Sunday 11 March 2012

"What's App Doc?"

That has to be the worst blog title pun ever so lets move on... a little under a year ago I ventured into the scary world of a pay monthly phone contract, well scary for me that is. Prior to this I'd been quite happy with your standard Pay as You Go mullarky and had slowly progressed from a Phillips C12, to a SonyEricsson T16 [2nd hand] to my wife's SonyEricsson w810i but I was averaging around £10 every six weeks.

The world of phones is very different now and although I'd never had a data account or used a smartphone I'd had a Palm Zire, Tungsten T [which was awesome] and a Windows Mobile Acer 300 PDA so I knew I wanted a phone with the same capabilities, built in Sat-Nav and by this stage MP3 capabilities were standard. I'd been looking for a few years for a decent upgrade but I also needed one that was going to be on a monthly tariff I could afford/justify.

Cut to last April and I ended up with an LG Optimus One:


It was a great deal, more minutes than I would use, 100 texts a month that were upgraded to unlimited for free, 500mb of data, the phone was free and it even came with a car cradle and sat-nav kit, all for £10.42 a month! Some may claim it's not the prettiest of phones that the HTC Wildfire was a better phone [it retains it's value better on trade in, but the LG is better in nearly every other spec aside from camera quality]. Regardless, I love it. I've always been an Apple fan but I didn't want an iPhone and Android syncs so well with all my Google things, it's almost like they were made by the same company ;) That can't be true, Google operates a firre and forget policy of distributing all sorts of cool things and never bothering to fix them, make them better following user feedback - I've been waiting for years to see my google map ratings and reviews reinstated.

But you can do cool stuff with the phone and you can download apps too and a few are 40k related. So having intoduced you to my phone in case I can make an irregular feature out of this here's an app you may like: Templar Assault. I think when you go to the link you may see the inspiration, it's definitely not Space-Hulk GW legal. I've had a little go of it and it's quite fun, you get to upgrade your squad with different weapons and equipment and for free it isn't half bad, here's some screen shots:





Thursday 8 March 2012

Wraithlord - Seigan-no-kamae

My Son has had his Wraithguard since Christmas and as I've booked him a ticket to the GW North West gaming tournament in June he has to get 1000 pts painted by June 6th so we decided to put together his Wraithlord. Originally he wanted a Shuriken Cannon and Multi-laser but at the last minute decided to go with a Bright Lance and Sword, well that was it, I got very excited. I may have actually took over at this point I'm afraid to admit because I had a plan. In my defence putting the arms, hands and weapons on at the same time is quite difficult and he would have struggled greatly, I did.

Anyway the kit comes with a couple of foot and arm options which are nigh on the exact same positions that make up the basic kendo stance so I beseeched my son to allow me to replicate the pose. The basic stance is called chudan-no-kamae [there's pictures at the end to illustrate what the hell I'm jabbering about] this position is both defensive and offensive with the tip of your sword aimed at your opponents throat. Right foot forward, left foot back with your heel off the ground putting pressure on that left leg waiting for the moment to strike where all the forward momentum is derived from pushing off from the left leg.


Unfortunately I couldn't quite get the pose perfect without extensive cutting of the arms so instead of the nice relaxed bent arms which would make the kensen [tip of the sword] point at the Wraithlords throat height I've used the straight arms. In actual fact this is another stance called seigan-no-kamaeseigan is a modified chudan, in that the kensen is raised slightly and to the side. This stance is used against people who adopt jodan-no-kamae, a purely offensive high stance, or nito, two sword technique. When your opponent is in jodan their left hand is raised and much closer to you than any other target so by adopting seigan you are much closer to cutting that hand off or alternatively thrusting for his now unprotected throat - a tsuki.



