Now THAT's How You Do Pre-Hari Raya Celebrations!

... not that it was planned that way, but it was an awesome Hobby Nite much worthy of the occassion!

The evening's festivities started with Jeff and I at the hobby table. Jeff was furiously working on The Unclean, and super-ambitiously proclaimed, "I might just get the Defiler AND the Chaos marines basecoated tonight!" .... alas, the Defiler took much longer to basecoat. Not to say it wasn't a productive night for the Forgemaster as he got a lot done with his smelly marines before that.

I had intended to paint the expanded Planetary Empires map (due to the larger than expected number of players, we had to expand the map to 72 tiles on 2 continents, connected by spaceports), but really got distracted - finished painting 3 terrain pieces, set-up a real nice looking cityfight table (and then realizing that I did not bring the CoD book), and got a couple of games in too. But all is not lost as both continents were primed, and the main continent has its basic drybrush done, as well as the giant lava flow and a spaceport.

The hobby tables promptly filled up with Ivan, Iqbal, Ceiran and Alvin joining in. As I write this I just realized that for a few hours EVERYONE at the hobby tables were painting CHAOS space marines of one sort or another! Alvin was working on his motor pool (Vindicator + Rhinos), Ceiran had his Defiler out, Iqbal had a row of WIP "loyalist" Alpha Legionnaires and Ivan had some impressive-looking WIP blighted Obliterators ... nice!

Talking about impressive-looking, my vote for star army of the night has to be for Khairul's much-awaited new Eldar army. After 3 weeks (THREE weeks!!!) of ultra-secret development marked by lack of sleep and some consistently furious painting, Khairul proudly unveiled his new Eldar army - a beautifully painted Saim Hann force, complete with the requisite jetbikes, a Seer Council on jetbikes, and supporting Dire Avengers, Fire Dragons and sleek Eldar grav tanks and transports. Dude, please post pics of your army - very very nice indeed!!! Lotsa conversions, crisp lines, ultra-smooth finishes, totally clean look and absolutely Saim Hann. You guys gotta check it out.

Doc's reinforced Dark Eldar arrived early for the festivities too, and we started rolling some dice on the city table - which was quite funny as we played a KP game in the city where his army was designed for objectives and mine was a mech force. His lower than usual tank-kill count meant that the Dark Eldar suffered defeat, after which he went for his oxygen break and dived into another battle with Arzmi's Daemonhunters (who I heard are still undefeated, praise the Emperor). Arzmi himself had earlier in the night dispatched the Lexxis' Chaos Lord Angra back to the Warp. Man, someone stop this guy (after the campaign ... lol). Lexxis' World Eaters had some "legendary" dice rolls as they fought my mech infantry veterans, and despite terribly mauling my Brandenburgers, Lord Angra was once again laid low to some fairly strange circumstances.

I know Dann's Whisper Blade and Jo's Chaos Daemons were duking it out on the deadlands table - I don't know how that turned out, but at one point, things weren't looking so good for the pointy-ears. Iz' scary Orks made a come-back, as his Waaaargh! overcame Rizal's stoic 5th Company Ultramarines (complete with 3 Land Raiders, a Vindicator AND a Rhino) in the city. I want to see the FULL 5th Company deployed in an Apoc game - how about that, Rizal? Another fight I missed was the new Saim Hann against Redeye's Space Marines - how did that one go?

And it was not all just 40k madness, as Kai and Saleem went head to head in a Heavy Gear battle on the other deadlands table (albeit dressed up with a town's worth of 15mm buildings). That battle actually looked picturesque. There's something about 15mm that makes wargames tables look grand. Hmm, time to break out the 11th Armoured Division again (and maybe even the old Napoleonics!).

Shazli came out of puasa hibernation and hung out till way after closing time. It was good to see him, and perhaps next week, we'll see the return of his Ultramarines too! Subhan dropped in too, bedecked in baju melayu and all, as he's back in town for the Hari Raya holidays.

Anyways, that was an AWESOME evening of festivities. I lurv Hobby Nite!!! Selamat Hari Raya y'all!