Saturday 26 April 2014

...and the post-Thrones malaise hits

I don't know what's happened but my momentum has seriously stalled practically as soon as I wrote my 'what's on my pallette' post. I've tried to do more nids, much to my own disgust, in an attempt to kickstart my motivation. I've done little bits but it's all the metallics on the Dark Angels that I can't bring myself to start, so I went bug. The problems continued as you can see on my Venomthrope - the blue paint just won't stick to the Red Oxide Primer!


So you can see I tried to create some sort of 'key' for it to stick to, using a product I already know adds a fine texture - Seraphim Sepia - hence all the powder smudges where it's gone all chalky. Nothing like being able to guarantee a failure of product and therefore use it to your advantage instead of it ruining your model. I've since added some more blue on top and it's 90% covered now, whether that's to do with the Sepia I don't know but the problems haven't helped me progress.


I also went completely off-piste and started my Carnifex, it's been magnetized but I still need to resolve what to do in his spare limb sockets. I've done the Felshborer Hives as twin linked Devourers and they're polarized so I can use them on the Great Maw too. But when you use them you still have those spare sockets.


I'm doing some Mawloc Claws for feeble combat weapons and may do an alternative of Venom Cannon sacks but need to model the right hand sack as they're all lefties, or 'sinister' as they're officially known in our house!


I also had a game with PeteB and took what I thought was a really 'dirty' list - two Punisher Vengeance Weapon Batteries, Flyrant, 2 Tervigons, 60 Termagants a Mawloc, Hive Guard and Biovore. I even proxied my spare Tyrant as a Dakkafex to see what would happen.


PeteB's Wraithguard/Lord and WraithSeer [Avatar proxy] heavy list seemed like it was outmatched against all my Monstrous Creatures.


I got hammered though, the mawloc mishapped [and died] when it failed to take down even one of his three War Walkers when they outflanked. Much of my dice rolling was appalling, though PeteB was equally stuck with turns of little significance. Ultimately though his force was just more durable with plenty of FnP being passed amongst his Wraithguard. The Dakkafex met an thoroughly ignominious end, charging a Wraithlord and getting killed before it could even try and hit it!


It was a good game but another reminder that the Tyranid Codex is a fickle beast. It can work but even what I would consider a 'dirty' list can roll over and die at a moments notice. PeteB was equally shocked, particularly with 'prowess' of the Dakkafex!

So it was a bit of an anti-climax and its a reminder that despite the effort put into painiting there's no guarantee the figures will perform. Once you add in the very slow progress, the array of hurdles that are obstructing the slow progress it's taken most of my momentum away. The knock on effect is I've not much 'progress' content for the blog and that's making me less inspired to write, which is a shame as I've had a number of new followers join and I really do owe it to you all to keep standards up.

I've actually been thinking about experimenting with Twitter and seeing if I can link the accounts so I can tweet some updates. I've mentioned before I need to learn the skill of 'micro-blogging', long posts are OK, but short and sweet are also useful, I just struggle keeping things brief. Twitter forces you to be brief and social media is something I need to get a firmer grasp of because I've applied fo a temporary promotion in my job which is less design [boo] but more customer engagement [yay]. I think we need to be more customer focused and embrace social media a bit more. The good thing is even with my limited experience I think I'm one of the 'sharper tools in the box' heading into this, but if anyone has experience of using Twitter and integrating it with their blogging,or building I'd be interested in any advice, both for 40kaddict and my wider experience.



4 comments:

  1. Hey Dave,
    Is it just the one red oxide primer giving you trouble? Or is it a particular companies?

    I always liked the way scything talons looked on the carnifexes, if you are looking for something to plop in extra sockets.

    Nid lists are always hit or miss depending on what army you are facing, and what point values. They have some seriously tough units (tyranofexes and exorcrines), but if you roll vs taudar you're going to have a bad time.

    Having just recently started blogging a few months ago, I've found linking your main posts to twitter is a good way to get additional views. However, it might be wise to separate your sites twitter from a personal twitter account. That way you don't end up spamming your friends.

    We setup a site twitter account, which new blog posts send to. Then when we tweet personally, we just add the site twitter name to our tweets, so it gets double exposure.

    I personally try to do one day a week a longer post, and then another day a shorter one. I find the bat reps tend to get the most views, followed by build/painting articles, then stuff like campaigns or misc. Hope that helps!

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    1. I'm using Simoniz, which I think has been fine in the past. However, I've used some more of my Ultramarine blue on my carnifex and that was patchy also. It's running out so maybe it's the dregs of the bottle but it hasn't been patchy on any of my other nids for 3 years, who knows.

      Mawloc Scy Tals are going in as a 'stop-gap'.

      My personal Twitter is non-existent really so it wouldn't bother me to have them one and the same but I will try and follow what you've set up and see if it makes any sense. I didn't get an interview for the promotion anyway so my appetite for understanding it is less now, ha, ha!

      Interesting info on your popular posts. I honestly don't know what works for me, I still get lots of hits from forums where I posted the link for my free buildings but very few actually comment on the forum post. I may take some advice about the length of posts, although I'm not sure having a 'system', despite loving systems, for my blog posts would feel just too restrictive.

      I'm not sure my battle reports actually do very well, most of my popular posts are the outlandish scratchbuilds followed by the free templates, thanks for your input though.

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  2. I used scything talons for the spare sockets on the Carnifex. Although technically you are using all 4 arms for devourers, it doesn't look that great to me and the 'fex wouldn't be able to balance on only 2 legs with all that weight up front. In games I just don't mention that the model is, strictly speaking, illegal and none of my opponents have ever spotted the discrepancy.

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    1. That's why I went for the Mawloc Scy Tals, they're a bit atrophied from lack of use, they fill the socket but seeing as a single set do nothing at least it looks like it can represent the natural attacks of the Fex. I may also put them on the Great Maw if I use Old One Eye, as the Carnifex can borrow the Great Maws Scy Tals and the spare Tervigon Crushing Claws I magnetized so it'll look even more beefy as they're bigger than Fex Crushing Claws so will accurately portray the Uber fex, although I'm missing a healthy left side of a Carnifex head to match up with skull side :(

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