A Brief Report and a Beautiful Ogre Army from Cancon

Well gang I survived my 4th trip up to Canberra to enjoy the good times at Cancon.  Unlike the last two years I decided to play Warhammer Fantasy this year and I am glad I did.  The Fantasy side of the event this year was run by the Hampton Club out of Melbourne and numbers grew until they had to close the event due to space.  75 players.  That makes it the largest event in Australia since 8th ed came out.

There was a great spread of armies and players from all over Australia.  I was a little surprised at how many Ogre players there were (11) and how few Skaven (3) and Vampire Counts Armies there were (1). I guess Ogres are the new hotness and have a good book so it really shouldn't have been a surprise.  I guess what I should have been surprised by was that out of an 8 game event I didn't see Ogres across the table once.  I did get Warriors of Chaos, 2 Wood Elf armies, 2 Orc and Goblin armies, Empire, Dwarves and Beasts. I won more than a few by a fair margin, lost 1 small loss, tied a few and got slaughtered in the last round.  I ended with exactly half the battle points available and ended on 35th out of 75 players.  Given the state of my mind and my game at the moment I am pretty pleased with the result.  I am much more confident about my abilities as a player after a long break but I suppose 8 games of anything in three days would do that.  I am more than a little annoyed that at least one of the players (early in the event) took advantage of my rustiness and blatantly used a number of rules the wrong way because I wouldn't catch it.  Welll, I did catch it til later in other later games.  Not little things either... This practice cost me one of my games and mislead me on how things worked in a number of ways that cost me in later games because I was playing wrong.  It is a real shame that this happens in our community and should not be tolerated (note I am not talking the little mistakes and misunderstandings that we all make mind you).  That being said I had a streak of 5 games that were amazingly fun against great guys that all deserved best sports trophies.  I left Cancon with a 2nd Best Sports Award and a real desire to get a number of projects done for upcoming events.

I also worked out the format of a one day event with the guys on the car ride home (8 hour drive) that I will be running in addition to Book Of Grudges II later this year.  The drive up and back from Canberra is a long haul but is always one of my favourite parts of the weekend.  Lots of good discussion, tunes, laughs and tactics.  I think it speaks volumes of the great guys that I travel with.  This year I rolled up with Dave of War and Monty.  On the way home Chris Cousins joined the party.  I am already looking forward to next year.

Anyway enough of my thoughts on this and more of the amazing Ogre Army of Roy Diprose. While I didn't get to ask him about his ogres during the event I loved the conversion work put into the army and the theme of what he was going for. (The hall had terrible lighting so I am sorry about how some of these shots came out)  For those who do not know Roy's work he got best painted at the ETC last year with his "living" Tomb King Army.

Chaos Iron Guts

Lead Belchers (those are Ogre sized horrors.  Amazing amounts of sculpting here)

Not sure about these guys but these looked great.

Firebelly

BSB

Differently armed Chaos Ogres

A big congrats to Ben Leopold for taking 1st place with a remarkably soft Skaven army that lacked all the usual tricks and Greg Johnson (Hoodling of the Hoodling's Hole blog) for taking best painted with his Empire army.  I recommend you check it out on his blog.

More soon about my thoughts on my WOC army and another BEAUTIFUL WOC army that was once featured in Dwarf .

Preparing for Cancon

Well...  In the last 72 hours I packed everything I own from two different locations and then over the span of one day I moved it all in and bought furniture from IKEA...  Then I built it.  Then I unpacked...

Tomorrow is another long day getting to Canberra...

Sooooo as promised here is my list:

Lords:

Sorcerer Lord

Lvl 4, Mark Of Tzeentch

Infernal Puppet, Talisman of Protection

Heroes:

Exalted Hero with Charmed Shield who is a Bsb with the Book of Secrets - fire lore

Core:

25 Chaos Marauders, Tzeentch, Shields, musician

Standard Bearer, Chieftain

25 Chaos Marauders, Tzeentch, Shields, musician Standard Bearer, Chieftain

15 Chaos Warriors, Tzeentch, Razor Banner,

Shields, Musician, Standard Bearer

5 Marauder Horsemen,  Musician, Flails

5 Marauder Horsemen,  Musician, Flails

5 Chaos Hounds

5 Chaos Hounds

Special:

5 Chaos Knights, Musician

5 Chaos Knights, Musician

5 Chaos Knights, Musician Chaos Chariot

Chaos Chariot

Rare:

Warshrine, Mot As it is almost 1 AM I will skip the talk through and pictures of the army as both will come soon.  I tried to keep it relatively not awful as my last couple of fantasy tourney outings have resulted in terrible comp.  I avoided everything that is regular in WOC lists: Trolls, chosen, warriors with halberds, great weapon marauders, mark of khorne on everything.  Instead I went for what would a Tzeentch army have and worked off that (avoiding disc riders as I thought that would be a comp hit). I will try and update as the weekend progresses...

Friend's Necron Conversions and Exciting New Gear From a Variety of Sources

Sooo I dropped by my local GW today and saw some excellent necron love being perpetuated by my buddies Liam and Mo.

