'nids part 157 - The Spawn of Cryptus

At this point the Spawn started to take priority, leaving his toxin spewing bretheren hanging around like a bad smell. There's obviously little here that hasn't been covered before, Turquoise highlights on the Chitin.

Once again the detritus on my desk, which makes just painting one miniature reasonably practical.

Second set of highlights have gone on and the first set of Bonewhite striations. You can definitely see when you 'click to enbiggen' just how clumsy my brush work can be. If I'm honest I could have tried harder on such a 'limited edition' model. But at the end of the day he's still a Broodlord and although I'm mad for Stealers at the moment that's only so far as their usefulness and in part because they're relatively cheap additions to a Tyranid force.

I definetely think most nid players should have 25 at least in their arsenal. If you're starting out that's a healthy addition to your army and even just a brood of 5 can be handy in a pinch.

More highlights and the red fleshy bits next, have to admit the Red Oxide primer is paying dividends on this immensely

'nids part 156 - The Spawn of Cryptus/Malanthrope

Gosh, this seems agaes ago now. Thanks to not writing the text to go with these the Spawn is now finished but here he is in all his basecoat glory.

It's amazing how quick he went together, essentially it's like painting just one Genestealer, even though he's actually twice the size of his broodkin. I was reminded how much I dislike painting them but only in a 'oh yeah I recall it being a chore' without actually feeling like it was, because there was only one. I'm sure when I get around to the 31 currently littering my workspace I'll revisit that feeling with a passion.

Which does also cover the state of my workspace, it's atrocious. i really need to tidy up but that in itself is an evenings work and then I'm not painting. However the Malanthope progressed concurrently with the Spawn, up to the point I did highlights.

As soon as the spawn started getting highlights the Malanthrope was sidelined.

It's currently in it's 'wash' state so I'll have pictures to follow and then it'll be on with the turquoise.

He's a curious beast, I still don't know how I'm going to transport him but no doubt I'll solve that problem eventually.

So that's your lot for now, hope that sate your hobby fix from the 40k addict ;)

Christmas Resin - all your base are belong to us

Happy New Year and you'll be pleased to note I have been busy over the holidays. i didn't get many 'toys' aside from the accompanying resin bases but as I did have the Deathstorm boxset I was kept more than occupied and this should at least provide some content over the next few weeks, which I confess has recently been lacking. Unfortunately I'd intended for this to be posted between Christmas and New Year but forgot to add the text to the pictures [and any other pending post for that matter] so I'm behind schedule. That's good news though because it means I should have half a dozen updates to share. Although I was hoping for this post about nothing more than a few bases to be lost in the Christmas reveries instead of heralding my triumphant return, c'est la vie.

For Christmas I asked for a number of Dark Art Miniature's resin bases they're for a number of things. This first one is for Project Z, yes I know it's not been revealed yet, but I'll get to it eventually. Both my brother and friend Pete [not to be confused with PeteB] got me this lava themed base, which is handy as I have the potential to muck it up and having a spare will be useful.

 

It won't be lava though, I'm hoping to make it look like the red rocks of Ferron Proxima bursting through the slurry of a Tyranid reclamation/digestion pit, which should be cool.

My brother also got me a couple of the 40mm Urban hero bases. I'd been after one of these for my Deathleaper model for Blog Wars but hadn't got it [or Deathleaper for that matter]. Now I can mount the model and have a spare for a Dark Angel character.

As you can see it's a really cool base, it come in two part so you can paint the rubble underneath. The original plan was to paint the flag as the Blog Wars logo shamelessly trying to secure the best painted Character vote ;) The irony is I think Deathleaper may have had his last chance at BW8 so whether I get to run him next time is in the balance.

And my brother also picked up a 60mm lava base, now I didn't ask for this but it was certainly welcome. This will form the base for my Deathstorm - Beast of Phodia Carnifex. I'm not about to entertain this new oval base but I recognise the opportunity to make it stand out. I will of course be magnetising the 'beast', I've learned the easy way [and therefore the best way] that magnetising a Carnifex is the only way to go. So I will be able to run him as the Beast of Phodia, or a dakkafex or any other variety should I so choose.

Once again though I will dispense with the lava theme [particularly in consideration of my irrational but technically rational fear of lava] and also represent the digestion pit. To this end I've already embedded a few spikes in the tiny spewing 'cone' to be more pit like

That's it but there'll be some actual hobby progress to follow soon. The Spawn of Cryptus has been painted and just yesterday I finished construction of my 20 new Genestealers and will be kitbashing some of the original Space Hulk Stealers to have scything talons and perhaps more dynamic. Of course none of those are on my To Do List but that's par for the course.

Terrain is everything - Hail the Omnissiah new Print & Play buildings

I know Christmas has been and gone but there are still presents to be had and the 40kaddict thinks you've all been very good this year so please accept this gift as 2014 comes to a close...

Having introduced a number of new colour schemes for the Print & Play Terrain templates I thought I should add some more building shapes so you had a little more variety. This is based on the first beige tower colour scheme but there are 3 towers you can make from the one .pdf. There are double width towers in two and three storeys and you can choose the rooftop, and even use the 40k Standard Manifold Coupling, aka the Modular Plug Socket.

Potentially you could even stack these ad infinitum or even attach them to the modular sockets on the existing Print & Play terrain templates for some crazy structures. Indeed this adds a huge amount of variety to your buildings, which would suit the 'new' Cities of Death rules, definitely a quick way to populate your CoD! Mostly they add line of sight blocking terrain but with a much smaller footprint than the existing templates. And lets not forget you can always tear them apart to make ruins!

