Help Required: UH-60 Blackhawk rappel kit

Hi blogosphere

I'm in need of a little assistance, i'm looking for reference as to how the UH-60 Blackhawks or similar mount their rappel lines. I'm adding some detailing to my valks and vendettas such as rappel lines and I cant find anything worth while for me to make an accurate guess at it,

Maybe you know of some great ref pictures... Maybe you took the pictures... Maybe you know of a great kit on the Market place I could plunder for parts (scale permitting). 1/48th I believe is roughly close.

And lastly, have a great new year.

Krom

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Something to come next year.

Let's start off with a warm Merry Christmas to one and all.

Let's hope everyone has a great New Year.

So just wanted to post up a quick peak at one of my upcoming projects... A Tauros Venator


See you all in the new year and celebrate it in style!

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Drop Sentinel WIPS

So I decided I better show some pictures as I've basically not got onto showing anyone my list I took to ToS or my final battle results or my thoughts on changing the force. I'll get to it, but I just felt like my hobby mojo was running high... so I just jumped aboard and went along for the ride.





















As always C&C welcome, I hope you enjoy.

The UK 40kGT

I just wanted to send out word that the UK 40K GT website is back up and running.

The UK 40K GT

If your going to the event in March... I'll see you there.

If you've never heard of it before here's a little run down. The tournament has been set up in light of the changes at the Throne of Skulls tournament. It is going to be a single event this year (sold out in something daft like 24hrs), with plans for increasing to a heat system in future years.

So follow the site to keep up to date with news and any changes that happen with the tournament.

Throne of Skulls Game 2

Wow... Real life has been chocka block... So much so I forgot to finish this.

So my second game was one of my best games of the the tournament (even receiving my best of army vote).

The game started with me wondering where the hell my opponent was as he was a little late (after going the safe option and ordering food directly from Bugmans). After the first few moments thinking where my opponent was he arrived. IG... Great, I'd never faced IG before with the air cav. This was going to be fun.

After the obvious introductions I found out my opponent was Alexander 'Sasha' Sawyer. Sasha was rolling with a Catachan list. At first glance I could see two great big siege guns (they turned out to be a colossus and a medusa) and something that I knew would be a pain in the right royal derrière... Hydras... Damn flat out cover saves would be rapidly gone.

So we rolled off for mission and set up and we got pitched battle and annihilation... Again. After receiving a pasting on the last game I wasn't too confident for the one.

So here's a quick run down of Sashas list.

Game 2 - pitched battle, annihilation.
Opponent - Alexander Sawyer
Army - Imperial Guard

Army list:

HQ
Command squad
3 x plasma
Medic
Astropath
Straken
Chimera

Troops

Infantry platoon

Platoon command squad
Chimera
Commissar
Auto cannon heavy weapon team

Infantry squad
Auto cannon heavy weapon team

Infantry squad
Auto cannon heavy weapon team

Vet squad with 3 flamers and demolitions

Vet squad with 3 meltas
Chimera

Fast Attack
Vendetta

Heavy Support
Medusa

Colossus

2x hydras


So the game started and after having spent lunch lamenting my woes Dezartfox. Over at the The Vanus Temple urged me to remember the air cav alpha strikes.

So with this in mind I deployed 2 squadrons on the table both were vendettas if I recall.

However dice rolls didn't go my way and I wasn't going first... However Sasha had already pre emptied this and had deployed his platoon as a single squad in cover... Balls! This meant I only had squish guys to kill... That, I discovered were going to go to ground for the entire game!

So I took the obvious bait and started shooting them... I should have done some flat out moves to gain some cover saves.

Sasha took his turn and started deploying some of his units. Colossus and medusa came on along with some chimeras. Everything popped smoke, apart from the big guns which fired direct shots. Thankfully nothing down... Phew!

My turn... Ok this big boys were mine... Or not as the case may be. My dice rolls were appalling. I managed ti immobilise the colossus and stop the medusa shooting.

Sashas go. Hydras came on, but one got immobilised giving it to the wreck gods. The shooting was good and true which resulted in downed Valkyries and Vendettas. This meant when my turn arrived my firepower was diminished. And so the cycle continued... Until I was removed completely from okay by turn 6.

Managed to knock out a few units but nothing substantial enough to curb Sashas onslaught.

I've managed to be in contact with Sasha (BlueRonin) since the tournament. So after very little coaxing Sasha agreed to add his side of the match as well... So over to the air cav killer!

I had a look through the list (although my first impression of your actual army made me want to grab a coffee and go through your actual army instead - it was beautiful!).

However, back to the business of killing. I decided that my best bet would have to be to get the jump on you, so that you didn't get the freedom to line up and alpha strike my heavy support before I could start grounding some of your Vendetta/Valkyries.

