New Acquisitions

So I haven't had much painting time of late, so nothing to show there I'm afraid, but I have had far too much ebay time, and so my Wolves army is expanding (model wise, it'll be a while before anything is painted).

So, to go with the 10GH I am currently painting (see a couple of posts before) and the 1 black reach termie that I got with WD, I now have:

10 metal bodied Blood Claws badly needing to be stripped

17 metal GH bodies that are stripped, but have not arms etc

A devastator squad missing the heavy bolter backpack that need stripping as they appear to have been dipped in paint.

That all came to £30 plus about £10 postage for over 30 metal miniatures, not bad I think. I have to admit, that although the plastics are getting better, and the pose-ability is really good, they just can't match the detail on the metal bodies, so I'm dead happy to have these in my army, and it'll also allow me to differentiate units nicely. All I now need to do is source a whole bunch of arms, pads, backpacks, weapons and bases, but I have a feeling that when I finally get to my old model stash, a lot of that will be solved.

I've also got a case from KRmulticase coming my way. These seem really good, a lot of variability in the foam inserts, and at only £21, the combination I've chosen should be able to hold 54 largish termie sized or heavily armed miniatures, and 80 smaller, bolter armed and fire warrior miniatures.

Well thats it for now, maybe a painting update in a few days if I get a chance to sit down and do something one evening. Thanks for dropping by, and as ever, comments are always welcome

Wolves Rumours

So I stumbled across this linked from a post on another blog that I follow. It updates from time to time as new news comes to light, so is worth a revisit from time to time.

Looking through it, my thoughts are:

October/ November Launch (Confirmed but maybe earlier)
- Can't come early enough.
2+ New Special Characters (probably Kjarl and Bjorn again. I think those were the 2 removed) (Bjorn Confirmed)
- not too bothered as I prefer to put together my own characters for the fluff I am building around my army.
2+ New Units. One is possibly the 13th Company Wulfen Guard as an Elite
- This would be pretty cool, and as regular SMs get the legion of the damned, seems to make sense. I'm curious to know what the other new units might be.
Long Fang's may get Slow and Purposeful Special Rule
- This would be great, and finally make the LFs worth taking. It would also fit fluff wise somewhat as they are the veterans of the wolves and so most likely to have that kind of ability.
Minor reduction to Long Fang points [1/6/09]
Full sized Codex (Confirmed)
- cool, not much else to say. I don't think they would do it any other way though, GW seems to be going back to full codex.
Possible removal of True Grit Army Special Rule. (80% Confirmed. Grey Hunters may have 2 attacks standard now)
- curious, if they do get the 2 attacks, then I wouldn't mind, if they don't then I really hope the mention about wargear (next point) had better be true otherwise GHs will end up being nothing but regular marines.
(Standard Space Marine Wargear: Frag and Krak Nades, Bolt Pistol, Bolter)
(Standard Chaos Wargear: Bolt Pistol, Bolter, CCW)
Standard Space Wolves Wargear: CCW, Bolt Pistol, Frag and Krak Nades [1/26/09]
- If they then allow the GHs to take an additional bolter, not replacing the bolt pistol so they end up like a mix of regular SM and CSM then happy, otherwise this will really hurt them.
Grey Hunters may get Heavy Weapons added to squad [1/26/09] (50% Confirmed because notes currently suggest higher point costs)
- Not totally keen on this, I would take the lack of heavy firepower to keep the fluff difference of the wolves, and the different composition and structure.
Possible removal of Leman Russ "Exterminator" (80% Confirmed)
- I'd like to see this stay, I don't think it is used that much, but is a nice piece of fluff and could be fun to have from time to time.
Blood Claws lose Berserk Charge (+2 charging attacks instead of +1) but gain Furious Charge (+1 I and S) [1/6/09]
- Why not, this fits in with GW removing as many special special rules and using universal special rules if at all possible.
Rune Priest gains psychic powers but not the same as Librarian [1/6/09] (50/50. Apparently they get Storm Caller and Librarian powers)
- Can't really comment as I've never been a fan of psychic powers and haven't played with them since restarting the hobby.
Fenris Wolf Packs count as Fast Attack Choice[1/6/09] (80% Confirmed. May not add to force org chart)
- If this ends up like the WG so that you can take as many as you want, and spread them round your army for on organisation slot, then cool.
Frost Blade unchanged [1/6/09] {False. According to sources its now the same as the Relic Blade}
- Not too keen on this as it becomes a double handed weapon, so not something you would want to give to a character, if this happens, I don't think we'll see many of these.
Iron Priest may get Full-Servo Option [1/6/09]
- This would be good, and iron priests kind of need something. Would be nice to get heavy weapon servitors as well.
Get Ironclad option but Venerable is going to be cheaper like currently [1/26/09] - ok.
Gain Land Raider Crusader and Redeemer but do not get Thunderfire Cannon [2/9/09]
- Absolutely fine with that, I wouldn't want to see the thunderfire in a wolves army, completely goes against the theme of the force.
Removal of Wolf Guard Battle Leader [2/9/09]
- I'm half and half on this, I'd like to see them stay, but if they go, it won't be the end of the world.
Wulfen Rune Priest may be available but can only have The Gate power. [2/9/09] - ok.
All of this is obviously assuming that the Wolves get to keep counter-attack (gaining the extra attack when charged as well as charging) which I think is one of the better fluff additions to the army, and also very nice to use in game.

