Dark Angels - Bastions

If there's one undeniable truth I've learned in design, it's that big numbers always look cool. It was always the plan to put some on the Bastion, I just never figured out how I was going to do it as the shape pretty much precluded that possibility. A lot of the time spent on the quad guns was a stalling tactic trying to help resolve how I was going to put the big numbers on. In the end I just measured two panels and then put a number in it with the stencil text leaving a hand join between the two. I then cut them out but given how it was a font that was used in Word it meant I was beholden to the stencil gap - if I'd done this in Illsutrator [which would have taken about 5 minutes] I could ahve then turned it to outlines and then split the two parts and given a better gap to work with. However, the stencil was put in place and a coffee stirrer placed on the insideof the corner to act as a 'paint shield'. This gave me a sharp enough edge and a consistent gutter between the two halves.

Bastions 4 and 9, I then added some paint drips and started to apply weathering similar to the Aquila Lander/Imperial Knight.

The westhering was sponged Rhinox Hide followed by sponged Valejo Heavy Red.

The Quad Gun also progressed and I picked out all those circular doodads as orange for no real reason.

The other side of the bastions. Number 9 had some Gun metal applied, similar to the Lander but immediately I regretted it as weathering of this sort is not exposed metal, it's just dirt and rust. I added some Typhus Corrosion to try and cover it up.

Gilbert approves of this remedial action, it;s still nto right and I'll try some orange rust on it too but it's progressing.

I just have to bring number 4 up to the same point then there are a lot of small details to do, which won't make much progress shots but will take significant effort. Verdigris will be one of those but it may be a little different this time around...

300

Welcome Generalissimo Forde, the 300th follower of the blog. As arbitrary milestones go this one in particular is less than arbitrary it's a true measure of the blog to have 300 followers. I think blogs in general are less popular than they used to be, vlogging seems to be taking over so to continue having people just to sign up to read the blog, well it's an honour. Given you can also follow the blog on Facebook without following on google or just come without subscription the 300 bold hobbyists who are prepared to stand with me in the shadow of the Hot Gates as we face the oncoming horde of hobby apathy and inertia.

For every one who has followed I thank you. For those who followed and then unfollowed thanks too and lastly those that just stop by without pledging their allegiance you're still very much welcome :)

Dark Angels - Bastions and quad gun

With the Imperial Knight complete it's time to move onto the Bastions and Quad Gun. Initially the Bastions did not appeal so I went small - the Heavy Bolter emplaced weaponry needed doing and I was really pleased with the shading I did with just watered black that gave quite a dishevelled finish. Still a little weathering and detail on the servo skulls but a good start.

I then moved onto the Quad Gun, got some green highlights on the base, did the metallics on the banding  and the gun itself.

Reconciling the colours on the top section was challenging, it;s been on my mind for a few weeks now but the solution was simple enough once I did it. I still wanted some green on top, it still had to have that Dark Angel connection as too much brass was going to kill it.

As you can see I'm a few days on from this now - three days doing the Quad Gun and still not complete. I also put in a session on the Bastions - more to come next time.

1500pts battle report - Tyranids v Khorne Daemonkin

PeteB has just finished his own man cave, of which I'm immeasurably jealous of because it's his garage converted so there's tons of space and not only is there room for gaming but also a couch! So with a bit of effort [borrowing back the Land Raider he traded with me] he's managed to cobble together enough Khorne imps to create a 1500pt army suitable for 40k. That was handy as it fit my Caledonian  requirements and given the combination of Eternal War, Maelstrom and all the 'secondaries' it was the perfect opportunity to try out the combined missions and christen the Man Cave. That said the battle report is a little short on pictures and details as I was paranoid about the tournaments strict 3 hour game limit. but I thought I'd still share it.

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant HQ Tervigon CC TR Broodlord Onslaught Dominion Dominion Psychic Scream Psychic Scream The Horror Dominion

The low down:

• Eternal War missions - the one where you have three objectives worth 1, 2 and 3 points and hide the values from your opponent,
• Maelstrom missions - the one where you start with 6 cards and each turn you lose one
• Vanguard Strike
• I think I won deployment but asked Pete to deploy first and failed to seize on a 1!
• Warlord Trait - -1 to opponents reserve roll - handy given all the summoning
• Not sure about night fighting.

Pete only deployed the Juggernauts, his Lord biker and the Land Raider so his turn was over in about five minutes with very little to show for it. In return I swooped my Flyrant forward and advanced the Carnifex with Malanthrope support. It was here I began to question his inclusion. For sure his Synapse is welcome, I was painfully aware how limited I was for Synapse but equally he's my cover bonus which is welcome alongside the Hormagaunts and Carnifex but always the cornerstone of my Skyshield defence. That said if the new FAQs are in place I won't get benefit on the Fortification anyway. But the overall thought was - Synapse was in short supply and two Venomthropes might have been preferable [although I only have 1 so perhaps a second is needed?].

