Monday 18 June 2012

I could be right I could be wrong?


I was in the Southport GW on Sunday, the manager's away but another guy was covering. He was cagey about what he knew about 6th but promised there would be plenty of fun in store next Saturday for pre-orders. He then seemed to forget being cryptic and dropped a bomb shell that's either completely bogus or very exciting - he was of the impression there would be 3,000 copies nationwide of the box set available as a limited early production run to pre-order on the 23rd ahead of it's August/September release!

Will have to wait and see if this come true...

Sunday 17 June 2012

'nids part 40 - Yet more ebay Warriors

During my recent ebay splurge, I say recent it's about three months back now. I got another 5 Warriors. I think the bargain price in the end was about £11 all in. It was two auctions and the seller kindly combined postage, which was nice considering they hadn't offered it and I got them all for such a steal. Anyway, the plan is to create another 2 Hive Guard and as you can see there are plenty of the required components attached to these to get me the result I need.


I've also got some of the remaining bits from my nieghbour and car-share buddy Mark. I was also looking to try and create a Tyrant guard with the remaining crushing claw components and some of the Mawloc Scything Talons, however initial dry fits are proving problematic in fitting the model on a 40mm base. There's just not enough room to fit everything in. I've seen one example on the internet of a Warrior-Tyrant guard conversion with the claws but I'm pretty sure it sits on a 60mm base which is ludicrous. I may look to see if I can get something a little bigger - 45 or 50mm wooden discs if they're available from my local craft shop. Otherwise some extra bits of slate my add more surface area whilst retaing the official base size. If this is no joy then I'll have to abandon the conversion.



Of course if I have the Hive Guard and Tyrant Guard I'm left with two Warriors, so no Shrike unit. I may definitely do another Deathspitter Warrior to join my existing unit, way we can have three Deathspitters, 2 and 1 Barbed Strangler or 3 and the Strangler. Options ar eextremely useful.

Friday 15 June 2012

666 - the Number of the beast


You don't need me to tell you 6th Edition is due at the end of the month, whether that's pre-orders or the book readily available and the box set coming soon after. Of course this is a momentous occasion and something I don't have a whole lot of experience with. Back when I was gaming with my mates we only ever transitioned from Rogue trade into 2nd edition but to be honest I don't recall much about how that went down. I never owned 2nd Edition, I think one of the guys bought it and I may have observed a battle or two but at that time I was mostly playing Epic as they were my most complete army and what I enjoyed playing.

Fast forward to today and I'm actually quite excited to see what happens and I don't really care if it's for good or ill, it's just 'exciting times'. Will it suddenly make 'nids competitive? doubtful, but if I was interested in being competitive I wouldn't be playing 'nids anyway. Unfortunately it seems the new Edition is impacting in a number of ways I'd not foreseen - my local gaming buddy PeteB has decided it's time to get off the merry-go-round and not continue on with 6th Edition and take a break from 40k. I hope this is just a temporary thing as I've really enjoyed the few fun games we've had. Additionally my old gaming buddy Ben has decided to postpone any more games until after the new Edition comes out - which scuppers our plans for a rematch in a couple of weeks.

Last Tuesday I also nipped to my local friendly neighbourhood gaming club and the resident 40kers were sat around painting and clipping sprues so there was no 40k going on, just because 5th Edition is 'winding down'. I understand where folk are coming from but it all seems a little premature to me. As I've no real desire for a £45 rule book I'm only looking to transition into 6th when the box set arrives and will no doubt be nipping to GW to get some demo games in with them beforehand. So I can't see me playing 6th exclusively until around August/September time. But if folk are binning off 5th a few weeks before the new release it looks like I'm going to have quite a few weeks without 40k until we're all up to speed and on the same page. Of course this also means I could be finishing off those bits of my army that need painting. Sowing the seeds, so to speak, ready for the harvest come Autumn.

Anyway, hopefully things will settle down and the transition won't be too traumatic, despite the losses so far.

