Army Undecided

Minor update - Lord Castellan Creed in Finecast painted

2012-02-28T14:34:00.002-08:00

I didn't get much done on the Baneblade, I added some metallic powders on the barrel and cleaned up some of the engine spaces, but what I did work on was my Lord Castellan Creed model that I picked up last weekend. I don't know how effective he will be in this particular list I am bring to the Bay Area Open, though he seems rather thematic as it is a big epic battle.

I am on the fence about the border of his coat, as it is a bit bright, though I kind of like it. I also left his hands painted as if they are gloves, as what self respecting general doesn't wear gloves in the field?

Major progress on the GW Baneblade - Using Oil Paints, Pigments and Floor Shine

2012-02-27T09:06:00.003-08:00

I stopped by my local GW store and got some tips on the next few phases of the process, as the Imperial Armour book is pretty clear, I always find it is easier to talk to someone who has done it before. For one thing, spraying my model with gloss floor cleaner made me a bit nervous. I've also never worked with oil paints before and their use was a bit intimidating.

After about an hour of walk through on methods and items needed for this type of weathering I felt pretty confident and went shopping. I picked up the needed floor cleaner and oil paints. I spent most of Saturday playing around with these new techniques, and like the previous ones I've been trying, realized they are pretty easy and just take some time.

I used my airbrush to spray on the Pledge and then started up with the oil paints. It really does flow extremely well, and works better then any water based wash I have ever used. I then applied the rust pigments. These are how the model looked at the end of the day

The weathering process really darkens the model. Here is the Shadowsword, that I haven't begun the process on yet.

On the second day I finished the mud, did the road wheels, and started on the Commissar. I was a bit dubious about the matte spray being able to remove the shine, but sure enough the model doesn't have the floor shine look on it anymore. I also played with using black metallic pigments on the cannon. I'm not 100% happy with it, but it does look better.

I don't have a ton left to do. Need to highlight the Commissar, finish the sites, and add some metallic pigment to the guns. I also might add some more details to the Heavy Bolters, I'm not sure if it's overkill.

Forgeworld Shadowsword battle damaged with Imperial Armour methods

2012-02-24T10:57:00.001-08:00

I continued my work towards finishing my super heavies for the Bay Area Open by completing the battle damage for the second vehicle I may be bringing, my Forgeworld Shadowsword. I did almost exactly what I had done to the Baneblade, with the main exception of saving the washing of the engine portion until I finish the oil paint in the cracks step.

Next on the menu is to get some floor finish and oil paints to try using them for getting paints and rain effects on the armor of the vehicles. This is the part I am most nervous about, hopefully it is as easy as most of the steps so far have been.

I used the same Baneblade decal sheet I used on the Baneblade to add some stickers. I decided to name this tank "Wrath" from the available choices. Once again I went with the number 31 to show some solidarity with the Baneblade. Eventually I may get another Baneblade so I have a mixed company of Super Heavies.

Adding Battle Damage to the Baneblade the Imperial Armour Way

2012-02-23T10:10:00.000-08:00

Last night I got further along on my Bandeblade I am working on for the Bay Area Open. I've got about two weeks, so I still think I have plenty of time to finish this one as well as my Shadowsword so I can have a game day decision about what to use. I think the Baneblade may be better in most games, though I will really want the Shadowsword if I have to go against other super heavies.

On with the battle damage. I used the desert yellow to "chip" the paint of the green sections, and I used Adeptus Battlegrey on the yellow to show the paint chipped away to bare metal. I also added some decals. I Wanted to get most of this done before I start adding weathering powders.

Forgeworld Shadowsword and GW Baneblade Painting Progress - Using Imperial Armour Masterclass Scheme

2012-02-21T10:47:00.000-08:00

I spent most of the weekend working on my two super heavies so I can take one to the Bay Area Open Narrative Event in a couple of weeks. I haven't decided which to bring, so I am painting both.

I had gotten the Imperial Armour Model Masterclass book from my Brother-in-Law for Christmas and I decided to try using one of the paint schemes and weathering techniques.

I had gotten the Baneblade 90% assembled, so I spent some time finishing the build on Friday night.

How I received the Baneblade.

I decided to drill out a few items and install a commissar lord into the turret.

The commissar lord needed something to stick too, so I used a base as a "bottom" to attach him.

He was a bit short and needed some green stuff to fit in the space.

All done.

I used a white primer to help the Desert Yellow "pop".

After one coat of Yellow....I realized I needed another, so I did two.

I masked off the camo sections, using the scheme and instructions in the book.

After spraying on the Catachan Green.

Peeling off the first bit of tape...

And all the paint removed. As you can see I had a bit of a problem with the tape pulling off some paint. I am not sure if it was the primer or the tape's fault, in the future I am going to try using some different tape as this was just 3M delicate painters tape.

Behind the Iron Curtain of GW - Q and A with a former GW employee on Reddit.

2012-02-15T12:05:00.000-08:00

Up on reddit today an interesting Q and A popped up from an ex-GW staffer. It's a peek behind the Iron Curtain, not a ton of surprises, but still interesting.

Check it out.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ppwzq/iama_former_games_workshop_employee_ama/

Space Wolves first tournament at Black Diamond Games

2012-02-12T08:16:00.000-08:00

I took my new Wolves out yesterday to Black Diamond Games for their monthly 1850 event. It was the first time I'd get to try the Wolves out, as I haven't rolled any dice with them yet, I've only betting working on the brush side.

It was a fun event, if small. Their were only six people that showed up so it was a real casual, friendly experience.

I ended up with two wins and a tie, but the best part of the day was not only did I learn a ton about my army, I learned some tactics for playing against DOA style Blood Angels army, as well as how to deal with a three dreadknight list. My last opponent played a fantastic DOA list that was hard as nails and I just wasn't sure how to deal with it. Luckily he was quite the magnanimous fellow and at the end of the game (and sometimes during) walked me through how his army worked. Very well painted models, and just a fun player to banter with. He has some pictures up on his blog, The Preferred Enemy.

On with some Random pictures.

My first game. Pitched battle, and capture and control. My opponent had a drop pod space marine army, so I deployed my Long Fangs across my edge, spread out to see where he was going in, and I reserved everything else.

I was able to handle each of his squads as they dropped in, I lost a Grey Hunter squad, and some long fangs, but I was able to handle the stuff as it came in. As you can see below, I even managed to sneak a rhino full of long fangs, and since he only had a 5 man tactical squad on his objective, I managed to wrestle it from him.

The table for my second game. I didn't take many pictures, and I spent most of the game figuring how to deal with three dreadknights. Two powerfists in my Grey Hunter squads is the only reason I didn't lose this one.

My last game, against a DOA list.

My long Fang squads got wrecked...

The sergeant didn't go down without a fight....

The game went back and forth, I made some bad decisions with my reserves, that by pure blind luck (and the forgiving nature of the Wolf codex) let me eek out a Tie. It was a pure luck situation, my opponent out played me and played the better game.

It was a fun tournament, three great games and the best part was I got to meet some new people. I love the 40k community where I play, 95% of folks are the type of people you want to keep running into. I can't complain about that.

Long Fang progress and Tablewar Tray Test

2012-02-10T08:29:00.000-08:00

I spent some time last night and got my Long Fangs to the point where I am almost happy with them (except for one of them that was a bit slow in the mail so he is behind). I usually paint my armies to a good tabletop standard and work on details after I can get them to a level where I don't mind seeing them on the table. I've got about a week left, regrettably, I am not going to get them done before an 1850 tournament at Black Diamond Games tomorrow.

I also am toying with the idea of a Tablewar case, as they seem to have dropped their prices a bit since I last looked into them. I got one of their trays at a local event they were at so I tried putting a few grey hunter squads in the trays to see how they fit.

Grey Hunters, Wolf Scouts and Rune Priest are done

2012-02-09T14:09:00.000-08:00

I made a ton of progress last weekend, and even though I actually finished these guys a few days ago, I've been a bit busy with more painting to post anything. I'm about 80% done with my Long Fangs, but I thought I would post up the Grey Hunters/Scouts that I finished.

So far I have finished 30 Grey Hunters, 5 Scouts, and 2 Rune Priests in addition to the terminators. I've got my Long Fangs, 3 Rhinos and 4 Land Speeders to finish (I am going to try airbrushing the wash on). I won't finish by this weekend, but I will be done before March.

I am amazed how fast these models are to paint up, these guys were on the Sprue a week and a half ago.

Privateer Press Unveils Colassals - Huge new Super Warjacks!

2012-02-03T16:55:00.000-08:00

It looks like I picked the right time to start playing Warmachine. They have just announced that they will release in July some very large (and very cool) new Warjacks. GW could really take a lesson from these guys....actually telling your customers what you are doing.

Check out this very cool announcement video.

Warmachine Two Player Battle Box - What's inside?

2012-02-02T16:30:00.000-08:00

In the stupidly long wait for 6th a few friends and I are going to give Warmachine a shot. I have been curious, mostly as I've heard Privateer PRess treats their customers pretty well and I am a bit tired of being treated like a battered wife by GW so I pulled the trigger earlier this week on a starter set.

I ordered the two player set as it included the Khador I wanted and another army I figured I could rope my son into trying. With my Son and gaming, I generally throw almost every game at him and some of them stick, some don't. Worth a shot usually. Recently I've created a Settlers of Catan junkie...

The box includes two forces, a book, and a bunch of intro stuff. I was impressed that the rulebook is a full color, mini rulebook, much like GW's black reach rulebook but a much easier read.

What is included.

I put together all of the Khador and some of the Menoth stuff.

Forgeworld Shadowsword arrived

2012-02-01T13:48:00.000-08:00

At the end of last year I started a trade on Bartertown for a Shadowsword, and it showed up yesterday. I love Forgeworld's stuff, so even though I could have easaly gotten one of these in GW plastic, I really wanted the Forgeworld version. The resin calls to me.

I plan on painting up this unit to match my Imperial Guard. I got one of the Forgeworld painting books from my Brother-in-Law for Christmas and I figure this model will be a great way to try out some of the techniques in it. I'm playing in Big Jim from Galaxy in Flames' event at The Bay Area Open this year, so I play on having this guy ready in a few months to hit the table.

Painting Space Wolf Grey Hunters with From the Warp's Scheme

2012-01-30T09:26:00.000-08:00

I was surprised on Friday that in the mail all of my Space Wolves that I had ordered from multiple places had all shown up. This led to a weekend where I spent entirely too much time working on my Space Wolves. This army is coming together fast. On Friday I had 3 boxes of the GW Wolf Packs, 7 missile launchers, and a rhino come in the mail.

By Sunday evening when I finally put my brush down I had all of the models assembled, including 30 Grey Hunters, a Rhino and 11 Long Fangs. I based and primed them all, put a coat of wash on them and then started to work on the Grey Hunters. I was able over the weekend through spending most of Saturday evening (and most of the Firefly series) and painting into the morning to get the Grey Hunters 95% done. They still need to have the bases done, some additional face washing and high lighting to go, and some weapon highlights, but they are about done. I know people that paint a lot faster than that, but getting three full troops choices this far along felt like a great accomplishment. This army will be at 2000 points and fully painted much quicker than any other army I've done.

