++ Contact 07/89#d ++ Xenos Incursion ++ Dark Angel Interception ++ Threat level - six ++

Thanks to DoW: Dark Crusade my Son has renewed interest in GW. He's been painting his Eldar, is doing jobs round the house to earn money to buy more figures and the other day uttered the immortal words "can we have a game of 40k?" So on Saturday we dusted off Ferron Proxima and it's associated scenery and positioned them next to the new bits. It was only a 'small' force of 650ish points each, but of course that gets me little :

Belial and Terminator Squad

10 man tactical squad with missile launcher and flamer

A dreadnought

Heavy bolter Tarantula sentry gun

(18 figures - 18 wounds)

and he ended up with lots:

Tyranid Prime [LW+BS & Death Spitter] 

3xTyranid Warriors - 2xDeathspitters + Barbed Strangler

5xGenestealers with Toxin Sacs

1xBroodlord, Toxin Sacs and Scything Talons

10xGargoyles

1xBiovore

1xTrygon

(22 figures - 41 wounds)

Whenever I see these lists I can't imagine any outcome where the Emperor's finest are not left in puddle of goo before being turned into gribblies. Unlike last time where I blogged the battle live I decided to just take pics and upload the results afterwards. Games take too long as it is for us I didn't want another thing to slow it down. Stupidly I didn't take notes so I'll try to engage my mental cogitator to describe what's going on, but some bits may be hazy although the highlights will no doubt be burned into my optical augmetics for eternity. I won't be posting these every other day as it'll get tedious but equally all the posts in one go would be too much so each turn will be posted each day for the remainder of the battle, oh lucky you!

Anyway here's the setup for my Son, Warriors on the left flank, Biovore in the defence tower, Gargoyles in the centre, Genestealers occupying the ruins and the Trygon on the right flank. Of course the eagle-eyed of you will have spotted the [literally] school-boy error - Synapse, but we'll get to that.

The Dark Angel Tac Squad and sentry gun on the other hand had occupied the Eduardo Stobarto Distributorum Container facility. With the Terminators, Belial and Brother Cask taking up position on the Vulcan Plateau, in the shadow of the venerated Hero of the Imperium - Matt Black.

It was at this point we remembered to roll for which type of battle. There's no point to roll for type of deployment with this size of table but if there's objectives involved then I have a chance of competing, if it's annihilation I'm up the creek. Anyway, it was capture and control and my Son used his Hive Node as his strategic asset whereas I chose the Biohazard container beneath my Tarantula Sentry gun. Did I hear a cry of 'foul' there for not choosing Matt Black, Hero of the Imperium? Well lets be realistic, the Tyranids don't want a manky old statue they're much more interested in a container full of rich bio-med waste to create funky new gribblies!

We rolled for who goes first and both got 6s, this could be good! Then rolled again and I won and didn't lose the initiative, let battle commence.

PS note how the Honored Imperium Statue fits the tower socket square on the Vulcan Plateau - skillz that is!

Terrain is everything - a solution to an age old problem part 4

Apologies once again about the 'washed out' nature of these pics. I'm trying to find a quick solution to editing my phone pics, instead of using my digital camera then editing in Photoshop and trying to use the Blogger picture uploader, which sucks on IE6 [don't ask, we're saddled with the browser at work]. So far I tried Photoshop Express and Image Shrink Lite but a new App called PicSay allows me to import any image at 640x480 edit the colours quicker than P'shop Express and upload straightaway, so they should be better in future.

Anyhoo, here's the Vulcan Plateau with a bit of colour. Red Oxide Car Primer then I got some silver paint, mixed some black in for home-made Bolt-gun silver and drybrushed the meshed bits. Doing it this way shows a bit of the Red Oxide off underneath, a hint of rust, no less!

Next up is my old Vermilion art acrylic to highlight, then some black poster paint shading washes to try to tone down the glossy finish to the red highlights. Then perhaps a little paler drybrushing to bring out all the edges. Although, if I was in a situation where I needed a lot of terrain painted and ready, like if I was running a gaming club, I'd actually be happy with these as they are. So if you are in that sort of situation I'd heartily recommend stopping at this point.

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

The Techno-archaeologist Avro Vulcan has unearthed a new and complete Standard Template Construct. 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.

Surprisingly STCs have been found for more mundane purposes and Vulcan's discovery falls into this particular realm. although not without historical ramifications for Ferron Proxima. Vulcan has discovered the STC for a 'raised plateau', in effect a man-made hill. On paper this may seem a rather underwhelming find, why would hills need to be made? It has since been revealed that 73.4% [factor a 2.6% differential] of all of the strategic high ground, or hills, on Ferron Proxima originated as an STC. It would seem the planet was unnaturally flat and the first settlers in need of increased visibility set about building higher ground so their settlements could be protected better.

Due to the high ferrous content of the rockcrete base of these mounds, over millenia the sharp and angular cast constructions weathered and rusted leaving the more organic shaped but iconic steep sided flat topped hills that can be found all over Ferron Proxima. Further investigation has shown that the STC's function often went beyond additional height. Storage facilities and underground habitation, amongst other things were built into the structure. This news marks all potential hills an undiscovered relic from before the Age of Strife. Who knows what may rest in a long forgotten mound?

