Getting ready for Warhammer World in October: part 1

I wasn’t going to post early in order to build up a reserve list of posts but I want to put up a work in progress list for my trip in October now before it changes too much! As it is, the list I wrote two days ago is already slightly out of date. There won’t be any new pictures with this post as I’m in the process of tidying things up and a few things are waiting for me to post all about them properly (so no big spoilers, hey). Hopefully the next “getting ready” post will have evidence of progress.

I’m splitting everything into four categories: Ready, In Progress, Under Construction and Needed. I’m not entirely happy with the list “as is” but it uses models I already have. Once they are ready(ish) and if I still have time, I might go off piste and build something different. I’ve also got some Harlequins simmering away part painted (waiting for some edge paints for the test model) but the first priority is to get 1000 points done. I’m actually having a slight “hand” dilemma at the moment as I don’t have quite enough empty hands to go round. If that carries on being the case, I will be buying more kits out of desperation (I have spare marine arms, Lizardmen arms and access to Daemon and Ork arms, none of which are the right size or shape) or tweaking my ideas to fit what I have.

So here is the list at the time of writing:

Ready
Autrach Skyrunner (on Cold One) with power weapon
Spiritseer (could be a Farseer or Warlock depending on points and future planning)
Rangers x5
Windriders (on Terradons) x3
Shining Spears (on Cold Ones) x3, includes Exarch with power weapon. Note: one needs minor repairs
Crimson Hunter Exarch

In Progress
7x Rangers: need highlighting
3x Rangers: undercoated
1x Shining Spear: needs highlighting
1x Farseer Skyrunner (Cold One): undercoated

Under Construction
1x Farseer Skyrunner (Cold One) with Shining Spear: Green stuff work
1x Warlock Skyrunner (Cold One): In bits

Needed
1x Warlock Skyrunner (Cold One)

Currently this all adds up to 1006 points and a lot of problems, namely an over-abundance of HQs. I was originally thinking of adding a Seer Council formation to my list as it goes nicely with my theme (Elves! On Dinosaurs!) and fluff (Exodites defending their home against allcomers) but that’s very points heavy. In the end I may have to drop the Spiritseer and have two CADs and spend the newly released points on something else. The other thing I’m missing is something other than a Flyer that can deal with armour. I played with my Exodites in a Tactical Strike Event where I was twice stymied (once was my own fault for forgetting that I had grenades on my Autarch) for having nothing that could deal with vehicles. The Crimson Hunter packs a very hefty punch but at the moment it’s the only thing that does. If I have time I’ll add some more heavy weapons to my list somehow or other.

Anyhow, my next job is to finish this highlighting! Until then!

L.o.F.

Edit: Oops! I forgot to add a link. If you want to know how the Red Squig is getting on with his 1000 points of Orks, look here: http://www.redsquigracing.com/post/2015/08/09/The-Challenge

Oops…

Well things didn’t exactly go as planned. I was hoping to get blogging seriously again months back and then well, life didn’t happen. However, things are picking up now and I have a plan. The first part of the plan is to get ahead and have a post or two ready and waiting (working on that now), the second part of that is to have a hobby goal.

I’m hitting 30 this year and as neither myself or my boyfriend have actually been to Warhammer World I’ve decided that I’d like to go there for a day around my birthday and if possible play a game or two. Now, I have plenty of Space Wolves and while a few are showing their relative age (I now know what mould lines are for a start and remove them rather than highlight them in gold paint) I could quite happily take them but what I’d really like to do is take my Exodite Eldar. I’ve made some progress there (and there will be a few posts showing some of them off) but not as much as there should have probably been. Therefore by the start of October I want to have 1000 points of Exodites fully painted (which also means highlighting a couple of models I got bored with) and based (grass, plant life, slime, the lot) and preferably with names and background memorised. I’ve made some start on naming my characters but there will be more and I need to add names to bases. What I really need to do is work out how much I’ve already got done and how much I need to do.

1000 points might not seem much and I could easily paint more (she says) in the time, particularly if I were to build more Crimson Hunters (more of that in a later post) or look at the planned Wraith side of my army (and even more of that in another post) but The Red Squig needs to have his Orks painted too and 1000 points of Orks is rather more than 1000 points of Eldar and they take just as long to paint each model (more or less).

So that’s my current challenge. It might not seem much but I start a new job soon and though it’s got definite hours (which is a change) I can pretty much guarantee that the change in pace will either exhaust me or send me into an energy fuelled painting frenzy. The latter might be nice but given my wonky eyesight the former seems more likely, so I need to be most of the way there sooner rather than later.