Anyway the Tervigon perilled on Dominion [trying to keep the Rippers in Synapse] losing a wound. The Flyrant targeted the Juggers, but with the biker in front he took the brunt of his shooting...

6s and 2s The Flyrant started off quite well.

Which resulted in the Biker Lord dieing. This secured me quite a few VPs straight off the bat. I had predominantly non-objective Maelstrom missions so killing units and characters gave me a few VPs, plus Slay the Warlord and First Blood. Pete came back next turn but couldn't really do very much his reserve rolls were hampered by my Warlord Trait. I think the Flyrant was forced to Jink though when his Bloodthirster threw some pretty heavy duty shots his way!

Turn two and I picked up some objective cards that meant I was going to have 3 VPs in the bag should I hold what I already had. The Tyrannofex arrived in the Spore Pod, the Juggers may well have been erased this turn thanks to the shooting I had available but I couldn't touch the Land Raider so just had to ignore it.

Petes go, and the Chaos Marines charged the Genestealers. Typically I'd already taken two or three casualties so knew I was unlikely to survive this charge. The Broodlord took on the Sergeant, slaughtered him, which got me a VP but he was chopped up with the rest of the brood. I think there were about 5 left in the squad.

Shooting-wise I was able to put some wounds on the Bloodthirster thanks to the combined Dakkafex and Tyrannocyte he did fall out of the sky at one point [may have been here] but passed his invul save on his final wound. The Bloodletters arrived.

So did the Soul Grinder and some more summoned juggernauts. With the Bloodthirster now on the ground he tag teamed the Soul Grinder and the pincer moved the T-fex killing him with ease. One of the Carnifex had 2 wounds taken off the other was on 1. I debated where to send the Flyrant, in the end he swooped over to the Juggers - Psychic Scream doing the nasty on them and mopped up with Brainleech worms.

The Soul Grinder managed to kill one of the Carnifex. The Termagants were then tied upwith the remaining Space Marines who did a good job of thinning their numbers. I think it took the addition of the Tervigon to break the deadlock, two or three rounds of combat!

The game came to a close about 11:30 can't recall if the Soul Grinder survived but the Land Raider was unscathed.

PeteB had scored 3 Maelstrom points and captured one objective for Eternal War. I forgot to check how much it's value was so just scored them all at 3 VPs each. So he came away with 6. I'd scored 12 Maelstrom points and claimed 3 objectives for 9 Eternal War points. I also got Slay the Warlord, First Blood and Linebreaker for 24 VPs. It was an unfortunate return to 40k for Pete, in fairness though a reserve army hampered by -1 to reserve non optimised was a tough match up. That said the make-weight choice of the Land Raider was pretty much the only thing I couldn't touch and it delivered the Marines where they were extremely effective.

I'm at least confident in the list though, definitely the right decision to drop the third Carnifex for the Tyrannofex. He didn't do much but he was a target and two units are better than one. Overall it was confidence boosting and surprising that even when I got the non-objective Maelstrom cards I could deliver, the smaller tournament deck certainly helped.

Genestealer Cults and what they mean to me.

Given the recent rumours, hype and reveal for the Genestealer Cult you may be forgiven for wondering why I've not been all over it like a rash. I have in fact been avidly following it and the end result looks to currently be best described as a 'triumph' on behalf of GW. All the information seems to point to a fluffy [plays like it sounds] army filled with all sorts of new units and old favourites. Couple that with some great figures but more importantly [and commercially a genius move] have ensured they can align with Imperial Guard. Suddenly GW has a whole new market to sell decade old Leman Russ, Chimeras, Sentinels and Cadian models to! What a way to inject even more return on these products, throw in a cult icon upgrade sprue - it's genius.

But it doesn't end there becuase you don't just have to go with Cadians for your Acolytes [or Neophytes I'm not sure which], you could use Catachans or even Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii! I mean it'll cost you more but your Cult will be blinged up and interesting. If money's an issue then just go with the push fit Dark Vengeance cultists as above, they're dirt cheap all over the interweb. I'm certainly in a position now that makes life a little more difficult regarding how I'll proceed. Never before have I contemplated any Imperial Guard purchases, now I need to see how to fit them in!

Of course I'm lucky in that I have two set of Deathwatch Overkill to bulk out the core of the army but even so it seems like a drop in the ocean. Luckily large broods of Purestrains are available [not just the Princelings] and their rules make them positively viable if not potentially obscene! Thank goodness I did those new stealers, although I think the Space Hulk ones will definitely represent 'Purestrains' the most. I'm definitely looking at what I can add though and ebay is definitely a treasure trove for cheap Sentinels and Leman Russ so it looks to be relatively cheap to add extra units to it.

What I need to do is balance that with future wishlisting for the Dark Angels. There are quite a few things I want to get to make them more viable and interesting to play but the Genestealers really start to spread my funds quite thin and because it appears Sentinels and Leman Russ look so cheap on ebay it makes financial sense to go down that route.

