Basing for the Greater Good

Since getting back into 40k I've kept my eyes and ears open for good deals on models, regardless of faction. Last year I picked up a Tau Battleforce, Hammerhead, and Skyray for $100; recently I acquired an old Tau Battleforce (the one with 3 Crisis Suits, no Devilfish, and some goofy little palm trees); and I've supplemented those with a few more Suits, Firewarriors, and Piranha from Dicebucket. I've slowly been stripping and disassembling the models that were already finished, and recently started putting together the force.


My orks have earned lots of praise at each of the public events I've attended, but I have yet to win Best Appearance with them. With my next army, I'd like to raise the bar a little higher and one of the things I know I can do better is basing. I used Woodland Scenics ballast and flock to base my orks, and while it's a quick and easy way to do it, I think they come out a little fake. I'm going to use slightly more advanced basing techniques for my Tau.

Shaking The Dust Off...

It's been a while since my last post, and boy, have things changed in that time. Most importantly for me, my wife and I welcomed our second child, a son, on July 8. Also, Warhammer 40k saw the advent of 6th Edition. And the closest gaming store to me, the Newport Hobby House, moved to a new location. All of these things tie together nicely; allow me to explain...

1500 Tournament List

I'm playing in a 1500-point tournament next weekend (June 16), so once again I need to look at my list. Based on previous tournaments, I know that I need to increase my survivability against shooting. I've had a hard time getting to my opponents before being whittled down by fire. I also want to bring my new jet (whether as a Dakkajet or Blitza-Bommer) just for kicks. So what's a warboss to do?

Magnetizing an Ork Flyer, Part Two

I love it when a plan comes together! Last night I completed magnetizing my Ork flyer's Blitza-Bommer configuration, and it was even easier than the Dakkajet (described in Part One).

Bombs away!

Magnetizing An Ork Flyer, Part One

I picked up my first Ork flyer from the Newport Hobby House on Friday, and carved out some time to assemble it the past few nights. As I've not had a chance to playtest any of the variants (Dakkajet, Blitza-Bommer, Burna-Bommer) and with 6th Edition right around the corner, I wanted to use magnets to make the model convertible between at least two configurations, preferably the Dakkajet and the Blitza. As of last night, I have the Dakkajet configuration finished.

Dakkadakkadakka!

Power Weapons. Take One

A couple nights ago I made my first attempt at painting power weapons. I had two axes and a hammer to paint,  and decided to use the "reflective" technique popular with Grey Knights and Blood Angels. I briefly considered trying object source lighting (OSL) but shied away from doing so... maybe next time.

Needs a little cleanup, eh?

Space Wolves Update

It's been a while, but I've managed to find a few pockets of free time over the past week or so and made some significant hobby progress. The most important thing I did was learn how to *fully* disassemble my Badger Velocity airbrush, allowing me to clean out clogs and run it through my ultrasonic cleaner. With that tool back in my arsenal, I set out to tackle Mike's massive fleet of Space Wolves rhino chassis.

...and there's still a rhino in pieces next to my utility sink!

Tourney Hotwash - 3/24/12

Rather than doing better than I did last time, I did worse. Oddly, though, I had a better time. Perhaps getting the Grey Knights game out of the way early helped, and as an added bonus it was the Dawn Of War game, so I crossed off two birds with one stone. I didn't win any appearance awards, but I did earn some "oohs" and "aahs" from a lot of other competitors, including a mention on Dakka Dakka.

Display Board Progress

After a lot of hemming and hawing, I finally settled on a layout for the display board that I'll be bringing to the 1850 tournament at Battleground Games this weekend. Adding tiers in the back really helps to add separation between different groups of units, and will let me make some terrain features to tie eveything together.

Here's a shot of the layout:

And here's the start of my board, setting up with some plain white glue:

Display Board?

I've finally started working on my display board for next week's tournament. This is my first attempt at a layout. How did I do?

Next Tournament - 1850

In a few weeks I'll be heading back up to Battleground Games in Plainville, MA to play in another tournament, and I'm excited to see how my Orks fare. I learned some lessons the last time I was there, and feel like I can do dramatically better this time around. Let's dig into how I'm going to make that happen...

Grey Hunters - Base Coated

I finished base coating a whole mess of Space Wolf Grey Hunters last night. 36 of them, in fact, including 4 power fist/combi-melta Wolf Guard, 4 melta guns, 3 Wolf Standards (one of which I sculpted from green stuff), and 2 flamers.

They were primed with Krylon gray primer, washed with a home made  black wash, then heavily drybrushed with Codex Grey. Their shoulders were painted with Foundation Paint: left Iyanden Darksun, right Mechrite Red. I'm not sure whether to brighten those up out leave them muted.
Next step for these guys will be pack markings and detail work.

Thoughts on Copyright

I was just reading a thread on DakkaDakka about 3D printing and how it might affect GW's business in the future. As forum threads are wont to do, this one ran off on a tangent, this time about copyright in general.

My view on copyright, in short, is that it's horrible and shouldn't exist. I don't say this as a grubby consumer who just wants music and movies for free; I say this as someone who's been in bands and written [terrible] music, and knows plenty of creative types.

Painting a Space Wolf Army

I've started painting Mike's Space Wolves. I'll be using a mix of palettes used and demonstrated by "Space Wolves Grey" and "From The Warp," aiming to end up with something like this:

King Of The Hill - #1

Mike came up with a fun idea for a series of games for him, Brendan and me. One player would be the challenger and have his army list locked; the other players would get to challenge him and tailor their lists to beat him. The winner then has his list locked and would then face challengers. The goal is to churn through a bunch of different list styles and army types, rather than stagnate with similar stuff game after game.

This past Sunday, Brendan and I played the first game in this series. I played the part of the challenger with a new Tau list I've worked up. Brendan came up with a Tyranid list to counter it, and we fought it out. Here's what went down... 

 Players

Speed Painting Space Wolves

I wanted to see how fast I could paint a tabletop quality Space Wolf. Without any blue-grays, I decided to use a "pre-Heresy" color scheme of  dark gray with copper trim and muted shoulders. How did I do?

Tourney Report

 So, how did my first tournament go? I had fun, lost a bunch of games, and got a good appearance score. Here's a quick rundown, complete with pictures.
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Pre-Tourney Fashion Show

In preparation for the tournament on Saturday, I'm pulling out all of the models for my list and making sure they're finished - that is, modeled properly and fully painted. Here are all of the units that meet that standard so far:

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Cheapskate Melta

Did a little digging on the web for tips on making melta and combi-melta guns, and found several people suggesting necklace barrel clasps as nozzles.

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Progress Report

Last night I finished painting the grot rigger for one of my battlewagons and the three converted rokkit launchas for my trukks.
That means that everything in my 1750 list is WYSIWYG and at at least sloppily painted if not done completely. I know my painting isn't Golden Daemon level, but I'm proud and excited to put these on the table for others to see.
The last bit of painting and modeling fire my Orks before the tourney this weekend will be touch-ups. Then it's on to the 1850 and 2000 lists!

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