Wednesday 13 June 2012

'nids part 39 - Afterall, what is a Mycetic Spore anyway?

It's been a while since I finished my Mycetic Spore but I certainly feel it was a model worth making. I really like the opportunity of dropping something useful anywhere on the battlefield. However I only have the one complete pod and I know two would definitely be more interesting so I can drop Devgaunts and the Doom, otherwise it's the Doom and hoping the Reserve order allows me to bring the Devgaunts on via a Trygon Tunnel, otherwise they'll just come on from my board edge :(


Of course I do have two Plasma Hatchers and despite the fact that there seems to be little love for them on the net I've gone on record as saying they're ideal for the job, given their cost, size and availability.

But I really like the Pot Pourri Pod (PPP) I made and ideally I would like to have all my pods look the same. Of course I could use the PPP for when I use the single pod and paint up the Plasma Hatchers when I use two but in the mean time I'm in search of what it is I actually made my PPP out of. Luckily I still have the packet of Pot Pourri from The Range and the label says it was made by S&N Household Limited* so I decided to email them to ask what the seed pod below is and if they currently do any packets with it in, as the Oriental Poppy Fragrance is no longer stocked by The Range. So far I've had no response from them.



Meanwhile I kept on searching for Pot Pourri sellers and came across http://www.daisyshop.co.uk/ and as they give advice to people making their own Pot Pourri I decided to contact them to see if they could shed light on my dilema, and they kindly responded:
Hello Dave
Thanks for your email.
I think the seed pod is a mintolla ball – I’m afraid we don’t stock it though!
Kind regards
Mike.
Mike Ridley, Director





So now we know, and that led me to the Wikipedia page
Cerbera odollam, commonly known as the Suicide treePong-pong, and Othalanga, is a species of tree native to India and other parts of Southern Asia. It grows preferentially in coastal salt swamps and in marshy areas. It grows wild along the coast in many parts of Kerala, India and has been grown as a hedge between home compounds. It yields a potent poison, often used for suicide or murder [1].


So it's actually the Pong-Pong Pot Pourri Pod? The PPPPP! Except this isn't really the end of the story as suppliers of Mintolla balls are mainly trade suppliers so although I seem to be able to get them dirt cheap they want to sell 100's of them or charge extortionate amounts for postage from Poland, Czech Republic or India. In the end I've found one supplier who seems relatively cheap, British based and accept Paypal but their website doesn't function so I'll have to contact them directly. In the mean time I think I'll paint up the the Plasma Hatchers just to see what they're like, although having seen the following I still feel the need to modify it in some way to be more gribbly


http://www.warpshadow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15811&start=15
* I don't know why I'm linking to them as they never got back to me but still my Karma is enriched from this.

 

Right, I've had a little think and I've decided that the Plasma Hatchers are the solution. If I only ever field one Spore I will use the PPPPP, but if I want to run two then I'll use the Plasma Hatchers. Rumour has it GW has a Spore Pod already designed, it's just never been released. I can't say I'm excited about the prospect of that, but then I wasn't overly keen about a full-on Tervigon and then I went and oredered one. But as I believe strongly in the Plasma Hatchers as a viable model I think I should put my money where my mouth is at least!

And in further update news the Spore Pod got the single most attention at Warhammer World with quite a number of people asking me what it was, how I made it and how long it took [isn't it amazing how some people are obsessed about how long it took to paint something?]. In particular there were a couple of GW staffers who spent about 10 minutes chatting about it as I packed away, not sure if they were visiting retail managers or HQ staff but I casually warned them I would know who to blame if in a few months the spore pod did come out and it looked like my pod ;)

Monday 11 June 2012

Dark Angel progress, honest!

Alongside the Deathwing progress I've continued on with my Space Marine Commander. His power sword has been painted in the same way as the Deathwing Captain, beautiful and scruffy! The same can be said for his cloak. There seems to be a lot of my 'old' way of painting in this - the scruffy slap-dash way I used to paint my Empire army. It got them done but was considerably removed from my wet-blending techniques I was capable of.


