'nids part 13. More Prime!

It's a good few weeks back now that this guy arrived in the post after I won him on ebay. £2.49 including postage, bargain! So you can guess he's going to form another Tyranid Prime. As you may recall [well you will if you click on the link] I had plenty of original Tyranid Warrior torsos, but a severe lack of legs. So anyway when I decided a second Prime with Deathspitter, bonesword and lashwhip would be more effective for my Son's weaponised Warriors I had to get another one. The bonus, well I can actually document the conversion process for you, something I could only describe previously.

I may even get some more and convert them up on ebay for sale, they're easy enough to do, although I did stab my thumb with the scalpel, it's not like I was even doing anyting daft, still we'll learn. Further pics to follow, of the Prime, not my bleeding thumb!

Red Planet basing

I've always had problems with painting realistic bases. Some have worked others I've been ultimately disappointed by and there's nothing worse than having a cool looking model spoiled by a shoddy base. When I was painting my Empire WFB army in uni I only put model railway gravel down. I remember distinctly congratulating myself for this decision because they looked neat and didn't require any extra painting, figures painted, gravel on, job done [I must photograph those figures...].

Of course doing a red planet means that I could have got red oxide model railway gravel to do the same. They also come in a variety of grades, small, medium and large. Having a mix is really useful as discussed when  I bought myself that bag of sharp sand. In the end cost won and having painted the, slightly thinned] £1 Vermillion acrylic art paint on the sand I fretted about how I was going to make it work. Lets bring my old 'friends' - my Son's Rippers to illustrate my concerns

As you can see the Vermillion matched perfectly our Red Planet terrain base map. The slightly thinned paint allowing the natural tones of the sand and lava stones to show through. I'd also fretted about the base edges as the pigment in the Vermillion was quite thin, successive coats, even on a white undercoat didn't work. I asked the manager in my local GW store if I could try some Mechrite Red on the edge and I was blown away. If I'd have left the Vermillion it would have been patchy in places and would have blended near invisibly with the board but the darker Mechrite makes them stand out so much and yet still works because it's tonally similar to the boards shadows, as you can see. At any rate most GW basses are green with a brown border so having the sides a different colour clearly works or they wouldn't have been doing it this way since I was a lad. The finish was certainly an improvement, so I bought a pot there and then [good sales technique on behalf of the manager there].

So all my bases were now Vermillion and Mechrite red but that little voice was telling me leaving it plain was not good. I needed to add shading and highlights regardless of how long this may take. The other voice was telling me to leave well enough alone before I messed them all up. I cut some strips of hardboard and added sand and tried four or five different versions to get to my happy place. Bearing in mind I was dealing with the same issues with hills and craters for the rest of the scenery, this was a major deal breaker. Eventually I ended up with a recipe I was happy with. More importantly I reasoned that although the Vermillion matched my print out I may not always be using that for our battlefield. If I have to paint one then surely that will match the base so it's better to match something I can control in the future instead of something I may discard.

My recipe ended up so simple I'm quite surprised it took me so long to get it right. After the Vermillion I used a Badab Black wash, I'd tried, Devlan Mud and also thinned Chaos Black, and thinned Chestnut Brown craft paint [cheaper than the washes] and decided Badab Black worked best and as I hadn't used it much in the rest of the army I had more than the Devlan Mud left so it was not the cheapest option but the second best. A quick dry brush with the Vermilion brought back some of the colour, then adding some bronzed flesh and a very light drybrush on some of the bigger stones and edges lifted the texture just that little bit.

Finally, the masterstroke was some Bonewhite stones. Picking out the odd one scattered here and there really made the base 'pop'. In some ways I now find the bases even more interesting to look at than the model! That may be completely wrong but I love looking at all the texture. It's not extremely difficult to do either, the graded sharp sand pretty much presents which little stone to make Bonewhite and all you need is a bit of patience and a steady hand and job done. Admittedly I then had to go back and touch up all the little mistakes my drybrushing made but overall, after many hours I was ecstatic with the results and satisfied I'd ignored the lazy little voice.