To access the full STC for the first 'Vulcan Plateau' point your cogitators here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B97Rk-BalgZbZDg3MzNkMTktZGVhNS00MTA4LWE4MWEtYmI5MmUwZjgwYjIx/view?resourcekey=0-uaipWLa_ruOk6Frc6mdYWg

To see the collection of current STC's go here:
http://40kaddict.blogspot.com/2011/02/terrain-is-everything-standard-template.html

Terrain is everything - a solution to an age old problem part 3

Hey folks, here's a little update on my man-made hill. This is mainly fixing on all the details, the mounting card edges, Granny Grating, DoW strategic asset and modular socket. As you can see below the top was sectioned off with some strips of mounting card. I just did 5mm strips and cut them with scissors over the template to get the exact angles for them to butt up neatly.

I decided a DoW strategic asset might be nice. Originally my son had a Spider-Man Comic freebie toy that had these little yellow 'web-shooter' discs that I was going to use but couldn't find them. Obviously they've since resurfaced since this picture and typically they're too big to replace my orange card disc. A Robinson's Fruit Shoot cap will make the structure for the asset. It's not 100% what I want but it'll do.

The granny grating was put at an angle, which is a less efficient use of the material but it looked better. Seeing as I didn't do the angled wire fences the least I could do I make the effort here.

Here's where the modular aspect evolved by adding in a Vent Tower socket I can use the same plugs to create variety with the same hill. Either with just the rooftop:

Or with the rooftop and extension. The socket will be closed off with some sliding doors for when it's not a modular structure. I appreciate there isn't a door in the extension to get to the roof. I thought about putting one in the back, beside the steps but it would too complex at the moment. So let's just suspend our disbelief for a minute, like we have to do with plenty of other aspects of 40k and just get on with it! Folk can get to the roof and that's that.

Terrain is everything - a solution to an age old problem part 2

More work on my man-made hill. The original plan was to make this as simple as possible but you know these things are fluid, always in flux. It's at times like these where new ideas and directions become apparent and so the end result can be dramatically different than the initial concept. So they end up being less simple but more functional in the process. Here's the 'basic' hill.

The downside to this is the STC production. I could deliver about half a dozen new .pdfs of my STCs to 'my followers' and the community as a whole now [if they wanted] but the kinks may not have been worked out and I've not constructed them enough to show step-by-steps or put any instructions on the pages so it's a little clearer what goes where. However I've tried to stay on top of the template with this construction so who knows, this may leap-frog some older STCs and be in your hands before you know it! Here's a Dread for scale.

You can't tell but I messed up on the cutting for the bottom step, it's 5mm longer than the other ones but I kind of like it, the STC will be fixed to accommodate this error and there should be a cool little construction technique where interlocking bits of foam core should make that bottom step reall solid. As this hill will not have a board base it'll need to take the strain at this join. It also needed a bit of extra card under the front step, apparently my vertical measuring was out by about 1.5 mm so your average cereal box is too thin, and mounting card too thick, however the sort of card used to back A4 writing pads was just right!

Next up is mounting card edges on the top of the hill and steps with Granny Grating mesh on the top. That's right I come up with an idea for a simple hill in case you can't get hold of foam and use another material that not everyone can get their hands on! Of course you could do without or just use card squares with a tile pattern... Oh and the hills going modular [in a way]!

My Son's been painting!

You may recall my son's efforts to do some Biel Tan Eldar, a U-turn on his original plan to do them as Iyanden. Unsurprisingly he's U-tuned again, mainly due to his playing Dawn of War repeatedly. Sadly a hard disk failure has removed all his saved games [and mine :( ] but he started painting and he's done it while I'm at work so I've hardly interfered at all. I do get the feeling he's rushing with them, just wanting to get them done so he can buy more figures but am I one to criticize when as a child I could never get any of mine complete?

Of course the wife thinks I'm cringing with disgust at his efforts but really I think he's done grand for nine years old. Certainly for a tabletop level they actually look quite OK, it's only close up where you can see a little more patience and care could make these really good. My only suggestion was to add highlights to his base-coat and shadow wash but he's perfectly happy to treat these as finished so I'll help with the basing and he'll look to some new purchases...

Here's a shot of them on his painting station. As you can see I blu-tacked them to washing conditioner lids. They're an inexhaustible alternative to corks in helping you to paint figures. You may be able to also spot his Biel Tan jet bike and a couple of Guardians that he seems reluctant to repaint as Iyanden, despite my assurance it'll be easy.

Old Skool Marines

I admit you may suspect this is just a 'filler' post and potentially you could be correct but these lead [pb] and plastic old skool Marines have been clogging up my collection for years now and it's another example of the extent of the miniatures I invested in way back when only to never really pursue the painting side of it. At some point I'll be getting to them, which reminds me I really need to list my current projects so we can better understand the mammoth task ahead of me.

Here's a close-up of the standout figures, the original Dark Angels Captain and a number or Marines with Terminator Honours. Not sure how to handle those in the Dark Angels. Shouldn't those marines with Terminator Honours still be in the Deathwing? Not sure what I could use them for but mabe I'll get round to that later as they're way down on the 'to-do list'. One other little note, the Space Marine Captain with the power fist, can you make out the tiny conversion? Yep, that's a las-gun glued to the side as a targetter. I just couldn't let it lie could I? One thing I'm thinking though, he came with a cloaked backback which is nice and all but I do like the silouhette without so I'll probably just source one of my Dark Angel back packs from the Ravenwing upgrade sprue when I get round to painting him.