Russian Tyranid fanatic and fellow 40k addict Erle had a simple and effective tutorial on making your own Mycetic Spore. I've seen a couple of plastic balls covered in Hot Melt Glue but I think this was the first I've seen where gravity was used to make the shell/tendrils droop and then the ball was positioned at an angle, instead of letting the glue just drip down onto the base.
Anyway check out his blog and the tutorial here:
http://hive-fleet-hyenna.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/mycetic-spore.html
Dead easy to do, cheap and effective. You could even go a step further and add Chitinous armoured plates to the front of it so it had something protective to hit with similar to my own spore pod...
Friday 8 March 2013
Monday 4 March 2013
My mate Liam, he of the scratch built Warhound and Warlord fame, and his Chaos Marines
Well you must have been good so as promised here are the pics I took of my mate Liams Chaos Marines, he of the scratch built Warhound and Warlord fame. Firstly his Chaos Lords and Chosen from the Dark Vengeance box. All his bases have broken chaos symbols glowing with ethereal light.
The leader of the Chosen.
His converted Nurgle Chaos lord.
Alongside some of his brtheren.
Yellow glowing plasma guns.
Kharn the Betrayer and his Khorne Marines.
Having based Kharn on the mound of skulls the normal 25mm base wasn't sufficient so it magnetically attaches to a 40mm base so he can be more stable.
The Khorne Marines are awesome, although I'm not 100% convinced with the running pose on the left - there's something comical about it, although I wasn't laughing when these guys tore through my nids so what do I know!
I love the green glowy effect.
Seriously you wouldn't believe the quality of these kit-bashed Defilers. The actual weathering effect is super detailed and apparently the same effect will be matched on the Aegis. The effort put into the weathering achieves an amazing trompe-l'œil effect where there looks to be far more texture in the rust than is actually there. In person it actually looks like Liam used Photoshop to print the red panels and just glued non-metallic metals onto the printed sheets!
The Chaos forces amass.
Here comes the Heldrake and you can see the Chaos star that Liam cast and used broken on the Marine's bases.
Here's a close up of the star.
A couple more shots of the Khorne Marines as I was trying to get the lighting right for the pics.
Hope you like what Liam's don, big him up on the facebook group if you do ;)
Saturday 2 March 2013
28.02.13 "It's just one of those things Son".
Obviously this is a 40k blog but I've covered a wide range of topics that go beyond gaming and the hobby, references to my martial arts past and just general personal chit-chat. You should know this about me by now, but even so if you're not into autobiographical parts of the blog I'd recommend, and understand, should you choose to stop reading this post because it's about as personal and non 40k as you can get.
Long time readers may recall 2 years ago I returned to Cornwall, where I studied at the art college there, to attend the funeral of my Landlord and Godfather to my children. It was a sad but rewarding experience. Since then my birthday has often meant a time of reflection and at 38 now I'm starting the downhill side of life that just seems to get quicker each year. Anyway this year was no different - work and to treat myself to an eye test. The opticians seemed to be surprised by my choice of both working and an eye test but I kept thinking to myself once you've attended a funeral on your birthday nothing much else seems out of place.
Later on in the afternoon I got a call from the wife to see how my day had been, she'd left early for work so it was pretty much the first time we'd spoken. She also asked if I could come home early as my mother had been in touch to ask if my Dad had been round. Last year he was diagnosed with early stages Alzheimer's and finding out he actually left the house at 10:30 for a dentist appointment and had still not returned by 3pm brought concerns this may be the start of him forgetting what he was doing, getting lost etc. Thankfully my boss is extremely understanding and was OK with me leaving.
Unfortunately before I could leave my brother rang me. He'd stopped off in town to try and retrace my Dad's steps around 3:30pm and came across the aftermath of an accident in a local car park. Tragically having left the dentist and heading for the library my Dad had crossed through the car park around 11:30 and someone accidentally reversed into him. Despite efforts to save him he passed away at the scene. My brother was called upon to go and identify him and I was home to see my Mum by 5:30.
