Lord Carver WIP

Well it looks like this month's painting challenge that I set for myself is off to a bad start, on hold for now and likely to be pushed back to later this year. Sorry about that. I'm waiting to hear from my LGS about whether or not the rest of the Cygnar guys that I ordered from them are going to arrive anytime soon. Otherwise the only progress I've made so far was in successfully tracking down my missing box of Stormblades. So yeah, not good really.

Sure I could have started this past week on the Cygnar stuff that I do have, but instead I decided to hold off until the rest of the miniatures arrive. I'd rather wait and try this again in a few months, than start now but not be able to finish because half the models are on back-order. I'm actually kind of curious to see if I could do this challenge, so I'm willing to wait until I am better prepared before trying this again. Oh well… it's lame, I know. Feel free to call shenanigans on this. I only hope that regular diceRolla readers have by now become conditioned to such disappointment. ;)

So in the meantime over the last couple of days I've been painting this charming Farrow from the Thornfall Alliance for Hordes. In case you're not familiar with the model, this is the Minions warlock Lord Carver, BMMD, Esq III.

"ManBearPig is real. I'm super cereal."

Realizing that my chances of getting the Cygnar army painted this month were worsening with each passing day, I was ready to move on and start painting something else, anything else. I've had Lord Carver for about a year or so still in his blister pack and this seemed like a good time to paint him. I've got no other plans for collecting a Farrow Minions army so I'm painting this guy just for the hell of it.

I get a real kick out of this miniature. I love the pose, so serious for such a silly subject, and his cape is more than sufficiently swoopy. :) I had lots of fun painting that part of the model, though I'm considering going over it with a red glaze to knock the orange back a bit. Then again, maybe I should just leave well enough alone. Nothing wrong with it I suppose.

Swoopy.

I haven't settled yet on what I'll do once I've finished painting Lord Carver. I feel at this point, even if my Cygnar order were to arrive in the next day or two, that it would no longer be a fun experience trying to blast through painting all of them just to make the goal I set for myself. I'm content to save 'em for later. I have a few other things sitting on my painting desk that I could work on but right now none of those older projects hold much interest. I'll think it over and see if anything jumps out at me. So until next time... happy painting and gaming!

February Painting Challenge

This month my goal is paint from start to finish a 35 point army for Warmachine. I'm doing this for no particular reason, I just thought it would be fun to challenge myself a bit and perhaps shake off some of my hobby lethargy. I've had an old, metal Cygnar battle box sitting around for years waiting for some attention which will provide the core miniatures needed for this project. Cygnar is not my favorite faction as that honorific goes to the Mercenaries faction for both its Magnus themes and the Talion Charter as well. Nonetheless I'd like to see this group of minis finally painted after having held onto them for so long, and as a bonus they will make a nice foil to my own Magnus-based collection once I get around to those guys.

It looks like I'm not going to be able to get much done tonight as I only decided to do this a very short while ago. That's why for Day 1 of my February challenge I must be content with simply taking stock of what I already own and then planning how I want to fill out the rest of the army. Here's a rundown of what I have with which to begin this project:

PIP 21001 Warmachine Cygnar Battlegroup

- 1 Cygnaran warcaster Commander Coleman Stryker

- 1 Charger light warjack

- 1 Lancer light warjack

- 1 Ironclad heavy warjack

PIP 31008 Sentinel Cygnar Light Warjack

Warmachine MkII Cygnar 2010 Faction Deck

Warmachine MkII Cygnar Token Set

PIP 1024 Forces of Warmachine: Cygnar

Taken together that's enough to get started with a 15 point army, plus all the little doodads used during play and the army book as well. The faction deck should come in handy too as the cards packaged with my minis appear to be quite out of date. I also have a currently missing box of Stormblades that, once located, will add another 5 points to the army's total. Alright, I'd say I'm now off to a pretty good start with the new army.