As for the posting. I’m going to try and start with 1 post a week, building up to two or three as I get into the swing of things. I will try not to get tempted into posting random stuff as it drifts into my head but there may be one or two asides. There may even be a little Age of Sigmar and once I get past my 1000 points I might actually build some more Space Wolves as they are still very much my preferred play style army (e.g. I love them and I actually know most of their rules- like who has grenades), but until next time…

L.o.F.

New Year New Resolutions

I’ve been a bit lazy about my hobbying and blogging recently (as evidenced by the fact that I meant to write this a week ago). For the new year I want to get back in the swing of things. I don’t know why I’ve been struggling recently but I suspect it’s largely due to having less structure to my life. I’m one of those people who is most efficient when they have a lot to do and a strict deadline to do it in, the uncertainty of the past year has messed me around a bit and I’ve lost my old routine. Therefore I have three resolutions:

1) Sort out my painting and modelling

I have a lot of half painted models and half-started projects. My resolution for the year is to break down this pile a little. My first challenge is to build and paint usable combined arms detachments for my Exodites and Inquisition. The first should be easily achieved- I technically have two models to go, but I want to add my Shining Spears to that basic detachment and also paint some metal Rangers that I bought in the summer. My Inquisitorial squad is more tricky, I need to build more henchmen as well as paint up those that I already have. I want to have the models I have already started finished by the end of this month before I move on to anything else.

I also want to expand my Wolves, first by finishing highlighting the models I took to Haven and then by building up my forces, including four more Blood Claws (to bring my squad to the maximum 14) and three more Grey Hunters (to bring a part squad to 10).

I moved house in November and most of my stuff is still packed. Once I’ve sorted out the spare room I’m going to go through my models and line up all my abandoned projects in order to work out what else to work on. I also got given a WFB High Elf dragon for Christmas from my boyfriend. I’m currently being good and not converting it straight away but it’s waiting…

2) Play more

I say this fairly frequently but I really do want to get more games in, not just 40K but also the board and card games I’ve got (I also got D&D Attack Wing from my boyfriend- there was a dragony theme to his gifts this year). Once a month would be a start. I’d also like to make it to at least one event or tournament. I enjoy playing and it’s really just lack of organisation that means that I don’t get enough of it. Practice might also mean that a 1K game doesn’t take three or four hours…

3) Blog more

It’s laziness. I have things to say, I just don’t get the words down. I want to get back into posting regularly. This year I planto post at least once a week, preferably getting back to a two or three times weekly schedule. I don’t want to get back in the habit of putting things off.

So, that’s three resolutions that I hope will help me get back into a routine. I wish you luck in any challenges that you pose yourself and a happy and game-filled new year!

L.o.F.

Zone Morktalis part 3: Six done…

Well, not done, done, they’re not finished yet, but I’ve hit my first goal of six tiles built. Some of them need roofs added once I’ve painted the inside of booths and shacks and I need some fixin’s for the Mek workshop on one tile but they’re ready to undercoat (in fact three and a bit tiles are already a nice shade of grey primer). I’m sorry for the fuzzy picture, I stupidly forgot to change the focus on my camera and then started on the priming and painting before I realised that none of the pictures were quite right!

The next stage is to get them primed and painted while building the next tiles. I know from experience that much of the time needed for these kind of projects is spent watching paint dry so I want to get to the point where I have three active tiles: one being built, one being undercoated and one being painted at any one time. The main problem I seem to have is storing them, they’re kind of bulky. Thank goodness that this is not a secret project for once.

I had a worrying moment a few days ago when I realised that I was running out of corrugated craft card and I couldn’t find any in the more obvious places. Fortunately a local discount store not only stocked it but they had exactly the same brand that I found when I was staying in Wales. I’ll need more balsa wood as the bundles that I bought at the local model shop will only do four or five tiles each so I’ll need some more. Unfortunately, they were out of stock yesterday. Hopefully they will have more next week, otherwise I will have to get some longer balsa sheets which are a bit more unwieldy.

The next goal is to undercoat and paint these tiles and build the next three tiles, so that I have a 3 x 3 square. Hopefully I can get them built by Monday but painting them might take a little longer.

L.o.F.

p.s. click here for parts one and two

Blood Angels Painting Guide: two ways with red

I’ve painted Blood Angels before for my boyfriend, namely two Death Company Marines and Mephiston, and with the new Blood Angel Tactical Squad and codex on their way I thought I’d try out two different “recipes” for red- one using oranges for Blood Angels and one using pinks for Flesh Tearers.

