Friday 30 November 2012

A freebie - Eldar Psychic Power and Webbed markers


More freebies, because who doesn't like free stuff? Naturally these are only going to benefit Eldar players though, but they're people too, filthy Xeno scum, but people nontheless ;) So I did these quite a while back and was convinced I'd shared them because I had them in Picasa. Originally it was for the benefit of both my son and PeteB, back when he had Eldar. The five psychic powers were covered, nothing too fancy, no explanations of their effects either.


The reason I believe I didn't share in the end was PeteB asked me to produce a 'Webbed' marker for models that have been hit by a Night Spinner shortly after I made the psychic markers. I did so but never added them to the pic above. Then, when I did come to add it I discovered the actual marker had disappeared from my Illustrator file - probably failed to save or the file was overwritten at some point. Anyway, it didn't take too long to redraw the marker so find it attached.


Usual step-by-step:
  1. Print
  2. Apply double sided tape to back
  3. Stick to mounting card
  4. Carefully apply sellotape to top if you want them pseudo-laminated
  5. Cut out with craft knife/scalpel
  6. Amaze your friends and enemies with these cards
  7. Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.


Wednesday 28 November 2012

Facebook shmacebook


I'm not entirely sure why but I thought I'd create a Facebook group for the blog. Mayhap you log into Facebook more often than come to the site, although I'm trying to make the blog more easy to navigate with the new tabs at the top to find all the relevant hobby stuff. But if you just want to dip in while networking socially then you can nip over to the Book of Face and join my group, here's the link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/144564502354384/

For all I know this may mean a drop in visitors but c'est la vie it's there if you want it and even the few friends who've joined have used it to share their work so it's ideal if you want to share stuff and maybe I'll bring it over to the blog proper?!

Monday 26 November 2012

Terrain is everything - more Eldar terrain


I saw these a while back when I was devouring any other Xenos terrain/fortifications I could get my hands on. Finally got the chance to point out Jack's Painting blog with them in, it won't be new to regular commenter Spyrle ;) but perhaps news to anyone else, check out the old White Dwarf tutorials:


http://jackspainting.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/eldar-fortifications-and-blast-from.html

Saturday 24 November 2012

Battle Report 1500pts - Nids v Orks!

My old gaming buddy Ben had me round for another battle before ToS, this is quite a while back and some of the questions raised have since been answered but please be patient with it, it takes to long to retcon all the historical inaccuracies now. His Necrons have been utterly brutal on me recently so he decided to go easy and use his Orks. 

Now these aren't the Orks he came 6th with in Throne of Skulls last year but there was plenty to scare me as I've never played a full Ork force properly. There were 3 Killa Kans, 3 Trukks and Wartrakk, warbuggy and 3 Deffkoptas. He also had a big 30 man blob with Weirdboy at least one or two units of Nobz and another 10man+ unit so all three Trukks had guys in tow. I'd brought along a force similar to what I want to take to ToS, but with the Hive Tyrant instead of a second Tervigon and it was the first outing for my Defence Line and Quad Gun [obviously this shows how long ago the game was pre-FAQ nerfing!].

The pics are at a distance because the closer I got to the board the more shadow was cast so hopefully there's enough to go with to see the action. I'd had a vision earlier in the day we would be playing the Relic and when I saw the board set up with two of Ben's Stompas as impassable terrain and very little room for my defence line I guessed fate would dictate a hammer and anvil setup and I was correct on both counts. I know fortifications go down before the terrain but we didn't worry too much about that and so I crept the line a little forwards so I could sally forth, steal the relic and then retreat to my cover whilst gunning down everything that got within reach. My Warlord trait was +1" to charge distance and I got quite a decent set of psychic powers to replace the Tyrants, Tervigon and Broodlord.

Ben got first turn, I couldn't steal the initiative. He moved stuff up [obviously] his Killa Kans grotbuster [?] gun taking out at least 3 of my 8 stealers putting them down to my usual starting numbers! He also targeted the quad gun, in a bid to kill it before I even got chance to fire. It took a wound and so too did the Zoanthrope in the mysterious forest but he survived a massive amount of firepower aimed at him in an attempt to gain first blood. He must have made at least nine saving throws!


