So 2+ Invul. Sv.: ON Demand!. He also has T5 , 7 X S10 Attacks on the charge and eternal warrior. This simply mean he can go toe-to-toe with anything( besides a C'tan ) and come out on top. Which, leads me to my next point.....

It's a nasty universe out there: I'm sure after playing a few Space Wolfs, Blood Angels, or Tyranids a beginning Ork player has asked themselves, " I thought orks liked assault? Why do I keep getting my butt handed to me then." The truth is there are many things in the 40k universe, that no ork( save Thrakka ) wants any part of in Hand to hand. To prove my point, here's a short list of them:

                                         Abbaddon

                                         Skarbrand

                                         Blood Letters

                                         Grey Night Termies

                                         C'tan

                                         Ghazghkull

                                         Shrike

                                         Lightning Claw Termies

                                         Well-tooled Vanguard squad.

                                         Calgar

                                         Lysander

                                         Ragnar

                                         Thunderwolf Cav

                                         Swarmlord

                                         Deathstar Hive Tyrant squad.

#1 Reason, CUZ IT"S ORKY!!!: The simple fact is that you didn't start playing orks so that you could dance around the field, avoiding loses, and minimizing damage done by the above mentioned units, picking your targets, and striking when the moment is right.  You started playing orks, cuz you wanted to run greenskins around like a biligerent mob of angry drunk dudes who's momma just got insulted. You wanted to see them grit and grunt, and be fairly certain that they were gonna krump some skulls. You can't play them like that if your opponent has a unit that can mow through any unit in your army, and your trying to avoid them the entire game. Running Ghazghkull into your opponent's nastiness allows the rest of your army the freedom to stomp around and destroy everything else. Ghazghkull gives you the freedom to play orks the way they was meant to be play: GOOD N' PROPA'!!!

Tournament Results: A learning experience

                            I love going down to Dicehead Games for two reasons. One, the players there are really cool guys. Second, the caliber of gamers that you play is top notch. When I loose a game down there, I see what I did wrong in a big way. I can see what I did and learn to change how I play. So, as I tell you how  me and The Griz did in the tournament, The main theme will be "What I did wrong," and "What I should have done..."

Note: I am assuming if your reading this, that you read my previous post with our army lists in them. I suggest you read if before you continue on.

GAME 1: Orks and Blood Angels vs. Orks and Chaos Marines
            The first game was a pretty easy win for us. The guys were new to the game. I think they said they both had been playing for about six months. They were great guys and it was a very enjoyable game. The mission was Seize ground, Dawn of War. Like most new Ork/ Chaos players, they assume the best thing you can possibly do is get as close to the enemy as possible. They went first and  put a approx 30 man boyz squad and 10 Bezerkers with a Khorne Termy Lord in it on the middle of the field. We had everything come in on Turn 1. They ran every thing up. We assaulted there stuff on turn one. At the end of the day we were able to get the charge on every assault, which for ork and blood angels usually equals a win.

GAME 2: Orks and Blood Angels vs. Dark Eldar and Tyranids
               Our opponent luck ran out after the first game. The next two games were against two of the best teams at the tournament. This was a really well built list. basically there were 3 or 4  Large Genestealer squads all with Broodlords, and the Dark Eldar vehicles had the grenade launchers on them. The point was to get all this cumulative -1 Leadership stuff up in your grill, then drop in the Doom of Malantia and just wreak havoc. The Mission was Modified Kill Points, Pitched Battle. I seriously think we would have had a chance here, if it wasn't for bad rolls. The Griz loves to put his storm raven in reserve. It allows him to move flat out when it moves on, giving him the 4+ save and preventing it from getting shot down in his deployment zone. Sadly though, when you put a Stormraven, 10 Death company, a Master Reclusiarch, and a Death company dread on a single reserve roll, It was bound to happen eventually, and this game it did. He failed every. single. roll and it automatically came in on turn 5. Needless to say my orks were 'stealer chow by this point.
             "What we did wrong...." letting The Griz roll his own reserves. My Grots came in on turn 3. Just sayin'
              "What we should have done..." Hindsight's 20-20. And if the Raven would have come in we would be having an entirely different conversation. But it is safe to say, that against this opponent, getting shot down in our deployment zone wouldn't have been so bad if we could have kept the lootas alive to shoot down raiders. I guess in a KP mission mobility is not as much as an issue if you have fire power. It would have been best.