These would ideally be suited for the foamboard that has the black foam core as that black foam would make these easily playable from the off, without looking too much like a quickly knocked up bit of terrain.

To access the full STC please point your Cogitators here, be fair warned it is 4MB in size [I make no apologies for this, I could probably render it as a .jpg or spend hours trying to reduce the file size, I tweaked it a little bit and got it down so hopefully it's less of an issue now.]:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B97Rk-BalgZbcV81MFEyMFB5Umc&authuser=0

Meanwhile all the other Print & Play and standard terrain templates are available here:
http://40kaddict.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/terrain-is-everything-hail-omnissiah.html   

HAPPY X-MAS

Merry X-Mas from Professor Egon Seuss and the rest of the Magos on Ferron Proxima. Additional felicitations from the guys and gals at the Vulcan Institute of Techno-Archaeology. May all your X-mas wishes be plastic [or resin, but not Finecast].

In case you're not X-mas orientated please accept the following good wishes:

Don't Panic Saturday!

A lot of fuss about nothing really! Not much about the hobby but it is news. At the weekend I was sent forth to Southport to pick up the inevitable Christmas 'bits'. It also gave me opportunity to nip to GW to pick up my figure tool-box and hopefully the errant 11 Genestealers and lo they were indeed part of my abandoned luggage. So I have a bit more of a smile on my face now that I have these fellas back.

Although this old pic doesn't represent all my stealers I am starting to get close to the full Leviathan Dataslate numbers. I've 24 mixed Macragge and original Space Hulk stealers, 9 mixed tentacles and scything talons, the 'errant 11', the 10 original Space Hulk stealers gifted by my friend Tom, 12 from an ebay auction and the 8 Deathstorm gifing me 74 in total. Of course that means I have another 30 to paint and despite having progressed particularly well with the Spawn of Cryptus I am rather reminded that I hate painting Genestealers! Still, they're back which is GOOD NEWS!

I also picked up my silver Armies on Parade medal. I'm honestly really chuffed with it, although the other guys think I 'doth protest too much'.

One other thing I did discover is the new Dark Angels Dark Vengeance expansion set. I think I just assumed this was extra copies of the models inside the DV boxset so had dismissed it. It turns out to be pretty much everything I want for my Dark Angels [aside from a Ravenwing Darkshroud]. I wanted to do some Deathwing Knights and potetnially the Ravenwing Knights too. I thought the Nephilim Jet Fighter was pretty cool, though not all that good in the game. So it looks like a great deal. Fingers crossed I get some Christmas money and if my Google AdSense can mature [only £8 to go on the advert links] I'll pick up a Knight too and that should be it for 2015

 

I'm also attempting a trade on facebook to pick up some Fleshborer Hives so I can kit my Carnifex out. It seems like I may be getting the better deal as it's currently swapping for the Feeder Tendril heads in the DeathStorm box. I want them too, but the Fleshborer Hives are more important. I'll let you know how it goes.

Wednesday night Blood Bowl [and X-Wing]

It seems that as great as Blog Wars was it may have broken most of my gaming crew. Unless it's a general malaise, or that time of year we all seem to be 40k'd out. Ben and Otty did nip back to the NW Gaming Centre but came away with X-Wing for variety so Ben suggested a game. Unfortunately PeteB [who briefly owned the game] couldn't make it due to coming off a night shift so I had to officiate with my 'expertise' having watched one game and also Wil Wheaton on Tabletop.
So I'd printed off a mat for Ben and I took on the role as plucky young rebel Luke Skywalker, y'know the dude that promised Yoda he'd stick to his Jedi training and promptly ran off after a few days of jungle free running to 'save his friends'. Ben meanwhile fired up the Tie Fighters and we stumbled through our first game.

As you can see we didn't quite grasp the 'trying to predict where your opponent might go' as I ended up way over on the left and Ben clearly was playing 40k and going for Linebreaker! the end result was the death of Skywalker and we swapped sides.

The second game was much quicker, in part due to a complete tactical error on my part in that I overestimated the distanf for a 4K turn and insetad of appearing behind the Rebel scum promptly turned tail right in front of him and paid the price. The second Tie Fighter followed in quick succession. Overall Ben was really impressed and despite his opinion that it's a 'cheap' pick up game he's already ordered some more 'planes'.

On to the main even, Wednesday Night Blood Bowl

We had the newly complete Elves Vs Skaven, similar stats but with teh Skaven having an extra m move [in 2nd Edition rules]. Ben went Elves and I had the ratmen again.

Ben started with the ball but threw to his catcher quite aerly allowing me to block them and eventually recover the ball.

Delaying tactics ensued as I pushed a couple of models forward to capitalise on my having secured the ball.

With quite a few elves occupying the Stunned and KO'd area of the dug out I was eventually able to score a touchdown.

After the reset Ben started with the ball again I was able to recover it.

 

I would eventually lose the ball for Ben to snatch a draw and we called it quits for the evening.

I think I'm correct in thinking Ben had a lot more fun playing X-Wing, when your dug out looks like this there can be quite a pessimistic opinion formed. When I played PeteB with the same team the result was pretty similar but we had to laugh at the absurdity of it. I’m not so sure Ben saw the funny side this time.

Still it's something different and Ben may put together a team so we'll see how it plays out sports fans.