Return of 40K

Well I thought it about time to return to 40K, I am sure some of my followers from FTW will be glad for this update!

Anyhow, this past weekend I decided to finish up a few commission pieces I am doing for my buddy Lonnie. First up the Valkyrie, now I have had shots of this before up, but today it's with the weathering and details picked out. This is an awesome model, I have to get me one of these!

Now since Lonnie is over in Iraq, we do not get to talk much, but when he gave me this kit to build, he wanted me to be able to make a Vendetta out of it. For all you 40k folks out there that play Imperial Guard, you know that the Vendetta carries 3 Lascannons on it. Lonnie also wanted to be able to use this as a Valkyrie as well, so as in my previous post I turned to magnets to mount the added weaponry on the kit. First up the Hellfire Missiles,

Next the Lascannons. You will notice that these are supposed to be Twin Linked Lascannons, but I went with a single Lascannon since this is all I had. If Lonnie wants twin linked in the future, I can easily magnetize a set and add them to the model.

Last up the Missile Pods. Once again I love the options that Rare Earth magnets bring to a kit like this.

Sticking with the Fast Attack theme, I decided to finish up three Sentinels for Lonnie as well. The base paint had been finished for a while, but I needed to do the highlights on the models. I also needed to add the rubble to the bases to finish the models off. Here are three of them, two armed with Lascannons and one with an Autogun. I really like how these have come out.

And since I had the camera out I decided to take a few pictures of his HQ squad I finished up. Commissar Yarrick just got finished last night. You will also notice that the figures are very glossy right now. This is because of the Minwax Stain I used. Once I get the base's done I will shoot all of this with Testors Dullcoate to knock the shine off of them.

Here is a close up of Yarrick, I will also be adding more highlights after I dull coate him, but you get the idea of what he looks like.

Now most folks know that the Steel Legion line is not a complete line, it is missing a few HQ options for models. So per Lonnie's request I converted a few Steel Legion troops for him. First up a trooper with a Standard. I will admit, this is an easy conversion, it is a Standard from an WFB Imperial Knight cut off at the had and stuck on a Steel Legion Sergeant model. I also used decals for the flag since my skill is not that great on Free Hand painting. All in all the model looks good IMO.

Next up is a sniper, once again this was an easy conversion, all I did was cut down the stock Lasgun barrel, added a Kroot barrel and a Space Marine Scope. That's it, pretty easy but makes a great model.

The next two are stock troopers, one has had a Vox Caster added to him, which meant removing some of his Kit of his back, The other is a regular Plasma Gunner, nothing special about these.

Next up is a Heavy flamer, now all Guard players know that the Heavy Flamer is your friend for mass troops, but the Steel Legion line dose not have any flamers. So this conversion was a bit more complex to pull off. I first had to find the right model pose, then had to remove all of his kit and clean that up. Then took off the models right arm to add the stock Flamer arm from the Cadian line, which meant I had to file off the shoulder pad. I then took the left arm from a Sergeant model and bent it to be able to look like he was holding the flamer. then green stuff the heck out of the gaps. I am not 100% happy with it, but it will do. Lonnie got to see this before paint got on it and he loved it and that's all I cared about.

Last model is of a medic. This was rather hard to figure out, but once again went with a Steel Legion Sergeant but took off his left arm and added a Sentinal Drivers arm with part of the control stick still attached. It reminded me of some sort of medical scanner. His right arm was taken from a plastic Cadian which had the shoulder pad removed and had the glove cuff extended. I wanted him to look like he was carrying a medical bag which came from a Catachan backpack. I also added a small blob of green stuff to his left shoulder for the medical cross. I really like how this guy turned out as well.

Last up are the finished Storm Troopers. Reader of my blog may remember that these guys were done to this point and were waiting for a shot of Dull Coate, but I grabbed Testors Sac Brown/green instead of the dull coate. Well here is what they look like again! I had to strip them down & repaint them. Needless to say I am a bit uneasy with dull coating them again. But this time I will spray the can on a piece of board before shooting the models!

So there you have it, another 40K post in the bag, next up will be more 40K units to finish for Lonnie. I have 7 Chimeras, 2 Basilisks and 3 Leman Russ Tanks to finish by December 9th. Good news is that all the models are assembled and have base colors on them, so it will go real quick!

