'nids part 29 - More Rippers [WHY?!].

I honestly I don't know, we just have the figures for two more bases and with many of the battles I'm doing now being points intensive I've got to spend them somewhere if I'm going to fill out a large battle force. I've even got so far as to make them sky-slashers and add spinefists! Anyway, I've been painting up this base and my son has been doing the other four Rippers for the 5th base. Just before the turquoise goes on...

When I originally looked at Rippers I couldn't see the point and I'm not entirely sure if that opinion has changed. I've played them as sky-slashers and the increase in speed is useful but they didn't do anything first time and second time with Spinefists they deep struck, fired off 16 shots and did nothing. I think their only contribution was that amount of fire power makes people notice them and so they got assaulted which meant they tar-pit a unit for two or three turns thanks to their wealth of wounds. 

So I'm thinking they make a decent delaying unit. Just put them somewhere to distract the opponent to a slightly more immediate force. Perhaps they'd do better against Eldar or Guard? One other option is using the Parasite of Mortrex, although I think he's exorbitantly expensive but who's going to shell out for all those ripper bases it spawns? WELL, if you look at what's just been released by GW

Ripper Swarm Brood 1 Mini £8.50 Finecast

REALLY? We've waited for years for a Tervigon and Tyrannofex but we never realised we were desperate for Finecast Rippers in the Old Style and all for a measily £8.50! There's only one base by the way, you'll need 3 for a Brood...

So they must be good right! Right?

For that price you may as well get the Forgeworld models, if you absolutely must have Rippers, they're much cooler looking even if the rules are rubbish

Gaming Night -Zombies!!!

This week at my local friendly neighbourhood gaming club was it's busiest ever. Only one table was playing 40k with the majority Warmachine, a Warhammer Fantasy Battle and one of Malifaux. I hoped the 40k battle was going to end quickly as it was only 1000pts but it was an introductory match to someone who hadn't played in 10 years. It was really interesting to watch though as the experienced guy really helped him through the rules and it seemed one of the most comprehensive explanations of the rules I've come across. 

In the end time was ticking on and I didn't really fancy a game once it turned 21:00. Good old PeteB finished his Malfaux nonsense [only because it made no sense to me whatsoever and at one point I was going to shout "numberwang" it was so convoluted] and suggested a game of Zombies!!! [please note three exclamation marks, you never need more than three dammit!!!].

I'd never played but my neighbour and car sharing buddy Mark was convinced it might take a while but joined in with Nathan, PeteB's Malifaux opponent. It's a simple game, you have a stack of 3x3 grid town tiles, some have numbers of Zombies!!! lives and bullets on. You start the game in the town square with 3 lives and 3 bullets. You draw a tile and place it next to another tile and populate it with Zombies!!! etc. Roll D6 and move, if you enter a square with a Zombie!!! roll D6, 4+ kills it. If you get a 3 or a 2 you can spend 1 or 2 bullets to take it out or lose a life and get a re-roll. The winner is either the person who kills 25 Zombies!!! or gets to the helipad.

Throughout the game you also have cards that you can use. They're either situational - making Molotov Cocktails in the Gas Station or can be played any time - you get to move another player their D6 spaces. Of course this opened up wonderful opportunites to force Nathan, because lets face it he was the one on the receiving end of our naughtines ;) to plough through piles of Zombies!!! with only a couple of lives and bullets to save him. In the event of your death you go back to the town square, give up half your Zombies!!! but get your 3 lives+bullets back.

This was such a laugh, unfortunately the above picture misses off the helipad just to the right, with 9 Zombies!!! in residence after those 8 lining the road in front of it. We had so much fun and the banter was hilarious, even my carefully honed Zombie!!! impressions went down well and much amusement was had by my constant movement rolls of less than 3 spaces. I think my little yellow guy was actually pretending to be a Zombie!!! like in Shaun of the Dead to save his a$$!

