Thursday 2 December 2010

Terrain is everything - 40k outpost, that got bigger Pt 2 'the tower'

So here's part 2 of the '40k outpost, that got bigger'. Having realised the outpost on it's own took up far too much 'real estate' for no vertical space I felt I had to tackle this issue. I've always been one to use height to double up on available space.

Back in my early gaming days I made a number of walkways out of U shaped polystyrene that had protected the edges of some new wardrobe doors my parents got and part of an 'Arielator'. The Arielator was the new thing for washing powder, a netted bag that was attached to a fan shaped ring and support cradle. You put the powder inside and in with the wash and your clothes came out dandy.

Now a bit of jimmying with a screwdriver and you could separate the fan, the cradle and the bag. The fan was the perfect size to fit on top of a Pringles tin - instant cooling tower and the cradle, turned upside down was the ideal support strut for my over head walkways. Some of the walkways were travelators, back then figures only moved 4 inches and I thought passing an intelligence test would allow you to get the travelator to work, you'd move further and heavy weapons could fire and move 4 inches. Nice house rules but really it was about doubling your real estate, battlefield below and above.

Anyway back to the tower. A lot of it was thought of on the fly. Of course I started with a template in Illustrator. I had the dimensions for the outpost and the reinforcement cladding so I could match the decoration and try to fit it roughly the space available but as the model had also been 'adjusted' in construction things didn't always line up. As you can see the roof side wall template was way off. luckily a dry fit showed this wouldn't be right before I cut it down to size, 'remember measure twice cut once'. I think the template has been fixed but just in case ensure you only trim down the cladding once you've checked it'll fit. Also the buttresses have 5mm nicks cut into the inside to support the roof and I may have trimmed them down a bit so there was more space available.  I don't think those changes are on the template but it's not too hard to shave 4 or 5 mils off.

Once I had it constructed, elastic bands and pins really help hold the structure together while the PVA dries, I placed it in the outpost so I could work it's footprint out. As you can see the outpost entrance bulkheads got in the way so a bit of snipping with scissors allowed the tower buttresses to lock into the bulkheads which not only makes it quite secure it prevents any nonsensical gaps between tower and outpost. In actual fact that view in the 5th picture I think works the best.

Anyway plans for the tower are here. Any issues or questions if you decide to give it a go let me know.

 



Tuesday 30 November 2010

Being a pushy Dad...

If you've been reading thus far you may well understand that my addiction has, in part, been renewed by my Son's interest in 40k. Despite my suggestions to go for Space Marines he went with Tyranids, so I let him have his head with it. Somewhere along the line I thought/insisted I was supposed to be painting them. With a horde army the very thought my son would be painting all these miniatures by himself never crossed my mind and certainly not at those prices!

Perhaps you see the fundamental flaw with this scenario. I am actually removing one of the key aspects that make 40k fun, the very aspects that captivated me as a child. That's not to say I haven't encouraged him to paint figures. We've spent a good few sessions sat painting. I would ask for his help with putting on basecoats, he'd put on 80% of the colour and then I'd come along and neaten all the edges and catch any missed bits on the remaining 20%. When you're doing 12 Termagants at a time this can be dull and I understood this so I'd have a selection of High Elves from my old WFB days for him to paint as he saw fit.

I enjoyed this, his efforts really helped speed things along and I know it became tedious after a bit but the spare figures for him to do as he wished, to learn the skills was the perfect solution or not. Because there is still a chasm between his interest in the hobby and mine. My wife has asked how I would have felt if my Dad had painted all my figures as a child. I honestly believe I'd have been happy. I know I'd have loved for him to pass on the skills to paint if he had them but I know that this fails every time with my son. If anyone knows what it is like to try and teach their child to swim, or ride a bike it's much the same. Tears and tantrums, no amount of listening or trust and frustraion all around.

Suffice to say much of the year I've struggled to find out truly what it is that inspires my son about 40k, I still think it is partially down to being competitive with his cousin. I've asked him if me painting the figures is a problem, in which case I'd stop and he could do them, but he said he was fine with it but would like to paint some for himself [which is what I thought we were doing but clearly my judgement has been 'clouded' on this from day 1]. I've tried to get him to generate his own army lists which was like drawing teeth and when asked if he wants to go to GW 'dunno' is the usual response and to game at home has frequently been a flat 'no'!

So I'm now at a stage where I was thinking of asking him what next for his 'nids, let him lead the decision making We've a healthy hive-fleet, anything new is just frosting - a new Brood Lord, some Hive or Tyrant guards maybe those Warriors to do some Shrikes or at the least a few more Termagants just in case the Tervigon gets broody... or whatever random creature floated his boat. Maybe he'd even help me with some terrain...

