Now that is a pig!

Once school has quieted down a little bit I plan to get stuck fully into finishing my orc and gobbo army (seen elsewhere in this blog).

Drew McLean (the mad hobbyist) is currently writing his thoughts on the new book and what it means for 8th ed fantasy... I will posting that soon I hope but with his bachelor party this weekend... it might take a little more time.

Anyway... When I do dust off the orcs I REALLY like this Boar for either a character mount or as mounts for big un's...

Coming soon from Mantic Games:

I am not a huge fan of the rider but the mount looks right tasty!

Adding to the pure awesome list of stuff I must buy is the new Avatar's Of War Plastic Dwarf Bezerkers...

Pre-orders are now being taken. I really like the AOW stuff and this looks like a really cool addition to their range.

Speed Painting Skaven

I have had a few people ask me how to paint the skaven army that I have been fielding of late. While I did not paint the original army, I have painted a couple of regiments to match using the same colour recipe that the original owner used. It is a shockingly easy and quick scheme that I will use in the future should I need to vomit out another skaven army in a short period of time. The original owner finished the army in one month and I think the army is lovely… Here are his notes.

For a basic clanrat:
1. Spray model skull white - make sure you get good thin coverage
2. Medium wash of devlan mud over the entire model
3. Skin - thin to medium wash of badab black over the original mud (you can vary the amount to vary the skin colour)
4. Tail - medium wash of baal red
5. Clothing - strong major highlight all clothes with skull white
6. Eyes - Camo green, camo + skull white highlight, skull white pinprick, thraka green wash
7. Teeth - Bleached bone with skull white highlight
8. Metal - Boltgun metal with mithril silver highlight and finally badab black wash. On the weapons I then added a thraka green wash.
9. Wood - Originally I painted and highlighted this though later on when I was running out of time I found you could simply wash very heavily with devlan mud to achieve a good effect.
10. Blood - I use tamiya clear red, old paintbrushes and a toothbrush (my blood-brush) for mixing, dripping and flicking respectively. Do this in batches and wear gloves because this stuff is incredibly hard to get off your fingers. Do it outside or in a protected area as the stuff will flick everywhere. To achieve the best look, use a variety of colours ranging from tamiya clear red alone, tamiya + small amount of chaos black, through to tamiya + a decent amount of chaos black for dried blood.

Bases...
PVA glue sand on. Dark grey (can't remember the name) basecoat, drybrush with lighter grey, then drybrush more lightly with a grey that's nearly white. Next, drybrush patches of camo green and patches of khemri brown to make it more interesting. Paint the base edges chaos black.

Finally use PVA glue and tweezers to stick on mini-nature tufts. I only needed one packet for the entire army so far.

Here are some clan rats pre-blood:

And After:

VICC Short Team Tournie Report

So I spent the weekend having a wonderful time playing in the Victorian Inter Club Championship. In previous years the VICC was a 40K event. This year they broadened the event to include Warmachine and Fantasy. The Hampton Club is known for its Fantasy prowess and is getting to be known for the same sort of performance in Warmachine. That being said, I was asked to Captain the Hampton Club 40K team (the definite hole in the side so to speak). I got my buddies Noakes and Nick (Cookie) (Fantasy players) and hooked them up with a couple of my armies and gave them in a crash course in how to try and not loose in 40K. Noakes went into the event with one 5th ed game under his belt and Cookie went in with two. In the end we needed a 4th to round out the team. That spot was filled by general 40K badass extraordinaire Brodie. While a few people might have thought that I was just filling the slot with a ringer, Brodie was going to Hampton for years when he was a little tucker (before he joined the military).

The event was 1500 points and I took my 1200 point fairly soft wyche cult with two void ravens with three rockets. Brodie took his highly tuned Eldar list. Noakes took a generalist Blood Angels list and Nick took my Alien Tyranid army minus the Mawloc and Doom (which I will never run again outside of no comp events… BRUTAL!).

The way the event worked was interesting. Day one was regular one on one games where players from one team played opponents from another and the win/draw/loss of the round was decided by the games total not individual games. For example we played Bad Gaming round one and won two games and lost two games. For that round our team got a draw and so did theirs. Day two was similar except that the games were 2 VS 2.

As I said we drew Bad Gaming in round one. Had a Very successful round two against Outpost Games (3 wins and a draw) and just squeaked a win in round three against Phoenix Games (I think). At one point it looked like Brodie would win and the rest of us were going to get tabled. I squeezed the thinnest win in years and Nick ended up with a draw with two models. A Trygon with one wound and a Termigaunt outside of synapse who passed a LD5 test to draw (winning us the round). Heroic stuff!

