Silver Tower and all that jazz

I have some pictures of my latest Silver Tower Characters.

This is all the work I am doing on characters and I am moving on to the enemies next.I found these very rewarding to paint. They do need a coat of varnish but with the weather starting to get cold outside I will give that a miss till after the worst of the cold weather.

I have now started on my next unit in my Age of Sigmar Army. So here are a few WIP Stormcast Eternals

 

Time to revive the blog!

So much has happened in the last couple of years since my last entry.

I won a few painting comps here and there (with both my Orks and Deamons). But the main thing is that I've not moved house, This has really stopped me playing anywhere near as much as I would like. However the house is on the marktet so a move closer to work would give me more chances to go to my local gaming club and get some 40k action.

On the home front mini me is really getting into Age of Sigmar. I have started a Sotrmcast Eternal army to go up against his Tzeentch Chaos force. We are not quite ready to do any gaming as I only have 5 figures together.

Along side doing the Stormcast army I am working on a smallish Skittari army. Progess is slow as the models are quite intricate. I hope to make much better progress after the house move. I'll have a proper painting room again so can just sit down and paint.

Next there is Silver Tower. I really love these figures and I'm painting these as a joint project with mini me, so we can play a GW game with fully painted figures.

On the subject of GW games, I really want to complete a project with Space Hulk. Besides painting the actual models, I really would like to build a 3D resin set using casts you can get online. If I manage to get more romm in the next place this is defenitly something I intend to do.

OK, well thats enough for now. In the next blog I intend to talk more about the particular projects that I'm working on right now.

All change!

After 2 or 3 games I have abandoned the summoning deamon list. I am of the opinion that to get it to work you need to go all or nothing. So I have switched back to my previous list, but with a single change. I will be giving the Great Unclean One a balesword. Even without getting Iron arm the instant death rule will make him devastating in combat. This does make my deamons one of my weakest armies, but they are also the most rewarding to get a win with.

I am considering making an Armies on Parade board for the Deamons. As they are Nurgle Eldar I though having them in a portion of Nurgles Garden would be very characterful. I have even thought of some objective markers I could make to have them stand out. Once I have more on this I'll post it up.

And because I obviously have far to much on my hobby plate at the moment I thought it was time to change my Marine list. As much as I loved the Assault Terminator/Redeemer combo, I thought a bit of a shake up was in order. So dropping both units I will take a Storm Raven loaded with a 3 man Centurian Assault squad and Terminator Librarian. First go at using this unit proved less than successful, but I will persevere. I have high hopes they can help my Dreadnought tie up a large swathe of troops and demolish any vehicle foolish enough to get close to them.

But at almost £140 including a Thunderfire cannon, I need to make sure I like this choice before shelling out all that money. I think a few weeks of painting are in order to try and get this Deamon army complete before I can hopefully start building up my Dwarfs in the new year.

And finally, Merry Christmas to everyone! Hope you get all the toys you want.

Shiney new captain!

I decided to take a small break from my deamons to paint the limited edition web released Space Marine Captain I got earlier in the year. He does not have the greatest combination of kit, but I love the model and the pose, so I thought he could be the start of my new marine build (when I work out what I want in it).

Not the greatest of pictures, but here is the completed model. I used way more gold than I normally do to emphasis his 'artificer' armour. I have found that red works well with the plate colour so used this predominantly in the trim. This matches up with codex 3rd company, hence the III in the banner.

I have just bought a W&N Series 7 size 00 brush and I will use this at the weekend to put some text on the banner and purity seals. The base is a forge world creation I inherited from Smith the younger. It fits with the broken stone I have for my other marines and just requires a few additions to complete (grass clump and leaves).

On another subject I have come to a realisation that my deamon army is lacking something in the gaming front. Being Nurgle it is very slow (with the exception of my beasts) and I find I am pinned back in my deployment zone for much of the game. So far I have avoided making any of my Psykers use the Deamonolgy powers as a crutch for my army. After a dozen games it seems I may need a summoner to add something to an army that can be out manoeuvred and easily out gunned. I will probably use my level 1 psyker for this and keep my other Herald and Great Unclean One with biomancy powers. The only downside is I will now need to paint another 40 or 50 models to make sure I have enough reserves to summon every turn. I will have to give this a test run I think with an opponent who will let me bring some 'substitutes' to test out my theory.

