Here be Dragons…

(Well Hydras actually – I couldn’t afford dragons)

It’s July 2009. So that makes it 2 years since I first started work on my Dark Elf army. At the time it was under the guise of the Cult of Slaanesh from the Storm of Chaos but as that’s a little outdated I am now returning to a more pure Druchii list. One with lots of shooting, evil magic, hatred fuelled infantry and lots of monstrous beasts, and I am going to get it painted in 12 months.

Why?

A few of the guys went to the Tides of Chaos tournament in Reading this year and want to go again next year and I intend to join them. In the past I’ve been rubbish at sticking to deadlines, usually due to real life getting in the way, but I now have a target to work towards.

So what now?

First off I need an army list to work towards painting up. Here in lies the first problem. Being an Orc Warchief at heart, the style and tactics of an Elf army are going to feel rather odd. I think I’m going to have to play a lot of practice games to find out what works for me before settling on the final list. So, order of the day is write a few lists, buy the models, assemble, spray and play test.

The Dark Elf army is fairly diverse and can be set up in many ways. At the moment I’m looking at two main options:

Option 1 – Monsters and Magic

A fast moving hard hitting army using small units of harpies, dark riders and shades to march block, distract and bait enemy units into prime charge       positions. Cold One Knights, Chariots, War Hydras and Manticore to make full use of their mobility to charge into combat. This army will need to win combat fast as it lacks the static combat resolution needed for protracted fights. I wanted to fit a Dragon in this list but it was coming out a little expensive point wise.

Option 2 – Stand and Shoot….Then charge!

A more balanced army still using small units of harpies, dark riders and shades  but this time to slow the enemy advance by march blocking. A static gunline of repeater xboxs and repeater bolt throwers and high levels of magic will soften enemy targets backed up by Black Guard, Cold One Knights with BSB, Chariot and Hydra to add combat punch.

I’ll probably be play testing Option 2 fist as I’ve already got most of the figures. In the meantime I’m going to start painting some of the figures that feature in both lists; probably the Dark Riders, Shades and Harpies.

I’ll report back soon and let you know how I get on! Wish me luck!

The Boyz are back in Town

Howdy folks, i’ve had a busy couple of months as i’ve been preparing to attend the Tides of Chaos tournament held in Reading. This involved myself painting up some Chaos knights and 2 more characters for my Tzeentch army. As this tournament was introducing a comp system for the first time, i spent quite a bit of time selecting my army, and overall was happy with its performance as all my opponents were tough to play against.
I managed to play some practice games before hand, my favorite being against Skilling, whose Greater demon of Nurgle miscast and destroyed himself.
The tournament itself was held over a weekend and consisted of six games with fully painted armies. I had some great games, and some not so great games, but fought against no armies i would consider unfair or cheesy, the only problems i had came from the personalities of a couple of players,(asking my previous opponent what items my characters had) etc.
Even managed to fit some Cut throat caverns in the evening so i was pretty much gaming 24/7. So to sum up i had a great weekend and I’m already thinking of what ill take next year.
Andrew one of the lads who helps run the event has sent me some of the pics taken whilst we were all playing so ill be putting those up in the gallery section soon
So what am I doing now?
My energy is now being put towards a main project with a couple of side quests. I have an American FOW army to put together, which I’m aiming to complete by xmas. I also bought some Uncharted seas stuff at the UK Games Expo, I’m looking to finish these this month, ready to start playing with against Conrad in August.
Plus I have more Chaos to paint and I still want to add to my small Skorne force.
With so much painting to do I have purchased some army builder paint brushes to use, so ill let you know how the quality checks out.
All in all I have plenty of painting to be getting on with so ill stop typing now and get on with it.

Its been a while

I was browsing the site recently and noticed that its almost 10 months since I last posted an update.  In that time I’ve been away for 4 months, moved house and missed the March Brecon games-fest.  On the plus side I’ve managed to keep a slow produciton line ticking over that has produced some reasonable results.

March 2010 will see a change of venue for the games week, we move from Brecon to Ross-on-Wye, so fingers crossed the place is suitable for 6×4 tables…. Game system this time will be Flames of War, a welcome departure from GW, and a long overdue move towards historical gaming. Six willing volunteers will bring 3 Allied and 3 German forces to the tables, for a narrative campaign based on the breakout from Normandy and the advance on Caen. More details as the campaign takes shape.

But back to painting. A Normandy board will require a significant amount of scenery and 15mm is a new scale so new scenery needed. Having been working on these figures for a while I have a number of vehicles painted but this month was all about bocage and scenery. Enjoy the pics.