When they are done and bases I will post some much better pictures. Here they are as a work in progress.

Why Grey Knights made it okay for me to play Space Wolves

2012-01-26T15:32:00.000-08:00

I've recently decided to pick up a Space Wolves army. I found a scheme that I love, it's easy to paint, and it will be super cheap as my Son has most of Space Wolf army that he really never got into. A few pickups on eBay and I'll have an 1850 ready to go soon.

Space Wolves have always been a "back burner" army for me, one that I've wanted to collect but haven't pulled the trigger. The main reason (and this is a moronic one) is because they are so chic in the competitive scene I just couldn't bring myself to pick up the army. I've already got one army that does well competitively, my Imperial Guard. Even though I'd played the army in third, I just didn't want to be perceived as another band wagoner.

I've heard for a while that a lot of Space Wolf players have jumped shipped and are now running Grey Knights. I've seen many articles in the blog-o-sphere that show the numbers of Wolf players at tournaments is slowly going down or even disappearing. I've been planning on doing Tau next, though every rumor that had placed them coming out first/second quarter this year has pretty much been countered with what looks like Black Templars as the next release, so I've got a large whole in my hobby time to fill anyway. I could have done another one of my back burner armies, like Tyranids, though I'd like to see how 6th plays out first. The congruence of finding a great scheme and the climate change in the competitive scene made an easy decision for me.

Space Wolf Terminators using From The Warp Alternate Scheme are done

2012-01-25T09:08:00.000-08:00

I finished the basing last night on the models I have been painting in a scheme I earlier posted about on From the Warp , and I got to a point where I want to move on to another unit. I still see things I could do, though right now I think I want to move on to long fangs so I can get an 1850 painted in a decent amount of time. This scheme is ridiculously easy and I think on basic marines and vehicles it will be just as easy. If I had to guess I think, I spent about 8 hours in total on these models, and for me (a slow painter) that is pretty quick, especially for this amount of detail. I am not the best painter out there, I try and get my stuff consistant, fully painted, and look good from a foot a away. With this scheme I think I am easily surpassing that. I am very surprised with how easy and how detailed this paint scheme came out.

I enjoyed this scheme so much that as I alluded to in the above paragraph, I am going to do a whole army in these colors. I ordered some more space wolf packs from eBay last night and pretty quick I should have a great looking force of Space Puppies.

More pictures!!

Why Warp Time being nerfed isn't as bad as you think

2012-01-24T10:34:00.000-08:00

The Chaos Space Marine codex is pretty thin on standouts, and the Demon Prince is one of the few. It's a cheap, deadly, survivable hammer unit. The biggest limitation in my experience is that you only get four attacks, and for some combats, that's just not enough to get the job done. Warp Time has always been a great way of increasing the damage output to at least a consistent level.

I was a bit irritated to see the nerf, as the demon prince is one of the few great units, and the codex is far from top tier, why nerf one of the bright spots of this lackluster codex? My CSM force isn't really meant to be that competative, it holds it's own, but it is not anywhere close to as effective as my IG so I didn't stay upset for too long. A few days after the nerf I played in a league game and I actually some benifit to warp time being nerfed.

Warp Time is an ability that you usually only used half the turns, as on your own turn you don't want to kill the unit you are fighting and expose yourself to fire, you use it on your opponents turn only (in most situations). This means that I am paying twenty points for something that I only use a max of six times, and with most games the demon princes not always fighting every turn, more than likely only three times a game. After consideration, I just dropped Warp Time. Between the two in my 1500 list I got 40 points back.

Those 40 points (because I wasn't quite 1500) let me throw in two more plague marines. This meant my two plague marine squads went from seven models to eight models. Even though I lost an ability I really liked, the consolation prize was my troop squads got more resilient. In the first game I played without Warp Time I didn't even really miss it. Time will tell, but I have a feeling that GW's latest kick in the teeth to us faithful CSM players will feel more like a nerf bat than a boot.

Space Wolves Terminators - From The Warp Scheme Part 2

2012-01-22T22:32:00.000-08:00

I spent most of the day watching football and painting up Space Wolves, and I have a ton of pictures to show off the scheme. This is the scheme that I found on From the Warp and I am loving it even more in person. I think the way I am doing it is a bit darker than the models on From the Warp though I still really like it. I started this morning with models that I had primed and put a coat of wash on. In the example what I would call "art paint" was used as a base coat, and the bottle I got just didn't work. The coverage was awful, and I substituted Codex Grey and it worked just fine, due to mine being a bit darker then the models in the example. Cleaning up and highlighting the models really helped make the wash pop.

Here are the models with wash and cleaned up areas with Codex Grey

The cleanup really helps, especially on the large flat areas, like the backs.

I then mixed a blend of skull white and codex grey to do some edge highlighting. I didn't do as much highlighting as some models, though I did most of the top and major edges. I really like the look.

I began to paint the gold, bones, shoulder pads, etc.

I finished up most of the details, and got to the point where I want to start basing them. I am doing snow bases, so I put some sand down and after they dry I will paint with graveyard earth, highlight, add some grass, and then snow on top of that. From reading tutorials online, as I've never done snow, I think they are going to look fantastic.

East Bay Wargamers league

2012-01-21T16:56:00.001-08:00

I played my fourth game in my league this afternoon. It was a 1500 point kill point game with spearhead deployment. I played my plaguemarine army with a splash of khorne. I was lucky enough to get first turn and he failed to seize. My oblits turned out to be MVP's taking out his long range shooting on turn one, and on turn two removing his ability to make scarabs. The game was pretty simple, he killed a few units but it wasn't enough as my assault punch was just too much.

It turned out to be a good learning experience for me, as I hadn't played against the necrons before. We called the game, but when we did it was 7-2 KPs, and most likely it would have ended at 9-3 if we had finished the game.

Space Wolves Test Paint Scheme - in progress

2012-01-20T15:16:00.001-08:00

I started working on some Space Wolves, testing the process I found on From the Warp that I wrote about. I picked up the paints (or what I am pretty sure the paints were) and got to work. A coat of primer and some soft body wash from Secret Weapon Miniatures came out just as fantastic as they did in the original article. I was so happy with the results of the first model I decided to do the rest of the squad and one of the long fang squads.

First model after priming. I did the head only.

First model after some drying. After that the rest of the models I started. The next phase I need to do is repainting some of the flat surfaces, like in the tutorial.

Good guy games workshop - Dreadstone Blight review

2012-01-17T16:11:00.001-08:00

I put together my Dreadstone Blight terrain piece last week, and though I didn't get a chance to say anything at the time I wanted put up a short review.

I was very impressed with this terrain piece. The price was a downright steal, $30 for a good size piece and assembly was pretty easy. For one thing, the parts came not on sprues but precut and in bags. I've never seen this in a GW product before, and while I doubt there will be many like it, it really cut down on assembly time. This tower was also unique in that it could be built several different ways. I chose to build it pretty much like the picture, but there are many different styles of tower you could build.

Saturday night gaming - Chaos Space Marine vs Tau

2012-01-14T20:31:00.001-08:00

Grey Knight Terminators all done...with tons of pictures!!

2012-01-13T08:50:00.001-08:00

I haven't gotten around to posting it,but last Saturday I finished up my Grey Knight Terminator Squads. This army was kind of an excuse for me to try new techniques. I got better at edge highlighting, and even did a second highlight. I experimented with wet blending on the power weapons (and only sort of succeeded) . I used resin bases for the first time, from Dragonforge. I honestly think the bases make my OK painted terminators look a lot better.

Shameless Repost:How to paint Space Wolves via From the Warp

2012-01-12T10:41:00.000-08:00

One of the many armies I've been able to suppress my urge to collect is that of Space Wolves. I've always liked their wolf and snow themes(except for the thunder wolves, that is ridiculous). I played them for a while in third edition, eventually donating the army to a friend to get him to play. My son many years later ended up with this army and occasionally he gets an urge and I let him beat my face with it.

I have always not been a fan of the very not grey, Space Wolves Grey. I like when the army is painted in more of an actual grey, like a slate grey. From the Warp posted a fantastic tutorial on how to do this, and it looks very quick and very easy. These are two things I need in a paint scheme. While I love having fully painted armies, as my gaming group knows, I am very fickle about moving from project to project. I spend too much time thinking about my next project to spend as much time as I should on the project that is in front of me.

While Tau have been my "next" project for sometime, articles like this make it really hard to stick to my guns. Oh, and lets not even talk about how 6th looks like the type of swarm tyranid army I love to play is going to be viable again....

What we can infer from what wasn't in the Leak...next codex?

2012-01-11T09:47:00.000-08:00

My work weeks are spent at a small manufacturing company in a Sales capacity working with the types of customers I do has taught me many valuable skills. One of the most important ones is to read between the lines of what is said, or often not said. That can often lead to ways to find solutions and solve problems.

I, like most 40k players, spent an hour or so digesting the leaked 40k rules that blood of kittens and dakkadakka seemingly simultaneously posted links too. From what I hear the links are already down and a lot of folks that were away from their keyboards last night got left in the wind. There are some interesting summaries of the rules out there, and one of the better I have seen is at frontlinegaming.org.

Assuming they are legit (and it looks to me that they do) these rules are a radical shift in the way we play the game. Mostly good changes, and if anything, at least it would be a shakeup to the status quo in the competitive scene, which is always a good thing. With the rulebook leak came a "codex update" sheet. This is really, in a around about way, where GW is flat out saying what the next codex is.

There is a lot of talk lately about rumors if it is going to be the Black Templars or Tau. I hope it's the Tau, as I've been wanting to do them for a while, though the codex update would suggest otherwise....

What is interesting about the codex updates is not what is there, but what isn't. Three codexs are not represented.

Necrons
Sisters of Battle
....and Black Templars

I mentioned my professional life because a lot of what I do is putting pieces of information together. So lets put these pieces together. My understanding is the dates in the file are around fall of last year. This would make sense why Necrons were not included, as they were still under development and anyone who wrote the rules most likely wouldn't want anyone play testing an old codex with radically different rules. Not worth the time. If the files were written in the fall, the logic could have been, "lets do the codex update after the Necron codex is released" as to not confuse play testers with new codex and new rules.

The Sisters absence I think we can chalk up to classic Games Workshop just ignoring them. It is possible that they were left out for the same reason as the above. Either way, it makes sense to me.

The strange one to leave out is the Black Templars. Why leave them out except for one of the above reasons? They didn't have a recent codex, so does that mean they are next? Why put the time into the codex update if at the time of the release of the codex update it won't be valid anymore? Not wanting to waste play testers time with playing an outdated codex?

I don't know which one of the reasons the Men in Black were not included in the codex updates,but if I were a betting man I would double down on seeing the marine crusaders before my favorite mecha army gets a codex.

Skull temple of skulls....now with grass!

2012-01-10T08:54:00.001-08:00

I added some static grass to my skull temple last night in an effort to add some color and life to it. The grass growing on the long dead temple is a nice contrast to all the stone I think. Did the same thing on my tower as well.

