Hi everyone my name is Jay Griffiths and I’m the Head Of Retail for Games Workshop Canada.

Army List

Well it’s all over!

There’s good news for me and bad news.  First the good news; I finished, I also got my additional Emperor’s Talon Recon group half finished before the deadline and now it’s fully completed!  And now the bad news; although my army is completely painted, it is no longer completely assembled!  Due to an unfortunate incident involving transporting my army I now have over 3000 points of fully painted broken bitz sitting in my basement waiting to be re-assembled into a functional army.  <cue Six Million Dollar Man theme>  I have the technology, I can re-build them!

And now it’s time for my sad confession; Justin (and his hired gun Dave Clark) were able to defeat my Elysians and their loyal allies commanded by Kevin McGill.  We gave a good accounting of ourselves in what turned out to be a 6000 point per side slugfest in the Surrey Battle Bunker but in the end Dave’s Warhound titan proved too much for us to deal with.  This game really showcased how awesome Apocalypse is and I had a great time even if the bad guys won the day.

What does the future hold for my Elysian army?  First off I have to re-build all my original models and touch up the paint where it’s broken or cracked.  After that I’ve got a 4th Valkyrie that’s waiting for me and a Mortar squad that I want to work on.  My last (semi)major project for this army is to add Hunter-Killer missiles to all my Sentinels (so I can kill all the damn Titans I keep encountering!).

Time to Apocalypse-it-up!

For this week I’d thought I’d show off the entirety of my Elysian ground forces.  This is all the stuff I’ve done up for Paint Or Die , as well as the infantry I had painted last year when I originally started this army.  The other 2 elements I’m hoping to show off before I leave for BC are; my air wing (3 Valkyries & 2 Vultures I have to have done as part of my Paint Or Die) and an ‘Emperor’s Talon’ Recon Group (10 Sentinels, not part of my original army) .

I’ve got to say it feels great  to get another Guard army done.  I haven’t painted a proper full-sized Guard army since the Cadians I painted for the Eye Of Terror campaign.
After all the Brother Vs Brother games I’ve run I’m definitely excited about playing some Apocalypse games with my own army!

My new army list should be up as you read this.

Like I mentioned last week, no real changes I just moved 2 of my units from their incorrect “HQ” spot on the force organization chart to “Elites” which is actually their correct position as well as rewriting the list in such a way that I’ll remember when to deploy what.

Unfortunately I have no new photos for this week.  I was on the road last week running the 3 Ottawa stops on the Brother Vs Brother Battle Tour and didn’t bring my camera with me (normally Cory takes pictures for me but I won’t be back at the office until after the deadline for pictures this week).  I had a great time in Ottawa, the first game was at Fandom 2 and saw the Blood Ravens defeating the Salamanders army 3-2, the second game was at the Games Workshop store in the Bayshore mall and the Salamanders took their  revenge beating the Blood Ravens 5-1 and the finale for the week was at the Comic Book Shoppe where the Salamander again emerged victorious by a final score of 4-2.  Running these Apocalypse games has been great fun and I’ve gotten to meet a bunch of terrific hobbyists so far, I’m definitely looking forward to my next set of games.  If you’re interested in participating in the Battle Tour check out the Brother Vs Brother section of the website to see when we’ll be in your part of the country.  You can also meet some of the Paint Or Die participants at the different stops and either cheer us on or mock our lack of progress!  Myself, Ash Barker, Mark McKellar, Cory Burns & Lionel Miranda will be running the games in various locations and we’d love it if you came out and shared your thoughts on our armies thus far.

No more infantry for me!

I finished Inquisitor Solomon Lok and his retinue along with my Magos Biologis and his tech-servitors.  I also managed to get my Sentinel done.  So this means at this point I have to finish my 3 Valkyries (half-way there!) and then assemble and paint my 2 Vultures.

Next week I will be re-writing my army list, I’m not changing anything (that would be against the rules!) but I realized I made 2 errors on my list and I want to re-format it to reflect how my army will deploy.  The two mistakes I made are that my Inquisitor and Magos should be Elites choices (not HQ).  My re-formatting will involve splitting my list into the part that actually deploys on the table (The Inquisitor, The Magos Biologis, Sentinel & Snipers) and the part that  flies on (everything else).

I feel like I’m definitely caught up at the very least, and I should be ahead of schedule by Tuesday next week (my Valkyries are all built and have their interior cabins painted).
Ash just suggested that Brouckxon himself and I actually play through the Anphelion Project campaign (Red Scorpions, Tyranids and D-99).  I think that will be cool and will make a good follow up to us completing our Paint Or Die armies.

I’ll see you all next week!  (Hopefully with FINISHED Valkyries)

All my basic Elysians are done!