A new project! 3D Space Hulk Scenery

Things have been a bit hectic in the Smith household as of late. What with a house to sell, and Smith the Younger starting college, things have been up in the air. Hence my absence from making any new blog posts.

Its not got any quieter, but I am sparing a little time for some more musings. Firstly I would like to say the Maelstrom of War missions in 7th edition 40k are brilliant. I was not sure at first as I was told you could win the game in turn 1 if you got the right objectives. But after playing several missions I have found it a great challenge. The fluidity of objectives means you have really think about what your doing with each unit. I have had several games where the person killing the most of the enemy is not the winner. Admittedly it can come down to how luck you are with your objectives, but as this is a game played with dice, this is just another random element that makes the game fun.

Onto another subject. Space hulk! I love this game, although I don't tend to play at all, due to the time needed to set up the missions. But I have always wanted to create a 3D board. Maybe this would facilitate playing more games with Smith the Younger! I also would like to have some 'Ship boarding action' style games of 40k so this scenery would be ideal.

So onto my new project, to build a Space Hulk board. After much investigation the best option is to use Hirst Arts moulds. I was reluctant to use these as they are £25 a mould and I would need 4 moulds to be able to get all the parts for the basic and advanced sets. An £100 outlay seems a bit more than I wanted to spend. But to get a really good looking hulk this appears to be the best option. I have now purchased the first of these and will start some test casts before I get the appropriate dental plaster.

The other reason for me for purchasing the moulds is that I can use them to build other 40k scenery. I do love GW's buildings but I think I can make things cheaper and more individual using the hirst moulds.

I have made progress on the Eldar Deamon army and will post up some images next time. Still another 29 models to paint, so only just half way through the project. I hope to be finished by the time we move house.

Warriors of the Fang are here!

So a new release of Codex Space Wolves is upon us. My household was awash with talk of these Viking Space marines last week, and my lad is going to be collecting them. Not sure how he fits so many armies into his wanted list with any hope of collecting them all.

I have seen a lot of talk online about the new Space Wolf sledge. Apparently he will be delivering Christmas presents this year. So not very many fans of this newly released model. I'm not 100% convinced about it, but will wait and see what it looks like up close and personal.

The new Space Flyers on the other hand, I love! They shout 'I am as aerodynamic as a brick!' as load as possible, but it doesn't matter in a game about toy soldiers. The idea of the monolithic slab sided vehicle using sheer brute force to keep aloft says everything about Space Wolf philosophy. Why look sleek and fast when you can look like a battering ram and act in exactly the same way.

I will probably not collect any wolves though. I have too many ideas for other armies and would not use them as much as I would want. But I look forward to facing them and can't wait for the lad to get his up and running.

Master Classes at Warhammer World

So I was going to show off some painted models, but due to not being at home in the evening for most of the week I have not finished them off yet. Instead I thought I would report on a great weekend the boy and I had up in Nottingham.

After getting a Realm of Battle a few years ago, I was determined to give this expensive piece of plastic a top notch paint job. Well as is normal for me it remained the grey plastic up until March. I then got some W&N acrylic paint with the intention of painting it a desert colour. I made a complete mess of this. After priming the effect I was left with was streaky yellow paint which looked terrible.

At this point I had given up on doing a decent job, but then spotted an up coming event at GW's Warhammer World. A Realm of Battle Master Class. You could either attend this and get a board or bring your own board for painting. You could even bring along a friend for an extra tenner. So after cleaning up the first board I painted with Fairy power spray, all the boards were primed and off we went to Games Workshop land, or Nottingham as everybody else calls it.

