NOVA Open, Templar List, and the beginning of Cryx.

NOVA is coming up in a few months and I've already purchased my spot in the GT. I'm stoked to go, as it's going to be my first major tournament. Still waiting on a few final rulings, what kind of missions, and how detachment allowances will be approached, but I have a pretty interesting list that has been performing well as of late.

Black Templar, 1850

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HQ - Chaplain, Melta Bombs

Troop - Crusader Squad, x9 Initiates /w Melta Gun and Power Axe and Chainswords, x1 Sword Brother /w Power Sword and Melta Bombs.
     Dedicated: Land Raider Crusader, Multi-Melta
Troop - Crusader Squad, x9 Initiates /w Melta Gun and Power Axe and Chainswords, x1 Sword Brother /w Power Sword and Melta Bombs.
     Dedicated: Land Raider Crusader, Multi-Melta

Heavy Support - Thunderfire Cannon

Imperial Knights:
Paladin
Errant

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I have some concerns with the list, but I've been playing it against some of my local area's top players and still doing amazingly well. It's big and tough, and easy to transport. It won't do well against fliers, though, and a Stormraven would ruin my day. It's hardy enough to last through a few rounds of heavy fire, and has enough hitting power to use those rounds to take out what is a major threat to my armor...so that's nice. However, I'm still trying to gauge what's working and what's not. Ideally everything would just work perfectly and there wouldn't be any issues, but depending on what kind of missions the tournament has will make a huge difference on whether the list can perform competitively. There's still a few months to get something working, but I don't want to waste too much time thinking it over so I can bring a fully painted army to the tournament.

Recently I've been painting a bit too much Templar. Heh. Yeah, heretical... but I've said before I'm not a patient painter, and top that off with painting the same colors and big vehicles over and over and you've got a bit of Templar burn out. On the plus side, I'm a pretty quick painter when I'm excited to actually paint them, so expect to hit my Templars hard in a few weeks once I get back into painting all the ZEAL. But in the meantime....

CRYX

I love Warmahordes for the lore and game mechanics, and I feel they are separate enough from 40k to be two very distinctive games. That translates to me loving both of the games equally, even though I still consider 40k to be my main wargame. However, I've been wanting to paint up the darker colors of Cryx, mixed with the rusty undead armors and the green glows. So I came up with a quick 15-point army that will hopefully evolve into my new Warmachine force. The big thing is I want these models to be much more "Showcase" quality, with wet-blended armor and multiple highlights in the metallics and trying out new effects. Only having to paint up 15-points and slowing adding another 10 here and there means I can approach it slowly and still have minimal models to paint. The goal is for this to focus me when I need a break from painting my Templars, but to also have only a few models to paint so I don't feel overwhelmed and go back to the quick speed techniques that I've adapted to.

Yesterday I ended up painting my two bonejacks (both Ripjaws) in my battlegroup. I was expecting/hoping to spend more than a day on a model, let alone on two models, but they came out quickly and not using as many washes cut down on drying times. So here is the result in all their bad lighting and terrible camera glory:

Cryx Bonejack Ripjaw front

Cryx Bonejack Ripjaw side