A good laugh and a nice way to get more than two people round a table, I look forward to another game - "BRAINS!"

'nids part 28 - Ymgarls and a FREEBIE [free STUFF!]

With my local friendly neighborhood gaming clubs tournament I needed to maximise the figures I've got to make the 2,000 pts I was going to fight with, so out come the Ymgarl stealers to bulk out my force. Having that assault from 'dormancy' is really useful and their turn-by-turn mutation makes up for lack of adrenals or toxin sacs, not to mention everyone seems to think their SO much better than their standard bretheren.

But what to do to remind you which mutation they're experiencing this turn? How's about some handy Ymgarl genestealer mutation markers?

And if you need more than three here's six handy cut out and keep ones here. I just print them out [click for full size, they should be 2cm tall], add double sided tape on the back and Sellotape on the front. Attach to mounting card and cut up. If the mounting card has a white core then I use a black marker to make them look cool.

Here's what they look like when they're done

Having used them on the day I may make an amend to add the stat bonuses [somewhere] as it's more helpful to know slashing claws are S+1 than have to keep referring back to the book but please use them now if you can't wait.

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.

 And of course while you are at it you can do the same for my free Wound Markers

Due to popular demand [as well as my own playtesting] now with 'buff' notation:

John Carter (of Mars) FREEBIE, FREE STUFF

I had the absolute pleasure to go and see John Carter at the cinema this weekend. The wife let me and the eldest go see it together and even paid and provided nibbles. It was also the full 3D version, how cool is that? If you don't know what John Carter is about then I wouldn't be surprised. It would seem Disney invested massive amounts in a story everyone could relate to and identify with and then promptly forgot how to get that across.

John Carter is based on a series of books written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the guy who wrote Tarzan, The People that Time Forgot and At The Earth's Core, amongst others. Amazingly you can get all the books, and the others mentioned electronically, for FREE at Project Guttenberg

A Princess of Mars
Gods of Mars
Thuvia, Maid of Mars
Warlord of Mars
Chessmen of Mars

I downloaded these books years ago onto my Palm Tungsten T PDA. I can't remember why but I was impressed they were for free and I enjoyed them for the 'pulp' sci-fi they were.

At it's core the story is about a civil war veteran who gets transported to Mars and there becomes a hero in the war between the people and aliens living on that planet. It helps that on Mars Carter's Earth-born bone density and muscle mass allows him to 'leap tall buildings'[yes he inspired the Man of Steel] and have superhuman strength. Of course there's a love interest, the Princess of Mars and if you do an image search of her name NOT AT WORK then you will discover this buxom wench has a slight aversion to clothes but otherwise in the film she's slightly more attired, though no less captivating

John Carter is based on a book nearly 100 years old that brings about the Sci-Fi concepts of flying craft, teleportation, alien creatures, energy weapons and so much more. Concepts that have been borrowed by Star Wars, Aliens, Flash Gordon and Avatar to name but a few, but this was the originator. I can't recall a film recently I've enjoyed so much. Indeed you will see those elements that are from Attack of the Clones and feel a little frustrated because you've seen it before but this is handled so much better and you will wish you'd not seen the poorer version. Ultimately though I felt John Carter had more in common with Flash Gordon than Star Wars and actually the premise is even a little bit like Shrek, a Princess destined to be married to someone else, an anti-hero who wants to cut himself off from the rest of humanity, desperate to get back to his home [swamp]. There's even a donkey...

I loved this film, of course I had pre-conceptions about things because I'd read the books. Dejah Thoris wasn't red, just tattoed, Mars isn't red enough, although tthere are some stubby yellow bushes that look suspiciously like Ferron Bindweed. But overall these are minor annoyances compared with Disney's lack of faith in their film. John Carter deserves a massive audience, it's comparable to any of the big sci-fi epics we've had in years and the only way that can happen is for people to go see it, then perhaps we may get the sequels. At this stage I think that's doubtful but maybe there will be a surge of people discovering this film and it may slowly grow momentum, I hope so. If I've not encouraged you enough try the trailer on for size:

"What's App Doc?"

