LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE!!! (High Elf Style)

I am a tournament fanatic. I traveled from New Orleans to play in the first US Baltimore GT and I have been hooked ever since. Most of the tournies I have played in over the years have been 40K competitions as 40K was always my first and true love (game wise). This is not to say that I have not played my fair share of Fantasy events. I have played in quite a few over the years but I have never been in danger of landing on the podium. This changed a few years back when I thought I would give Fantasy a serious go. I bought a few pre-made tournament armies and retired from 40K for almost a year. In that time I discovered two things:
1) I really do love playing Fantasy Battles too... and 2) I am amazingly terrible (or at least I was at the time).

How do I get better? Practice. I started going to a local game club called the Hampton Game Club. They are an ace group of guys (and girl) who put up with my hair brained ideas and antics with amazing amounts of patience. I teach primary school. I know what it is like to be that patient with tiring questions all day. Anyway... To the point. I recent bought a finished high elves army from Dave of my gaming group.

There is a tournament coming up in a few weeks called Rumble in the Bronx which is not held in the Bronx but in a suburb outside of Melbourne named Geelong. It is a 1999 point tournament that because of point restrictions does not allow lord choices. This may sound odd but it makes for some really entertaining games. I went last year and had a blast. Not only did the bar open in the AM both days BUT I also walked away with the Sexiest General Award ( there must have been some DOG UGLY people playing if I walked away with that!). Anyway. It is a quality event and I wanted to bring a quality army.

As I am waiting for the new Tomb King rules before pulling out my pretty boys I though I would give Dave's Chracian High Elves a go. I do have them hanging out after all (and they look pretty sweet).

The list I have been toying with looks like this:

(Be warned some of the items on the list look funny, such as ridden lions etc... The whole list is themed around Chrace and white lions... pictures below help)

Noble: Sword of Might, Talisman of Saphery, Lion (Barded Elven Steed),
Lion (Heavy) Armour, Shield

Noble BSB: Shield, Great Weapon, Lion (Barded Elven Steed), Lion (Heavy) Armour. Ring of Fury

Mage Level 2: Dispell Scroll, Jewel of the Dusk.

15 Sea guard: Full Command

17 Spearmen: Full Command

15 Whilte Lions: Full Command: lion Standard

11 Phoenix Guard: Muso and Champion

Lion Chariot 140

Lion Chariot 140

Lion (Dragon) Princes: Full Command, War Banner

1 Repeater Bolt Thrower

1 Griffon (Great Eagle)

I have to admit the Phoenix guard don't really fit the list but I was going with what I had models painted. I kept away from the dragon rider even though I have one and by dropping a 4th character and making the first character a hero instead of a lord I lost a HUGE whack of points I had to make up elsewhere... that place was the phoenix guard.

I went for some blocks of units backed up by chariots, cav and one unit of flankers. One unit of missile troops and one war machine. I even squeeeeezed the Griffon (eagle) in to hunt war machines and flankers. True for high elves I am alittle light on Magic but 5 power dice should do alright with no lord level types running around.

We'll see how we go. I will be playing a practice game this weekend against Drew's AWESOME pirate ogre's... Pictures and full battle report forthcoming. Until then. Pictures of the elves. (and yes the White Lions foot sloggers are all plastic!)






A big up to Dave Atkins AKA "Cuddly Dave" for designing, building and painting this awesome army!

Storm Raven Part 2

Well we're back and this sports fans is where my Storm Raven begins to differ from the one my mates made.

The next step in my construction process is the engines. In order to have the overly long Valkyrie engines fit under the wings and not have my SR look like a pontoon plane, I cut the engines down drastically in length. There are some nice cut points ready to go on the engine already and after choosing one that would have the engine keep its engine appearance I got to cutting.



Next came the wings themselves. I assembled the wings themselves as per the Valkyrie kit BUT I trimmed the connection mounts that attach to the hull so that the wings would reverse in direction. That is, they would line up properly like a 747's wings rather than the Valkyrie's. Now I added the engine.



From another angle...



With that it was the simple matter of adding the wings to the hull. I attached the wings so that the wing began with the tail assembly's front (if that makes sense?). The picture will help this explanation. I am not to concerned with gaps at this point although I have now puttied a few of them smooth using Gale Force Nine Grey Stuff. I have bits that will cover gaps later.



As you can see I kept the tail fins of the Valkyrie kit. I couldn't help myself. I love the look of the back of that kit. As you can also see from the picture above I added the clamps on the front door by trimming the Land Raider top jaw door. I also added the centre piece of a drop pod for a pilots "fishbowl" screen. I "grey stuffed" the rounded bits on the sides flat to have this piece sit flush on the hull.

I also added the silly inside doors from the Land Raider kit to the side doors. We shall see if I cover these up or add hurricane bolters... I have a few hurricane ideas so I may just cover these up anyway.

From another angle



And finally the view from the bottom. There is a visible bow in the kit which I have since fixed... Sorry about that. As you can see I have used the floor of the Land Raider kit inside out as the bottom of the Raven.