Bottom line I'll be investigating what I can bring with what I already have, how many points of models and what part of Overkill is essential to make some of the formations. I'll continue to focus on the models I have, that already need painting and are on my To Do List, which should keep me busy enough and hopefully lead me away from temptation, or should that be 'ascension'? Other than that, very excited and intrigued just trying to temper my urges :)

Home made light box

One of the things I've been contemplating for a while is improving my TO DONE! pictures. For the most part I've been quite happy with my recent pictures, with the Camera 360 shots adding some effects that have made the pictures my best yet. The main issue revolves around my background picture. The Ferron Proxima backdrop has always been a favourite of mine as it puts the model in context - Red Planet BASE! needs a red planet to make sense, it also really stands out in blog feeds ;) What it doesn't do is help with colour accuracy and it also fails to meet the GW 'suggested criteria' of a plain white background for submitting photographs. For those in the hobby being featured in White Dwarf is a huge achievement and I'd hope to do that eventually, so decided a light box might help that happen. On top of that I'll be less reliant on daylight [again, discouraged by GW] to get my pictures and they'll be more consistent. I'll still throw in the Ferron Proxima background but I'll be doing these as well

These were my first test pictures on my home made light box, I'll go into the full details and show you a picture later but what I wanted was to spend as little money as possible [cos that will help 'sell' your pics to GW] - to prove you don't have to spend over the odds for decent results.

The light box was made from a transparent storage box, it still needs a proper clean [there's a dead spider in one corner] I then bought two of these clip lights. They have them in the UK at Home & Bargain for £1.99 each. They're rated to 60W bulb and I happened to have two knocking around. I am probably going to swap them out for energy saving bulbs though as incandescent bulbs get very hot. That'll be another £3 but other than that I think that's all you need.

Now I positioned the clips on the side of the box with the bulbs running along the outside with the light shining through the transparent box.

As you can see the results are OK, the plain white A3 sheet used as a background is a bit grey so I decided to move the clips.

 Instead of on the outside shining through the plastic I moved the clip lights round to the front of the box, you can see how much difference that made to background. The only problem with this is the lights kind of get in the way and getting quite hot means you have to be careful as you take the pictures, so you don't get scorched on them by accident.

But for a first attempt and for £4 I think that's pretty good. If I can get some higher lumen energy saving bulbs I might even get cleaner shots.

Here I decided to turn off the clip lights and actually it was pretty good without.

One light on the right hand side did this

And then both managed to fill in some of the shadows and the background is almost pure white. I'm really impressed with the results. Just look at the close up on this, the detail is crisp and sharp and makes the colours really rich. I'm not entirely sure if they want a pure white background for cutting out easily but if that's the deal I can do a clipping path anyway in a snap. I'm pretty sure I discovered even .jpegs can retain embedded clipping paths [which I find rather peculiar, but handy].

I need to make a proper white backdrop, get some large white paper, vinyl, or even cloth so it can be draped smoothly. I may consider adding in some more reflective material on the lights but for a five minute 'kitbash' and £4 worth of light fittings what more can you ask for?

Here's a view of the set up when I was taking pics of the Imperial Knight, it struggled to be effective on such a large model, if I'm honest.

This was probably the best picture, which I could probably fudge with a bit of Photoshop to be more colour accurate, maybe even add in that Ion Shield glow.

But I definitely need to work out a better backdrop, even a white pillow case will be better than three A3 sheets of paper! Can't stand those seems and creases, grr!

So there you go, simple and effective, you could obviously download one of those textured backdrops too but obviously I'm getting that effect already with my Ferron Proxima sheet but anyone else - knock yourself out :) Let me know if you have a crack at it.

Imperial Knight - in manufactorum pt 22 - moar shots

Here are the 'cinematic' phone shots, y'know blessed by filters to look them all cool and interesting.

RFemember kids, always take some shots with a bit of 'breathable' space around them, you never know when you are going to want to put something in that space... [I really don't know but it gives me options should I want to].

Face on.

In all his epic majesty.

Moar, moar, moar.

So slight shift in gear as I try out my home-made light box.

Still think there is some colour correction I could do in Photoshop and in all honest my £4 light box is a bit small for such a figure. I have a post coming up that shows the set up and other pics that make it clear it's as good a solution as any bespoke expensive option.

Not sue if these were from my digital camera.

This is clearly Camera 360, throwing in some of it's usual FX.

Lastly some shots with Cozy Magnifier and Microscope which is a bit fiddly but does help capture some really good macro-shots that my other camera apps fail to do.

So there we go, he's complete and ahead of schedule too, by about five days. Which allowed me some nights off actually. I say nights off, I had a game with PeteB and an early night while me youngest was on an Educational trip and the wife was suffering some separation anxiety, so we all watched Bake Off together ;)

Anyway, the Quad Gun and Bastion are next on the painting table. I really need to dig out the Aquila Lander as reference. I managed to storm though that with a bit of concerted effort so I just need to apply the same approach and I should have this done in time for AoP, but what then...?!

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