The Land O Misfit Toys

A Battle Report Featuring the New Vamps and My DOC

2012-02-07T22:34:00.000+11:00

Howdy gang and welcome back for something new and exciting on the old Land o'Misfit Toys. Dave of War will guest star this post. He and I played a game on the weekend. Dave with his cheesy Vampire Counts list (using the new book) and me with my horrible daemons list. To be honest my list is really rough. A few units of 20 Bloodletters with heralds, 20 Daemonettes with a herald, 20 horrors with a lore of light herald. It also had two individual fiends, 6 flamers, 5 furies and Mr. Huggy the Blood Thirster.

I took a few happy snaps that I will intersperse with Dave's write up and great looking diagrams. Without further ado... Here is the big man:

(Brad's Army Deployment to the right... Dave's below)

Starting the game I thought I was going to have a pretty hard time of this game. I have played Brad on quite a few occasions and without a doubt the Bloodthirster army is my worst possible scenario. After playing Wood Elves competitively for more than a year I have developed a healthy respect for what the big guy can do to an army and I wasn’t to sure how to kill him unless Brad decided to walk into the grave guard. I deployed so that all my units except the black knights were within 12" the necromancer, hoping that I could put the pressure on and make Brad commit his thirster early in the game.

Brad's first turn went really poorly for me. In addition to the gradual advance to three chunky daemon units and a flanking Bloodthirster Brad's magic went wild. Destroying the entire Fell Bat unit and sneaking 3 wounds off a Varghulf. In response I cautiously advance my army hoping to break him into two manageable potions, my knights on one side to deal with the horrors, letters and flames, and the rest of the army on the other to deal with deamonettes, letters and thirster. My magic works ok getting off a raise that brings up around 16 zombies and van hells helps the army get in more challenging flanking positions.

Turn 1

In Brad's turn two he slams Mr. Huggy (the blood thirster) into my ghouls and slowly advances the rest. Realising his mistake he takes the flamers out of his building and casts time warp on his horrors who were facing down the black knights. Mr Huggy gets challenged out by my ghoul champion and takes out 6 ghouls with combat resolution. At this point my hopes are pretty high, I declare a valiant charge with my Black Coach, the Black Knights into the Horrors and my zombies into the Daemonettes. Unluckily the Black Coach fails to make it in. The knights and zombies rumble into the enemy units with a threatening moan. In my magic phase very little goes off. with Brad dispelling the all important invocation on my ghouls. In combat Mr. Huggy does his thing taking down 18 ghouls in exchange for one wound. My vampires whale on the herald of tzentch before my black knights attack taking him out in a blaze of pointy lances. Despite this the black knights do very few wounds and the horrors stick around taking very little damage. The zombies have very little effect and lose more wounds from combat resolution, the deamonetts reform to cause a world of pain.

In Brad's turn three he gets angry in a way that only a bald beardy man from Boston can do and charges in blood letters into my black knight flanks along with the flamers. His fiend marches into the way of Mr Huggy trying to stop my grave guard and varghulf from charging into position. In combat my ghouls are finished off without being able to raise another champion to suck up combat damage. My vampire declares a challenge and is accepted by the bloodletter champion, blocking the Flamers from fighting. The blood letters and herald do three wounds after armour saves to my relief while the vampires kill the champion and a large number of horrors. I win combat taking a few more wounds form each unit. The deamonettes finish off the zombies while taking very few wounds.

In my turn the grave guard and the varghulf wander into the fiend. The black coach finally makes it into the blood thirster. In my magic phase I get van hells off on the grave guard with the help of the book of arkhan while raising back 3 black knights. The black knights perform well taking the horrors down to three wounds and taking a few more wound in return. The herald of khorne refuses the challenge so that the flames can fight. However, as the flamers are hitting on 5s they have no effect. Each unit loses a few more wounds to instability. On the other side of the board my varghulf and grave guard slaughter their foes and overrun into Mr. Huggy. To Brad's horror he realises that as the black coach is already in combat with Huggy both charging units will now be able to fight. Despite facing 7 st6 attacks rerolling to hit on 4s, 5 st5 attacks with rerolls, d6 st 5 his, 3 st6 attacks and 2 st 5 hits Mr Huggy plays like a daemon and takes only 1 wound. After smashing grave guard face Mr Huggy wins combat despite facing a triple charge with ranks and a banner. Ouch.

In Brad's turn four he charges in the blood letters to the black coach and the deamonetts to the grave guard. With very little else left on the table combat begins. Against the black knights the vampire issues another challenge, which is accepted by the Herald of Khorne. In the challenge my vampire I only do one wound with my 4 asf attacks, in exchange the herald luckily fails to killing blow my vampire. The black knights finish off the horrors and sneak a few more wounds to the letters. After the combat a few more knights go down and the flamers are finished off. In the other big combat the blood lettters fail to do a wound on the coach due to its saves and toughness, the deamonetts do a handful of wounds the the grave guards. In response the varghulf mans up and kills the bloodthirster outright, why couldn’t he have done that last turn! I lose combat by 5 which kills off the black coach and varghulf and shaves a few wound from the grave guard. In my turn I charge in the zombies to the deamonettes flank. Magic heals a few wounds on the grave guard and raises about 10 more zombies. I am also able to get vanhells on the zombies hoping to save some combat resolution. Luckily the gambit pulls off the grave guard take a few wounds but aren’t killed off as the zombies sneak a few wounds on the deamonettes and both units crumble a few models. Very few lettters are left against the black knights as my vampire slays the herald with a few pointy jabs.

In Brad's turn five he inches around the blood letters hoping for a charge. Come combat the daemonettes still don't kill off my necromancer but finish off the grave guard with combat resolution. I finish off the blood letters on the other flank and reform. In my turn the black knights inch around the flank getting ready for a charge on the deamonettes. The zombies still fight on with the daemonetts and the necromancer is finished by combat resolution.

Come turn six the furies jump in front of my knights stopping a charge while the bloodletters charge the corner of my zombie unit. Luckily the zombie unit survives as my knights charge into the furies. I raise back the rest of my black knights and heal more wounds on the zombies. At the end of my turn the zombies still haven't been ground out due to some helpful raises.

This was a really hard game for me and I was glad that it ended on a draw. I did get Mr Huggy, but to do that I had to sacrifice my grave guard, my necromancer lord, my varghulf and my black coach. A pretty big price to pay for a 500 pt model. The knight performed amazingly and were able to take much more of a beating than I thought. I am still not convinced by the Varghulf or the Black Coach in the new book, and these units will probably be replaced by small units of hexwraiths and vargeists. It was good to have such a tight game, but I don't think I could have avoided a loss it if Brad wasn't suffering from such a brutal hang over.

No comment on the hang over at this end but I want to thank Dave for his hard work and show ya'll a few happy snaps from the game. Might find some good karaoke shots from Cancon later that show Dave at his very best! :)

Mr. Huggy in a bit of strife... Or "how I like to fail all my saves and ward saves"...

Dave's Deathstar of Doom eats my left flank... Grrrr...

Shortly after... Yikes!
ASF Vampires in reraising black knights are scary! Might have to try them myself! :)

Another Award Winning Army (This time one that was featured in WD)

2012-02-04T12:37:00.003+11:00

So day two of Cancon I had the privilege of playing another veteran player of many years, Chris Mackonis. I am not sure if many of you know his name but he is a WFB Warriors of Chaos fanatic that has been building and playing WOC for over 20 years. His models are immaculately painted and converted and feature models from many generations of GW Chaos models. His army was displayed in White Dwarf a few years back and I have to say the models are much better in person which is saying something because they were beautiful in print. My photos are not to the same caliber but I had to get some happy snaps none the less. Here is Chris's army:

These Khorne knights ate two units of my knights and a chariot all at one time!

This Khorne Lord was a beast that ate huge chunks out of my army. Khorne Lord with Jugger, the Armour of Moreslieb, Dawnstone and some kind of bonus strength sword. Dude had a rerollable 1 up save with a 4 up ward. He also had a truckload of attacks... Brutal!!!

The Warshrine

Here is another shot of the Warshrine

A Brief Report and a Beautiful Ogre Army from Cancon

2012-01-30T11:59:00.000+11:00

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

2012-01-26T00:50:00.002+11:00

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 Chaos Hounds

Special:

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

2012-01-23T16:20:00.000+11:00

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)

2012-01-23T01:44:00.003+11:00

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"

2012-01-17T15:34:00.001+11:00

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.

2012-01-15T17:42:00.000+11:00

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.

A Better look at my WIP Great Unclean One

2011-12-30T13:57:00.001+11:00

Here are some much better WIP shots of my Great Unclean One. As you can see I replaced his head with a giant eyeball made out of green stuff.

I also dremelled out his gut (took forever) and created a giant maw there. This is a nod to the really old GUO model that GW made in the early 90's that had a massive mouth in its stomach.

My version of this also has a different left hand as my model was missing his. I replaced his hand with a plastic one from the most recent plastic troll kit.

I still need to resculpt his left toes (which I cut off) so that it looks like he his stepping down the stairs.

I think I need to do something else with the base but besides adding nurglings...

I am not sure what that is.

Anywhooo... Back to work...

Deathguard "Washed" and Ready!

2011-12-29T18:33:00.001+11:00

Well... I am back. Been feverishly base coating the rest of the infantry for my new Deathguard army. I skipped updating the blog as they looked terrible until they got to this point. Every model in four squads are base coated and washed with Devlin Mud.

Time to get highlighting!

Squad 1 has a power fist and two plasma guns.

Squad 2 has a power fist and two melta guns.

Squad 3 has a power sword and two meltaguns.

Squad 4 has a power fist and two meltaguns. (You can see the test model is part of squad 4)

Got to work on the Great Unclean One today as well. The Ol' Cyclops will make an appearance soon.
Back in 24 hours...

Plague Marine Test Model

2011-12-21T22:27:00.001+11:00

Soooo I have not been posting much of anything recently as I lost my job and have recently separated from my wife (The hits keep coming!) BUT I just found a teaching position for the new year and I thought I would get back into the swing of things. I thought as I was back to actually painting things that I would post what I have been up to and see what you guys think...

I have been playing with colour schemes for plague marines for a little while and this is the rough colour scheme that I have decided on... (only the leg is important as I tried three colour schemes on one model.

The idea is to start with gretchin green, wash with devlin mud, go back to gretchin and highlight up another three to four levels.

I was inspired by my mate Adam's streak painting of his plague marines but wanted to go with my own flavour so to speak. Here it is from several angles.

What do you guys think? Opinions? I don't like the knee pads and I think the gloves need another layer of highlight.

And obviously the base needs doing.

Badfang's Award Winning Custom Pirate Orks

2011-12-13T13:14:00.000+11:00

My tattoo artist and good mate Leigh (AKA Badfang) won Player's Choice at the largest tournament in the Southern Hemisphere a few years back with his Pirate's of The Caribbean Ork Pirate army. I was finally able to get his army, my camera and a well lit room in the same place long enough to get some good pictures. Without further ado... Here is his army.

The Kaptain

Mission Specific models... The Key holding dog, the parrot, and the monkey (squigs).

Members of his Nob Mob (the Fishhooks are Power Klaws)

More Nobz

Wouldn't be a Pirate Army without this lad!

Wooden Mega Nobz... (The one in the middle has fallen through the planks)

Shock Harpoon Gun

Close up of a Hook Nob

"Woody"

Shoota Boys and Battle Wagon

Shoota Boys in Trukk

More Shoota Boys in another Trukk

More Shoota boys in another Battle Wagon

Deff Kopter

Objective

Close up of a Trukk

Close up of a Battlewagon

Trukk Close Up

Dice Box

How Leigh keeps track of the wounds to his Nobz.

The Man himself (with Adam in the Background)

Enjoy!

The Scythe Starts to Take Shape

2011-12-12T12:52:00.001+11:00

Sooo... I built the engine for the scythe and green stuffed up the other wing and canopy.
First the engine (starting with the WIP):

Now assembled:

I realise that there will have to be some gap filling and sanding to make the corners flush but I am preety pleased with how it looks so far. The rectangular vents on the back are a nod to similar structures through out the necron army (destroyer engines, monilith sides, etc)...From another angle:

Now the wings (pre-sanding) match when green stuffed. I will have to do a fair bit of sanding to make them a) aero dynamic looking b) match after that much abuse... Here they are as of now:

Now the canopy looks like rubbish at this stage but I am hoping with some solid sanding time... It will "pop."

Back to the job search and the sanding block it appears...

Til nex time...

B

Of Tattoos and The Beginnings of a Canopy

2011-12-07T14:01:00.001+11:00

Sooo last Sunday evening my buddy Leigh (Badfang for those in the 40K world) started the process of updating my old ink. It has been over a decade since my last "tat" and it was as fun a process as I remembered. I got a giant star accross my right shoulder that generally looks like this:

Mine is uncoloured so far but that will be changing shortly. Pictures will be provided.

Anyway... back to the Night/Doom Scythe. I finished cutting and gluing the other wing pieces together last night and as I finished early enough to do something else I started monkeying around with the left over pieces of plasticard left over from the wing sections. Pleasingly they all sort of came together.

First the wing:

As you can see it looks alot like its twin before it was green stuffed (though it does taper a bit more towards the tip). Once it is "greened" up they should match nicely.

Now for the canopy/ hull of the plane. I am doing it in sections to allow for easier casting later.

I have blue tacked a necron torso in place so you get an idea of where the pilot will sit and to give you an idea of scale. Yes it is ugly as sin but it is only the skeleton that I will green stuff over to make a rounded hull. I really like that the canopy overlaps the wings when it fits together.

Here is a photo with the wings in their proper place:

I know it is not done and that the hull needs a full extra section added to the rear (I am thinking engines) but I am really excited about how the scythe is coming and I am keen to apply some green stuff tonight.