To this I next plan on adding a Journeyman Warcaster to jack marshal the Sentinel and a full-sized unit of Long Gunners with their Unit Attachment for some extra ranged support. This brings the total to my target of 35 points and would allow me one month in which to paint 20 infantry and 4 warlocks. Right now that seems like an entirely reasonable goal for me to set, though I do have a bad history of evaluating this sort of thing. :) To give me an ever so slight amount of flexibility with my list, I would also like to paint one Hunter light warjack. By dropping the Long Gunner Infantry Officer and Standard from the list, I could then substitute the Hunter in place of the Sentinel. That way I believe I could tailor the Journeyman Warcaster to either a more anti-infantry or anti-warjack role as necessary. So with those 25 models at my disposal, here are the two 35 point lists* I could play:

pStryker (+6)

- Charger (4)

- Lancer (6)

- Ironclad (7)

Journeyman Warcaster (3)

- Sentinel (4)

Long Gunner Infantry (10)

- Long Gunner Infantry Officer & Standard UA (2)

Stormblade Infantry (5)

…. OR ….

pStryker (+6)

- Charger (4)

- Lancer (6)

- Ironclad (7)

Journeyman Warcaster (3)

- Hunter (6)

Long Gunner Infantry (10)

Stormblade Infantry (5)

So that's it. That's the army I'll be working on this month, hopefully painting it to completion. And of course I'll do my best to post regular updates along the way showing my progress. I might be able to get a little done tonight, but most likely tomorrow will see the actual start of work on this project. I'll check-in again soon but until then, happy painting and gaming!

*For what it's worth, both of these lists qualify for Tier 1 of Commander Coleman Stryker's theme force, Combined Arms. There is no benefit gained from this however as you have to include at least one unit of Field Mechaniks before any bonuses are granted. So... whoop-de-doo! :)

Old Bloggers Never Die

Nope, I'm not dead yet. :) Trying my best not to fade away, either. I'd say it's therefore time for a little bit of updating.

After staying busy throughout October, my family and I then hit a rough patch at the start of the current month. Nothing too dire, mind you, but stressful enough to kill most of my hobby and blogging motivation for the past few weeks. Normally painting is a great relief for me but I was in too much of funk to even pick up a brush for a while. Fortunately everything seems to be working out for the best now and I've started to get my hobby-groove back. Yippee!

Thus with the will to paint having been restored I finally got down to business and began working on my Sea Dog for the charity auction Project: Orange Crush (Hunger), part of Foodmachine 2011. (You can see my original post about getting involved here if you like.) I finished painting my pirate this past weekend and I'm really pleased with how he turned out. I had planned on keeping this under wraps until the auction goes live but I'm simply too excited to wait that long. Therefore I'm going to hold off from showing any further photos for the time being, though I cannot resist presenting at least one shot of my contribution to the effort. I'll have plenty to say later on about painting the miniature and the project itself, but until then here's the first look at my Sea Dog:

While painting my pirate I also spent some time thinking about the hobby in general and what I would really like to be doing with it. To help me out I reconvened my war council so as to determine the best use of my hobby time. After some discussion concerning various army projects and the different game systems with which I've been experimenting, it became apparent that I have not adapted to my new environment and instead I have continued on as if I were still living in a hobby wasteland. Despite moving more than six months ago to a much more gamer-friendly city, I have been slow to take full advantage of these new opportunities.

Once again I had allowed side projects to take precedence over my painting time, neglecting what I had initially intended to focus upon after moving to Asheville. While I am still very keen to get deeper into Dystopian Wars, Infinity, Malifaux, and Flames of War, there is just no way these other games can compete locally against 40k with regard to the availability of opponents and the potential to play games on a regular basis. I was starved for gaming in Charleston, yet now it would be no problem at all for me to play a few games of 40k every week should I choose to do so. I have been dissatisfied however with the state of my armies for quite a while and so, in order for me to get back into proper 40k-gaming form, I have decided to rededicate myself to working on my Raptors Space Marines.

Ideally I'd like to have 1500 points worth of Raptors painted by the end of this year. From there I will continue to expand the army with the goal of having significantly more painted in time for the release of 6th Edition. I always feel like I'm caught flat-footed whenever a new edition comes out and so this time around I want to be prepared as much as possible by having an army I'm happy with painted and ready to go as soon as the new rules drop. And in the meantime, if all goes accordingly, I'll have something I can take to the FLGS so as to enjoy these waning days of 5th Edition. That's my plan for now at least and I'm starting off by painting a squad of sniper Scouts.

