Saturday and Sunday at the GW

Nipped in the local GW on Saturday and had a nice chat with Stuart the manager and he advised us amongst other things* to come down the next day and have a battle. 500pts, HQ and two troops. Come Sunday morning we took a Tervigon, with all the trimmings, 22 Hormogaunts and 7 adrenal stealers and their Broodlord.

Setting up we had two kids turn up and they pleaded to have a three way battle with me and the nipper so Stuart set up the 'broken alliance' scenario but I could see that our 500pts against 500pts of Grey Knights and 500pts of Ultramarines would result in two against one. Anyway, it was objective based so it didn't really matter so long as me and the nipper could control of what was there, the 3 little door effigies [you can see one just poking out of the terrain below.

We won first turn and they didn't steal the initiative. The rules of broken alliance are that in the midst of a treaty talk things break down and all out war ensues so first turn each unit rolls a dice and 1-3 they can act as normal 4-6 they're so confused they do nothing. So our Hormagaunts passed and ran 6" into the area terrain on the left in an effort to secure that objective. The Genestealers were happy hiding in the ruin, they immediately secured the second objective [the third was just the other side of the ruin in front of them. The Tervigon meanwhile was confused and sat on it's haunches wondering what it would be having for tea later on.

The two kids rolled for who went second and third with third place automatically getting first turn in the following round and the remaining two dicing for who went next. Over on the far corner the two Ultramarine tactical squads deployed in this fashion with their Librarian at the back. Unfortunately the two tac squads were confused and the Librarian just wandered about a bit not in in range of anyone. The Grey Knights stepped up and shot holes in the Hormagaunts. Massed storm bolter fire, psy-cannons a cyber eagle that never did less than 5 attacks on D6 throughout the entire game and the multi-melta and storm bolter of the dreadnought wittled them down to 17 by the time they had their last turn of round one and their first turn of round two. I think the front squad Ultramarines moved off the hill towards the ruin, whereas their Plasma Cannon armed brethren fired on the Grey Knights but the blast deviated wildly off target. 

Now that the Tervigon had finished it's supper plans it remembered it had some Termagants to spawn and promptly pooped the golden 15.

And this is them now, freshly gleaming and full of gunk and goo.

The Hormagaunts secured the objective, the Termagants moved up hiding behind the building for next turns reinforcements and the Tervigon stepped into some cover just in synapse for the Hormagaunts. Meanwhile the Genestealers rolled to see how far they'd  move in cover to see if they could reach the now exposed Tactical squad 5", that'll do followed by a run and next up it was gobbling time. 

The brood ripped through the marines like they weren't there and then consolidated into the building to have some cover. Which then ended the last turn, new round and as we went last we were now first. I was pretty sure we could do the same trick, move through cover and assault the second tactical squad and wipe them out but I didn't think it'd be fair to the kid with the Ultramarines. They'd not done anything so far and to wipe out his squad in two turns would have been mean so they stayed in the building.

Another ten Termagants were spawned and they joined the depleted Hormies in the area terrain.

The Grey Knights all stepped into range and blasted away with massed bolter fire thinning the Hormies down even more and leaving but three Termagants in place. Meanwhile the Plasma Cannon took out a few stealers and more bolter fire took more down. In the end just the Broodlord and a a pair of adrenal stealers remained.

Next turn and with the kids getting a bit antsy having to wait for two people to have a turn before getting their go it was time to take the fight to the Grey Knights. Another 8 Termagants we spawned. They gnawed their way 5" through the ruined building. Emerging from holes and laid a withering hail of flesh eating living bullets into the Knights but only one of the tenacious grubs managed to bore through their ornately carved armour.

With the Tervigon urging them on the Termagants swamped the Grey Knights. What ensued wasn't pretty, some erroneous stats recall on behalf of the Grey Knights Codex meant we did much more damage than we should have done. I tried to convince their commander to check again but he was adamant they had a WS of 2! However he also said they had an initiative of 8 so by the time the termagants got a look in 10 had already perished. In the end one knight was poisoned and two further wounds were caused. When it was revealed their initiative was in fact only four and the Tervigon's adrenal glands gave the Termagants initiative four also the recently deaded gants attacks were added into the mix but failed to do anything. I think by this time all the kids were losing interest, hence the mistakes taking place.

Over on the other side the remaining Stealers decided it was time to fight back. They tore through the secons squad. Five more marines fell to their rending claws...

... and as they broke and ran 1" the stealers dragged down a sixth marine as he tried to escape.