My father and I had a good relationship, I don't suppose we ever really fell out. I'm not sure he quite understood me, or perhaps the things I did. He was an engineer fitter by trade so my older brother, whose hobbies ranged from remote control cars to real racing cars were a much easier thing for him to get his head round and support. But it never really bothered me and for the most part our time together was more of the mundane things, just sharing each others company and he would sit patiently and listen as I vented about the latest thing to annoy me.
He was a good, honest man, a Roman Catholic [should that mean anything to anyone] but having married a Methodist he was 'ecumenical' in his belief and had joined the Street Pastors to just try and be there for people when they're a little the worse for wear. Ultimately he was a man with a strong work ethic [unlike me] and a need to feel worthwhile. Following his diagnosis of Alzheimer's he feared he was useless and was terrified of how the disease would progress. The Street Pastor work was the only thing that kept him going during that period as despite a successful test to prove he was capable of driving the DVLA recalled his licence due to a misdiagnosis of an additional sleep disorder. Thankfully he had just got his licence back last week and although he'd said to my brother it didn't matter if he ever drove again, it was the physical proof that he needed to validate he was still useful.
At the moment he left us he was the happiest he could be given the circumstances, his annual check up in December had shown that the Alzheimers had not progressed in the last 12 months and we hoped the medication he had was keeping it at bay. The silver lining is that he never had to suffer the indignities he so feared. I will always wish we could have been closer but I knew he loved me and my family greatly, even if it was a few weeks or even months between seeing each other [despite only living 10 minutes walk away]. I will regret the lost moments but I will also try to learn from them and try to be closer to my own sons.
Anyway the funeral is still to come we're all coping and getting on. My Mum came out and watched the eldest play rugby today, the first time she's been, so despite it all we are keeping each other strong. As my Dad was commonly fond of saying "It's just one of those things Son". Thanks for the indulgence.
Long time readers may recall 2 years ago I returned to Cornwall, where I studied at the art college there, to attend the funeral of my Landlord and Godfather to my children. It was a sad but rewarding experience. Since then my birthday has often meant a time of reflection and at 38 now I'm starting the downhill side of life that just seems to get quicker each year. Anyway this year was no different - work and to treat myself to an eye test. The opticians seemed to be surprised by my choice of both working and an eye test but I kept thinking to myself once you've attended a funeral on your birthday nothing much else seems out of place.
Later on in the afternoon I got a call from the wife to see how my day had been, she'd left early for work so it was pretty much the first time we'd spoken. She also asked if I could come home early as my mother had been in touch to ask if my Dad had been round. Last year he was diagnosed with early stages Alzheimer's and finding out he actually left the house at 10:30 for a dentist appointment and had still not returned by 3pm brought concerns this may be the start of him forgetting what he was doing, getting lost etc. Thankfully my boss is extremely understanding and was OK with me leaving.
Unfortunately before I could leave my brother rang me. He'd stopped off in town to try and retrace my Dad's steps around 3:30pm and came across the aftermath of an accident in a local car park. Tragically having left the dentist and heading for the library my Dad had crossed through the car park around 11:30 and someone accidentally reversed into him. Despite efforts to save him he passed away at the scene. My brother was called upon to go and identify him and I was home to see my Mum by 5:30.
My father and I had a good relationship, I don't suppose we ever really fell out. I'm not sure he quite understood me, or perhaps the things I did. He was an engineer fitter by trade so my older brother, whose hobbies ranged from remote control cars to real racing cars were a much easier thing for him to get his head round and support. But it never really bothered me and for the most part our time together was more of the mundane things, just sharing each others company and he would sit patiently and listen as I vented about the latest thing to annoy me.
He was a good, honest man, a Roman Catholic [should that mean anything to anyone] but having married a Methodist he was 'ecumenical' in his belief and had joined the Street Pastors to just try and be there for people when they're a little the worse for wear. Ultimately he was a man with a strong work ethic [unlike me] and a need to feel worthwhile. Following his diagnosis of Alzheimer's he feared he was useless and was terrified of how the disease would progress. The Street Pastor work was the only thing that kept him going during that period as despite a successful test to prove he was capable of driving the DVLA recalled his licence due to a misdiagnosis of an additional sleep disorder. Thankfully he had just got his licence back last week and although he'd said to my brother it didn't matter if he ever drove again, it was the physical proof that he needed to validate he was still useful.