So lets bring back my old friend - Broodlord in a Body Warmer so you can see the difference, not to mention the highlighted talons versus plain black ones. I think it was the right decision in both instances. Hope you give Red Planet basing a go.

Showdown at the old GW

We popped on down to our local GW on Sunday to see if we could get a game. There's a new manager [again!] and so times have changed, WFB from 11 - 12:30 then 40k until 2:30. So my son and I got to hang around the store for an hour and a half before we could play. I suppose that's not too bad if it weren't for the fact no one came to play Fantasy so the sole gaming table was left empty and unused for those 90 minutes! 

Moving on the game was seize ground and most of the kids were in the Beginner's having gone through around 5 managers we can always seem to get a game regardless of the 6-8 months of playing at the store. We were allowed a HQ, 2 troops and a Fast Attack. As we'd left the Gargoyles behind we were allowed a third troops so we had

• Hive Tyrant, Lash Whip, Bonesword and H Venom Cannon
• 10 X Devourer Termagants
• Tervigon
• 3 Tyranid Warriors, Scything Talons, Death Spitters and Barbed Strangler

My son's choices, I tried to get him to leave the Warriors behind but he was adamant [we could have had a 20 squad of Genestealers!]. We lined up with two players, both with Necrons! Against three lost of Space Marines. Directly opposite was a 5 man assault squad, a command squad of some description, a 5 man tactical squad and a 10 man tactical squad along with their owner, a young chap who'd been banned from the store for 15 minutes for saying 'god-damn' [twice!]

It was about half way through the game that I remembered to take some photos with my phone, which aren't too bad considering it's an old Sony Ericsson W810i. Of course this is going to introduce you to some other members of the Hive Fleet so far, I really should do an army list. So what had happened up until this point. We went first and everyone moved forward, the Tervigon spawned 9 Termagants on the first turn, getting 1 and two 4's so pooping out for the remainder of the game. The nine new-borns moved up to that dry-stone wall on the right of the picture below, just in range to capture the wounded marine objective you can see behind the Tervigon. Everyone else barreled up the hill. The HVC fired and hit but didn't do any damage.

My son's  Space Marine opponent jumped his Assault squad into contesting the objective and that was pretty much it. My son's turn and the Dev-gaunts were in this position and fired on the Assault squad. 30 shots and there was better than the 50:50 result and the wounds were better than average again. If I recall there were 11 wounds! So the opponent rolls and makes six saving throws, bye-bye assault squad.

Now the assault you see below is a turn later, his command squad ended up far forward, my son ran those warriors up the hill for 2 inches nowhere near enough to get into combat although I suggested he fired instead he had his way [as he should]. There's three Termagants [from the original 9, some lost to bolter fire, though 1 out of 5 perished in a frag explosion, the rest saved due to the wall] in combat and the Tervigon has taken two wounds. Three of his command squad have been obliterated, through assault and shooting etc. His team mate decided to burn those bikes over. 

Continuing on not much happened, the those in assault traded ineffective slaps on each other but without the extra attacks on the charge and the Tervigon's low Initiative nothing much happened. A frag missile did deviate from the Dev-gaunts into the back of the Tervigon but it's monstrous girth protected it.

"What's that coming over the hill? Is it a Dev-gaunt? Is it a Dev-gaunt?" That's right the Dev-gaunts crest the hill and can you spot the difference? Mmm where did those bikes go? They were eaten by Devourers! Just behind the Hive Tyrant the Warriors charge forward hoping to break the deadlock in this assault.

At this point, later in the turn,  the Hive Tyrants HVC has taken out two from that Tactical squad in the background the Warriors came in and combined they mopped up the rest of the command squad leaving the 10 man squad at the back and those three next on the menu and the objective in our hands.

At this point we had to leave but I think my son did really well. We were unlucky with the Tervigon in the first turn but he only lost 6 Termagants, 2 wounds on their mother and a wound on a Warrior in the game. The Dev-gaunts get MVP for the Assault Squad and bikes, it's amazing what just 10 of these can do. The Hive Tyrant did chuff all but I could imagine there would have been very little left of the opposition if we'd have played on and got the big hitters into play. Goodness knows how the Necrons got on, I don't think they suffered many losses, it's awfully difficult to keep these kids on track especially when you've got a deadline for when you're going to leave and they haven't even brought their Codex!