TK

Gathering in the Desert Primer October 25, 2009

So the Primer has come and gone and everyone who attended had a great time, so here are a few pictures from the event. I would like to thank Darren from Imperial Outpost for the prizes and allowing us to play there. Unfortunately we only had six folks show up, four folks had other commitments and were unable to attend.

Tom O brought out what he called Osgilith Lite for the event as seen below, for anyone who was at GitD last year, that board will be coming back with a bit less terrain. This board was the opposite, it was pretty lite.

Round two shots, you will notice that Howard B & Jerry A are pictured now. Howard got a call from work and had to rush to work, but made it back by Round two. Jerry on the other hand had over slept and only got up once I called him at home, but he made it down by round two.

Here is a shot of Howard's new elves he is working on, he has gone with an autumn color scheme. So look for these at GitD in 2010.

I love this shot and how it came out, it has Mike G's Dwarf's fighting Jerry A Minas Tirith in a heavily wooded area. This shot too me says Lord of the Rings, call me weird but I like this shot out of all that I posted. Sometimes you get lucky with taking pictures!

So here are the final results and the breakdown of points:

Name - Overall - Total Battle - Sports - Appearance

Mike Gingold - 122.75 - 50 - 32.75 - 40
Tom Opalka 106.75 - 35 - 32.75 - 39

Howard Beam 98.50 - 35 - 21.50 - 42

Jerry Auteri 80.50 - 20 - 21.50 - 39

Rob Ehlers 78.50 - 35 - 31.50 - 12

Andree Cauley 52.50 - 20 - 32.50 - 0

So there you go, look forward to seeing you all in February for Gathering in the Desert 2010

TK

Another Big Terrain Push!

Big terrain update today, getting ready for the Gathering in the Desert Primer event on October 25th 2009, so here are a few pictures of whats been going on.

First up, the completed "Not Weathertop" from Castle Kits We received one for a prize and another one for terrain, but I ran out of time to get it together. Well it will be making it's appearance at the Primer & GitD2010. Painting was rather easy, just flat black followed by several different shades of Grey. Came out rather well, I look forward to getting a few more kits from Castle Kits in the future.

Next up are the Modular hills and regular gaming hills from GamesWorkshop and these were painted like the rest of the Realm of Battle boards in my previous post. Krylon Flat Brown, followed by a drybrush of Nutmeg Brown from Apple Barrel with another dry brush of Honey Brown from Americana. The rocks were painted Flat Black followed by a drybrush of Slate Grey from Americana. Added some GW Green Grass to them and they are ready for battle.

Now for GitD, I like to have themed tables with lots of terrain, last year I built a Mordor table which after GitD was shipped out to Brent & Jamie in Chicago who run the LotR events at Adepticon. When I was there, I told Jamie that he could keep the terrain as a gift from GitD. But that meant I needed to build another Mordor set of terrain. So I busted out two set of GW trees and kept the leaves off to give them that Creepy Mordor feeling to them. Here they are.

I also had a few trees let over from Woodland Scenic that I used last year, but these were individually based. I found that the trees kept getting moved during the game so I decided to do a few bases for these and use some sheet magnets to fold the trees to the bases. Here are three bases that I through together last night.

Here you can see the one tree of the base, I used PVC Plastic or the base, then took and cut out a round disc just large than the tree base out of sheet magnet. Nice thing with the sheet magnet, it has one side that has adhesive on it, so once cut I just stuck them to the PVC base. I then textured the base with Liqutex Stucco and let dry. Once the Stucco was dried just painted to match the base of the trees.

The magnets are fairly strong and will hold the trees (that are mounted on steel washers) pretty well. Nice thing is that folks can remove the trees with out moving the base.

Also for the Mordor table I needed a few rock sections, so these were dug out and touched up for the event. Nothing special, just Pink foam covered with Liqutex Stucco again and painted up.

The last piece of terrain is a tower section sitting atop a Temple of Skulls from GW. Storage is always a concern when building terrain and I knew if I mounted the GW Tower to the Temple model that it would be a pain in the Butt to store. So I decided that I wanted to remove the tower plus I wanted the tower not to move during game play.


So I added a Ruin Section from the LotR kit to the Temple. I glued it down so that it was just wide enough to slide the GW tower over the top of it.

So now I can have the tower on or off without a problem and I can store each easier than them being always together.

