I've been frantically painting and testing my Imperial Soup list for the upcoming Midwest ConQuest and BugEater 40k GTs. I'm nearly done painting - just a handful of troops and tanks left. I'm still working on my backstory though. My buddy Kyle and I share an enthusiasm for the witch hunters in the Warhammer/40k universe so I'm crafting my fluff to be an Inquisitorial task force. Here's my list - formatted for Best Coast Pairings. Inquisition themed Astra Militarum fire their big guns! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + Player: Dusty Dean + REPORTED ARMY FACTION:  Imperium + TOTAL COMMAND POINTS: 21 + TOTAL ARMY POINTS: 1993 + POWER LEVEL: 124 + ARMY FACTIONS USED: Astra Militarum, Blood Angels, Adeptus Custodes + TOTAL REINFORCEMENT POINTS: 7 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ == Brigade Detachment == Astra Militarum, Cadian, [ 24PL, 1078pts] ...

Guess who has tickets to the 2019 LVO? This guy! When I went two years ago I got super sick (it was so bad that I was reported to the CDC for my illness) but still had one of the best times playing mini games ever. I even got to meet Lawrence from Tabletop Tactics, Aceface, and the Warhammer TV gang. It was epic. Now, I need to decide what army to bring. 1. Old hammer Flesh Tearers. 2. Ad Mech Mars army. 3. Imperial Soup with Raven Guard, AM, Ad Mech. 4. Dark Elder 5. Salamander I think my Flesh Tearers would get a lot of notice as a fun, old army, but I don't think they are that competitive. The Imperial Soup list is pretty competitive (in the current meta) but might not do well against a top tier Knights list. I feel like a teenager trying to decide what to wear to prom.

This past weekend I traveled to Kansas City for the awesome Midwest Conquest Warhammer 40k Grand Tournament. I never had so much fun losing. It's a great tournament and I had more fun this year than last year but I fared far worse on the table top. Here's my army in a nutshell: 2 CADS 1 Chaos Lord on Juggernaut 1 D-Thirster - Bloodthirster 3 Units of Cultists 1 Unit of Bloodletters 4 Heldrakes with baleflamers 1 Heldrake with autocanon My army on parade.  D-Thirster ready for action. Dark Prince Adam. The drakes! I wanted my army to look like a 70s album cover. My plan was to let the heldrakes do most of the heavy lifting. They can zip around the field, go into hover mode to snag objectives, torch Marines and melt through their armor, deny jinks to Dark Angels and various Eldar... the army looks great on paper and fared well in the few test games I was able to get in but did not do well against tournament play.  As I me...

My Adeptus Mechanicus Tech Preist Dominus conversion is almost ready. I wanted to build M.O.D.O.K. (Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing) from Marvel Comics because he's one of my favorite villains. Tinkering around with some bits I had, I eventually transformed the idea into more of a dark mechanicum tech priest with tentacles in a dreadnought hull. I've got him almost ready for the LVO; just some cleanup and deepening of shadows. Let me know what you think!

I've done pretty well in my last couple of tune-up games for the Las Vegas Open. A very busy season at work has kept me out of the game room and I'm not getting as much time to fine-tune my force as I would like. I'm also not able to keep painting on my army, but I have managed to get a game against both Jim and Carey recently (Not Jim Carey. That really would have been worth a batrep. I bet he'd play Orks or maybe Chaos...) First I played Jim's very competitive Tau list with a riptide wing in ITC scenario 4. I had some poor dice all game long but I managed to win by a wide margin by taking the primary, tying on the secondary, and taking all three tertiary objectives. You couldn't tell by my model count though. Jim whittled me down to just a couple of units left on the board; but my Pilgrims of Logic took no prisoners and he didn't have many models left either.  My most recent game was against Carey and his mostly Nurgle Chaos Daemon army in ITC ...

Do you know what's hard? Painting 6 Heldrakes for a major ITC event in a few weeks is hard. I had no idea how hard it is to paint a heldrake, let alone 6, but I'm giving a go. As you can see in the picture, I've got all my space dragons clipped, sanded, primed and now I have black to red gradients painted on all of the parts that need the coverage. Now, I've begun the arduous task of hitting all of the "veins" and edges of the dragons. Luckily, Leadbelcher is a base color from Citadel and I can usually get one coat coverage. I may not have time to edge highlight... At present, I have one model done and awaiting magnets, one model nearly done - but has the wings magnetized, and the rest are sitting in boxes waiting for their first coat of silver. It's taking me about 7-10 hours per heldrake just to paint the silver. Oy. After I get all of the silver painted, I plan on adding a black oil wash and then air brushing some energy spots on the balefla...