Thursday 27 December 2012

2012, the year that was...

Howdy, howdy folks, hope you've all had a very merry christmas, stuffed yourselves with as much turkey/ham/game of choice and santa brought you lots of hobby goodness.  The year is almost over, I've just passed the 4th birthday of the blog, so its time for the obligatory look back at what has been achieved in the year, a sort of queens speech if you will, and of course next week will be a look ahead at what I hope to achieve in the coming year.

My year began with the genesis of One Force (to rule them all), my new marines and current favourite project of all time.  Unfortunately, this pretty much scuppered one of my hobby resolutions from the off (see below).  I also started out the year with recovering and re-posting my old posts that were lost when I updated the blogger template.  There was also the release of the new paints which meant I had to update the paint scheme for One Force.
This year I've also seemed to get my spotting eye in, with some interesting results:  KR Multicase Guest Spot, Secret Forgeworld miniature revealed.
I made it to Salute (1, 2, and 3), made my 100th Post, and finally made it back to Blog Wars 4:  game 1 reportgame 2 report, game 3 report.
I've trialled a few new techniques in my hobby:  Casting handsMagnetising self-help, and due to having generally less time to devote to my hobby, my painting hasn't quite been as prolific as last year, the main achievements were:  One Force Terminators CompletedTFP: Badab Project competitionOne Force commander, and the first 5 squad memebers (to be posted in the new year).  I also completed a lot of my Necrons ready for Blog Wars 4, and rustled up a few more clanrats for the Skaven.

All told, this has allowed me to reach 101 painting points for the year 2012.  That's about half the points I managed in 2011, but a lot of the models are much more detailed painting wise (2011 was bolstered by the quick and easy painting of a lot of Skaven and Necrons).   I'm definitely planning on continuing with painting points as it is a nice measure of how you are doing with the creative side of the hobby, and the page linked is starting to become a jump off point for the posts of all my painted minis.
Probably favourite for me this year painting wise was getting to paint up a few centre-piece models such as the Deathwatch marine and the One Force commander as it gave me a chance to try and push myself a little with painting.  I think in the future I'd like to try and take part in a couple of painting comps, just to give myself a bit of a challenge and try new techniques like the NMM I did on the Shadowseer in 2011.

Possibly the biggest thing to happen to the blog this year was my post Secret Forgeworld miniature revealed.  It got picked up by Faeit 212 which lead to a gigantic surge in traffic to the blog.  As a result, its now the most viewed page on my blog, and pushed the number of views from an expected 37,000 since inception to its current level above 41,000.  You can see the upsurge in views in the stats-graphs below (all time, last week):



As is becoming customary for me, each year I make some resolutions to try and drive my hobby through the year.  This years resolutions can be found here, and looking back over the year...
  • Post once per week minimum.
    • Success -  I've managed at least one post per week all year, and on a few occasions even managed to sustain 2 posts a week.  OK not every post has been a groundbreaking source of hobby goodness, but the need to have something to talk about each week has definitely kept my hobby mojo topped up.
  • Painting Points
    • Success -  at the start of the year I went back and totted up the number of models I'd painted in previous years, and this year I've done my best to keep track of what I've managed.  I haven't scored that highly this year, but its been respectable and I may be able to improve on it next year.
  • Space Wolf Achievements
    • Fail -  in the main because my Wolves have been sidelined for most of this year as I've been experimenting with other armies, shame though as they were a fantastic idea, I'll still try and see what I can collect over time.
  • Attend Blog Wars and at least one other tournament.
    • Partial Success -  I managed to make it to Blog Wars, but no other tournament.  I did go to Salute though and have a few more things lined up for this year.
  • No more purchases until my remaining Necrons (Wraiths, Spyders, Destroyers) and Skaven (IoB boxset, Stormvermin, Bell) have been painted and I have sold my spares (Land Raider, Drop Pods, Valkyrie etc.).
    • Failure -  I did sell about half of the stuff listed at the start of the year, and have recently listed some more, but I've not sold what I'd planned, and have bought even more stuff this year, especially stuff for One Force (lovely Forgeworld goodness) which I'm loving at the moment.  Oh well.
So that's the year as it was.  I'll wish you all a very merry rest of your Christmas, and a very happy new year for 2013, tune back in next week for my plans for the upcoming year.
Cheers - Andy