As a regular visitor to this paradise of gaming I was not sure how the day would progress or if this £80 or so trip was worth the cost. Well I can say without a shadow of doubt, this was money well spent. After setting up the board pieces on the table provided, we donned aprons and were given 18, yes 18 pots of GW paint. Along with a little paint roller tray we were advised to paint the whole board this colour with the 2" brushes. As we progressed through the day, the 2 'Masters' from the Warhammer world event team we brilliant in helping to get the best from the board and also how to fix mistakes. Lunch was great as normal, and special consideration for my sons quite particular vegetarian tastes were accommodated by the kitchen.

We finished sooner than most of the attendees as we had no flock to apply to the board (Red planet is barren apparently). Although we didn't need to flock our board I was impressed with the amount of flock that was provided to the people who did. More or less a whole box of the GW basing material per 2' panel. We even left with 2 pots of wash to apple to the skulls once we got home. This was because the wash would not be dry by the time we left and would ruin the work we had done.

Here a few pictures of the board once we got home and completed some of the skull 'pits'.

The skulls a bit closer up.

Some close up action.

I am really pleased with these boards and it was certainly worth the money. After my indecision about the base colour for my deamons, I am going with the red planet theme which should look striking and match the board. Next up will be to do the craters we have and also the forge world piece I have to match.

I asked if there would be a Ultima Quadrant Realm of Master Class, and the response was that it is being looked into. Well if they decide to do it, I will definitely attend. Besides loving the new board and wanting to get one beautifully painted, it is great to learn new skills from people who are masters of their craft.



Now, I best get back to that Dark Eldar squad.

Wraith Beasts of Nurgle.

As part of my Corrupted Eldar Nurgle army, I wanted a squad of 5 beasts. The ideal figure for this would be 5 wraith guard. So with my trusty knife, clippers, green stuff and sculpting tool I set to work. As with all my conversions in this army I had not set thing I wanted to do and I let my imagination guide what each individual model turned out like.

I decided to try a helm that was ripping open with a load of puss coming through. I also have a load of tentacle like growths sprouting out from the arm joints. All very simple, but effective.

 here I wanted something bursting forth from the chest. I decided to go with suckered tentacles. There are some barnacle like growths on the arm. The tentacles required a metal pin to hold the shape but I really enjoyed creating them.

Just more tentacles and eye on this beast. There is also a pussy growth on the leg with a nurgling bursting out of the other leg.

An eye stalk on the shoulder plus a hoof like leg make up the fourth conversion. I am not happy with the eye and will be replacing this with something more spindly in a few days.

And the final one on the collection is my favorite. A complicated mouth, which I think will look better painted, along with the complete removal of one leg to be replaced by a triple tentacle arrangement. Once again these tentacles are created around a wire frame for strength.

Here is the entire squad together.

The entire squad has taken some time to build, but I have been really pleased with the results. I have already prepared some bases for them so once I get started on the apint job they should come together quite well.

Next time I will be showing some painted items. A squad of corrupted Dark Eldar Witches! I'll leave you with a picture of the test figure.

The new direction of Games Workshop

I am back from a wonderful break with the family up in Scarborough. A refreshing holiday finished off with a visit to Warhammer World where I attended the Warhammer 40,000k open day with my lad. This was a great day and besides buying a Horus Heresy mug, the new ork codex and some paint I had some interesting discussions with all manner of Games Workshop employees.

2 things came across in these chats. The first is the new release schedules for miniatures, which I shall come to in a moment. The second is the type of game they are trying to create. This has been discussed on the web for a while, but to hear it from somebody at GW confirms what a lot of people thought.

Basically 40k as a competitive system is dead. Anything that resembles game balance for any unit is likely to be more luck than judgement on GW's part. They have published a rule set designed for people to have fun with and less about which armies are more or less powerful for any given points costs. Looking back this was probably inevitable. With such a complex game system that has so many factions it was increasingly difficult to avoid codex creep or the must have unit in any particle codex. With the advent of supplements and data slates the task was impossible.

I see this as a good thing, and I go to a fair amount of tournaments. I have never played Apocalypse, mainly due to not having the time to spend 8 or 9 hours playing a game. Plus I only have relatively small collections of any one particular army. But the opening up of Lords of War and also the potential that unbound armies gives means I can play with virtually anything made for Apoc in my normal 40k games. I can still play tournament style games and I can see organizers banning unbound lists and restricting lord of war selections. It also means I can bring a full army of storm boyz to a game if I wanted, with my opponents consent of course.

