A freebie - 45° fire arc template

Sometimes you just have to throwout the schedule and add in a post just because if you tried to fit it in the schedule it'd be months down the line before I could give out some more freebies

You may be aware I'm making a Tyranid Bastion, apparently only the cool kids are doing it but don't hold it against me. One of the key elements of the Bastion is the emplaced weapons and their 45° fire arc. GW doesn't povide a 45° fire arc template and aside from emplaced weapons hull-mounted weapons on tanks also have a 45° fire arc. So I wanted to make a template so I knew what a 45° fire arc was and could use my 45° fire arc template to gauge if my tartget was within the 45° fire arc.

And this is the 45° fire arc template I made

And you can download the 45° fire arc template for free,

 

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 this 45° fire arc
7. Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.

Just in case I hadn't made it clear this is a free 45° fire arc template ;)

Dark Vengeance Vs Assault on Black Reach

Granted this may seem odd to be doing a comparison of the 5th Edition box versus the 6th Edition nearly 12 months after release but y'know how I am with delaying things and I still have the pictures of my unboxing so why not do something with them.

I actually bought a second set, they had it at my local independent game store for silly money so I sold off the bits on ebay and despite learning how much postage has gone up since my heady ebay trading days of a few years back I still made a profit of around £22.

I didn't manage to sell the blast templates, I suppose they always come in handy - they do get lost don't they and the Chapter Master which I may repurpose as an Azreal with a head-swap and a Watcher holding the supplied helm. I dislike the pose as it very nearly looks like a kendo stance - hasso-no-kamae but the bits that are wrong are the sort you constantly tell people to fix so I look at this 'master of martial prowess' and he looks like a beginner. Still, cheaper than buying the actual model.

Anyway the meat of this post is not really a true comparrison it's realy just comparing the marines because although there was a lot of deserved praise for the new DV miniatures I think there should be a lot love still for AoBR guys and they are still available on ebay. First up the Terminators and you can see quite clearly th eposes on the Deathwing are head and shoulders, dynamically, above their 5th Edition counterparts. Of course if your not a Dark Angel player you're going to have a hard time removing the wealth of iconography shown off on these 'blinged' Terminators, something the AoBR guys don't suffer from. The other problem is that because the DV Terminators are so dynamic they look awfully odd when you have two sets, how come they're all captured in motion doing exactly the same thing. Now the AoBR guys are more static but because their arms ar eseparate at least you can repose weapons in different positions. Kitbashing the DV guys is a nightmare as most of the elements fit perfectly and ar enot discrete components - an arm or weapon, quite often they are a torso and an arm. I've managed to remove a head with my Dremmel and replaced it with a hooded Ravenwing head but it's quite a feat. The AoBR really deserve a lot of love for adding extra bits on and taking into account a Deathwing squad box has bits for three alternative loads there's bound to be plenty of spares left over to add to them to bring them up to the modern era. The DV models are much better but I definitely think the AoBR hold a lot of potential nowadays.

The Tactical Squad has one of the best sculpts I'v eseen. I love the Sergeant, his face has so much character but aside from the Plasma dudes there's very little variety otherewise. You do have two Corvus dudes, but they didn't bother to stud their shoulders but more importantly every model has a near identical Bolter and if I recall they each fit a specific model. The only real difference is some small detail on the side. If you check the AoBR squad you will see there ar ebolters with scopes and straps and you can mix them up to the similarly psoed models so each ends up with a different silhouette. Add that the variety in helmet types and knee joints the AoBR guys really impress me because you end up with a varied unit. I was looking to mix up my DV guys with some extra Dark Angel Veteran upgrades and bayonets, it helps a bit but I still think it's a step backwards in some ways. 

So if you want cheap alternatives to the boxes it's maybe useful to look beyond just the DV bits available and look out for AoBR models too and if you were to mix and match both squads amongst each other you could have practically individual poses in each unit, worth a thought.

'nids part 89 - Tyranid Bastion growth pt10.

Next update and I'll start with the obvious exciting new addition to the Bastion - the Spinefists. Let me state straight away they are only their for decoration. I really wanted some spikes jutting out of the towers to wrap the fleshy Milliput strands over and knew I had loads of Spinfists handy, who doesn't? They're nigh on useless in my book, I only ever put them on tunnelling Ripper Swarms but for 3 bases I could have nearly 5 Devgaunts that would be more deadly. Anyway, I cut them at an angle and superglued them to the towers. I then added more Milliput flesh strands and the second large Chitin plates.

