#BloodBowl - Halfling Team - Star Players - TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on two Blood Bowl Star players for my Halfling team - Cindy Piewhistle and Puggy Baconbreath.

Grass has been added, with some flower tufts. This will match the 7's megabowl pitch I'll be working on.

Can't wait to have the whole pitch and teams completed so I can see everything together.

Back view.

Left side view.

Right side view.

Here they are alongside one of my previous team members, just to compare and thankfully the recipe and execution matches.

And the glorious close-up pictures to reveal all detail [which will make me sad as I'll see the mistakes]. Sandwich looks great though.

Note the S and P on his salt and pepper shakers, no idea how I managed to paint those tiny letters.

Zoomed in Cindy's face is all over the place but it's still better than I expected. I just wish I'd been able to do some eyebrows and lipstick that worked.

Sadly it just didn't. Even that blob of reddish wash on her right cheek was suspect. It helps from the front though, so I left it. But what a pie!

Can hardly see the rat/mouse poking out of the pie, but he's there.

Just make out its beady eyes and nose.

And another GREAT Big RUSTY Stamp of Approval .

#BloodBowl - Halfling Team - Star Players - Pre-season training pics

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my #Halfling #BloodBowl team. This is the Porkbelly Stuffers Star Players before they go off to their stadium - 'Surf n'Turf Moar'. 

Cindy Piewhistle and Puggy Baconbreath, everything came together in the end. 

I'm still a little disappointed that I couldn't execute the diamond pattern on Puggy's shoulder pads but it looks OK otherwise.

He's got far more 'crackling' than any other player, which befits a star player and he is more armoured anyway so it makes sense. His 'lucky 13' team number just visible on the right shoulder pad.

Really please with his face, even though hardly any of it is visible inside his helmet.

Cindy came out well, her face is great, although as evidenced by my zoomed pics in the last update it does not stand close scrutiny but certain aspects are better than I've ever done.

At least, the distance I usually look at it it looks great and the pies look cool too.

A great addition to my Armies On Parade, now I just need to do the Treemen and the board too and I should almost be ready. Just need to decide on back drops and things. Some TO DONE pics to follow with 'grass on the pitch'.

What's on my palette?

Bless me #WarHamFam for I have sinned, it's been 7 months since my last confession! But I've been so busy I've not needed to take stock, nor fit in blogging about it but I thought I'd best chare where I'm at.

OK, so my son is back from uni and in the space of 2 or 3 weeks my hobby efforts have been significantly curtailed. I had time to do a lot of building of the Tyranids from Leviathan when it was released but painting has taken a serious nosedive.

However, I had quite the backlog of hobby progress that I haven't yet shared on the blog, not to mention a couple of non-battle reports. But again, time is short. Trying to hobby and blogging about hobby is a difficult choice. Hobby takes precedence but then down the line I start to feel guilty because I haven't shared what I've done, not guilty about you the precious reader, just guilty I haven't recorded it for posterity. Then guilty that I have a growing backlog and with the end of the Hobby Season just 2 months away I need to try and fit in all my unrecorded progress in the rapidly decreasing time available. Not to mention prepare everything for next season.

But, I am enjoying spending time with my son, we're currently going through Aussie comedy Rosehaven, which I adore and wish it was more widely available here in the UK. On top of that we're doing more things as a family, because he's now home, which is great. And, of course, there's gaming time at Otty's shed. So fitting in the:

• 16 terminators, 
• 4 Thermic Plasma Conduits, 
• 3 Treemen, 
• Armies On Parade Blood Bowl board, and 
• basing and priming all my Leviathan nids is somewhat challenging. 

Lastly, it's my wife's birthday this month and I have the family birthday cards to design and print. I'd say I'm halfway through but even so there'll be a night or two where I have to put away the hobby to create these things. Hopefully I'll find time to get things done. I may not complete 5 things listed above but that's OK, so long as I find time to get most of my WiPs and TO DONES! on the blog I'll be happy.  I'll leave this for now so I cam try and fit in another blog post.

#BattleReport - 1,000pts Imperial Knights v Tyranids

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been playing TENTH! #New40k Despite having a backlog of #MESBG and #Turnip28 [not] battle reports to record I thought I'd do this while it was fresh in my mind. Leviathan is due today, with my rulebook, but Otty, Ben, Liam and I decided to give TENTH a crack. Naturally, nobody had printed the Core Rules, or Quickstart Guide and only one of us had their Index rules and datacards printed out. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusion as to who had prepared in some way...