This last bit is important, and should be remembered. This is a game of 2 people and you both need to agree your rules of engagement before hand. I would never dream of turning up with a Stompa unannounced to my opponent at either of the gaming clubs I attend. It would be impolite to expect somebody to cope with such a mammoth vehicle with no warning. As it happens I am using Big Brian, as the Stompa is known is my house, next week against an Eldar army, which should be immense fun, although I expect him to get cratered early on by the Wraith knight on the other side of the table.

Now onto the first point in this blog entry, the release schedules. I would say that we will be seeing many more releases of both new miniatures and rules. The sculpters have been given a much free hand in what they design apparently. Once a miniature is into design, the games developers write rules. Previously this would all be done as a codex release. This is no longer the case and we can expect White Dwarf rule updates for individual models (I suspect these will also be available as data slate and formation rules) as they are released.

The one downside to this is we may be expecting less regular releases of codexes (This wasn't confirmed but was hinted at as a possibility). But if all armies are getting regular releases of new models, new dexes are less important.

So GW has changes the way it works and how they envisage 40k to be played. Only time will tell if they have got it right, but I do hope they have as I really love this new ethos and I am very excited about what will be produced over the next year.

Next time its back to the Nurgledar army and some pictures of my Wraith Beasts.

Planning the next step of Deamonhood

I was actually wrong last week about my Deamons. They can actually win. An entire round of shooting from a very shooty Dark Eldar army resulted in a lost Beast of Nurgle. The Grimoir of True Names and Endurance make for a very resilient squad when applied to Beasts.

My Nurgle Wraith Knight had its first outing since its build was completed. It did fairly well but once again the overly powerful haywire grenades did him in. It was a close Relic game and my superior survivability saw me through to the end. Surrounding the objective with Plague bearers in 4+ area terrain with 5+ feel no pain was enough to keep them in the game. I will be hard pressed to beat anything with a flyer but thats for another day.

Now as far as figures go. I have no pictures to show. Its been a bit hectic with one thing or another, but I have managed to make some great progress on my beasts. There are a number of bits to finish off but I hope to have them built by the end of the week. I have also put together quite quickly a squad of 10 plague bearers. This is mainly so I do no have to use so many proxies in my games. The quicker I can get them built the better (only 20 more to convert).

The plan is to build and convert 10 guardians to complete a 20 deamon unit, get 10 further Dark Eldar Kabalite warriors to make the wyches another full 20 deamon strong unit. They are the next on my to do list. The final pieces are 3 Heralds of Nurgle (1 spare in case of the super possession from the warp storm table) and a Great Unclean One converted from a wraith lord.

The final piece to the army will probably be another squad of 10 plagues bearers in case of a 12 on the warp storm table. So in all I need to build or buy another 34 models including spares  or  23 not including spares. My aim for a completed army by November may actually be possible.

A nurgle Knight is born!

So after a weekend of finishing off my Knight of Nurgle is complete. I need to get some better pictures together but I have actually made a short video to try and show it off. I'm not sure how well it works but I'll link to it anyway.



Generally I am not sure how well the Deamon army I am building is actually going to do in games. Its slow nature and low ranged damage potential means it just gets hammered before it can get over the board. The Soul grinder is the number one priority for all anti tank weapons. Zero anti air cover outside of the soul grinder means that's once its gone I am very exposed.

For all the chat deamon psychics breaking the game in 7th edition, I have not fund this. Even with 3 of them in my army I can very rarely get more than 2 or 3 powers off a turn, and I have periled so many times in the few games I have played.

Over time I will improve my ability with the army but I think mono builds are unworkable and should be only attempted if you don't mind having very hard fought battles that you are likely to loose. It should be noted I have only played Eternal War scenarios so far. I may try Maelstrom of War at some point but I have heard bad things about it so I shall wait and see.