GAME 3: Orks and Blood Angels vs. Black Templar and Dark Eldar.
               We played our third game against two gamers we are very familiar with. I don't like using people names on blogs without their permission so we will  will refer to them as Sea and Youyou.  Sea and Youyou have given me more whoopin's than my momma has. The Griz and I played them second round in the last team tourney we went to. On turn 3 when the painting judge got to our table, he had to ask us what armies we were playing, cuz they weren't on the board anymore! Last singles tournament at The Barn, I and Sea played on the "final table" and he beat me to win the tourney...with Necrons!
                   Anyhow, I am happy to report that we have improved. At the end of the game we had a single Ork Loota on the board!!! YEAH IMPROVEMENT!!

"What We did wrong..."  We put everything on the board during deployment. I also did a horrible job ad judging their army. I thought it was gonna be assault oriented just because it had BT in it. What I didn't realize is that due to the new FAQ they can be shooty as hell, not to mention all of the DE 12 poison shots on each of about 5 venoms. So it was a desert table, we were going second, and staring at a incredibly powerful shooting army, and what do I do? Because of the last game, I put every single model on the board. For them, it was like a turkey shoot. Looking back, I really see how I played like a complete and utter noob. After one loss, I completely shut my brain off and didn't play to the level I am capable of .

"What We should have done.." Reserve EVERYTHING!. The game was Capture and control, Spearhead. Reserving everything would have robbed them of 2 rounds of shooting. Then we could have brought everything on the far left of our long board edge, shortening our drive. Instead of try to hold our objective, we would have put the lootas within range of it and let them shoot everything off of it, then making an all or nothing play for theirs.

THE BIG MISTAKE:  DEPLOYMENT:Griz and I have got to learn to read other people's list in order to discover what their play is. We are both very visual people and tend to dismiss our opponents list and assume we will figure it out once it hits the table. In fifth edition, deployment is one of the major tactical aspects of the game, and if you don't deploy correctly, it will loose you games, like it did for us.

CONCLUSION. The guys we played second round went to the "final table" were they won their game but only got 4 battle points. See and Youyou got 16 off of us and hence won the tournament.

The Blog Fairy Cometh!! and OFF TO WAR!!!!

Well I got a visit( Cell call) from the Blog Fairy today. He/She/It told me that I wasn't updating my blog enough. I tried explaining to him that my wife had been puking for three straight days and I was trying to get my army painted for the upcoming team tournament. He didn't care. He said I was making excuses, So here I am, hands covered in paint at Midnight, when I got leave for the tournament in 5 hours, updating my blog. 

Any how, like a said, it has been a rough week. The Grizz and I decided last minute that we would drive down to DiceHead games in Cleavland for a Team tournament. Basically the rules are 1200 pts each player, One FOC, and you basically have to share to keep them even. To make a long story short, he is the hammer and I am the anvil. I tried to get all of my stuff finished, but alas  the show must go on. With out further ado....

THE GREEN ANVIL

Big Mek

           KFF

           Eavy Armor

           Cybork Body

           Boss Pole

           Power Klaw

2 X 15 Lootas

2 X 19  Shoota Boys

               Nob

               Power Klaw

               Bosspole

10 Grots

2 X  Battle Wagons

        Deffrolla

        Extra Armor

         Red Paint

         2 X Big Shootas

And now THE RED GLITTERY HAMMER!!!!!!

     Master of the Reclusiarch

Sanquinary Priest

10 Death Company

        3 Power Weapon 

        1 Power Fist

DC Dread with Blood Talons and Extra armor

10 man Assault marine squad

       Flamer

       Melta

      Sarge with Fist 

       

Baal Pred 

 Assault cannon and heavy bolters

Storm Raven

Assault Cannon

Multi Melta

Anywho, Wish us luck! and since I watched "Blade 2" today, I thought I would leave ya'll with this....

Welcome! and About Me: Extended Edition

                                  Welcome, one and all, to Tainted by Xenos. Tainted by Xenos will be a blog focused on the alien races of the  40k universe, and just generally anything I feel like talking about. First off, I would like to say that I am not a self-proclaimed expert on anything, and as with anything, you should judge my advice, tips, and opinions with your own judgments. Please feel free to post any questions, comments, or criticisms. If you have any ideas or articles you would like to see please let me know.
              Today's post happened by accident. I was writing the "About me" page and got a tad long winded and basically told a history of almost my entire war gaming past. Sadly my long rant will not fit on the "About Me" page. Since I'm not one to throw stuff away, I decided to  post it here. It is a tad long winded and  if you are not interested in such things I suggest you stop reading here and, once again, welcome to Tainted by Xenos. If you are interested please continue.....