Day two we ran into the Battle Bunker team and while I thought we had our game won the TO allowed extra time and they pulled a VERY thin draw. We lost our other game and pulled the loss.

In our last round we played some of my old favourite opponents the Ringwood club which was a nice way to end the tourney. Our table forced a round draw when totally by accident my voidraven bombed a unit of my opponent’s wyches (Orks and Wyche cult VS Tyranids and Wyche Cult) and ended up contesting an objective my opponents grabbed in the last round (stupid rallying wyches).

We came 5th in 40K but Hampton took 1st in Fantasy and Warmachine. With the few points we brought to the table we put Hampton over the top and we took Best Club In Victoria. A huge honour. As a side note we took best painted in 40K. Cool for me personally since three of the armies were mine.

All in all it was a weekend of great fun that was heaps of fun that I am already looking forward to next year… I have a no comp fantasy event this weekend… The big question is to bloodthirster or to skaven…

Til next time gang!

B

WHITE LINE FEVER!!!

White Line Fever!

This last weekend was the first three game system Victorian Inter Club Championship. All the big clubs came out to play (and a few smaller groups) sending their best and brightest to drink, move wardollies and make merry. That was the intent anyway. I would like to start by saying that Rojo and the other organisers did an outstanding job setting everything up and making the event run like clockwork. From a player’s perspective the VICC”s ran smoothly and (for Victorian tourneys) almost on time.

The VICC’s were intended to bring the clubs together in a fun atmosphere. Generally this was the case but with the Best Club 40K trophy and Overall Club Trophy up for grabs the competition started to get to people. Don’t get me wrong I wear my heart on my sleeve and I get wrapped up in the hype of an event. It is part of the fun of it for me I suppose. I guess it would be better if I slept better before and during these things.

Anyway, it was really disappointing to see members from a number of established and well known clubs engaging in fairly shifty to downright underhanded tactics on the weekend. I thankfully skipped most of the internet foreplay to this event but I heard about it plenty on the weekend. This led several clubs to outright badmouth one club in particular over the course of the weekend. I am becoming more like my Grand mother everyday I think. If there is something you need to say about someone say it straight and be nice. It just got old. Rivalries I get I suppose.

Cheating on the other hand? OK, Cheating is a strong word, but as we had two experienced fantasy players rolling up with two games of 40K experience as half our 40K team who fell victim to rules manipulation on multiple occasions. Club interpretations of the rules are one thing what I am talking about is blatantly trying to take advantage of less experienced players. And after speaking with other clubs during and after the event we were not the only ones to hit this wall. I can also say that I witnessed one blatant act of cheating. Rubbish like this has no place in our 40K community let alone at an event promoting the advancement of the hobby through the supportive club growth. This combined with repeated warnings from the TO that REALLY low sports scores were regularly happening… Really is this the place for stone faces and chipmonking.

It is my belief that people just got a case of the “White Line Fever” and just had to win. The last time I experienced it in a tourney in such a pronounced manner was the Masters. Can’t we as one of the TO’s put it “Chill the ^&*^ out and remember we are playing a GAME!!!”

Tourney report to follow. This being said… The VICC’s were AWESOME and I am really looking forward to next year!

B

Grey Knight Controversy.

Well Grey Knight Black boxes hit the stores this week and there have already been a pile of interesting developments. First of all the "limited edition" inquisitor model from a few years back is back in the webstore as a direct only model (glad I didn;t kill myself for one back then)...


In interesting news after 20 plus years of my playing GW games they finally give us pictures of the old RT 40K weaponsmiths... The Jokaero have a model. Yes it looks like a monkey and lot of people have been complaining endlessly about the look of the model. I think it looks exactly like it should. I also think that I won't be buying them...

That being said I do like them...



Speaking of models people love to hate, do I even need to get into the Dread Knight debate?



The look of the model aside, lots of people have complained that the DK is not as powerful as the one in the "leaked" dex. But at Strength and toughness 6 with 4 wounds and lots of weapon options I think it is about on the money for points. I like that it isn't too crazy and that in the field it needs support to deal with large squads with power fist type weapons. With a Termie save and a 5 up inv it should be able to do what it needs especially if it has a teleporter to get it what it wants to go (and to avoid where it doesn't want to go)...

Now to the real sticky...