The rest of the week will consist of working on my Beasts of Nurgle. I hope to have the conversion work done on these by the next time I post here. I should also have a few pictures of the Nurgle Knight. Oh and if you have name suggestions for the the knight let me know. Currently refering to him as 'Knight of Nurgle' is a bit long winded.

Time to revive the blog

It looks like I have been a little slack in posting here in the last couple of years, but its time to revive the blog. Maybe even attract some readers.

So a lot has happened since I last said anything on here. My ork army was completed and has competed in a couple of Throne of Skulls tournaments. I have got 'Prophet of the Waaagh' in 2 of these (best ork player for those who don't know). I also won Best Army at one of these. This is possible my greatest moment gaming wise and something I probably won't be able to surpass. I know I am not a Golden Deamon standard painter so winning this for my Mexian Waaagh Nids is something I am very proud of.

I have also moved jobs. I now have an hour or so commute each way every day. This gives me loads of time to ponder about stuff and I have a load to say about the hobby and modeling in general. But I will come to this in future blogs.

For now I have moved on from my very successful orks to a very tricky to use Deamon of Nurgle army. They are slow and cumbersome to use. I am enjoying playing them, but I think victories will be few and far between.

There is something else about this army that I should mention. I will be using Eldar models. They will be converted to be corrupted and I have already made a good start on this work. As normal for me, my favorite model is also turning out to be the worst on the table top. The soul grinder is a brilliant thing on paper. But as it is my only vehicle, it attracts so much fire power I have not seen it last past turn 3 in all but 1 game. But its looking pretty good from a converted model point of view. I have based it on the beautiful GW Eldar Wraith Knight that has been infected my nurglings. It is now decidedly less good looking. This is the work at a previous stage (I will take more once it is completed in the next week).

I'll post some updates a lot sooner I hope, and may even keep this up for more than a couple of weeks.

A bit of a hectic 2 weeks for me, hence my absents from making any sort of blog entry.

However I have still managed to get a lot of painting done, and the first week of the month saw me make this little  objective marker. Its got to be my favorite ones so far and I am looking forward to painting him up.

I have almost completed all my boyz, with the final 9 on the painting table. Then its onto the 14 tank bustas, 3 squig bombs, 5 megna nobs, the truckofex, 3 objective markers and the mad doc. I think 3 months is just about enough time to get this all done.

Mega looking orks!

A little bit of a delay since my last blog entry, mainly due to me being busy with other stuff. But I have made some good progress on the Orks, so a post is overdue.

Before I post about my Orks, I want to mention the new Warhammer 40K boxed set. After some negotiations with my better half, Oliver and I have purchased the boxed set from Triple Helix Games, for a mere £52 (that’s 20% off). Oliver is not sure what models he actually wants yet, although I get the Chaos Marines and the Hell Brute. It looks like a really good set and I cant wait for it to arrive.

Now back to the Orks. I think I have spent the last few weeks creating my Cyber Mega Nobs. I wanted all 5 to be done by the end of August for the Heresy Online Conversion Challenge. I managed it with a couple of days to spare. Actually I didn't because I wanted 5 models, and I didn’t have enough parts so had to settle for 4 completed models. I need to get a few more nid parts and a power claw to complete the 5th figure. But I entered the 4 completed models anyway.

As you can see my picture taking has improved. A different lighting set allows me to get some great detail, although I have found that the light is slightly too bright. My mate Rash has directed me to a sort of lamp diffuser for less than a pound on ebay which I will pickup. Then my pictures should be much better.

Painting wise I am maybe 2 days behind my schedule as I was distracted by another conversion project, but more on that in the next entry. I hope to finish of the orks in the next day so I can use them on Tuesday night. I also need to get busy and make the spare 10 ork heads to replace my Mexican heads from puppet wars. I'm still confident I can get this army completed before the end of the year.

Megaorks strike again!

Painting of my boyz is progressing at a reasonable pace. I have managed to get all the skin done and will move on to the clothing tonight. I have also made some great progress on the meganobz. I need to complete some 'wiring' on each model but this should not take too long. The biggest issue is making a combi scortcha. I have found several old style flamers that I think are from a chaos vehicle of some sort. These have been cut down and placed on standard shootas. To get the positioning correct I used took the shootas off the standard arm and placed on slugga arms.