Chaos Lord on a Manticore assembled

2012-01-09T20:49:00.001-08:00

I finished my Lord on a manticore. An interesting model to build. The main body was very simple though the head and rider were a bit of a pain.

This is an amazing kit. Comes with many options, including both a lord and sorcerer lord. I am planning on putting the sorcerer together on an extra warhorse. Two for one!!

My new Skull Temple of Skulls, or why Games Workshop loves Skulls

2012-01-08T23:02:00.001-08:00

I picked this up to build up a small collection of fantasy terrain. Even my wife asked why it had so many skulls....

My fall to the dark side continues.

2012-01-07T15:01:00.001-08:00

Picked up a ton of terrain today. I feel myself slipping from 40k...

Grey Knights - More Hobby Progress

2011-12-20T14:50:00.000-08:00

I accidentally left my mouse at work last night so a night I had planned on spending on Battlefield 3 servers was instead spent painting. I was frustrated at first though it ended up being a blessing in disguise. While you can't see much progress on the models I got a solid 2 or 3 hours of painting in while my wife was out being social.

I was able to get a basecoat down on all of the purity seals (these guys have at least 3 or 4 per model) as well as any other cloth/paper items. I also finished the gold wash as well as touch up a few I missed. The storm bolters and metal bits got their washes as well. I also basecoated all of the power weapons with some mordian blue. I haven't decided exactly how I am going to paint the power weapons, though I know I want it to be some kind of blue...

The next step is to finish the purity seals and start picking details. Then I might start the power weapons. We'll see.

Black and Gold Grey Knights - Actual Progress

2011-12-19T11:28:00.000-08:00

I picked up a project that had laid dormant for months yesterday. Over the summer I had started the Independent Characters Hobby Challenge with a Grey Knight Army though I had stalled out somewhere around month 2. I missed the deadline for the second month because I got married and it just took too much time, so by the time I had the time I had lost interest as well as just didn't think I could catch up. My eyes were bigger then my stomach on trying to take on a new army in the time leading up to getting married. I had some free time on my hands yesterday and decided I wanted to do something other than work on the Land Raiders I've been chipping away at for the last few weeks.

I pulled out the models and finished the Gold details and got a coat of Devlin Mud on the gold. My next step is to get the metal washed and then begin another line highlighting step. I also started in on the bases, giving the resin a good coat of gray primer.

This picture is before washing the Gold. I'll post some pictures later of the washed Gold.

I think I have a dice problem?

2011-12-17T16:27:00.001-08:00

While cleaning my garage today I put all my dice sets into a box and I think I might have a problem....

Hobby progress Land Raider Mark I and Mark II

2011-12-16T10:53:00.001-08:00

I made some progress on my Land Raiders that I had started a few weeks ago. Not quite done with the old style though I started my other one to get them at least table top ready so I didn't have to use primed stuff in gsmes.

Resin Necron Scarab Models from Puppetswar

2011-12-08T16:41:00.001-08:00

Puppetswar has some fantastic resin "Cybernetic Beetles" for Sale. So far I have suppressed my normal urge to start every new army the day it hits shelves, and one of the things that has helped is the most interesting build, the scarab build, is kind of tough to do.

Thanks to Puppetwar.com there is now a pretty easy (and cheap, 5 euros for 5) solution to the problem of no scarabs. I've seen some guides on from the warp on how to make a scarab mold though even the author admits its not easy to do.

One day GW will realize how much money they can make if they actually sell the models in the codex. Until then, I hope more places like Puppetwar give the market what it's asking for.

Repainting a twenty year old Land Raider Mark I

2011-12-06T11:42:00.001-08:00

I've had a Mark I Land Raider sitting on my shelves for about ten years.I picked it up from a guy in a game store I used to hang out at who wanted a new one and was complaining his Mark I looked terrible compared to the new (at the time) current Land Raider model. Most folks have forgotten, but the Mark I had been out of print for ten years, ten years ago, so I jumped on the chance to get an old model of such legendary status as the Land Raider was at the time. I offered to buy him a new one, and I was able to add a Mark I to my collection. I've always liked to use old Marine models in my Chaos armies, as it leads to a sense of authenticity.

Last weekend, I decided that my Mark I had seen better days. It was dusty, terrible paint job, and either needed to be sold or given a new lease on life with some new paint. I decided to try painting it in the style of my new nurgle marines with some edge highlighting. I think it came out pretty well. I'm not 100% done, I still need to highlight the edge highlighting, though I thought I would post some pics showing how good a twenty year old model can look with modern painting techniques.

I gave the model a good brown basecoat with Army Painter primer.

I then gave it an airbrush coat of a reaper green.

I then gave it two highlights of the next two lighter shades of Reaper greens.

I gave the model a Devlin Mud Wash and then spent some time Edge Highlight the tank itself with the first airbrush highlight color. I also painted the treads boltgun metal and gave them a badab black wash.

I then highlighted the Tank Treads

A few more details and I am almost done. The only real remaining details is cables on the weapons and the final edge highlights.

Second East Bay Wargamers League Game at Alamo Games Workshop

2011-12-05T10:25:00.001-08:00

This weekend I played in my second East Bay Wargamers League game. I didn't get any pictures from my first game, though I did take some from this game. The game was a brutal slugfest as my opponent had some really effective hammer units that bashed the hell out of my Chaos Army. I also learned a lot about the Black Templars codex, as it was only my second game in the 18 months I've been played fifth edition that I faced them.

I took a Nurgle list that had a splash of Khorne for some additional assault punch. Not only was I looking for a little more oomph in the third phase then my list has had lately, I've been breathing some new life into models I painted years ago with a bit of touch up. I re based a unit of Khorne bezerkers and my Kharne model on Friday night, tossed some Devlin Mud and they look about ten times better. So much improved that I spent some time after my game and Sunday adding even more details.

My List

Two Plaguemarine squads in Rhinos with a Power Fist and Meltaguns in each.
Raptor Squad with Mark of Nurgle, two meltaguns and a Power fist.
Nurgle Demon Prince with all the trimmings
8 Khorne Bezerkers
Khorne Lord with Demon Weapon
Two Land Raiders

My opponents list (I apolgize, I don't know the exact unit names)

Two 5 man tac squads with plasma guns and lascannons
TH/SS terminator unit
LC terminator unit
Two Crusader Land Raiders
High Marshall
Emperor's Champion
Venerable Dreadnought in a Drop Pod

The game was Capture and Control with Dawn of War. My opponent won first turn and deployment.

He placed his objective in the upper left building, so I had placed mine rather close with the idea that we would smash into each other around both and hopefully I'd be left standing.

I got lucky and seized, so my Rhino with a squad of plaguemarines rushed forward to grab my objective. The red land raider had my bezerkers and the green one held my plague marines.

My opponents army comes in.

He popped the Rhino.

I was able to get two meltaguns in range and blew up one of the two, the one that was holding the lightening claw terminators.

He rushed forward and got into combat with some of my vehicles. He didn't much, as everything had rushed forward so hitting on 6's just didn't work.

I was able to charge in at this point. I decided to concentrate on the TH/SS terminators as at the time I thought they were the bigger threat. I ended up getting really lucky and he failed a lot of saves.

Next turn he was able to get the Lightening Claw terminators into the combat and destroyed everything. The combat result was enough to finish off my fearless Demon Prince and Chaos Lord.

At this point, the game turned into a chess game. I had moved a squad of plague marines onto the objective he held, along with my raptors squad. I was able, with the help of two powerfists, finish off both five man squads. He did deep strike in the Dreadnought, but it wasn't able to get close enough to the objective before the end of the game.

It was a game that had a lot of swings back and forth. In the end, while I rolled terribly for most of the big melee in the middle of the board, I got lucky as his remaining nasty units were just too far to get into it with my remaining scoring unit. If it was Victory or Kill points I would have been owned. All I had left at the end of the game was 5 plaguemarines and 3 raptors, but it was enough to hold an objective so I pulled out a victory.

Land Raider Armored Proteus released by Forgeworld

2011-11-30T17:31:00.001-08:00

Forgeworld has released another amazing model this week, the Land Raider Proteus. As an old school player I remember when Land Raiders only looked like the bad boy on the left and we didn't have the modern Land Raider sitting on every hobby store's shelf. Land Raiders used to be elusive things, things you heard about from veterans of the game, that as a young whippersnapper in the game you would never see.

Then the plastic Land Raider MK II kit came out and the Land Raider became as ubiquitous to space marines as a 3 plus save. I for one, remember when the Mark I was the Land Raider, and one of these days I am going pick up the new Resin version put out by the artists at Forgeworld, knowing that my sixteen year old self would have been pretty happy about it.

That and its a kick ass model.

Review of Imperial Armour Apocalypse Second Edition

2011-11-28T14:29:00.003-08:00

During the Apocalypse game I played last weekend I picked up the new Imeperial Armour Apocalypse Second Edition book as a bit of an impulse buy. I've enjoyed the recent Imperial Armour books and I've begun to collect them slowly.

Earlier this year I had picked up both of the Badab War books, Imperial Armour Nine and Ten. These books both detail out a conflict we have heard snippets of from codexs (even one of the most used washes, is named after the dispute) and some novels though this is the first description of the marine on marine conflict by the Forgeworld folks. The thing I enjoyed most about the book was it's descriptions of the different marine chapters. Each book went into graphic detail of the history and involvement of about ten chapters per book, including my beloved Raptors. I've also been teetering on the edge of starting an Astral Claws army for a while now, and one day that impulse may be too hard to resist.

But I digress, back to this Imperial Armor book.

This book has become a bit of a lightening rod for debate lately, due to "The Stamp". The book is a collection of units, each with a stamp that designates which game it should be used in, Apoc, Apoc Formation, or Warhammer 40k. It is the Warhammer 40k stamp that is causing some calamity. The statement in question (or stamp, if you will) is the below(stolen from BOLS, with apologies.)

The interpretation has fallen into two camps, one that the units are official and okay to be used in any game or tournament. BOLS is making the case, as many in my local meta gaming scene are, that the units help balance a currently vastly unbalanced game. The second camp, with The Independant Characters being the most high profile example I could find, is stating that the above statement is mearly the status quo, that nothing has changed. You need your opponents permission to use Forgeworld in any game and they are not Kosher for most tournaments, unless explicitly allowed.

I don't honestly know who is strictly right, though I hope the first camp is for two reasons. One is, I simply like Forgeworld. The models are fantastic, the books are well put together, and other then a terrible distribution system for sales are a huge asset to the hobby. Two, I think this game does need some more balancing. Games Workshop has shown very little interest, other then some FAQs, in balancing the game that they see as more of a hobby and less of a balanced competitive game. I've always disagreed with this stance, I think it can be both. Regular codex updates and FAQs (with today's digital distribution through e-books and pdf.s should be easy) would fix this problem. Forgeworld has come along and helped out a few long in the tooth codex's by giving them some effective, points appropriate units. The BOLS article does a detailed explanation of this, so I won't plagiarize or rehash, so if you haven't read it go take a look.

As far as units in the book are, there are some fantastic models. The two standouts that I see are the Remora Drones for the Tau and the Wraithseer for the Eldar. While other armies get some much needed love, these are two models that add something to codexs that were released when Bush was still in his first term and are woefully under served by our Games Workshop overlords.

