Tuesday Nights Alright for Fighting (pt1.) - The Hobbit

PeteB hooked up for a night of games, we'd hoped to get in a go on his Hobbit Goblin Town, march with the titans in my original Adeptus Titanicus and even use the force with a crack at X-Wing. Unfortunately we only managed the first two. I took photographs but I'm not sure what report they will make as the games were all new to me so details will be scarce.

First up PeteB made this awesome Goblin Town and threw me a curve ball on arrival announcing he's put it up on ebay! The auction will be over by the time you read this but at least we're giving it a go before then. We played a scenario with a package at the back of Goblin Town surrounded by my Moria Goblins who were on a weekend city break to see the sights and visit the throne of the Goblin King. Their tour guide was an albino goblin captain Grinnar [?]. Bifur, Bombur and Bofur were there to steal their packed lunches. I also had the advantage that every turn I got to roll to see if a couple of Goblins joined the tour party on a 5 or 6.

I hadn't planned to take a lot of pictures so you will see Bombur has already despatched two goblins and is now advancing on Grinnar, eventually putting a wound on him, only one left.

Meanwhile Bifur tried a different route and leapt daintily across the gap and went on to kill two goblins who'd dropped down to prevent him advancing. My Goblins couldn't hit the side of a barn with swords or arrows. I also had two goblins who tried to leap the gap to stop Bifur's rampage and one tripped and fell down the gaping chasm.

Bofur finally managed to catch up with Bombur but Grinnar had a sneaky trick whereby he could swap places with any Goblin withn 3" which he did and lashed out at Bombur with his whip [or throwing weapon?] wounding him but the dwarves despatched the confused archer in his place.

Bombur made a dash for the back of the board but a keen eyed Goblin shot him down dead!

Bofur managed to sidestep Grinnar and headed for the packed lunches but was stopped by a goblin. Bifur was surrounded by Goblins, with nowhere to be pushed back if I won this combat he would suffer 10 'to wound rolls'!

But with a mighty surge Bifur won, killing one goblin and throwing back the remaining four like they were tiny little green men [which they are!]

Grinnar snuck up behind Bofur but couldn't do anything.

Bofur had even more Goblins try to bring him down.

The four Goblins rushed into Bifur, once again pinning him against the edge of the walkway.

And yet again he threw them back but was unable to kill any.

Weight of numbers finally forced Bofur down the ladder and yet more goblins arrived on the tour mule to lend their support in defending the packed lunches against Bifur...

...who was beaten senseless by the yammering green horde.

Bifur tried in vain to bring the fight back against the Goblins but whatever happened that dice roll is never good.

Whereas half of my dice were sufficient to put an end to the dwarven lunch thieves.

The remaining Goblins sat down for some nice cheese and pickle sandwiches and that night were treated to an impromptu Goblin performance of the Spice Girls musical - Viva Forever.

A lot fun ;) now on to the march of the Titans.

Terrain is everything - some awesome terrain 10 pages worth

Quick one, I saw this thread on Warseer, some truly awesome terrain and 10 pages worth [so it makes up for the short post :) ]. I particularly like the Dawn of War Sentry Turret and the Atmosphere Processors. Loads of extra details to make them more realistic and step-by-step guides to do-it-yourself

Check it out:

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?250009-Bunkers-barricades-and-battlefield-bits

MOAR from my mate Liam - Scratchbuilt Thunderbolt

A couple of years ago my mate Liam shared some awesome scratchbuilt Flyers, back before Flyers had become the battlefield dominating must-have we know and hate today ;) Here's the finished little beauty

Anyway, he recently sent me a link to his progress pics that may be of interest to those out there who are anal enough to want to build their own, so here you go:

 

Hopefully you made it thus far and the pictures were satisfaction enough for your 40k addiction. I will let you into the secret that he's also sent me the links to his work in progress shots of his award winning Chaos Space Marine army too, so they'll be coming soon as well.

'nids part 80 - Tyranid Bastion pt1.

That's right folks, a Bastion - the logical progression from my Tyranid Aegis Defence Line. Of course if I do the Bastion then the logical next step is a Skyshield Landing Platform and then a Fortress of Redemption but lets not run before we can walk.

Occasionally I'll draw myself a little sketch of what I'm after and so my first attempt tried to match the proportions of the existing Imperial Bastion but this is going to be completely scratchbuilt. I'm all for Tyranid infested Imperial terrain but a completely scratchbuilt affair holds appeal for me because it will be unique, match my army, be a challenge and will cost me nothing [importance not in that order].