The last thing I want to mention for this update is that starting tomorrow I will be doing another little giveaway for those of you Following my blog. I'll most likely post the details sometime tomorrow night (November 24th) though I'm not exactly sure when due to it being a holiday and the potential for post-turkey lethargy. At this point I just want to give everyone a heads-up in case you're interested. It's going to be a simple random drawing so all you'll need to do is check in occasionally to find out if you've won.

Okay, that's it for now. I hope everyone is doing really well... happy painting and gaming!

Spawn of Halloween

Once again in celebration of Halloween I'm passing the night away painting something scary. Of course few 40k players will find anything at all frightening about a Chaos Spawn. But with rumors now circulating about both Chaos Legions and Chaos Renegades in the works for Sixth Edition, maybe there is cause to hope that Chaos Spawn won't forever be a waste of points. They're a fun unit to paint and very thematic as well, it would be a shame not to make them a viable choice in at least one Chaos book. Is that too much to ask?

Spawn that don't suck, now that's scary. :)

I built this ugly fellow a couple of years ago for the planned revamping of my Chaos Space Marines army. I don't foresee putting much effort into that project until I have a better sense of what the army will be like in the next edition of the game. I'm excited about the early chatter but it still seems too far out to take anything seriously. In the meantime I'm content to wait and only occasionally paint a Chaos Spawn in supplication to the Dark Gods.

May they give us a Codex worthy of them. Ia! Ia!

A heretic can dream, right? Oh well, back to painting... Happy Halloween, everone!

My First Time Stripping

I'm having a go at stripping the paint off a batch of miniatures, a hobby first for me. For this I am using Simple Green and the incessant chanting of the Litanies of Purification. By doing so I hope to salvage a combat squad of Space Marine Devastators for my Raptors army, the models having been terribly fuzzed by priming them when it was too humid. This was at the start of the summer when I still lived in Charleston but right before we moved, and thus it seemed an appropriate note on which to depart the city.

I began soaking my minis a couple of days ago but presumably it is still too early to report on any results. I'll likely let them float around in the Simple Green through the upcoming weekend before I try to remove any of the paint. I don't know if this is going to work as the miniatures were really heavily textured by the primer. I admit that at this point I am skeptical but am eager nonetheless to give it a shot.

Swim my pretties, swim!

After dropping in the Space Marines there was still a lot of room for more miniatures that could be added to the chemical bath. I recently came across a small box of minis that hadn't been touched in ages and which also happened to be in need of cleaning, mostly thanks to some very sloppy priming. In this case however the primer has sat on the models for perhaps twenty or so years. I don't have any plans for these other minis but stripping them seemed like a good challenge for the Simple Green, just to see what the stuff can do. So those minis too went into the sauce...

Squats. Why'd it have to be Squats?

Again I am not sure what effect this stuff will have on these minis, but I'm in the mood to experiment. Maybe they will turn out well or maybe they will melt, who knows? It's not like there is much else I am going to do with some silly little Space Dwarfs. I've considered adapting them for use in an Imperial Guard army but that currently doesn't have much appeal for me. It would be kind of fun to chop up some of them to decorate the bases of my Tyranids. That however might be too cruel even for me as it would be like rubbing salt into the wounded collective conscience of Squat-players. Hmm, then again some 'Nid-themed terrain showing Squats bubbling around in the digestion pools would be a hoot. :)

Well I suppose there's no need for me to worry now over the fate of my Squats. For the time being I'll just let them and the marines hang out in the jar on my desk, like some creepy exhibit in a Mütter Museum for OOP 40k. I hope to start working on the Raptors soon assuming this Simple Green trial is a success. I feel inclined to start using Space Marines again in my games so that has motivated me to focus on them for at least a little while.

Happy painting and gaming!