These now look rather good and have overcome what was going to be the most difficult part of the model. My test model now has some back plating. I have had to cut down several nid plates to get this to work, and there needs to be some green stuff added to get the right effect, but overall the models are almost complete. Just need to maybe add a sombrero or 2 to the squad to tie in the look with the other units in the army.

Speaking of Meganobz, I had another game of 40k last night at the Sad muppet society. This was part of their ongoing 40k campaign which will be running till the end of the year. The game was a 750 point game with pre selected scenario of Purge the Alien. For those who don't know this is a victory point game so killing enemy units is the name of the game.

I took my standard Big Mek with Shockk attack gun, a squad of gretchin, 2 squads of 25 boys with a power clawed bob. My final unit was 5 megaorks. The few games I have used these in had confirmed my belief that these are the single most destructive hand to hand unit in the ork army. I armed this unit with combi rockit launchers as I had very little anti tank/flyer weapons so needed something to boost my chance of taking anything like this down.

Opponents were selected randomly and I got to play against Gavin, who I played 2 weeks ago. He had a space marine force (Crimson Fists). He force was a scout squad with a heavy bolter and bolters, tactical squad in a rhino with missile launcher and melta, librarian in terminator armour and force staff, 5 terminators with a power sword wielding sergeant and an assault cannon backed up by 3 scout bikers with 2 grenade launchers.

The game was pretty quick, taking around an hour and 15 minutes. A hugh fortress of redemption took up the centre of the board. A couple of quick kills against my gretchin was all could manage initially, whilst I wiped out the scouts. With the bikes and terminators in the lead, the rest of his force tried to sweep round the outside of the fortress. I sent in my meganobz backed up by what was left of a slightly shot up choppa boy unit.

I must still admit to being surprised at how good megnobz actually are. They easily wiped out the bikes on the charge. The return fire from the tactical squad, terminators and rhino killed one nobz and injured another. This was even after the librarian had cast the ability that reduces their toughness and strength by 1 (the name of it escapes me at the moment).

The terminators then charged. The librarian and sergeant with the power sword failed to kill any orks. The power claws (now strength 6) and power fists smashed each unit to pieces. I lost all my nobz, but reduced the librarian to a single wound and left only the assault cannon marine alive.

This single combat won me the game.  I had lost only a single victory point but I had already gained 3 by getting first blood and wiping out 2 complete units. My choppa boyz charged the remaining terminator and librarian. Losing a couple of orks to the librarian, the rest of the boyz finished off both models without the need for the nob to use his power claw.

The game was over at this point. I was 6 points up with Gavin having to wipe out my entire army to equal my point count. This was not going to be possible with just 2 turns to go and 3 of my units being behind the fortress of redemption. The final score was 6 points to me and 2 to Gavin. It was a fun game although it is the second game in a row against Gavin that my Megaorks have decimated his terminators.

I really need to get these models finished and painted. Such an awesome squad needs to been seen in all its glory!

Moderated collision!

I have been meaning to meet up with some of my fellow moderators at Heresy Online for some time. After a little bit of arranging I managed to persuade 'Dave T Hobbit' and 'Tim/Steve' or Dave and Tim to meet me at Triple Helix. It was the most central point and has great rates for hiring a table (£2 for 4 hours).

So on Saturday 11th, and had a 2 vs 1 game of 40k. It was a 1500 point game with my Orks and Dave’s Thousand Sons playing Tim's Imperial Guard. It was a great game, and more details can be found with the excellent battle report written up by Tim that can be found here.

Other than the battle it was good to put names to faces and I suggested we should have another meet at some point with more of the UK moderators, maybe at Warhammer World.

On the figure front I have been helping to strip down so old marines for Oliver. He has a new colour scheme and a complete removal of the old layers of paint will give him a good base to start from. I on the other hand have been very slow with my painting and really need to knuckle down and get some boyz painted up. So I will be putting the PS3 controller to one side and seeing if I can get to he next 10 shootas done by the end of August. The 9 remaining choppas will need to be done by mid September if I plan to get everything done by the end of the year.