Monday 24 December 2012

Blog Wars 4: the painting project

Of course my trip to Blog Wars required me to complete the painting of a lot of my Necrons that were almost but not quite finished.  This is what I managed to get painted:

Necron Overlord / Trazyn the Infinite
2 painting points

Thursday 20 December 2012

Blog Wars 4: Game 3 report


Game 3:  vs.  John Holland (MC Tic Tac from Blood Claw)
Mission:  Kill points with Dawn of War ("normal") deployment.

John was rocking Death Wing (5 squads with assorted load-outs), Belial, a blob of guard allies with a commissar and a Bastion.  A lot of 2+ armour that I didn't really have anything to deal with other than weight of fire, I was going to be in trouble.  I was also starting to tire by this stage (I'd done the classic and been up till the wee small hours the night before finishing my army) so I may not have been on the top of my game - sorry to John if I came across badly at all.  I also completely forgot photos for this game so I'm afraid this'll be all text.

Thursday 13 December 2012

Blog Wars 4: Game 2 report

Game 2:  vs.  Keith Duncan (no blog apparently)
Mission:  Relic with short edge deployment

Keith had a bit of a monster in his list, an 1100 point Lord (Trazyn the Infinite) and "Royal Court of Doom!" with a Cryptek with each of the available staffs, and 4 or 5 Lords (I can't quite remember) all with Warscythes, 2+/3++ saves, Mindshackle Scarabs and some Res Orbs.  The rest of the force was almost incidental compared to that with a couple of Warrior squads, a unit of Tesla Immortals, some Wraiths and an Ann Barge.


Having thought a little about my game 1, I tried to fix most of the issues I'd had in that last game with some better results in this game.  We both set up pretty aggressively towards the Relic spread across the whole width of the board so as much stuff could be forward as possible.

Monday 10 December 2012

Secret Forgeworld miniature revealed

from:  JD's Blog
I'm sure like everyone else out there, you've seen many of the pictures from the Istvaan diorama that Forgeworld produced for Games Day this year.  There's a few more below for you just because they are so very pretty.

Its currently on display at Warhammer World in Nottingham, in the case next to the main building entrance so that everyone can check it out.  If you are there, take the time to look at it as it really is beautiful and a fantastic piece of work.

from: Wargaming Hub

from: thegreatcrusade.co.uk

While I was looking at it something caught my eye and I just had to chuckle.  I got some pics to show you all too.  The pics aren't the best as it was a pretty bright day, behind glass and the light is kept low in the show cabinet to preserve the colours of the minis.

This is the left end of the diorama, in amongst the traitor legions:

That's a heck of a lot of legion troopers, but wait, whats that?
Wait a minute, there's something funny in that doorway, some kind of commander model perhaps?

Definitely a different colour, could it be a model that hasn't been released yet?
You've got to be kidding, I'VE FOUND WALLY!!!

Red and white stripy shirt, check!  Blue trousers, check!  Beanie hat, check!  Yep, its definitely Wally.
Touché Forgeworld.  I'd say that's on a par with a rick-roll :D  I did drop Forgeworld a line to ask about him and it turns out I'm the first person to spot and inform them of spotting Wally.  Woot!

I've included a full resolution image from my camera below so you can zoom in yourself if you want to double-check.

Cheers - and happy spotting, Andy


Friday 7 December 2012

Blog Wars 4: Game 1 report.

A quick aside, voting continues for The Fallen Princes Badab Deathwatch competition, go take a look at all the entries, and place your vote for the one you think is the best (especially if that happens to be mine: no. 2).  VOTE HERE :)




Game 1:  vs. Andy Humprhis (Ven from Sons of Sanguinius)
Mission:  5 objectives with diagonal deployment.