Charity Painting Opportunity

Hey, I'm back! Sorry about going MIA from the blog the past couple of weeks, I've been really busy with family stuff and all that jazz. No time for gaming, blah blah blah... let's get on with it! :)

A few minutes ago I was flipping through the new issue of No Quarter Magazine and right away noticed mention of the upcoming Foodmachine 2011. The idea behind Foodmachine is to encourage Warmachine and Hordes players to organize a bunch of events between November 1st and January 2nd as a type of food drive, the entry fee to play being canned food for donation to local food banks. Participants in these events are allowed to purchase "Cheats" for use in their games by bringing along more canned goods. The more you donate during the event, ever more powerful cheats become available for use. All the details about this charitable cause, rules packets, and info about the various cheats can be found by clicking the link already provided.

If you're more of a painter than a gamer, however, there is another way to get involved. This year the organizers want to auction off a complete Tier 4 army, to be made up entirely from painted miniatures donated to the cause. Here are the details for this project copied from the main website:

Painting for Charity

We’re also kicking things up this year with a companion event for all the hobbyists out there. Orange is the official color of hunger awareness and so we wanted to combine that aspect of the charity into Foodmachine. Project: Orange Crush (Hunger) gives hobbyists the chance to devote their special talents to the cause.

We've drawn up a Tier 4 Shae army full of pirate models. We’re asking the community to sign up to paint a model from the army in an orange scheme of their choosing. The army will then be auctioned off for charity. Privateer Press' studio painter, Matt DiPietro, will be painting up Captain Phinneus Shae and the Commodore cannon in an orange-based paint scheme. In addition, this year's Formula P3 Grandmaster, Zach Lanier, will be painting up Dirty Meg for the army.

To participate, follow the link (here) and sign up to paint one of the models. Glue the model to a normal base but do not add any flocking. After you have finished painting it up, mail the model to Matt at Privateer Press:

Project Orange Crush
c/o Matt DiPietro
Privateer Press
13434 NE 16th St STE 120
Bellevue WA 98005

Privateer Press will be basing all the models and the photographing them in preparation for their eBay auction. Your model must be at Privateer Press by December 2nd, 2011.

+++

Pretty cool, right? I dig that our gaming community embraces these charitable causes and so I've signed up to paint a model for the army's unit of Sea Dogs. Pictured below is the smart-looking fellow that I'll be working on to help CRUSH HUNGER... um, pirate style of course:

Along with painting my own miniature, if possible I'd like to recruit some additional painters to work on the rest of the Sea Dogs that I have. Therefore if you are interested in painting a pirate for charity, but do not have any of the requisite minis that are being sought for this project, I'll gladly send you one of my own scurvy bastards by express mail. Just be sure that you can have him painted and shipped out in time for your mini to arrive in Washington by the December 2nd deadline. If that sounds good to you, go to the website's google document and sign up to paint one of the remaining Sea Dogs. Then send me an email or leave a comment indicating which of the following minis you want to work on for Orange Crush (Hunger).

Sea Dog Crew Leader

Sea Dog #2

Sea Dog #3

Sea Dog #4

Sea Dog #5

Alright, that's it for now. If anyone is interested in painting one of these dudes for a good cause, please let me know as soon as you can. So until next time... Aargh! ;)

EDIT: I will update this post as I hear from interested painters, making note of which models have been selected and which are still available. The ones chosen so far are: Sea Dog Crew Leader, Sea Dog #2, Sea Dog #3, Sea Dog #4 and Sea Dog #5. That leaves the following still available to anyone who would like to contribute some of their time to this charitable effort...

Nothing's left!

All the miniatures now have painters!

Woo-Hoo!!

Thank you again to everyone who has gotten involved, I really appreciate it!

Follow Your Blisstonia

After a few more setbacks over the last week concerning my nascent Chaos Daemons army, I've decided to put that 40k project aside for now and return to more familiar ground. For whatever reason I couldn't get my Slaaneshi mojo working so instead I have switched back to the Blisstonian 9th, my Simpsons-inspired Imperial Guard regiment. Also at this point I would much rather spend my time painting than building another army. I still want to do the Daemon thing but that can wait as it is not something I want to rush or do half-heartedly. Thus onto my beloved Blisstonia...

