Recently I’ve decided to do some experimentation with the (relatively) new citadel contrast paints for my Tyranid army: Hive Fleet Sloth. My main aim is to save some time, especially on the droves of gaunts I have to paint and/or build. Here I’m going to give a brief summary of my experience so far, and how they compare to my “classic” paint scheme. I’ll do another article (at some point) about the specifics of my scheme.

My original contrast experiments showed good potential for time saving without much loss of detail or quality, in fact if anything gaining both due to not burning out painting many troops. I decide I would replace my yellow and green with contrast paints as they take the most time to paint but are not generally detailed or fiddly. The above picture shows an old scheme hormogaunt on the left and various trial models in the centre/on the right.

I was very happy with my yellow swap. I’ve replaced Averland Sunset (spray on base coat, 1x plus touch ups), Yriel Yellow (all-over layer, 2x plus touch ups), and Casandora Yellow (all-over heavy shade, 1x), with Wraithbone (spray on base coat, 1x plus touch ups) and Iyanden Yellow (all-over layer, 1x plus touch ups), in addition I can just slap it on thick straight out the pot so it’s much quicker to do 1 layer and doesn’t waste paint drying on a pallete/the pot lid. For my basic infantry it looks great, and for the monsters and bigger ones I can always add a few highlights.

The green I was less pleased with, not because I disliked the contrast side of it – it was just darker than I was expecting. A quick change solved that and now it’s close enough that it’s hard to tell the difference – except under the very washed out yellow lights at my local gaming club! Now I’ve replaced Averland Sunset (spray on base coat, 1x), Waaagh! Flesh (base coat, 1x plus touch ups), Moot Green (all-over layer, 2x plus touch ups), and Biel-Tan Green (all-over heavy shade, 2x), with Wraithbone (spray on base coat, 1x plus touch ups) and Warp Lightning (all-over layer, 1x plus touch ups). As with the yellow on some of the bigger surfaces it needs a bit of extra highlighting and/or shading but generally I’m very pleased.

The picture shows a Genestealer at roughly the same stage of both methods (contrast on left). I think it works well for Tyranids because of their biological side, I’m not certain that I would be as keen to use it on races that use a lot of technology for their armour and vehicles. I’ve also found that it works better on smaller/more textured areas – the carapace on a monster needs 2 coats of Warp Lightning and sometimes another layer of shade on top to bring it all together. Overall I’d say that the contrast paints are a great tool to have but aren’t suited for everything. I don’t use them for my orange details for example, because I want a strong, solid colour. They definitely speed up the first couple of steps of painting though!

Pathfinders Axe

So I recently went to a local 2 day, 40 player GT with my Deathwatch/Imperial Soup list. I really enjoyed the weekend and managed to achieve and exceed pretty much all of my (reasonable) goals. First I’ll break down my army choices a bit, then I’ll give a quick overview of each game and finally I’ll give an overall reflection on my experience.

Deathwatch

2 squads of veterans with mainly storm bolters and shields, with a few assorted combat weapons. These guys output 36 shots at close range, staying close to the watch master they reroll all misses, combined with Hellfire shells (2+ to wound against non-vehicles) and mission tactics (reroll 1s to wound against a specific battlefield role). The watch master also has the Tome of Ectoclades to allow close units to have a choice of 2 mission tactics. The third squad of veterans combat squads, the bikes can charge to clear a squad off an objective or be held at the back in order to make a last minute rush. Jump Pack Captain and Librarian can counter charge or dive in to snipe enemy characters /vehicles.

Astra Militarum

The guardsmen do two things: hold objectives (particularly as ITC engineers) and give command points. The mortars target enemy light infantry on objectives or take the last wound off a bigger target.

Knight

Sir Ector does a different two things: draw fire and lay enemy vehicles low.

Game 1 – Chaos Knights, Daemons and Thousand Sons.

A few demon princes, ahriman, 3 Knights, and a bare minimum of brimstone horrors, played by last year’s champion. Not an ideal start to the tournament but then I seized the initiative! It was great until Sir Ector fluffed all his shooting and managed to only get 1 shot through on a single Knight. The game only went downhill from there…

Death Hex was my bane, taking down the knight, then a squad of veterans each turn negating the storm shields. There were a few big mistakes I made in terms of placement etc. that I tried to rectify in the following games, and I was tabled turn 4.

Final Score 9-38 = 0-20 Tournament Points

Major Loss

Game 2 – Iron Hands

On the one hand there was only 1 leviathan and no repulsors. On the other hand there were 3 storm talons and a LOT of snipers. Turn 1 I lost almost all of my army on the board apart from 12 guardsmen and the knight (the storm shield veterans and watch master were teleporting in).

As the game progressed I managed to claw my way back in to the game but it was too little too late. Sir Ector tallied up all 3 storm talons, 6 aggressors, and (eventually) the leviathan, Ferros and his lieutenant and captain buddies. The veterans only managed to kill a squad of intercessors and some scouts, and in the end I failed to hold the objectives or live. This time I managed to last to turn 5 but not to the end and was once again tabled. Technically I did slightly better…

Final Score 11-39 = 0-20 Tournament Points

Major Loss

Game 3 – Chaos Knights and Deamons.