Andy is the reigning Blog Wars champ having won all three preceding Blog Wars so going into this game I knew I was in for a hiding.  That didn't really help me though as I pretty much managed to psyche myself out of the game before it had already begun.  Andy is a great guy though and despite him tabling me in a pretty much one sided game, it was never dull, boring or in any way not fun.  I gave him a bit of a run and dragged things out to the 6th turn so it wasn't the worst result in the world.

Monday 3 December 2012

TFP: Badab Project Voting - VOTE NOW!

I'm back from Blog Wars 4 and had a great time, but I'd like to plug this quickly.  You can see here the entry I made for The Fallen Princes Badab War Deathwatch competition.

Voting is now possible for the entries to the competition.  Go take a look at all the entries, they are all brilliant with some very distinctive looks, and place your vote for the one you think is the best.  VOTE HERE :)

Cheers, and stay tuned for my Blog Wars write up.  Andy.

Thursday 29 November 2012

4 years old yesterday

Iron Legion is 4!

I can't quite believe that its been that long since I started blogging about my modelling and painting.  It also means its been a little over 4 years since I returned to the Games Workshop hobby.  Its probably the sole plus to the time I spent living and working in Northern Finland.

In those 4 years I've managed to publish 184 posts, produce a Space Wolf, Necron and Skaven army, and I've also got parts of a Guard and second Marine force in the works.  The blog has had over 36,500 views and is currently getting over 1000 views a month.  All things considered, I'm really pretty pleased with that.

As this posts, I should be extremely busy painting the last few models for Blog Wars 4 (picture to the right is a clicky-link) which is this weekend.  Can't wait to get there and game with a whole swathe of UK bloggers, the first event was a brilliant day and I'm sure this one will be just as good if not better.  I'll be taking a bucket load of pictures, and will try and post reports from each of the games which should keep the blog going till well after Christmas.

If you are going, looking forward to seeing you there.
If you aren't going, keep checking back for the after-action reports, and I'll even try and post stuff up on the Twitters which you can see on the right (#bwars4).

Cheers, Andy

Friday 23 November 2012

On the painting desk (22/11)

I don't have a major update on things today, I'm too busy getting things prepared for Blog Wars 4.  GO LOOK HERE for my plans for the tournament, list and if you want a list/gaming the following day.

It turns out that my Necron army wasn't quite as finished as I seem to remember it being, in fact almost every model needs work to get it to a finished standard ready for the tournament.  YIKES!  I've got a lot on my hands, so I'm trying to fit in every minute of painting I can to get things done.  You can see my paint-station below and all that's on there isn't even everything that I need to do to get ready.


The problem is, I just want to be painting these guys you can see in the background...


Those MkIV marines are just so good looking, and I'm loving my new marines so much at the moment as a project as a whole.  That also reminds me I owe completed pictures of the MkII marines with full battle damage and weathering applied.  I'll see if I can get them photographed with a decent camera next week before the tournament.

Cheers, Andy.

Thursday 15 November 2012

Blog Wars 4, Lifts to Mansfield, and Sunday at Warhammer World

I'm going to Blog Wars 4, are you?  Seriously, I made it to the first and have missed the last two due to other commitments so I'm really excited to be heading back to Blog Wars for my second time.  Alex, From the Fang, runs a fantastic tournament, it'll be full 6th Edition, and you have to take a Special Character in your force.  Its a relaxed tournament (although there are those that take it seriously, looking at you Ven ;) and a whole heap of fun.

I'll be driving up on the Friday, and returning on the Sunday, I'll be hiring a car so if anyone around the Oxford/London/West Midlands area needs a lift they should let me know as I'd be happy to car share for the weekend.

I'd also like to see if anyone is interested in a day at Warhammer World on the Sunday, if there's interest then I'll book us some tables to use the good ones with designed scenery, I'll even try and come up with some scenarios based on the armies if people want.  You can check the tables available at WHW here.

Thursday 8 November 2012

One Force commander

I'm a little late with this post as I'm currently away with work, but have managed to get some time to finish things off and get this uploaded.