That has to be the worst blog title pun ever so lets move on... a little under a year ago I ventured into the scary world of a pay monthly phone contract, well scary for me that is. Prior to this I'd been quite happy with your standard Pay as You Go mullarky and had slowly progressed from a Phillips C12, to a SonyEricsson T16 [2nd hand] to my wife's SonyEricsson w810i but I was averaging around £10 every six weeks.

The world of phones is very different now and although I'd never had a data account or used a smartphone I'd had a Palm Zire, Tungsten T [which was awesome] and a Windows Mobile Acer 300 PDA so I knew I wanted a phone with the same capabilities, built in Sat-Nav and by this stage MP3 capabilities were standard. I'd been looking for a few years for a decent upgrade but I also needed one that was going to be on a monthly tariff I could afford/justify.

Cut to last April and I ended up with an LG Optimus One:

It was a great deal, more minutes than I would use, 100 texts a month that were upgraded to unlimited for free, 500mb of data, the phone was free and it even came with a car cradle and sat-nav kit, all for £10.42 a month! Some may claim it's not the prettiest of phones that the HTC Wildfire was a better phone [it retains it's value better on trade in, but the LG is better in nearly every other spec aside from camera quality]. Regardless, I love it. I've always been an Apple fan but I didn't want an iPhone and Android syncs so well with all my Google things, it's almost like they were made by the same company ;) That can't be true, Google operates a firre and forget policy of distributing all sorts of cool things and never bothering to fix them, make them better following user feedback - I've been waiting for years to see my google map ratings and reviews reinstated.

But you can do cool stuff with the phone and you can download apps too and a few are 40k related. So having intoduced you to my phone in case I can make an irregular feature out of this here's an app you may like: Templar Assault. I think when you go to the link you may see the inspiration, it's definitely not Space-Hulk GW legal. I've had a little go of it and it's quite fun, you get to upgrade your squad with different weapons and equipment and for free it isn't half bad, here's some screen shots:

Wraithlord - Seigan-no-kamae

My Son has had his Wraithguard since Christmas and as I've booked him a ticket to the GW North West gaming tournament in June he has to get 1000 pts painted by June 6th so we decided to put together his Wraithlord. Originally he wanted a Shuriken Cannon and Multi-laser but at the last minute decided to go with a Bright Lance and Sword, well that was it, I got very excited. I may have actually took over at this point I'm afraid to admit because I had a plan. In my defence putting the arms, hands and weapons on at the same time is quite difficult and he would have struggled greatly, I did.

Anyway the kit comes with a couple of foot and arm options which are nigh on the exact same positions that make up the basic kendo stance so I beseeched my son to allow me to replicate the pose. The basic stance is called chudan-no-kamae [there's pictures at the end to illustrate what the hell I'm jabbering about] this position is both defensive and offensive with the tip of your sword aimed at your opponents throat. Right foot forward, left foot back with your heel off the ground putting pressure on that left leg waiting for the moment to strike where all the forward momentum is derived from pushing off from the left leg.

Unfortunately I couldn't quite get the pose perfect without extensive cutting of the arms so instead of the nice relaxed bent arms which would make the kensen [tip of the sword] point at the Wraithlords throat height I've used the straight arms. In actual fact this is another stance called seigan-no-kamae, seigan is a modified chudan, in that the kensen is raised slightly and to the side. This stance is used against people who adopt jodan-no-kamae, a purely offensive high stance, or nito, two sword technique. When your opponent is in jodan their left hand is raised and much closer to you than any other target so by adopting seigan you are much closer to cutting that hand off or alternatively thrusting for his now unprotected throat - a tsuki.

Chudan no kamae - nice and relaxed posture, left heel raised, seigan is higher and to the right.