The Scythe Wing Construction Contines

2011-12-06T09:05:00.001+11:00

Sooo I got some time last night between being ill and preparing for job interviews to do some work on the Night/ Doom Scythe project...

First I started to sand down the wing. I am by no means done but it is looking much better than before. I will get back to sanding it smooth as soon as I get its twin done (I want to make sure they match).

A word to the wise if you are planning to undertake a sanding project of this magnitude. Make sure you do it outside in a well ventilated area. I made a right and proper mess in my back yard.

I also got to cutting the pieces of 2nd wing... This is what I have so far... You can see the progress and the templates that I have used to construct them.

Had a really good talk with my buddy Tim last night and he has given me some really good ideas about how to texture the wing so it has the necron glyph markings on it (Thanks Tim!!!). Will share them next time...

B

A Warlord Games Celt WOC Army

2011-12-05T10:25:00.001+11:00

Many of you will remember the sculpting work my buddy Drew does when creating his sensational Warhammer armies (his Pirate Ogres can be seen elsewhere on this blog for example). Well, Drew decided a while back that he wanted to do something a little different and really wanted to take a marauder themed WOC army. He decided to go with Warlord Games Celts as the basis for his models. You might notice that most of the models in the army are wearing kilts. Drew sculpted ten sets of kilted legs and recast them before matching them to the Warlord Games models. I am really impressed with the results. My pictures are fairly average as I am still getting the hang of my new environment, BUT here are Drew's Celts...

We will start with his horde of 50 Marauders. Drew tells me there is another group of 50 in the making. Oh before I forget to mention it: All the Kilts and banner are his family tartan.

Here are the command group ( I love the custom bag pipes)...

the left side of the unit...

and the right side of the unit...

Two units of marauder horsemen:

Two Warshrines:

A few units of chaos hounds:

And a crud load of chariots. You might notice the BSB chariot further down the page.

One chariot is in front of the other for... decencies sake... this is a family blog after all! :)

Again I apologise for the quality of the photographs. I love this army and wanted to share it with the rest of you.

Til next time with more on the Night/ Doom Scythe Project...

B

Scythe Part 3 & Arcanicon's Limited Ed Figure

2011-11-30T13:09:00.001+11:00

Soooo... I got to green stuffing the wing last night. I also filled gaps and made the ridge on the top of the wing.

I know it looks messy BUT I will sand it back so it is smooth and wing-y... From another angle:

With some luck I will get the other wing built on Thursday night.

Now, in other news. Arcanicon XXX is on this year to commemorate the event players have the option of buying "Barry." His stylized after the Arc logo of the last few years. Hand sculpted by Craig Cussians he looks pretty damn good.

He is dressed as a robot grim reaper... sooo a Necron lord.

Here is Barry next to a current Necron Overlord:

He is alittle short but otherwise well worth the $16 being asked for him... I know I will be getting one (or more as supplies last)!

B

Scythe Part 2 PLUS Necron Tomb Crawler

2011-11-29T10:25:00.001+11:00

My project to build a Necron Night/Doom Scythe continues...

Well, I got to cutting last night and was able to assemble the frame for one of the Night Scythe's wings.

I got to this point by cutting circles of plasticard that were 1 cm smaller in diameter than the wing section below it. I then cut circles out of one side of the larger circle. As the larger circles got smaller the holes cut into them got larger. Thus the tapered look for the wing.

Here it is from another angle. I know the tip looks messy and the curves are not exactly smooth BUT once I gap fill with green stuff and sand it smooth... It should work the trick. (Knock on wood).

Here is the underside of the wing. I was originally building the two wings so that when reproduced I could sandwich the two halves together to make a complete wing for each side. There would be then 4 wing sections used to make two full wings. (which is why the bottom is flat for the wing join).

I am beginning to doubt this plan however because the wings are starting to look rather thick as it is.

Will have to see once I have a working wing master.

In other news I found this little gem on the internet. Looks great!
It is called a Trinity Tomb Crawler:

It is obviously the new Necron walker. I like how they have left the driver off of the model so that it does not interfere with GW's IP. Add a Necron warrior torso, head and upper arms and this would work well I think.

It is advertised as: Large miniature: approximate height of assembled Crawler is ~90mm.

It retails for 33 Euros... Never heard of the company though... bitspudlo.com

Will have to see if this pops up in GW's next wave of Necrons... If not I think I will give one of these bad boys a go...

Project Night (Doom) Scythe

2011-11-28T10:36:00.001+11:00

Well kids,

I am back again. This time reports are in and the rewrites are almost done. I have been on school camp and come back relatively alright. Time for a project. Something ridiculously silly. Well, I have found my project.

I got to reading the Necron book over the weekend and I really got into the story of the raider moon that sends sortees of Night Scythe and Doom Scythe fighters to torment and capture the population of the planet below. I also like the idea of fleets of these flyers as part of the first wave of necron invasions. Result... I need some. Now I know that they will be in the necron 2nd wave (or are rumored to be anyway) BUT Arcanicon is coming up in January AND I am not terribly patient. Sooooo... I will be creating a generic "Scythe" kit out of plasicard, green stuff and whatever else I can find in pieces. I will then recast these parts in resin. I will then build, paint and play with an army of these things. (I hope)

This is by far the most ambitious project undertaken on this blog soooo bear with me...
First of all let's look at the "bird" in question: (see right)

I have decided to start easy and build the wings. Using the necron pilot as a reference I scaled up measurements for the wings. I then looked at what I could buy in plasticard. I will admit. I think the wings should be around 18cm long... Mine will be as large as I could get out of plasticard... 16cm... I will either make up for this with the cockpit area or... I might let it go. Either way I will be close... I hope.

I got together with my buddy Drew yesterday to discuss the project and we banged out a few sketches and ideas. Here is the most coherent of our notes:

And here is the beginning of the work:

I am measuring and cutting both wings at once. Trying for symetry here...

I have measured out the wings and have started to cut. With any luck I will have one wing ready to show by tomorrow.

Back in the Saddle

2011-11-13T21:59:00.001+11:00

Due to life being absolutely diabolical Ihad taken a hobby break for a while. This included playing games, as well as the usually painting/modelingshenanigans that I get up to. Asmany have seen in the recent week or so I have made a concerted effort to bringthe hobby back so to speak.

I had a few mates around the other nightand we threw together a few games of Warhammer fantasy. My buddy Dave brought along his work inprogress ogres and a few cold frothies. I pulled out my poor neglected skaven and banged out a 2400 pointlist. Now I will spare you theplay by play. I started strong andconceded in the bottom of turn four when the entire centre of my armydisappeared. I would love to claim that it was because I had not played WFBsince… April? And to some degreethat is true BUT Dave played the game well and I would not want to take thataway from his game. Mark took Daveon in round two and their’s was a tremendous slap fest. It was really enjoyable to watch.

Monty's Dragon

Which brings me to my point. I had let life get the better of me forway too long. At some point, whenlife gives you lemons, skip the going postal business and they don’t drinkproper lemonade here in Oz soooo… Remember the best part of the hobby. Sit across the table from a mate and push some toy soldiersaround. Sure I got killed and sureI am not sure that skaven is the right army for me BUT playing just one game had me thinking ofall the silliness that I could get up to next (hobby wise). Necron walkers or flying saucers… Ormaybe finish the new bitz to my even more neglected Tomb Kings. Really inspiring.

While it didn't get to shoot in our game this thing scared the Bejesus out of me!

Even more than that though… IT WAS FUN! There were laughs, tears, naughty words and fun moments inabundance. It was exactly what I needed. More than going out to bar or hitting a movie or reading a book. Sure I like those other things but oursis a hobby where friends get together and roll dice, talk smack and havefun. I am sure I am not revealinganything new or exciting to most of you BUT if you have forgotten the simplepleasures of a fun game… I highlyrecommend you find an opponent and take your boys to the pitch.

Till next time… (Oooooo. What do tonext???)

Dave's WIP Fire Belly

Monolith and AWESOME NEW GUARD STUFF!!!

2011-11-12T12:26:00.001+11:00

Necron shenaniganscontinue with a serious look at one of the worst models in my collection. It is an old monolith that was used ina small Battle Tour to US retailers just prior to the model's release way backwhen. It was painted and assembledby a co-worker at GW back in the day and was used to back up my necrons on thatsame battle tour. It was assembledin a hurry and painted in a few hours (if that).

Side 1

Corners wereneedlessly cut and the model looked really crappy. There were over primed parts that had paint drips. The dry brushing was awful. Detail painting… none done.

The flip side... or the dark side of the monolith...

The top was broken offat some point on the battle tour (never to be seen again).

The corners of themodel weren’t assembled properly so there were lots of gaps that were greenstuffed badly as a quick fix. Allbad.

Here you can see the paint cracking and a few paint drips sanded back to bare plastic.

I spent literally afew hours the other night working off frustrations with several pieces of sandpaper and this old beast. I haveto say that I have never used sandpaper on a model before and besides making aheck of a mess it worked really well. Might have to try that again some time.

The monolith stilllooks... not so good, but it looks much better and given a little more fine sandingand some paint I reckon it will start to look the part again.

In other news… Itappears that Victoria Miniatures has severely ramped up their game in a veryshort period of time and all of the pictures plus MUCH more are hitting oure-shelves in the next two weeks. Got these pictures off the ol Facebook.

The first shot showsus the arms to go with my favourite “laser rifles.” If I get enough of these I won’t have to convert the arms ofmy Forgeworld Tallarns. This getsbetter all the time! (You can alsosee their new squid face models. Cool but not what I am wicked excited about.)

The next shot shows usone of the new Pith Helmet Heads, mounted on a Victorian Torso with the newRough Rider legs and arms. I amVERY impressed! Very impressed! These models and more will be out nextweek (or the week after).

Next week releases:

Pith Helmet Heads

Balmoral Cap Heads

Brodie Helmet Heads

Squid Heads

Victorian Torsos

Rough Rider Legs

Rough Rider Arms

The week after that:

Victorian Legs

Laser Rifle Arms

Laser Rifle Sprue

Return of my old Blue Necrons

2011-11-10T21:24:00.003+11:00

So about a thousandyears ago it seems I worked for GW corporate in the states. One of the two times I worked inBaltimore happened to be a few months before the last necrons were releasedupon the world. Havingfriends in low places and a homicidal need to take on insane hobby projects Ioffered to paint an entire necron army in a week and be the Gumby at theBaltimore GT. 2001 maybe? Anyway, I was handed 50 warriors on the sprue, a lord, and onedestroyer. I converted a reallybad monolith out of a drop pod and I used two of three pots of Polished Bluepaint I owned to crank this puppy out (while working full time and having ahouse guest at the time… sleep is for the weak apparently).

Sure they are notflash but hey I got the project done and used the new rules on unsuspectingmiddle of the pack players (random draw). It was a blast.

Eventually the necronstuff came out and painted an army to match. It is really basic and is not anywhere up to my standardthese days. The whole army ismetallic blue with shadow grey bases and black weapons. Don’t even get me started on the crappysnot green base rings. YIKES!

Anyway…. They look bad and their rules werehorrible soooo they were destined to never see the light of day again. (Or at least until new rules cameout.) Fast forward to lastweekend. New rules. The old blue boys came back from thegrave and I gave them a hard look.

They are neat. They justneed help.

Money is tight at themoment sooooo fixing them sounds like the challenge my hobby needs.

The first step(besides getting rid of those hideous green rods) was to source a pot ofPolished Blue. Now I am not surebut I think GW hasn’t made that colour in almost 15 years. Let’s just say I am determined. I found a pot here in Melbourne for areasonable price and now I am truly back in business.

The pictures lookawful I know. New setup. I will hopefully have everythinglooking better soon.

Soooo as you can see below I have stripped the rods off the warriors (you can see all 54 stripped in the first picture). I drilled a hole in the gun barrels and ran a paper clip down the inside of the guns. I am going for a thin laser beam effect here. I will be highlighting these to no end later.

More soon.

Getting Back in the Groove/ A Review of Some Tiny Tanks

2011-11-04T17:45:00.001+11:00

Well it has been awhile since I have gotten into some proper hobby on this blog. I have to apologise. Life has gotten well and truly out ofhand in just about every way. Outside of hitting the gym I have very little to help my state ofmind. This in mind I sat down tohave a little hobby fun the other night.

Now this is a bit of adeparture from my usual GW focus on this blog BUT my good friend Dave has beentalking up Plastic Soldier Company’s kits for quite some time. I thought that if they were half asgood as the man said… well, it would make for a good diversion (and maybe getme motivated to get cracking on something bigger). Plastic Soldier Company is mainly known for hard plastic,multiple part kits that they scale up and down depending on what they areselling. That is to say that their28mil Russians are the same models in the same poses only bigger than their15mil Russians. Same sprues. Same everything, only in differentsizes. I have looked closely atthe 28mil Russians and I have to say that they detail is pretty horriblecompared to standard GW kits. Ihave a Flames of War (mostly painted) German SS force that was missing tanks soI picked up the PSC Panzer IV box. At $33 AUS for five tanks I was not expecting much (it is well cheaperthan Battlefront).

I was shocked when Iopened the box. Clearly I had notread the box other than to make sure I had gotten the scale right because Imissed the fact that it contained the components to make 3 different variants toa Panzer IV (very different ones too). Each tank and all of its bitz fit on one sprue. Seen here with thevariants in question:

There were tons ofparts! I actually had to read theinstructions. Since there were nowords I was initially nervous but I did not have any reason to be. The kits were a joy to put together.

I opted to make all 5panzers the IV Ausf H variant. Notonly does they best match what I am trying to do with my infantry but they alsolook pretty cool with the extra armour.