I'm currently in the finishing stages of painting the commander for One Force so that I can start taking them as an allied detachment (using C:BA) in games.  It's going to be fantastic to start getting these guys onto the tabletop.

Thursday 1 November 2012

Now for something completely different

A bit of a break from hobby I'm afraid, in the last couple of weeks I've had to re-tile my entire bathroom after tradesmen completely stuffed it up.  It's been a real pig and meant that I haven't had much time at all to hobby.  As I don't have anything of my own to show you, I'll instead point you all to other interesting things out there.

Beard Bunker.  These guys are brilliant and local to me, in fact Charlie used to work at my FLGS.  I've headed their way a few times recently for gaming and they are a fantastic bunch and very much into the more relaxed style of gaming that I prefer.  Check out their blog as it has some fantastic content, nice tutorials and good bat-reps.

A little while ago, I came across this article (wired.co.uk) which I've been meaning to post up for any of you out there that might be interested.  Its brief, but makes some interesting points.

Hopefully normal service and hobby goodness will return next week.  In the meantime, please keep your eyes on The Badab Project for the voting and auction for the Deathwatch squad.

Cheers - Andy

Thursday 25 October 2012

TFP: Badab Project competition (4) - Complete

Here he is, finished and ready for the judging and the auction.  Lots more images of him below, including an attempt at a rotating gallery (courtesy of this code supplied by Dezartfox).

EDIT:  You can now vote in the competition HERE.

I've really enjoyed painting this guy, taking some time to lavish attention onto a single miniature and try to experiment with some newer methods for achieving a desired result.  Getting the black right took a couple of goes before I felt satisfied, and I still think that I could perhaps improve it ultimately.

Thursday 18 October 2012

TFP: Badab Project competition (3)

For those following the progress of this, I'm building and painting a Badab War era Deathwatch trooper for this competition and charity project from The Fallen Princes.  Go have a look and I'll see you when you are back...

In my last post I showed you the progress in the build, now I'm well into the process of painting, with mixed success...

Thursday 11 October 2012

TFP: Badab Project competition (2)

Through Excommunicate Traitoris I'm now involved in this competition and charity project from The Fallen Princes.  Go have a look and I'll see you when you are back...

What a great idea!  Anyway, I've volunteered myself for a trooper (that was all that was left when I found out about this), and am going to be giving my guy a Raptor's heritage as they are a Badab chapter and their colour-scheme is similar to my current flavour of the month/year, One Force.  So here are the first, in progress shots of my marine:

Thursday 4 October 2012

TFP: Badab Project competition (1)

Through Excommunicate Traitoris I've stumbled across this competition and charity project from The Fallen Princes.  Go have a look and I'll see you when you are back...

What a great idea!  Anyway, I thought it would be a great thing to be involved in, and as I'm currently working on a force using the older style armour, I wanted to be involved so I'm going to submit an entry.  I've volunteered to provide a Raptors trooper (as their colour scheme is nicely close to that of One Force) for the squad, and it will be part of the auctioned squad at the end.

This is going to be a great chance to practice painting black (I may even be using this as practice for the black scheme I'll be using in One Force for commanders/veterans :), and will be a nice chance to just lavish as much attention as I can on a single model.  I'll be keeping my updates for this month focussed on this comp now, hopefully I'll have a built model for next week, and the painting will follow over the following 2 weeks.

If anyone knows of a good location to get a Deathwatch shoulder pad, or has one spare they might want to share, tips would be greatly appreciated.

Check out the competition here if you haen't already.

Cheers - Andy

Thursday 27 September 2012

Now with squad markings

A brief update on progress, since the last post I've added a first layer highlight to the jump-packs and put in a base layer for the squad markings for these guys.  I've settled on a company badge taking some influence from a Corporal's rank insignia, and inverting it.  The squad markings are going to be decided based on armour marque, so these guys get a double-bar as they are in MkII armour, I'll also have a MkIV and MkV insignia.


Thursday 20 September 2012

Battlescribe

First post while I'm away, I may not be able to respond to comments till I return on the 23rd September.

