Terrain is everything - a solution to an age old problem part 2

More work on my man-made hill. The original plan was to make this as simple as possible but you know these things are fluid, always in flux. It's at times like these where new ideas and directions become apparent and so the end result can be dramatically different than the initial concept. So they end up being less simple but more functional in the process. Here's the 'basic' hill.

The downside to this is the STC production. I could deliver about half a dozen new .pdfs of my STCs to 'my followers' and the community as a whole now [if they wanted] but the kinks may not have been worked out and I've not constructed them enough to show step-by-steps or put any instructions on the pages so it's a little clearer what goes where. However I've tried to stay on top of the template with this construction so who knows, this may leap-frog some older STCs and be in your hands before you know it! Here's a Dread for scale.

You can't tell but I messed up on the cutting for the bottom step, it's 5mm longer than the other ones but I kind of like it, the STC will be fixed to accommodate this error and there should be a cool little construction technique where interlocking bits of foam core should make that bottom step reall solid. As this hill will not have a board base it'll need to take the strain at this join. It also needed a bit of extra card under the front step, apparently my vertical measuring was out by about 1.5 mm so your average cereal box is too thin, and mounting card too thick, however the sort of card used to back A4 writing pads was just right!

Next up is mounting card edges on the top of the hill and steps with Granny Grating mesh on the top. That's right I come up with an idea for a simple hill in case you can't get hold of foam and use another material that not everyone can get their hands on! Of course you could do without or just use card squares with a tile pattern... Oh and the hills going modular [in a way]!

My Son's been painting!

You may recall my son's efforts to do some Biel Tan Eldar, a U-turn on his original plan to do them as Iyanden. Unsurprisingly he's U-tuned again, mainly due to his playing Dawn of War repeatedly. Sadly a hard disk failure has removed all his saved games [and mine :( ] but he started painting and he's done it while I'm at work so I've hardly interfered at all. I do get the feeling he's rushing with them, just wanting to get them done so he can buy more figures but am I one to criticize when as a child I could never get any of mine complete?

Of course the wife thinks I'm cringing with disgust at his efforts but really I think he's done grand for nine years old. Certainly for a tabletop level they actually look quite OK, it's only close up where you can see a little more patience and care could make these really good. My only suggestion was to add highlights to his base-coat and shadow wash but he's perfectly happy to treat these as finished so I'll help with the basing and he'll look to some new purchases...

Here's a shot of them on his painting station. As you can see I blu-tacked them to washing conditioner lids. They're an inexhaustible alternative to corks in helping you to paint figures. You may be able to also spot his Biel Tan jet bike and a couple of Guardians that he seems reluctant to repaint as Iyanden, despite my assurance it'll be easy.

Old Skool Marines

I admit you may suspect this is just a 'filler' post and potentially you could be correct but these lead [pb] and plastic old skool Marines have been clogging up my collection for years now and it's another example of the extent of the miniatures I invested in way back when only to never really pursue the painting side of it. At some point I'll be getting to them, which reminds me I really need to list my current projects so we can better understand the mammoth task ahead of me.

Here's a close-up of the standout figures, the original Dark Angels Captain and a number or Marines with Terminator Honours. Not sure how to handle those in the Dark Angels. Shouldn't those marines with Terminator Honours still be in the Deathwing? Not sure what I could use them for but mabe I'll get round to that later as they're way down on the 'to-do list'. One other little note, the Space Marine Captain with the power fist, can you make out the tiny conversion? Yep, that's a las-gun glued to the side as a targetter. I just couldn't let it lie could I? One thing I'm thinking though, he came with a cloaked backback which is nice and all but I do like the silouhette without so I'll probably just source one of my Dark Angel back packs from the Ravenwing upgrade sprue when I get round to painting him.