But as you can see, the tower is not done, so the Temple will be going as is in the picture below. I will finish it up by GitD. You may also notice that the large skulls have been covered up. Once again since its for LotR, I wanted it to fit better, so I cut/added more rubble to try & disguise the skulls. Since this is one of four kits, the next ones will have the skulls hidden better.

So there you have it, another busy week and now the packing begins for Sunday. Until then...

TK

If you paint it, they will come...

So,

Gathering in the Desert 2010 is only a few months away (Feb 20th & 21st, 2010) so I figured I needed to get started on all the terrain. So I started with a Realm of Battle board from GW, for those that don't know, these are hard grey plastic terrain boards. I have two of these and one set is being painted by Rob, while I paint the other.

So the first thing was to decide on a paint color and since Rob is also painting a set I wanted them to both match. We decided on these colors, Krylon Ultra Flat Brown ($4.44 Walmart) from their camouflage line, Apple Barrel Nutmeg Brown ($2.78 from Walmart) and Americana Honey Brown ($.79 from Michaels). Nice thing about the Krylon paint is that it's a fusion based paint, so it stick really really well to plastic, this would be the base coat. Another thing is that it gives you great coverage and I was able to spray all the 2'x2' boards with one can.


So last Saturday I sprayed all the boards and let them set for about an hour. Once set, I dry brushed on the Nutmeg brown on all of the boards. By the time I was finished with the last board I went back & dry brushed on the Honey Brown. I also painted the slate pavers on one board Slate Grey from Americana followed by a Black Wash as seen below.


One thing I did not get pictures of was the filling in of the Skull pits molded on the boards. Since I was using these for LotR, I opted not to have them since they felt out of place. I cut a few pieces of PVC plastic and glued them down and back filled the rest with Liqutex Stucco filler. Once I add static grass you will not even see these, but here are two shots of them below.



So the last thing is to add static grass to the boards and they will be ready for action. I would say they are about 85% done now.

Another project that I started this week was a Ruined Hirst Arts kit from Castle Kits, that Ian Martin sent us last year. I have been wanting to tackle this last year but ran out of time before the event, so I decided I needed this for the Weathertop board for the event. Here is a shot of some of the pre-cast bricks as well as a piece of Masonite that I cut & bevelled to mount the kit on.

I have to say that these pre-cast blocks are cool! They go together pretty quick and they are addictive to assemble. I built the whole kit in one night & took it out to prime it black without taking pictures of it! (Man, whats up with that??) So below are a few shots one it got primed and mounted to the Masonite, I started to texture the base with Liqutex Stucco and some rubble and started the base painting.

Now the inner wall, upper deck and the outer wall still need to be glued down and are only in there for the pictures.

This model will be attending GitD 2010 and will look awesome on the table once complete. So there you have it, some things I have been working on (While still looking for a real job).

TK

A Search for Our Souls

So this past weekend my Brother John came out for a short visit from Brunswick Georgia, besides taking a trip to Palm Springs to surprise our parents, my brother wanted to get in a few games while he was here. We had talked on the way out to Palm Springs about the "Old Days" of playing ADD&D with our old group and we were both looking for that sort of game to try to recapture some of the fun from our past. Well I have sold almost all of my old D&D stuff (Still have a ton of modules left thought) so this was not an option. But wait I told him, I still have another classic from the past, Warhammer Quest!

Now my brother, his wife, my wife and son as well as I had all played this pretty frequently about 14 years or so ago. The good thing was that I still had the game and all the tiles as well as the figures.

So it was settled, Warhammer Quest it would be then. But since Quest works well with at least 4 players I needed to talk my wife into playing as well as get another person to fill in so we could have 4 players. So I had asked my good friend Rob to come on over and we would show him a classic old school GW game. My wife was up for the challenge and wanted to know if her figure was still in the box (a converted Dark Elf Witch model as a wizard) and once I told her it was she was game.

So as soon as we got back from Palm Springs I told Rob to come on over & I would throw some meat on the BBQ and stock the fridge for some gaming. And with that Warhammer Quest hit the table again after many many years of hiding out in the closet. Here is a shot of the game just getting going.