The Remora Drones helps get the Tau what they need, more marker lights that aren't tied to Devilfish. They also add some needed speed to the list. While the Tau used to be mobile, in today's game of fast vehicle spam they can play down right snail like.

The Wraithseer does to the Eldar what some of the Marine Chapter Masters do. It add some synergy by unique abilities that affect only certain types of units and makes them stronger. The Eldar have always had a strong psyker enhancement and the Wraithseer does this in a new and unique way by helping the Wraithbone units in the list.

All in all, despite the controversy, I am hoping to see some of these units pop up in my local gaming scene. A friend this weekend put it best. "I got into this game to play with cool toys,and there are a lot of cool toys in that book". I couldn't agree more.

What do you think? Do you want to see these units showing up, or is Forgeworld to be only used in "special" games and events?

Starting a Hobby Project list - Too much on my plate

2011-11-28T11:40:00.001-08:00

I've decided I need to start planning my hobby efforts. With rumors swirling of the next two codexs to be released being ones that I know I want to get in on next year could be very busy. I've got one major project and a few minor projects on my shelves to finish up. I have been keeping a running track of projects in my head though its lead to many a half done list as something new comes across my line of sight.

With the next codex coming into view about March-ish this is when I've decided I need to finish up what I'm working on or it just won't get done. I run into this quite often, the finish or sell mode. Anyone who knows me know that I collect way more then I actually have time to assemble and paint. I'm a bit of a 40k pack rat. I think its due to me wanting to try many things and truly not finding one that is "my army".

My current Major project is my Warriors of Chaos. They are about 60% assembled and unpainted. I am planning on breaking out the airbrush and getting these guys done over my Christmas break. I planned that with my guard and it didn't quite work out last year, so we'll see how successful I am.

My minor projects are much more vast and in order of what I want to finish.

Finish my Nurgle Terminators/Raptors. I've only got about 5 or 6 hours to finish highlighting and basing.
Grey Knight Terminators. I have 20 terminators and 2 dreadnights that are 40% done painting. I had started a black and gold theme though it is just too consuming. I am thinking I will break out the airbrush and just do the traditional bolt gun metal, wash, highlight and done.
My "Valkyrie down" terrain peice. I really just need to highlight and paint some sand I added and this one is done.
My Ork Bikers. I have six bikers for my Ork army I need to finish up.
Cleaning up my bits. I have 30 or 40 boxes of various models that I need to finish clipping the sprues of use full stuff. While not as sexy as the above, I need to do it, as the boxes take up too much room.
Adding to my Guard. I'd like to paint up a baneblade and add about 4-6 russes to have on hand for both Apoc and and regular games. I'd also like to pick up a Vendetta or two. I have about 60 infantry I could paint up, though I don't have much interest in the "blob" lists. I like tanks.

I'd like to clear off about half of the minor list and finish my WOC before March. If it doesn't get done by then its not happening. How do you organize your hobby projects?

Tanksgiving Apocalypse Game at Games Workshop Alamo

2011-11-26T19:46:00.001-08:00

Today I spent the afternoon at Games Workshop Alamo playing in an Apocalypse game with the appropriately named Tanksgiving. The game was run by Reece of Front Line Gaming. He owns a local game store where they sell GW and also do some amazing paint commissions.

It was fun to get my first Apocalypse game in, though I wasn't quite prepared for the sheer chaos of it. The game was about 10-12k a side, with three objectives. It was supposed to be a scenario with Necrons though no Necrons showed up so it was just played as a regular Apocalpse game. I had brought my regular guard army though others had plenty of super heavies (mostly of the baneblade variety) and even one Eldar titan.

Our side had to hold the below objective as one of our three. You can see my guard in the lower right (green vehicles).

The other side rolled hard with a large Vindicator formation followed by two superheavies. Our artillery rained a lot of death on those models.

The aforementioned rain......

After the rain...

My command squad was brutally gunned down by some Templars with only the Commander remaining.

A squad of my veterans with Meltaguns and Meltabombs snuck in behind the super heavies on the bridge and was able to after a few turns destroy one of the Baneblades.

Our Super Heavies began to fall after the second turn. Tons of marines deep struck or rode in Stormravens and got into our lines.

The giant silver balls were teleporters that brought in reinforcements. Lysander in a large squad of TH/SS terminators was a real threat showing up in our back door.

Luckily a vortex missile was locked in the chamber ready.

...and no more Lysander or Rhinos.

My meltavettes managed to take out one more vehicle before getting blown to pieces.

The fight for the bridge raged on with our Tyranid allies trying futilely to get the enemy ff the second objective.

My guard did do okay at taking down a lone Space Marine.

The game ended with both sides contesting the second objective and each side holding one. A big fat tie.

Black Friday and Battlefoam

2011-11-25T18:26:00.001-08:00

My latest annual black Friday tradition has been picking up Battlefoam products on the greatest of free market economy holidays at a healthy 25% off. Last year I started with my first bag, a 720 with custom foam for my Imperial Guard that has been fantastic.

This year, instead of one bag, I picked up a bunch of foam. I've collected a 1520 since then so I didn't think I needed more bags. I am trying out their GW sized foam to fit in my obscene amount (don't ask) of GW hard cases. I really hate the red foam that comes in these cases, they are way too hard and I don't think they provide enough protection. Over the years the foam has been cut up to fit long sold armies, so some fresh troop trays will be a welcome addition.

I am also trying out their new line of more inexpensive bags. My son, who I've written about in recent posts, has picked up the Squarebased variety of the hobby so I think it is time I get him his own bag (as compared to a box) to put his carefully painted swarm of rats into. The price is right, and I think it will work well for a 1k-1.5k fantasy army. After I get it, I'll toss up a review, as I am sure others are curious.

First Warhammer Fantasy Game with my Son

2011-11-23T22:06:00.001-08:00

I am trying out the mobile blogger, so this post looks a bit different. I played our first game with his Skaven and my Warriors of Chaos yesterday. It was not a good day for the Champions of Khorne.

Color Blindness and painting Warhammer minatures

2011-11-22T11:57:00.001-08:00

Recently, I've learned about how I've got a problem with colors. I always knew I was a little colorblind, but not until I tried to paint up some Nurgle marines did I realize how color blind I am. I've written at length recently about the Nurgle marines I've been painting up to match with an army I bought from a friend and in attempting to match his scheme I've realized how color blind I am.

I thought I had a done a pretty good close job of matching the paint to what my friend had done, until he took a look at it. I handed him some of my green raptors and he asked me if I knew they were brown. Turns out I have a problem with dark browns looking green to me. The nurgle marines are the exact colors I learned I have an issue with. Started brown and then added green. While painting them, I decided they weren't brown enough so I gave them an extra coat of ogryn flesh and this made them even browner. Only I coudln't see how brown the model really was.

After a bit of searching it appears that many artists (not that I am calling myself an artist) didn't realize they were color blind until many years into their craft. While I found some forum postings on the topic of Warhammer and Color Blindness it seems to be a topic not given much coverage in the Warhammer forums and blogs out there so I decided to write about my experiences and hopefully shed some light on the topic.

The good news for me is that I really only have a problem with green/brown shades and if it wasn't for trying to match an army I would never had noticed because they would have looked just fine to others and me, we'd just disagree about what exact color they are.

If you aren't sure about this, I'd take one of those quick online tests and see if you have a touch of color blindness. Otherwise, you might be painting turd marines when you think are painting puke ones.

Avoiding the Cat's Craddle - Parenting and Warhammer

2011-11-21T10:16:00.001-08:00

Fair warning, this post is less about Warhammer and more about "real" life. Though there is a fair about of Warhammer in it. Of all of the things I've done in my life the thing I am most proud of is my eleven year old step son. He is growing up to be someone I am very proud of, and so far, avoiding the mistakes I made in my youth.

I know most of the Warhammer players out there are not parents, so this post is likely to be at the minimum not applicable and most likely dreary at best. I had signed up for an 1850 tournament yesterday at the Games Workshop store in Alamo, California. I was looking forward with getting some games in with my new nurgle models, that I've mostly finished up. On my way to the tournament yesterday my Wife called me, asking where the primer was to prime models. My son had decided he wanted to paint up some Skaven that day.

Earlier in the morning my Wife and I had sat my son down and told him he wasn't going spend all of his vacation playing video games, and that he needed to find other things to do. My son has painted a few models in the past, but the hobby hasn't ever really stuck with him. I've been trying fantasy as an alternative, and so far it is appealing to him much more then the round base variety of the hobby. After hanging up the phone and driving a few miles down the road I called my Wife back and told her I was coming home.

It didn't take me five minutes to decide that playing a tournament (even one that I had been looking forward to for a few weeks) wasn't worth missing some time hanging out with my Son, sharing a hobby that I love. We spent most of the afternoon at our Kitchen table watching James Bond movies and painting models. I didn't learn a damn thing about how my Nurgle list does in a tournament, but I did make my kid really happy.

Best sunday I've had in a while. When you get the chance in life, make sure that you turn the car around.

He painted up ten skaven clan rats from the island of blood. When they are done I will post a few pics. He is doing much better at eleven then I did at fifteen when I started.

My Chaos Warriors.

More Nurgle Progress

2011-11-06T16:27:00.000-08:00

I made some more progress the last few days with my nurgle additions. My demon prince is almost done, with some detailing on his sword/chains and some highlights of the blisters to do.

I also finished the base coating of the two greens I used on the demon prince on my Raptor and Terminator squads. I had a brief issue with the first coat on the squads and realized I thinned down the wash a bit much. It came out almost like a heavy wash. After mixing up a second batch I corrected the problem and when it dried put on a the second color. One coat of wash didn't quite get the color right, so I did another coat this morning. I like to let washes dry for at least a day to make sure they are 100% dry so I won't be able to put some work into them for about a week due to an upcoming business trip. I am looking forward to cracking open the Necron codex that I've saved for the plane trip. Really hard not to open that bag....

Some pictures.

How I learned to stop worrying and love my airbrush

2011-11-02T09:13:00.000-07:00

I had to stay home from work yesterday to care for my sick son, which meant apart from having to scramble to get some things I had to get done that day done from home, I was able to sneak in some time modeling.

I had been dreading pulling out my airbrush as I hadn't had the easiest time last year with it painting my guard. It always seems to jam, never feeding paint like it should, not spraying evenly, etc. I am sure it is operator error as I haven't had any real training apart from some YouTube videos and the occasional Dakka thread. I really like the idea of my airbrush and I'm always happy with the results, I just don't pull it out much because it can be such a hastle.

I finished basing the models I've been working on, primed them up, and took an airbrush to my demon prince as a trial run as I haven't used my airbrush since last year when I sprayed my guard vehicles. I also spent some time in the evening actually painting on my Demon Prince. I'm pretty happy so far, it's a ton of progress for one day.

With the upcoming Tomb Kings, I mean Necron release, I wanted my base to be a bit topical so I hacked up a destroyer as a step stool for my Demon prince. After trying it out, I decided what would work best was to flip it over and use the bottom to stand on.

For stability I added a pin.

The top of the destroyer is round, so a bit of dremel work made it fit a lot better.