Scenery pictures 1 2 3 4

There be wargamers in dem dere hills

I survived yet another week away with the lads in Brecon and had a great time. Caught up with friends I dont see often enough and played a lot of games, mostly 40k with a sprinkling of board games to spice it up,(and some dark future….).
Best bit is I managed to fully paint my Blood Angels to at least 1500pts if not more. Pics will follow of the rest of the army in the next couple of days aka on my next day off.
Will I be painting up more stuff? You had better believe it, but not for a little while as im taking a break from painting, I can feel the call of my xbox even as I type.
So whats the plan after that?
Well there will be another week away in wales with lots of gaming so I suppose I had better paint up stuff for that.
2009/2010 sees us playing Flames of War and Warmachine, but as always i like to challenge myself so ill be adding units to my Blood Angels and Warriors of chaos too.
Always more figs to paint but im sure one day everything will be fully painted… even that Dwarf army

Abaddon? Abandoned more like….

So what have I been doing since my last entry? Anyway, when was my last entry? August 2007? Really? Well bugger me…

GW has kind of taken a back seat for the last year or so. In that time I’ve completed my degree (I got a 2:1), got a full time job (at Bosch), got married (to the lovely Emma), got a part time job (at the Pub) and bought a house (in Diglis)!

But what of gaming related pursuits? Well…

 After my last outing in Brecon I went a bit mad and bought loads of Magic the Gathering cards and got a few of my mates at Uni into playing. It’s a bit of a laugh after you’ve had a few beers…

 I’ve got back into playing and running D&D which happens to be an age old passion of mine and something I thoroughly enjoy

 I’ve dabbled with my GW fantasy projects. I’ve played around with some army lists to make my Cult of Slaneesh into separate Dark Elf and Slaneesh armies but I’m not up to date on the new releases of Army books and figures etc so this is still a work in progress…

 Even without an army list to work to I can carry on painting! The Witch Elves are painted with the exception of finishing the detail on the command group. In addition, I’ve got one bolt thrower painted and I’ve done plenty of work with spray undercoat! I also managed to get loads assembled during those penniless months spent in University accommodation!

So, anyway, Brecon 09 is nearly upon us and for those who didn’t know its Warhammer 40k this year. I’ll only be there till the Wednesday due to my University Graduation ceremony being on the Thursday and picking up the keys to my shiny new house on the Friday. Got to get my priorities straight apparently, or so the wife tells me anyway…

Now I’ll freely admit that 40k is not my first choice when it comes to game systems. I think I’ve played 4th edition twice and both times my army ended up with more holes in it than the Royal Bank of Scotland’s end of year accounts. So this time will be different. I have a single goal for the week. To win one, single, solitary game. That’s it. Hardly ambitious I know, but surely even I can manage that……

So what army will I be using? Well there’s a funny story there! My first choice 40k army has been on the drawing board for a couple of years now. When they released 4th edition 40k I decided to get my arse in gear, learn the rules and build an army. Well I got as far as buying the army and that was it! So I have a nearly complete, 1500pt Black Templar Space Marine army sat patiently on their sprues and in their blister packs waiting…and waiting…and waiting…

And unfortunately they will still be waiting. With all the good will in the world I planned to put them together in the run up to Christmas and use the festive period to get them painted. Black Templar’s by their very nature should be easy to paint. They’re black for sake! However, in order to afford to put furniture in my, afore mentioned, shiny new house I’ve been working my butt off instead. As well as only having the standard Christmas Bank Holidays off from Bosch, I pulled double shifts at the pub as well. So, as you may have guessed, the Templar’s will not be crusading just yet.

“So what are you using?” I hear you cry.

Well, a while ago, I bought a second hand bargain off that well known auction website. I bought a standard sized Games Workshop hard sided carry case for £70.

“Bargain?” I hear you cry.

Well yes, I know I could have bought a brand new one for £30 but this one just so happened to come with an almost fully assembled, and quite well painted, 1500pt Black Legion Chaos Space Marine army!

The army contains (with photos):

Abaddon (I thought that was a place near Oxford, but apparently not…)
Plague Marines
Khorne Berserkers
Thousand Sons
3 squads of Chaos Space Marines
Chaos Dreadnought
Predator

And an expensive carry-case

So, in my opinion, that’s a damn good start!

Not knowing whether this was an army that’s ready to go war, I’ve consulted some other 40k players. Consensus is that my army list is a bit light on Heavy Support and Fast Attack. So I’m off this weekend to spend some of my hard earned Christmas cash on:

A squad of Chaos Havocs
A couple of Obliterators
A squad of Chaos Raptors
And possibly a squad of Terminators if I can stretch the cash and / or credit card that far…

The wife will just have to wait an extra month or two for some new curtains for the guest bedroom, or doilies for the coffee table or whatever else it is she insists we need. I can feel my priorities swinging back in my favour…
However in the current economic climate in makes prudent financial sense to try and conserve cash reserves, so I think I have 2 Space Marine rhinos and possibly a Land Raider that I can convert and claim were ‘captured’. The standard additions of skulls, spikes, chains and axes should give them sufficient chaos flavouring!