Anyway, Ben had prepared a list of Otty to use his nids - Old One Eye, a Carnifex, 10 Hormagaunts, 10 Termagants, 2 broods of Warriors [1 ranged, 1 melee], Hive Guard, Zoanthropes, Trygon, 5 Genestealers. I had a knight Preceptor with Unyielding Paragon [reduces AP by 1] and Stormspear Rocket Pod, 2 Helverins and 2 Warglaives. If I'm honest I thought Otty was at a distinct disadvantage - lots of little bugs with weak weapons and talons - how could they possibly effect the towering Imperial Knights... Otty got first go, and straight out of the gate the Genestealers scouted forward 8".

Which meant they had an easy first turn charge into one of my Warglaives. Otty had chosen Hyper-Aggression as his Hyper-Adaptation which meant every creature had [LETHAL-HITS] on vehicles/monsters. That means even the littlest bug, a roll of a 6 and it auto-wounds! Oh dear...

I was very lucky though and did some amazing saves with limited wounds across my knights. My Warlgaive managed to kill  just two of the Genestealers, which was underwhelming.

Otty had pushed forward and the Ranged Warrior's were slightly exposed and the Hive Guard with Shock Cannons, although taking some cover were now within range of more guns.

Shots from the top Warglaive, Helverin and Preceptor managed to wipe out the Ranged Warriors and one Hive Guard went down. I think the other Warglaive managed to squish the Genestealers.

I'd made a better impact, but now I had Hormagaunts swamping the other Helverin and OOE+Carnifex needed a 11" charge to get the freed-up Warglaive - Otty rolled a 6 and 1, CP re-rolled the 1 and got a 6 and managed to wipe out the Warglaive. I got to attack back before dying with a stratagem and dished out soem wounds but not enough to make a difference. Meanwhile, my Helverin stomped on a few Hormagaunts. On the far side [out of shot] the other Warglaive took a wound from 5 shots in range of the Devgaunts. Then the Zoanthropes blasted it to pieces dealing the exact amount of damage it had left. That lucky Termagant had saved the day for Otty!

Naturally we were getting all sorts of rules wrong, we weren't both receiving CPs in the command phase, just the person who's turn it was. So I was running out of CPs every turn and we hadn't worked out that vehicles could shoot in and out of combat [for -1 to hit]. As it was I tried the best with my shooting and ended up needing a reroll on the Preceptor to do decent damage on the Carnifex. Then I charged and immediately remembered the plan was to Tank Shock them and roll 14 dice with the potential for six 6's. But I'd spent my CP

As it was the Reaper took out the Carnifex and did a few wounds on OOE, but he regenerated most of them. And then the Trygon burrowed up and charged the Knight from behind.

The Melee Warriors managed to link up with the Hormagaunts and inflict even more damage on the Helverin but I was very lucky with saves and Feel No Pain. Lastly I was swinging at Old One Eye and managed to get 3 hits on him, 3+ to wound...

Unbelievable! There wasn't much I could do after this. 

The Preceptor got smashed by the monsters. I think both Warriors got killed, by the remaining Helverin Autocannons but the Prime survived and the Armiger in combat could only stomp on 2 of the remaining Hormagaunts. We called it as I had little chance at this stage and it was late. 

So, what do I think? I liked the game, just enough rules and complexity, but I hated not having the physical book, or even the Quick Start. It was a nightmare trying to use the app for both Otty's army and the Core Rule .pdf, while also taking pictures. 1000pts feels like as good size while we find our feet. Hopefully, when we're all on board with the rules and familiar with them it'll feel easier but even with this streamlining there were still times where explaining the rules felt just really hard - in direct contrast to Turnip28 and Bolt Action. But we'll keep at it. We all had fun and both factions, that on paper looked great [my Knights and Ben's Astra Militarum] were beaten by the weaker Tyranids and the much smaller but elite heavy World Eaters. Surprising lessons learned for next time. Now to await Leviathan and build some bugs...

Yes, I was the one prepared[ish]

What GW should do - #ArmiesOnParade2023

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been taking part in #ArmiesOnParade since 2013 and I would argue I'm its BIGGEST FAN! Sure, I haven't won any of the national [or internationally] recognised prizes, or even spend as many hours on my Parade as those that do. But, as I've said countless times, the prizes and competition are not what I believe is the spirit of Parade Day and as far as I'm concerned no one is pushing the open and inclusivity of the biggest hobby event in the world as much as I do.