Both methods use the same black undercoat and Mephiston Red first layer (and it’s back as a spray can thank goodness- there are times when painting red is almost as bad as painting yellow).

Red 1 (Blood Angel)
For the Blood Angel, I washed the model with Carroburg Crimson. I then highlighted the red with a 1:1 mixture of Mephiston Red to Trollslayer Orange, followed by a second extreme highlight of Trollslayer Orange.

Red 2 (Flesh Tearer)
For the Flesh Tearer I first added a layer of Wazdakka Red before washing with Carroburg Crimson. I then highlighted the red areas with a 1:1 mixture of Wazdakka Red to Emperor’s Children, followed by an extreme highlight of Emperor’s Children. This is a bit too bright even for my tastes, so I added a final layer of Bloodletter glaze.

Eyes
Glazes were also used on the Blood Angel’s eye lenses. I paint the eyes on both models with Caliban Green, highlighted with Warpstone Glow and White Scar. For the Flesh Tearer I left the eyes at that but on the Blood Angel I added a touch of the Waywatcher Green glaze which seems to soften the harshness of the white and gives the lenses a more gentle glow.

Black Areas
I used my previous attempt at painting Death Company Marines for painting the black areas, using a 2:1 blend of Abaddon Black to Caliban green, which I then washed with Nuln Oil and highlighted with Caliban Green. I then got cocky and decided to do a second highlight of Warpstone Glow, which was far too bright. This was the second time that a glaze saved my bacon in this experiment. There is no black glaze (why would there be) but it’s very easy to make your own by mixing a little Abaddon Black with Lahmian Medium which tones down the highlights and ties the highlights together. You can leave the highlights at Caliban Green if you want but personally I like the effect that the second highlight and black glaze has.

Metals and Parchment
This was done using the same method that I use for my Space Wolves. For silvery coloured metals I used Leadbelcher washed with Nuln oil and highlighted with Chainmail (Ironbreaker). For brass areas I used Dwarf Bronze (Hashut Copper) washed with Nuln Oil and highlighted with Shining Gold (Gehenna’s Gold) and for gold areas I used Shining Gold highlighted with Burnished Gold (Auric Armour Gold). Parchment was painted with Bleached Bone (Ushabti Bone), washed with Seraphim Sepia and highlighted with more Bleached Bone and a final highlight of White Scar.

There you have it, two ways of painting red for Blood Angels and their successors. The first method is the easiest as it involves two fewer layers but I think the second method gives a nicer crimson colour and I’m going to use it for my Inquisitorial Tech Priest counts as. As far as my boyfriend’s Blood Angels are concerned, well, there’s a can of Mephiston Red with my name on it!

L.o.F.

Zone Morktalis part 2: Marking Up the Squares

We were finally connected to the internet last night. One thing for not having internet was that I had one less distraction, which has meant that I have had plenty of time time to work on Zone Morktalis. So far I have marked up the squares and started on the building. So far the project looks like this:

I marked the tiles into 1” squares (only realising 12 tiles in that I could have got away with 2”). I then mocked up the layout using paper.

I’m currently building up the walls on the tiles, doing one of each type to start with, before working more systematically once I have a good idea of what I can (or cannot) do with each tile type. I have six different designs in total to make up 16 tiles (with two blank ones spare for accidents or expansions). I am going to do the roofs of the sections separately as I want to add things to customise each tile, so that there are rooms rather than just walls. It’s this that’s stretching my imagination a bit far. One advantage of the Forgeworld shiny version is that Imperial architecture is meant to be samey and the impression of kilometre after kilometre of corridors is as appropriate there as in an old Doctor Who episode. One thing you can say about Orks, they are not samey, so, I’m going to have to add some sense of “building” to the tiles. So far I’m thinking about adding Meks’ workshops, squig pens and memora… souv… shiny stuff shops, but that’s only three tiles out of sixteen, so I’m going to have to keep thinking.

For now though, I’m building up the skeleton of each tile. My ultimate goal is 16 built and painted tiles. Knowing me though, I am going to have a series of lesser goals so that there is something ready in time for Christmas that does not involve me painting madly late into the night (as in the past two (sorry, three) times I tried being clever with presents). The first aim is to build and undercoat one of each of the six different tile types to give a 3” by 2” area. Then to add three more tiles to get a 3” by 3” before building a 4” by 4” board. Hopefully, once I get properly started, I can get a production line going, moving between tiles as they dry, so that I could be working on three or more at once.