In Conclusion: although the kids think it'll be fun to have a three way battle it does involve waiting for two people to have a turn before you get to have a go back. I think they were all getting a bit tired by the end. My nipper was starting to get bored, mistakes were happening and things may not have been going to plan. Fair play to them they behaved really well and it was a fun game. The three way didn't really materialise, ythe Grey Knights weren't really threatened. With hindsight the Hormagaunts should have just charged the unit in front of them. I don't think they were anything more than power armored knights so they could have done some real damage with their 30 scything talon attacks. The 3 remaining Termagants could have secured that objective, which won us the game. We could have done much more damage, but we stuck to the objectives which was the ultimate prize afterall even if the Hormies were just wittled down and never got to assault which was my reason for running them!

Overall I think 'nids excel at these small battles. Its only when we go bigger we struggle as we need a slightly different force to capitalize on the extra points. The Stealers were back on form but I really saw some advantage for adding scything talons, re-roll 1's would have come in handy. Hitting 2 out of 3 times with a further chance to increase that to 5 out of 6 may be worth the extra 2 points each, it certainly benefits the Broodlord. Perhaps in a 750 or 1000pt force I may take them.

Anyway, next weekend is the 40k anniversary at the store so we may be back again and tonight is gaming night so it's all much fun!




* will discuss these later - V. Exciting

Deathwing progress 3

There are two great guides to painting freehand Dark Angel symbols and I did a bit of both and added a bit myself after finally deciding [YES I can make a decision eventually] to go freehand, first the two tutorials you should read if you want to get all unforgiven!

• http://theangelstalon.blogspot.com/2008/09/painting-tutorial-dark-angels-markings.html
• http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2009/03/trick-to-painting-small-icons.html

Here's how I started, with a simple pencil crayon sketch first, I did the sword first then wrapped the wing arcs round it then added the feathers. One thing I didn't want to do is cut back into the design, it was a one pass shot and each bit was to be right first time, in direct contrast to the two tutorials which work on simple shapes first.

The battle damaged terminator and how I was going to paint around the scarring.

At this point I see the advantage to Ron's guide in that by making the wing arc first you can guarantee the tip feathers are both level, mine tip up a bit and one badge has a flat wing and an upturned one, still it's hardly noticeable. Mechrite Red is my weapon of choice for the colour, thinned a bit and I'm so pleased with the results I don't even think I'm going to add any highlights, the mixed opacity makes it work all by itself.

Following on from the top and bottom feathers it's simple enough to but the two middle feathers in place. Just do one line, then the next and you will then have an idea of where to but the next strokes to thicken them up and balance each feather with each gap. Finally a simple cut-in of Bonewhite to make the zig-zag in the broken sword [the worst bit actually]. The first one I did seemed to take ages.

And so I planned to do the remaining four in two sittings, with the first two taking me over halfway I could feel happy about finishing off the last two and not get antsy about the whole process. Somehow I got the first of these done in around 8 minutes - still a lot of time one might say which is why I get agitated - a lot of time spent painting very little even if the results look great [or at least I think so].

So all five were complete in under an hour, and other bits and bobs got painted too. As a production line I think doing the sword as step one on all the miniatures, then doing the top and bottom feathers and finally coming in last to put the middle wings is the most efficient way to do it. Your hand gets used to what's expected of if and it's easier to repeat the process X5

And somehow the use of the orange pencil crayons adds to it in a way, or at least doesn't detract enough that I feel I have to paint out any of my guides. Still to decide on the heraldry and I actually fancy putting the original Deathwing tribal stripes on side of the terminator armour. But overall I can't believe they came out so well. There is something to this freehand mullarky. It is labour intensive and the area painted is so small but they're all starting to come together now because of it. I'm much less apprehensive about doing the same to the Tac squad, but their shoulder pads are a little bit smaller so I'm still slightly concerned.

On patrol - "Over there, beyond the tress"

Just a bit of fun now my trees are finished and the Deathwing are progressing nicely thank you very much. Took some pics of the Deathwing on patrol through the Ferron Fire Firs [flufftastic to follow ;) ]

I'll have to see what the darker battlemat looks like under these lighting conditions. This is a metre square piece of the lighter Mk1 mat with matte laminate, seems a bit washed out on under the halogens. Still the Deathwing look nice and bright.

I also think I need to do something to the Storm Bolter muzzles just to differentiate them a bit from the rest of the gun... 

Foreground and background focus shots.

Terminator sergeant with his ruddy complexion, still may need a couple more sepia washes to make him darker skinned. Which leaves me with one decision [sodding decisions again] regarding their heraldry shields...