My turn 1, everything advance [obviously]. For some reason I chose not to use a psychic power on the Hive tyrant, missing out on Iron Arm and Enfeeble. He fired his Venom Cannon at the Grotbuster Killa Kan but his the one next to it just taking a hull point. The Trygon ran over the Aegis. the Hive Guard, hiding behind a ruined giant Deff Dread fired, I think they got a HP on one of the trukks, or penned and got a weapon destroyed - certainly not the successful shooting I was hoping for.


The Warriors stepped over the first Aegis to allow room for the Tervigon to spawn Termagants next to the quad gun. I was hoping to keep the numbers down so it wasn't too cramped, but I got 14! but no doubles at least. He cast Warp Speed on himself [for no reason] and got +2 I and A. The Warriors and quad gun targeted the Deffkoptas - killing one and wounding another - they failed morale and puttered off back the way they came. The Tervigon let rip with it's Stinger Salvo, taking a HP off the War Trakk.


The Broodlord cast Endurance on the Stealers as they headed towards the Wartrakk bearing down on the relic. He mullered it to pieces gaining me First Blood. The Hormagaunts followed closely in support and to try and capture the relic but were too short. Although the Deffkoptas were fleeing, first blood and the od HP my overall view of the turn was not good and a lot of my dice rolls had been below average.


However, Ben was feeling a little under pressure with few options to take out my monstours creatures he burned his Trukks forward, jumped the boyz out to take on the Tyrant and sent his Warboss at the Tervigon who picked a wound off him through overwatch. I'm not sure how successful these assaults were. I think we ended up locked in combat for that turn, the Warboss did more damage than you would expect and the Trygon held in there, the fololowing turn the Monstrous creatures won out, killing the boss and enough orks for them to be swept away after failing their morale. But my turn of assault before this was particularly poor.


The other Trukk disgorged a mob into the Warriors who managed to kill an Ork through overwatch. The Orks then managed to do serious damage to the warriors thanks to power klaws and through weight of numbers over both my turn and Ben's butchered the Warriors and headed for the Termagants manning the Quad gun


Meanwhile only the Broodlord remained he 'died' at one point wa sremoved from the board, orks consolidated and everything but then we remembered he still gets his Feel No Pain roll, and managed to save enough to retain one wound left. The termagant spawned another 10 gants who bundled the Ork mob with the Devgaunts who had previously glanced the back of the Trukk to death. the Tervigon wound up his Warp Speed for another +3 I and A so on the charger he would be 4 attacks +3 [D3 rolled] crushing claws and +3 Warp Speed. Really need to understand what happens to Smash in this situation as most rules I've read state the Crushing Claws are added after the Smash halves the A characteristic, but what happen to Warp Speed?


The last mob of boyz came out, on this side they threw everything at the Zoanthrope, Tyrant and Trygon. The Zoiehung in there and I think he'd managed at least one mech kill I think.


The orks moved for a better position and the Deffkoptas rallied at the last minute to return to the battle, just too late.


The Orks continued to kill the Termagants on the Aegis.


Everything piled on the poor Orks in the middle surrounding the Relic, you remember the Relic the thing we're supposed ot be fighting over but no one has actually picked up yet. By this stage Ben had started to get some seriously bad dice rolls. A lot of St 10 weaponry ending up with 1s and despite a change in fortune, once again coincidentally at the moment his wife came home from work that good fortune evaporated as my Psychic Powers began to tip the balance.


The Hive Tyrant had been on +3 St and T for two turns with Iron Arm so by this stage he was nigh indestructable, regardles of how many wounds he'd already received.


Meanwhile the Trygon killed the last of the Killa Kans but was short of his deployment zone but it was getting on after midnight and with the blob of Orks gone in the middle and both first blood and Slay the Warlord under my belt he wasn't going to recover so he called it and I finally broke my duck.


Another really close and enjoyable game. Compared to his Necrons it's amazing to be facing mech that I can kill but to be honest early on I should have been doing some significant damage but it just didn't happen. The surprise for me was his assaults, they were brutal, 20, 30, 40 attacks sometime. The Warriors paid that price. I feel a lot more comfortable with how I played, I hope I'd have won through if it had have been Necrons but there are far more cards up their sleeves than lowly Orks I believe...