Next time: Patching gaps, holes and other mistakes (and maybe arming our bird)...

Anyone have any weapons suggestions? I could use some advice.

Storm Raven Part 1

Well kids by popular demand from facebook folk I will post my ongoing progress on my Storm Raven Transport.

For those who don't know the Storm Raven is the little cousin of the Thunderhawk gunship. Rules and text for the S.R. can be found in the newly released Blood Angel book. It has been loosely described as a flying land raider and interestingly there are no existing pictures of it anywhere. Soooooo... Those of us that want to play with one to improvise. Sooooo as it is described as being a flying land raider. I liked the idea so much that that is how I made it.

I have loosely based my design on a half built Storm Raven built by my mates Vince and Glen. Cheers boys.

I will start with a few general photos of the hull prior to wings, engines, weapons... OK pre-lots of stuff!



As you can see from the above picture I have taken the front and bottom of a land raider and merged it with the cargo bay and tail assembly of a Valkyrie. While it hurt me to butcher two such beautiful kits, it didn't cause me too much stress and in no time I was sitting in a snow drift of plastic shavings.

This is what the S.R. looks like from the front.



As you can see here it is much thinner than a land raider. I completely ignored the middle and inner parts of the land raider kit. What you can't see is that the underside is the land raider floor inversed (so the texted inside is the outside of the bottom. More on this later). By doing this the front doors don't actually fit any more. I had to cut two plates of thick plasticard for the top and bottom of the "jaws" of the front hatch.

I also cut a smaller piece to mask the gap between my doors and the inversed floor.

Here is a picture of the plates I cut before they were installed on the Raven.

The big ones are 5 cm wide and 3.15 cm long.
The thin one is 5 cm wide and 1 cm long.



You can see below how I cut the side panels of the land raider. (note I over cut mine a little and lazily did not use a ruler so one side does not fit perfectly leading to a slight bow in my kit if you look at it from the bottom. I will fix this BUT you should avoid such silliness. I will also take this opportunity to say BY CAREFUL! Using saws and blades can be dangerous if not done properly. I am wearing a band aid as a testament to this. Be smart... Shop S Mart...



and how I cut the side panels of the Valkyrie...



Now the roof. I cut the rounded tip of the Valk room flat. So it would fit. I also shaved the roof flat.



One last bit of housework before getting your glue out.

The front plate of the Land Raider. You have to very minutely trim the front plate where it meets the sides towards the front. I hope this picture helps...



Please contact me if you have any questions..

Your first taste of my hobby.

Ok... Why should I look at what this chucklehead is writing? A good question. Over the next few months I will publish army lists, battle reports, tactics, and tournament reports for Warhammer 40K and Warhammer Fantasy Battles. I will also share armies out of my display cabinet and projects that I am currently working on.

First up.

My completely hand sculpted Tzeentch Daemon Army. I sculpted this army last summer while traveling in the US and suffering from extreme jetlag. Got back to Melbourne (where I live with my beautiful wife) with 5 days to spare before Liber Animus (a big local tourney).

Here is an overall shot of the army:




The Horrors are the small floating eyeballs. You can tell the squads apart by the colour of the eyes. The pink eyes are the ones upgraded to have bolt of Tzeentch. The army has 6 squads of nine Horrors. One is upgraded to the changeling (he is a yellow eye with the infinity symbol for an iris.





You can also see the flamers in the above picture. They are the slightly larger eyeballs with flames coming out of their ocular nerves.

There are 5 screamers in the army and they are giant floating tongues. The small eyes behind them in this photo are the messenger mission specific models required for Liber last year. In a recent fantasy tourney I used them as heralds on foot.





The giant pinwheel eye is my Lord of Change. The Large Pac-Man balls are my two daemon princes (I used one of these in the same Fantasy tourney as a herald on a disk).




You can see the other Pac-man here.. Behind "him" is my Soul Grinder... Yeah it is too small. I know that. I need to add a pair of Balrog wings and some orbiting small eyes if I ever use it in a tourney again.





A shot of the army in action.




I came 2nd overall at Liber that year and won a small local fantasy no-comp tourney recently. I love this army and will be adding to it soon. Hope you like it!

Special thanks to ironhalo.net for the very cool bases which I finished up with GW water effects. I love that stuff.

Also big thanks to Beck from Missy Kitty Photography for taking the the happy snaps you see here.

Coming soon... Photos of my Storm Raven Gunship... And some how to tips.

IN THE BEGINNING...

Howdy gang,

Brad here. Some of you might know me by my online handle: Skabradisdead. As the name would imply I am an avid ska collector and listener. I am also a proud Games Workshop fanatic and have been playing GW games since 1988 when I bought first ed Blood Bowl in KiddyLand (Tokyo's coolest toy shop). I have worked for GW three times in two countries with a slew of silly stories to tell (maybe later)... Anyway. This is my GW hobby blog. Welcome!