Terminators and sternguard

It's a lot of work trying to get all my units ready for our big final Rikal IV game. After making rules for Jolin the terminator captain I decided he needed his own command squad. Fortunately I had a base coated terminator unit with FW shoulder pads which would work perfectly.

Using my standard paint scheme I simply added gold to their shoulders and altered their headpiece colors to make them stand out more. I think they turned out pretty well

Now the sternguard were much more of a conversion process since I didnt buy GW's boxsets. 70$ for 10 models isn't what I call a bargain for marines who just have special bolters. Creating my own 7 combi-meltas was fairly easy just a bit time consuming. For the sergeant I used the limited edition one from the online store and then made my own heavy flamers. Inspiration struck me for the floating platform and while it's not totally canon I think it looks cool anyway so screw it

In game 1 these guys were a huge disappointment but I hope game 3 will be different!
and lastly I finished Corbulo's custom stormlord. If anyone follows BA lists you'll notice that Corbulo tends to ride in a vehicle to maximize his range which has become a bit of an inside joke to my friends and I. Since he's a prominent member of the chapter why isnt he riding in something a bit more stylist? Well here is his new ride

I call it the "Last Rites"


That's it for now. Only a few more units to go

New updates

It's been a super busy couple of weeks due to me getting married and also involved with a mortgage for our new house.

The board did get finished so first I figure I'll post the results!

This first picture is the entire board with all my terrain. Since this picture was taken I have finished basing and painting all the terrain so it looks better. Please remember my carpet isnt flat and will look different properly set up


a picture of the blood angel base area which took me the longest



So far all the players in the game are excited and its looking to be A LOT of fun. Who says apoc cant be entertaining?

Day 3

The final 3 boards in the first half of the battlefield took a while to paint due to the roads.. Here are how they turned out

This piece is the top half board #2 and it connects to the board seen in the last update. Here you see the road that will connect to the second bridge which is very near the blood angel base


Moving to the bottom half of the board we have board #1 which has the first bridge and the left half of the road that goes around the research center

Bottom board #2 is the rest of the research center road and would connect to the BA base if not for a roadblock at the end (Another piece of movable terrain)


Lastly we have the entire board set up.. Keep in mind this is only half of the final battlefield

Day 2!

Much progress can be made in a day especially when you're laid off and on unemployment.. So hey Im getting paid to do this and go to school..

My goal for the terrain is for it to look really good with models and other scenery on the field but at the same time I do not want to spend weeks detailing it. Reason? I don't believe it will enhance the enjoyment of the game all that much because people tend to not pay a lot of attention to it compared to the models themselves

After having marked up the first 4 boards I got my tub of textured paint and just got a paintbrush to layer it on. Fairly straight forward. Before that however I covered all the roads with masking tape so that later (as you'll see) I could take it off and paint them by hand.

Here is an example of the very exciting "foam with white paint" picture! Now, the paint can said it took 4 hours to dry but it actually took more around 14. But that did not deter me from working on other parts of the overall project in the meantime

Deciding I needed some base defense since I've never really played with any. For whatever reason all my game stores have terrain yet nothing like that. Going to the hardware store I found some plumbing pieces that looked like they could be an imperial gun emplacement.. Some bits later I had these!












Also needing some turrets for my sandbags I made a few autocannon turrets which were just predator sponsons with the lascannons replaced by autocannons (From said predators)





















Finally one of the boards was dry so I got out my spray paint and started to paint it.. First coat was matte black then a brown and finally an off white to give it the look I wanted. Once that was dry I peeled off the masking tape and did the roads by hand

That's it for day 2

Building the battle for Rikal IV Board

I've decided to build at totally new board for my final battle on Rikal IV

The first thing I did was buy 2 8x4 2 inch thick insulation from home depot at around 15$ a sheet.. Then I had it cut into 8 2x4s so it was easier to carry home and modify

After that I measured all pieces of my terrain that I intended to use and made a scale model of the board in photo shop which helped me design and plan it..

Once the terrain was placed I drew the roads and the sludge river on the map

You will have to click the thumbnails to see the road outlines!

It took a few hours of fooling around to get everything just right and after that I started to mark the boards and cut the river..

This is the bottom left corner where the first bridge is located.. Drawing the roads was easy since my model in photo shop was perfect scale at 1 inch = 1 foot


Next I went to the bottom mid left which has the majority of the sludge river and the rest of the road complex that surrounds the research center


Top left was next which let me finish up the other side of the bridge and start the roads where the invading orks will start


and finally I did Top mid left which was just a continuation of the starting ork ruins


I'll start working on the other 4 pieces soon, but Top and bottom right are basically flat as they are for the BA base and the power station so really only 2 more sections to do

The Battle for Rikal IV COMPLETE

The first installment of the epic struggle for control of Rikal IV is finally finished. In this campaign book you'll find new data sheets for blood angels, tau, orks and chaos, new (and altered) strategic assets, special objectives, a new secret objective system and many more features!

This game was played in 5 hours and features armies of 15,000 points a side!

Please check out the PDF HERE