Thursday 22 November 2012

Misdirection


15 Termagants to paint and I've done them in 10s before so initially the concept is not putting me off doing this. In reality I delayed over a few nights and then when I actually started doing the Chitin plates I managed two complete sets of Chitin before I was bored rigid and just wanted to stop. Now I may not need these extra 15 but with Throne of Skulls on the way, however unlikely that I'll need the extra bodies - dice rolling simulations with double Tervigons rarely spawns more than 30-40 extra 'gants, I thought I'd use the deadline to get 'em done.

But if I'm going to stall at two I'm in deep doodoo. From experience I know that forging on ahead regardless can be detrimental. This isn't primarily a physical stumbling block it's mental and with that creativity stumbles also. So trying to continue to feather these babies would have resulted in a shoddy finish. What I have learned to do though is to redirect what energies I have, because I am compelled to finish them and in so doing misdirect the negative energy.

So what I end up doing is little bits, as pictured above. The central spines, I can't go wrong with that. The first collar plate, the plates on the gun, perhaps outline the leg and back plates. Anything, simple and quick that when I return to the model with a bit more willpower and motivation I'll have shaved a minute or two off. Take a task and split it further and further into smaller chunks so that it can be achieved in a quicker time.



I took my time got myself degraded.
I close my eyes see you suffocating.
We took our chances well it's always a start.
Look at our faces tell me

We're not sleeping, not sedation.
Misdirection, overrated.

I set the fire while you demonstrated
I close my eyes ‘cause it's so frustrating
I wanna touch it but it's always the same

We're not sleeping, not sedation.
Misdirection, overrated.

I took my time. I closed my eyes.
We took our chances. Look at our faces tell me

We're not sleeping, not sedation.
Misdirection, overrated.


Tuesday 20 November 2012

'nids part 64 - Nu Tervigon updates

A quick apology if these pictures look a little 'rustic' thanks to the random background. Having reached a point where I was happy to consider the Tervigon complete I wanted to capture it before I applied any varnish. Considering my last experience with Purity Seal you may be forgiven for thinking me daft to even consider trying this again. However, with a bottle of olive oil to hand I was safe in the knowledge whatever crazy imperfections that could happen could be fixed. I was also going to prepare a little better.


The spray can was dipped in warm water and shaken vigorously beforehand and sprayed at a distance ultimately with perfect results.


As to the model there is perhaps more that I would have liked to achieve with the birthing sac. More colours would have been nice and I eventually want to try some Tamiya Clear Red blood effect splatter on the birth canal but for the time being it's complete and I can move onto other things.


I keep feeling tense that the model is only attached in the four places but then I realise my original Tervigon kitbash has even less connection with the base thanks to smaller hooves.


Now it's sprayed I may have one final update with it's glossy claws but maybe that'll be when I do the blood effect too...



Sunday 18 November 2012

'nids part 63 - Nu Tervigon updates

So lets just rewind time a bit to prior to Throne of Skulls and here's where my Tervigon was at, before it got finished [obviously]... please dismiss any past tense mistakes

Progress, I've added the green toxicy bits, they may be too bright at this point, but there's still some highlights to add to the birthing sac which may equalize the tonal ranges being used, still lots more to do, obviously.


Chitinous highlights mostly in place. This is just endless to do hence why I switched to that pre-mix of my highlight. The results are a bit neater than the head but it's still dodgy in places, isn't it always? Once all the highlights are done I'll be doing a small amount of secondary highlights on the most important bits. Spines are also done in a golden flesh, this will have some striations added with Bonewhite and white.


All the separate limbs, highlights done, Bonewhite highlights to do next and all the highlights for the black. I'm also going to add the Adrenal glands to the legs, another separate thing to paint. Part of me wants to magnetize the front arms. It'd be cool and a new thing to get my head round but I don't know if I've already gone too far painting it to potentially muck it up trying to hold it down while I drill out places to add the magnets.


Close up of the claws and stuff, I hope you can make out the very faint set of highlights on the claws, talons and hooves.


More to come but currently I'm super excited about my Tyranid Aegis defence line and quad gun. So I may be committing a lot of work to something only to have it be wasted, but it's the thing exciting me at the moment and it's better to ride that wave than force something else.

