'nids part 29 - More Rippers [WHY?!].

I honestly I don't know, we just have the figures for two more bases and with many of the battles I'm doing now being points intensive I've got to spend them somewhere if I'm going to fill out a large battle force. I've even got so far as to make them sky-slashers and add spinefists! Anyway, I've been painting up this base and my son has been doing the other four Rippers for the 5th base. Just before the turquoise goes on...

When I originally looked at Rippers I couldn't see the point and I'm not entirely sure if that opinion has changed. I've played them as sky-slashers and the increase in speed is useful but they didn't do anything first time and second time with Spinefists they deep struck, fired off 16 shots and did nothing. I think their only contribution was that amount of fire power makes people notice them and so they got assaulted which meant they tar-pit a unit for two or three turns thanks to their wealth of wounds. 

So I'm thinking they make a decent delaying unit. Just put them somewhere to distract the opponent to a slightly more immediate force. Perhaps they'd do better against Eldar or Guard? One other option is using the Parasite of Mortrex, although I think he's exorbitantly expensive but who's going to shell out for all those ripper bases it spawns? WELL, if you look at what's just been released by GW

Ripper Swarm Brood 1 Mini £8.50 Finecast

REALLY? We've waited for years for a Tervigon and Tyrannofex but we never realised we were desperate for Finecast Rippers in the Old Style and all for a measily £8.50! There's only one base by the way, you'll need 3 for a Brood...

So they must be good right! Right?

For that price you may as well get the Forgeworld models, if you absolutely must have Rippers, they're much cooler looking even if the rules are rubbish

Gaming Night -Zombies!!!

This week at my local friendly neighbourhood gaming club was it's busiest ever. Only one table was playing 40k with the majority Warmachine, a Warhammer Fantasy Battle and one of Malifaux. I hoped the 40k battle was going to end quickly as it was only 1000pts but it was an introductory match to someone who hadn't played in 10 years. It was really interesting to watch though as the experienced guy really helped him through the rules and it seemed one of the most comprehensive explanations of the rules I've come across. 

In the end time was ticking on and I didn't really fancy a game once it turned 21:00. Good old PeteB finished his Malfaux nonsense [only because it made no sense to me whatsoever and at one point I was going to shout "numberwang" it was so convoluted] and suggested a game of Zombies!!! [please note three exclamation marks, you never need more than three dammit!!!].

I'd never played but my neighbour and car sharing buddy Mark was convinced it might take a while but joined in with Nathan, PeteB's Malifaux opponent. It's a simple game, you have a stack of 3x3 grid town tiles, some have numbers of Zombies!!! lives and bullets on. You start the game in the town square with 3 lives and 3 bullets. You draw a tile and place it next to another tile and populate it with Zombies!!! etc. Roll D6 and move, if you enter a square with a Zombie!!! roll D6, 4+ kills it. If you get a 3 or a 2 you can spend 1 or 2 bullets to take it out or lose a life and get a re-roll. The winner is either the person who kills 25 Zombies!!! or gets to the helipad.

Throughout the game you also have cards that you can use. They're either situational - making Molotov Cocktails in the Gas Station or can be played any time - you get to move another player their D6 spaces. Of course this opened up wonderful opportunites to force Nathan, because lets face it he was the one on the receiving end of our naughtines ;) to plough through piles of Zombies!!! with only a couple of lives and bullets to save him. In the event of your death you go back to the town square, give up half your Zombies!!! but get your 3 lives+bullets back.

This was such a laugh, unfortunately the above picture misses off the helipad just to the right, with 9 Zombies!!! in residence after those 8 lining the road in front of it. We had so much fun and the banter was hilarious, even my carefully honed Zombie!!! impressions went down well and much amusement was had by my constant movement rolls of less than 3 spaces. I think my little yellow guy was actually pretending to be a Zombie!!! like in Shaun of the Dead to save his a$$!

A good laugh and a nice way to get more than two people round a table, I look forward to another game - "BRAINS!"

'nids part 28 - Ymgarls and a FREEBIE [free STUFF!]