To appease those Inquisitor players who ran little to no GK's and lots of guard support they have henchmen squads in the new book. Henchmen are basic humans that can take crap loads of options including bolt guns and power armour (sisters anyone?) You can take one squad per inquisitor (meaning two max)... But what if I had an all storm trooper army... Enter Coteaz. He used to be a hammer of righteousness. His fluff has changed a bit and he is now the head of a major spy network. Basically he turns henchmen squads into troops... Now there is a funny bit of wording that states that these squads do not fill troop slots... Sooo some people are arguing that somehow they fulfill troop requirements and that you can take 30 squads of three dudes with melta guns as your army. I hope that GW FAQ's this quickly as this sort of thing ruins the feel of an otherwise super fluffy and cool squad. I hope that they just become troops. That would be an easy fix for all involved I think...

I am already having bad ideas about an adeptus mechanicus army using these the new dex and lots of henchmen (but in sensible squads with no more that 6!

Anyway... Out of time...

Progress report on the eggmen (troll army soon!)

B

The Test Model... (Egg Robot Trolls)

Well here is the basic test model for the Throgg troll army. Thinking of 36 of these guys and a larger one to be a throgg... Add a really big four legged version for a hell cannon add a few characters and shazaaam... a 2400 point army...

Thinking a hand for one arm (or some kind of blade gauntlet) and a hose cannon for the other arm with tubes that feed to something mounted on the back.

I have added "warts" and bubbles to a few other torsos... I am going for a chaos dwarf steampunk kinda feel...

Throgg will have a cockpit I think with a chaos dwarf hanging out of it. Still working that one out. The legs bend. Have to make one walking next.

Thoughts?

I'm BAAAAAAAACK!!!! (with another ridiculous project)

So as always it starts with a tournament. Empire in Flames is coming up in a few short months and it is being run by my good buddy Chris Cousins (who helped me paint my wyches)... Empire in Flames is a 2400 point WFB tourney with no rules changes which I am pretty excited about. It also allows Special Characters which I was initially nervous about BUT pondering things I came across another one of my hair brained completely sculpted army ideas...

I am using Throgg (The Troll King from Warriors of Chaos) to do a troll army. I was initially inspired by the Yeti tribe at the beginning of the Wulfric novel but after my orcs I am super tired of sculpting fur. I wanted to do something different...

Sooooo....

I was inspired on a few sources to come up with a steam punk/ magic robot army using the troll army rules... Think the golden army from Hellboy 2.


Throw in some old comic love... The Nanny from X-Factor (back in the day)


And some love from the Incredibles Robot:


Throw all that together using cut plasticard tubes, green stuff, Styrofoam egg shapes, and push pins...


To make something that will look like this:


As you can see I have not really figured out the arms yet.... They will probably look a bit like the legs... The cross on the front is a track that the eye lens travels on (ala the Zack Mobile Suit from Gundam)...

Time to cut back to cutting plastic tubes...

I would love your input...

Assorted Test Models That You Might Like...

Lets face it. Over the years we have all had army ideas that never took off. Sometimes the biz were too hard to get. Sometimes we loose interest but (in my case) usually something better comes along.

Here are a few projects where I got all the bitz and then lost interest. I might do them yet BUT for now the test models are sad and lonely by themselves...

Up first: An all beakie army of marines called the head takers. It is supposed to be a drop pod list so the models are all stoically advancing out of their pods (hence the walking legs). I was planning to have busts of gunfire coming from all of the guns. The whole army would have the skull shoulder pad and every marine would have his name on his scroll. The skulls hanging from the back with the pouches is to cover up the models lack of a behind...





Space wolves using the new plastics and the other half of the chaos warriors I chopped up for the project above.... This one involved more cutting and pasting than I had time for at that point in my life. Might come back to this one soon as I love the look of the models...





Chaos "Raider" Marines... Love these guys... Will do them someday...


Planetary Governor Body Guard army...
Hey it was an idea...

Space Marine Showcase (update)

Months ago (March or April) I started a little project with friends where I gave out a marine in pieces to the best hobbyists I know. I asked that they paint them and send them back for the blog. Many months later I am still harvesting marines from around the globe. The models coming back are really good (humbling). They have far exceeded my initial expectations.

While I wait for all to come back home I thought I would update with some quick dirty pictures (I will have pro bases made custom to fit in a display board when the last come back with plaques per model. I will then have professional photos taken... Til then... Here is a taste).

(see if you can name all the chapters (two are pre-heresy... all are GW)

(As always Click to enlarge Images)

From the land of loches:






From Canada:


New Zealand:


USA:


France:


Australia:





Here is to hoping more come home soon...