Knowing the resilience of a blob of 31 guardsmen in dispersed formation in area terrain, I deployed them all as a combined unit in a convenient piece of rocky outcroppings (area terrain) more or less in the middle of my deployment zone. I wanted to deploy them in one of the area terrain pieces off to a side (in order to bait you out to a flank), but - as you pointed out to me - I couldn't set up deeper than 12" in and so the blob wouldn't be able to claim cover without bunching up too much. Everything else was kept in reserve, so the Infantry Blob's job was to bait you onto the table in order to start shooting at them - hopefully mistaking them for a soft target. Fortunately for me, you deployed both Vendetta squadrons to do just that.

However, if you do the math once the blob has gone to ground each squadron would only cause 3 casualties (and the more dice you roll, the more reliable statistics become) per turn against the blob.

With your Vendettas in the open shooting at my blob, my Astropath made sure the majority of my army came on in turn two and unleashed on your skimmers. With my heavies having the initiative (i.e. I was taking anti-tank shots at your skimmers before you were taking your anti-tanks hots at my tanks), and focusing fire on your weak flank; it pretty much came down to the Penetration Rolls and I was lucky enough to pop a couple of your skimmers out of the sky (of course, the squadron rule helps my luck a bit here).

Getting the initiative on this cycle was critical, because in the war of attrition anti-tank fire inevitably becomes, the one who shoots first will typically lead the race by constantly reducing enemy forces, thus enemy shots back at himself.

With my good fortune of downing two birds, I had managed to half the amount of incoming Lascannon fire, as well as disembark soft targets for my flamers and lasguns.

From this point on I worked on collapsing the army from the right flank towards the left, sustaining fire on your birds and cleaning up forces so that you didn't have any good opportunities to return fire (the building that was planted in the middle of the gameboard was pivotal to this tactic, literally).

Apart from that, the dice were on my side so I simply stuck to my guns, as it were, and tried not to be a dick about it. I believe I managed to down your last model on your left in turn 6?

Back to me again... Thanks Sasha, very well put.

So wiped out again... But hey... I had an absolute blast so I couldn't give a hoot. Sasha was a fantastic opponent and very gracious.

I'd also like to direct you all over to Sashas blogs (grab a coffee as there's some great reading to be had)

Here and here

Next few games are going to be quick round ups as I wanna get onto reviewing my force and planning the next steps... And showing you some new pics of the army and what's coming.

Throne of Skulls Game 1

So the ToS event was different from previous years in that you didn't receive an overall ranking unless you were the best of your codex or best of the tournament.

I was dubious going into the event as I had previously enjoyed the usual Swiss format tournament. However, I will say that this tourney was still great fun - just different.

The format was 5 games over two days with random missions. It was random table and opponent selection all weekend until Sunday when the top boys all started facing off.

So back to the important stuff, my tournament.

Game 1 - pitched battle, annihilation.
Opponent - Andrew Turnbuck
Army - Chaos Space marines.

Quick run down of my opponents force:

daemon prince with lash
2 oblits
Vindicator
Chaos lord in terminator armour
Chaos terminators with combi weapons
Land raider
Rhino
1 squad 10 csm with a lascannon
1 squad cam with melta


The game started off Andrew got the first turn, so I did flat out scout moves to gain the 4+ cover save.

Andrew fired everything at the Valkyrie and vendettas, he was very unlucky and didn't damage anything.

My first turn, I launched a torrade of lascannon, heavy bolter, multi laser and missile fire at him. This ended with and immobilised land raider and vindicator.

From there on in Andrew blasted me off the table... Quite literally. I managed to destroy his vindicator.

It was a great game and Andrew was a great opponent. Lessons had been learnt and discussed over the ensuing lunch.

You'll notice as this is my first time doing post game reports these are very short and poorly images as I failed to take photos.

I'll aim to post 2 reports from Thursday onwards.

So here I am on the Tuesday after ToS and I've got to throw a very grateful thanks to Dezartfox over at The Vanus Temple for the great pics of my force he got.

So with no further ado, pics of the army displayed ready for best army judging!

So that was what I believe to be the sugar... especially considering they are not completed yet and the army went as a PiP.

Tomorrows post will be a quick round up of each of the games I played over the 2 days.

Throne of Skulls Winter 2010

Wow what a weekend, another fun enjoyable tournament with the usual great bunch of folk and the inevitable loud "I'm a idiot" nerds in attendance.

The tournament in question was Games Workshops Winter Throne of Skulls 2010. This was the tournament I have been working the elysians towards over he past few months and also the reason why I've not been posting recently as I have put my hobby focus 99% on painting and getting complete and the last 1% on Halo Reach.

I attended with my brother Mart from Marts Warhammer Blog and Tim from The Vanus Temple.

Halo Reach was an unfortunate delay to the whole project, resulting in the not so desirable effect of not being 100% complete.

So over this week I'm aiming to post a series of posts tat are rounding up the tournament and finally posting some pictures (I hope Tim got some decent photos). I'm also going to have a run down of my list, what I thought worked well and what I thought sucked monkey nuts. Also, future plans for the force will be included in both list and modelling forms.

So to appease the baying masses (If your out there somewhere) a PiP I took a couple of weeks ago and never got round to posting.