WFB - Dwarves

Dwarves - gotta love 'em. They were my first love, well there ninjas so they were my second love, OK so I could never knock a Ranger, so third, oh I had a thing for half-orcs... erm OK I really liked dwarves back in the day. I remember one Christmas ticking off all the dwarves I wanted and handing the list to my Great Aunt. She's 91 this weekend and back then she was awesome. She couldn't do enough for me and my brother. Whereas my grandparents, who lived next door to both my aunts could often be the disciplinarians Auntie was cool, even if as a child you couldn't ascribe coolness to someone in their 60's and 70's. Regardless Auntie indulged her nephews in whatever we wanted, for my brother it was RC cars, for me it was GW. And when it came to Christmas we all sat their in her lounge and I opened this little box to  reveal all the little lead [pb] men, my grandparents intrigued up to the point where I excitedly explained what it was for them to immediately lose interest.

Thankfully I still have some of those very first figures in particular below the dwarven knight on the left of the 'chaos' dwarf standard bearer is one of those original figures and one I still love to this day.

Here's the line up of the 10 figures I painted up to be an Allied contingent to my Empire army. The banner came from some Orc figures I got back in the day. There were around 50 orcs, with spears and swords from some independent figure company. The models were really poor but I was after quantity at the time.

First on the left is the plastic dwarf from the Warhammer box. Elves, Dwarves, Skaven, Goblins, Orcs and Dark Elves on a sprue that was in the shape of a Warhammer [clever, see what they did there?]

Not sure where some of these Norse Dwarves came from, I know they weren't in my Christmas box.

However the two on the far right definitely were. Christopher Eccelstone as a dwarf and the crossbow guy [who was my second favorite dwarf] with his nose peaking over the padded leather armour.

These guys didn't get finished, another 'chaos' dwarf pretending to be good, the guy in the middle with a Heroquest Orc's plastic Morningstar, a Dwarven Rat Catcher and another of my X-mas treats with kettle helm, padded leather armour and spear and shield.

Lastly, another five. The chaos dwarf on the left is the same as the standard bearer only he still has his axe at his feet. Another X-mas original next [why the long face?], a very 'Empire' dwarf, he's practically a pirate with his hat and flamboyant dress. Next up a dwarven assassin and this guy has everything, a cool helm, dagger, shield and a mini crossbow on his back. There may even be a coil of rope over his shoulder. As a child I always wanted a a rope and grappling hook, you cannot imagine how cool this figure was in my eyes. Lastly a dwarven berserker, yeah whatever!

Terrain is everything - a solution to an age old problem part1

What do we have here?

I've been cogitating like a Mech-Adept fiend for months about this and finally decided to do something about it. When I started back in 40k I made a list of typical terrain:

• Hills
• Trees
• Walls
• Fences
• Buildings
• Ruins
• Scattered objects
• Rock formations
• Bunkers/defences
• Containers

As you see first on the list was hills, your defacto standard terrain, and I went on to make my modular hill. But what happens if you can't get pink/white/blue/peach [delete as appropriate] insulation foam? Well foam card is a much easier material to source, although maybe a little more expensive in the long term. However, you can get it on ebay, at places like Paperchase and many art supply shops so you can make a hill-like structure that will function in much the same way as a hill. In fact Dawn of War has many such elements of scenery similar to what I propose, although sadly I can't seem to find a reference shot of what I'm on about.

Here's all the individual pieces for my 'simple' hill. Of course, by now you should know it won't be so simple when it's finished.

The concept is partly inspired by my walk to the train station. Below is some shots of a concrete ramp leading up out of Port Street Car Park. This split level 'waste ground' has quite a 40k feel about it and although you don't get quite the 'funneling' effect from these images I've exaggerated in my build because it really is quite a nice effect.

Here's the exact location in google maps [which I love with an unhealthy passion], you can see the ramp just below where it says Port St. Of particualr note is the L shaped building in the bottom right. There's a blue placque on the wall just by the bridge over the canal and it states one of the world's first aircraft builders, A.V. Roe and Company was established at Brownsfield Mill,  by Alliott Verdon Roe and his brother Humphrey Verdon Roe on 1 January 1910. Avro went onto produce the Lancaster and Vulcan bombers and it's a nice little bit of history I get to pass every night.