For anyone out there looking for an army list builder, I'd highly recommend you take a look at Battlescribe.  Its a great little bit of kit, built on Java so it is completely platform independent (unlike pretty much every other army list builder which are limited either to Windows, or Windows and Mac), very easy to use, and Jon Taylor does a fantastic job of both maintaining and updating the software.  There is even a mobile version of the editor so that you can keep and edit army lists on your tablet/phone for ease of use down at the gaming table.  It'll also output army lists in various formats for taking to tournaments.

Thursday 13 September 2012

Wargamers 20 questions

These come from Don't Throw a 1, but ultimately I found them through Drax and Devos.  As I'm away at the moment so don't have a whole lot to post, this seemed like a nice filler to keep the posts rolling along.


1.     Favourite Wargaming period and why?

40K, in part because its the only one I've played significantly, but mostly because of the sheer wealth of background and depth to the fluff, and for the most part its quite a compelling universe.

2.     Next period, money no object?

Freebooter's Fate.  Played it at Salute and loved it!  Although, I think it'd have to be time rather than money that's the limiting factor ultimately.

3.     Favourite 5 films?

Star Wars (4-6)
Red Violin
Predator
Starship Troopers
Total Recall

4.     Favourite 5 TV series?

Babylon 5 - best, most believable sci-fi with a really compelling story arc
Firefly - why Fox, why?
Star Trek (pretty much all variants)
Top Gear - mindless, blokey fun, japes
BBC natural history unit

5.     Favourite book and author?

Book:  Excession by Iain M. Banks
Author:  Can't decide between Terry Pratchett and Peter F. Hamilton.  With a gun to my head I'd probably lead towards the former though.

6.     Greatest General? Can’t count yourself!!

Without question, Grand Admiral Thrawn.

7.     Favourite Wargames rules?

6th Edition 40K.  I haven't played it much, but I've loved every minute of it so far.

8.     Favourite Sport and team?

Rugby.  Hertford College RFC.

9.     If you had a only use once time machine, when and where would you go?

This question is moot.  As per all known conventions, the first thing you do with a Time Machine is go back and punch Hitler in the mouth.

10.   Last meal on Death Row?

Wife's Lasagne, Fuller's Bengal Lancer.

11.    Fantasy relationship and why?

I just don't know, I guess I'd always gone in for the real deal.

12.   If your life were a movie, who would play you?

Bruce Willis (apparently in the right light I look vaguely like him), and my life can sometimes be viewed as a comedy of errors.

13.   Favourite Comic  Superhero?

Never really did the comic book thing as a kid.

14.   Favourite Military quote?

Nuke them till they glow, then shoot them in the dark.

15.   Historical destination to visit?

A galaxy far, far away.

16.   Biggest Wargaming regret?

Getting out of gaming through my University years.  What I could have done with the spare time I had back then!

17.   Favourite Fantasy job?

House husband - time to do all the stuff I want to.

18.   Favourite Song Top 5?

My music collection is just too eclectic for me to pick out 5 favourites.  Depending on the situation I'll listen to anything from Classical concerts and Opera, through House and Trance all the way to Metal.
Recently saw Swedish House Mafia in concert who were just spectacular, and want to see the Foo Fighters again, so they are always near the top of my playlist.

19.   Favourite Wargaming Moment?

Gunnar Jarnshud (my Lone Wolf) fighting off a whole pack of genestealers defending Ragnar's body, followed by taking on Marneus and 5 Thunder-Shield Terminators and them only getting out of the combat with 2 Terminators and Marneus on 1 wound.

20.   The miserable Git question, what upsets you?

That people are still homeless in a developed country, cruelty to animals, middle lane drivers.  WAAC, seriously, its a game.



If anyone else out there feels like doing this, the questions can be copied easily from the original post, and it'd be great if you let me know about your post in the comments.  Cheers - Andy

Thursday 6 September 2012

One Force squad 1 ready for the table

Here they are at last, ready for the table top at least.  I've managed to squeeze in the odd 15 minutes here and there to get the highlighting done on all the armour, weapons and main backpacks for the squad.  Just the Jump Packs that aren't highlighted now.