Third set of inner small Chitin plates go on.

And Spinefist spikes go on the inner towers too. I then found a load of spare Carnifex spines and for a moment felt I'd wasted time and effort cutting these down but I think they're a better option. The tops will be black and the undersides will be bone white. I think this'll be a nice contrast to the predominantly red battlements on top.

I've got to add more flesh strands to ensure they stay in place too as they're not pinned but they do look cool.

Tyranid Bastion | Foamboard core template | part 1. | part 2. | part 3. | part 4. | part 5. | part 6. | part 7. | part 8. | part 9. | 

'nids part 88 - Tyranid Bastion growth pt9.

Next up is the dry fitting of my pseudo-heavy bolters. Simple addition of some flower arranging wire, drilled and glued into the donor Deathspitters [plain warrior version on the left, monstrous creature ones on the right, sadly I couldn't get all MC versions, never mind].

Pushed into the foamboard inside their fire slits. I will prepare a 45° fire arc template soon for this

As you can see it's not too bad, I can at least avoid the capillary towers although I'm not holding onto too much hope with my weapons here. A 45° fire arc with a 5+ chance to hit, not great odds but I think the fire ports will be the main benefit, not to mention the 3+ save on the battlements.

Here's where I switch to Milliput for the Chitin plates and I've added some stretched muscular flesh similar to the Forgeworld towers. Of course this meant I had to invest in another couple of packs of Milliput taking my costs up to about £10 spent specifically on this [not including the moonscape base which wasn't being used for anything else].

Second set of Chitin plates on the inner towers, perhaps you can make out how much crisper the detail is on the Milliput ones versus the DAS clay. I'm not 100% convinced I needed to make the swap, I'll continue on for durabilities sake but you could probably use DAS throughout.

The other larger towers first chitin plate.

That's another nights work, bring on tomorrow, although I may have to pause at some point because my Milliput order may take a few days to arrive, ooh the frustration!

Tyranid Bastion | Foamboard core template | part 1. | part 2. | part 3. | part 4. | part 5. | part 6. | part 7. | part 8. | 

'nids part 87 - Tyranid Bastion growth pt8.

One of the things with any creative enterprise is that the end result is often not what you had in mind, there are compromises along the way, however hard you try your skill may not be up to the grand vision in your head. If this blog is anything to go by you can find plenty of examples where I've settled with a 'satisfactory/good' but often you only get one crack at these things so why not 'shoot for the moon'? 

However, there are also those moments where your abilities somehow manage to match or go beyond your expectations. You'll have seen that happen on the blog too, although there'll be satisfactory elements rubbing shoulders with the outstanding bits I think the outstanding parts overshadow them so much, I really don't care. It's these bits that when completed late at night and you've packed away all your paints, sculpting tools, brushes and whatnot that keeps you going back to stare at your efforts over the next 10-15 minutes, mentally 'putting it to bed' instead of actually going to bed yourself. Of course all that really does is fill your head with visions of what you've achieved and the next step, so sleep doesn't come any easier once you tear yourself away from your masterpiece.

What we have here friends is one of those moments. How the frak did I do this? Lets find out...

I'd been debating what to do on the rooftop, whether I should replicate the 'biomechanical' effect o the walls, trying to figure out a way to employ Grubnards Tyranid modelling techniques from the Mandulian Chapel and whether or not I wanted to trade the perfectly flat foambord roof for something I could sculpt that would make models a bit wobbly. I thought sod it and out with the Dremmel but all the time I'm spending trying to cut out the foam now it's in situ I'm thinking 'I'm waisting time that I could have spent sculpting the Chitin plates on the Capillary Towers'. Anyway, you may just make out a rough 'plateau' on the left for a 'hatch' but after quite a bit of time [because it was awkward getting the sanding attachments in there]  I actually found the easiest way to remove the foam was digging it out with my nails, or is that claws and teeth?!