The plastic is cutcleanly and crisply with good detail and very little flash to shave off.

I was able to buildmost of the 5 tanks in the time it took me to watch the original Tron. Which is surprising given how manyparts you have to stick together to make each tank. The pieces fit almost seamlessly with almost no effort.

Putting these tankstogether was exactly what my hobby needed with the impending Necron Bomb beingdropped in retailers everywhere tomorrow. If you are into the 15mil love… run (do not walk) to your closest shopto get some of these. They arecheap and amazingly fun to put together with none of the hassle of resin. Here is a Panzer IV with a few other models thrown in for scale:

Wallet Pain...

2011-10-30T12:45:00.001+11:00

Decisions, decisions, decisions...

It seems everyone in the hobby world wants my money at the moment.

A little bird has told me that the Wargames Factory Samurai are hitting stores very soon. As in will ship in the next few weeks if not before. I am expecting that these will be a similar price point to other WF products which means for us Aussies it will be $50ish for 25 plastic Samurai with posable arms. I am VERY excited by this.

In other news... Victoria Lamb's miniatures company will be adding these to their shop shortly. I am not exactly sure what I would use them for but man do I want to use them. Actually I do know what I want to use them for. My Forge World Tallarns. The resin lasguns that they come with are sooo flimsy that I am afraid to assemble the army. The stocks on those rifles match these ones sooo it should be a simple weapon swap. I think I need to order a few and check the size.

Just when I thought I had the whole range, Scibor has released more of the Adeptus Custodes models. Heroes this time. As I have an army of the grunts I think it is time to get some personalities in the mix. (I love the bodies of these models but honestly I will probably ditch the arms on the top two models as I think they look a little too... cartoony?)

I especially like this guy:

All of those models are Scibor's extra large 28mil scale. If they are that big... I want to see how big there version of Calgar is next to a regular model. He is standing on a 40mil base.

And last but not least... the Big Kahuna of money drains...

What is that awful screeeeeetching sound? That is my wallet screaming in pain!

Brian's Motor Pool (Blood Angel's)

2011-10-26T21:56:00.001+11:00

Wellllll... here is the last of Brian's Blood Angels including my favourite model in the army. The Baal Predator. Enjoy

As one of the uniquely Blood Angels units the Baal Predator is a “must-have” for my army pool. As with many of the units in my army this model was inspired by the Baal Predator Blood Angels card in the Siege of Malogrim Hive starter set of the Warhammer 40,000 CCG by Sabertooth Games. It’s also a ton of fun to throw handfuls of shooting dice each shooting phase during a game of 40K.

This tank is named “Ramiel” after the Angel of the same name whose name means “thunder of God”. Equipped with twin-linked assault cannons, two heavy bolters, and a storm bolter Ramiel definitely brings the noise and is able to generate an absolutely withering barrage of fire.

This model has been upgraded with several Forgeworld resin accessories, including extra armor, a Blood Angels front armor plate, an Imperial eagle rear hatch and several pieces of stowage. The rolled tarp on the back of the turret has been painted with an urban digital camouflage pattern consistent with the camo cloaks worn by Scout Squad Remus. I sculpted the purity seals and parchments adorning the turret out of epoxy putty to add a few extra touches.

This model was selected as a finalist by the judges during the Golden Demon painting contest at Baltimore Games Day 2010.

The landspeeder model has probably experienced more frequent evolution throughout the various editions of WH40K than any other vehicle kit that comes to my mind. This model is built from one of the plastic kits first introduced in the third edition starter box. As with many of the other units in my army this unit was also inspired by the various Blood Angels landspeeder cards in Sabertooth’s WH40K CCG.

This vehicle is named after an alternative spelling of the Angel Ambriel (Amriel). The name Amriel is found inscribed on an oriental Hebrew charm (kamea) for warding off evil.

The Forgeworld Blood Angels icons (the winged chalice on the front and the Blood Angels chapter symbol on the left rear quarter) were added to provide an enhanced Blood Angels look. This model was selected as a finalist in the WH40K Vehicle category of the Baltimore Games Day Golden Demon painting competition in 2009.

The angel figures used to create these objectives are Reaper miniatures. With my army being an urban-themed army in its basing and camo schemes I decided that my objective markers would be statues adorning an Imperial hive city. In addition to the statues, each column has a street light component to it from the WH40K city terrain kits, making these statues both aesthetically pleasing and functional to the city’s populace in times of peace. Each column has withstood the test of combat as evidenced by several bullet holes and other battle damage inflicted upon them during past combat engagements. The laurel on the head of one of the statues was added from the contents of my WH40K bitz box.

If you want to check out more photos of all of Brian's stuff I highly recommend that you cehck out his photo album:
http://www.dangerplanetgames.com/dpnuke/modules.php?set_albumName=album149&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php

Guest Spot: Brian's Blood Angels Part 3 (MOAR AWESOMENESS)

2011-10-19T21:15:00.009+11:00

Today will see us take another look at my buddy Brian's Beautiful Blood Angel Army. I really like that every unit in Brian's army has a story and reasons for the way they are built. Having seen this army painted over the years I can truly say that it has evolved with it's creator. Today we look at some tac squads and Dante... Enjoy:
After painting Assault Squad Harbiel I wanted to take a break from painting models red. In a recent game with a group of friends I was able to borrow Commander Dante to lead our team’s Blood Angels army. Inspired I decided that I would finally set about painting one for myself.

The biggest decision I faced before painting this model was to paint it using metallic paints or to go for a non-metal metal approach. Most of the gold-armored Blood Angels paint jobs I’ve seen over the years featuring the metallic paints just didn’t seem to “pop” to me. The details of the models often appeared to me to be lost in the various shiny reflections of the paint. On the other hand, while I really like the look of the non-metallic metal paint jobs I’ve seen, most recently on pages 66-67 of the Codex: Blood Angels my concern with taking this route was that the model would look out of place when arrayed with the rest of my troops on the table top.

Ultimately I decided to mix the two approaches. I’ve never seen it done and am all-in-all pretty happy with how it came out. I prefer the look of the non-metallic metal for the gold of the armor but used metallic paints for the joints, pistol, and jump pack to preserve some consistency with the rest of my army. To paint the armor I attempted to follow as best I could the guidelines set out by ‘Eavy Metal painter Darren Latham in his ‘Eavy Metal Masterclass article on pages 74-81 of WD363.

Aside from the non-metallic paint scheme to paint the armor, another notable difference is that I decided to paint the Axe Mortalis with a blue lightening scheme rather than the steely metallic look of every other power or force weapon in my army to date. I thought that this model would really benefit from the added color and think that overall it worked out well for my first attempt despite my historic belief that lightening-covered power weapons looked, to me, to be relatively cartoony.

As with several other of the units in my army pool, Tactical Squad Morpheus takes its name from a Blood Angel chapter card in the original Space Marine deck of the Warhammer 40K CCG by Sabertooth Games (Siege of Malogrim). The artwork on the card prominently featured a bald-headed tactical marine wearing a breathing mask and wielding a flamer which is why this squad is likewise equipped.

The model for Sergeant Morpheus is one of two “Blood Angel Sergeant” models released during the second edition. As with Sergeant Aralim from my other tactical squad I maintained the visual style of the second edition with the model by painting him a back banner.

Usually I prefer to pair a heavy bolter with a flamer in the same tactical squad but when I built Squad Morpheus to support my Fall 2007 league list I decided that needed an increased capacity to address heavier armored targets at range and settled on the versatility of the missile launcher. This was later upgraded to a lascannon for my Spring 2008 league list.

Several of the troopers in this squad were given more personality than the average trooper in Squad Aralim. One of the troopers bears fangs (a modified Space Wolves head) as a nod to the vampiric theme running through Blood Angels history with the Red Thirst. Another looks down the sight rail of his bolter. The upper torso of this model was taken from the driver of a Rogue Trader era metal attack bike. “Knifey” is a personal favorite and generates all sorts of good-natured trash-talk on my part when he enters hand-to-hand combat, especially if he’s facing off against an enemy independent character.

Tactical Squad Aralim is typically deployed as the “anti-armor” tactical squad due to being equipped with a power fist, melta-gun and heavy weapon able to penetrate high armor values. Originally fielded during Danger Planet’s Fall 2007 WH40K League the squad was equipped with a missile launcher. This was upgraded to a lascannon during the 2008 league when more points became available in the list.

Sergeant Aralim takes his name from an alternate spelling of “Erelim”. Erelim, according to an online repository of angel name data, is the name given to one of the ten orders of angels who are ruled by Michael. Known as “the valiant ones” they are charged with the protection of the trees, grasses, grains and fruits of the Earth. Basically, these guys are going to hold the ground and preserve it for those who will come after them.

The model for Sergeant Aralim is one of the “Blood Angel Sergeant” models released in the second edition. In keeping with the style of that edition I opted to give him a back banner. This standard represents my first ever effort at hand-painting a banner for one of my models.

As an additional throw-back to my earliest days of the hobby with Rogue Trader I decided to also equip this squad with old-style combat blades. Who says tactical squads just stand back and shoot? Aralim is as happy to have his troopers buzz through enemies in hand to hand as he is to see them remove an opponent’s heavily armored vehicles from the landscape at range.

Lots of Leaked New Necron Photos`

2011-10-15T09:09:00.008+11:00

Well after been so tight lipped about the new and up coming hotness looks like GW either intentionally leaked a crud load of images to Beasts of War OR Beasts of War got the big scoop... Either way I am a very happy panda... This stuff looks great. I will skip the labels (since the photos are labelled) and skip the commentary... Enjoy...

Exciting New Toys for Guard (and Ogre) Players

2011-10-10T05:47:00.010+11:00

Well it is 5AM... My bags are half unpacked across my living room and I am back in Australia... Gotta love jetlag...
Sounds like a perfect time for a blog post!

I had a few hours of downtime in the airport in Brisbane on the way back down under and found a few things that I thought were noteworthy in the new and up and coming.

Victoria Lamb has continued her trend of releasing high end metal conversion kits for guard models. You might remember she has previously done kilted guard conversion kits. This time around she has a very exciting penal guard conversion kit complete with RT style bomb collars and some nice character heads to mix in with the convicts. I really like how she has more than twice as many heads available for this kit adding a real differentiation to the squad or squads when you build them.

Here is a close up of some of the heads and their size.

And for scale purposes... (Riddik anyone?)

Kromlech is back with some exciting stuff for those of us who have been wanting to make Blood Pact troops... Armoured torsos and matching backpacks... The backpacks are separate so you do not have to attach them but they come with the torsos.... so why not?

Here are some shots fully stollen from the internet of the torsos with GW, FW and maxi-mini kits.

They have also come out with a series of gas mask heads... I LOVE these especially the one in the upper right hand corner. I need an army's worth of those soon I think...

And as it is the season Scibor has released it halloween promo model. I love their Halloween stuff. This year their choice is Aaaar2D2... An ork Star Wars nod... He comes free if you order $40 or more dollars from Scibor this month... You can also buy him on the side.

And it should be noted that you WFB players out there have options if you hate the GW butcher model as much as I do...
Scibor has released this big boy... (for half the price of the GW one... In Australia anyway)

Hope the rest of you are getting a good nights sleep out there.

B

Guest Spot: Brian's Blood Angels (Part 2)

2011-10-08T00:58:00.011+11:00

Today we will continue to look at Brian's fantastic BA army... Here is Brian with more...

Israfil is the first painted assault squad that I’ve ever fielded. Over all of the years I’ve played Space Marine armies (Crimson Fists, Space Wolves, Dark Angels, and now Blood Angels) I’ve always relied on tactical squads to get the job done. However, this being a Blood Angels army I finally felt that the time was right to utilize jump troops. Since they became “Troop” choices in the White Dwarf Codex: Blood Angels I wanted to include them even more.

Sergeant Israfil is named after Israfil, the Angel of Judgment Day, who is assigned to blow the horn on the day of judgment. I like to think that one sure indication that your judgment day has arrived is if Blood Angel assault squads are raining from the sky onto your head…

Sergeant Israfil wields a power fist and his model is one of two “Assault Marine Sergeant” models released during the second edition. The other one, the model shown below with the Mohawk haircut, is also a member of this squad. To commemorate the shared history of these two models I play each of them as the leaders of their half of the group if the squad breaks into combat squads.

This squad also carries two plasma pistols. Because this squad was assembled and painted prior to the release of the new Codex: Blood Angels I didn’t have all of the latest fun alternative weapon options now available to assault squads. With Sergeant Israfil's power fist and the moderate strength and AP of the plasma pistols this squad is often tasked with taking out enemy vehicles and heavily armored infantry from close range. They are frequently supported by Arel, the Furioso.

The Death Company squad was the first squad that I painted for this army pool. I selected them as my first squad to build and paint not only because of their effectiveness in the game but moreover because they are a uniquely Blood Angels unit. This unit was a persistent element in my list prior to the release of the latest Codex: Blood Angels and the completion of my two assault squads (Israfil and Harbiel) but has since seen action less frequently.

These models are the metal versions released and made available preceding the release of the newer plastic Death Company boxes. I’ve got a box of the second edition “Death Company” box, made up of the old “Blood Angel Marines” models, but decided not to utilize them. The chaplain model from that box will likely see building/painting/playing before any of the troopers.

I always intended to field this squad with jump packs. As such, I needed to add the jump pack straps to the figures by sculpting them out of green stuff. This was done in two groups of five marines. My skill in working the putty grew from the first attempt which is why the later five marines sport better sculpting jobs in my opinion. To add to the look of the squad I modeled each member with Dante’s backpack which sports some Blood Angels iconography. I was able to buy these in bulk from the GW Battle Wagon during its last visit to Danger Planet.