You can see them in more details below, but my plans for these in the coming weeks is to add company and squad markings, go back and do a second stage highlight on the whole lot, add some battle damage to them and then the final weathering to get the to the "complete" stage.

Friday 31 August 2012

One Force Tac 1 - update

Its been about a month since I last posted any progress for these guys, so here's where I'm at with them.

click to embiggen
I've chosen to work on only 5 figures at a time as it can be pretty soul destroying to be faced with 10 of the same thing to paint each time, whereas 5 feels a lot more manageable (although not always) and still gives time for one coat to dry by the time you've finished the last.  Since last time I've worked the greys to a highlighted state across all parts, went back and tidied up the green on the armour and then shaded it (you can find the process I'm using to paint these guys here).  Next up is to highlight all the armour and then apply battle damage and weathering, and then all I'll have left are the little details and this combat squad will be ready for the tabletop.  After these I plan to paint the Shadow Captain Korvydae I bought recently so that I can start to field them as an allied detachment in games so they start to see the tabletop.

C&C welcome.  Cheers - Andy

Thursday 23 August 2012

Game Imbalance - fascinating

I'm afraid I don't have any painting pictures to post today, although I've made some progress, our house is currently upside down as we are doing a load of renovation so getting a photo is more difficult that normal.  Instead, I thought I'd point you in the direction of this that I came across in my standard trawling of the interwebs for 40K content (from someone elses link, although I don't remember where from so thank you whoever it was originally posted this).  Its a pretty fascinating discourse on how game mechanics work, and their use in driving evolution in a game system, the fabled META that is always discussed, and of course sales.


Its a pretty fantastic presentation of what could otherwise be a very complex issue, and I'd very highly recommend you take 7mins to watch it, and I'd love to hear what you think of it too.

Cheers - Andy

Thursday 16 August 2012

Wolf Guard in 6th

In 5th, it was a no-brainer to take a Wolf Guard to lead a squad, and of course the only way to arm them was to give them a power fist and combi-melta.  However, with the advent of 6th and challenges in close combat, that Wolf Guard choice involves a lot more thought.  Now, I'm not exactly a tactical genius, but I'm going to try and consider a few of the possibilities you may face, and what kind of weapon options you may want to take.

With the new rules, you can't pick out a character that has joined a squad when in combat, so the provision for a power fist isn't quite as important.  Couple this with the greater ease in attaching a grenade to a vehicle/walker now and there is even less reason to take a power fist at all in your squad.  As far as a challenge is concerned, what is most important about the opponent you are facing is Initiative, and I'm going to split things up into whether a Wolf Guards Initiative of 4 is greater than the character you will be in a challenge with, or if it is equal or less, and labelling the likely loadout you may want to use too.

Thursday 9 August 2012

One Force commander

Here he is, on my way North last week I was able to stop off at Warhammer World and pick this guy up along with one other nice addition to my force (more on that later).  He'll be the commander of my force, initially I'll be using him as Korvydae from IA8, but as with pretty much everything in this force, he's magnetised so I can always switch out his weapons and use him as a regular commander, or even other things.


Tuesday 31 July 2012

Tac Squad 1 - painting progress

FIRST UP.  I'll be at Warhammer World on Friday, from around lunchtime till 3pm.  If anyone is around and can make it, it would be fantastic to meet some of the fellow bloggers (as yet again I can't go to BlogWars as for the third time in a row its on a weekend I'm already booked for).  I'm also hoping to add some new units to my growing One Force what with Forgeworld on tap in the shop there.

Friday 27 July 2012

Tac Squad painting update

Starting to get there with these guys, finished building almost all the parts for the first squad (Mk II armour).  So far I have 10 figures, all bodies built, 10 regular and 10 jump backpacks, and some parts to make a couple of commander variants.

Monday 23 July 2012

6th Edition impressions

Back at the start of the year, I vowed to try and post once a week, I've missed that weekly posting goal as of last week, but I'll have to try and make up for that with 2 this week.   As I haven't been up to too much hobby wise recently, the first is going to be about my impressions of the new kid on the block, 6th edition.