A bit of sand and rocks added.

I then pulled out my airbrush and went to work adding the first color to the Demon Prince. I am using the Olive Greens Reaper Triad, and I basecoated with the darkest of the three.

While that was drawing I finished up the bases on my terminators and raptors. The terminators got some Necron bits and the raptors just got a few stones.

I then airbrushed a light coat of the second green, this one a bit lighter then the last one.

I then gave my raptors and terminators their prime jobs. Theyare now ready to be airbrushed. Most likely I will wait until this weekend as I'd like to do it when I have some good daylight to work with.

I then gave my Demon Prince a liberal washing of Ogryn Flesh. This really brought out the detail.

I spent two episodes of Castle last night on the Demon Prince and his base. I know most people would do them seperatly, I would like to have them bothdone at about the same time. I don't have any step by steps, only how they came out. I didn't have any daylight, so the pics are bit rough.

Nurgle Raptors - Even more green stuff

2011-10-29T22:48:00.000-07:00

I've done next to nothing this week on my Nurgle army, the release of a certain multiplayer shooters has really cut into my hobby time. I did manage to break away to finish up my Raptors with the needed green stuff so I can move on to the Land Raider.

I also played around with basing my Demon Prince as well as my terminators. The upcoming release of the Necrons has inspired me to base some of my models with dead Necrons. I had saved a Destroyer and a few Warriors from an army I bought and resold last year knowing eventually I would want to have some models on hand for terrain/basing/etc.

Nurgle updates - More green stuff fun

2011-10-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

I tried out the Army Painter color my friend who painted the original army used and I must say I was really impressed. It stuck to the finecast material quite well, went on smooth with good coverage. It only took two coats to cover such a detailed model as the nurgle demon prince.

My next step is to paint on two colors of green via the airbrush, though I am going to wait until I finish green stuffing the terminators, land raider and raptors so I can do them all in one batch. Using the airbush is such a pain, I want to minimize the work.

I started to green stuff up the terminators, and they came out okay. I am hoping that putting some paint on them will really help sell the nurgle bits I carved in, because right now they just look meh to me. It is tougher to work in green stuff then I thought, it's quite sticky and I need to find a solution to keep it from sticking to the GW carving tool I am using.

Onto some pictures...I did my 5 man terminator squad on Sunday.

I also finished up a squad of 5 raptors. I am not a big fan of the raptor models, and never have been of any of the incarnations. They just look weird and not very chaos'y to me. I have always been a fan of re purposed marine components as it just makes sense to me. I used bits from a few different kits to build the below. A space marine assault squad donated the jump packs, bezerkers and normal chaos marines for the chest, some legs, arms, weapons and heads. I got some of the legs from a tactical marine squad boxI had on my shelf and the melta guns came from some space wolves that didn't need them.

Nurgle Terminators - Playing with poses

2011-10-21T09:12:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel like this hobby we all love is only one notch above playing with dolls. Putting together terminator models last night, I realized how very close it is. We put the models in cool poses, paint them (dress them up) and then play with them. I'm not saying that we all play with dolls, only that we are very close to that edge and teetering. But...our dolls blow stuff up, so it's okay. I'm digressing...

Last night I cracked open one of my two boxes of terminators that I am going to nurgle up and press into service in my Chaos Marine army. I was inspired by a recent Dakka thread where some amazing poses were done with some Khorne models. I know I couldn't get even close to the quality of what that guy did, though I figure I could do something more then simply static poses.

I call this one, my "are you not entertained" pose.

One of the great poses in that Dakka Thread was a running terminator. I'm going to attempt something similar with the below legs I chopped up and hacked together.

This one is just a terminator with an Autocannon trying to look more menacing and as if he sees something to the side. I hacked up the Autocannon a bit, as I am not a fan of how all of the Chaos Terminator weapons have blades on them. I realize spikes/blades are a big deal for Chaos, but GW got a little carried away.

First crack at Green Stuff for Nurgle - Demon Prince

2011-10-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

After a recent order from Minature Market arrived I had what I needed to start working on my Nurgle additions to my new chaos army. I picked up a few boxes of terminators, some paint and some green stuff and a GW sculpting tool.

I had a metal demon prince from the army I had recently purchased, though I decided to pick up a finecast one. The rest of the army is plastic, so I just thought a finecast one made more sense. It's also the reason I am going to convert a Typhus model, as there is no finecast version.

After a short trip to Black Diamond Games earlier this week to grab a Finecast version I had decided that the plastic wings (that I had appropriated from the metal demon prince) were just too clean and needed to get nurlged.

I haven't ever sculpted anything with green stuff so it was a new experience. I mostly made some pustules and a few patches of rotted skin on the wings, trying to make it match up a bit better with what the model has.

I found the green stuff was really easy to work with, other then it stuck to everything. I couldn't really roll out patches of it to make skin, the roller just stuck to it. It did stay pliable for quite a while which made it really easy to keep changing my design. I used GWs green stuff, I don't know if it is any better then the generic or Gale Force 9 stuff (though I have a suspicion it is all made by the same vendor to begin with)

I made my pustules by making a ball of green stuff and then just spreading it out and putting a nasty indent in it, like it had popped and never healed.

I asked my Wife after I was done what she thought, and she said it looked gross. Mission accomplished.

Instant 40k Army - Tons of Nurgly pictures

2011-10-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in my blog how I had picked up my buddies nurgle army last weekend to jump start my next army. All I am going to have to add is a few more units and I will have a nice 2500ish amount of nurgle marines to take out for a spin when I feel like a 3+ army with a bit of evil in it.

I normally would never say I could get anywhere close to the quality of the models my buddy paints and this army is only an exception due to the fact he never did all the highlighting he wanted to. In spite of that, the army is still amazing. He's got a lot of custom sculpting and addition of power cables, puss sores, skin stuff, and shoulder pads. I am going to try and learn to do some of that in the next few months.

Here is the army as it was when he tossed me the keys.

First Warhammer 40k pictures with my new iPhone 4S

2011-10-15T09:13:00.000-07:00

To my surprise AT&T actually came through and I received my new iPhone in the mail yesterday. One of the first things I wanted to test was the new fabled camera, and of course I wanted to try it out during a game a 40k. I was really impressed, it took a bunch of really nice pictures in the terrible light of my garage at night. I played a buddy of mine who wrecked me with his Sisters.

On with the pictures.

UK Armies on Parade "Winners"...

2011-10-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

GW just posted up the UK Armies on Parade Winners on their website. I thought it was a bit interesting their choice of winners.

If you haven't heard, the Necrons are rumored to be the next released army. It seems interesting that the army chosen to win was a Necron army. Not that the army doesn't look deserving, though the Ork one looks a ton better from the pictures they took. Photographs don't always show off a model as well as in person with natural light will, though from the photo's it looks like any of those posted could have won. The converted/looted stormraven looks amazing.

Now I am not saying 100% GW picked the Necron army to win because of their release schedule, there may not be fire but I sure do see smoke.

Refurbishing Khorne Terminators

2011-10-12T11:43:00.000-07:00

Revisiting an old army can be difficult for many reasons, the first of which is the paint job. I've gotten much better in the last year, let alone three years, so to go look at models I painted before my break in 40k is difficult.

Most of my models got sold when I walked away from 40k, but I kept my five to ten year old Chaos Marine army. I've decided to rehabilitate some of my models that I think I would like to use with my new nurgle models, mostly the Khorne parts of my army.

One of the few models I am proud of are the Khorne converted terminators. The paint jobs were what I thought were done, but I now see through some washing, highlighting and re basing they can look a ton better. I started last night by pulling them off their bases and adding sand as well as some rocks and other items to make them more dynamic.

I apologize for the pictures, all I had was my son's iTouch.

Models before adding in some extra basing.

I added two sizes of sand, along with rocks and a few other terrain elements.

Tonight I should be able to put some base colors on the basing. I'm also planning on washing the gold with some Devlin Mud to bring down the gold a bit. I also see a ton of details (skulls and chains) that need to be picked out.

Is buying a painted army cheating?

2011-10-11T15:37:00.000-07:00

Last weekend a friend of mine sold me his exquisitely painted nurgle themed chaos marine army. I haven't taken any pictures of it, though my buddy posted some pictures on Dakka after he got wrongfully screwed out of a decent painting score at the 2010 Da Grand Waaagh.

I've always felt like buying models painted by someone else was a bit of a Faustian exercise and akin to buying currency in an MMO.

As I've written lately, I've been in the market to add to my stable and he mentioned to me a few weeks ago he was looking to get rid of it and after thinking about it for a little while while I did obviously decided to pull the trigger I was conflicted. The price was more then fair,and owning these heavily converted with high quality painted models should have been an easy decision though I had this nagging feeling that it was a bit like cheating.

Sometimes I catch myself thinking like an old school player and I think this is what was going on. When I played in 2nd and 3rd no one played with models anyone else painted, you painted your own army and you were proud of it. I know I am not the kind of person to act like I painted it but it somehow still feels like it's not on the up and up.

In the end, clearly I got over my feelings on the subject, what do you think? Is it okay to buy a painted army, or in this hobby of modeling and painting are you taking the short path?

Dreadfleet review and first two scenarios with pictures

2011-10-10T10:49:00.000-07:00

Learning Dreadfleet wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I also realized I really like it. The rules, while not as clear as I would like, were not as ambiguous as I had expected, being a games workshop rule set.

I would first like to state this game is getting, in this blogger's opinion, a vastly unfair treatment in the blogosphere. This game, while pricey, is a lot of fun. It captures the fun of Battlefleet Gothic and the tactics of any good ship game with a fantastic set of models. My only complaint so far about Dreadfleet is the price, but I've come to terms (read as rationalize) the price based on how I view the game. If I think of it as a board game the price is quite excessive. If I look at it as a miniatures game (which it really is, the ships are not tokens or cardboard, but high quality sculpted plastic) at $115 it is a steal. I've spent more then that on units in my 40k armies.

I had a chance to play two games this weekend with a friend who picked it up. We actually played with his copy, as I haven't assembled mine as I play to paint most of it on the sprues. He usually doesn't paint his stuff so he put his set together straight away. It was nice having two rulebooks and two rulers to play with though, I wish GW would sell these separate, but I doubt that is a possibility. I do have some concerns if I break the ruler, as you need it for checking angles,this would be a real problem, and the game would be pretty useless without it.

We played a few games on Sunday, doing the first two missions. We took a long time, about three hours, to play both missions. We spent most of the time learning the rules as we went as we had barely cracked the rulebook prior to setting up.

Here are some pictures of the games we played.

I used the Bloody Reaver for both games. The first scenario is simply a "damage" your opponent to test your strength scenario.

The Bloody Reaver eyes it's prey.

A sea monster pops up, placed by opponent, right in my path.

Another Sea Monster? I am starting to hate fate cards.

I got away from the Sea Monsters using the Blood Reaver's captain's ability to control one, I made it so they had to fight each other instead of me.

Some careful moving I was able to get behind my opponent and rake them, twice.

I didn't quite make my turn, so I was on a course for the rocks, but my opponent was on the ropes so I just kept shooting at him and even though I would have hit the rocks the game ended.