Over the years I have added several Forgeworld models to my collection. This drop pod has the distinction of being the first of them to be assembled and painted, or to be more accurate, it was painted and then assembled. I painted each of the component pieces before the final assembly. After the final assembly I added the scorching from the control thrusters to the top and from the atmospheric entry to the bottom.

This drop pod was added to my army pool to serve my Furioso, Arel. The killer was that after it was all done I went to place my dreadnought into it only then realizing that the back-banner I had previously embellished my Furioso with prevented him from being able to fit inside.

This model was selected as a finalist in the WH40K Open category by the judges of the Golden Demon painting competition in Baltimore, 2010.

Many of the Blood Angels cards in the initial space marine starter deck of Sabertooth Games’ WH40K CCG were fast attack units. One such card was called something like “multi-melta attack bike squadron”. Despite the name, each bike in the illustration was depicted with a heavy bolter. This card gave rise to my squad of attack bikes.

With my Blood Angels I prefer to field attack bikes instead of a devastator squad for heavy weapons fire. Their ability to move quickly and still fire their heavy weapons makes them a great fit in a Blood Angels army in my opinion. They are also relatively durable and hold their own in close-combat quite well.

This squad is named after the Angel “Aglasis” who is said to be able to carry anyone or anything anywhere in the world. Equipped with turbo boosters these attack bikes can really get around.

The models comprising this squad are loaded with bitz from various space marine bike kits in my collection. All of the bikes feature stowage from the scout bike squad boxed set. The multi-melta bike also bears the faring of the Space Marine Chaplain’s bike and the rider was originally the pilot of a landspeeder Typhoon. My favorite bit in this squad however is the sidecar gunner with the binoculars. I recruited him from my original Rogue Trader metal attack bike kit where he ably manned the sidecar gunner’s seat as well.

Guest Spot: Brian's Beautiful Blood Angels (Part 1)

2011-10-07T02:03:00.012+11:00

Today will start a short series of guest posts from my buddy Brian in Boston. Some of you who I know personally will remember me telling you about my mate in Boston's fantastic Blood Angels army. Well here it is! Without further ado... Here is Brian:

After building and painting my Crimson Fists since I was a teenager I noticed that my skill in these areas had increased greatly over time. Looking across my army I could see nearly 20 years worth of the evolution of these skills. With a desire to build and paint an army that was more consistent with my current level of capabilities (and also because I was just itching to paint something red!), I started up this Blood Angels army back in 2004.

I’ve been having a blast building and painting this army and have sacrificed great amounts of sleep over the years to this end. I’ve found the Blood Angels heraldry and color-scheme to be engaging enough to hold my interest and I also love the history of the chapter. I’ve particularly enjoyed working various models and bitz from my collection into the army.

A quick note on the photography: My background in photography is firmly rooted in landscapes. I’m still sorting out the particulars of studio photography using my new camera and lightbox. Any outstanding issues concerning lighting and depth of field will hopefully improve over time.

I hope that you enjoy checking out the pics below.

Mephiston was the first of the Blood Angels special characters that I painted and added to my army pool. I’ve always loved the look of the model, even though its pose isn’t overly dynamic and typical of the sculpt quality of the game’s earlier editions. I was actually somewhat surprised that when the latest edition of the Codex: Blood Angels was released that Mephiston’s model wasn’t updated.

Mephiston joined my army list during one of Danger Planet’s 2008 WH40K leagues. At the time the Blood Angels were running out of the White Dwarf Codex: Blood Angels. I had decided for some reason to change out Narran because this league allowed special characters when the previous one had not. Of course, running a Death Company without a chaplain was a mistake I didn’t realize I’d made until playing my first game…

I entered Mephiston into the 2009 Baltimore Golden Demon and was excited that he was selected to stand among the finalists. I can’t help but wonder if we would have earned a trophy if I had been more inspired by the model’s cape, which I find to be the model’s most underwhelming feature.

Narran was the first model that I began work on for this army pool. I remember being excited about the Death Company rules from the White Dwarf Codex: Blood Angels and knew that I wouldn’t field a squad of them without having them be led by a chaplain. Narran gets his name from one of the original Blood Angels chaplain character cards in the first Space Marine deck from Sabertooth’s now defunct WH40K CCG game.

I knew that my Death Company would be equipped with jump packs so I modeled Narran with one so that he could accompany them. Because the chaplain model I selected wasn’t a “Jump Pack Chaplain” I ended up having to sculpt the jump pack straps out of green stuff. The jump pack itself is Dante’s jump pack. I purchased a bulk quantity of them during the GW Battle Wagon’s last visit to Danger Planet. The blood drop on the back side of his power fist is also sculpted from green stuff.

The power fist was added solely to flex the depth of my bitz collection. To my recollection, there were no plastic right-handed power fist bitz available at the time. All of the ones presented on various sprues were left-handed. I still have several unclipped sprues of my original Rogue Trader marines in my collection and was happy to see those older models represented in my 2007 Danger Planet Fall WH40K League army general in the form of his right arm.

Arel is a Furioso Dreadnought and is also the first non-infantry model that I painted for this army pool. Arel’s name was taken from an online dictionary of angel names. According to this source, Arel is an angel of the Sun and of elemental Fire and his name is inscribed upon the seventh pentacle of the sun. In short, Arel’s gunna burn ya, or melt ya, and if that doesn’t ruin your day he’ll pummel ya into mush…

I am happy that this model is one of the original metal Furioso kits. The newer plastic dreads look great and are absolutely easier to build but they lack the “heft” of a block of metal. In my opinion, a dreadnought should feel heavy as well as look the part.

Arel also has the distinction among the models in my army pool of being the only one that features a decal: his back banner. I thought about creating one of my own design but for nostalgia’s sake decided to use the one provided with the kit. I don’t think that the more modern dreads include these banners anymore.

Arel also sports a couple of Forgeworld Blood Angels icons: the winged chalice to the right and the chapter emblem to the left of his sarcophagus.

Assault Squad Harbiel is the first squad of what I think of as the “second generation” of my Blood Angels army. This squad is the first unit to be assembled and painted following the release of the latest Codex: Blood Angels and all of the fantastic new associated plastic kits and bitz. New bitz and Blood Angels iconography are prevalent throughout this squad. One thing that drove me crazy though during the assembly of this squad was learning that the new Death Company jump pack component halves aren’t compatible with those that come with the Assault Squad kit without conversion. I combined them to add further variation as well as to tone down the iconography where desired.

In addition to benefiting from the latest plastic bitz, this squad also benefited from an article in White Dwarf 365 where Anja Wettergren provided an excellent step-by-step tutorial on how she painted the Terminators of the new Space Hulk box. As a result of this tutorial the shading scheme for Squad Harbiel picked up several shades over all of my preceding squads making the overall effect much more subtle.

Assault Squad Harbiel was originally envisioned as a Veteran Assault Squad Elite unit from the White Dwarf: Codex Blood Angels. The white skulls on their right shoulder pads speak to this original idea. I’m a huge fan of flame template weapons in 40K (anyone who’s ever played me has likely experienced my glee as I make “WHOOSH” followed by scream noises while waving the template over their models) and the idea that I could have two of them flying around in one squad side-by-side was irresistible.

Blood Angel scouts with sniper guns? Who does this? Well, I do. The influence for this squad in my army comes from two notable sources. First and foremost, I really liked the look of these models and was determined to find a place for them in my army pool. Secondly, the unit’s namesake (“Scout Squad Remus”) was one of the Blood Angel chapter cards in the original Space Marine deck of the Warhammer 40K CCG by Sabertooth Games (Siege of Malogrim).

Originally envisioned as being a ten-man squad (I like full-sized units) these 6 are to date the only completed models. Two more are mostly completed and the remaining two are still primed. This squad is presently fielded as a five-man unit, not including the heavy bolter.

I decided that my Blood Angels army would be given an urban theme with its basing scheme. To coincide I painted the scouts’ camo cloaks with an urban digital camouflage pattern that I found online. I was so happy with the look of this when completed that I took the palette for this camo scheme to Home Depot and had it matched into larger quantities so that I could base all of the store’s urban tables and terrain to match!

Stay tuned for more pictures and commentary by Brian in the coming days.

Black Library

2011-10-05T04:48:00.007+11:00

Allllrighty… I have spent a bit of time lately discussing GW’s recent business decisions which is always a slippery slope of rumor and opinion. I am starting to get annoyed with similar business decisions being made by GW owned side companies.
Let me begin by saying that I generally LOVE Black Library's stuff. I do pick which novels I buy in advance by author and subject and this has seemed to work pretty well for me. Keeps me from avoiding some of the dud novels that BL invalibably puts out every now and then.

Black Library is continuing their best selling Horus Heresy line by selling a limited run story about Lorgar called The Aurelian. This “A5 sized” “Novella” is written by by Aaron Dembski-Bowden (writer of the immensely popular newer Night Lords books)(I really like his stuff). Cool right? Well there are two ways to get this book. Drop $30 for their “silver” version (hardback I believe) or $50 for the “Gold” edition (US Prices). Now these come with cool colour sections and extras BUT at the end of the day they are charging $$$ for a large short story.

Don’t get me wrong… The Aurelian looks awesome BUT they are not specific about the length of the piece and that is a lot of money to pay for an unknown product. Adding insult to injury they are releasing it in an extremely limited release print meaning every fan boy will want one (including this one). 3000 prints is a small run for any book. The question is… Do I get one? At least this isn’t one of those “limited” models like the emperor’s champion model years ago where you have to go to a specific place on a specific day at a specific time and sacrifice a specific animal to get it. Don’t get me started on getting the skaven Gamesday 2011 model….

This is not the first time that Black Library has pulled this though… Apparently I missed Promethean Sun at some point earlier. This was another of the $50 limited edition pre-heresy novels featuring the Salamanders, Death Guard and Iron Hands. Sure I probably sound like a kid that can’t what he wants but I can’t get what I want!

Now all is not lost. The new Dan Abnett Gaunt’s Ghosts hardback is out. That always makes me a happy kid and as I am in the states I was able to buy it for half the price I would have gotten it for in Melbourne. I won't spoil anything but I really did enjoy it. (The Gaunt's books always go so fast when I read them).

On a side note, Forgeworld has always had casting issues but getting staff there to give a damn and send replacement parts has always been tricky. Recently they appear to have taken a more GW style stance when it comes to customer service (which is generally a really good thing). I have friends that recently had miscast pieces in their newer FW toys and when they called to complain they actually got solutions. Something along the line of “take and picture of the problem piece and we will send you a replacement.” Wait a minute… That actually makes sense! I like it! These friends also got their orders in a timely fashion! It could be that FW has upped their game and I hope this is the case. Only time will tell…

The "New" Shell Game (Or What Comes Out Next???)

2011-09-30T23:54:00.004+10:00

If you are a GW forum junky and or rumor monger you will be painfully aware of GW's tightening of the reigns rumor wise in recent years. True it has taken years for GW to turn the ship so to speak so that as a company they don't leak rumors and entire army lists like an old fishing net (I still fondly remember having the most recent ork list months before release). And while I do find this complete lack of information frustrating most of the time it has lead to interesting present day for hobbyists.

Dreadfleet and Ogre Kingdoms are a perfect example of this. While DF was seen coming, we had little solid evidence and no pictures until the preview day. Ogres was also seen as an upcoming release and yet many thought it was not next in line so to speak so when they DID pop up many (including this guy) were caught flat footed.

Now it has been widely speculated for some time that Wood Elves and Brettonians would be the next books in the Warhammer Fantasy cue (spelling?). All of a sudden in the last few days there have been a rash of rumors that Vampires, Dwarves and Empire could be next instead. Vampires and Dwarves do need a re"vamp" so to speak as their rules limit the way these flagship armies play. Vampires in particular need a major points tweek in their core troops points costs (and possibly rules) before skeletons and more to the point zombies are used on the battle field again with any regularity. Now speculation is that Vamps may be the next army out and that we will see the "Red Duke" return to the Warhammer world. While I would love this to be the case I do wonder... Why would GW release two new awesome dragon sized kits for the VC's without a new book to support them? Most of the VC kits are newish and look awesome (zombies and black knights aside). Makes me wonder.

Empire models have been spotted by people in the know... A new war alter, knights (possibly), characters etc... Could these be new models to support a new book's release or is it one of GW's mini releases to plug gaps in their product line?

Gamesday UK is usually a pretty good place to find out hintings and to see pre-release models... Not so this year (and the last couple of years) unless you take Forgeworld and Warhammer Forge into account. It is anyone's guess as to what is next. I think GW finally has us rumor wise where they have always wanted us... And I kinda like it. Feels a little like Christmas...

All we know is that the next issue of White Dwarf will have pictures of Necrons on the back cover... Or will it?

Scibor Adeptus Custodes Model Review (Quality Assurance Time)

2011-09-29T03:41:00.011+10:00

I have gotten a number of requests for a review of the quality of the resin Scibor Adeptus Custodes Models I am working with. Here are my thoughts.

Having ordered a few armies worth of models over time I can safely say that Scibor delivers models in a timely fashion (much more so than Forgeworld for example). I had my models very quickly (10 days or so) after ordering them and I ordered fairly large quantities of the same models at the same time. Additionally (and very cooly)they threw in bonus models for ordering "bulk" (I ordered 45 models at one time plus characters and scribes so like 50 models all at once). That is ten days shipping keeping in mind that they were shipping from Poland to the United States (and I was ordering from Australia... I love the global marketplace!). The models were carefully packed and everything arrived in the appropriate pieces. 10 out of ten on this front.

Getting down to the models themselves... Scibor models are notorious for their oily coverings when you first open the packages. I am sure that this is just model release agent and a quick warm soapy bath and you are clean as a whistle. As I do the same with Forgeworld stuff it is par for the course and fine with me. I am told that if you do not clean this off it can muck with your priming. Clean it. It takes little time and is worth it.