But still there is nothing like a tight painting schedule to get me going on an army.

Poor picture problems

I have to say no matter how hard I try I cannot seem to take decent pictures of my minatures. They just seem to come out either too dark or too yellow or not quite in focus. I have read numerous guides on miniature photography and it doesn't help. I suspect this is more to do with my lack of equipment than anything else.

My camera is pretty good as a point a click but anything more complicated and it just doesn't work very well. I also have no lighting equipment so I either rely on the flash or direct sunlight, neither of which give satisfying results. I suppose I will have to look into getting a lighting setup as this is going to be cheaper than buying a new camera, which I certainly cannot justify.

Poor pictures lead me onto my next point. I don't have any I am happy to post up of my latest completed miniatures. Both squads of Gretchin are done, but they look very poor once I get them in front of he camera.

Other than my lack picture taking skills I have had a successful few days of painting. I have primed and base painted the Administratum building. I have done about 25% of the detail work, so it will hopefully be done in the next few days. The stormboys are well on their way to being completed with just some tidying up to be done this afternoon. My second objective marker is also completed so I need to get on and build the third one.

Tonight is going to be a first outing for the stormboyz as a completed unit. I have a 1000 point game at Sad Muppets against Gavin. He is also bringing along the Realm of Battle boards for me to buy. So I am hoping for another game tomorrow on these against Oliver.

I am not sure what else to put in my army against Gavin other than the stormboyz and my shootas and choppa boyz.

Finally I’m off too see ‘Dark Knight Rises’ this afternoon with Oliver, so that should be good. All in all a busy day.

Summer Holidays and the painting commences!

After a hectic 2 days at work, I am having a week and a half off. As well as spending some time with the family this is an ideal opportunity to get some painting done. To this end I did some priming last week in the garage and I have some boyz to get painted. This should add another 6 models to my squad of choppa boyz plus another 4 models to complete my shootas boyz. I will still have another 9 boyz to paint for my troop choices but that will be a big step in the right direction.

Incidentally here is my spray and pray area. It doubles as a workshop for DIY as well as a ventilated dry area for any air bursh, priming or varnishing I need to do.

I still have a few things I need to finish off before I start the boyz. So the last few days have been spent completing some bases on both of the Gretchin squads I had already completed painting, plus I have completed the majority of the paint jobs on my last 5 storm boyz. I have a problem with these though. This is due to Games Workshop decision to change their paints. I have been using snakebyte leather and mine ran out. There is no direct replacement so I am now trying to mix a duplicate colour for the wing webbing on the gargoyles. I think I have it figured out but the colour does look a little different to the other 10 models in the squad. Grrrrr!

There is also the fact I want to get as much of the army done before the 11th August as I am due to go to a 3000 point a side game and I want as many models as possible completed from my 1500 point list. I should have some pictures of my completed Stormboyz and Gretchin by next entry, but we will see how it goes.

Not much painting going to be done tomorrow as we are going for a day trip to Bournemouth. It should be good fun at the seaside having some chips and ice cream (not at the same time).

Oh and I cannot wait for the stupid Olympics to end. I am totally fed up with the whole thing.

The last hurrah for 5th edition

I took a weekend away from my busy figure painting schedule to attend a localish gaming tournament. It was run by a chap called Nick Jenkin who's torunaments go by the name of Von War. This particular event was held at Triple Helix Wargames in Westbury and was called 'Attrition'. As it was organised some time ago Nick decided to keep to 5th edition rules and so this was the last time I would likly play this version of the rules. Not such a bad thing as I already prefer the 6th edition rules even after just a few games.

So a joint down the A303 and A36 and I arrived bright and early to get stuck in. The format for Attrition was for 4 custom scenarios with an ever decreasing army list. You started with a 1500 point list, then had to loose 250 points a game, eventually going down to 750 points. You could only deduct from the origional list and could not add or swap wargear or units. I took my standard 1500 Point Vulcan Marine List. It is a reasonable flexible list but can struggle against horde armies.