Chudan no kamae - nice and relaxed posture, left heel raised, seigan is higher and to the right.
Jodan no kamae - note the left hand to which your kensen, in seigan, would be 'covering'.
One other issue was the deal with the twin Shuriken Catapults. I didn't want to clutter up the Wraithlord's arms with guns so I devised a twin catapult mount. I took a flamer, cut the flamer bulb off, trimmed any mounting slots on the catapults and glued them either side of the remaining flamer mount. At this point a small piece of plastic shot off into my eye which prompted a couple of minutes of delicate wiping to remove the offending article. Perhaps I need to invest in some safety glasses...


The mounted twin Shuriken Catapults. I also took the two arm vanes and in contrast to the examples on the box reversed them so they had a more aerodynamic look to them.


I'm pretty pleased overall, so pleased I want to paint it but I will try to let his nibs do it, hopefully he'll take some advice and time over it so we get a decent result, I really want it to be a centrepiece to his army, especially now it's factually correct, a bit at least.


Meanwhile, I didn't go to gaming night on Tuesday, I got a sweat on for some painting. 'Tackled' a new thing, which I still have to share and finally decided to do the heraldry on the Deathwing and eyes on folk. Suddenly all that procrastinating so I don't screw up didn't seem so bad as the end results are not what I'd hoped for :( Still, it's not finished yet I can keep them as is and if I really do hate the heraldry I can always go over it again. Damn those Deathwing freehand badges for making me think I could paint neat and tidy!

Tuesday 6 March 2012

There are no Wolves on Fenris!

New 'Skin Wolves' from Forgeworld for WFB. £32 for 3, not knowing a huge amount about Space Wolves but perhaps they may have a use, I dunno?

40k Birthday swag

As you may recall the other weekend it was 40k's Birthday and local GW's had a number of offers on including these fine items that I secured: a 25th Birthday Mousemat


And a 25th Birthday Pin badge.


I also got an A3 Rogue Trader poster which I'll find a picture frame for, eventually. The day was not without controversy though. The manager had informed me previously of a local GW tournament that would be held at the 'GW Mecca' Warhammer World in June, a £15 ticket with £20 coach. That sounded good to me with the only downside that there would be only 20 tickets. At some point it was suggested I might like to take my son, which I wasn't 100% sure on, suddenly my cheap trip to the Mecca doubled in price. I was looking at possibly driving, which would have taken a third of travelling even with today's silly petrol prices. Anyway, it turned out on the day only 15 tickets were available, and presumably the reduced head count meant the coach had to be split between fewer people and that meant £27! I 'ummed' and 'ahhed' and just bought my own ticket with a view to speaking to the wife about whether it really was worth taking the nipper.

OK, I'm tight fisted but I maintain there';s a big difference between £30 in tickets and £30 in petrol and £84 all in, but she still made me feel like a 'heel'. So I got him a ticket and it means he should be painting 1,000  pts of Eldar to compete with, however much like the fallback cars in Top Gear I will be preparing a 1,000 pt Tyranid army too. I may also attempt to finish 1,000 pts of Dark Angels as well but with another 'nid force in reserve. Personally I don't hold out much chance for either of us but thankfully the 'nids are there just in case.


Incidentally, for MY birthday I got this from good friend Pete through Steam:


I needed to get a Graphics Card upgrade anyway to play Dawn of War 2 so this was just the incentive to do that with some birthday money, not to mention another ten Devgaunts and a second Broodlord. So expect some new distractions just when I need to concentrate on getting figures painted and I haven't even mentioned the two BloodBowl teams...


Monday 5 March 2012

Here's the Trophy


As promised here's my Holy Grail in more detail, if just a little bit dull lighting, see the words prove my success

Sunday 4 March 2012

Lost Boys Gaming Club - Fall of Arminius Tournament


Yesterday I went to Church, the church of gaming that is! My local friendly neighbourhood gaming club was holding it's tournament and I think I mentioned it's based in the same church [hall] my grandparents used to attend. I took my eldest so he he could see what it was like and hopefully prepare him for whats expected in June, I really have to fill you all in on that score.