Jodan no kamae - note the left hand to which your kensen, in seigan, would be 'covering'.

One other issue was the deal with the twin Shuriken Catapults. I didn't want to clutter up the Wraithlord's arms with guns so I devised a twin catapult mount. I took a flamer, cut the flamer bulb off, trimmed any mounting slots on the catapults and glued them either side of the remaining flamer mount. At this point a small piece of plastic shot off into my eye which prompted a couple of minutes of delicate wiping to remove the offending article. Perhaps I need to invest in some safety glasses...

The mounted twin Shuriken Catapults. I also took the two arm vanes and in contrast to the examples on the box reversed them so they had a more aerodynamic look to them.

I'm pretty pleased overall, so pleased I want to paint it but I will try to let his nibs do it, hopefully he'll take some advice and time over it so we get a decent result, I really want it to be a centrepiece to his army, especially now it's factually correct, a bit at least.

Meanwhile, I didn't go to gaming night on Tuesday, I got a sweat on for some painting. 'Tackled' a new thing, which I still have to share and finally decided to do the heraldry on the Deathwing and eyes on folk. Suddenly all that procrastinating so I don't screw up didn't seem so bad as the end results are not what I'd hoped for :( Still, it's not finished yet I can keep them as is and if I really do hate the heraldry I can always go over it again. Damn those Deathwing freehand badges for making me think I could paint neat and tidy!

There are no Wolves on Fenris!

New 'Skin Wolves' from Forgeworld for WFB. £32 for 3, not knowing a huge amount about Space Wolves but perhaps they may have a use, I dunno?

40k Birthday swag

As you may recall the other weekend it was 40k's Birthday and local GW's had a number of offers on including these fine items that I secured: a 25th Birthday Mousemat

And a 25th Birthday Pin badge.

I also got an A3 Rogue Trader poster which I'll find a picture frame for, eventually. The day was not without controversy though. The manager had informed me previously of a local GW tournament that would be held at the 'GW Mecca' Warhammer World in June, a £15 ticket with £20 coach. That sounded good to me with the only downside that there would be only 20 tickets. At some point it was suggested I might like to take my son, which I wasn't 100% sure on, suddenly my cheap trip to the Mecca doubled in price. I was looking at possibly driving, which would have taken a third of travelling even with today's silly petrol prices. Anyway, it turned out on the day only 15 tickets were available, and presumably the reduced head count meant the coach had to be split between fewer people and that meant £27! I 'ummed' and 'ahhed' and just bought my own ticket with a view to speaking to the wife about whether it really was worth taking the nipper.

OK, I'm tight fisted but I maintain there';s a big difference between £30 in tickets and £30 in petrol and £84 all in, but she still made me feel like a 'heel'. So I got him a ticket and it means he should be painting 1,000  pts of Eldar to compete with, however much like the fallback cars in Top Gear I will be preparing a 1,000 pt Tyranid army too. I may also attempt to finish 1,000 pts of Dark Angels as well but with another 'nid force in reserve. Personally I don't hold out much chance for either of us but thankfully the 'nids are there just in case.

Incidentally, for MY birthday I got this from good friend Pete through Steam:

I needed to get a Graphics Card upgrade anyway to play Dawn of War 2 so this was just the incentive to do that with some birthday money, not to mention another ten Devgaunts and a second Broodlord. So expect some new distractions just when I need to concentrate on getting figures painted and I haven't even mentioned the two BloodBowl teams...

Here's the Trophy

As promised here's my Holy Grail in more detail, if just a little bit dull lighting, see the words prove my success

Lost Boys Gaming Club - Fall of Arminius Tournament

Yesterday I went to Church, the church of gaming that is! My local friendly neighbourhood gaming club was holding it's tournament and I think I mentioned it's based in the same church [hall] my grandparents used to attend. I took my eldest so he he could see what it was like and hopefully prepare him for whats expected in June, I really have to fill you all in on that score.