I’ve got a busy weekend coming up but I’m hoping to have an update in a few days! If you’ve missed the first Zone Morktalis post you can find it here.

Until next time!

L.o.F.

Zone Morktalis part 1: Introduction

Well, I’ve moved house but we’re currently minus internet thanks to the mysterious and Wonderland-like ways of ISPs (you would think that we’re paying for a service, right?) who having not had time to install the box thatwe are perfectly capable of installing ourselves if they’d let us, on the day on which they told us they’d be there, moved us to the back of the queue again. I’m also sick, the inevitable move-to-a-new-area cold having transmogrified into a chest infection that Papa Nurgle would be proud of. This is all by means of an apology for such a short, late post.

I’ve done a bit of painting recently and hopefully I’ll have a post up as soon as I have internet, complete with pictures. I’m also working on my boyfriend’s Christmas present which he knows about after I had a crisis of conscience over the fact that I might not being too altruistic with it. What I’m planning on building for him is a gaming board, in particular an Ork themed Zone Mortalis board- a Zone Morktalis, if you please.

Now, I love Forgeworld’s Zone Mortalis boards, they’re just so cool! They’re also so expensive! They justify their cost but I wanted to make a themed board that suited our armies more, in particular The Red Squig’s Orks (go and look at them here!). I have a history of Ork related presents for my boyfriend, dating back to the box of goodies I gave him back in 2011 as a start to his collection, and I enjoy playing against them as much as he enjoys using them.

I’m building the board on cork flooring tiles as they come in convenient 12” squares. The rules for Zone Mortalis are available for free from the Forgeworld site and they gave a lot of good ideas. So far I’ve marked up the tiles and bought balsa wood and plasticard for the next stage- building up walls and buildings. I’ve no images yet but hopefully in my next post I can show some progress pictures. I’m planning to keep a log of my progress and post it here, culminating with showing the final squares (or as many as I have done) after Christmas.

Until the next post then (hopefully not posted from the library again)

Wolf Guard Battle or Pack Leader

Back at the beginning of September I went to The Overlords’ Haven event and had a lot of fun with my Wolves. Unfortunately, being me, I’d left sorting my army out far too long and so I had guys that were ready and painted to tabletop standard in that they had all the base colours on them and were neat and tidy and on bases (like the older models in my army in fact) but that were not what I’d call finished. Among these models was this guy. He was originally a 1992 Long Fang “Sergeant” (that’s how old he was) that I’d picked up with his pack at Crisis last year. He’d lost his bolt pistol and needed a backpack but he was a lovely model, too good for sitting wolfsitting my Long Fangs. Therefore I decided to give him a little bit of a promotion to Wolf Guard, and as a Wolf Guard Battle Leader he held his own in the battle (for far longer than I’d have expected).

I’ve finally got round to tidying him up and here he is, ready to go. I love this sculpt, it’s so full of character and it’s nicely done too. Some of the older sculpts really look their age but he’s been skilfully designed and I love his face!

I’m going to be moving next week (at last) so I may have no internet access for a few days. If comments etc. don’t turn up, that’ll probably be why! I’ll try to post something before then but I may be busy so, until next time, then!

L.o.F.

Brother Agaric of the Brotherhood of the Mushroom

I wasn’t going to start any new armies for a while, I have a painting queue that stretches beyond the three that I already have, but I had so much fun painting this guy that I might just pick up a few more Nurgle marines (either Plague Marines or just general Chaos Space Marines) and build up the Brotherhood of the Mushroom a little.

The model itself is an old plastic one from the mid 90’s that I inherited from my little brother’s teenage collection (hence the missing top to his head). What I was planning to do was do a test model for an idea on an alternative painting scheme for Nurglings, however, it didn’t come out as expected, largely I think because Rakarth Flesh is too yellow for my purposes. Still, I liked the rather mouldy looking effect and so I decided to work with it instead of starting again.

Unusually for me, this model used only a few colours:
Rakarth Flesh
Warpstone Glow
Scorpion Green (now: Moot Green)
White Scar
Drakenhof Nightshade
Biel-Tan Green
Waywatcher Green
Guilliman Blue
Tin Bitz (now: Warplock Bronze)
Dwarf Bronze (now: Hashut Copper)
Leadbelcher
Rinox Hide
Balor Brown
Nurgle’s Rot
Nihilakh Oxide

(OK, 15 paints is rather large for “a few” but it’s relative alright)

I started with a base layer of Rakarth Flesh on the armour, Tin Bitz on all the metal bits, Rinox Hide on the wooden bits and Waywatcher Green on the eyes and in the holes in the armour.