First up, I'll say I definitely like it, I've only managed to get in 2 games but they've been good fun, and there's a lot of new subtleties to the game to get your head around.  Its also nice that (at least so far), there seems to be a bit more of a narrative to games with all the new rules centred around characters.

Wednesday 11 July 2012

Magnetising self-help

I'm a little late with my post today, but here it is.

There are loads of posts out there on the benefits and ways to magnetise your models.  I'm not going to try and repeat anything in these as its pointless, instead I'll try and point you to a few that I've taken inspiration from in the past:  Magnetising PredatorValkyrieSpeeder basesScreaming BellTervigon

What I'd like to add, is a little tool I've created for myself, to help me keep my polarities aligned correctly, so that no matter when I've magnetised things, they should always be interchangeable from whatever range I've used.


Thursday 5 July 2012

Verminous Tide - more Clanrats

Its been a while since I posted anything for my Skaven, mostly because I haven't done too much for them.  I have played my first ever Warhammer game, a loss against the new Empire, but the glaring hole in my army was the lack of numbers.  So, I've painted up my second IoB set of clanrats as you can see here, and also purchased nearly 50 more clanrats to bolster the numbers.  They are all in bits at the moment though, so they'll be a while coming.

Thursday 28 June 2012

One Force Terminators Completed

You can see the stages I've gone through with these guys here, here and here.  Its taken a while, and I've had to completely re-work the painting method for the new paints, but I'm really happy with how they've ended up.  I've also tried battle damage and weathering on these guys for the first time in my painting with mixed success.

click to embiggen
I'd really appreciate any comments anyone has, especially criticism and constructive feedback in case there are things you think can be improved, and how I might go about it.  You can see some closer shots in the last in progress post here.

Cheers - Andy

Edit:  forgot, this means I've now added 10 painting points for this year.  You can see my running total on the right >

Thursday 21 June 2012

First Marines for One Force

The Forgeworld MkII armour is just fantastic.  In the pictures on their website, I never thought the MkII armour looked very good, I far preferred the MkIII as well as the MkIV and MkV, but when I finally got to have a look at them in person, I realised just how nice the MkII is and had to get some.  These are the first of what will eventually be 30 Tactical/Assault marines for One Force.

Thursday 14 June 2012

One Force Terminator painting progress

These guys are getting there, slowly but surely.  After a bit of a break, I've got back to them and I imagine I may have finished them this week.  Pretty exciting as this will be the first completed unit for the army (typical of me to go right in with an Elites unit).  For posterity, I've included below models in varying states of completion so I can see the progress they take to get there.

Friday 8 June 2012

Casting hands

For my One Force marines, I bought the Forgeworld tactical marines, but wanted to model them with lots of combat weapons as well so that I could realistically use them as assault marines as well with magnetised backpacks.  The problem I had is that the tactical marines left hands are all sculpted to be holding bolters, so I needed a lot of left hands to replace them with.  Rather than buying even more parts just to get the left hands, I decided to have a go at casting/molding some up myself to see how useful a technique it can be.

Thursday 31 May 2012

Company Command Squad

The final figures that I made up for the Roughnecks was a command squad.  I did try to make up some of the characters from the films based on the parts in the box, and also make sure that they were wysiwyg for the special characters I planned to represent them with.  I'm just not happy with the special characters though, and I'm definitely going to have to go back and re-work most of them.

The full Company Command Squad:


Thursday 24 May 2012

Skyhook Retrieval Boat - Valkyrie conversion

A return to re-posting my 40K Roughnecks articles, and this time its all about the landing craft from the Starship Troopers movies.