Medieval like this

Pic from EPK over at bolterandchainsword

or the original Deathwing native American totems like this:

The yellow I'm looking for

Just a quick thing I've been meaning to share [if you hadn't already seen it] -
Dark Future Games posted a link in January  about Blight Wheel Miniatures Mantis Tank, suitable for Ad-Mech armies and such. It's currently out of stock but I love the way the yellow has been treated on their finished version:

I don't think it's actually yellow, it's more the sepia effect that warms the colour and the awesome battle damage. This is the sort of colour I was hoping for on the Plasma Generator.

Anyway, as it's not really my work or progress there will be a post tomorrow, don't worry.

Terrain is everything - TREES!

Back in December I bought this set of Christmas trees from my local garden/craft centre. At the time I didn't want to have them 'evergreen' with snow capped branches so went about undercoating them red oxide primer and then my usual mix of Vermillion art acrylic and then highlighted up to yellow. And here's the finished result:

There was a bit of vairety in the process of painting these. I did some with Early Learning Centre poster paint mixed with PVA and then binned that idea and got me some Yellow art acrylic. Initially I was concerned it was too light but in fact the whole process of painting them meant that a lot of the underlying colour showed through so I'm getting quite a rich yellow, perhaps darker than I would ideally prefer.

Had to Red Planet Base the mounds, just had to. Pain in the bum at least everything is tied together now.

Still got to do the two big trees, which should be fun.

I've noticed recently that althought the super bright Halogen bulbs in the kitchen are giving me better pictures the refelction off my battlemat is affecting the colours on all my pictures, unsurprisingly they're all a little 'warm' in colour. So just to get a better idea of the actual colour here's a tree on a black background using natural light.

Lastly, here's a pic of mthe two art acrylics used, £1 each from local budget shop Quality Save.

Ravenor: The Omnibus - a review

The problem with my book reviews is they tend to come a significant time after finishing the book so quite often I've forgotten the names of people and even the plot sometimes but the overall impression is there so hopefully they're still of value.

Anyway I borrow Ravenor: The Omnibus from my local library, they actually had two copies! After recent disappointment with some Black Library books this was something else. If you want a novel that describes the 40k 'grim dark' universe then this is it, or three! There's three books in one with a couple of short stories too and the omnibus collects them together so you can experience the sprawling story arc in one handy volume. Typically the thing that attracted me most to this was the cover. Annoyingly the trilogy of Eisenhorn novels that precede this don't come wit such a cool cover and with Dan Abnett suggesting in the Foreword that there is another trilogy yet to come it would have been nice to have a similar set of books with such iconic imagery on the front in different metallic colours. Still, nevermind.

The books start much like a great action movie, straight into the mix, very little preamble and then you would assume there would be a title sequence and the book begins proper. It obviously follows Inquisitor Ravenor and his inquisitorial team. I won't go into too much detail but they all seem like total bada$$es, with special skills and experiences to do untold damage. Slowly though, throughout the omnibus you begin to discover their weaknesses and flaws and the nigh invulnerable people we met at the beginning are very vulnerable by the end. I guess this is testament to Mr Abnett that the heroes of the piece weren't made invincible. Obviously in the beginning you can do what you want to them, we don't know them and you can get away with anything. From then on you get to understand their character and the preconceptions can be stripped away so we can be frightened and worried for their safety.

I won't go into the plot, I'll just say this restored a lot of faith in the books coming out of Black Library. It conjured up quite a few new vistas and imagery about 40k and in particular Hive Worlds as some twisted dark Blade Runner-esque environment. Rotting and festering under acid rain - awesome scene setting. Overall it feels like one of those awesome Role Playing games you had with your mates. A bunch of highly skilled operatives each with their own look, skills and personality set on an adventure. This is utter class and if you don't have it in your life, then check your local library, they may just have a copy [or two!]

Terrain is everything - Dawn of War Plasma Generator part 9.

Right, so here's where I'm currently at! The black chevrons are in place and a bit of orange rust effect has been applied in certain areas.

I've also stenciled on some big numbers, because big numbers always look cool - FACT!

Some more shots of the rusty bits and weathering.

And the numbers, I think the silver bits are too bright so i need to weather them a bit more, maybe some more 'soot' using the Early Learning centre poster paint and perhaps more rust.

Here's the view of th top joint, I know it's not pretty, perhaps when it's joined together I can add another layer of rust/weathering to try and unify the various parts.

The big decision was whether to paint over the balck chevons with Mechrite Red and try to recapture that earlier stage I feel the white bits made worse, and then I thought I'd put it into better context on Ferron Proxima and I thinkthe black and white is OK. So what do you all think?

At this stage I want to know if I should just glue it together and apply any final effects so it's complete, then I can move on to other outstanding items on my 'to do list'.

So I'm open to suggestions, let me know what you think, is it time to finish this baby and move on, or keep working at it and risk screwing it up? You tell me...