'nids part 12. The Tervigon Tutorial part 8.

Here we are, as near as dammit the end. I'll probably have some more shots to add once I've varnished it and added some alien bogeys on the Termagant. Originally this was to be done wit my hot-melt glue gun, I even got some coloured glue sticks for this. But I think it's too tricky to get the gun into the space around the talons to ensure a quality finish. I've looked at some other tutorials that show how to do it so I may employ those techniques, more once I've completed it.

Actually one set of highlights have been added to the talons here but a pure white sparkle/reflection was added at the very highest spots, these worked really well on the Hormogaunt talons.

The membrane sac continued to be awkward. I wanted to reintroduce the transparency and glossiness from the PVA so mixed a thinned down PVA and the same £1 Vermilion acrylic art paint used on the base. This worked like a wash in a way. It collected and pooled in all the recesses, you should be able to make out what remains beside all the veins. I still wasn't happy though and stippled successively lighter highlights on all the bulges. Eventually I was happy, not 100% but enough. It's not quite the semi-transparent effect I was after but I have some gloss varnish that I can use to add a little more depth to it. Below you can see also how I highlighted all the veins and the adrenal gland, somehow managing to realistically blend it in to the rest of the creature.

Basing was also a nightmare. I've always had problems with painting realistic bases. Some have worked others I've been ultimately disappointed by and there's nothing worse than having a cool looking model spoiled by a shoddy base. Anyway, I can write a whole post on the basing dilemma itself so I'll leave that for another time. Here I'm still not sure whether I should add in the black slate like I did with the Tyranid Prime part of me thinks it'll be another colour to draw focus away from Tervigon itself and I kind of like how the Vermilion opacity has given interesting patination on the slate. For the time being I'll leave well enough alone and not listen to that persistent little voice.

So that's it, hope you've been entertained, I'll post up about the basing process separately, hopefully with some clear examples of why leaving well enough alone seemed such an obvious solution but thankfully one I dismissed.

Tervigon Tutorial Part 1 - conversion (silver ball sacs)

Tervigon Tutorial Part 2 - conversion (egg sac membrane)

Tervigon Tutorial Part 3 - conversion (base, claws and undercoat)

Tervigon Tutorial Part 4 - painting (basecoats)

Tervigon Tutorial Part 5 - painting (washes)

Tervigon Tutorial Part 6 - painting (first highlights)

Tervigon Tutorial Part 7 - painting (second highlights and vermilion)

'nids part 11. The Tervigon Tutorial part 7.

Hopefully you're still with us, this is part 7 afterall! 2 further sets of turquoise highlights have been added. All the 'nids have a turquoise base with a highlight, these bigger creatures have a 2nd highlight, though only used sparingly [although I've still do that on the Trygon]. As you can see the black talons are done. Originally I wasn't going to highlight these at all, just leave them black and put a gloss varnish on them. Again that little voice told me this was a cop-out despite another voice telling me it was the right thing to do. Another couple of tones on the model really wasn't necessary but in the end I put on the highlights [and that includes all the Hormogaunts, Genestealers, Warriors and whatever else crawling thing had sharp bits, yes I am that anal!]

You can see that the Termagant spawn has also been finished and sits quite well on the now fully textured base. You may spot a couple of adrenal glands in the red planet soil. I wanted them there to represent tiny Tyranid organisms searching for symbiotic hists to bond with. Teeth were all done in grey with white highlights, the tongue was purple. You should be also able to make out how sparingly the 2nd turquoise highlight was used, particularly evident on the chitin on the head. You can also see the purple veins on the egg sac. I really struggled with colouring the membrane later on, I wasn't 100% happy with it here and trust me it got worse before it got better.

Here's a top down view, again the 2nd turquoise highlight was used just on the very edges. The base was painted with a £1 Vermilion acrylic art paint from a Quality Save [or Home Bargain, they also had paint palettes for 29p!]