When I was last working on these guys I had become bogged down with the very first penal squad of the army. I may have to rethink their color scheme or at least change my approach to painting it as I remember those Guardsmen not being very much fun. In the meantime however I am going to begin by painting Techpriest Smithers and his squad of servitors, the Drones of Sector 7G. This seems appropriate too in that they were the first unit I included when developing the theme for this army. I'd also always planned on painting them in a different set of colors from the rest of the army, so that way I can work on them without knowing exactly how I will proceed with the main portion of the Blisstonian 9th.

As evidenced by the extremely early WIP photo seen above, I only sat down to begin painting these servitors a few minutes ago. Therefore I am eager to get back to it while I still have time this evening. Hopefully I can get more done on my Blisstonians than I did with the Slaaneshi daemons before I once again change directions. Despite how fickle I can be, that still shouldn't be too hard considering how little progress I actually made on the Chaos Dameons. Hmm, maybe Tzeentch would have better suited my hobby temperament after all.

Happy painting and gaming!

Tiny Magnet Blues

Oh, joy... little magnets. Lots and lots of little magnets. Yippie.

Okay, so I'm not too thrilled about working with these tiny little magnets (N52, 1/16" x 1/32") and neither are my apparently oafish fingers. Therefore it's been sort of a slow, frustrating evening at my hobby desk as I plod through magnetizing all of the turrets for my Covenant of Antarctica fleet. At this point in the project I have in place 14 magnets out of the 40 total that I will use on the battleship, the three cruisers, and the fleet carrier. This is certainly not one of my favorite hobby activities but I suppose it's worth doing this now rather than risk losing turrets every time I play. Even just them falling off the ships throughout the course of a game would quickly become annoying so avoiding that at least motivates me to keep going.

It was not all magnetic tedium however as I also managed today to clean and prime the Pericles Class Fleet Carrier for my CoA naval group. The two-tone priming turned out better this time than on the last set of minis, but still not as well as I had done on the original test batch. Again I do not think I was conservative enough when spraying the blue primer over the initial bone-color paint, but with this color scheme it doesn't really matter as variation among models is fine and in fact desirable. I just hadn't originally intended them to be quite so blue overall, but regardless I like the results so I'm sticking with it. If I can find the time I hope to start painting the fleet carrier tomorrow.

Alright, that's all I have to report for now. I'm going to do a little bit more with the magnets before calling it quits for the night. Happy gaming and painting!

Kazak Assembly Line

After much dithering over how to do the bases for my first 300 point Infinity army, I've finally decided to just set that question aside for the moment and begin work on the miniatures. My favorite line of models from Corvus Belli for this game are the Kazaks of Ariadna, so tonight I am starting off with them, having put together an army list based on an all-Kazak theme. I've not yet found any local Infinity players so in order to learn the game and hopefully introduce it to others I plan on painting an opposing 300 point army soon after finishing this one. Therefore once I'm actually playing and understand the game better, I will then start to think about how to tweak and expand my initial selection of miniatures or perhaps even look into additional factions.

Here though is my jumping off point into Infinity:

Ariadna "Kazak Heavy Patrol"

GROUP 1 (Regulars:10, Irregulars:0)

Line Kazak - Combi-rifle / Pistol, Knife (0 SWC/9C)

Line Kazak - Combi-rifle / Pistol, Knife (0 SWC/9C)

Line Kazak - Combi-rifle / Pistol, Knife (0 SWC/9C)

Line Kazak - AP HMG / Pistol, Knife (1 SWC/29C)

Line Kazak - Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife (1 SWC/28C)

Tankhunter - AP HMG, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife (1.5 SWC/40C)

Tankhunter - Autocannon, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife (1.5 SWC/40C)

Veteran Kazak Lieutenant - AP HMG, Light Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW (1 SWC/61C)

Veteran Kazak - T2 Rifle, Light Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW (0 SWC/49C)

Scout - Ojotnik, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife (0 SWC/26C)

300 points, 6 SWC

As a total newcomer to the game I have no idea if this would at all be an effective army or not to use. I'm not worried about that too much as my only interest at this point is to have some painted minis that I like so that I can begin the learning process. While working on my Kazaks I will sort out what I want to do for the other 300 point army from a second faction. I really like the aliens of the Shasvastii Expeditionary Force but haven't been able to come up with any lists that also have a lot of appeal for me. Also I get the feeling they might be sort of a funky choice as a learner's army, thus I'm still looking around at the other options. Pan Oceania or Yu Jing, maybe? I am keen on painting some aliens though so perhaps I could stick with the Combined Army and focus on the Morat instead of the Shasvastii.