Now one thing we did was run through a quick game to get us back in the mood and also to explain to Rob the rules. Needless to say, we died very quickly and we all had a good feeling for the mechanics for the game. So we decided to get a game going for real and we each took a character, my wife took the Wizard which she named Deidre, my brother took the Dwarf and named him Starky, I took the Barbarian and used an old name from our D&D days of Djon Boarhog (Don Gows famous character!) and Rob took the Elf and called him...Chuck! What the crap we all exclaimed!! A Elf named Chuck, that had to be one of the funniest names we heard and we all loved it!

For those that do not know, Warhammer Quest uses 14 Dungeon cards that you draw as you enter a new room. These could be rooms, hallways or the main objective room. But here's the catch, we you start setting up, you deal 6 Dungeon cards out, then shuffle in the Objective card into that deck of seven. Then you place seven more cards on top of that stack, so the objective card can either be the 8th card in the deck or it could be the 14th card, so you have to go through at least 7 cards before reaching the Objective room. Also each time you enter a room, you draw a Event card, which can be monsters , traps or just about anything else. This system allows the game to be run without a Gamemaster. Also to add a special quirk to the game, the Wizard must roll a D6 at the Beginning of each phase to see how much power they have that turn, if they roll a 1 on a D6, than you draw another Event card and resolve it. This usually means the wizard ends up bringing more baddies into the room your in and we like to call the power phase the "Don't Roll a 1 phase".

So the first card we draw is a collapsed passage way and once we all enter the room, I draw an Event Card, we get 2D6 Skaven which results in 8 of the little buggers to show up! Well only I can fight since it's a narrow passage and I slowly start to kill Skaven while losing some off my wounds. The very next phase my wife rolls a one and we get 6 Orcs along with 5 Night Goblin Archers! The monster start to line up outside of the room were in (which is the first room by the way) and I slowly start to die as well as kill a few things in front of me.

My wife than rolls another one and draws another Event card which is something to do with Snakes on the floor which than has us draw another Event card. We get Shifting sands and basically there is a chance for us to fall while we fight. Needless to say the Mighty Barbarian doesn't do so well and even manges to smack Chuck the Elf a few times while he is Berserk. This goes on or a few more rounds and I get down to 1 wound, which Chuck the Elf gives me a Potion to heal me back up to full points. But as luch would have it, my wife rolls another one in the Power Phase and we now get to deal with a Big Orc that Challenges me to a fight. So I take two turns to kill him and win a magical sword but my wife again rolls another 1 and we get a Minotaur to fight! We then also get a few Spiders (8 I think) as well as 7 Snotlings!

Here is a shot o my Barbarian getting man handled by the Minotaur which ends up killing me!

Needless to say, after I die, Mighty Chuck the Elf gets beaten down and we all start to die. This game lasted about an hour and a half and we all had a blast. The funnest thing was we never made it out of the first room! My brother could not believe it and told Rob that in the past we had completed many adventures and even had our Characters go up a few levels. All in all everyone had a great time and it looks like I might bust out Warhammer Quest again in the future.

So after Warhammer Quest, I busted out another old game, Formula De which is a race game.


Rob nor my brother had ever played this game & after a few instructional minutes of how to play we were ready to take on the Long Beach CA course. We all had fun racing around the track and I can't remember who won. It was about 11:45 by then & rob had to head out, but my brother, wife & I were ready to race again. So we choose Montreal for the track and each of us took 2 cars each. Well with it being late, we all got a little loopy and after my brother crashed we called it a night.

All in all we had a great night and my brother was sad that he had to leave the next day because he wanted to get in a few more games. Oh well there is always next visit kid, just don't wait so long...

TK

Todays Rant!

WHITE DWARF

So last November my wife decided to get me a White Dwarf subscription because she was tired of me buying it at my local shop (where other items would come home with me along with the WD). She was swayed by these magical words from the GW website:

Subscribe With a subscription to White Dwarf you will never miss an issue, each issue will be delivered directly to your door and there is a huge saving over buying issues individually.

Wow she thought, if it comes to the door we will be saving money since he will not bring home anything else! She read further about the benefits:

Never miss an issue - A subscription guarantees your copy every single month.
Convenient - it's delivered straight to your door
Early - subscription copies are sent out to arrive before the magazine hits the stores
Save money - subscriptions offer a saving against buying White Dwarf every month.