As you could guess, My name is Steven, but everyone calls me Stevo. I am 24 years old and live in Tennessee USA. I have been married for 3 1/2 years to my beautiful wife, Kathleen a.k.a "The Wiff" She has always been very supportive of my hobby, though I have never been able to get her hooked on it in the last 6 1/2 years of trying, but hey, there is still hope ;)
I started playing 40k around 3rd edition.I was brought into the hobby as a young kid by my long time friend and fellow blogger, The Griz. His blog address is ifitwearspowerarmor.blogspot.com. Check it out if you get a chance.
      The first army I ever considered playing was Tau, mostly because they were new and that just happened to be the issue of white dwarf I picked up first.  That is, until I visited the website and saw the necrons. I have always liked my Sci-fi a little on the dark side and the necrons were a perfect fit for me. Evil robotic space zombie skeleton warriors with self repair abilites? Yes, please!
    I continued playing necrons for many years, all through 3rd, 4th, and even into 5th ed. My gaming group consisted mostly of me, the Griz, and my now brother-in-law, K-berg.(Yes, I did marry my best friends little sister. Don't judge me! She is hot!) The Griz played Ultramarines and K-berg played Tau. I would also say that I was the one who got our gaming group into the tournament scene. Playing Necrons, I had much success. I thought this warhammer thing was easy. I remember how many people said my army was overpowered. I just shrugged it off as people being sore losers. It wasn't till later in 5th edition I saw how powerful they really were. I guess you don't truly appreciate something until its gone.
      Midway through 4th edition, i caught the green fever and bought my first orks. I didn't buy to much. Just some boyz and a looted bassie. I don't know if ya'll remember how the rumor mill work back then, but about that time ork, DE, and spacewolves were gonna get a codex any month now. I even built trukks out of legos. A year and a half later, im still using this crap, playing speed freeks. I don't know if any of you played speed freeks in 4th ed. so let me explain it to you. Trukk blows up, wounding everything inside on a 4+: the unit deploys just outside the crater it just made, meaning no cover save: the unit is autopinned due to the entangled special rule. Needless to say, K-berg brutally, mercilessly slaughtered my orks, always. It was sad times. But then the new codex came out, and gave me new models, new rules, and more importantly, a chance to win. I was so happy. I was like, "wow now I have two unstoppable armies". Alas it was not so.
      Six months later they came out with 5th ed. I was very happy with it. My orks got even better. A month after its release, there was a big tournament at DiceHead Games in Clevland TN. The orks were not near painted, so I brought the 'crons. Up until that point, I had never phased out in tournament play, and rarely had a losing record. I lost all three games that day, and phased twice, once on turn 3. I had always played a very defensive necron list and that day I learned the hard way what had become of my beloved 'crons.
        Since that day, my orks have been my primary army. It took me roughly 2.5 years to paint and get right, but I finally have my ork army where I am happy with it. I have had lots of success with them, but not near the success I had with my necrons.
      I got married, just before the orks got their new codex. We moved to Cookeville TN to attend TTU. As fate would have it the Griz and K-berg did the same. We found a link on GW's website for a local gaming club. We emailed them and that is how we met up with good ol' Dan. Dan is older guy is his late 30's. Turns out the gaming club met in a shed in his back yard. That shed had one, 8'X4' table in it and got really crammed with it and about 6 guys in it. Dan was a very welcoming, friendly guy, but above all, Dan had a dream. His dream was to build a huge place, with room for plenty of tables and terrain so that many people could come and play 40k and experience the hobby. I thought that was alot of time and financial responsibility for one guy to take on himself, but if he was willing to do it, I was willing to help and so was everyone else in the club. After years of work, Dan finally completed his Dream. Dan completed and opened the Cookeville Battle Barn last summer. Since then, the Barn has hosted many tournaments were people from all over Tennessee have come to play and have fun, as well as been open weekly on Saturdays for open gaming. For more info on the Battle Barn you can visit their website: www.cookevillebattlebarn.com

     The Dark Eldar Codex was release approximately 3 months ago. I have always like the fluff and idea of Dark Eldar, but the models were so butt-ugly I never wanted to play them. With the new models and rules, and with my ork army being complete, I decided it was now time to start my Dark eldar army and solidify myself as "The Xenos Guy"