Now the casting of these models is the worst of any Scibor models I have bought to date. My dwarves and chaos dwarves had at most 3 miscasts each (and we are talking hundreds of models here). The Custodes have miscasts or extra flash on almost every other model out of 50. Now, most of these can be easily fixed by a quick flick of a hobby blade. I anticipating a 45minute job (and that is only because I work slowly) to clean the whole army. There are two models with damaged faces:

As you can see these two have minor miscast holes in their faces and one is missing the tips of his feet. A little putty and this is fine.
You can see extra flash on this guys chest:
And something similar on this guy's face... It is not a tumor!:

The most common problem by far is the back of the robes. Many models need flash removal on their kilt. They look like this:
All in all though this is much less flash and miscasting than you would see in comparable GW models especially if those models were Finecast. The flash is so minimal I almost feel guilty for complaining about it. The two face divits are the biggest problems but some putty and those dudes will be fine. In the Era of Finecast these are resin cast models with crisp detail and none of the rubbish that I have come to expect from GW's resins...
Sure the models are largish but that makes them extra heroic scale!
Honestly, though they are larger than GW's models, they still easily work.

The long and the short... I recommend Scibor. Working with their models is a pleasant breath of fresh air from the usual problems we face as hobbyists.

Scibor Adeptus Custodes Size Comparisons

2011-09-26T22:11:00.009+10:00

Today is my 200th blog post. Time flies when you are having fun I guess...

Well... Months ago I bought an entire army worth of Adeptus Custodes models from Scibor miniatures and had the models shipped to my parents house in the USA. Due to my sister's pre-wedding craziness I didn't really get anywhere on the project when I was there. 10 weeks later and I am back for the actual wedding and this time I have come better prepared with better bitz, tools, and paint. Time to get cracking!

I woke up early this morning with jetlag and unpacked my gear. I then grabbed all the resin models and gave them a warm soapy bath to get rid of the mold releasing agents. While I will let most of the models air dry, I did hand dry a few for size comparisons.

I have blue tacked arms and shoulder pads on the models and had my first discovery. They are HUGE! With shoulder pads the models start to look better but these are models that are really meant to have terminator arms. Have a look at what I mean.

I have not cleaned the flash off these models yet nor are they posed even vaguely correctly (one has an extra hand for example) but I hope you can see from the pictures that the arms look weedy.

I have compensated for this a bit by adding extra blue tac inside the shoulder pads and lowering the arms on the torsos a bit (interesting the scibor models don't have flat plates where the arms fit allowing this).

Anyway here is one compared to a scibor "page" or assistant model...

Now for the actual GW model comparisons. Next to a grey knight...

The GK is not on a base but then again neither is my custodes... I had planned to put these models on tall scenic bases but they tower over regular 28mm models. I may just stick to that plan as they are not supposed to be marines... Have to think about that.

Here is another Custodes... This time next to a chaos marine. This custodes has two arms that surprisingly meet mainly due to the rounded torso plates. Maybe this will work?

Off to move furniture. More to come later...

The Ties That Bind (Slightly Off Topic Conversation About Family and Inspiration)

2011-09-23T09:37:00.008+10:00

Tomorrow morning I board a plane for Boston to visit family and friends and to attend my kid sister’s wedding (I get to be the proud older brother). In honour of my impending travels home I thought I would briefly discuss family and it’s impact on us as Wargamers/ people.

Now I do teach primary school so I could go on for days about Nature VS Nurture and developmental stages and other rubbish but lets be honest… You would not want to read it. (Hell you might not even want to read this!) My Dad is maybe the most considerate, nicest guys I have ever met. He is able to walk into a room and make friends with just about anyone. This is not to say that he does it in a manipulative way. It is just his nature. He is a lovely guy. Not to say that I am like this at all but when I look at the sportsmanship trophies I have gotten over the years I see my Dad. Conversely, Mom is hard as a coffin nail (she is a legal badass) in an argument and is not afraid to express when she thinks something is not on. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I channel my mother at least once or twice per tournament I play in. Ok Brad, you are like your parents… So am I… What is your point? Well, I will get on with it.

The Morin Family has a proud tradition of creating lasting products. My Grandfather was a welder in Boston’s naval yards. I never met the man but I am told he worked hard and was good at working with his hands. His sons became a plumber, a carpenter, and a Teacher (aka the all around handy man) and his daughter married an electrician. The Morins get together and things get built. My Grandmother’s house, the massive DYI project that is my parent’s house, and my uncle’s house at the lake.

Speaking of said lake house (which has turned into his residence now that he has retired), I visited the lake a few months back and was amazed (it had been a few years) at the man’s ability work with wood and as a painter. His house was filled with pictures that he had painted himself (really good stuff) and ornate examples of woodworking. He even built the dock that he parks his boat at by hand! While he is not making or painting war dollies I was inspired as a hobbyist at his skill. Here are a few examples of little details in just one room of his house (the details are throughout the entire house and external tree house/office).

He also carved and stained bear heads for his neighbours up and down the street as gifts.

The House that the Morin's Built...

While I like to think that I am a fairly creative guy who can get things done... I do not hold a candle to these guys. They are humble, creative and get things done (that last the test of time). It is a quite a legacy that I am proud to be a part of and that drives my creative side.

The (War)Band Is Coming!!! Sons of Helvis Tour Posters

2011-09-21T12:36:00.006+10:00

Sooooo.... As I have written before I really do enjoy a good theme to an army. I feel this should be expressed visually in the way the army is painted and presented and in the choices that make up the army compositionally. Every now and then I do get a little crazy with the fluff and things like this happen.

My Sons of Helvis (Elvis themed Chaos Marine Army) was very instrument and band themed sooooo it was only natural that a (war)band would advertise before they came to town. I imagine chaos cultists plastering hive cities with posters before the "big guy" comes to town. Actually I am pretty sure that chaos cultists do this job normally in real life soooo... Here are the posters.

A big Thank You to my old buddy Ahab who doesn't play these silly games and yet made the time to whip these up using technology that I do not fully understand.

Four years ago? (maybe 5 years ago) I made full posters of these (lots of them) and posted them all around Arcanicon. It was lots of fun and my opponents all weekend seemed pretty excited to play my army. Next time I think I will give out tour t-shirts to opponents on the day. Hmmmmm....

As always I encourage y'all to push the boundaries when creating your armies and when preparing armies for events. It really adds something special on the day and can be a real inspiration to those around you.

On a side note my school had its concert the other night and we had an 80's theme... This is one of my co-workers and I. I would be the lovely gentleman on the left. Lots of work to set up (the concert) but it was really rewarding and extremely fun!

Til next time...

B

Going with it...

2011-09-20T13:04:00.005+10:00

Ahhhh… A rare rainy morning in the otherwise grey Melbourne spring… What a wonderful way to start a blog post.

Today I would like to address the old expression “Fortune favors the bold.” While it is true that Warhammer (of both flavours) is a game that is ultimately determined by skill of the player and luck, I would like to suggest that there is a third important component to success. Nerve. While this could be argued to be a smaller subsection of the player skill category I do believe it is an area worth at least a brief discussion.

True, Warhammer and 40K are games that are determined by dice, the ficklest of gambling mediums. At least in cards you can count cards to improve your probability. If you roll 1 dice a number of times the best you are ever going to get is a 1 in 6 chance of rolling the 6 you need to rend and penetrate that stupid land raider crusader. I am sure that all of your reading this have stories of glory and shame that have just come about through Lady Luck’s giftings or punishments. I seem to be on her S^&T list at the moment but I am confident that given a tourney or two my luck will change. After all this is what I learned at school. Probability evens out over time.

Sure, player skill and army design directly relates to someone’s success as a competitor in tournies and/or in friendly pick up games. Largely, I find that both skill and comp directly relate to managing probability in such a way that you have a better probability of rolling what you want than what your opponent does. Picking those charges that you will be more likely to make, attacking units where your death company get more dice or better odds of hitting than the poor grots they happen to be curb stomping at the time, etc…

As I started with, an important aspect of winning in wardollies is holding your nerve. Now I am not saying that you should start with a battle plan and never change it. No plan or strategy survives contact with the enemy (Patton said that?). In order to be successful you need to be adaptable and fluid in your play style (you also need to remember the mission you are playing).

What I am getting at is this.. There will be situations in games where things do not necessarily look favourable (ok, they will look terrible) and you will have the option to be conservative to save your forces or go all out to go for the big win. This happens when I play more often than I would like to admit. Sure it looks bad, sure you have no right winning but I like to think that in that moment Lady Luck likes to come over to watch my game because amazing things start to happen. Now this could be the case but what is more likely happening is that a small pocket of bad dice turns around the other way and all of a sudden you are rolling well… If you roll a dice 1000 times you are supposed to get an even spread across all the numbers. So when things turn… The dice are just evening out so to speak. I don’t know… People have asked me how I manage to “ass” wins in big tourney games when I should loose… Well I read the mission and I take the big risks when the moment is right… Now this does not always pay dividends BUT it works for me…

Not sure if this has been helpful but... It works for me (sometimes)...

Catch you on the flip side…

B

Dread Fleet Surfaces (kinda)

2011-09-17T14:40:00.008+10:00

Sooooo it is Sept 17th and GW has had teasers in their shops and on their website about their upcoming secret box. The last big box was of course Space Hulk which ran a hefty price but provided amazing one off models for Marines and Tyranids as well as a good beer and pretzels game. Well GW was even more secretive this time around (not even releasing a name for the game that was be released though it had been leaked that Dread Fleet or Fleets would be the title).

I woke up, had a lovely brunch with great friends, hit the gym and stopped by GW to check out the insanity. They had Pirate metal blaring, staff dressed up as pirates, treasure chests, regulars dressed as pirates, wanted posters AND... Nothing... HUH? I walked in asked asked about the models and the game and was told the name. I was then walked to their computer and was shown photos from the GW website... Really? This really stinks of kurfuffal to me.

Two years ago GW charged $160 for 11 or twelve termies, a changeable board and a pile of genestealers (plus broodlord). The models looked great and were immediately usable by those of us who play 40K (GW's bread and butter game). The price tag was stupidly high for a board game but most of us fanboys bit the bullet and got stuck in (and some of us bought two). I want to make a point by repeating something. The models were of a scale that perfectly integrated with a popular game system. They were detailed one of a kinda. Ok... moving on... I thought at the time it was a risk selling the game at that price point but it worked and worked well.

Wellll.... They are trying it again. This time with a new game. Dreadfleet. Ok the models are once again "one of a kind" and really sweet (as you can see with my liberal pasting of the piccies throughout this post). The game has a nice rulebook and includes a playing mat, terrain, all kinds of counts, and three sea monsters!!! (oh and ten ships from a variety of races) Sweet right... Welll... This time around after years of global financial crisis Dreadfleet is being sold for a whopping $190! Great Googley Moogley! That is a hell of a price tag for a glorified board game.

Now here is my biggest problem... The models are not integrateable with any existing GW game or scale. This is a problem because as GW keep pointing out as a selling point, the game is a ONE OFF. It is not going to stick around, there are going to be no expansions and it will never be supported again. That is a hell of a price for a game that is limited like that and whose models cannot be used for anything else.

To combat this GW needed to be really proactive about getting the game out there and selling the hell out of this. I worked for GW sales back in the day and we believed that in order for a sale to occur you had to show people that GW products are a superior product. OK, well that is not happening here. In a real world where Dystopian Wars is gaining popularity by the day and Spartan games is about to rerelease their fantasy naval game using the Dystopian Wars success as a foundation, GW had to really get their game face on. A blog article, some pictures on a website AND NO MODELS IN THE SHOPS (or real information for the pirate dressed staff to pass on) does not cut it. GW has let the ship sail so to speak. I feel for the old Red Shirts out there. This does look like a good game but selling it is going to be tough given these factors.

I do like the look of the game but I am really disappointed in the way this is being done. I understand that GW wants to control releases a bit better but cutting their staff off at the knees (and annoying customers) is a crappy way of doing it.

My 2 yen

B
(All prices mentioned in this blog are Australian and are in Aussie dollars... Which is crazy since it is worth more than the greenback at the moment. In the US Dreadfleet will run $115ish... What a crappy price difference...)

Impressions of Space Marine on XBOX360

2011-09-12T21:23:00.005+10:00

Like many other fanboys out there I bought the new Space Marine video game by THQ soon after it released. I have an XBOX 360 arcade which really limits my experience with the game (no online multi-player for this kid). As I have been playing it a bit I thought I would share my thoughts.

First of all you play a Space Marine Captain of the Ultramarines Chapter (I would love it if GW would leave the Ultras alone for once BUT I digress) who leads a partial squad of a few other dudes around a forge world under seige by orks. There is no mechanism for squad leadership in the game. You basically get a few gun drones to follow you around in space marine skin that provide covering fire where you go. It is possible to out run them in combat situations which depending on the situation can be very bad for your health. I would like to add that your buddies are basically invulnerable and you can shoot through them like they are not there with no chance of hurting them. This is fine and all but I have been playing too many hours of New Vegas and everything dies in that game.... Alot. I kinda like that.

The orks in the game are kinda dumb about when they charge... I get that orks mob up before assaulting. I guess it is just odd to watch in real time. I do like how the orks appear in a variety of types in the game and I like how these different types appear in groups that support each other. Just off the top of my head there are slugga boys, grots, shoota boys, bomb squigs, nobs, rocket boys, the list goes on and on. You will often see hordes of slugga boys charge that you will have to deal with at close range. While you are you will be getting shot by snipers on various structures all around you (Usually much higher up). It requires you to use some brains rather than button mashing (sometimes). There will also be more than occasional bomb squigs mixed into the hordes meaning you go boom if you wade in to deep.