Now my wife was talking about Christmas and I kind of suggested she ask him if he wanted anything from GW. I nip downstairs to do the dishes and by the time I come back up he's gone to bed and she's had a chat. It seems he would like some GW stuff only he wants to 'discover it all for himself', bottom line he wants to get a few Eldar and paint them up for himself and I'm to keep out of it!

Of course I'm immediately thinking he couldn't have chosen a more difficult force to paint but that's his choice. Where that leaves the 'nids I've no idea but it's clearly an important lesson for all gaming dads.

Sunday 28 November 2010

Dark Angels genesis vol 3.


Old school plastic Space Marine veteran! This was my third foray into Dark Angels colours.This was the figure supplied by my local Toymaster for a painting competition. At the time this was my best blending techniques, still wish the armour was blacker, but I'd be happy if all my figures looked like this. I have to say the dark skintones, from the Deathwing back story was the best I've ever done. These skintones will hopefully crop up when my new Dark Angels are done, with the green tones of my first attempts with the quality of my third.

Incidentally in my age group only three entered so I though I had a good chance [there were 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes up for grabs]. Because there were only 3 entries they dropped third prize! Although they announced there'd be an overall winner so having not placed anywhere in my age group I spent the entire time convinced I'd won... 13 years on it still fraks me off!

Now before I painted the Space Marine I assumed that the competition was completely open and had painted this Bloodthirster of Khorne. I've absolutely no idea where I got him from. I never collected Chaos but somehow I ended up with him. Sadly I don't think the picture does him justice and after all this time he was a bit battered but I certainly felt he was one of my better painted figures in '96/'97. Of course that kind of lined edge highlightinf is currently 'en vogue' for all your Dark Eldar needs. Anyway the wee fella got shipped off to France earlier this year thru ebay. Glad he's getting a new home, I doubt I'll regret that sale down the line.

 


Friday 26 November 2010

Terrain is everything - 'nid reclamation pool or digestion pit.

For my birthday this year I got given some GW vouchers. My good friend 'Big Pete', was the person who introduced me to the games of Games Workshop back in the day, until then I'd only been interested in Citadel Miniatures. He had Blood Bowl, and I wanted Blood Bowl, though I wasn't keen to field the Middenheim Marauders like he did. He got Rogue Trader and eventually so did I.

I think he was even the first person to have the first Epic Space marine game, whilst i'd opted for Adeptus Titanicus. As time went on my 'dealer' dropped out of the gaming, I think I ended up buying a lot of his stuff, Reaver titans, a load of epic Land Raiders. I suppose it's hard when you don't have a support group of other kids locally who do game and Big Pete lived a few miles away which may as well be a galxy in kids terms.

Anyway he got me some vouchers and I'd ummed and ahhed about what to get with them. In the end I got a number of things, some assault jump packs having ebayed some original lead ones way back when, some washes, a space marine biker and the moonscape. Now I'd looked at making my own craters, it seemed pretty straightforward in some tutorials but with all the other terrain I was working on I just wanted something done, so I went with them. Despite having seen GW's original crater pieces from 20 years ago, thin vac-formed objects that were dirt cheap but about as bland and featureless as the latest X-Factor winner.

These were considerably better quality and with a mounting card base and sharp sand applied they look really neat and far more durable than their forefathers. I'd stumbled across a White Dwarf article on how to convert one into a Tyranid reclamation pool so I thought I'd give it a go, my son does have 'nids afterall.




The first bit was tentacles. The tutorial suggested wire, but I wanted a more organic War of the Worlds spreading weed so I sued string, unwound and soaked in PVA wooden stirrers and pins helped separate the strands and thread them through all the handy cracks moulded in the moonscape.


Next up is the pool, a mix of PVA and talc forms the base with an assortment of balls to rpresent bubbles. I had some paper ones, beads from necklaces and christmas decorations but my 'inspired' idea was silver ball cake decorations and 100's and 1000's. Loads for cheap... WRONG! the little bleeders melted in the moisture in the PVA. OKK they left some nice 'popped' bubble impressions but it's not the effect I was after.


Next step was the painting. The usual undercoat of black household and craft paint mixed with PVA glue and a small amount of plaster as an ideal base for the Red Oxide spray paint. Further shading and highlights were added, note my initial plan to go purple on the weed... what was I thinking?


Here's some highlights on the pool itself, not sure if it works convincingly.

Lastly, I was desperate to get a depth to the pool, I looked around for some form of resin that would n't break the bank and came up with the VerniDas varnish which was only a couple of quid from my local art store. It still shrinks when dry so I may have to apply a couple of coats, hopefully it won't react with itself like some do. I also finished all the weed/tentacle highlights.

