Here's a quick write up of the Space Marine Thunder Fire Cannon. The pics are of my first attempt at painting one. The Techmarine is a pain to paint, so I'll get to him eventually lol.

Load Out: The unit consists of a Techmarine (50pts) with Servo harness (25pts) and the TF cannon (25pts) for a total of 100 points. This unit is treated as an artillery weapon/unit which means it must remain stationary to fire. Since it is not a barrage weapon it relys on true line of sight and deviates normally (2d6 + Scatter - 4bs).

Ballistics: The Thunderfire cannon has three types of ammunition that can be loaded.

Types of Ammunition

• Surface - 60" range | 6 str | 5 ap | Heavy 4, Blast
• Airburst - 60" range | 5 str | 6 ap | Heavy 4, Blast | Ignores Cover
• Subterranean - 60" range | 6 str | 5 ap | Heavy 4, Blast | Tremor

The ignore cover ability is pretty self explanatory; cover saves can't be taken against it. Units hit by the Tremor round will move as if in difficult terrain their next movement phase. This means that they must roll as if in difficult terrain for one round and if they are already in dif. terrain they roll one less d6. This can be very useful in slowing down mob armies and fast attack units. Vehicles hit by tremor rounds must roll a dangerous terrain test, including skimmers.

Deviation: With multi barrage artillery you will roll scatter normally on the first shot. The remaining three shots scatter from the location of the first. On a "hit" you can place those shots anywhere that is touching the area of the first template. With a 4 BS, though, you won't see too much deviation. Combine that with a 60" range makes it pretty effective.

Destroying the Thunderfire Cannon: Roll to hit as normal. On successful hits roll a D6 to determine what you attack; rolls of 1-4 hit the cannon (AV 10) and 5-6 hit the Tech Marine (2+ sv). More than likely the gun will be destroyed leaving the Techmarine to detatch and treating him as an Independent character. The entire unit is destroyed if the techmarine fails to save.

If the Cannon is destroyed then the Tech Marine is treated as normal, benefiting from the Techmarine rules. The Techmarine does not have the Independant character rule when attached to the cannon and therefore cannot add a Servitor retinue. He retains the IC rule when the cannon is destroyed and loses it when the cannon is repaired (which means any spquad he was attached to he automatically leaves). Other than this rule the standard Techmarine rules apply including Bolster Defense (adds +1 cover save to ruin building in your deployment zone) and Blessing of the Ommnisiah (ability to repair vehicles).

If you chose to repair the cannon then they will be treated as one unit again. If the Tech marine is destroyed in any situation then both the tech marine and the cannon are removed from play (as there is nobody left to operate the weapon).

Modeling: Assembling this pewter model can be a pain as the top (or "Jonny 5" as my friend mentioned) and the armor panels don't like to stay in place. This can be easily fixed with a little pinning work.

Painting this model was fast and easy. I primed with chaos black spray and did the armor plates in Ultramarine blue. The bulk of the vehicle was done with mostly boltgun metal or a mix with chaos black. After drybrushing I gave it a few coats of wash with Badab Black and Devlin mud and applied highlights with boltgun and 50:50 boltgun/mithril silver. Highlights on armor were done with codex gray and 50:50 codex/Space wolf grey

Overall: This model should be in every Space Marines arsenal, imo. Although it's not very powerful in terms of anti-armor, it makes up for that in utility vs. infantry such as Ork and Nid mobs. Tremor rounds can be very useful against opponents already in dif. terrain (as they roll 1 less dice). The Airburst Round is also handy against units behind cover. Add in the fact that you get a Techmarine with servo harness makes the Thunderfire Cannon well worth 100 points.

My "other" cannon lol

Here's some of my Vindicator

----- Every Wednesday is project day @ TINBITZ -----

Chi3f: Working on highlights to Commisar Yarrick, adding reds to the Power Klaw and refining the cloak. He should be finished by Friday (work permitting). Pics will be up Saturday :)

Hoot: Building and magnetizing a Nid army. He almost drilled a hole in his shirt with the dremel tool haha. No models were harmed in the process.

Check back every Wednesday as we'll have weekly pics up of our projects

Peace-
Chi3f

Here are a few more IG models. The guy below is how most of my models will be based for table top quality.

Pilot from the Battle for Macragge box set.


Old Style Ratling model.

As promised here's some of Commissar Yarrick. Currently I just have a base coat and a little shading/highlights started. From here I'll be adding to the Claw and face mostly then cleaning up detail.

This last image is close to actual size.

Big Thanks to Kr1ch for getting these pics taken tonight. He would consider these low quality, but well, you be the judge lol. Here's some of my first painted stuff. Most of these were attempts at techniques such as dry brushing, washing. highlighting, etc.

This Rhino was my first attempt at painting a vehicle



My 2nd attempt: Ultra marines Dreadnaught. I went back and repainted a little to match the codex.



Sgt. Telion of the Ultra Marines. This is another WIP. The face is nearly done


Ultra Marines Chaplain

I'm thinking up a few quick tourney lists to play my buddies this weekend to prepare for the mini-tourney. It'll consist of more troops and less vehicles.

Practice List 1
HQ: Captain or Master of the Forge - 100 pts
Troop 1: 10 man Tac squad +Flamer +Missle - 170 pts
Troop 2: 5man scouts +Telion - (75 + 50) 125 pts
Fast: None
Elite: None
Heavy: Thunderfire cannon - 100pts

Total: 495 pts

The idea behind this list is mainly support. This list is lacking in melee, but makes up for it in utility. Telion's ability to pick off targets in mobs is nice and the Thunderfire Cannon adds an extra threat the army needs (ignore cover, adds dif terrain effect). The only variation I may try is replacing the Thunderfire Cannon or Tac Squad with a Dev. Squad. I would probably have to downgrade a few things to bring them in or replace a troop choice with them (if tourney rules allow). We shall see.

I see my compadres at H00t's SpLaTTeR and WH40K by S2ua7 have some pics up. Argh, and here I am with no camera lol.

Unlike myself, my friends have Costco memberships so we'll have to head over there and pick up a decent camera. I have plenty of stuff sitting here that needs to be added to the site lol.

Current Project: I am adding highlights to Commisar Yarrick and should be finished in the next few days. After that I'll start on the Eldar Avatar. Can't wait :)

Ok last post of the night, lol.

These are some sketches I did of Wolverine a while back.

Is that a lightning claw?


"I need a shave"

I have some more I'm just too lazy to scan them haha. I'll put it on the "to-do" list

Working on a Quick Banner for the blog. I did this in Flash (Since I forgot to install Photoshop) lol.

I haven't decided on anything yet, but this is closer to what I imagined. Eventually I would like to add more detail to the background and turn it into a forum signature.

What do you think of this color scheme? Comments are always appreciated :)

Update: The image on the Left is my WIP, the one on the right is a GW version

I apologize for the lack of images lol. I'll be posting some this Saturday once I can borrow a camera :)

Current Project: Working on Commissar Yarrick (above). This is just a sample pic of what he looks like, though I plan to change the scheme a little bit.

Terrain: I'm trying to decide between an Orc "Big Mek" shop or a Tau type structure. I saw a few different types in the Planetary Strike book and it inspired me to start my own. I will probably do a Tau building since you don't see many of those.

Yeah... so this is where it begins. Here you will find artwork and WH40k related painting. I'll be posting my current armies and some of my friend's work as well :)

A friend of mine is an aspiring photographer (I think) and we should have some things up pretty soon. Enjoy your stay