Back when I first floated the idea of my Starship Troopers themed IG army I got loads of great feedback from other members of the blogging community.  Amongst all of it was some great contributions from Darkmolerman (who sadly seems to have been lost in the warp since he sent me this), who too the idea I had for a Valkyrie conversion in the theme of Starship Troopers and gone ahead and shown just how it should look and could be done.  Below are the pics he sent to me, they're great:


What can I say, he pretty much got the whole idea in one.  Massive kudos to Darkmolerman for the work and encapsulating ideas in my head into one image far better than I ever could.  This image is of one of the really large landing craft that they use, but considering the size of a Valkyrie compared to guard, I think I'd try and make something closer to the smaller troop transport that Carmen uses to extract the troops from Whisky base on planet P.  You can see some of the actual models for the film on the website Starship Modeler, and this is a Flickr gallery from a fellow modeller who seems to have worked on the actual film!

As far as the conversion would go, I guess it might be something like this article which shows a brilliant conversion of a Valkyrie to make a Stormraven Gunship from before the actual model was released, and I think there is a lot there that would go perfectly in creating a Skyhook Retrieval Boat.  I have an old Valkyrie I got from someone at the local game store, and I'm going to see if I can't pull it apart and have a go at making something from it before I go and buy anything for this, when I get around to working on this again.

Cheers - Andy

Monday 21 May 2012

Cake of awesome!

How cool is this cake???

Mrs. G made this up for me for my birthday (yes, pirates do beat ninjas :), isn't she just awesome.

Add to that, it tastes absolutely delicious and I am a happy 31 year old.

Normal posting will resume on Thursday, but I just had to share this.

Cheers - Andy

Thursday 17 May 2012

One Force terminator painting

I've managed to get the first of my terminators up to the highlighting stage, which leaves markings, battle damage and weathering to do.  They are looking pretty nice so far, I've only got highlighting left to do on the other 4 to get them to the same level.  I've included a picture front and back below to show what it is looking like  (sorry, the pics are from my phone so not that good).

I think I need to add another level of highlight to the helmet to help it pop, but I'll be doing that once I've done the markings on his shoulder as I can do it all at the same time.

Thursday 10 May 2012

Salute 3: Freebooters Fate

This game is awesome!

When I bumped into Frontline Gamer at the Micro Art Studio booth, the game he recommended I try above all others was Freebooters Fate.  Well, he couldn't have been more right - thank you.  Towards the end of the day, after watching half of one game, I managed to get in a game of this and it was comfortably the most fun I've had gaming in a long while.

Monday 7 May 2012

Big Sale

I'm having a bit of a clear out, I've had stuff accumulating in cupboards for a while that I'm pretty certain I'll never get around to using, or have come with other things and I don't need, so I'm going to try and sell as much of it as I can.  This'll all be going on eBay next weekend, but I thought I would give those of you who follow the blog a first chance at them.  I'm not setting any prices, I'd rather let you make offers and work from there.  If you don't want to post in the comments then feel free to email me at goosefaff [at] gmail.com.

Land Raider Crusader with both weapon options

Friday 4 May 2012

Salute 2: Micro Art Studios

One of the stalls I had in my list of to-do's was Micro Art Studios as I think they turn out some spectacular stuff, especially their Discworld range of miniatures.  I wasn't disappointed and I know for sure that soon I'll be picking up some of these guys just for the joy of painting them.  They are just so characterful, and really capture both the cover-art of many of the Pratchett books, as well as scenes from throughout the books.

Death

Wednesday 2 May 2012

They're behind you...

After a game a few weeks back when my wolf-scouts were stars of the show again, a guy down at the local club challenged me to come up with a 1750 list with as much outflank in it as possible (limited to the SW codex and the models I own).   

I've only managed to get in 2 games with it so far, but I'm quite enjoying playing it as it is somewhat different and it confuses players as they aren't sure how to deal with it.  I thought I'd post it up here and a few thoughts on it, to see what others thought of it.

Friday 27 April 2012

Salute 1: Forgeworld

In the first of my posts about Salute, I thought I'd post up the lovely new models from Forgeworld.  Perhaps most interesting to me were the assault weapons kit for the new mkIV pattern terminator armour (or Tartaros Pattern as Forgeworld like to call it). 

In the pictures above and below, you can see some general pictures of them.
Note the power-maul, as featured on the Chaos Terminator sprue from GW.

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