No matter whom I end up choosing to work on next to be enemies of my Kazaks, it is certainly a fun dilemma to have. Although Ariadna is my favorite aesthetically and fluff-wise so far, all of the factions look great to me. I'll likely just continue experimenting with army lists until I find one that really interests me and that seems like an enjoyable matchup for my first army. I am of course open to suggestion as well.

Happy painting and gaming!

Finecast First - Cockatrice

I went to the LGS today to pick up a copy of the new Ogre Kingdoms book, but while there I decided it was also time to buy my first bit of Citadel Finecast, a Warhammer Cockatrice from this summer's Storm of Magic wave of product releases. After hearing so many stories of disappointment from gamers about their own Finecast purchases, I had not been in a rush to buy any myself. The Cockatrice however looked cool to me and seemed like it should be fun to paint, plus I have some homebrew ideas in mind inspired by Storm of Magic for which this model would come in handy. Still though I was rather anxious about buying the Cockatrice since it comes in a fully enclosed box, thus concealing the condition of the miniature and any potential defects it might have.

I was therefore initially quite relieved once I had opened the box as there was no obvious damage that I could see right away. Everything looked pretty good but then as I worked on the pieces more and more the little imperfections became noticeable. Most troublesome of these was the fit of the wings to the body which required a fair amount of trimming and even now feels like a fragile and insecure bond. Despite all the hype about how easy Finecast is to assemble, I think pinning the wings onto the body might have been an appropriate precaution.

Along with a somewhat wonky fit for the wings, the other problems were of the sort that most folks have probably come to expect from Finecast. There are a few areas that have been affected by air bubbles, mainly on the sides of the tail where many of the tips of the scales are damaged in such a way. I also found some voids on the monster's back and the little spines at the base of his tail all look instead like dripping pipes. The final problem I found was that the tip of the biggest claw on the Cockatrice's tail had broken off while still attached to the sprue. I may try to fix that by cutting down to the right size the end of Tyranid Scything Talon, but I probably wouldn't mind just leaving it the way it is now.

Despite these flaws overall I am more impressed with my first Finecast miniature than I had thought I would be, though this might have something to do with my expectations being so low. Even with the wings not fitting quite right it still seemed like it was an easy model to assemble. Requiring only minimal clean up and other preparatory work, building the Cockatrice did not take very much time at all to do which was really nice. The other thing that surprises me is that I am ultimately not bothered by the relative light weight of the model, having believed it would feel overly fragile and delicate. Perhaps most importantly, the level of detail on the miniature looks quite good and especially so on the wings and mane.

Therefore as my first experience with a Citadel Finecast miniature, I think the Cockatrice is, while not without its share of flaws, nonetheless a good addition to my collection and I am in general happy with my purchase. Had the marketing people at GW not completely oversold the virtues of Finecast upon its introduction, I would likely be more accepting of those casting mistakes that I did find on my mini. As it stands I find them mildly irritating but otherwise I am relieved that there was nothing worse, and certainly nothing so bad as to make me consider returning my toy monster. Hooray for low expectations! ;)

Happy painting and gaming!

Laborious Day

Well I hope everyone had either a great Labor Day, or else a great Monday, depending on whether or not this was a holiday for you. I'm more or less taking the night off from the blog in honor of the occasion, although I have kept myself busy today cleaning and organizing my hobby space for the first time since moving into the new house. In the process I'm finding some neat things that I haven't seen in a while, such as my old set of Gorkamorka toys.