View Larger Map

Descent of Angels - a review

Some may recall I got Descent of Angels for my birthday and I've recently finished it and moved on to another couple of 40k books.Obviously the Horus Heresy series has sold 'over a million copies' but there seems to be about half a million titles in the series so that's not quite the grand claim it makes out to be. I obviously wanted DoA for the Dark Angel angle. Getting a bit background story on the first legion is nice, particularly when this particular chapter has changed so much over it's history and particularly since I was on hiatus. Apologies in advance for any spoilers but I'll aim not to give too much away.

Reinventing the Dark Angels around a knightly order and not the Native American theme from Deathwing is really interesting and a theme I can really appreciate. The story initially focusses on the idea that the potential knights on their home world of Caliban only prove their worth when confronting the many monstrous beasts stalking the endless forests. Meanhwhile the future Primarch of the Dark Angels Lion El'Jonson has set about to exterminate all the beasts to free Caliban from their predation. It doesn't take you very long to realise th flaw in this set-up. Unless of course you're the main protagonists. What happens when all the beasts are gone? Thankfully you get 'discovered' by the Imperium and you never have to cross that bridge but for those that were concerned about how that future may have turned out they'd be rueing the day they thought to oppose the Lion and his crusade as the whole enterprise ends up irrelevant.

The book follows Zahariel and Nemiel, two Calibanites as they rise up through 'The Order', the largest of the knightly groups on Caliban, in part because of their tradition defying open-door policy on inititiates, not just the posh folk. So it's an interesting way into the world of the Dark Angels because you can identify with these two cousins. However, there seems to be plenty of gaps in description of that era that as a fan you would love to know about. Heresy era weapons and equipment are fascinating in comparison to the current levels but what if they predated that era and had been manufactured before the dark ages? Well you'll just have to imagine as most of the description of these is 'they're not sealed', 'they're not as big as astartes', 'this bit doesn't work' and 'one guy has a vox com-link'.

Don't get me wrong there are some good bits and it has increased my appreciation for the Dark Angels but because the book is split into a number of 'books', each one detailing a different part of  Zahariel and Nemiel's progress, it essentially works like a set of short stories about the same characters and therefore has no real connection with the bigger picture - the Horus Heresy itself. I was certainly left wanting more, sadly because I'm still starved for more background information. Hopefully I'll get that in the next part Fallen Angels.

Epic Adeptus Titanicus part 9. - Odds and sods

Here's some more left over bits from my Epic collection. Bits that never got painted, used, built or are just plain interesting for their novelty value alone. Below you have another 5 Whirlwinds [which make 8 when you add them to this bunch]. Also there are 3 Mk1 Vindicators and a lead [pb] Rhino and his plastic counterpart.

Next up a Barrage missile launcher for one of my Titans, a close-combat wrecking ball and a couple of the banner poles. I really miss the Titan aspect of 40k, maybe I should have tried to play this one day...

A sprue-load of Space Marines and Imperial Guard. At this stage I was painting them on the sprue as it was easiest. According to the rules because Space Marine Scouts weren't true Astartes they suggested IG models were appropriate so I think that's what I was going to do here. And also another 4 Dreadnoughts [to add to my existing squad].

Not sure why I took this shot twice but there might be a reason when you click to zoom in [why doesn't blogger have that function built into the editor?]. Anyway some of the Epic lead [pb] Marines, including a Devastator. That used to be the 'treat' in any Epic blister purchase - the random marine or jetbike that would come with the pack. Takes you back to all those Adeptus Titanicus shots that were only made up of little lead [pb] men

And they also did Eldar in lead [pb]! Here's a las-cannon weapons team. I had another but randomly decided to remove it's circular base. That's a lot of work using only nail clippers! Also three more Titan bases purely for the fact it begs the question 'just how many Titan's did I have?' if there's another 3 empty bases!