I usually don't like to be egotistical like that, but the facts support it. I'd say around 50% of the latest tweets about #AoP are mine and these aren't tweets about what I'm doing, these are mostly my recent campaign to have the official Armies on Parade Website updated. This isn't about just me, it's about everyone taking part. Everyone understanding the rules of the event, few as they are, and also showcasing the very best of what can be done but also celebrating as many entries as possible to make it clear - 

if you have an army - you can parade

Of course, I understand that keeping a website updated requires resources and this 'external' page predates www.warhammer-community.com which is where they want to receive most of their traffic and presumably have the most resource to keep up-to-date. In fact they've mentioned the continuing challenges and bi-monthly categories in various posts for the last few years. It's not that there isn't support for #AoP it just feels like the forgotten official page undermines their push to make it more of a year long event. Put it this way, if you google 'Armies On parade' the official site is 2nd in the result. If you google 'Armies on parade 2023' it's 11th, on page 2.

Now the simplest thing to do is to just take down the site - no resource needed, no out-dated information or stench of neglect. But that's the last thing I, or anyone else who is passionate about AoP [c'mon, own up] should want. There is so much good content on there. As mentioned, past winners, community posts from various store parades around the world, staff entries from the likes of Eddie Eccles, Chris Peach, Dan Harden and one of my favourites [for pure simplicity] John Bracken. But there are showcases of the very best as well as guides to help you prepare your own board. The site is full of great ideas and great examples to share with the hobby community.

At the very least the website just needs it's Terms & Conditions updated, y'know, the legal stuff that people can hold GW to account with when they do focus on the competitive aspect! On top of that maybe update the FAQ's. It doesn't look good when it's still showing an Armies On Parade 2020 banner. And lastly, add in the new bi-monthly painting challenges and quarterly challenge pin info. Maybe even mention the new Leviathan box competition category to remind people that their efforts in painting #New40k can be shared with the world at the end of the year. I mean Leviathan has it's own satellite warhammer40000.com website, so it's not like they can't dedicate resource when they want to.

In an ideal world you'd use the official site to showcase the 1,000s of entries sent through each year to the online competition, or shared on social media for various store parades. These don't have to be the winners but acknowledge as many hobbyists contribution as they can. Not everyone wins an Armies on Parade gold badge, but everyone who participates and paints an army is a winner and the official site should be where that's celebrated as much as possible. And I guarantee anyone who is featured on the 'official' website will feel just as happy as if they won a medal on Parade Day. So little effort to achieve so much hobby joy worldwide. They could even add in the various AoP themed videos from YouTube to get more views on these clips.

I'm not sure there's much appetite for any of these suggestions, understandably there are bigger events and releases coming but I really hope someone takes the time to make the official page feel official again. For those that love this event it's a tragic waste. It would only take about 30 minutes to do the bare minimum fix, but if they really committed to it it would be an amazing hub and global showcase for what is the biggest and best advert for the hobby there is.

#BloodBowl - Halfling Team - Star Players - Base coats

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer Cindy Piewhistle and Puggy Baconbreath - two Blood Bowl Star players for my Halfling team. 

With the Kurnoth Hunters needing a decision to move them forward I just cracked on with these two -

getting the yellow armour plates painted and adding some colour to their skintone.

I then added highlights to these and the yellow came out really well and I just really surprised myself with the faces and how well they came out. Obviously close-up you can see all sorts of wrong but from a table-top distance they both look like some of my best work!

Here they both are with their 'big guys'. I am looking forward to doing them, just need to get the bases done and add some washes to help differentiate the areas so I can make those decisions that stalled their progress.

But the Hunters loss is the star players gain. It's not like I'm losing out here, 'progress is progress' afterall. But adding the additional highlights and pattern for the crackling was not without its own problems.

I had tried to do the pattern on Puggy's shoulder pads diagonally, but it just didn't work. So, I had to paint over all the previous gorgeous yellow highlight and try again in squares, which work but are far less interesting.   

Cindy has only small shoulder pads, so they were easy to do in diagonals. It'll be the pies that are challenging but the white goes on in preparation for the pink. It's very odd to see such a massive change in colour scheme - the red/yellow of the previous step looks like such good colours and even the white/yellow is pretty cool.

Puggy coming along, for so little of his face visible I think it came out really well. He also got a bit of navel fluff. Debatable whether it looks like belly hair but worth a shot.

All ready for the pink next...