Anyway, I took a load of photos, but any semblance of battle reports would be incomplete. By the third battle my brain was fried, my legs ached from so much standing, basically I was knackered. In time I'll share some pics and perhaps a rough report of the three 2000pt battles I played. As well as th epics I took my son also took a few and it's great because while I was shooting board wide shots of the action he got down at model level and really captured the action.

I won't leave you in suspense though, I came 14th out of 16. I'm OK with that, I faced Space Wolves [loss], Grey Knights [draw] and Blood Angels and as much as there was plenty of Tyranid body parts strewn about the battlefields for not as much of the Emperor's finest I think I made every last point taken from me hard fought. I was beaten decisively but I don't think easily and even though there was plenty of vehicles I don't think my lack of anti-tank was an issue so I'm pleased with my efforts and enjoyed every game. 

"But what the hell is that trophy if you came 14th?" you say...

Well, I did win best painted army, voted for by the competitors. Which I'm so excited about and is two fingers to Toymaster [y'see I do practice Old Stuff Day every day]. Thanks to all those that voted for me. I should have taken pictures but the other competitors were a 'counts as' ork army which was full of character because practically every model was converted with tentacles coming from heads, human bodies with Tyranid scything claws for legs with a very rustic weathered finish. Another army of grey knhights had some fantastic force weapons, I think they were air-brushed. Lastly a camo-army of guard where there was an awful lot of character in every figure, with a sergeant with a blonde 'Beatle' hair do and every model with the tiniest painted eyes, in every colour. Also a lot of diversity among ethnicity within the ranks which I approve of, I don't suppose the Emperor is prejudiced [apart from xenos] if they can hold a las-gun they're welcome in the guard.

Well, I'll get the rest of the pics done at some point and write what I can remember and maybe take a better shot of my 'Holy Grail'. Does anyone know the etiquette of these things in future tournaments? Am I expected to have a different army or add extensively to this one? I have a few more dev-gaunts and a Broodlord coming but I don't think that'd be enough do you? I'm sure of the club hold another tournament they'll let me know if I'm in the shortlist and people can decide if I'm still worthy or reward someone else, but for today - I won 'for the Great Devourer'!

Old stuff day 2012

It's old stuff day 2012. Last year warhammer39999 wanted to join a movement to rediscover lost gems from the world of hobby blogs. To choose one of your own blogposts that your most proud of, or may not have got the attention it deserved or any thing that may warrant some necromantic blogpost bothering. On top of that you were to share blogposts from other bloggers which you thought deserved the same spotlight of attention before they were returned to their dark nightmare infested slumbers.

So I showed a little love for one of my old posts but then again I link to loads of my old stuff anyway so maybe I'm guilty of doing this all the time. Anyway it's time to choose this years blogpost and like the Highlander there can be only one and this time lets show a little love (♥) to my most popular of old posts:

Standard Template Construct (STC) systems were advanced computers created during the Dark Age of Technology, which are said to have contained the sum total of human technological knowledge. An STC system was possessed by every group of human colonists before the Age of Strife, allowing them to build all of the equipment necessary for survival on an untamed colony planet. It enabled the colonists to build efficient shelters, generators and transports without any technical knowledge and using almost any locally available materials. The user simply asked how to build a house or a tractor and the computer supplied all the necessary plans.

My STC page has been accessed over 4,000 times and I've seen versions of my models recreated and remixed. This hobby we do costs money but with a bit of effort, some skill and a few bits and bobs we can all have some terrain that we can be proud of, it's all I wanted to do and I hope there is value to the community and that even if folk find no use for it themselves they pass the link on to their friends and share their results with me. I've still got STC's to come so this thread will hopefully never die, just be reanimated on a regular basis ;)

OK so what's floated my boat from other bloggers. I made this easy on myself and went back through all my 'starred' stories in Google Reader and this is what I found.