The elysians have finally received an update

Wow... I've not posted in ages. Or at least it seems that way.

However, the looming deadline of the November UK Throne of Skulls. So what have I been up to then?

Well all but the command squad are in base colours, requiring just some basic highlights and some work on the weapons.

I've completed the master of the fleet, basting through the valkyries and vendettas. What I do think is that I may not complete the target :( and may end up as a min colours kind of guy for the tourney. However, I'm still pushing to meet the deadline.

So onto some pics

WiP


Useful hobby kit... if airbrushing


WiP


WiP


The completed Master of the fleet



I've also picked up a new game to me. I heard about it from the guys at the The D6 Generation, the game is called Munchkin and is created by Steve Jackson Games. Not sure the gaming group will enjoy it, but it sounds great and here's hoping we all love it!




Also if you want to see how my fellow gaming group are going with the build up to Throne of Skulls see them at their sites:

Marts Warhammer 40K blog and The Vanus Temple

Until next time....

Space Marine Statue

So Just wanted to share my latest terrain purchases.

The Space Marine Statue.

For £15 this set is fantastic, the join lines on it are awful. I even started to put some ever trusted squadron green putty (neat) to fill the gaps. It would have been a monster job so I gave up and decided that they would be part of the construction by the imperials.

I decided on a weathered brass statue... boring I know, but I wanted to trial a technique I saw over at massive voodoo using polished metal and oil paints. Find it here. Obviously this is a plastic model, but I decided the technique would work just as well.

The process was:
Black Undercoat
3-4 coats of thinned brazen brass
Drybrush of Brazen brass / chainmail mix (1:1)
Gloss varnish
Oil wash/paint W& Lamp Oil black all over (touch of burnt umber added to the mix as well)
Allowed white spirits to evaporate
Drybrush the model with a clean dry flat brush (never wash brush during process, just wipe on toilet roll or a rag)
Leave to dry
Matt Varnish and apply a verdigis mix of Hawk Turquoise, Orkhide, Skull white (8:1:1)
Varnish again.

And here is the finished result

Let me know what you think or any questions about the process.

Progress on the Elysians

Thought I better do a post and let everyone know I'm alive.

So I've been pretty busy with everything... Including having a smashing holiday in Devon, if you discount it raining. Then it wouldn't be a UK holiday without rain.

So enough of my life and onto the items you want to be seeing. I'm close to completing another squad, the third of my four veteran units. Converted my master of the fleet, built the first command squad, made more objectives, started attending a wargames club and got some more games in. WooT

Gaming Wise, I attended the York Wargames Society and played a couple of games against a now seemingly regular opponent (Neil Kerr or more likely known to most as Skuzzlebum). Really enjoyed it, got beaten both times and started to see where I could improve my force. So the getting beaten bit, I'm not fussed as he is the third best demon player... in the world according to rankings HQ.

So the changes I've noted and need to look into is the snipers must go. They have done nothing for me. The options I have and need to look into is all flamers or more potently all plasma weapons with a medic... Plan would be to drop in, shoot lots and kill lots. The medic would be there to give me the all important back up should I get the inevitable overheating weapons... Oh well just some more resin crack to buy :D

I'll work on a new 1000pts list, but also importantly get onto that critical 1500pts as I need to get gaming with it.

Time for pics, me thinks...

Company Commander


Master of the Fleet


Third Squad Trooper PiPs




Objective WIPs


Vendetta Pilots PiP


Thanks for looking and add your comments and feedback as there are always welcome.

Elysian Vet sergeant - PiP

So here I am, making another post... however this time with a little reservation for the Elysians / Air cav route.

I held a gaming weekend over the weekend inviting Mart, Dezartfox and Skuzzlebum. I played 4 games over Saturday evening and Sunday. 3 losses and a draw. We were playing 1000pts on 4x4 boards.

I was running:

Company Command Squad
4 x sniper rifles
1 x master of the fleet

Veteran squad
3 meltas
demolitions

Veteran squad
3 meltas
Shotguns
demolitions

Veteran squad
3 meltas

2 vendettas

1 vendetta
heavy bolters

1 vendetta
heavy bolters

Total 1000pts.


So the list wasn't too bad, I could maybe switch the snipers to flamers for a little more aggressive flushing tactics. Use these in co-op with the shotgun squad.

I really liked the vendettas with the 2 5pt heavy bolters. They were able to unleash a fusilade of fire that was a real treat.

So with this being my very first outting, I don't feel I did too bad. I've just a lot more to learn with this force and to get myself playing more to get those rules drummed into my head.

So after gaming I was really motivated to pick up the bristles and get to work with the third squad... and here is a PiP of the squad veteran sergeant.

Picture update, Still PiP

Right well after a little harassment I took some photos of the two elysian squads I've been working on. They still require a few tweaks, but they are not far off.

Squad 1









Squad 2






Base for 1st squad 3 melta gunner



No painting this eveing as I'm going to frazzle my mind watching inception. Though I aim to fully complete painting these guys on Saturday and Spend part of Sunday painting Valkyrie interiors :)