I really like how the only way to heal yourself in the game is to be aggressive. While this is not usually the way I play games it does make for an interesting dynamic. When you kill enemies your "rage" meter goes up. When you hit the top of the meter you can activate your pent up "rage." This heals you and gives you combat bonuses first in hand to hand and later when shooting. The only other way you can heal is by stunning an opponent and using a fatality style attack ala Mortal Combat. These are suitably gory though I am usually hesitant to use this method of healing when I am wading through twenty slugga boys. By rewarding aggressive play the game makes you be as aggressive as space marines are hinted at in the Horus Heresy novels at least. True the violence is very "Movie Marines" (a great White Dwarf Article if you ever get the chance... issue 300 for US readers) sooo I really would not suggest this for younger players. Then again maybe I am just old fashioned.

As far as levels go I am alittle disappointed that there is only ever one way to get through levels which after playing the free range game of New Vegas almost feels a bit boring. There is lots of walking around between skirmishes by yourself. I imagine that all the cover holes and interactive scenery that you can roll over or jump off comes into play when you play multi-player. Once again I cannot do this so... It is all lost in the background, which to be fair is nice. There are good views in the surroundings and the graphics are nice to look at so as far as that goes THQ has surpassed my expectations.

As a marine I am pleased with the number of weapons that get kicked around. I am mid-way through the 2nd big mission and I have a stalker pattern sniper bolter, a bolter, a bolt pistol and a grenade launcher. I have also messed around with a plasma cannon and a hvy bolter. I am always fairly conservative with ammo in these things but reloads are so prolific that I have changed the way I play. I assume it is to once again reward a more aggressive style of play. Each weapon has its own role and you end up using them (at least I do) to fit your need at the time. Grenades are in there too and I really do enjoy using them as often as I can get my paws on them...

As a quick aside and this is strange for someone who lives in Australia to say but I expected the Marines to sound American... Clint Eastwood flavoured to be specific. Everyone has a British accent. Not surprising given that GW is a British company but still. It just sounds not quite right to my ear.

All in all I am enjoying Space Marine by THQ. Is it for everyone? No... But what is? It is generally mindless and brings the 40K universe to life. Which I always like. Good times.

Anywhoooo... Till next time gang!

Sons of Helvis Noise Marines (Pictures)

2011-09-08T15:33:00.009+10:00

So... A while back I posted some shots of my old/ new WIP noise marine army the "Sons of Helvis." (An Elvis themed Slaneshi themed chaos space marine army) Since that time I have taken brush to minis a few times but can't seem to get the boys going again. I have taken pictures of the 4 squads of noise marines that have been hanging around in the meantime.

These were painted 5 years ago at least but I was really proud of them at the time...
Here is little "Helvis" getting out of "The Lisa Marine" (his pink rhino) with his personal band:
Note the sunnies and power mic (weapon)... Thank you to Tim Beaty for the help with the head. Those sunnies are perfect.

Little Helvis gets cranky and turns into Big "Helvis" (Greater Daemon)... He looks like this...

Here are the four squads of 6 noise marines in groups of three...
The "Command" squad

The Purple Squad

The Green Squad

And finally the Blue Squad

Hope you enjoyed them...

A Brief Argument for Theme

2011-09-05T10:37:00.003+10:00

Sooo how many tourney games have you rocked to only to discover that your opponents idea of fluff is that their army is from the lascannon/ plasma gun manufacturing forge world. I know that fluff is obsolete in some regions of the world and in some games. I included a few bonus theme points in the Book of Grudges tournament and I was shocked at what people were claiming. Shocking.

Now, in order to make theme work in my mind, you need to come from two angles... Appearance and list.

Appearance: I like a cohesive looking army that would look like it is all from the same place. I find that cohesive basing REALLY helps in this regard.

More to the point, your fluff should be backed up by the painting and modeling of the figs in your army. If you are going for the plasma factory fluff (WEAK!) for example (and you really wanted to sell it) I think you should have models with burns and missing limbs and/or possessing extra padding to accommodate for instability of the weapons the models are using. A trench fighting army should not look like their vehicles have just been detailed. Etc etc…

Theme is huge for me because it guides my modeling and painting when I build and army. I would be bored to tears as a hobbyist if I did not have a direction to follow. Theme helps me to focus where I am going when I paint. It really helps.

The List: This is where most of my gripe lies. Army lists should reflect the fluff of an army if you really are going for the idea of a themed army. Going back to the plasma factory list: this would actually work for me as far as a themed list goes. The list contains lots of plasma weapons in lieu of other choices. It just so happens that that theme is VERY effective in lots of circumstances. I suppose in the modern metagame the meltagun factory list is more appropriate but you get where I am going from.

If you are really going for a proper themed list to match your army you should limit your list selections to those that actually fit your theme EVEN IF THIS WEAKENS YOUR ARMY. I have played two different Khorne marine armies in the last year for example and BOTH were lead by a nurgle daemon prince with warptime! Ok I get it they got rid of the a lot of the fluff from the CSM book BUT that is just silly (when everything else in the army is CC armed and has the mark of khorne).

I know that people’s hobby is their own and they are free to pursue their hobby as they like BUT common sense should prevail. Even if fluff is “dead” where you are I highly recommend your challenge yourself and give it a go. It is a good challenge for you competitive players and it is good for the hobby AND your soul.

A VERY Generous Gift: RT ORKS!!!

2011-09-02T15:39:00.012+10:00

When I was home a few weeks back, Jason, one of my best mates GAVE me his Games Workshop 40K collection. Jason and I played against eachother for HOURS as kids. (OK highschool). I always used my RT Space marines or Nids and Jason always used his guard or Orks or Eldar (or all together). It was heaps of fun. Rogue Trader 40K (1st Edition) was almost unplayble by today's standards and yet... We loved it!

I brought the orks with me back to Australia and I am pondering evil things. Anyway here are the models...
Now you have to keep in mind that we didn't have anyone to help us learn how to paint. The Internet didn't exist in any reality. White Dwarf didn't have painting articles... It was pure trial and error. We were kids... That being said.
DAMN! I remember the orks looking really good and looking at them now... some 20 years later... Some of the free hand my mate painted on those orks is beyond my skill now. Further proof that you should just give it a go and sometimes you will be surprised at what comes out on the other end.
For example:

This free hand was painted by what I would consider a HUGE brush now.

The basic painting was base coats and controlled dry brushing but the free hand is nice...

And size wise I am shocked at how the orks' size holds up to todays models...

and of course some things didn't hold up size wise...

Here is the Army: My favourite models of the era... Madboyz!

Nobs..

More Nobs and some command models:

The Weirdboy:

The Green Ogryn that is the Warboss... Still WIP...

Assorted Boyz:

I know the models are goofy and not super serious and that there is some serious biker leather envy going on on lots of these models but I don't care. Orks will always look like this is my mind's eye (at least a little). Don't get me wrong I love the "mean" orks of today but these are the orks of my youth. I have nothing but fond memories of these guys.

I am very excited that I get to give these boyz a good home and a 2nd lease on life on 40K battlefields.

If you are reading this... Thanks Jason I will be using these for no good sooner rather than later.

B

Blood Angels Death Company Army

2011-08-29T12:43:00.012+10:00

Soooo I recently attended the first day of a local 40K tourney called Eastcon. I missed day two due to malaise and malady BUT I did have a blast on the first day messing around with an army I was convinced I could not win with. I went 1, 1, and 1 with an almost pure Death Company army (I did have a scout squad)... Obviously I struggled with objective grabbing (losing one game and tie-ing the other) but when it was kill points... Ooooooo was it fun to slaughter the opponent. It looks like a very point and click army because of rage BUT it really did take alot of thought to play especially in the deployment phase. I highly recommend taking goofy armies every now and then because I think it really does make you a better player.

Anyway... Onto the army: I used the DC models I got in a massive trade a year ago and added quite a bit of fine detailing. Anyway here are the foot troops...
Let us start with 10 CC scouts...

10 DC marines in a rhino (rhino obviously missing here)... 1 with fist, 1 with power weapon

9 DC with jump packs... 1 with fist, 1 with power weapon

5 DC with Jump Packs... 1 with fist, 1 with Power Weapon (these live with Astorath in the Storm Raven)

5 DC... 1 with fist (these live in the Drop Pod)

The Drop Pod... Not completely done but close enough to tick all the boxes... Will finish soon.

DC Rhino (Dread not shown because both the Dread and Rhino's pictures were ruined by crappy lighting... See the Storm Raven pictures for more wacky lighting).

The Storm Raven...

Like the Drop Pod it is not done to the level that I feel entirely comfortable with. I need to highlight the grey highlights at least one more level up.

I also need to add more red crosses and do more fine detailing.

After finishing this model it needs a matte spray to even the black. It does look fairly average right now... Sorry about that.

Til next time gang... Keep messing around with armies that people say will not work! :)

MOAR TOMB KING PICCES!

2011-08-28T12:55:00.006+10:00

Soooo I posted pictures of my Tomb King characters the other day... Here are some pictures of some the nifty toys that I painted to match the army at the same time.
My Bone Giant (yes I know they have a different name now)...

My Screaming Skull Catapult:
When I got this kit it was missing the throwing arm and since it was a gift when I worked for the company I really couldn't have asked for a replacement part... I do have crap loads of chariots soooooo my catapult got an un orthodox throwing arm. The giant warp stone rocks are from the original Warhammer siege set. I grabbed a bunch of these are different points in my career at GW and weirdly they are one of my favourite models to paint. Sorry the crew were a broken mess when I had these taken so their images are obviously not seen here... They match my regular skeletons.

Tomb Scorpion:
Gold... coming out of the sand... Yeah... pretty straight forward...

What is next for the tomb kings... Well, I need to play some games with them in this edition but I am hoping that at some point I can paint a howdah sphinx and I have made designs to make giant scorpion riders to use as necropolis knights... though the snake surfer models are beginning to grow on me...

The Sun Rises on a Load of New Minis

2011-08-27T09:28:00.012+10:00

HAJIME!!!

Well it seems that my long held desire for more samurai and japanese themed toy soldiers is getting a bounty of tasty treats from a variety of sources at once.

Let's start with the new Kromlech sci-fi samurai bitz to jazz up your otherwise western space marine armies.
They are releasing a set of resin back packs with built in sashimono with henya or oni faces sculpted on...

They are also releasing similarly themed helmets. To be honest many of these look alittle too power rangers for me but I do really like the one on the upper left. It has the right feel and looks suitably brutal.

For those of you in a more feudal state of mind... Wargames Factory is in preproduction of what is hopefully their first samurai set. The preview model they show looks really nice and will be released in a multi-part hard plastic format soonish. I will be very jazzed if the final product retains most of the detail that we see here. Multi-part samurai is something that I would consider doing bad things to people for. What is also exciting is Wargames Factory's lower price point (than GW) so when they put these out they will be cheaper and thus much easier to obtain (huge numbers of)...

If you would like to see more of this model you can check out a 3-D rendering that you can manipulate here:
http://wargamesfactory.com/announcements/3d-samurai-preview

Even though Battlefront refuses to make me happy by releasing a Japanese force for Flames of War (with some weak excuse about needing to change the game to reflect the combat even though they put out a Vietnam version of the game... similar dynamic kids... grumble...) WWII lovers have not missed out on this feast of toys. Warlord games have released a box of metal Japanese soldiers...

While the models do look nice and properly detailed... I am bummed that they are not plastic. I have bought the plastic Germans and will buy the plastic "Tommies" BUT only for imperial guard conversions... I will not do the same if the Japanese are in metal. That being said they do look nice.

And while they are not Japanese themed they are themed...
Puppets of War has released Bandito Heads for orks a while back and to be honest I was not sure where I should stick them... They do deserve a mention though...

Til next time gang...

Tomb King Superfriends

2011-08-26T23:22:00.007+10:00

After having painted these models a few years back... I actually got around to someone taking some pictures of my character models...

Lets start with the group shot...

The Tomb King is one of my favourites... He is made from pieces of lots of kits but mainly from the blood bowl mummy model. I like that he looks less scrawny than the usual tomb king. As I painted him in a hurry I should got back and give his shield some extra love and maybe an extreme highlight or two (more) on his skin... There are three greys there now but they are just too subtle. I will have to finish painting this guy's flaming chariot sometime.

Next up is my mounted Liche Priest. Another of my favourites... He is made up from pieces of the mounted liche priest, plastic flagellants and a plastic empire mage kit.

His foot mounted brother is much easier to identify as an empire plastic wizard with the head of a TK blood bowl player and the top of the staff taken from the unused half of the mounted Liche Priest.

And last but not least my stand in Casket of Souls... I have started converting one carried by tomb guard ala the Arc of the Covenant on the move but have not gotten anywhere yet. This has been my stand in for a while. It is also my corpse cart when I use this army as Vampire Counts... You might notice the missing hand... Yeah... Should fix that one of these days...

The Inquisitorial Land Raider

2011-08-26T14:29:00.006+10:00

Soooo Here i the finished Land Raider that I converted and painted to match my guard army as part of my Grey Knight's Henchmen army. It is also the land raider that I have a piece of in my left eye (and why I will never have a CAT scan again)...

I took these pictures using my new IPAD... The experiment did not yeild the best results... Here are the results non the less....

I know the assault cannon barrels do not match but I really like the one of a kind look that it achieved. The barrels are from two separate forge world Tau kits. I wanted it to have a minigun or Predator "Old Painless" look. I like the end result.

I know the camo scheme is a little odd but it matches my aircav guard army meaning I could use the chimeras and guard from my regular list and just add the land raider and a few henchmen and viola... a new army

From the top down... The Eagles on the top are from a Cities of Death building kit.