Let's start with Liam's stuff.  Lots of really cool conversions.  First of all he has kit based an entired squad of differently posed Crypteks.

Here are three:

from the front

from the back

I also really like his take on Wraiths.  He was mid build on these so I only got a few finished shots.  They use the legs of the tomb banshee and plasticard for the bladed hands.

And last but not least one of Liam's kick ass revamp of the old tomb spider model.

Now Mo came to the table with something else much larger and completely different... (Please keep in mind that Mo is still base coating this model.  I should have gotten a few shots of Mo's finished necrons because they are beautiful!

And while we are discussing Stalker models...  Still no word from GW as to what is coming out next month (the 25th Anniversary of 40K hitting shelves).  Will it be a 2nd wave of Necron stuff, will it be 6th ed, or there are even rumors of another wave of nid toys?  Which ever it is...  It is my birthday and I plan on dropping some coin.

In the meantime.  Blightwheel miniatures has created their own version of the Stalker model (or a Stalk tank from the Gaunt's Ghosts books).  The Mantis Walker will be released soon.

And last but not least. Avatars of War will be putting out their own version of Chaos Warriors soon.
Here is a sneak peek:

And last but not least... a shot of me drinking with a member of INXS who I ran into at my favourite local the other night. I am such an 80's fanboy!

Til next time gang!

The Death Guard Continue to Improve (Now with panel painting)

Sooo...  My lack of posting is almost at an end.  I finally move into more permanent housing after separating from my wife on Tuesday.  Once that happens, I go back to having the internet and most of my toy soldiers.  Sorry for the sorry few months.

I have been pounding out a WOC army for Cancon this weekend.  More on that tomorrow I hope.

In the meantime.  I have panel painted the 4 squads of plague marines.  I normally hate panel painting but I actually enjoyed doing these.  Weird.  They still need three additional layers of streak highlighting but compared to panel painting that is really fun and much faster.

This is were I am at: (as always click on the photo if you would like a closer look)

Til next time....

A Quick Look a Few of Dan Abnett's "Side Projects"

Well well well... 2012 is well and truly underway and I have been neglecting the old blog for too long. Where to begin?

Dan Abnett: I recently got to rereading Mr. Abnett's "Embedded." It is not a GW book in any way shape or form but unsurprisingly maintains the grit of many of the Gaunt's Ghosts books. I suppose it is not surprising that Dan was able to easily bridge the gap to non-warhammer based stories as he was a comic writer for years and his Black Library books often contain language and concepts that until he writes them do not exist in the nerd vernacular (vox casters for example). In this text he continues to invent terms and concepts that are original and yet are immediately recognisable with little to no explanation.

"Embedded" takes place in the near future on another planet. Without giving too much away it is the story of an older veteran reporter who is able to hitch a ride so to speak in the brain of a soldier going out into the field on the brink of all out war. Needless to say things go wrong and there are plot turns aplenty. I should probably stop as I really enjoy the book and don't want to give anything away. I initially avoided the book as after reading the blurb and thinking that the story of a reporter might be kind of dry. I should have known better as I had read a pile of Dan's other books. The action hits hard and comes aplenty. I highly recommend it for anyone that enjoys Dan's style as a writer.

As a side note I also started rereading "Triumph" another of his side books set in a magic heavy Victorian era. It is gag ridden on purpose and really has a very original tilt to the world but I just struggle to immerse myself in this book as I am constantly aware of the humour. Additionally, the universe in this text is different enough that I really have to think about the book as I read it. I read trashy Black Library and other science fiction/ fantasy for the escape and for inspiration. As I was aware of Triumph as a book throughout reading it, that escape was not possible so I didn't enjoy it as much. It is like random spurts of static through a movie you really want to see. Sure you can see and enjoy the movie but you are aware of the viewing medium throughout the viewing process.

This is also the first time that I will be writing this blog on my iPad. I have to say that corrective text and key pad are taking some getting used to. Does anyone know of a good app that will allow me to publish pictures from my ipad onto this blog? Blogger does not seem to want to let me publish pictures with my text. Sorry about that.

As a side note (and I know that this marks me as the 80's fanboy that I am) I ran into one of the members of INXS last night at my local pub (The Retreat) and had a drink. Very cool.

Soooo I have been feverishly painting plague marines (piccies soon), nurgle daemons and DG vehicles as well as a WOC army for Cancon (a large fantasy tourney coming up shortly).

Here is a quick peek at some of the stuff I have been working on:

I actually made this tank out of the side tracks of an old rhino, a chessex dice box, and assorted other gubbins from my bitz box.  Oh and the vent/ engine from a current Land Raider.

Rhino using Forge World Extra Armour and a Forge World Dozer Blade

Forge World Chaos Extra Armour Plating

Old Vindicator with extra bitz.

Different Forge World Extra Chaos Armour and a hole at the top where the Havoc Launcher goes.

Fatty the GUO continues to grow.  I added a few new sculpted parts before base coating the big guy.
Most notably he now has a tongue.  I have to say I like the effect.

More soon.