Recipe for Bronze by Brian @ A Gentleman's Ones

Brian does an awesome job here and if you root around he goes verdi-gris crazy

Sandwyrm's guide to painting black @ The Back 40k

It's not so much the guide as the awesome 'emo-guard' end result

Sandwyrm's Adepticon Siege of Terra Diorama @ The Back 40k

I've no idea why I starred this, I don't even remember doing so but the diorama is awesome and it's just a feat for the eyes which I suppose is a good enough reason.

Loler's guide to painting yellow and grey marines @ The Brush Brothers

This isn't just a guide to painting yellow and grey marines, there's all sorts of tips from battler damage to weathering powders, a tour de-force of painting techniques.

synaps3 guide to Terrain at synaps3

I was going to do a post about terrain and 'tournament terrain' but after reading this I think synaps3 pretty much said it all.

To all those I may have missed mayhap I will reference you throughout the year anyway, enjoy the old stuff, wake the dead!

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

Techno-archaeologist Avro Vulcan continues to catalogue the many man-made hills that dot the Ferron Proxima badlands. It has been months since he unearthed the Standard Template Construct (STC) systems for what has been classified as the Vulcan Plateau. In this time he has discovered numerous other man-made hills buried under the distinctive steep sided flat topped hills that can be found all over Ferron Proxima. Excavating these sites has revealed one man-made hill in particular that has shown many sub-categories of construction. Vulcan has designated this hill the 'Mercury Plateau'.

The purpose of some of these structures are still a mystery but it has been noted that some of them have a slightly different composition of rockcrete than standard Ferron Proxima fare. Whether the richer iron content is due to the value or protection of the many storage facilities built into these mounds is unknown, Vulcan has theories but so far has kept them closely guarded. What is known is that these iron-rich mounds are particularly well suited to accept the STC for Plasma Generators., was this their primary function? Indeed even the current generator model  has adapted well to the Mercury Plateau and it is believed very little retro-fitting was required to the connection manifold.

However, the details of this coupling was another secret kept by Vulcan that has attracted a great deal of 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.

To access the full STC please point your Cogitators here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B97Rk-BalgZbd2NTd3JpUGpSbm1ldTRhUzFwd2NOdw/edit?resourcekey=0-Uo2SSY82guWZ3FrOehSQ7g

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

Happy Birthday to me, this is my gift to you!

Deathwing Progress 4 - Power Weapons and Belial

Back in April I shared my idea for Belial and as the first Deathwing squad is approaching something close to completion I though I would turn my attentions to him in an attmpt to finish them simultaneously. First thing first was the height difference from this ancient miniature. As he is shorter than the Assault on Black Reach terminators I decided he needed a bit more base! I got to use my Dremmel and rout a slot into a piece of slate from the garden, this has then been Vermillioned!

I'm going to redo the lightening claws to fit the same style as the current force weapons I'm doing, both on the Terminator Sergeant and the AoBR Captain [see the end of this post for where that's at]. Some Badab Black wash still to be applied.

Next up was the hard part, painting over the green reinforcements. I thought they were cartoony but they did look well executed if a bit glossy and OTT. Everything that was 'green enamelled' will now be weathered bronze like the current Deathwing. Not sure if I should change his eye lenses to green though...?

Last up his Crux has been covered in Mechrite Red and then overbrushed in Vermillion as standard. Not entirely sure how to treat the vents on the top of the armour and I need to decide if I'll drill into the middle jewel on top and pin one of the Ravenwing upgrade sprue items. It should make him look even more impressive. He's currently taller than the other marines but only just taller than the sergeant with his Iron Halo. Of course I'm loate to do anything that'll easily snap off, especially as this is such a 'compact' model, even if it does weigh a tonne!

Referring back to what I said above, here's my first stab at power weapons [pun intended]. Just playing around with the Vermillion Art acrylic. Will add some more washes and highlights. It's not awesome but I'm confident it'll be sufficient in the end.