These more recent additions to the army will hopefully be assembled and undercoated in time to make the trip and should give me more than enough to field approximately 2500pts. Hopefully by the end of the week through trial and error (and learning the rules) I should have a good, balanced army and have hopefully won a game!! And then probably never ever use them again……

I’ll keep you all posted!

Winter Wonderland

Wow these last few months have flown by and it’s nearly time to Mosey on down to Wales for another week of Gaming madness. Ive spent the last few weeks busily painting more Blood Angels completeing two more troop choices and a fast attack unit. Pics will follow in the next day or two once the camera is charged and it stops bloody snowing…..
There is still plenty of stuff that needs painting, such as HQ’s, plenty of tanks, terrain and hopefully i can squeeze in some extra stuff.
I have seven more days at work then my long weekend, which i hope to complete the rest of my foot troops. so fingers crossed you see a 2nd entry this month, maybe even 3 if i can get my tanks done in time too.
Now how to stop undercoat from freezing….

Undercoating when its snowing is a bad idea.

This month I have entered the modelling frenzy good and proper. Ahead of a week of gaming with most of you at the end of Feb I have found myself focussing on 3 main gaming systems. I am currently working on a Lawbringer gang for this excellent Wild West game that Aitch and Stu introduced me to, Tau for 40k and I have taken delivery of a new Menoth starter army for Warmachine. This also means 3 new sets of core rules for me to learn! Phew! At the moment of writing the models are merely half assembled in most cases. Over the coming weeks I will be updating this more often as I actually get some painting done and have some pics to post! Laters, Jabba.

Good, Green, ‘Armless Fun…

Yeah, I know, the Ork puns will eventually dry out. But hey; enjoy it while it lasts!

So… What have I been up to? Well, mostly painting Ork boyz! I’ve recently rediscovered the enjoyment of painting, mostly due to the wonderful character that these models possess. I present for your viewing pleasure, one work in progress boy and three from my previous batch of 20… In my opinion, the hooded Warhammer Orc head works well with the Bad Moon theme…

The painting is simple, shade, basecoat and one highlight – and as little paint mixing as possible. My trick last time was using the The Army Painter’s dip, but this time I am going dip free – my latest obsession are the Citadel Washes. While I decry the decision to drop the inks completely, the washes are a helpful tool – rendering the use of my Vallejo glaze mix redundant in all but the most specialised of cases.

Ok, ok, I know that they haven’t got any arms… They will eventually be Shoota Boyz, and when assembling them I decided that it would be easier to paint the arms and guns separately (they’re not as helpful as Space Marine plastics, but then they’re not a bunch of pansies either…) but underestimated the logistical problems of sticking them together afterwards… This has been impounded by my accidental alteration of the skin mix on the second batch (well I am only getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night…) so will require me to be extra careful!

Well, by the time of the gaming weekend (well for me, anyway) I should have 40 Boyz assembled and painted, with a Warboss, 3 Mega Armoured Nobz and 3 Killa Kanz undercoated and ready for action…

In the pipeline is still my Warboss conversion, a Deff Dread, Shokk Attack Gun, a Battlewagon, Flash Gitz and yet more troops… This army is now my official long term project of 2009… If all goes well: Apocalypse Christmas 2009 anyone?

Waaaaagh Gitzmasha is coming…

“REPENT FOR TOMORROW YOU DIE”

Well I haven’t added a blog entry in ages but either because I had chicken pox and ALOT of spare time on my hands or the fact that reading the Horus heresy series has awoken the fires within I’ve been doing alot of painting especially 40k.

Having no actual 40k army anymore I decided that since they had released a new dark angels codex and as I had five marines and a tank already painted id complete another and obviously the best space marine chapter. So now I have 10 marines, 2 tanks, a dreadnought, a land speeder, a couple of characters and a vindicator painted. There are some pics but as I was taking them with the camera on my iphone alas the quality of the shot is shocking but they are painted well enough. Next up is a unit of assault marines and the dreaded cream terminators! Oh joy so if there are any forces of disorder that want a good smiting by the emperors finest the sons of the lion are more than willing.

Prepare to be Terminated….

Its been a long time coming but I have finally painted last months figures.  Buying Warhammer Online was a big mistake,(as it soon took up my spare time) but I won’t be buying a subscription until after Feb, so I can avoid further temption .

So I managed to complete a second tactical squad, there fore completing the mimimum troops requirement. I also painted up a unit of terminators. This means I have now painted up the contents of the AOBR box set.

Ive still got a long ways to go before im ready for the Wales tour 2009. I will be spending the remaining days this month on adding to my troop choices as two will not be enough, and I will be adding a HQ choice.  If im real lucky I will have time to add a fast attack choice too.

Expect another post soon, later dudes