Friday 16 November 2012

What GW should do - Merchandising

In case you didn't know I've bought Citadel Miniatures and GW products since the late 80's. I also have a blog, it's quite cool you can view it here. Those two facts alone qualify me to make 'suggestions' to Games Workshop and their subsidiaries in how they can grow their company/improve their products. So, free of charge I will be sharing some of my sage business advice to them and just you wait as 'we're bound to see them take forward my ideas with gusto.

If you didn't know GW released a new version of 40k earlier this year [hooray for delaying these posts ;) ], I may have mentioned it but if not what the flip have you been reading on this blog? Anyway they decided to celebrate that release with a number of items to help promote the new edition. Now I think this is a good idea and something I've thought for a while they should be doing permanently, not just on special occasions. First up we have their Beanie Hat. I was definitely up for one of these, despite the rather small embroidered badge on it. I said to myself if it was less than a fiver [but predicted it would be £6] I'd get one. I'm partial to a hat being follicly challenged and was amazed at the £4 price tag. I was even more amazed when I got home and saw they were going for £16 on ebay! By that stage I'd already discovered it was too small for me and I'm pretty sure my head isn't particularly large, small-medium in fact. I'd gifted it to my son and then immediately regretted it once I saw the resale value, ha, ha!


Next up a rather cheap looking belt, I wasn't interested but to each his own.


And here's the doozy - Lanyards. Now I'd been suggesting these for months to our local GW manager. I saw his official GW lanyard and when the 40k 25th anniversary pin badges came out I recalled some of our holidays at Haven Holiday Parks. They sell lanyards and have dozens of pin badges for a couple of quid each. they encourage the kids to buy and swap the pin badges with their friends and to bring them each time they come on holiday to add to. The kids go mad for them and being only 'pocket money' priced they'll buy a couple. I suggested it to the manager but he didn't think they'd go for it, but lo and behold they'd already got it in the pipeline. GW still need to step up the pin badges to stick on it. A range of half a dozen should do because what else, aside from a pot of paint, can you get in store for about £2?


There's more though - t-shirts. When was the last time GW did T-shirts? Certainly not in the two years I've been back gaming. It's not like you can't make a big return on a T-shirt anyway. I can't imagine anything less than £10 for a T-shirt and more like £15 and most t-shirts I've looked to get printed you can get them for about £5 for 50 printed. Given the economies of scale GW could get printed they're bound to be cheaper increasing their margins. More importantly though, like any good sports manufacturer will tell you, slapping your logo on an item of clothing and getting your customer to pay you to then advertise for free as a walking billboard then that's just win-win!

Of course there are plenty of items at Warhammer World but I think there's still room in your average store for merch. So some of my ideas they've somehow stolen from my mind, lets see if they start expanding their merch range?


Wednesday 14 November 2012

A freebie - Objective markers



Just before Throne of Skulls [G.O.D. you must be sick of me banging on about that weekend, tough!] I decided that I needed some objective markers. Personally I'm happy with the Tyranid models I've got but given the new Mysterious Objective rules and mixed value objectives of 'the Scouring' Eternal War scenario I knew I was going to have to make some of my own.


So below was the first version, however


I also decided to revisit these in yellow and black as the magenta in the orange is making my printouts a bit 'muddy' and also the 'sabotaged' marker doesn't mention the blast template. Once again just print, stick to mounting card, cover in sellotape for instant lamination [though try not to get creases in them like I did :( ] and then cut out.


And I think they probably look a whole lot better in yellow, but you choose, although don't forget you'll need more mysterious objective markers than VP markers [as they're only needed in the Scouring].


 

Of course I then add my Tyranid objectives next to them so they look cooler, large Synapse Node for the 4VP, 3 Node for 3VP, twin node for 2VP and Spore Mines for single VPs.


Meanwhile I shared my wound markers on the dakkadakka forum and actually got this request:

Not bad, but they would be better in black and white.

White backgrounds black numbers. Simple is better.

Now I could have been mightily offended that my not inconsiderable time and, all modesty aside, talents had been summarily dismissed in favour of something anyone could do in Microsoft Word but I was prepared to listen to the critique of one of my 'customers'. So I cranked up the old Illustrator and in 5 minutes I gave my punter exactly what they wanted:


To which I got:

Now that rocks!