At the moment he left us he was the happiest he could be given the circumstances, his annual check up in December had shown that the Alzheimers had not progressed in the last 12 months and we hoped the medication he had was keeping it at bay. The silver lining is that he never had to suffer the indignities he so feared. I will always wish we could have been closer but I knew he loved me and my family greatly, even if it was a few weeks or even months between seeing each other [despite only living 10 minutes walk away]. I will regret the lost moments but I will also try to learn from them and try to be closer to my own sons.
Anyway the funeral is still to come we're all coping and getting on. My Mum came out and watched the eldest play rugby today, the first time she's been, so despite it all we are keeping each other strong. As my Dad was commonly fond of saying "It's just one of those things Son". Thanks for the indulgence.
Edward Henry Weston, my Dad. |
1600pt battle report - nids Vs Chaos Space Marines
I got chance to have a game with my mate Liam, he of the scratch built Warhound and Warlord fame. Since last we fought he's been busy as a bee in painting his Chaos Space Marines and they're nearly all done by the looks of it. The only real painting to be done on all the cultists and finishing off his suitably chaotic Aegis Defence Line. If you're all good I'll post some of my character pics of his army later on, the lighting isn't great but they're betetr shots than the in game ones.
Despite my setup to ensure my figures were hidden I forgot that Liam would actually get the opportunity to move his figures in his turn DOH! so he repostitioned his Defilers [Brass Scorpions] and took some shots, along with his Obliterators in the ruin, mainly at the Troop Tervigon.
The blasts managed to put 2 wounds on the Tervigon and kills one Hive Guard and wounds another in the second Brood. It was a bad beginning, but it could have been much worse.
The Adrenal Stealers also arrive and manage to make cover and hope the Doom becomes more of a target allowing them to get into combat next turn. I think the spore Pod took a wound for landing in some debris, obviously!
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Hammer and Anvil with 5 objectives as per the MAWS scenarios. Liam had three and I had two and he placed his in the 'triangle of doom' formation behind his Aegis Defence Line. I tried to position all my troops out of view, with the Hive Guard hiding in the ruins on the left with the Troop Tervigon and the Warriors holding the objective in my back field. Lastly the Devgaunts manned my defence walls.
Despite my setup to ensure my figures were hidden I forgot that Liam would actually get the opportunity to move his figures in his turn DOH! so he repostitioned his Defilers [Brass Scorpions] and took some shots, along with his Obliterators in the ruin, mainly at the Troop Tervigon.
The blasts managed to put 2 wounds on the Tervigon and kills one Hive Guard and wounds another in the second Brood. It was a bad beginning, but it could have been much worse.
The Tervgion becomes Endured and spawns 12 Termagants to secure the objective on the first floor.
Nothing much happens. at least I guess not much happened as I didn't take any pics until my turn two and my outflanking Tervigon come on behind the ruined building along with the Toxin Stealers.
The Trygon Deepstrikes alongside the Defiler and the Spore Pod and Doom deviate 11" backwards but the Doom can still get in range of the Marine Squad holding the objective in the ruins with Kharn.
The Adrenal Stealers also arrive and manage to make cover and hope the Doom becomes more of a target allowing them to get into combat next turn. I think the spore Pod took a wound for landing in some debris, obviously!
Not sure what else was happeing here but you can see I've still got a lot of cultists to get through to get that objective next to the Quad Gun.
The Troop Tervigon is on 3 wounds and spawns out on 10 more gaunts who head for Chaos Deployment Zone. The Devgaunts push forwards too, hoping that ll the back field drama of Spore Pods, Dooms, Stealers and Trygons will allow them the chance to cover the dead ground so they can actually have an impact on the game. Meanwhile the Heldrake make's it's presence felt.
Back in the ruins the Hive guard suffer another wound.
The Doom is on 8 wounds and everything turns to kill him. To a certain extent I didn't judge just how useful he would be in this situation. His 6" leeching power is usually nullified by people moving out of range but if I'm putting him near an objective then that forces people away from it or forces people to risk being killed by staying near it.