The conclusion to this story was that my son and I had been going to GW in Southport for a few months and the Online team were visiting to take pictures. I took along the digestion pool and his Tervigon to be photographed and obviously the 'following a White Dwarf tutorial' factor was enough of a draw to mean they used it on the website, woohoo! You can see the final highlights on the weed, some blending on the red planet sand and the glossy VerniDas in their picture.




Wednesday 24 November 2010

Terrain is everything - 40k outpost, that got bigger Pt 1 'the outpost'

This was the first piece of terrain I started. I'd just joined TerraGenesis and I saw a guy called BugbaitNZ creating a planetary defence platform for a competition. The tower he was making for the gun emplacement wasn't going to get finishe din time so he made a hexagonal base which is what I decided to copy to just see if I could do it.

And it turned out OK, only the problem was it was much bigger than I expected and totally dominated our small battlefield. I had to do something to make that real estate worth more than the low level cover it was representing. So I started on my modularity complex and hacked at the rear wall in such a way that i could position a 3 storey tower into the out post. This can be detached to form a separate tower if needed or leave the outpost on it's own or joined together.

As you can see the tower was a considerable jump in detail and complexity but I'd been convinced I could do it following the success of the outpost. My only regret is the use of a lever arch file cover for the base. I thought it was the moisture in the PVA that warped card and as the cover was plastic coated it wouldn't warp. WRONG! It's just PVA shrinks. If it's not dimensionally stable your base will warp, FACT, so deal with it.

   

   



Plans for the outpost are here. Tower plans to follow...

Monday 22 November 2010

'nids part 1. and 'List maker'

So given my son's choice of 'nids I thought I'd look to some form of army list maker to help, erm, making the lists. Obviously there are some you have to pay for but if you can get one for free even better, and that's what I found. Over at Alice 40k Warhammer club they have plenty of list makers for your specific codex. They're all Excel spreadsheets and they're quite good, a few bugs in places but nothing you can't add to somewhere to get your force down.
With this in mind here's the first list I came up with, using my son's figures and a few more I felt I needed [like the Shrikes for synapse support for the Gargoyles]. It was completely without any background knowledge, the Codex was so new very little advice was available at the time.
  • Tyranid Prime with Pair of Boneswords,Adrenal Glands,Toxin Sacs,Regeneration,,,,,,,,,,,,120
  • 3x Hive Guard(s) with ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,150
  • Tervigon with ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,160
  • 12x Termagaunts with Strangleweb,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,70
  • 12x Genestealers with Adrenal Glands,Toxin Sacs,,,,,,,,,,,,,,240
  • 3x Tyranid Warriors with Barbed Strangler,Deathspitter,,,,,,,,,,,,,,110
  • 3x Ripper Swarms with Tunnel Swarm,,,,,,,,,,,,,,36
  • 10x Gargoyles with ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,60
  • 3x Tyranid Shrikes with Pair of Boneswords,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,135
  • Trygon with Regeneration,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,225
  • 1x Biovore(s) with ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,45
TOTAL 1351
Now a lot of things would change with this mainly due to offers that became available on ebay. So we'll see where we're at once all those purchases got made. Certainly the Shrikes have gone by the wayside, despite finding 3 pairs of wings I could use to convert them... Meanwhile where was that Tervigon coming from?
Next up what I did for my HQ choice, the Tyranid Prime...

Saturday 20 November 2010

Falling off the wagon part 3. The Shadow in the Warp

So for Christmas 2009 I got Assault on Black Reach, but it's one thing to get the game, it's another to play and really the only incentive is if you have someone to play against. I've got 1000's of points of Space Marines but they had absolutely no interest to my eldest son. He was only interested in Tyranids and with his birthday coming up and a new codex due at the same time he had plenty of birthday money to invest.

Now I loved the 'Without Number' rule in the old codex whereby if a gaunt was 8pts or less, for an additional 3pts each if the brood was wiped out they could be brought on again from the Tyranid board edge. What better way to prevent tears and tantrums than a constantly respawning battleforce. Anyway that rule went by the wayside and the Nipper got a box of Termagants, Warriors, Gargoyles and a Trygon to add to the Biovore he'd randomly bought at some point.

It was my job to get the paints and work up a paint scheme. I knew I wanted to do it blue because the Nipper's favourite colour is blue. I also looked at all the new stats in the codex and realised those gargoylse were rapidly going to suffer when they got out of Synapse range so would probably need some Shrikes to go with them. Looking up Winged Tyranid Warrior I saw a nice conversion on a website called Necrotales. Suddenly I had the inspiration for the colour scheme I wanted to do...



So you've already seen my son's Broodlord [in a body warmer] from when I discussed cheap terrain materials. But you can see quite clearly the blue and bone white scheme I developed, we'll get to see more of these beggars over time.