Sister approved!

Here are some interior shots of the Cathedral.  You can see a little more of the statuary in these views.

Once again, the statues were there as objective markers, but they are also intended to tell the story of the army.  It begins with a Bronze Age Celtic technology, working all the way up to the 41st millenium tech.

I will make a post on those statues soon so you get a better idea of how they worked.

The statues arranged, and the Sisters in place.

While my original intent was to paint some green marble on a few of the wall struts, I am glad that I did not do so.  It probably would have been too much of a visual frenzy.

The other small details that I wanted to add were some hanging banners and a few of the old metal cherubs for effect.  I had some servo skulls as well, but time just ran out.

Also, I thought that I would have that many more fragile, breakable bits to worry about!

As it was, the statues were all magnetized to the floor, and the LED lights were very firmly stuck into the ceiling.

And the Sororitas demonstrated their approval by guarding the Cathedral as I went to put stuff in the Crystal Brush!  Results on that later...

Hanging out in the Wild West Exodus booth with Jonathan and Elizabeth!  A fun time, and hopefully batches of those minis showing up on the blog here.  Big trains... lots of steampunk :-)

The results are in!

For all those out there in Wappelville who have been wondering what happened with the tournament army, the results had been tallied, and we can say Mission Accomplished!!!!!!

Of course, we brought our own crack Strike Team with us, just to be sure of this result.  Babo Protects!

Many thanks to all those who voted for me in the Player's Choice as well!  Much appreciated.

Now for some exterior views with a bit nicer lighting.

This one shows how helpful the cart was over the weekend.  It made dealing with this monstrosity quite easy.

Plenty of room for the miniatures, dice, books and so on!

The original plan was to have flying buttresses along these front walls, but as you can see by this image, there was not going to be any room for minis if I carried that plan through!

I think these views show the verticality of the cathedral... although I was glad that I did not build it any higher.

The more I see these pictures, the more I see how much impact changing an army list can have in the middle of a project.  This mostly pertains to the additional vehicles that I included in the final cut.

The Aegis Defense line also looked much better than I thought it would.  That was something I had intended to rebuild, but I ended up liking my original version!

I was also glad that I had a place to put the Command Squad and the commissar!

More side views...

A close up of the Secret Weapon tanks and the Victoria Miniatures Rough Riders.

I can't say thank you enough to Justin and Victoria!!!

The army arrayed for battle!!!

It's a long way down...

Next up, the interior!

I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who took the time to stop by, check out the army and have a chat with me.  It was lots of fun, and the discussions of technique, making concepts reality, the materials and so on was a huge help in working out future projects in my head.

It meant a lot when each person stopped to drop a kind word or two along the way.  Thanks, all!

Trying to turn the tide

The final match of Doom!  This time vs Tau.  Big robot dudes.  Big shooty.  Lots of dead guys in kilts.

However, now realizing the futility of trusting in their fortifications, the Highland Guard chose the only option available.  The Final Option.

OVER THE WALLS, LADS!

Hey, do ya wanna live forever?

Yes indeed.  The first three turns of the game, the Guard and Sisters bravely charged forward, directly into a hail of fire!

Undeterred by the screams if their fallen brothers, they surged ahead, ever closer to their hated enemy.

None even bothered to fire a shot.  It was all... "Onwards!  Give them the bayonet!!"

In reality, this action caused so much consternation among the Tau that the constant attempts to Nova- something would go haywire, causing damage to themselves.

Even the Living Saint perished with all of her Seraphim.

But not even Death itself could deter her from her final glory!!!

The dreaded master of the soulless Tau, promoting heretical beliefs across the Galaxy.  He must be purged!!!

One brave Highlander after another fell in the desperate attempt to finish off the damaged monsters.  Lady Commissar Kuranova herself challenged the cowardly leader of this horse of mutants... hiding in his armor.

Chief Medic Marley O'Sullivan was able to keep the last few survivors alive... one round of combat after another!

But alas, the wounds suffered were soon more than even his ancient powers could repair.  All would perish.  A terrible loss for the brave Highland Guard!

Charge of the Light Brigade!

Game three... not as many pictures, since it was mostly 3 Thunderfire cannons ignoring cover every turn.  Remove minis, repeat.

It was a really nice looking board, though, with a mat that matched the terrain perfectly!

All set up, looking for some action.

Had to get all the way across the board, so I had anything that could move quickly on the right flank...

They could move faster, however, with a pair of drop pods.  How I long for my old 4th edition Demonhunters.  Would have been an interesting 'welcome committee' waiting for them :-)

The only action of note was Mogul Kamir leading the wolf riders to victory over the scouts in the speeders, with a little help from Saint Morrigan.

I actually did kill a lot of stuff from the Smurfs.  Probably more than in any other game.  I think just about all of their mobile units were gone...

Then onto game four, the Tide Changes...

Hey, that's MY statue...

So, we continue with game two... the inter-family Guard spat.  This particular Inquisitor had proven troublesome to the Sisters... so it was determined that he should feel the wrath of the living Saint.  Curse him and his little dog!!

Here's what was waiting for him.  Lady Chenkov and her conscripts, as well as Saint Morrigan.

I had no pie template weapons in my list, but for one brief shining moment, I did.  This pie represents a shoot down of the one flyer I saw all weekend.

Perhaps the snow was pretty deep, since it did not crash hard enough to kill all that many Guard...

Moments before impact.  INCOMING!

And now for the Death of a Salesman.  One who was peddling a false brand of Inquisition thought.

I learned the hard way that my Sisters should have brought better snowshoes if they were going to be more heavily armored than their Guard allies.  How else do you explain all the results of 1 or 2 on difficult terrain tests?

It was nice to see the all plasma Leman Russ in action!!  Even though it was pointing at me in the distance...

And here's what everyone was fighting over.  A statue of the Living Saint.

Towards the end of this game, I had started to realize the futility of using the ADL, or any cover for that matter.  So, I decided to reach out and touch someone.

It almost worked, as a secondary objective was to control terrain pieces with troops (or use denial units).  We only played to turn 4... with more time, some of these units could have started eating up the Guardsmen.

Such as this example, where Saint Morrigan tore wide swaths through the Misguided Guard single handed.

This wider view shows you the scale of the scrum on the center.  Mogul Kamir had driven his unit of Rough Riders all around the board to assault that Leman Russ.  Many penetrating this were made on rear armor in assault, but rolling '1's on damage tables does not work so well :-)

You can see that I am trying to get as many squads into those woods as possible.  On the other hand, they were mysterious woods with lots of Angry Birds inside that would pecj you to death if you disturbed them.

The conclusion.  The Guard won.  Just the wrong one, infortunately.