However, recently I've seen a variety of Xenos bastions that use the GW moonscape as a base and as I have a couple of spare pieces I thought they might be a potential stepping stone. Unfortunately this would mean the dimensions for the Bastion would change significantly. Using the base below I managed to do an area measurement of the dual crater and as you can see the slightly larger yellow circles have the same rooftop surface area as the Imperial Bastion, coincidence? On the one hand this is awesome on the other it means I can't use the crater edges completely to show my Bastion 'rupturing' through the ground.  

In some areas I'll be able to do it but overall I'd hoped to take advantage of the model but the tower will have to taper from the base and if the crater is already the area I need it will have to expand the crater beyond it's dual circular edges. Also, this will be Obviously be a different plan view and instead of a square shape will be more rectangular. Let's hope this isn't an issue, Tyranids are bio-constructs and nothing in nature is perfect so making a square shape would be unnatural.

So this is the revised concept sketch, however mounting the 'heavy bolters' on it's compass points will be difficult given the Chitinous towers already situated there. What I may do is make the towers sit slightly angled opposite each other that way the left and right weapon can be in the East and West positions and then the North and south guns will be asymmetrically opposite, one in the right hand Southern wall and the other in the left Northern wall. With 'sphincter doors' [as seen in Advanced Space Crusade] in the left Southern and right Northern.

And in case you need more reference, the ruler is just short of 17cm in height, which will be around the height of the battlements. I will create a foamboard skeleton something like this shape ‡ [or perhaps with three crossbars] rotated 100 degrees [to give the diagonal] with the two crossbars running out to the crater edges. I'll include the Chitinous Towers in each piece and then build on the ends using various plastic components that will be covered in Milliput. The other more organic areas... G.O.D. knows, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

 Another procrastination from my Dark Angels eh? ;) I'm sneaky like that!

Tyranid Bastion | Foamboard core template

Lord of the Rings - Moria Goblins Finished!

I'd originally intended to do a step-by-step for these guys but I also intended to do them quickly so those decisions proved to be mutually exclusive. After I primed them black I did the bases first. I thought as there was more area to the base than figure any overspill from the dry brush could be covered easier afterwards than try and paint round the model.

 

After a quick base of craft brown acrylic and subsequent lighter brown drybrushes I used my Vallejo BoltGun equivalent, the green that was supplied with my LoTR starter set [not bad considering it's 12ish years old] Mechrite red on the clothing and browns on various bits of leather.

I then washed it twice with my Army Painter Strong Tone [Devlan Mud replacement]. I was after a much darker effect than a single wash - to try and replicate the darkness of the movie goblins, even though I've introduced reds and greens. I'd intended to do one set of highlights but I was already feeling these were too bright and so many times I've just wanted to 'wash and go' with my painting because I believe they actually look good without the highlighting anyway. My only annoyance is that archer with the helmet. I'd pulled a stone off that was too big and it brought a lot of sand with it. It blended OK with the browns but I suddenly thought a dark pool of water would look good too so filled it with black - no it looks exactly like someone pulled off the basing sand to reveal the slotta base beneath - DOH!

Maybe some clear varnish will solve this. As overall I decided just to 'let go', this was always an exercise in speed. Doing something for the fun of it and things that work OK will suffice, no need to over-egg this pudding.

One last thing to do was add some grey teeth that were washed and some bulging luminous yellow/green eyes. One concern is just how obvious the mold lines are in these close-ups. luckily they're less evident to the naked eye but it's slightly annoying.

I'm really chuffed with the end result, to think these were still on the sprue a week or two back and had been languishing for a decade or more and now I've painted them up. Can't wait to have a little go on PeteB's Goblin Town board with them.

When we get chance to have a game I'll take some pics too. His Goblin Town has come out really well, supplemented by coffee stirrers. He's achieved a really realistic wood effect, I'm sure mine would have been much more cartoony.

Here's one of the before shots when I'd done the basing sand.



'nids part 79 - 'alien protection walls'

By popular demand I am creating some additional 'alien portection walls' and as I've shown before the fruit pot skeleton is in place. Having compared my line to the official proportions this set will consist of 3 long pieces and 4 short ones [aliens don't follow the metric system]. Below is one nights work with my favorite Terracota Milliput. Now I'm not sure if I should have added the holes in the front but it's too late anway.

Day two and I've completed the other halves of the long section and the backs of the two short ones.

I think the detail is pretty much the similar to my originals. When I come to try and cast them each set will have a random duplicate of the one of the long sections and two pairs of the short ones, still a long ways off though.