Wow she thought, this sounds great, I will be happy saving money, he will be happy getting his White Dwarf at Home, everyone wins she thought. So she plunked in the Old Credit card number and informed me that I would be getting WD now at home.

So after the wife told me about the subscription I was overjoyed and figured that the following month I would get my first copy since I just missed the deadline for it to come out that month. So I wait a month and no WD had came. So I called GW and they informed me that it takes two months before I get my first issue! WTF? Two months, were they filing this subscription in slow motion?? Now I have had many magazine subscriptions in the past & all of them (including WD about 6 years ago) could get the subscriptions started in a month, why does it take GW so long?

So I wait and get my first copy, but on the second copy I find that it does not come to the mailbox, in fact my local store gets their copies before I get my second copy. So I call GW up to find out whats going on, they tell me that I should have received it and they would get it out ASAP. So I wait a week and it shows up followed the next day by issue 3.

So for the next few issues everything is fine, until issue 5 does not show up, so I call good old GW again and inquiry whats going on. After verifying my mailing address they tell me they will get it out in about 14 days! You see it has to be order from the warehouse and takes longer. So I wait. issue 5 shows up and about 13 days later and right before issue 6 shows up in the mail.

Issue 7 disappears into the warp & I call GW yet again, we verify same info, nothing has changed and they say they will send it out, so I sit and wait! It shows up just before issue 8 which arrives three days later.

I get issue number 9 on time (issue 356 with the Space Hulk release) and I am a happy camper.

So today, with it being September 30th, and no WD in the mail, I decided to give old GW a call to find out whats going on. I was told that I should have received WD#357 already but technically it's not late until tomorrow. Then the guy tells me I should re-new soon since the subscription will be ending in a few months with issue 359.

Hold the phone sparky, but to date I have had to call GW 4 times now to find out where my lost subscription is & you try to sell me another subscription??? So I tell the guy on the other end my woes but I can tell he is not listening, he then tells me that they are doing a new system that will make sure everyone gets there WD's at the same time and that he will put my name on the list for the lost issue. What the hell is going on people????

So lets review GW's own words about there subscription:

Subscribe With a subscription to White Dwarf you will never miss an issue, each issue will be delivered directly to your door and there is a huge saving over buying issues individually. Um never miss an issue, you have lost 4 issues now already with god only knows what will happen to the last 3 issues!

Never miss an issue - a subscription guarantees your copy every single month Well that's a broken guarantee!

Convenient - it's delivered straight to your door. Well it must be going to someone elses door but not making it to mine!

Early - subscription copies are sent out to arrive before the magazine hits the stores. Early? What before next years issues come out??

Save money - subscriptions offer a saving against buying White Dwarf every month. Okay I will give them that, I got my subscription at $60.00 for a year, so I beat the price increase, but the times on the phone off set the price.

So, where does it leave me now? I am not sure, I still have three issues that are due to me, so I am sure I will be on the phone again with GW looking for at least those issues. Sorry GW, but I will not subscribe to your magazine again, as the old saying goes, Burn me once, shame on you, Burn me twice shame on me!

TK

Terrain for GitD 2010

So,

As I get home today I am greeted by 6 large boxes on my doorstep from Games Workshop. You see I ordered more terrain for GitD and it arrived today. Notice my cat Sydney decided to investigate the said boxes!

I get a few e-mails asking what it takes to run a well run event. Besides allot of prep work on scenarios, location, as well as other things, it also takes terrain. So below is a picture of what I will be using for GitD 2010, here is the breakdown of items received today:

8 Boxes of Citadel Woods

6 Citadel Gaming Hills

6 Citadel Modular Gaming Hills

4 Arcane Ruins

4 Temple of Skulls

3 Pack of Static Grass Tubs

2 Citadel Realm of Battle Gameboards

Now the real fun begins, the assembly & painting of it all! Also there will be a few conversion that have to be done to make some items more Lord of the Rings Themed. For example, the Temple of Skulls will have the skulls covered up to look like rocks and I might add a tower or ruin. Also I am thinking of re basing the trees in the woods box so I can get double duty out of the woods base as a rough terrain piece. Also there are a few sections on the Gameboards that have to be filled in (the skulls for one) since you don't see those too often in Lord of the Rings.

So the next few updates will be showing the construction and painting of all this terrain. I hope to have at least one battle board ready for the Primer at the end of October, so we shall see.

TK