Next up, basing and everything else [minus talon highlights].

Meanwhile, here's the previous parts:

Tervigon Tutorial Part 1 - conversion (silver ball sacs)

Tervigon Tutorial Part 2 - conversion (egg sac membrane)

Tervigon Tutorial Part 3 - conversion (base, claws and undercoat)

Tervigon Tutorial Part 4 - painting (basecoats)

Tervigon Tutorial Part 5 - painting (washes)

Tervigon Tutorial Part 6 - painting (first highlights)

'nids part 10. The Tervigon Tutorial part 6.

 Here we go, part 6. This is the first set of highlights complete on both the bonewhite and chitin parts. Again the curious properties of that craft acrylic turquoise, both opaque and transparent depending on how you apply it really lends a natural, organic feel to the beasties.

When I first painted genestealers in my youth I hated all the limbs I thought they were a night mare to paint. With washes and the understanding that mistakes can be explained because nature is not perfect then I truly believe Tyranids may be the easiest models to paint. I mean when you paint a Space Marine that man-made power armour screams out any imperfections. Of course if you go the distressed battle scarred armour you can disguise a multitude of sins but still it requires a certain amount of skill to get decent results.

You can see how the dotted pattern works as well here. This was first employed on my Son's Trygon. The stripes weren't quite as significant so there was much more dark blue which needed something to break up the space. I put a few dots on, suggesting that older/bigger beasts develop more patination over time. It allowed me to spend a bit more time on these showcase models and lift them above the rest of the horde. Saying that though I did apply some dots to a few Gargoyles. [Damn that mold line still looks ugly!].

The dots are easy to do just a small brush and dab, dab, dab. Of course you could use a cut cocktail stick for perfect uniform circles.

Bone white highlights were also applied. Bonewhite isn't a particularly opaque colour but in this situation it doesn't matter. Once again levels of opacity help all the colours blend so you never get flat colour you get depth, mottling and imperfections, just like nature .

Next up - more highlights, talons, teeth and base.

Meanwhile, here's the previous parts:

Tervigon Tutorial Part 1

Tervigon Tutorial Part 2

Tervigon Tutorial Part 3

Tervigon Tutorial Part 4

Tervigon Tutorial Part 5

Terrain is everything - 40k Cathedral Tower.

So here's one of my 'what's on my work table' kind of posts. This beauty has been around for a while actually and much like the little 'vent tower' is a long term work in progress. There's no real incentive to get this done actually. Our small table has far too much scenery and we hardly ever play so this is really only a vanity piece. Something bigger and grander than anything before.

As you can see it's like a Cathedral Tower and was going to feature another ruined corner with plenty of floors [though how you would get between them is anyone's guess]. Since I found out that ruins aren't so hot I'm loathe to create another one. Of course, if I make it structurally sound, mostly, I'll also have to make a ruined version for when it gets flattened. Above you can see how some 10mm foam card got used for the arched doorway and the space marine is there so you can see the scale of the building.

Below was my tests regarding flying buttreses. I've decided to go with three instead of the five. It uses less foam card and gives more room for figures to gain cover from. You can see five was just too dense. I'll be adding some hexagonal window-blind rod [or bic biro] to the spikey bits for some more flavour.

Here's how the corner works with the buttreses although the extra ground level reinforcement isn't in place.

Here's another measure of scale, you can see how much of a centre-piece this is going to be, I'm really not looking forward to masking off all those foamboard windows! Colourwise this is still going to be red planet scenery. Using the red-planet rockcrete as in all the other buildings, but aspects of it will also be in a sandstone colour. Because this is a high profile building they went the extra mile to import some other stone to make it a landmark structure. I'm looking forward to that bit, just not all the bits inbetween...

Funnily enough when I started this I had to take all the prepped foam card home but when I actually got round to starting cutting I ended up using some other foamcard so when I get chance I've a second piece in the works. If I worked it out right I could in fact have four corner pieces, although clearly this works well by itself, once I start to ruinify it there'll be significantly less building which may diminish it's impact on the field. It'll be a judgement call in the end.