Sadly twin linked melta fire from the Obliterators caused 3 wounds and typically 1 failed save insta-killed him regardless of those lovely wounds. So it was disappointing for him to only be in the game for one full turn. If I'd not been so unlucky, though technically those 1 in 3 odds were borne out correctly, he'd have caused no amount of trouble around that objective.
As it was the Tyrgon was attacked by the Defiler, it's tentacle things reducing the Trygon's weapon skill but thanks to double Scything Talons I managed to get three penetrating hits on it.
Unfortunately it gets a 5+ save regardless and Liam rolled Yahtzee, colour me less than impressed at this point, although Liam was very giddy.
The HQ Tervigon spawned and then charged the Defiler, but not before it finished off the Trygon. For some reason I kept the stealers back which was a mistake as even a couple of glancing hits would have helped.
The HQ spawned gaunts head for the cultists by the end of the assault there are but three left and the cultists are down to 7 and their Lord.
The Broodlord takes on Kharn having assaulted through cover he's slaughtered without even getting a chance to fight back.
The HQ Tervigon smashed the Defiler to pieces and in return the Heldrake repositioned and flamed it and the genestealers and leaving the Toxin Broodlord with 2 wounds left.
The HQ Spawned gaunts are killed by the cultists but the Devgaunts make it into assault. I think I tried to get both Tervigons and the other gaunts in as well but only 1 assault succeeded and therefore the Devgaunts were reduced to three also. Meanwhile the HQ Tervigon is on 2 wounds.
Kharn smashes the face of the HQ Tervigon and my only hope at this point is to pull the cultists off the Quad Gun objective or smash them with the Troop Tervigon but yet again he fails to make it.
This was another late night finish and I'm not sure what happened after this, I was tired and stopped taking pics. I appreciate that's a less than satisfactory Battle Report but I'm struggling with these at the moment as they do take a while to write and that immediately reduces my motivation to do them.
Overall this the most fun I've had gaming with Liam, it's only been the third time we've battled since we hooked up again so it's still very much renewing our friendship. The fact I lost again isn't important, but doing so with laughs and painful dice rolls that tip the balance one way or another is.
I have to say though that having the HQ Tervigon outflank was the best thing that could have happened, without it the game would have been considerably less interesting so I will look to using the similar Hive Tyrant ability that you can Outflank a troop.
Thursday 28 February 2013
A freebie - Wound Markers MKII - the square ones
Continuing on with the freebies and as it's my birthday, here's another gift to you all - square wound markers. The more popular 1s and 2s with a sprinkling of 3, 4, 5s for monstrous creatures and the full 1-10 in blue for random nonsense like the Doom of Malan'tai
It'd be really nice to see these in action if anyone uses them, they also make handy hull point indicators too!
Usual step-by-step:
- Print
- Apply double sided tape to back
- Stick to mounting card
- Carefully apply sellotape to top if you want them pseudo-laminated
- Cut out with craft knife/scalpel
- Amaze your friends and enemies with these cards
- Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.
Tuesday 26 February 2013
A freebie - Necron Wound Markers
It's been a while since I did anything for Freebie hunters. This may not be of interest but I was working on some square counters. I noticed that the triangular ones, when cut with scissors, tend to curl at the points. So I figured square ones my bend less when cut. So I made some similar to my normal design but also got the urge to do some Necron themed wound markers. The picture below doesn't quite do them justice.
However, you can see below clearly there's some Necron nodes and circuitry evident on the counters and the numbers glow slightly. Hopefully those who deal with the robotic undead will find a use for them. maybe one day I'll actually see them being used on other blogs or battle reports...
Usual step-by-step:
- Print
- Apply double sided tape to back
- Stick to mounting card
- Carefully apply sellotape to top if you want them pseudo-laminated
- Cut out with craft knife/scalpel
- Amaze your friends and enemies with these cards
- Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.
Enjoy, the normal square ones will be up in a day or two, something to look forward to.
Sunday 24 February 2013
1600pt battle report - nids Vs Orks!