The big box has been opened but everything is there and still on the sprue, while the two boxes of Ork Boyz remain unopened. Hmm... I wonder if I could track down some more of the vehicles from that era and start a Gorkamorka campaign. Then again maybe I should just sell the stuff and be done with it. It's not like I've gotten much use out of them in the previous fourteen or so years, and I imagine there are still people who would have a blast with this game. Whether I keep the Gorkamorka gear or sell it off, this was nonetheless a nice find for the day. Groovy.

Okay, that's it for now. Tomorrow I'll get back to my usual blogging nonsense. Happy gaming and painting!

CoA Flyers Finished

Okay, they're not completely 100% finished yet. I still need to spray them with varnish but otherwise I've now painted the Ptolemy Class Bombers and the Tiny Flyer tokens that come in the Covenant of Antarctica naval box. The bombers look a lot like they did the last time I showed them on the blog, having only added highlights to the metal areas, the orange canopies and windows, and the glowing green rotor blades. It's all pretty subtle though so the changes might not be noticeable in these pictures. I love these models and am quite happy with how they tuned out.

Ptolemy Class Bomber Squadron

The giggle-inducing CoA Tiny Flyer tokens however look fairly different from how they did last night. I took some good advice and pressed on with my plan, painting through my momentary hobby panic. I am thankful that I did as these Tiny Flyers ended up looking nicer than I had expected, likely better than they would have had I not botched my original color scheme. As for the glowing coil that makes up each drone's midsection, I opted in favor of expedience and decided not to repaint anything, instead leaving them as a mix of colors to denote what type of tokens they represent.

I have to say that the green ones are still my favorites of the bunch. I agree that having them all the same glowing green color would help to visually tie together everything in my fleet, but for now I am willing to forego that level of consistency in appearance. I may want to paint all my future drones with green coils but I can accept this first batch as they are. Also this way it might be easier for me to keep straight the different types of flyers as I learn the game. Nonetheless at this point I think having all of them with green coils and squadron markings on the wings or wingtips would look the best. I'll save that however for another day as I would rather continue on to the next part of this project.

Fighter Plane Squadrons

Dive Bomber Squadron

Recon Plane Squadron

I was going to work longer on the bases of these tokens but then ultimately chose to keep them very simple and plain. At first I wanted to try to blend and stipple over the top of the bases several various shades of grey to hopefully mimic a cloudy, overcast sky. While I think that could have looked really cool, there's also a good chance I would have just made an awful mess. Therefore I wanted to make the bases seem as unobtrusive and neutral as possible.

So moving right along I hope to finish painting the three squadrons of Diogenes Class Frigates either tonight or else early tomorrow. I may try to magnetize the turrets for the rest of my ships but I currently don't have enough magnets for anything other than the Pericles Class Fleet Carrier. I'm having a lot of fun working on my Covenant of Antarctica miniatures and overall feel good about the color scheme for this fleet. It could be premature but I am also starting to think about what I would like to collect as a second, rival fleet to go up against my South Pole scientists. It will be tough to choose as I like just about equally each of the four other major powers in Dystopian Wars. If anyone is particularly partial to one of them, I would love to hear the reasons why.

For now though I suppose I should just keep on painting. Goodnight!

FoW, Take Three

Okay, okay... just one more game to try out. Well, for now. :)

For the third time since this game came out I am once again interested in playing Flames of War, the 15mm WWII wargame from Battlefront Miniatures. The other day when I found my missing Tyranids army I also came across my copy of the Flames of War introductory box set, "Open Fire!" which I purchased almost two years ago. Despite an active FoW scene locally I did not go any further with the game at the time. I've had some reservations about the setting of the game which still linger with me today, but there is enough else about FoW that I like that I've decided to give it another shot. Although I'm going to start with the contents of the Open Fire! box, the Early War period has the most appeal for me and so I have already ordered the Blitzkrieg book. I have a good idea which nationality for this period I would like to collect but I'm going to wait until I've looked through the book before I decide on one.

I really want to like this game and I feel that I need to give it a fair chance. Hopefully the third time around with Flames of War will finally see the game click for me. I'm optimistic about it though and I should be able to play through the intro box fairly soon. Also those little 15mm tanks look like they'll be fun to paint so hey, why not?