I've still to come to terms with the banner. Once again this is something I've seen executed with success. My local GW has the same AoBR Commander, painted quickly with what looks like solely Foundation paints but they seem to have picked out a wealth of detail on the banner. I've only painted the cloth and it feels like it's far from satisfactory but I must remember The Most Important Rule of Painting - it's not finished and to reserve judgement until it is.


In some respects the different kind of painting on the cloak works purely because it's material, it has a totally different physical quality and texture than any of the other bits on the model. Perhaps the shadows and highlights are actually too harsh for fabric but in the 41st Millenium who knows?


Still some little bits to do, hair, gun, banner and base at least.


Here's a bonus tidbit. I wanted to see if I could freehand the Dark Angel chapter badge on a standard Marine shoulder pad - they're a little smaller than a Terminator shoulder, not least because of the rim surrounding the pad. As this is one of the old plastic marines his shoulder pad is smaller still than the AoBR miniatures. I managed it and it's passable. I'm not sure I want to do them all this way, although how many Marines would I actually be doing? 15, 20? Surely that's in the realms of possibility? Or, should I just opt for decals of this? Ron's just done a few posts on decals on From the Warp so if I can find a way to put them on without it screaming "HE USED DECALS" it might be worth trying. I'll be doing some decals on my son's Eldar no doubt so perhaps that will be my opportunity to reacquaint myself with the procedure and results and what results I can achieve following some of Ron's tips.


Saturday 9 June 2012

Return of my Son's Eldar Diving Eagles [Swooping Hawks]

Once again the 'unique way of posting' in this blog, prepping well in advance otherwise I'd never post anything means the other day I went to Warhammer World - barring natural disaster and given the Mayan 2012 prophesies who knows?! The point being my son was attempting to get his 1,000pts of eldar ready to compete with although I'm pretty sure as I write this he'll not meet the deadline. He did try a bit but I think there are just too many distractions for a 10 year old nowadays that spending more than 30 minutes painting is just tedious.

However, one thing he did progress with was his 'Diving Eagles'. With full disclosure I did paint one of them, as a pattern for him to follow and it's this one below we'll begin with. As you can see the Devlan Mud and Badab Black washes have really toned down the Red Oxide Primer from the previous pictures in the link above.


The Devlan Mud also makes a nice patina effect on the gun but thanks to the vagaries of Finecast you can see the barrels aren't straight BOO! I also did the bases for all of the models.


I was particularly pleased at the way the highlights on the front of the helm morphed as I did them so it wasn't a clean blend but instead I started making little 'feather-like' strokes. OK this isn't anything different really from the Chitin marks on the Tyranids but for some reason they do look, in my eyes, like a completely different texture.


The remaining 5 miniatures were all washed in Devlan Mud and Badab Black and I did the bases.


I may have gon a little too far on this individual but I wanted to try that layered stone effect you see on eroded rock formations in monument valley. I think there is perhaps too much contrast here but it's a first try and a little bit different.


And a view from the side.


More to come soon...

Thursday 7 June 2012

Blood Bowl - Elves Progress

What a nightmare these elves are! I forgot just how annoying it is to try and paint round all those studs on their clothes. Then painting them black, oh geez that's tedious. I think I did them over two or three sittings as I think my brain was going to explode.

 

They're all going to be very blonde, so I'm going for Bonewhite hair first. I've still to do the flesh, highlight the black armour and possibly do a 2nd extreme highlight for the yellow.


All of the masks will be painted orange. Way back in the day I did a Haffenheim Hornets endzone that used the Tamiya Hornet logo and so I feel I need to still reference that orange head.


Still need to source a decent Treeman to go with these. There are pletny available but most are a bit rubbish.


The captain about to long bomb the endzone!