My friendly neighbourhood gaming club has a 40k tournament coming up against three other North West gaming clubs and the great thing is it's free! I've already got permission to go and the Mother-in-law will be looking after the kids so I can go, she's great. My only real concern is it's 1600pts and three games, but each game is only 2 hours long! That's going to be tough and I have to say that kind of speed and pressure on decision making makes me wonder just how other 40k players can play so 'tactically', still here's the game against Tom's Orks.
The low down:
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The low down:
- Purge the Alien.
- Vanguard Strike
- I lost deployment, but eventually stole the initiative
- Starting off I had 12 potential VPs to Tom's 10, so spawning gaunts wasn't going to be an option.
This is after my first turn and moved everyone up. Pretty much my standard list but with four Hive Guard in two broods of two a Biovore [yes really, I don't know why either?] and twin-linked Deathspitters on the Mycetic Spore and the Tyranid Prime has Regeneration [must remember that!]
Having moved everything up the Hive Guard targeted the Trukks with both of them being blown up and each squad of Boyz suffering casualties. A good opening salvo gaining me first blood and blunting that flank attack.
Having +1 Iron Armed the HQ Tervigon Warlord [who'd rolled Immovable Object, which was pointless in this game]. He took 2 wounds from Big Shootaz and bikes considerably less than Tom hoped for I guess.
However, he had much more success whittling down the Devgaunts and all the Toxin Stealers and a wound on the Broodlord.
Turn 2 and the Doom arrives and his spore pod hits on target [again :)]. The Biker squad on the left was Enfeebled and suffered 3 losses by the Doom, taking him to 7 wounds. He fires Cataclysm but somehow only takes down 1 more biker and the Doom recovers the single wound lost in using the power. The Spore Pod is super effective on the enfeebled bikers, the twin linked Deathspitters proving extra handy.
Tom's turn and the Ork Bommer comes on.
By now I'm on 4 victory points to 0 and for some reason my Biovore seems to have upset the Orks so much a Bomb is dropped on it's head. So far it's hardly done anything, hitting but not wounding any Orks. Still the bomb is dropped and it scatters 9" to the right! Orks, gotta love 'em...
The bikers and the Warboss reposition so they don't confer anymore wounds on the Doom.
While the two remaining bikes head for the HQ Tervigon.
Meanwhile the Trygon suffers either 3 or 4 wounds.
The warboss assaults the Mycetic Spore but passes his fear test. The Spore Pod finally gets to assault but even if he hit he didn't wound, one day!
The Warboss smooshes the pod with his Power Klaw and the bikers do the same to the Doom, just one of the wounds proving too much and insta-killing it.
The bike's consolidate their move to the right.
The HQ Tervigon beats down on the two bikers, giving me another kill point and the +1 Iron Armed Troop Tervigon assaults the remaining bikers.
The Bommer does a bit of damage but I'm not sure what at this stage.
The Troop Tervigon gets squashed somehow, probably power klaws.
With revenge in mind the Trygon slams into the bikers and kills 5, leaving 1 biker left who bottles it and is crushed as he tries to flee.
At this stage I probably had the game in the bag. I could have sat back behind my Aegis and let Tom come to me safe in the knowledge I'd already taken about 6VPs to his 1 or 2. If this was the proper tournament I'd probably have done that but given we were having fun I moved stuff forwards...
nd also sent the Trygon deep behind enemy lines who ate the Heavy Shootas and consolidated into the crashed lander wreckage. He'd been on four wounds before the assault and I'm thinking he took a further wound during it because...
I took a picture of this dice roll, which is clearly a Monstrous Creature failed saving throw!
Saying that there's no HQ Tervigon left so it could have been killed. Also there's only one Broodlord left and the Devgaunts look like they're legging it so I think these turns proved costly and the final scoreline, which I forget as I complete this report a couple of weeks since the game was much closer than it had been earlier on.
Ultimately this was won thanks to stealing the Initiative. Killing those two Trukks first turn did a lot of damage to the Orks forward momentum and only the bikers had the pace to recover but were stuck dealing with the Doom and then slammed by the Monstrous Creature support that followed in his wake, he essentially stalled them long enough for the big guys to get stuck in.
I was super confident following this game and actually got a follow up game with my mate Liam and his Chaos the next night, so look forward to that!
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