First things first why's it red you ask. Well I had some Terracota DAS clay too and I'd always intended to do some bits with it just to get a contrast so I could see what I was doing, even if I chose to go with my Milliput, which is also Terracota. I'd actually recommend it ahead of standard white now as it smells of marzipan which is not altogether unpleasant [despite hating the stuff as a child] which is better than the 'vomit' odour my wife claimed she could smell after I first used the white DAS [she has the most acute sense of smell, I can't even spray in the garage without it somehow filtering through the walls to our bedroom!]

Anyway, a layer of clay was put down and on the inside edges of the battlements. I'd originally thought about trying some of Hallowe'en haunt genius Stolloween's melted plastic bag techniques to get stretched flesh effect on the inner chitin and battlements but that requires the bag to be glued/fixed in place before melting and there really wasn't room or time for it to be effective. I tried but without fixing the plastic just shrank and fell off, so I abandoned the idea and just decided to sculpt with a mixture of four silicon crafting tools I picked up for £2.99 in a discount book store the other week and my trusty hobby tool like GW's. This baby was thrown in with the ebay auction I won for my Carnifex which eventually became my first Tervigon. Lucky that!

The insides of the battlements were just scored with the blade end of the hobby tool, I should look into some cheap plastic clay shapers too, I bet I could get all kinds of crazy shapes off those. If I'm honest these are the 'satisfactory' bits. I know they could be better and the join with the two smaller towers could have been more effective but they're on the insides, difficult to see and access so their OK-ness is less evident...

...particularly when the ground texture came out so well. All I did was take the bullet tipped silicon tool and scored tear-drop shapes towards the centre of the tower, fat on the outside tapering into the centre. The centre sphincter hatch was just a mound of clay with a thin sausage ring around it. I used the chisel silicon tool to add lines to it for a bit of texture, I bet a Milliput tentacle would have been better in this instance. The sphincter was split 6 ways with the chisel and then the leaves were stippled with the bullet tip, again just for a bit of texture. With practice [see later pictures] I got better at this and wished it was more 'protruding' but for practical reasons having it flat will make the figures more stable.

My efforts on this productive evening did not end there, I attempted to sculpt a Chitin plate on the tower with DAS, just as I would have done for my Defence Line. DAS is not very sticky at first so it is challenging and it does have a fibrous structure that does make it easier to tear bits off compared with Milliput but it doesn't take any time to mix and is £2.99 for 500g which I've only used about three quarters doing the white bits. I may switch to Milliput for the bigger towers, we'll see. Learning point though is that much like the towers themselves I'll only really be able to do one level of plates at a time, which means that's five nights of sculpting as each level of plate is left to dry overnight.

Oh boy, this is what I'm talking about, how did this come out so well. A happy accident, and suddenly the sphincter seemed to have depth and layers of texture. I hope I can capture some of these colours, although the base will be terracota so perhaps not but I really want a glistening wet fleshy look, perhaps I'll look for some more Tamiya Clear colours to achieve that.

I had planned to put a muscular ring round it too but opted to leave it as it is before I mess with it. Perhaps I'll employ the tentacle maker for this. It's also prompted me to build around the fire ports similar to the emplaced weapons so I can add some fleshy bits too and tie it altogether.

Lastly I had a quick crack at boring some holes out of the clay as I may 'texture' the emplaced weapon ports like this. 

It echoes the stomatas you see on the Tyranid tails. I may have to add some little 'nubs' though before I drill to add some more texture :) and add more time :( we'll see.

Tyranid Bastion | Foamboard core template | part 1. | part 2. | part 3. | part 4. | part 5. | part 6. | part 7. | 

MOAR from my mate Liam - kit-bashed Defilers / Brass Scorpions

Liam's kit-bashed Defilers / Brass Scorpions I think won him best 'beast' at Throne of Skulls, he recently sent me through some WiPs which may help folk see how he did it.

Each armoured plate is made from a section of pipe with thin Plasticard reinforced edging strips.

Quite a large use of cables and wires for the back.

Elements from the Forgefiend for the head and Defiler bits for the legs.

Here's the pair.

And then came painting, with non-mteallic metals and battle damage across the model.

Different colours of cables added contrast on the back.

Here's an in progress shot of one Defiler, plenty of work still to do.

Liam's 'White Dwarf' shot. Perhaps the biggest compliment was that despite the size difference between the scratchbuilds and a Forgeworld Brass Scorpion one GW staff member did believe this was the Forgeworld kit!

And the Heldrake to match