Arming for the Cypra Incident....Gorkanaut.

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with my latest piece of work towards my ever growing Waaaghhh!
This is my Gorkanaut.....

  

This kit has been sitting in its box for a good couple of years now, until the need for a big hitter arose with our return this year to our narrative campaign and the advent of 8th edition 40k.
I love dreads and walkers of all sorts, they're my favourite unit type in 40k and have been for decades now, see my Thunderbolts marines for evidence of this addiction!!

I've seen a few 'nauts over the years, both gorka and morka varieties, some looked awesome, some not so much. My biggest issue with the basic kit is it's very static and squat pose, so I determined to ensure that I did something to avoid that as I built it.
Once I started it was immediately apparent that getting movement in the legs wouldn't be too hard but that the amount was limited by the kits proportions, I've gone for a lurching stride with the legs, the boxy torso swaying to the side as the beast lunges forwards with it's Klaw!

A few wip piccies...

I also decided that it was time to advance my paint style with the Orks more to the general level I paint at with other armies, I started my Orks in the late 90's and over the years I've maintained the level of painting so as to keep the overall look of new models matching the established standard of the army.
I found the GW paint app to be quite useful as I developed new ways to get colours to match my existing models whilst putting more work into shading and in particular highlighting (which is rarely seen on my older Ork models).
I'm very pleased with the outcome; the Gorkanaut has the same patchwork feel of dirty rusted metals and the random splashes of bright panels. Darkening the white I feel has made a huge difference too.

Some finished piccies..

and a couple of sneaky peeks of it in action in the campaign! More on that in a future post!!

Both Doc and I are really enjoying the campaign and benefitting hugely in taht we've been motivated to paint lots of stuff we probably wouldn't have done otherwise.

As ever c & c welcome.

Bluddtoof

The Cypra Incident, "Birth of the Beast". The next mission

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with an update on our progress with our narrative campaign; both Doc and myself have had pretty busy lives over the last year so we had to suspend activity in this area for a while.
We're both busy beavering away at the models we want for the next planned mission; "Airfield Assault" however with the code boys having a geeky get together this next weekend to play as much 8th ed as we can fit into 1 day, Doc and I decided to take a second day (as we're in the same place) and advance the Cypra story a bit!
Alas we're neither of us ready for the airfield mission (still got some scenery to make and a model of 20 to paint!!) so we had a chat and I set to work writing a side mission we could play.

I looked at the last mission write up and decided to hang it off an element of that, we'll be playing the story of an Imperial strike on an apparent marshalling area for Ork forces in the area, with the intent of stopping the immediate Ork threat.

The mission plan;

            THE CYPRA INCIDENT; BIRTH OF THE BEAST OF CYPRA

MISSION 4A

“THE MARSHALLING YARDS”

Intro;

During mission 3; “Running the Gorklet” the Imperial recon forces saw signs of increasing Ork activity near the edges of the swamplands; a great many trails leading off into the dense jungle and swamp. One notably alert ratling reported a huge plume of dust and dense oily black smoke rising out of a deep valley, barely glimpsed through the jungle walls as the convoy fled at breakneck speed for safety. Imperial cogitators have analysed the reports and correlated other data and determined that the Orks are not merely a newly appeared colony as seen on countless worlds within known space, but are in fact well established and technologically developed, far more so than should be possible if the colony originates here on The Forgotten Hole. Reports show that the Orks are massing in the swamp, presumably for a major offensive!  Analysis leads the Imperial commanders to believe that the Ork presence must originate off planet and immediately order sensor sweeps of the Cypra System and order all forces to full alert.

Meanwhile the Dicers plan a strike on this newly identified mass of Ork activity whilst simultaneously planning a lightning strike on the Ork airfield identified by the recon force.

Mission;

Crucible of War; SABOTAGE (pp204)

The target is a huge Stompa! The monstrous machine is incomplete and unpowered but if mobilised has the potential to obliterate the poorly equipped Dicers here on the planet. It must be destroyed at all costs!

The construction yards are bustling with activity as Ork forces move in from the surrounding areas to prepare for the awakening of the Stompa and the launch of a massive assault on the Guard HQ.

NB. The Stompa does not activate during this mission.

100 power lists. No requirement for battle forged but stratagems are available.  

Here's a pic of the target...

He's looking a bit dated now; I built him a great many years ago, still cool though!