All in all, I think that if all this came to pass, I think that the wolves could certainly become something worth thinking about again, and I'm sure that there will be a few new rules that won't ever get leaked before the Codex release that might be game changing, and of course I really hope the new models are kick ass. I'd love to see a more extensive customisation sprue (something more like the Templars have) and a terminator conversion sprue.

So, what do you guys think of it all?

Leaders of the Pack

Here they are (the first unit in my new wolves army)!

I managed to complete the assembly of them (guns left unattached but resting in their hands for the photo) last night, got them based, and have even managed to give them a basecoat with gesso since the photo was taken. 

NOTE: gesso isn't perfect, I got a number of airbubbles in mine that have stayed as part of the undercoat, and it does obscure some of the details, I wouldn't use it on a character for instance.

I can't wait for next week when I can start to colour them and get them ready for a game. 

Woo Hoo!

Back at it

Well I'm back in the UK and happy to be so. I've even managed to get a little hobbying in. Yesterday I dived in at the deep end and managed to not only buy a bunch of long fangs on ebay, I have a further 30 items watching, but also stopped by my new LGS and got myself a box of grey hunters.

One thing I have to laugh at: this rune priest (active till about 8:30pm 11th Feb); he's got about 3 and a bit hours left to go on his auction, and the current highest bidder is at £7.23 with £2 postage on top of that. A quick look on the GW website shows this fella is only £6.85 brand new. Some people obviously don't really check what they are buying all that much ;)

Anyway, I'm sure I'll have more soon

Ta Ta for now
bG

All shaded and ready for yellow

So I'd hoped to do a step by step on painting the Tau, but I got a little carried away and painted more than one stage. Since the last update, I've added grey to the soft armour parts, and then I did two black washes to shade the armour and cloth.

I don't have proper washes so I've had to make my own up. Nothing more than mixing a heck of a lot of water in with a little bit of black paint. The consistency I aimed for was not much different from the water I clean my brushes with, that thin. I also added a decent sized blob of washing up liquid to try to help it run. The first time I tried without and it almost avoided the gaps in the armour, with the washing liquid it was better but still not perfect. I imagine that a wash would flow into the gaps a bit better, here's hoping when I get to try them out.

Next stages are to paint on the yellow regions of the armour, finish glueing the arms and etc on to complete the assembly, and then the highlighting and basing.

This is far and away the quickest I've got a unit painted up (even just to this stage), and hopefully the standard won't be too poor once they are finished.

I've popped up plenty of pics for record. The photography isn't the best, I don't have a place to photograph, or more than one lamp, so the lighting's poor and the camera struggles to focus.

There probably won't be many more posts for a while as I have a move at the end of the week back to the UK and I have to pack my whole flat up this week in between work. It could easily be a month or more before I get to sit down again with these or other models. I'll keep following all the blogs, so keep up the good work.

Cheers, bG