Anyway, I took a load of photos, but any semblance of battle reports would be incomplete. By the third battle my brain was fried, my legs ached from so much standing, basically I was knackered. In time I'll share some pics and perhaps a rough report of the three 2000pt battles I played. As well as th epics I took my son also took a few and it's great because while I was shooting board wide shots of the action he got down at model level and really captured the action.

I won't leave you in suspense though, I came 14th out of 16. I'm OK with that, I faced Space Wolves [loss], Grey Knights [draw] and Blood Angels and as much as there was plenty of Tyranid body parts strewn about the battlefields for not as much of the Emperor's finest I think I made every last point taken from me hard fought. I was beaten decisively but I don't think easily and even though there was plenty of vehicles I don't think my lack of anti-tank was an issue so I'm pleased with my efforts and enjoyed every game. 

"But what the hell is that trophy if you came 14th?" you say...

Well, I did win best painted army, voted for by the competitors. Which I'm so excited about and is two fingers to Toymaster [y'see I do practice Old Stuff Day every day]. Thanks to all those that voted for me. I should have taken pictures but the other competitors were a 'counts as' ork army which was full of character because practically every model was converted with tentacles coming from heads, human bodies with Tyranid scything claws for legs with a very rustic weathered finish. Another army of grey knhights had some fantastic force weapons, I think they were air-brushed. Lastly a camo-army of guard where there was an awful lot of character in every figure, with a sergeant with a blonde 'Beatle' hair do and every model with the tiniest painted eyes, in every colour. Also a lot of diversity among ethnicity within the ranks which I approve of, I don't suppose the Emperor is prejudiced [apart from xenos] if they can hold a las-gun they're welcome in the guard.

Well, I'll get the rest of the pics done at some point and write what I can remember and maybe take a better shot of my 'Holy Grail'. Does anyone know the etiquette of these things in future tournaments? Am I expected to have a different army or add extensively to this one? I have a few more dev-gaunts and a Broodlord coming but I don't think that'd be enough do you? I'm sure of the club hold another tournament they'll let me know if I'm in the shortlist and people can decide if I'm still worthy or reward someone else, but for today - I won 'for the Great Devourer'!

Friday 2 March 2012

Old stuff day 2012


It's old stuff day 2012. Last year warhammer39999 wanted to join a movement to rediscover lost gems from the world of hobby blogs. To choose one of your own blogposts that your most proud of, or may not have got the attention it deserved or any thing that may warrant some necromantic blogpost bothering. On top of that you were to share blogposts from other bloggers which you thought deserved the same spotlight of attention before they were returned to their dark nightmare infested slumbers.

So I showed a little love for one of my old posts but then again I link to loads of my old stuff anyway so maybe I'm guilty of doing this all the time. Anyway it's time to choose this years blogpost and like the Highlander there can be only one and this time lets show a little love () to my most popular of old posts:



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.


My STC page has been accessed over 4,000 times and I've seen versions of my models recreated and remixed. This hobby we do costs money but with a bit of effort, some skill and a few bits and bobs we can all have some terrain that we can be proud of, it's all I wanted to do and I hope there is value to the community and that even if folk find no use for it themselves they pass the link on to their friends and share their results with me. I've still got STC's to come so this thread will hopefully never die, just be reanimated on a regular basis ;)

OK so what's floated my boat from other bloggers. I made this easy on myself and went back through all my 'starred' stories in Google Reader and this is what I found.

Brian does an awesome job here and if you root around he goes verdi-gris crazy

It's not so much the guide as the awesome 'emo-guard' end result

I've no idea why I starred this, I don't even remember doing so but the diorama is awesome and it's just a feat for the eyes which I suppose is a good enough reason.

This isn't just a guide to painting yellow and grey marines, there's all sorts of tips from battler damage to weathering powders, a tour de-force of painting techniques.

I was going to do a post about terrain and 'tournament terrain' but after reading this I think synaps3 pretty much said it all.

To all those I may have missed mayhap I will reference you throughout the year anyway, enjoy the old stuff, wake the dead!