The next scenario was one with two ships on a side, adding in two medium strength ships and some unique mechanics. In this one, the Grand Alliance has a ship in the middle that is stuck and you have to destroy an emplacement to free it. Then the ship has to get off the board to win, in six turns or the Dreadfleet wins.

I was able to assault it once, but even with 7 crew I only did one damage...

He got away and moved his flagship into position to broadside the reaver.

Luckily I was able to get one more charge off to hold onto him and he got stuck on some rocks after this turn, so the Dreadfleet was once again victorious.

We both had a lot of fun. It is obvious to see the difference in how the fleets play and I am looking forward to trying a few more games now that we got a good basic understanding of the rules. Now I just have to paint my fleet...

To Forgeworld or not to Forgeworld, that is the question...

2011-10-07T11:33:00.000-07:00

I am in the planning phase of my next force where I am obsessing on all of the options of units that I can pick up. As I mentioned in an earlier post I am mostly just collecting what I think is cool without much regard for it's effectiveness. This army is built with very little competitive flavor, in fact barely a sprinkle at all.

One of my favorite units has always been Chaos Terminators. They just look bad ass with their reaper autocannons (how cool is that, they have their own autocannons?), chainfists, power axes, and trophy racks. There is nothing more fun then filling your terminator's trophy racks with heads from your friends armies. My old abaddon model had on head from each of the gamers in my group's main force. Even my Bloodthirster was stepping on a Space Wolf. I've always found this kind of thing works well with Chaos....but I digress.

Back to the topic at hand, terminators. Specifically, Nurgle terminators. I really like the foregworld Nurgle terminator conversion kits, they look amazing. The problem is, as we all know, the really slow lead time for Forgeworld stuff. So I have the option of either putting together a large order to hit the fast free shipping limit Forgeworld has with a bunch of friends (tough to do, I don't know many others that are into Forgeworld) or wait 8 weeks for it to show up and overpay for shipping.

I am leaning towards just skipping the kits and converting myself with a lot of greenstuff. Nurgle is one of the easier ones to do, just lots of holes and puss bubbles, but this is one time I would really like to get the "good stuff".

Hmm...to Forgeworld or not.....

Building a 40k Army - What to buy? The two camps

2011-10-06T13:39:00.000-07:00

There are two camps when it comes to doing an army build.

The first camp is the way I think most people, including myself collect armies, as optimized and inclusive of a certain point value. There may be some sort of "sideboard" but for the most part units are not bought that will not be used 90% of the time. I think this lends itself to the fact that 40k (at least in my area, Northern California) is mostly an 1850 game at the tournament level (and those that are not are within 20% of it). Most of us plan out our lists with tips online, vet them in forums, and talk them to death with our friends. For example, for my IG list I took the popular "leafblower" 2500 point Ard Boyz list and scaled it down to 1850. The only thing I changed after my initial purchase was I swapped the two Medusa's for a second manticore and added lascannon teams. For the most part I play it the exact same every time. The problem is that it leads to a bit of burnout. So I've decided with my CSM list I'm building I am going the road less traveled.

The second (and what I am doing with my CSM) is to just collect units that you like, that you want to paint and that may just look cool. This tends to lead to a large collection of models with some models not getting much play time.

This was how most people collected 40k when I first started, back in 2nd edition. Through my time up to the end of 3rd it was the way I collected my armies. There wasn't much planning, I just bought stuff I liked. If it didn't work I put it on the shelf and waited until I thought of a new way to use it or I just didn't care if it sucked.

I know in my CSM I am focusing on Nurgle and I am going to use some or all of the below units.

Terminators
Typhus
Land Raiders (Yes, I want two!)

I want to start using an old Mark I land raider I have on my shelf

Plague Marines
Raptors
Demon Prince (Nurgle, of course)
Obliterators
Predator

I am not sure how many of the above I am going to use, I think I am just going to pick up some core models and add to it. One of my friends is getting rid of his amazingly painted Nurgle army so I will have a good start as well as I have a bunch of the above from my 3rd ed (and month long 4th ed) CSM models. I intend to build this army to have some fun, it may not be the most competitive, but it will be fun.

40k Old School - Back to Chaos Space Marines

2011-10-05T14:26:00.000-07:00

There is a reason I named this blog what I did, and it's because I like to collect armies. It's that time again. This time I'm not so much going out and getting something new, as I'm going to pick up some chaos models to supplement what I have and build a more nurgle inspired force.

Since Da Grand Waaagh I've been looking to play something else, mostly because I like my guard, but they are just, well, shooty. I'd like to play a game where the third phase is something other then a phase where I pull models.

I decided I wanted to work on an assault army and that narrowed it down. I also really wanted to work on something I knew/already have. Other then about an hour where I contemplated demons, but due to their one really effective build, I knew I wanted a 3+ army.

Up until last week I thought I would revamp my blood ravens (a counts as blood angels force) until a buddy of mine mentioned half jokingly I should buy his nurgle marines, as he is looking to get rid of them. I thought about it for a little while and decided it would be nice to get a head start on an army for once. The models are gorgeous so it wasn't a hard decision. The nice thing about nurgle is if I work on the conversions and keep some of the same palate it is the one army I could get pretty close to matching his paintjob.

I've already decided what I want to add, and I am thinking about a list with three plague marine units and two land raiders with terminators in them. I have a really old Mark I land raider and this would finally give me an excuse to use it. I've always liked the idea of Chaos using old marine models. It's not like they are going to be able to get the new plans when the new model years come out.

Most of my chaos stuff is third ed, and it was my first painted army. I haven't even used it in fifth, so I am going to have to do some stripping or just replace some models. Either way it will be nice to get back to my roots. I played a lot of chaos in third, other then tau, it was about the only army I stuck with in my prior 40k career and it was the only army I kept after all the ebay purges.

Now I have to find some good nurgle dice....

Table War Display Case Impressions

2011-10-04T09:53:00.000-07:00

In yesterday's post I mentioned how at a local tournament I got to meet the owners of Table War who make a revolutionary storage and display system. I had seen some video (including a thorough review by a friend of mine) and was looking forward to seeing it in person.

There were a few full cases they had brought, including an IG army and an Ork army. Both armies fit really well in the cases, even Valkyries managed to fit in the IG case.

As you can see from the title picture the system is made up of a case and then several shelves. The system is quite modular, which means it is 100% custom and can be changed. One advantage is you would only need one case to carry and just buy many shelves to keep the army on. One of the owners told me this is what he does, just puts the army on shelves when he is done with it and tosses it in the case when he is ready to play. This is also a great way to display a nicely painted army at home.

It is an amazing addition to the hobby, but there are two factors keeping me from writing that check.

The first is shock protection. To be clear, I am a Klutz and drop a lot of stuff. It looked to me that if you drop it on the ground, there is no shock protection built in. You will have some help because everything is magnetized, but that will do nothing to absorb the impact, unlike traditional foam systems. I may be wrong on this one, but it makes me a bit worried.

The second, and most important, is price. They had me sold until I priced one out on their website. Currently Battlefoam holds the place as most expensive carrying system. I picked up one of their cases for my IG and it was a tough decision, even with their black Friday sale last year it was $200 for a case and the custom foam for my army. The Table War stuff is even more pricey.

The reason for the expensive nature is because everything is modular, you have to buy a lot of add ons. The main case is $200, which if it came with all of the trays, I would say was a good price. It doesn't. The tray's themselves are $15 a piece, and then you have to get the inserts for them to put models on, pushing each total shelf to between $22 and $30 dollars. Four shelves adds $120 to the price.

Below is what it would have cost me for an 1850 marine army of mine to be in a case. The price came out to be $332 with shipping.

All in all it looks like a fantastic product just at too high of a price point for me. They look amazing in person, and if I could afford one I would give it a shot.

Tablewar Headhunter Tournament at Battle Bunker Games in Antioch

2011-10-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

The RL gods aligned and I had some free time on Sunday to play in a tournament at Battle Bunker Games in Antioch, California. The tournament was also sponsored by Tablewar Games and the owners were there to show the flag as well as their products. I'll write up my thoughts on seeing the products in person in another post. There is already too much in this one...

I had planned all week to bring my Blood Angels (Blood Ravens, counts as). I even had a play test game on Thursday night with a friend of mine to tweak my list and get his thoughts. I ended up taking my IG as my predators still had broken lascannons and I decided sleeping in on Sunday was more important, so I just grabbed my IG.

The tournament was a FLGS style tourney, with thirteen players. The crowd was a pretty competitive, but relaxed group. This was a great opportunity for me to get some games against some good players and learn something. I hate soft games, I am a firm believer in getting beaten by better players is the way you get better.

The tournament had a unique system of all three standard missions were in play each game. There was a primary mission worth three points, a secondary mission worth two points and a tertiary mission worth one point. These were both battle points and to decide the winner. I don't want to bury the lead, I ended up with 3 points at the end of the day. I had 3 points in my first game and none after that. I won one, and lost two games.

On with some pictures!

It was a "fun" atmosphere to say the least....

My first game was against one of the gentlemen from Tablewar. He had an Ork Battlewagon list. I would be disingenuous if I didn't say I was worried about how I would handle the battlewagons in a dawn of war game without getting first turn.

His battlewagons charged in.

I deployed in a normal IG gun line and shot back. I got very lucky and blew up one of his battlewagons (with Ghaz in it) first turn.

I was then able to blow up a second wagon, spilling out the squad on an objective.

The below picture is a few turns later. Even without their ride Ghaz's squad got into my lines and got a lot of Kill Points very quickly.

The game ended with me winning, but just barely. The objectives were a tie, but I won on Killpoints by one Killpoint. A very fun game against a great opponent and it came down to the wire. It could have gone either way.

My next game was against demons. I was happy to get this game in, the opponent is a friend of mine as well as I haven't gotten to play much against demons.

I forgot to get pictures of the start, but it is pretty much as you would think. I turtled a bit and he deep struck on me. I got really lucky and he had a very far scatter for putting a unit of crushers on me and it got destroyed.

I was able to take out Fateweaver with some shots and the psyker battle squad dropping his leadership. Some flamers and copious amounts of las fire took out the seekers. My multilasers finished off the second greater demon as well.

There was another objective that was being contested, I couldn't get the plaguebearers off of it so this is the one where the game came down to it.

Three meltaguns hit the plague bearers! Then I rolled to wound......

The game ended up a loss. I killed almost everything he had, but I couldn't finish him off. He ended the game with only two units of plague bearers but that was enough. The resilience of this army is amazing. Losing the unit of crushers really hamstrung him from the start, and losing fateweaver took some of the reliability away. Even without those two he stomped me. Fantastic game.

My last game was against Orks, and I was playing Tasty Taste (Nick) the show runner behind Blood of Kittens.

He had a fantastic list, and so simple. It was a ton of boyz (90+?) with stormboyz and Snickrot (with Mad Doc riding shotgun). I made a few bonehead moves to start and it cost me.

I always outflank the Valkyries but this game I decided I wanted the pie plates to start. They worked great scouting up and putting fire into the stormboyz. The problem was I forgot to move them on my actual turn so the stormboyz ate them both...