We'll be playing in the same way as we have throughout the campaign; that's to say we're not too bothered by hard and fast rules, rule of cool wins! and if something goes awry then we'll have a chat and change what needs changing. It's a really good way to play. We'll be having a good read of the narrative play section of the 8th rule book too.

There are several posts about the campaign on the page, a few can be found using "The Cypra Incident" picture at the top left of the blog page.

Stay tuned for the mission write up next week!

Bluddtoof

"Birth of The Beast - The Cypra Incident", Narrative Campaign, Mission 3 Bat Rep. "Running The Gorklet" (Picture Heavy)

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with a report on mission 3 of our narrative campaign; "Birth of The Beast - The Cypra Incident".
This Mission is called "Running The Gorklet" and sees Docs' Dicers recon force trying to escape from Ork territory with the intel they captured from mission 2 "Recon".

As Doc said in his write up of mission 2 we were totally surprised by the result and had to scrap the prep we'd done on the mission tree, so we re-wrote it and here's the new tree up to and including mission 4 possibilities;

Birth of The Beast - The Cypra Incident................The story so far.......

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with an update on our narrative campaign; The Cypra Incident, which sees Docs Astra Militarum force; The 19th Dicers defending their world from my Ork invasion by Waaaggh! Bluddtoof.

The story started with Imperial forces on "The Forgotten Hole", a gloomy deathworld covered by murky swamps and thick forested highlands and the home world of The 19th Dicers, detecting strange energy readings deep in the swamps outside normal patrol range. A patrol was sent to investigate and found a small band of Orks using arcane technology to teleport rusted imperial wrecks out of the swamp! The following engagement was short and brutal with the Orks managing to hold off the Dicers long enough to teleport sufficient wrecks away.
The battle report for this mission can be found here

Following this the Imperials stepped up their patrols and scanning of the swampy hinterlands; revealing some very powerful energy surges in an out of the way valley, they put together a recon force and deployed to the area, the fast, light mechanised force infiltrated what is clearly a rapidly growing Ork territory and a small recon group went in on foot into the edges of an Ork camp, there they snuck about under the noses of Ork sentries too busy watching a bike race and gathered several pieces of crucial intel on the Orks activities here. With this intel secured they snuck back into the swamp but were spotted at the last moment! The alarms sound and the Orks mobilise for pursuit!
The battle report for this mission can be found here

So what now? I hear you ask...

Our approach to this whole campaign is one of "rule of cool", we had a long chat about how we thought the story should progress after the events so far and decided that we needed to add another bit in before we moved to the next tier in the campaign tree. After all the Orks are in close pursuit, there's no guarantee the Dicers will get back to base at all so no guarantee the Space Wolves will be called.
So we decided that the next mission should tell the story of the Dicers recon force escaping Ork territory with the intel, or not!

Our next mission will be "Running the Gorklet!" and will see the recon force all mounted in light vehicles running a gauntlet of Ork defensive positions and pursuers as they flee down the valley back to Imperial territory.

Stay tuned for more....

Bluddtoof

The Cypra Incident: Birth of the Beast Game 2 (RECONNAISSANCE) Write Up

Hi All,

This post explains our second game in the Cypra Incident and involves the 19th Dicers sneaking into an ork held compound.  If you are new to our 40k narrative campaign can I recommend for understanding you check back on through the following links.

I suggest first checking out this post which links back to all the early content for the Cypra Incident.
This first and second game required some unique terrain and Boss Bludtoof put together some fantastic stuff check it out here.

The next link is the video battle report for mission 1 'Scavengers'.  This was our first attempt at a video battle report.  It is clear filming on a I-pad and this being our first go at it means it isn't the greatest quality.  However, its not too long and gives us a great history to look back on for this campaign.  Check it out here if you want some history.

Mission 2:

Right confession first this post has taken a long time to be put together.  We attempted to film a second battle report for this mission and the footage had terrible sound issues.  So i have abandoned showing you any footage and decided a write up will have to suffice.  We may return to video later in the campaign.

This mission involved a small force of the 19th dicers sneaking into a ork held camp.  We essentially set up a camp occupied by ork sentries, a couple of guard towers and of course some ork bikers racing around the camp (normal ork behaviour right?)

The imperial recon force consisted of 10 veterans and 7 ratling snipers.  There were 3 points on the battlefield which needed reaching to steal all the data.  

In order to play the mission and work out how the imperials could sneak about we decided to use the same method as the old Necromunda rules for the ork sentries.  That is each sentry turn we both rolled a dice for each ork sentry with the winner being able to move the ork sentry the distance on the dice.  If the orks got to within initiative range the alarm would be raised and various ork forces could move onto to the table on the next turn.  If any weapon fire took place the alarm would also be raised and if an ork survived close combat the alarm would be raised.  