My first opponent had a good looking Imperial Guard army, with medusa and a couple of cyclops (did I mention Attrition allowed Forge world units). The objvective in the first game was variable value loot counters. It was a blast of a game. My deep stiking Dreadnought and the assault terminators decimated his centre and left flank in a couple of turns. The Vulchure came on in time to decimate a comabt squad and also to reduce one squad to a single lascannon. The best moment of the game was when the last remaining cylops handler (now without a cyclops) shot a laspistol at lasccanon toting marine a killed him. This was after he had survived a round of exterminator fire, a round of vulcher fire and a shot from an off table earthshaker. I won the game convincingly but my opponent did go on to win most sporting opponent and also the wooden spoon.

The second game was against a very small Grey Knight army. The mission was to capture the opponents ambassador. I was up against it in this game due to the Grey Knight army having 2 dread knights which could jump straight to the amabassadors on turn 1. You got a point for each turn you held an ambassdor. I had big problems with this game especiall as Draigo and a squad of Paladins pounced on my own terminators and spent a few turns kicking them to death. Draigo used a force weapon to fell Vulcan and his Storm Raven spent the entire game not dying and destroying units. In fact I got tabled by 9 models without manageing to destroy a single unit. My most majestic failure!

After a lunch break consisting of a bowl of chilli, it was on with game 3. This was a kill point mission, with variable value kill points. I was up aginst Andy Driver from Sad Muppets with his Orky boys. This included Ghazghkull, a mob of 5 Meganorks in a battle wagon protected by a Kustom Force Field Big Mek. To add to my woes it was also night fight at the beginning of the game. Things did not go as badly as expected mainly due to Andy failing to get the charge in with Ghaz and his meganorcs. My charge with my dread, assault terminators and Vulcan wiped them out with whilst only loosing 3 terminators. The battle wagon was shot to bits and the big mek hacked to death by tactical. Another big victory as I won 10 - 0 on victory points.

The final game was also going to be against orks. The idea was to get to the centre of the board and get a point for each unitin the centre at the end of your turn. This was a hard game and my poor saving did not help. I came up against a mob of gretchin tanks which were pretty funny to play against. I was basically whittled down to nothing. A very tough game but fun none the less. EVen being wiped out did not mean a loss according tot eh scenario rules, so I managed to get a draw by the skin of my teeth. It was also a great looking Ork horde I played against.

4 great games, and I finished 10th out of 30 which is a result. My Space Marine force will now be taking a bit of a breather after a couple of years constant use. I will be now using Orks for a while until I have a chance to review my Marine force and swap it all around under the next codex.

In other news I managed to sell an old Imperial Guard army for £137 on ebay yesterday! So I will be picking up a Realm of Battle board from a friend who has a brand new one he no longer wants. Just something else to paint.

More painting than you can shake a squig at.

If you had not guessed from the title, over the next few months I will mostly be painting Orks. I have really put off painting a horde for many years. Even my Imperial Guard armies have been small affairs with no more than around 60 troops per army. But after much persuasion by the missus I decided to create a greenskin army. Now not being one to do anything the easy way I decided to go for a converted army. I spotted an cannifex that had been converted into an ork killer can or some such beast and that was my inspiration.

This is not the exact one that inspired me but its close enough. Now I have been doing this army for around 18 months and it is not as near ready as I would like. I currently have around 20 boys to paint, plus 12 tank bustas, 5 Megaorks to build and paint and a Truckofex to paint (more on that later).

I will post up some images of the work so far as I get them based and each squad is completed. I want them to be completed before January, and at my current rate of building/painting I will be cutting it fine.

There are also some extras I want to do to make the army really stand out at any trounaments I go to so a mini book is being prepared which is just another thing to add to the list of bits I need to complete along with custom objective markers. To add to that I am trying to build up some better terrain so my son and I can have some decent battlefields to play over as we both learn the rather fantastic new 40k 6th edition. Well I best go and pick up my brush. These Orks will not paint themselves.