A few Deffkoptas caused me some problems, zooming into one of my flanks.

Snickrot is a nasty character. He is brutal both from a CC and his unit point of view but his psychological impact cannot be overstated. I kept worrying about him coming at me and it affected what I was doing. He is a fantastic character and I think I will add one to my Ork list. I was really impressed with him. From the below picture you can see how he got in behind my vehicles and caused some major problems. Ghaz also got to me and it was a classic pincer move and it hurt...

At this point the Orks were just mopping up the IG and we called it after four full turns. It was a really fun game and I learned a lot about how nasty boyz lists can be.

Overall it was a really fun tournament. The tournament organizer had a great mechanic where if a player wanted to challenge another one he could. This was a great idea for an event like this where most of everyone knew each other at least casually and most have played many games with either other.

I'm not sure if I like the three games in one mechanic, with the battle points as it stands. I liked the concept, for the only reason of it was different without being too complicated. It does need some adjustment, though I'm not sure where. I feel like the basic missions are too simple but tournament organizers tend to make really complicated missions that gum up the game too much. This felt like a nice compromise, and with some tweaking I think the TO is really on to something.

Dreadfleet Unboxing and Initial Impressions

2011-10-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

I picked up my copy of Dreadfleet this morning and I made a short video of opening it up. I've got a busy weekend so I won't be able to get a real feel for playing it until I have some time to assemble it. I might also paint before assembling, I'm on the fence about it. As soon as I get a chance to digest the rules and get in a few games I'll post a review with more details.

Now, on with the unboxing!

Warhammer 40k Lore in a Minute by Total Biscuit

2011-09-28T17:23:00.000-07:00

Very funny video giving a good introduction into the lore of the imperium in about a minute. Not quite all 40k lore, but a good basic intro into the main faction.

Da Grand Waaagh 2011 Day Two Pictures and Results

2011-09-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

I got the results yesterday from the organizers and I was quite happy to see I had pulled off 8th place. This is so much better then I thought I would do, and I'm of course quite pleased compared to last year. I'll take a 30 place improvement any day of the week.

Here are the results. You do have to click on the picture to make it big enough to read.

On with Day two pictures! I don't have as many, as by this point I took less pictures mostly because I was tired and kept forgetting.

Da Grand Waaagh 2011 Pictures Day One

2011-09-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

I'm planning on writing up some notes on how my games went, though my initial reaction a day removed was the same as yesterday. It was a way fun time. I got to play five really great guys in five great games. Other then a bit of rock, paper, scissors 40k (Both my games on Sunday were one sided match ups) I have no complaints. Finished the weekend 3-1-1 and the part I'm most proud of is a 38 out of 50 painting score. For me, that's a home run. Hopefully the standings will be out soon, so I'll be able to see if I improved on last years placing in the mid-thirties...but on with some pictures from day one. I'll post some more from day two soon.

Da Grand Waaagh GT - T-Minus 1 day

2011-09-23T11:42:00.000-07:00

I've got the army packed up, a bag packed, and I'm ready to have a weekend of rolling dice. This is an especially eventful gaming experience as it's my first post-wedding gaming adventure. Most of my year (hence the huge gap in posts) was taken up, especially the summer, by getting ready to get married. It's a physical and emotionally exhausting experience. My gaming time has taken a significant hit. I've had to miss a lot of games, including dropping out of helping organize a large event I was pushing for because of my experiences at Da Grand Waaagh 2010.

I'm a bit worried I'll be terribly rusty, as I haven't touched dice since about May. I have been playing my guard since about last November, so at least the army I do have experience with is the one I'm bringing. With this in mind, my main goal is just to have a weekend of gaming, not worry about winning and get to meet some new players. I had good games 4 out of 5 (the one not fun game was just because the guy was all business, not a jerk, just wanted to play quickly) so I am hoping for a similar experience this year.

I've got the camera and flipcam so I will post a ton of pictures soon.

Pirates Incomming - Pre Ordered Dreadfleet from a FLGS

2011-09-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

If you have been living under a rock, Games Workshop is releasing a naval miniatures one shot boxed game (sort of like space hulk) called Dreadfleet. Here is a link. I really enjoyed Gothic so a game in the same vein popped up I had to pick it up.

I hadn't planned on pre-ordering it (mostly because I think the pre-order business model is complete shit) but a store in my area, Black Diamond Games in Concord, was selling it for $99 and with a combination a special no tax day special they were running yesterday made it hit a price I was willing to pulling the trigger on. Perfect example of the demand curve from economics.

I've heard mostly bad things about this release in early reviews, but it didn't scare me away. Truthfully GW's strengths don't lie in game design, but in the quality and ubiquitous nature of their games. The appeal of playing a sailing game is strong as well, as I sail regularly on San Francisco Bay on my fathers sailboat, so I am interested to see how well the sailing mechanics have been done.

As always, I look at a game like this as a cost if I don't like it. I figure worst case, I hate it, and I can resell it for around $70 meaning I am only out $30. For that price, I'll take a shot in the dark. Chances are I will enjoy it, though it won't get much play and will merely become part of my very small board game collection, and I have no problem with that. It can sit with Axis and Allies, Ticket to Ride and Tide of Iron in my closet gathering dust.

Finshed Imperial Guard Army List for Da Grand Waaagh GT 2011

2011-09-16T11:07:00.000-07:00

I finished up my army list for Da Grand Waaagh next week and got it submitted. It's always a bit nerve racking to email these types of things because I worry that it will go through okay...My work experiences have taught me that things that can go wrong tend to when you need them most so in my private life I'm a bit of a worrier.

That being said, I am sure everything is okay. I ended up using my normal 1850, I've used it and done fairly well in local events for the last year. Its a leafblower variant, with a few key changes. I use valkyries instead of vendettas, I ony have one squad of veterans and use an infantry platoon. I also use lascannon teams, no medusas, instead two manticores.

It took some time to finish up the "fluff" part of the list, as at this event you get points for naming your events and a "back story". I wrote mine up in the form of a message sent to an IG commander.

If you are curious, here is my list with fluff cover page.

Getting ready for Da Grand Waaagh 2011

2011-09-15T16:24:00.000-07:00

I've been spending some hobby time this last week getting ready for Da Grand Waaagh GT at the end of this month. I'd signed up back in June, though it finally occurred to me that I actually have to get ready. I played in it last year, and appart with some glaring issues they had with their painting scores (I had a higher painter score then my Golden Demon caliber buddy) it was a fun two days.

Most of my summer has been taken up with getting married (funny how that eats up all your hobby time), increased job duties at work, and my family. I haven't done much painting other then some work on my Grey Knights. They are barely half done and I am worried they won't get finished for a while.

My imperial guard is who I decided to bring with me to the GT. I could have rushed and finished my Grey Knights, but being an all terminator list I would have been killed on comp and I just didn't have the time. I also feel like my IG are painted up pretty well, so I should get a decent paint score. The only thing I have left to do is spruce up the bases and basing, as well as add some decals.

I've started adding the unit decals, and it is amazing how well the white decals pop on the cadians. The basing has been helped by a second coat of paint around the rim to cover up my errant brush from highlighting the sand and I plan on adding some leaves and rocks from the GW fantasy basing kit I picked up last night.

I am very excited for the tourney, and as I haven't even played in five months I have no qualms about getting my teeth kicked in, so it really takes the pressure off. I am looking forward to a relaxing weekend of playing a ton of 40k and getting to meet some new players.

Cancelled my White Dwarf subscription

2011-06-24T13:25:00.000-07:00

The interwebs are a flutter with the information that White Dwarf subscriptions will be delayed and it's the last straw for me. I've been unhappy with the magazine for a while. It is, and has been for a while, an overpriced catalog and I knew and accepted this for sometime.

I've been having issues with getting the magazine later and later over the last few months. It used to come around the 25th and the date has been slipping so I wouldn't get until about the 30th or the 1st. One month I didn't get it until the 10th. GW's announcement that it isn't even going to be shipped until the 30th is the final straw.

I called GW to cancel my subscription this morning. The CSR tried to tell me that I could just pick it up at a GW store on the 30th. Really? Thank you for "letting" me pick up the item I paid to have shipped to me in a timely manner at your store.

I only had 5 issues left, so I'm only really cancelling three issues but its more the point. If GW gets enough cancellations over this, maybe they will change their minds. I doubt it, but as we vote with our wallet as consumers I am putting my ballot in the box with a big N-O on it.

40k Cosplay Video - Working Chainsword

2011-06-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

I found this fantastic video up on reddit today. It's some sort of cosplay convention and there are a ton of 40k cosplayers showing off. Towards the end one of them has a working chainsword!!

I haven't posted in a while, I keep forgetting to get my pictures off of my camera. I played two games and finished putting together most of my GKs (as well as my first stormraven) and without pictures a wall of text is just not that interesting. I'll post these up soon.

Grey Knights at the playtest phase

2011-06-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

I've gotten my Grey Knights well enough assembled that I can start playtesting. I've finished two dreadknights as I don't think I am going to run three, as I think two with better wargear may be more effective then three stock, though we'll see.

Please excuse the horrible camera phone pictures.

Below are the five I completed last night.

Below is my HQ, a grand master with halberd. I used the Draigo body I got from the miscast Draigo I got together with bits from the terminator sets.

The Army as it is, almost completed. There is another Dreadknight I completed as well as the weapons for the Dreadknight in the picture are completed as well.

Grey Knight Nerfing

2011-06-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

Unless you live under a rock (I'm looking at a certain sponge's best friend) then you've taken a few moments and read the new FAQs that GW posted up. I found out about them on BOLS last night and was very disappointed about a few rules.

Don't get me wrong, I can take my lumps. Into this life, a little nerfhammer must come. My GKs are just a "fun" list I've been building, though even then the FAQ has some headscratchers.

In hindsight some of them make sense, though a lot of them seem like reactions to the the vocal minority of the blogs and forums of the Internet.

I'm just going to speak up about the Dreadknight. I'm honestly not sure what GW was thinking, the thing was expensive but had a few unique tricks up it's sleeve. The FAQ boosted up some things in the list, but the DKs seem to have taken the brunt of the nerfing though. With three in my 1850 I am going to feel it, and obviously have to rework the list somewhat.

The first turn shunt, cheap S 10 hitting power, made the thing somewhat playable. I was going to use three in the GK list I'm building. Most competitive players are running Psydreads, but I just like the look of the baby carriers. Losing the S 10 makes senses, why else would the hammer upgrade be there? The shunt move ruling I think is plain wrong, as it's not consistent with the wording of what the shunt does. At the end of the day I can't get too upset, it is just a game. Though I wonder, does GW really want to sell Dreadknights?

Real Life Looted Wagon

2011-06-13T16:41:00.000-07:00

Over on Reddit today I found a great video I'd like to share. The video is of a rebel Libyan Tank/Truck that is best described as a Real Life Ork vehicle.

See below for the video.

Alamo Games Workshop 2v2 June 12, 2011

2011-06-12T23:24:00.000-07:00

I spent the afternoon at a 2v2 at the Alamo Games Workshop store. It is one of the most enjoyable formats of this game we all adore, as it leads to some unlikely bedfellows and interesting synergy's that are not afforded by the restraints of the typical codex. I was scheduled to play with a friend of mine and his Dark Eldar, but a graduation required his attention so I had to team up with another friend who had lost his conspirator as well. This lead to me being teamed up with a Space Wolf list.

