2010 Astronomi-con Vancouver Army Preview

I haven’t been able to sleep the last three nights. This evenings insomnia accomplishments was getting up to write down the back story for my 2010 Astronomi-con army. I already knew the back story, I thought it up after all when I was picking the army list. I’d submitted the army list to Mike and Christian a month or two ago confident I would have no trouble getting it all painted seeing as I was unemployed. In my last revision I had thrown in a Greater Daemon primarily for visual impact and as a nasty surprise for an opponent who didn’t read the fine print.

With about two weeks to go I realized I wasn’t going to have time to do justice to the Ultraforge Wardemon model I had bought to represent a generic Greater Daemon.  I actually had quite a few models I could use in my miniature display case so George was pressed into service.

After writing out the back story ensuring that it jived with all my previous back stories for major tournaments I went back to bed and tried to sleep.

I couldn’t.

Besides not finishing a new impressivly large demon model, I was really worried I wouldn’t have time to do a good job on my original two HQ choices. I had converted them previously and a lot of planning went into them, especially the one based on a Forge World special character. I never use the rules for special characters but this model was too cool and I had a unique idea for a Khorne Terminator Lord, so… I’ve had the idea for a while and told it to Craig at the Mini Astronomi-con. Then I told him I was crazy enough to do it.

I’ve been working towards getting my army finished every since.

There are lots of things I had planned to do besides paint up some new army centerpiece models. I had planned to improve the bases of some of the models, say with the 100 28mm skulls I got off of Black Cat Bases. Mike and others are obsessed with drilling out bolter barrels or at least painting the black dot so I was going to go through every model and make sure that was done… There are lots of little touch ups and detail work I could do to my miniature collection. I seem to have been touching up and improving models for the last eight or nine years. I’ve finally getting around to starting to paint a new non-CSM army only in the last month or two.

In fact painting non-CSM stuff is what got me in this predicament. I’ve been planning a Servants of Decay army for years. When I became unemployed I couldn’t help but do a test model for it. I also did not one, but two test trench tiles. My modular trench battlefield wasn’t going to make it to this year’s Astronomi-con no way no how, but even though I knew it was needed next year I spent about a month working on it and some test WW1 figures. I figured if I’m going to build a trench battlefield, I might as well make a WW1 army to fight on it, or two WW1 armies as I’ll probably end up doing…

All this was fine, I had months to finish basically 5 or 6 models. Then Warhammer 8th Edition came out and I got talked into joining a Mighty Empires Campaign at Strategies, which I have to play in tomorrow, err today actually seeing as it is 3:11 AM. In about 1998, Owen Curtis figured out that I had almost enough Nurgle Daemons painted and on square bases that I could just play in the campaign he was organizing for Games Workshop Victoria, which he was managing at the time. We were roommates so I dutifully converted up some Plaguebearer command and played several small points games of Warhammer. It was a builder’s campaign eventually I was supposed to have say 2000 points but we started out at 750 or a thousand.  I got absolutely crushed both times so I think I grew disgusted and didn’t play Warhammer Fantasy Battle again for 11 years.

What about my 2010 Astronomi-con Vancouver Army you say? Well, while laying in bed on top of my covers because it is quite hot in Vancouver right now. I’m sweating as I type this. I realized that I wasn’t going have time to do all the little things I had planned to do this year to try and make a run at Best Painted Army. I’ve finished close at Astronomi-con before but I’ve lost points for not having bolters drilled out or having not 100% finished models. Last year I stayed up for 24 hours straight trying to finish my army and in the end my Chosen weren’t fully painted and something like 15 bases weren’t painted.

One thing I always lose points on in tournaments recently, is not having a display base. I was going to build a reuseable display base this year. I’d built display bases before, in fact the original one served as inspiration for my trench table.  While lying awake I thought, that display base is just leaning up against a shelf in my living room, I should just take it to this year’s Astronomi-con Vancouver. I made the display base for the very first Vancouver Grand Tournament. I totally busted my ass painting and converting for that tournament. I wanted to show those Calgary guys where they could stick their paintbrushes after the score they gave the Diseased Sons in my first Grand Tournament.