With my local friendly neighborhood gaming clubs tournament I needed to maximise the figures I've got to make the 2,000 pts I was going to fight with, so out come the Ymgarl stealers to bulk out my force. Having that assault from 'dormancy' is really useful and their turn-by-turn mutation makes up for lack of adrenals or toxin sacs, not to mention everyone seems to think their SO much better than their standard bretheren.

But what to do to remind you which mutation they're experiencing this turn? How's about some handy Ymgarl genestealer mutation markers?

And if you need more than three here's six handy cut out and keep ones here. I just print them out [click for full size, they should be 2cm tall], add double sided tape on the back and Sellotape on the front. Attach to mounting card and cut up. If the mounting card has a white core then I use a black marker to make them look cool.

Here's what they look like when they're done

Having used them on the day I may make an amend to add the stat bonuses [somewhere] as it's more helpful to know slashing claws are S+1 than have to keep referring back to the book but please use them now if you can't wait.

Usual step-by-step:

1. Print
2. Apply double sided tape to back
3. Stick to mounting card
4. Carefully apply sellotape to top if you want them pseudo-laminated
5. Cut out with craft knife/scalpel
6. Amaze your friends and enemies with these cards
7. Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.

 And of course while you are at it you can do the same for my free Wound Markers

Due to popular demand [as well as my own playtesting] now with 'buff' notation:

John Carter (of Mars) FREEBIE, FREE STUFF

I had the absolute pleasure to go and see John Carter at the cinema this weekend. The wife let me and the eldest go see it together and even paid and provided nibbles. It was also the full 3D version, how cool is that? If you don't know what John Carter is about then I wouldn't be surprised. It would seem Disney invested massive amounts in a story everyone could relate to and identify with and then promptly forgot how to get that across.

John Carter is based on a series of books written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the guy who wrote Tarzan, The People that Time Forgot and At The Earth's Core, amongst others. Amazingly you can get all the books, and the others mentioned electronically, for FREE at Project Guttenberg

A Princess of Mars
Gods of Mars
Thuvia, Maid of Mars
Warlord of Mars
Chessmen of Mars

I downloaded these books years ago onto my Palm Tungsten T PDA. I can't remember why but I was impressed they were for free and I enjoyed them for the 'pulp' sci-fi they were.

At it's core the story is about a civil war veteran who gets transported to Mars and there becomes a hero in the war between the people and aliens living on that planet. It helps that on Mars Carter's Earth-born bone density and muscle mass allows him to 'leap tall buildings'[yes he inspired the Man of Steel] and have superhuman strength. Of course there's a love interest, the Princess of Mars and if you do an image search of her name NOT AT WORK then you will discover this buxom wench has a slight aversion to clothes but otherwise in the film she's slightly more attired, though no less captivating

John Carter is based on a book nearly 100 years old that brings about the Sci-Fi concepts of flying craft, teleportation, alien creatures, energy weapons and so much more. Concepts that have been borrowed by Star Wars, Aliens, Flash Gordon and Avatar to name but a few, but this was the originator. I can't recall a film recently I've enjoyed so much. Indeed you will see those elements that are from Attack of the Clones and feel a little frustrated because you've seen it before but this is handled so much better and you will wish you'd not seen the poorer version. Ultimately though I felt John Carter had more in common with Flash Gordon than Star Wars and actually the premise is even a little bit like Shrek, a Princess destined to be married to someone else, an anti-hero who wants to cut himself off from the rest of humanity, desperate to get back to his home [swamp]. There's even a donkey...

I loved this film, of course I had pre-conceptions about things because I'd read the books. Dejah Thoris wasn't red, just tattoed, Mars isn't red enough, although tthere are some stubby yellow bushes that look suspiciously like Ferron Bindweed. But overall these are minor annoyances compared with Disney's lack of faith in their film. John Carter deserves a massive audience, it's comparable to any of the big sci-fi epics we've had in years and the only way that can happen is for people to go see it, then perhaps we may get the sequels. At this stage I think that's doubtful but maybe there will be a surge of people discovering this film and it may slowly grow momentum, I hope so. If I've not encouraged you enough try the trailer on for size:

"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:

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-kamae, seigan 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!

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?