Here is a shot of some of the other vehicles from the army in action.

Book of Grudges Final Results!

2011-08-22T17:09:00.002+10:00

Here they are in all of their glory. There was a mix up in a set of scores that resulted in Aaron coming off the podium and Leopold rising in the ranks.

Click the image if you would like to see it larger.

Click the image if you would like to see it larger.

Maximini Sniper Rifle Review

2011-08-15T13:19:00.006+10:00

Well “The Land O Misfit Toys” has officially had it’s first ever tournament. Book of Grudges is done and dusted. I will get results and a TO report up shortly (double checking a few scores… sleeping… you know the important stuff).

I did have a blast and Realm Of Legends is a GREAT venue but I will get back to that. One thing that I do love about the shop is that they have all sorts of bitz and bobs that I can pick up for existing projects that I have never seen anywhere but on the internet.

This last weekend I picked up a pack of Maximini sniper rifles. I had been eyeing these up for quite a while but was worried about how the barrels of would come out (resin, thin barrels are usually not so good). Anyway, Ross and Maria had a pack of these bad boys that I happily picked up for my Raven Guard scout army (yet another project kids).

Anyway I thought I would let you guys (and gals) in on my opinions about the blister pack. There were 5 rifles in the pack and while some of the flash was horrific it was only on the casting tab. The rifles themselves were clean as a whistle with crisp edges and details. The barrels of the rifles were straight and nice (as were the bi-pod legs).

Love them.

My only gripe is that I am not sure HOW I am going to get the rifles and bi-pods off the casting tab without breaking things (I am a bit of a bull in a china shop some days). That though is a challenge for another day.

My quick two cents…

Return of the Tin Boyz

2011-08-11T15:23:00.006+10:00

Soooo... Back in the glorious days of the unplayable game of Rogue Trader there existed Tin Boyz... See the first tin boyz post for more info... Anyway... I really wanted to recreate the feel of the original Tin boyz as the meganobz in my orkingrad list. I was shooting for 1940's techno-orki-badness. Big brutes... Here are someone else's tinboyz... the originals...

Here are my versions... As I said big brutes... They are killer kan sized (those are 40 mil bases)...

I used tamiya barrels as torsos, leman russ wheels as heads and thumb tact heads for optical sensors, skaven hands and lots of plasticard for the rest...

The back packs are from the imperial guard cadian sprue and the armour chest plates are from the Rogue Trader Battle Wagon model kit.

I have to say I am pretty pleased with how they turned out. Might make more and use them as a terminator army at some point. They need shoota/ storm bolters at some point but for now... They are fine...

Back to the Death Company!

B

WIP shots... Storm Raven

2011-08-10T12:27:00.005+10:00

Well after an age in a box, my long lost Storm Raven has seen the light of day...
I will admit I have been very sloppy when putting on the many coats of mechrite red and chainmail. I will go back and touch the black up once the I have a nice smooth metal and red to wash and highlight.

I know it looks really messy right now BUT I will fix it up.

I have started edge highlighting the black with astronomicon grey. It is a little lighter than I had hoped so I am thinking of adding further highlights of codex before washing all the black down with badab black.

As you can see I built this SR out of a valkyrie and a land raider with bitz from the old rhino, the drop pod and assorted Blood Angel brass etch from Forgeworld. Sure the GW Storm Raven kits look good but I really like the flying land raider feel mine has.

More soon...

Why Death Company and how I plan to use them...

2011-08-09T11:54:00.003+10:00

Sooooo a thousand years ago (or so it feels) I worked for GW corporate in the US. I was a member of the Trade Sales team. I worked accounts in Texas, the mid west and (towards the end of my time with the company) the northeast (when trade went regional). Each region was a space marine chapter. I was a proud original member of the Blood Angels team. My boss at the time often commented that I was the rabid fanatic of the team and likened me to a death company marine.

I left the company (only to return a few years later and once again take up the black polo with red undershirt) and resumed GT play. My first GT out of the company (ok three GT’s in one year) saw my badly painted BUT very loved Death Company Flesh Tearer army. I ended up surprisingly high in the standings (21st) given the list had one power weapon, 4 melta guns, a furioso dread and nothing else but marines. (pure PA horde… it was glorious… I had three devastator squads with no heavy weapons and three assault squads with no jump packs) It was a brick of pain that I LOVED to throw at every opponent I could. Sure I lost a lot but having that many marines on the table was something I have been wanting to duplicate ever since.

Anyway… Eventually that army went the way of the dodo and I moved onto other armies. I still have my black polo and my love of the DC frothing manics. Hence my newest silly list.

Enough of my reminiscing, I posted my list in the last post. It revolves around fours squads of DC (some with transports), a DC dread, Astorath and a squad of scouts.

I have messed around with it a few times in fun games but have yet to take it to anything serious. I envision 5 DC with packs to shoot up the center of the board with the dread and Astorath in the stormraven. Hopefully I can stun or stop some anti vehicular fire with the power of the machine spirit fired multi-melta. Even if I get shot down at this point I will be at least half way on the board with a bucket of pain.

The fast rhino filled with dudes on foot will hope to draw some fire. The five guys in a drop pod will also drop in such a way to put the hurt/ pressure on early.

The jump squad will hug cover or run up behind the rhino.

The scouts will either infiltrate close to apply pressure early OR find the nearest cover and go to ground (in objective grabs).

That is the cunning plan… Time will tell if it works… at all…

Obviously I am going to loose games (probably by the truck load BUT I should have fun doing it).

Some of you will remember my poor storm raven (which has been sitting in a box for what feels like forever). It now has Blood Angels Brass Etch attached and has a shiny new black paint coat...

(this photo added later)...

Til next time when I have actual pictures of the DC…

And now for something completely different... DEATH COMPANY!

2011-08-03T12:57:00.002+10:00

Sooooo life has taken some very surreal turns the last few weeks and any hopes that I had had about getting the orks done for Eastcon vanished very quickly. Shame. I am very excited to get back to them but I did want to do something different for Eastcon soooo...

Death Company!

I will get to the ideas and fluff behind what I am doing later but for now here is my Eastcon list:

HQ:
1 Astorath
Astorath (220)

TROOPS
Squad Alpha
10 Death Company (200) 1 with a Power Fist (25) 1 with a Power Weapon (15) in a Rhino (50) Hunter Killer Rocket (10)

Squad Beta
5 Death Company (100) in Drop Pod (35) 1 with Power Fist (25)

Squad Theta
10 Blood Angel Scout (140) Sergeant With Power Fist (25)

Squad Delta
9 Death Company (180) 1 with a Power Fist (25) 1 with a Power Weapon (15) With Jump Packs (135)

Squad Epilson
5 Death Company (100) 1 with Power Fist (25) 1 with Power Weapon (15) Jump Packs (75)

Brother Gabriel
Death Company Dreanoughts (125) Blood Talons (0) Hvy Flamer (10)

ELITES
None

FAST ATTACK
None

HEAVY SUPPORT
Rain of Blood
Storm Raven (200) with Multi Melta (0)

1750 points on the nose...
1 scoring unit and lots of DC silliness. Do I expect to win very many games..? Honestly... Not Really. Do I expect to make a mess of a few people's armies? VERY much so! The rest of the people I play should lead my army around the board in a merry dance that will see me loose badly. C'est La Vie...

B

P.S. I did not paint this. In fact it is straight of of an old white dwarf. It is a D.C. Land Raider painted by the always impressive Jason Buyaki. I was his roomate at the time and watched him paint this beast VERY SLOWLY. It is pure awesome! Thought I would share...

The "Looted" Panzer WIP

2011-07-28T15:33:00.008+10:00

Well as I said I went on a shopping spree at my new favourite Boston retailer of toy soldiers (Hobby Bunker). I picked up a pile of plastic tanks for the Orkingrad Brigade. Here are the beginnings of the panzers... (looted boomgun wagons)

As you can see they fit the scale of GW tanks.

I have removed the fronts of the turrets because I want to replace them with actual GW battle cannon barrels (I wanted big fat barrels). The models themselves have a fair bit of detail that isn't as crisp as GW kits BUT add a few plates and bullet holes and I think they will be perfect for the boyz.

I want to add flags laying on the back as identifiers so "Fighter Bombaz" can not "accidentally" shoot the wagons when they fly by. Something about an ork pilot shooting his mates for giggles makes me laugh...

Back to work...

Book of Grudges Update

2011-07-27T13:26:00.005+10:00

Well Book of Grudges is less than three weeks out and there are a few pieces of housekeeping that need to be addressed:

1) We are close to 40 players which is really exciting. I am rapt with the enthusiasm that has been shown by so many members of our community and we are weeks to go before the event! Thanks guys!

2) The scoring for the event is ever so slightly changing:

Originally the overall points for the event looked like this:
Battle: 120 points (6 games of 20)
Sports: 20 points
Painting: 20 points
Composition: 38 points
Theme: 2 points
Total: 200 points

Due to my computer loosing it's hard drive a few months back I have lost the arcane method I came up with those numbers... So the overall totals will change to be what is reflected below which matches the actually wording of the players pack (just not the totals section). I truly hope this does not put anyone out in anyway.
Battle 120 points
Sports 24 points
Painting 20 points
Comp- judge 24 points
peer 18 points
Theme 2 points
Display board 1 point
Total: 209 points

3) ARMY LISTS ARE DUE THIS FRIDAY AT 11:59 PM.... That is the 29th of July. I have about half the lists in at the moment. You should get yours in pronto if you want to come out to play.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

WIP TINBOYZ!!!

2011-07-26T12:40:00.004+10:00

So I have been feverishly cutting plasticard tubing and scrounging for bitz to great my (Mega-nob) Tinboyz. What is a Tinboy?

Well in Rogue Trader days there were rules for robots. Tinboyz were the ork equivalent to imperial robots. Ork Meks got jealous and out came the first Tinboyz. They were humanoid in shape and design. Some looked like eldar, squat, or space marines. They were a bit of fun.

I actually really do not like the GW mega-nob models so I thought I would have a go a creating tinboyz of my own from scratch.

The legs are made from plasticard tubes and the feet are layers of cut plasticard stuck together. I used a blob of greenstuff to help stick the legs together until the glue on their ankles dries.

I have used Tamiya barrels as torsos and old ork armour plating for chest plates. The heads are the small wheels off a leman russ (filed down) with thumb tack tips as the ocular sensor.

The models below are only blue tacked together. I need to properly create waists so they can tilt to face the proper direction but this gives you an idea of scale.

Tomorrow... The first look at the panzers...

Til then...

B

The Orkingrad list

2011-07-25T10:39:00.002+10:00

Sooooo...

I did get a bunch of work done on the army over the weekend. I just didn't get pictures taken of the work to date.

Here is what I am thinking of taking at 1750 points. I would love input here so please pipe in.

30 boyz with 3 rocket launchas includes nob with power klaw and boss pole (nob with officer cap, rockets modelled as panzerfausts)

26 boyz with 3 rocket launchas includes nob with power klaw and boss pole (nob with officer cap, rockets modelled as panzerfausts)

19 Grots with a Runtherd (Runtherd will be grot officer/ commissar)

3 looted wagons with boom guns (modelled as looted/ rusty panzers)

2 battle wagons with Kannons, Red Paint and Armour plates (one unit of meganobs in each wagon).

10 mega nobz, 4 combi scortchas (broken into two units of five each with two scorchas... Will be modelled as large "tin boyz" for those with long memories of the game).

2 warbosses, Each with Eavy armour and cybork body (thinking about giving them uge choppas, they will be stuck in the battle wagons with the meganobs)

Might have enough points for a scorcha trak (grot tank) or a deffcopta (not sure how to make the theme fit)

So each warboss is with 5 tinboyz in his own battlewagon. I know that meganobs are terrible but they are there for the modelling opportunity AND so that I can take the two extra battle wagons (dedicated transports instead of heavies). In an ideal world I could put killcannons on these but the list does not allow this so I have gone with cannons as the next nearest thing. I laid off additional guns as I want them to move quickly towards the enemy and not stop to shoot (remove the guns... remove the temptation).

The list has the armour, boyz, and grots that I wanted for my theme... What do you all think?

B

So... Orkingrad?

2011-07-20T12:59:00.009+10:00

So I have more than a passing interest in WWII. And as I said last time I am pretty enamoured with the Micro Art Studios WWII Ork bitz. So why not combine the two?

As seen elsewhere in this blog, I have been creating a feral ork/ orc army for a while now. All the models are wearing heavy fur cloaks and look suitably thin and by the time I am done... (hopefully) cold!

Now Stalingrad was a major turning point of WWII. Hitler decided it would be a good idea to backstab his "up til this point" ally Stalin and invaded Russia despite fighting Europe on the other side of his growing empire. For a while it looked like it would work. The advance stalled however in the city of Stalingrad. The Russians were desperate not to loose any more ground to the Germans (or risk loosing their oil fields). The weather also began to play into the Russian's favour when winter hit. The Germans were just not prepared. Anyway, the fighting in Stalingrad was fierce and brutal. Tanks/ artillery/ infantry and everything else that could be thrown into the crucible of war was. The life expectancy of a Russian soldier in that battle was averaged to be 24 hours! Despite this the Germans were eventually overrun and surrendered sealing the fate of Germany and the war on that front.

It was a nasty, frozen fight to the death.

Sooooooo.... My orks will be geared for cold and will feature lots of armour and foot troops. (and city fighting/ snow bases)

I am thinking of 2 battle wagons with kannons, 3 looted wagons with boom guns and lots of infantry.

More soon...

Back in the Saddle... Ork ideas...