I think I ended up finishing tied for third. I was alright with that as Vancouver has some great painters and I kinda bit off more than I could chew with some of my paint jobs and conversions time wise. Ever since I’ve had more modest goals for getting stuff painted for tournament armies.

So anyway unable to sleep I got up and grabbed the display base that has sat unused pretty much in my mother’s basement for seven or so years. It was in Vancouver as I wanted to see the brown dryburshed dirt and I decided I was going to rip out the tank traps and stuff to use as part of my trench table. Since I hadn’t gotten around to that, I decided just for fun to set up my 2010 Astronomi-con Vancouver Army in the display in my living room at say 2:30 AM. Then after staring at it a while, adjusting a few models, adding in George and the unfinished stuff, I thought of all the things I wouldn’t get done, all the things I’ve been typing about. Then I got my iPhone and took a picture or two.

They weren’t very good pictures, there is no light in my living room, but I used a lamp and retook the pictures and deemed it worthy of a blog post. I had another beer to try and keep cool and ended up typing a much longer post then I originally intended. I wanted to show a few people that one of my major hobby projects was actually coming together and although it wouldn’t be as good as I could make it, it still looked pretty good, and despite everything, and by everything I mean a whole lot of setbacks and problems in my life, I was still going to Astronomi-con 2010 and people better look out because this year I might actually win a game.

I hope to win more than one game actually. I haven’t been able to stop the Landraider full of elite close combat troops or the Orky equivalent in the last few years. So since I was going Chaos Space Marines again I decided to join them and devised my own “Landraider of Pain” army list. Since I’m a Nurgle guy and I had decided Bob the Necessary Evil’s adventures would continue but thought what else could I put in a Landraider to help the Plaguemarines out?

Plaguemarines are tough, but they have low initiative and generally win by attrition or more accurately just refuse to die thus spoiling the enemy’s plan. They don’t kill much even with two special weapons and a champion with a powerfist. I had dreamed up the Khorne Lord with Chainfist, who also goes last in H2H so I added a ‘right hand man’ for him in the form of Chaos Sorcerer of Slaneesh who hopefully would strike first and with his Force Weapon get rid of some annoying opponents who might kill my Lord or the Plaguemarines before they get to fight.

With a plan, an army list, a back story, even a display board I decided to blog about it and post to the Astronomi-con mailing list. A keen observer will note that a few models actually fit perfectly into the display base, they were in my 2003 Vancouver GT army. I’m not sure how many models were in both armies, you’d have to pick them up and look carefully at the campaign badges. It is easy to spot the unfinished models. It is also pretty easy at least for me to spot the model with the oldest paint job, but bolstered by the success I had throwing down models with almost as old of paint jobs in the form of the Beasts of Nurgle, particularily Sluggie, who’s paint job is more primative than even George’s, I decided what the hell, I’ll take a cab and bring an actual display base to this year’s Astronomi-con Vancouver. I still doubt I’ll win best painted, let alone overall, but hopefully I still get a good score in painting and even with the comp hit I hope to do better overall than I have at the previous two Astros.

Nick, Malcolm, and Jason have been eerily quite on the Astro front. Dean announced he was dropping out and Rob, a regular opponent, is also out this year. Some Americans are coming, some people form Kelowna are undoubtably coming, supposedly even some people from Winnipeg are coming to Vancouver this year. I may have been correct in my prediction that the opportunity to win a gold ticket to the official North American Grand Tournament of all Tournaments would attract some fresh and highly competitive players to Vancouver’s favourite 40K tournament.

Hopefully unlike the Nova Open and the War Games Con or even worse ‘Ard Boyz, they remember to paint their own damn miniatures, or at least get a mercenary painter and announce they are out of the running for best painted and hopefully overall and are just trying for best general or better still, just playing for fun. Or I will mock them online.