I then washed it with a 2:1 mix of Biel-Tan Green to Drakenhof Nightshade (I’ve just realised that there is an intermediary Shade called Coelia Greenshade that would be better than mixing two shades, so I’ll try it next time and see).

Next I used another layer of Rakarth flesh before glazing the model with Guilliman Blue.

Then I highlighted the model with more Rakarth Flesh in a streaky pattern and glazed it with Waywatcher Green.

I highlighted it once more with Rakarth Flesh and used a touch of White Scar on the extreme highlights.

I highlighted the metal either with Dwarf Bronze or with a 1:1 mix of Tin Bitz and Leadbelcher, the wood with Balor Brown and the Waywatcher Green bits first with more Waywatcher Green and then with a touch of Scorpion Green.

Finally I added a little Nihilakh Oxide and Nurgle’s Rot to the model along with the shoulder pad markings (ok, I lied about it being only 15 colours).

As it is the Brotherhood of the Mushroom, I gave my Plague Marine a famously fungus-y name: Brother Agaric. Now I have to stop myself building more brothers for him, a sorcerer called Psylocybin, maybe, or a marine covered in bracket fungi… Anyhow. I actually have more posts to write (shocking, I know!). Until then!

L.o.F.

Three Inquisitorial Henchmen WIP

Technically it’s two henchmen and a counts-as Ordo Malleus Inquisitor but it’ll do. One thing that annoys me slightly about the Inquisition codex is a slight lack of flexibility in the units, there is no Interrogator, no tech priest, no arbite etc., all characters that tend to turn up fairly frequently in fiction involving the Inquisition, think of Amberly Vail’s retinue in the Ciaphas Cain books or Eisenhorn’s people in the books by Dan Abnett.

The codex is fairly flexible, you can do a lot with the various different options, but there’s going to be a fair bit of “counts-as” and less WYSIWYG about these guys I’m afraid, particularly as I wrote the back story and then read the codex!

Interrogator with sniper rifle/ hellrifle

I felt that my Inquisitor needed a trustworthy friend with some skill with a sniper rifle so here he is. Unfortunately, nothing that the henchmen can take goes anywhere near to approximating a sniper rifle, so I had to look at the Ordo Malleus Inquisitor and the Hellrifle, which has the range if not all of the same effects.

This kitbash, as with all the ones here uses several bits bought at a sale. The rifle came from the Cadian Command Squad kit as far as I could tell, unfortunately, I forgot he needed two arms, so I had to build up the left one round a spare Helion arm that I’d used the hand off. The head is from the Wood Elf Wildwood Rangers kit and the torso was another sale item and came, I think, from the Empire Free Company kit. His legs are Eldar Guardian ones (one day I’ll actually build a Guardian from the box, I’m sure) and his sword is a combat knife from the Space Wolves upgrade sprue.

Crusader/Arbite

He’s stretching it a bit as he should have a sword not a maul but the Crusader was as close as I could get. He has a space marine scout’s head (weirdly there isn’t much size difference in heads), an Empire Free Company torso, Dark Elf Cold One Knight arms (I had some spare) and I altered the one holding the mace with an aquilla from the Space Marine Tactical Marine box. The legs are from a guardsman and the storm shield comes from the Space Wolves Pack box with the wolf skull replaced by an =I=.

Techpriest/Jokaero

This was the biggest stretch and the most complex conversion. I read around the fluff and liked the idea of the Mechanicus Logis as a character. I didn’t want a Xenos member in the retinue so I replaced the Jokaero with this. I used an Elder Guardian as the skeleton, with a Helion head (I’m going to paint those cornrows silver). I picked up the Empire Celestial Hurricanum telescope and sun type thingy at the same time as the torsos and sniper rifle. The servo skulls came from the Devastator kit and the satellite dish thingy came from the Land Raider Crusader/Redeemer upgrade kit with a random skull added. Then I got busy with the green stuff.

I need to base and paint these three models but I really need another henchman before I can use the detachment. I’ve inherited some guardsmen off my brother so I’ve got some torsos and legs to use if I want. However I may have to do some shopping for torsos and accessories. I’ll of course post about them whenever I get them finished!

L.o.F.