Early on the alarm was nearly raised in turn two and then at the critical point the orks turned the wrong way.  We thoroughly expected the alarm to go off but in the end I managed after a high number of turns to sneak in and out with the information.  This proved quite a shock to us both but we decided to go with it.  It was also a strange outcome when we had painted new troops for the reserves and then never used them.  However, we both felt it fit the narrative well and led nicely on to a next mission of the 19th Dicers trying to escape through ork territory with the information they had stolen.

We decided to aptly name the next mission "Running the Gorklet" and discussed the forces that would be involved.  I will not steal the thunder of the next mission write up but it meant we both had to build and paint some more guard and orks which has been the aim of the campaign all the way through.

Hope you enjoyed this short write up and apologies for no video :-(.  Expect to see some more arming for the cypra incident posts as we get ready for mission 3.

Cheers

Doc Out..........................

Video Battle Report for the Cypra Incident Game 1 Scavengers

Good Morning All,

So we have finally kicked off our Cypra Incident Campaign and I get to share with you the first video battle report.  I have certainly learnt a lot doing this process and I had some sound issues which I didn't realise until I came to the editing phase.  Still I have done my best to put together this short report of Game 1.

I also took a few photos of the game:

So not to steal the thunder from the video I will not explain what happens in the battle.  We certainly had good fun and it was nice to use all the newly painted models and scenery.

  Please enjoy comments are most welcome on our first attempt!

 Doc Out.

Showcase; The Cypra Incident, Watchtowers and Fencing.

Hi All

I've now completed the Watchtower and Fencing project for our upcoming campaign; The Cypra Incident, which will see Space Orks and Imperial Guard battling it out in a swamp initially. I'll go back at a later date and add a few more pieces to the set, such as 2 more intact towers, a ruined tower and some barbed wire once my order arrives.

I'm pleased with the finish, very rusty and aged, just what I'd aimed for. Also tried sponge weathering for the first time and I'm very pleased with that, I'll be using it again for sure.

Here's some pics...

As you can see the set is a decent size (that's a 4 x 4 board) and has plenty of scope for variation of lay-out. Overall I'm very happy, the project turned out better than I'd hoped and the modular system is ideal.

As ever c & c welcome. Hope you like it. Next up I'm going to build and paint something for my Marine army, the Thunderbolts, more to come on that soon.

Bluddtoof.

The Cypra Incident, more terrain WIP.

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with some more WIP on my current project; the fencing terrain for our upcoming narrative campaign; The Cypra Incident.

I'd planned a post over the weekend and even took photos but didn't get round to it so this post contains photos from a couple of stages in the process.

First some photos of the tower after I'd added some plasticard sheeting to give a smooth metallic finish and started adding rivets to this panelling....

Then I moved on to painting, all the pieces got a solid black base coat sprayed on followed by a coat of silver; I used a spray by Plasti-kote, I've used this before and found that it covers exceptionally well but has a glossy finish which doesn't like to accept further painting. I tried a single small piece of scrap plasticard first and tried out a new method for applying rust effects, namely sponge weathering.
It worked really well; using successive coats of Dryad Bark, Dark Flesh, Khorne Red and Troll Slayer Orange I built up a heavily rusted effect, a final light sponging of Caledor Sky gives an impression of flakes of the original blue paint still clinging to the heavily weathered metal.
To finish off the effect and to smooth it all together I washed all the pieces with Reikland Flesh, followed by dabs of Seraphim Sepia and finally Agrax Earthshade whilst the 1st wash was still wet, this has the effect of randomly blending the 3 shades giving a really dirty finish, I use this method on my Orks too.
On the uprights I wasn't quite happy and wanted an even more rusty look so I tried an orange wash all over them.
This pic was taken after I'd finished the sponge work...

Here's a few pics of the set as it stands now...

So not much left to do now, all the uprights need their bases doing, this will involve mud and some swampy plant life. I plan to have vines and creepers climbing the uprights and some of the panels too. I'll probably leave the tower, however I've got some barbed wire on the way which will be formed into coils to sit on top of the fence and form a protective "shelf" around the tower below the parapet.

Then of course I need to build and paint at least 1 more tower, eventually there'll be 4 intact towers and a couple of collapsed ruined towers as well.

That's it for now, more soon....

Bluddtoof.