So clearly there's a market for simple stripped down markers so I thought I should share them with you also, if that's your bag. @ 100% each square should be 9mm Anyway, I can't say I understand the preference but I'm all about giving the hobby what it wants so if there's anything you think I can do to help out with I'll certainly look to try and do it. Just drop a note in the comments here, or the Freebies page and I'll promise to get around to it [eventually].

Usual step-by-step:
  1. Print
  2. Apply double sided tape to back
  3. Stick to mounting card
  4. Carefully apply sellotape to top if you want them pseudo-laminated
  5. Cut out with craft knife/scalpel
  6. Amaze your friends and enemies with these cards
  7. Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.

Monday 12 November 2012

To done! And now limbo...


Now that the dust settles on Throne of Skulls despite being hyped on gaming adrenaline and desparate to paint more figures I find myself in a bit of a limbo. With a new Dark Angels Codex due now or whenever I don't want to paint any more Dark Angels until I know what the new rules will bring and how I can load them out so they're on hiatus, which includes the Dark Vengeance figures too.

It does make me look at my To Do List 2012/13 and I realised I can cross the first 3 off my list [to done!]. So I may just focus on five and six for the time being. Get the BloodBowl teams complete and then see where we go from there...



Saturday 10 November 2012

Terrain is everything - Hail the Omnissiah a new STC is found!

Techno-archaeologist Avro Vulcan continues his research in the Ferron Proxima badlands. It has been months since he revealed a newly discovered Standard Template Construct (STC) to Tech Adepts at the Adeptus Mechnicus Oversight Cohort on Ferron Proxima. This does not mean he has been unsuccessful in his discoveries, in fact the opposite is true, his very success has been his undoing by malicious data attacks by the group known only as the Free Radical Collective!

The Free Radical Collective have been targetting Avro Vulcan's data banks and releasing his discoveries prior to aproval by AdMech Overseers. Th people of Ferron Proxima have seen benefits from this, technologically speaking but wanton disregard for testing procedures and the free distribution of advanced technology has caused the Adeptus Mechanicus to bring in a specialised unit of Tech Inquisitors to discover the true identities of the FRC.
Meanwhile Avro Vulcan brings us another innocuous, but perhaps revolutionary STC, the Standard Manifold Coupling, aka the Modular Plug Socket. The details of this coupling has been kept secret by Vulcan due to the interest from data-hackers who have sort to gain control of this valuable information to share outside Adeptus Mechanicus control. Once private enterprise can access this information they will utilise it to gain control of all Mercury Plateaus suitable for Plasma Generators, thus reducing their need to pay tithes to the Ad-Mech administration. The Modular Plug Socket is more than just a connector for Plasma Generators, it also functions as an underground storage portal, watch tower base, heavy weapons turret mount and lift shaft. In time these STCs will also be shared with the world.


To access the full STC please point your Cogitators here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B97Rk-BalgZbUm1VQ3hKNF8xNDQ/view?resourcekey=0-ZT2qov4nLJ-2ojJ3gGkybw

This STC will be uploaded to the full Ferron Proxima STC library shortly. You can access the database here:

http://40kaddict.blogspot.com/2011/02/terrain-is-everything-standard-template.html



Thursday 8 November 2012

Throne of Skulls Oct '12 - Winners

So that was pretty much everything that was 'time sensitive from Throne of Skulls. All the other pics can be lotted in amongst any other content I'm doing to go back to my every other day selctions of tutorials, freebies, fluff and commentary. The last bit that needds to be done before everyone forgest is just a gallery of winners, just in case one of them ever stumbles on the blog. You'll notice that every Codex had a winner as well as the overall winner and plenty of other prizes were up for grabs which was cool because at least there's a slim chance you could go home with something.

Otty collecting his prize.


I'm the one in the centre looking like a Chav in red jumper and baseball cap.


I was a bit giddy and excited when they asked us to strike a pose, hence why I now have my arm obscuring the nominee next to me [knowing my luck that'll be Eddie Eccles, who was also nominated]


they asked me to leave ;)


but not before they gave me this!


And all the rest of the awards...