Our first game was against a Demon and IG pairing.

We were able to deploy on a hill, obviously a boon to our team as it afforded my Manticores and Hydras a generous field of fire.

The game was spearhead, capture and control so we hung back with most of units and moved forward with some wolves being screened by empty Chimeras.

The Meltavets came in the Valkyrie, and popped an Executioner. Their victory would be short lived as they were quickly gunned down.

I had to take a picture of the carnage at a table next to ours. A friend of mine had brought a list with over a hundred boyz in it...

The game quickly ended after the below picture with both armies holding one objective and proving once again, that capture and control is the worst mission on the book.

Our second game turned into a gunline battle as we played mechdar and a plaguemarine list with abaddon.

Abaddon deepstruck near our lines and began to cause trouble.

I didn't get a picture but Ragnar and a squad hopped out and charged Abaddon and they proceeded to kill each other with only a lone terminator left over. After that the game turned into a trade back and forth of KP's with us losing 12-9.

Our Final game would be against another Demon and IG team in a pitched battle, objectives battle.

From the start of the match we got our teeth kicked in. Three soul grinders hammered our lines hard, backed up with a cornucopia of classic guard weapons.

Some last minute moves both cleared some units off and contested objectives. Noticed my Manticore in the lower right of the picture. What else do you do with a Manticore that lost it's missile rack?

The Meltavets proved to be the MVPs as they swooped in on the last turn, took an objective and allowed for a 2-0 victory for our badly wounded forces. This was a mission where our opponents should have won, but got a bit bloodthirsty because they thought we were on the ropes and we were able to pull a victory out.

First Impressions and lessons with Grey Knight Terminators

2011-06-11T21:31:00.000-07:00

I had a chance to put together some of my Grey Knights this morning at my Son's swim meet. I had heard they were detailed and a bit complicated to assemble and they were every thing I had heard.

I've put together more Space Marines then I care to admit and I was pretty excited to get to put together something as different yet familiar as these models. Opening the box up I was impressed with the sprue's virtually limitless options.

I set to work and my only complaint after completing a box was that the instructions are not 100% accurate. Some of the numbers of the parts do not match their pictures and it made some of the build more complicated then I would have liked, as I had to try multiple pieces to get the look/fit I wanted.

I did have a bit of trouble with the two handed halberds. The kit came with some bits to make one handed halberds, but the two handed terminators holding their weapons with two hands is so iconic for the codex I had to have a few.

I first tried the below method, putting both arms on the weapon and then fitting over the torso. It did work, but I had to work some magic to get a flush fit between the arms and torso.

After doing this method a few times I switched to doing one arm on the weapon, placing that on the torso and then gluing in the final arm. This was much more effective and I would highly suggest this method to others.

I finished up five more terminators by the time the meet was over, completing half of my troops. I plan on saving the next pair of boxes for his next swim meet. I should get it going faster though I got so burned out on my last marathon build that I want to take my time this go around.

First Milestone Complete

2011-06-10T10:22:00.000-07:00

I finished up the first phase in my latest army build, getting the models. For this build I went with Miniature Market. I had nothing but a good experience. Great pricing and they shipped quickly so I will most likely start using them as my primary channel for acquiring GW items. I had used The War Store, my only issue it usually takes at least a week and half to get my models because I am so far away. I must admit that when it comes to my hobby products, a few days earlier is a big deal to me, I have the patience of an infant.

I am going to get started tomorrow morning putting together the terminators. My son's swimming season is having it's inaugural event and I found last year that it is a great chance to get some modeling done. He is in the water for about 10 minutes and spends the rest of the time running around with the other 10 year olds so me and Mom (unless we have to work) have plenty of sitting time. Last year I painted most of an 1850 that I took to the 2010 Da Grand Waaagh (I hate how they misspelled a fake word).

Dragonforge Studio's Resin Bases - Initial Impressions / Review

2011-06-09T22:45:00.000-07:00

I was pretty excited yesterday to find that my Dragonforge bases had shown up in the mail. I've been wanting to get them for a while, and this is the first army it's been cost effective for me to use them.

They did come a bit better packed then the picture would indicate, I just removed the paper so I could actually see what was there in a photo.

I picked up 5 large flying bases, 25 of the 40mm bases and 2 of the "hero" bases. I did spend some time to scrub them free of the release material. I always forget to do this when I pick up resin models so I wanted to get it done as soon as they came in. I didn't see a ton of flash or trimming that needed to be done, so I may get away with not much more prep work.

It's interesting how the large bases clearly have a different type of resin then the smaller ones. I put the bases on the shelf and when I finish up painting my GKs I'll start working on the paint, most likely not for a few months.

The Sweet Spot

2011-06-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

This is one of my rambling posts....you've been warned.

I've been having one of "those" weeks this week. My car is in the shop, my three year old Ford is deciding it wants to live up the acronyms and the manufacturer is of course living up to it's reputation. Work has been busy, big deals won't quite close, customers are being their typical difficult self, and just generally being frustrating.

The only bright side of the week is I got in some 40k on a weeknight. I'm sure that if you are reading this and laughing, you live in what I call the "sweet spot" part of your life as a gamer. Don't laugh too much, this will be you in a few years. But there is good news that goes with the more limited time to play.

When you first start out playing games (be it 40k, RPGs, TCGs or Board Games) most likely you start in high school. Your gaming is limited mostly by lack of funds, or extracurricular activities, studies etc. When you get to be my age you may have the funds, but not the time to play as much as you'd like. My son has a swimming meet, or I want to hang out with my Wife, etc. The sweet spot is that time when you are out on your own for the first time and have no one (outside of your job) dictating when you can play 40k. I used to play pick up games all the time on random weeknights when a friend would call, or would just be at my house and we'd decide it sounded like fun. Playing till 3am was the norm, not the outlier in my life.

Don't get me wrong, I love being in the place in my life I am in now. I'm not one of those people that whines about being a family man and how it "keeps them down". These people are morons and forgot how much living with a bunch of sweaty guys in their twenties sucks.

There is a huge benefit to being where I am. You appreciate the games that you play much more. Going to a tournament is an event, or an impromptu pick up game is much more enjoyable when it isn't a nightly occurrence.

Finecast Lord Draigo Replacement model shows up from Games Workshop....no miscasts, but missing parts.

2011-06-06T19:13:00.000-07:00

The Draigo model that I had picked up had some miscasts, as I wrote about here and today I finally got my replacement model from GW. It didn't have any miscasts, but it was missing a piece, the shield. The batch codes were the same so it could just be GW needs to burn through their first batch of rushed models. Still frustrating....

Finecast Terminator Librarian Review

2011-06-04T22:04:00.000-07:00

I picked up a second finecast model yesterday. For the Hobby Challenge I am participating in that The INdependant Characters are running I need to build a sideboard besides the 1850 list. I'm building a couple of stormravens and a Terminator Librarian. I figured since the army is supposed to easy to carry as part of the list building that a finecast model would make a lot more sense then the metal version.

I'll let the video explain more, but for the most part I had a pretty good experiance with this one compared to the first model I picked up. No miscasts!

Warhammer 40k Kill Team by THQ - YouTube Announcment Trailer / News

2011-06-03T08:29:00.000-07:00

I was pretty excited this morning to read an article about how THQ is releasing an arcade shooter called Kill Team. It looks like Castle Crashers ( a game I got way more then $15 dollars out of) with Space Marines. What really surprised me was the game looks to be kind of a throw away game to lead into Space Marine though they clearly spent some money on it.

Check below for the trailer.

The Independant Characters Hobby Progress 10 MonthChallenge

2011-06-02T15:55:00.000-07:00

Being the lazy blogger, I'm rehashing a forum post I put up on the IC forums a few minutes ago. The Hobby Progress 10 Month Challenge they are doing is pushing me over the edge to pony up and complete another army. I'm even breaking my "collect one, get rid of one" army rule. I should bounce one of my current ones on eBay but I just can't decide which one to sacrifice.

I had been planning this army as a possibility and the challenge put me over the top. I am going to build a 2+ Grey Knight army. Deep Striking an entire army of 2+ models sounds fun, and only having 6 Kill Points should make it really work in some tournament missions, but get creamed in others. I also spent the last 6 months working really hard to get an 1850 guard army painted (just finished three weeks ago) so I have to take it easy on the hobby time or the family is not going to be happy.

I also ordered some Dragonforge bases over the weekend, the Lost Empires set. I’ve wanted to use them for a while, and this is the first army where it is cost effective enough to use them.

My list is still a bit in flux, mostly wargear, though I am about 90% sure the below is what I am going with.

1850 Grey Knights
Draigo
10 Paladins (4 MC’d Psycannons, 1 warding staff)
10 Terminators (2 Psycannons, Psybolt ammo, 1 warding staff)
1 Dreadknight with Greatsword
2 Dreadknights – Stock

Sideboard
Terminator Librarian
Stormraven – I’ve wanted one since the release of the model and never had a good reason to pick one up. Now I do!

Plan
End of July – All models assembled and begin painting terminators
End of August – Finish Terminators and 1 Dreadknight
End of September – Finish 2 Dreadknights
End of October – Finish Draigo, Librarian, and Stormraven
End of November- Place models on Bases, Matte Spray, and any punch list items.

Games Workshop - Quality Comments about Citadel Finecast and Miscasts

2011-05-31T11:25:00.000-07:00

I normally "write" horrible attempts at humor detailing my constant collecting urges, painting, or otherwise misdirected hobby attempts. I've been a bit frustrated lately with the launch of the new Citadel Finecast, though not for the reasons you'd think. This post is going to ramble a bit, and I apologize up front.

A prior post details my thoughts and initial experiences picking up a Finecast model. I've had some time to digest and I am way frustrated for a different reason then I though. I like the finecast model, the material is easy to work with and way lighter then metal. After struggling to put together heavy metal models (I'm looking at you Hive Tyrant) I can see this is a no brainer.

What I am frustrated with is the quality, or lack of quality efforts at GW. I work in a manufacturing field, so I understand the importance (and difficulty) of maintaining consistent quality in your products. I've also spent some of my professional career working with the public in a very high contact industry (like GW) so I understand product launches and how they work (or don't) so I have some thoughts on the matter. Doing it right the first time out of the gate is key for two reasons. One, the old saying that you only have one chance to make a good first impression is just as key in dating as it is in new products in the market. Two, you have some very vocal critics of this new product. This means that if you screw up some of your models (and GW of course, did) then you are giving these critics ammunition.

I don't understand why GW, even though they want to sell a lot of models day one, would let all of these miscasts out the door. They shouldn't allow this type of thing to happen as it frustrates customers and gives the internet loud mouths (I'm looking at myself here) things to write about. If you don't have enough pride in your product to demand that you really are producing the world's best miniatures (and not just giving it lip service) at least realize the damage it does to your brand.

Sometimes I wish I didn't like this hobby so much, as any other product I buy I never tolerate this type of behavior.