Hmmm… This didn’t go so well last time but now there’s a Tyrant instead of a third ‘normal’ Knight. Surely it can’t go worse right? Right. I learnt from my mistakes and used the range on Sir Ector. I used the threat of the knight and deep striking veterans to keep the enemy largely in their own deployment zone, too scared to come out and play.

Whilst the Guardsmen hid on objectives out of line of sight, desperately trying not to be killed by his rocket pods the knight took on his chaos rivals one by one and bested them all, in large part thanks to the amazing 1cp questor mechanics strat to operate as if on full wounds for a turn. The veterans slogged through the plague bearers and drew fire from the enemy Knights and psyker before hiding when almost dead to avoid giving up kill points. I held at least three objectives the whole game whilst my opponent had only one or two and in the end it made the difference.

Final Score 28-20 = 14-6 Tournament Points

Close Victory

Game 4 – Genestealer Cult

Here it was, the classic Deathwatch match up. Purging the filthy Xenos scum from the battlefield in a very un-pc way. I made an early mistake with deployment – it was end game objectives but I deployed on to both objectives at opposite ends of my deployment resulting in a strung-out line of veterans and Guardsmen. What I should have done was castle up into one corner (my original deployment strategy) which would have prevented what happened in the following movement phase.

He went first and his 3 vulture gunships charged into my back field using the large gaps I had left, in an attempt to make sure I could screen against his deep striking cultists on the next turn, and took out both squads of engineers and my mortars straight off the bat, denying me 4 itc points and my none line of sight shooting. The game was very even from that point, with almost all of the cult deepstriking (very confusingly) into their own deployment to foil the Deathwatch ‘reaper’ objective of slaughtering their heinous followers. It was an incredibly tactical back and forward game that came down to whether the game continued to turn 6 – which would have given a 6 point swing in my favour. Unfortunately the game ended at turn 5 and the tricksy cultists managed to sneak away with the objectives before they could be properly purged.

Final Score 13-19 = 7-13 Tournament Points

Minor Loss

Game 5 – Alpha Legion, Thousand Sons, and Khorne Deamons.

Final game and I was 1-3. In theory this should be my most even match up. It was also the third time I’d faced chaos over the weekend, but with a very different list: still ahriman and a few deamon princes, but now with 2 Lord discordants, skulltaker, 60 bloodletters, 60 cultists, and a sorcerer. I deployed slightly further forward than was strictly necessary, I went first and Sir Ector blew up one Lord discordant with the first shot of the game, creating such a terrible backlash that almost all of his army took mortal wounds in a truly impressive explosion.

Throughout the game the mortars slowly blasted away at his objective holders. His 2nd, damaged, Lord discordant almost managed a turn 1 charge until Sir Ector demonstrated that he still had it in for him by successfully over watching and removing him too from the battlefield. Turn two I pulled back and deployed my Guardsmen to cover my backfield, ensuring that the bloodletters had to deep strike in front of my veterans and their storm bolters and shields. Many cultists were removed. His turn two in came the khorne-ates. A good handful died to overwatch and most of the rest failed to make it to combat. The squad that did were made short work of by the veterans, who were impressive in combat – Shock Assault really proved it’s worth.

My remaining forces consolidated and pushed forwards. The Librarian perilsed for the second turn in a row and detonated in my own assault line, seriously injuring the watch captain and almost eliminating an injured squad of veterans. The captain and remaining veterans charged in to the dmon prince’s but were interrupted and defeated. Despite fighting twice the captain only managed a single 3 damage wound, leaving all his characters (apart from skulltaker) on 1 or 2 wounds. They charged Sir Ector whom they defeated but not before he could detonate his plasma cores, evaporating all the remaining enemy forces bar Ahriman on 2 wounds and a single squad of cultists holding a backfield objective. At this point we theorised the remaining turns and concluded that I would achieve an unassailable lead with the end game objectives and my remaining fire power.

Final score 36-15 = 20-0 Tournament Points

Major Victory

Summary

There is a strong similarity between the way that demons and Xenos play, giving the veterans good targets in several games. The guardsmen were a little hit and miss, but generally did their job (providing cp, holding objectives) very well. My Deathwatch characters were a little underwhelming, the watch master was great for his auras and definitely worth it, but the watch captain and Librarian struggled to make it to combat or otherwise impact the game in a meaningful way. Sir Ector struggled at first but soon proved his worth in taking out enemy vehicles and titans, at least roughly making his points back in 3 or 4 games.

Tactically I made a few mistakes in each game, mainly in deployment priorities and sometimes with ITC secondary objectives. But that’s how we learn so I’ll have to try not to do them again!

Final Tournament Points: 41/100 = 27th place of 40 players

Not sure when my next tournament will be, but I’m developing a new list concept to deal with the changing meta / to not paint anymore black armour. Here’s a sneak peak to finish…