2011-07-19T12:56:00.008+10:00

Soooo I have been checking out the ork and goblin WWII stuff for sale by Micro Arts Studios for a while and mid 37 hour flight to my parent's house in Boston (it was a bastard of a flight). I had an epiphany. Orkingrad!

I have an army of painted orks in furry cloaks... What if I mixed in WWII armour and some of these models...

Meet my Nobz:

I picked up a pack of these guys and matching heads from Hobby Bunker in Malden MA. What a cool shop. Not the best GW selection BUT they had everything I needed for my crazy ork army.

I also picked up a pack of these dudes to be my Runtherds...

Additionally I was able to pick up a pile of really nice plastic WWII tanks.

I got 3 Panzer IV's and two "Buffalo's" to be my battlewagons... Everything fits perfectly.

My Armoured Kompany is well on it's way... All I need to do is figure out how to scratch build 10 Mega Armoured Orks...

Army list and model pictures soon... And a proper explanation of the theme... (Eastcon here I come!)

B

My Inquisitor List and Killcount Results

2011-07-03T21:07:00.003+10:00

So on the weekend I took my Grey Knight army with one Grey Knight to Killcount (a 1750 40K tourney here in Melbourne)... It was a blast as always and despite taking a terribly ineffective army I walked away with this....

Here was my list:

Inquisitor Arvis Jebusite
Inquisitor Coteaz (100)

Brother Gabriel of the Order of the Cleansing Flame
Brotherhood Champion (100) with Digital Weapons (5), Empyream Brain Mines (10)

203rd Morinian Iron Guard, Inquisitor Task Force Squad Alpha
11 Warrior Acolyte Henchmen (44) 6 with Hotshot Lasguns (30) 3 with Plasma Guns (30)
In Chimera (55) with Hunter Killer Rocket (10)

203rd Morinian Iron Guard, Inquisitor Task Force Squad Beta
10 Warrior Acolyte Henchmen (40) 6 with Hotshot Lasguns (30) 3 with Melta guns (30)
In Chimera (55) with Hunter Killer Rocket (10)

203rd Morinian Iron Guard, Inquisitor Task Force Squad Delta
10 Warrior Acolyte Henchmen (40) 6 with Hotshot Lasguns (30) 3 with Plasma Guns (30)
In Chimera (55) with Hunter Killer Rocket (10)

203rd Morinian Iron Guard, Inquisitor Task Force Squad Gamma
10 Warrior Acolyte Henchmen (40) 6 with Hotshot Lasguns (30) 3 with Melta guns (30)
In Chimera (55) with Hunter Killer Rocket (10)

203rd Morinian Iron Guard, Inquisitor Task Force Squad Zeta
10 Warrior Acolyte Henchmen (40) 6 with Hotshot Lasguns (30) 3 with Plasma Guns (30)
In Chimera (55) with Hunter Killer Rocket (10)

Inquisitor Jebusite's Personal Retinue
Lotus" 6 Death Cult Assassins (90)"0010" and "0011" 2 Servitors (20)"Rocky" Daemon Host (10) "Blaine" Crusader (15)
(Ran these guys in the Crusader with both characters)

Operative Gargos
Vindicare Assassin

Operative Orchais
Callidus Assassin

Fury of the Pure
Land Raider Crusader (255) with Hunter Killer Rocket (10), Multi-melta (10), and Psybolt Ammo (5)

I will try and get a brief tourney write up shortly. Til then I am bushed and I am off to Boston tomorrow...

B

New on the Forgeworld site...

2011-07-02T22:51:00.002+10:00

The "CONTEMPTOR PATTERN DREADNOUGHT"

Or should I say... Forge World's best Pre-heresy dreadnought yet...

Yup I will be buying one of these for my custodes army which arrived in Boston at my parent's house yesterday... Did a major bitz haul tonight from piles of boxes.... Ready for the trip home...

B

The Next Big Project Custodes... (Scibor)

2011-06-26T00:29:00.006+10:00

So a few months back I got a bee in my bonet and went out and bought a Scibor Dwarf army. It is amazing. I am honestly a little scared to paint it. The models came beautifully cast with little flash and with more detail than I expected. Good stuff... Well it has been a busy month with eye issues and the like (I have a piece of my land raider crusader permanently imbedded in the cornea of my good eye) but I have persevered and I am back with a new project. Actually I am taking a henchmen army to a tournament here in melbourne in 5 days. I will get a few piccies up soon. After that though I am heading back to the USA for my annual trip. I usually belt something out when I am up at all hours with Jetlag... This year...

Custodes...

I read "The First Heretic" Horus Heresy book and loved how badass the Custodes were. I suppose everyone did BUT when I saw the Grey Knight book. I found a book to make my army come alive. I was online researching bitz when I found these boys by my new fav... Scibor...
Sure they do not have arms but I like that because I don't love Scibor's sci fi guns...

Since their creation Scibor has recently put out a character to match the other models...

and this dude was already on my want list...

Soooo I ordered a pile of dudes. I also got some Grey Knight models for their arms...

Stay tuned because I am really excited about this project!

B

Return of the Great White Dope!

2011-06-18T01:41:00.003+10:00

Sooooooooooo.... Some of you might remember that about 18 months ago I got a piece of metal stuck in my eye when I was cleaning flash off of some space wolves shoulder pads.... Well, it happened again. My wife left town (which is when I hurt myself) and I flicked a piece of metal in my eye that has caused me massive amounts of grief.

Now you may be saying to yourself... "dude you have two eyes what is the big deal...." Well I was born with a rare genetic disease called ambliopia (spelling?) that weakened the connection between my brain and my right eye. As this deteriorated the connection and not the eye itself... It is not correctable with glasses, or anything else... I am legally blind in my right eye...

Well, I flicked a piece of metal into my left eye when cleaning the flash off of the bitz to a land raider crusader. The metal imbedded itself in my cornea and it has been a nightmare ever since. I went to the Melbourne Eye and Ear hospital (I highly recommend it if you have this kind of injury btw) and they used the world's smallest dremel to dig out 90% of the metal... The other 10% is still in there causing permanent damage. I was supposed to get the last bit "melted" out today BUT my eye was not ready so they will try again next week. All in all this really blows...

I could really use your prayers if you are into that sort of thing... I only have one eye and I really need it to work... or I am screwed in a way that I cannot describe and my vision is pretty blurry at the moment... anyway... that is where I have been...

B

And now for something a little different...

2011-06-06T08:48:00.005+10:00

Went with the misses to Darwin and the Northern Territory last holiday. On that trip we went on an excellent private tour of Darwin describing the Japanese bombing of Darwin. Also hit up the military museum which turned out to be ALOT of artillery pieces and some other odds and ends... Thought I would share a few piccies.

After WWII they built two of these massive guns outside of Darwin to protect the port. Because technology progressed so quickly afterwards though the guns were only test fired three times before being deemed obsolete and scrapped and ironically sold to the Japanese. What you see here is a recreation.
That's not a gun... This is a gun!

The wheel to turn this beast.

A BOFORS Gun...

Not the "Alligator" I expected to find in the N.T.

Huey Cobra...

Universal Carrier

Til next time gang...

Painted Snake Men

2011-06-04T00:11:00.004+10:00

So I finished the weekend at Rumble in the Bronx in the top 7 which is weird since I had the worst comp there by far. I'd say I had the cheesiest army but I think that belongs to someone else. My list was bad but it was not the only 1 in comp there as admitted by just about everyone there (and the T.O.'s I think). Anywhoooo.... I snapped some happy snaps of the cheese army and the newly painted "snake man daemonettes." Would love your feedback.

While I am at it... Here is a shot of a chaos dwarf sorcerer that my buddy Adam painted. It is a scibor model and he bought it at Realm of Legends (host of Book of Grudges... plug plug). He also painted it the same day he bought it (at the shop no less). A truly awesome effort. Looks sweet matey!

I should really get painting on my scibor stuff....

B

Return of the Wyches (WIP)

2011-06-02T14:19:00.003+10:00

Terracon is coming up and I thought it would make an excellent opportunity to expand my Dark Eldar wyche cult to 1500 points (from 1200points). To beef up my list I added a fighter (which I am still designing) and another full unit of nine wyches in a raider (with night shields so they match).

My units can be told apart by differing hair colours. I had run through red, blonde, brown, blue, and black. Was time for something radical. I went for Joker Green to compliment the purple on the models. I don’t think these photos do the colour justice. The colours are eye aching bright.

As with the other wyches I enlisted the help of my buddy Chris Cousins to help me with the highlights on these models and as usual I am mightily impressed with the speed and skill of his work.

These models are made entirely out of bitz I had sitting around. Not one was a standard model (other than Lilith of course). I really like the models that have the new wyche running legs married to the old wyche jet-biker torso and arms.

Yes, I have to finish the bases but I will do that soon. What do ya’ll think?

Cool Tomb King Unit Fillers (a good internet experience!)

2011-05-27T16:39:00.004+10:00

Got these in a box in the mail last night. Ordered from them Ebay for a very reasonable price (something like $15 for two and shipping from the UK to Australia).

Obviously the pillars are white resin. The corners are slightly rounded but the important details are plenty crisp enough.

Each pillar is made up of three pieces. I like that they are not one piece so I can make a third base using the top of one of the pillar and a broken shaft of the same one.

I also like that the shaft of the pillar has a variety of images engraved into them and the two sides are not mirror images of each other.

I plan to use these bases as unit fillers for my skeletons and maybe to bulk out the back of my ushabti.

Til next time...

B

Getting Ripped Off by the Internet

2011-05-22T15:59:00.005+10:00

So a while back I was surfing the old interwebs and found this really cool army concept on The Warhammer Forums. A guy had taken chinese heads from a company known as Amazon Miniatures and put them on Bretonnian Men at Arms to create miniature versions of the terracotta warriors seen here:

His version of the army looked like this:

Having spent the summer of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 with my Dad in China I felt a certain connection with this army. To be specific right after all the craziness was happening in Bejing Dad and I were in Xi'an (home of the terracotta warriors) for a month. My Dad taught and I was his unpaid lackey.

I decided to paint up a terrcotta warrior army for Dad and went to Amazon Miniatures to buy the heads. The heads were surprisingly cheap so I bought an armies worth and bought a few boxes of men at arms anticipating their arrival. Well kids that was months ago and still... No heads. I have contacted the company to no response. Tried to get a refund through paypal and recently discovered that Amazon Miniatures website has gone the way of the dodo...

While I am only out something like $40 I am fairly disappointed that the heads never showed up. My parents don't really get my hobby but I really thought my Dad would dig this particular army.

The site in question was... http://www.amazonminiatures.com/

For pictures of the original thread that I found these pictures on... Look here (it is worth a look):
http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=61222&view=previous

Too bad.... Too bad...

RETURN OF THE SNAKE MEN!

2011-05-21T09:08:00.012+10:00

Some of you will remember that a while back I started with an alternative to the "new" GW daemonettes to match my funky daemon army. I was pretty disappointed with how they were coming sooo I'll admit it. I put them in a box. I need to remember that the beginning stages of everything looks like rubbish and I need to remember to persevere through to the end... Well with Rumble Coming up I had to do something. The Rumble player pack banned lords (grrr) so Tomb Kings were out... Nerfed magic (grrr) so Vamps were out. I am not so sure about skaven at the moment so they were out. That leaves my Daemons... Had two blocks of Letters and Horrors already. Sigh... Daemonettes here we go.

I had about 6-7 at this stage when I started this week...

They look like rubbish... The basic bodies look alright except for the flat spots on their side where I had to rest them to dry and I didn't like how the teeth came out (I have not added the lips). Anyway... I got to fixing and they came out much better. For those wondering I used a marble inside each head to save on green stuff.

With lips and with imperfections kinda fixed they looked like this:

Here are a few more with command. The champion has one horn sticking out of his head, the std has a slaneeshi symbol on his head and the musician has horns. It is a visual joke I've used before. He is in the horn section... get it? Terrible I know.

The here is the standard from above... See... the symbol... I hope it looks better painted!

The last part of the regiment is the Gale Force Nine movement tray that converts round bases to square bases. I LOVE these things. I have a small pile of them and use them in my Daemons and in my Orc armies. Some models rank up so much easier using them (old chaos warriors, black orcs, etc). Sure they add a few centimetres to the width of the frontage and sideage but I don't play fantasy to win the world. It just makes life easier...

As you can see I left a few bald spots when I glued on the sand. That is for when I add the water effects and blue paint later...

Now Greg at the Hoodling Hole as written a very articulate piece explaining his gradual acceptance and then love of 8th edition fantasy... Check it out if you get the chance... It is a good read:
http://hoodlinghole.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-i-like-warhammer-8th-edition.html

Heresy Horus Model... Or... Look What I Can Buy On the Internets!

2011-05-20T16:36:00.010+10:00

So I was on my old friend Wargamerau the other day and I found this little gem kicking around for $45. I bought it on a whim and I am glad that I did.

It is indeed Horus Lupercal and while mine is not painted I am quite pleased with the overall quality of the model.

The model itself is a little too thin for my liking but he towers over regular space marines. He comes with a set of stairs as a base.

Without the stairs his mace is too long to have him hold that AND not have it buried in the table top.I am lucky I guess as I did break mine... I am awesome (sigh) like that. Soooo I think I will take the opportunity to shorten it a bit.

His shoulder is a separate piece from the rest of his body but otherwise his arms, legs and torso are one piece. The claw and mace are separate as well. Here is the body and the shoulder...

His weapons before I broke the mace:

There is remarkably little flash for a resin model (I guess I am used to Forgeworld) but some of the detail is not as crisp as I have come to expect from GW resins. That being said I am keen to give him a layer of paint and see how he comes out.

I might use him next to my all metal RT era marines painted as Sons of Horus. Then he would REALLY look big.