New Years Resolutions 2009 - a review

So its only the start of December, and I've been pretty lax on the hobby front for the last month or so. I've got a few things done, but never the time to chronicle it - especially not photos. I don't know if I'll get much more time till close to Christmas either, so I thought I'd get the ball rolling on New Years Resolutions.

First up, a review of last years resolutions. They were:

1. Get at least one army together and most importantly PAINTED so that I can play a game or two - this is where my future Necron purchases will come in nice and handily.
2. Start PLAYING GAMES again. I haven't had a game of 40K in years, and I'm keen to see how the game plays with all the changes that have happened over the last decade.
3. For point 2, BUY THE NEW RULEBOOK and start to learn the new rules
4. Retrieve all my lovely old models (mostly marines) from the 2nd gen 40K and start to paint them up (see a near future post for ideas I've had regarding this)
5. Get my SPACE WOLVES army together to a point where I could also have a game or two with it

So, what have I achieved. Well, I've got an army, they are space wolves, they are painted up to a tabletop standard if not my best painting, I've got the new rulebook and I've had a few games and I've managed to retrieve a good portion of my old models. What haven't I achieved - well there's still some models somewhere in storage at my old childhood home, and although I've got an army, it isn't the Necrons I orignally intended (I'd still like to do them though, especially after seeing this reposted).

I'd say I'll give myself a 4/5 for this year - not bad.

I'm going to try and be more ambitious and specific with my resolutions for the coming year in the hopes that they will spur me on to greater achievements.

Eldar musings

Could the Eldar be getting a new codex sometime soon? I only ask as in the December White Dwarf, in the section re-visiting the tale of 4 gamers, the Eldar army isn't featured because "[it has been] loaned to the games developers for play-testing".

It'll be interesting to see if they get something in next year, perhaps after the rumoured blood angels codex.

New painting method

So I was thinking the other day, and realised that there was a better way for me to make the base coats on my figures.

I use a grey undercoating medium (grey liquitex gesso - I have nowhere that I can spray prime) and needing a blue-grey colour, I wondered if using the blue GW wash would give me the right colouring. I bought a bottle and tried it out last night and it works brilliantly. Using 2 coats to get a nice even coverage and get rid of any obvious pooling look. In relatively short order last night I was able to get the blue coat onto one terminator and do a first coat on all 6 of my new Long Fangs. Its a great technique as it also manages to do shading for you at the same time.

Its not exactly the same as painting with fenris grey and washing as my previous technique was, but I'm going to continue with that technique for the units I have already begun to paint, but use this technique for my newer units - its close enough to not be obviously noticeable, but at the same time will be nice to use to differentiate the rank and file that I have already painted from the newer, more specialised units that I am beginning to paint.

Giant Wolf Model

So finally someone has stepped up to the plate and is making a wolf model for thunderwolves (that doesn't look like a chinchilla I mean).

John over at Santa Cruz Warhammer has been in contact with MaxMini and they have just confirmed that they are indeed making a multi-option giant wolf model that can be used to make thunderwolf mounts (post1 and post2, post 2 has an image).

I'm going to be keeping very close eye on maxmini to order one as soon as they become available to see what it'll be like. YAY!

Power of the Machine Spirit question?

Hi everyone

Got my first game in ages last night, and something came up. I'm not sure if I was bending the rules, but neither I or my opponent could find anything to contradict what I did. I wanted to see what the communities view was. So the situation:

Landraider Crusader has moved at combat speed so is allowed to fire one weapon, so I fire my assault cannon at one unit. I then fire my storm bolter and one of the hurricane bolters at the same unit as defensive weapons. The thing I found questionable was that as far as I could tell, I could then use PotMS to fire the second hurricane bolter at a different unit.

Is this correct? As I said, I couldn't see a reason why it wouldn't be, but I also felt a little uneasy doing it as it just didn't feel right. What do you think?

Almost back

Hey everyone, I've been pretty quite of late, what with waiting on completion of a house buy so me and the wife can move, currently living together in a single room of a house with no heating, and work landing a big workload on me I've had little time to do too much hobby.

I've got the new codex, re-worked my army somewhat to suit it, and have started coming up with ideas for a new army. I'm really liking the new codex, at the local GW I was one of two Wolf players from before the new codex, and we've both chatted about the new developments (we're both still using our old armies adjusted) and think that they play a lot more wolfy, have some nice rules, and I wouldn't say they are any more cheesy than any of the recent codex's. Sure there's some half broken units, but then that is common to all codex.

I'm absolutely loving the new boxset (except most of the heads) and have already built myself up a lone wolf from some of the bits. I'm also trying to pick out a suitable model to make thunderwolf cavalry from, and something to make Canis out of (still dislike the GW model a lot, and since the rider and wolf are one piece, have no hope of converting it).

Look out for some more posts soon.
Cheers, bG

Full Wolf Force

So, with the additions of the last two posts, and the 5 AoBR termies that I finished the basic colours of last night (see below)

I've now got a pretty decent force building up. Below is an image of the whole force.

It includes:

• Lord with twin lighting-claws
• 7 Terminators: 5 with storm-bolter and power-fist, 1 with assault-cannon and chain-fist, 1 with storm-bolter and power-weapon
• 10 Grey Hunters with power-fist, power-weapon and flamer
• 9 Grey Hunters with power-fist, power-weapon and melta (there's only 9 of these guys as the wife took one as her something blue on our wedding day last week - she's awesome!)
• 12 Blood Claws with power-fist, power-weapon, plasma-pistol and unknown special weapon
• 1 Dreadnought with multi-melta and storm-bolter
• 2 Drop-pods with storm-bolters

Not bad for 7 months of collecting considering there's probably been at least 1 1/2 months during which I've been completely unable to hobby due to work trips and organising a wedding. Just need that new codex to get here to see where its going next really ;)

That brings my painting points up to 64 tabletop ready and 4 completed. As ever, comments/criticism/pointers etc more than welcome. Cheers, bG