31 Elysian Infantry done, 6 vehicles and 10 Inquisitorial goons to go.

To be perfectly honest I’ve fallen a bit off my usual pace.  I won’t bore you with tales of distractions and failure, instead I’m just going to put on a big drive and try to get a ton of painting done this coming week (I know I keep switching gears…).  My wife and daughter will be away visiting friends for a whole week so my evenings are 100% free to go hobby crazy.

I’m getting really excited with the big ramp up for Apocalypse!  In addition to agreeing to put the beat-down on Shiun when I’m in Burnaby in December my growing rage towards “Kid Kindness” has meant that our meager 1700 point Paint Or Die armies will be supplemented by an additional 1300 points each so we can play a 3000 point Apocalypse game when I make my way out to Surrey.  The sky will be filled with drop troopers ready to put an end to Shiun’s  foul xenos horde and when they’re done with them it’s time to exterminate Justin’s traitorous fallen!

Inquisitor Lok, Major Dura and their command staff should be finished tonight.  After that I’m taking a break until Thursday when I’ve got all that juicy free time to work on my Valkyries.

The Snipers are done!

Hooray me!  Now that I’m back on track with doing projects one at a time I feel like I’m making progress again.  My Command Squad (along with Major Dura for my Inquisitorial Retinue) are also almost done as well, so I’m pleased to say that I can’t see any way I could fall behind schedule again.

I think the other big factor driving my progress right now is an intense desire to put a shameful beating on Justin from Surrey.  This huge country we all live in is barely big enough to contain the sheer volume of contempt I have for his traitorous mutants who have fallen from the Emperor’s light.  And one more thing, unmask me? I THINK NOT!

Nothing will distract me from my goal!

…..flash forward 2 hours…..

Hi there Elysian fans!

After a week long vacation (thanks for mocking my lack of progress Burns!) I’m back with my first 2 squads painted and ready for battle.  As is often the way my paint progress did not go exactly as I had planned.  Having a decent block of free time I had intended to build and paint my 3 Valkyries, but after spending 3 days building the first one I decided to switch gears and do something that actually felt like accomplishing something (I can hear Dave Clark laughing at me from the other side of the country as I type this).

So my new plan of action looks more like my usual plan of action.  Instead of going for a big painting binge I’m going to space things out a bit more.  With 11 weeks left to complete the army I have 4 infantry squads (each of 5 or 6 men) and 6 vehicles left to paint.  So my new/old plan is to get 1 squad or vehicle done each week the rest of the way which means I should get done with a week to spare.  My next 3 projects, in no particular order will be; a Valkyrie (built and primed), my Command Squad (built) and my Sniper Squad (laying in pieces on my painting table).  This week I plan on building my Snipers, priming my Command Squad and…..I’m still undecided on whether to paint the Command Squad or the Valkyrie…..

My colour scheme for those of you who are interested is fairly basic.  I like to do my Imperial Guard in flat colours to give them more of a gritty look than the more fantastic armies like Eldar and Tau.  Here’s my colour palette so far:

Fatigues – Catachan Green

Boots, Gloves & Webbing – Charadon Granite

Body Armour, Helmets, Gas Masks & Weapon Housings – Boltgun Metal

Visors – Regal Blue w/ Ice Blue & Skull White highlights

Bases – Scorched Brown, Drybrushed Bleached Bone w/ Graveyard Earth rims (Shadow/Codex Grey gravel)

Hi again everybody!

It looks like I’m back to paint another army for ‘Paint or Die’.  For those of you who don’t know me I run the retail stores for Games Workshop Canada.  This year is my 10th year working for Games Workshop and the time has just flown by.  My luck hasn’t gotten any better since last year (ask the folks from Black Knight Games in Hamilton who kicked my butt last month) but I’m still fighting the good fight with my mighty goblin horde.

This year I’ve decided to take a departure from my usual horde-style armies (but not from my beloved Imperial Guard) and paint up an elite ‘Drop Trooper’ army.  I’m using the Elysian D-99 list from Imperial Armour 4: The Anphelion Project.  This is the excuse to finally push me over the edge and paint up all the Valkyries and Vultures I’ve always wanted to own (and do attack runs with!).  This is probably the smallest Imperial Guard army I’ve ever painted, but I’m hoping by painting less models and having more time for each I can improve my woeful showing in the voting for best army this year.

For those of you who might like to try a game out against this army I will be travelling to some of our stores to run the ‘Brother Vs Brother’ Battle Tour from October to December this year (dates will be in October’s White Dwarf). So, if you’d like a fun game against a very different army ask your local Games Workshop staff when I’ll be in your neck of the woods and hopefully we can get in a friendly game together.

I can’t believe a year has come and gone already since last year’s ‘Paint or Die’.  This year we’ve blown the doors wide open (in the spirit of Apocalypse) to include as many of our retail staff as possible.