Happy gaming!

CoA Bombers Almost Done

Well it looks like I'm now really close to finishing my Ptolemy Class Bombers, and with a little more time painting I should be able to knock 'em off. This will be the first squadron completed for my Covenant of Antarctica fleet, plus the three squadrons of frigates are not far behind. I'm happy with how the color scheme is working out on these models but I do expect it will need some modification for the other ships in the fleet. For now though I just want to make the orange and green areas on the bombers glow brighter and perhaps give the metal parts a quick highlight. At that point they should be finished and ready for their actual flying stands.

I don't know what I'll paint next for my Covenant fleet once I've completed the squadrons of frigates. I am interested in magnetizing the turrets on the remaining ships but I'm not too sure how I should go about doing that. I have however picked out what I want to include for my first 1000 points which I will use to learn how to play this game. Since I already have the starter box and a fleet carrier, there wasn't a lot of room left to include more units. Conveniently by adding a single blister pack of Icarus Class Medium Flyers, due to be released only a few days from now, I'd reach that 1000 point mark.

So here's the initial list that I'm building towards for my CoA fleet:

Aristotle Class Battleship (185)

Pericles Class Fleet Carrier (130)

3 Plato Class Cruisers with Inventive Scientists (210)

3 Diogenes Class Frigates (75)

3 Diogenes Class Frigates (75)

3 Diogenes Class Frigates (75)

2 Ptolemy Class Bombers (110)

2 Icarus Class Medium Flyers (140)

10 Tiny Flyer Tokens (free)

1000 Total Points

That's the current plan at least for my Covenant of Antarctica fleet. Presently though I am content to relax and work some more on the bombers before calling it a night. Happy painting and gaming!

Dechala the Unassembled One

Oops, I didn't realize how much of the evening had already passed so this will have to be brief. I'm again working on the Chaos Daemons of Slaanesh army that I started at the beginning of the month and am rather focused on it at the moment. Therefore tonight I'm going to forego my normally rambling project update and will instead just take a quick peek at what's on my hobby desk right now.

So far with this Chaos Daemons project I've spent all my time assembling Daemonettes and thus, to change the pace a little, a few minutes ago I decided it was time to put together the army's first Herald of Slaanesh. I'm using the standard Dechala, The Denied One miniature to represent this particular Herald so nothing fancy there. I do however plan on pinning her to the base without using any glue, my intention being that I'll eventually build a Chariot of Slaanesh upon which she can ride. For this army I want to keep my options open as to whether I field the Heralds on foot or mounted on chariots and I think it would be cool to be able to switch them back and forth between the two. It seems to me like a simple way of adding more flexibility to the army I'm collecting and well worth the extra couple minutes of assembly time.

Okay, that's it for now as I am eager to see this Herald of Slaanesh underway. Happy painting and gaming!

Requiem for a Termagant

First I have some sad news to report about the passing of a humble Termagant, a steadfast warrior and servant of Hive Fleet Hydra. Yesterday when I was putting away my newly found Tyranids, I must have overlooked this unfortunate 'Nid and left him out in a vulnerable position away from his brood. Somehow the errant model made its way downstairs (I suspect a kitten may have been involved in this stage of the unfolding tragedy), to then be set upon by my awesome xenos-purging dog, Charlie Brown. The results were not pretty.

Upon discovering the dismembered remains of the Termagant this morning, I initially thought that perhaps I could fix him alongside the few other 'Nids that still need repairs. Looking closer though at the damage, I realized that an elbow, a leg, and his entire head were all missing and had been presumably consumed. Thus there will be no more battles for this valiant but woefully outmatched fighter.

Requiescat in pace, little Termangant.

On a happier note, after spending some time with the Codex today I realized that my Tyranids army can potentially field several hundred more points than I had remembered. Instead of the approximately 1500 points of models as I suggested in my previous post, I was very pleased to find out that by loading up on the optional biomorphs my 'Nids can even climb past the 2000 point mark. Although I would prefer to field more models and not have to rely quite so much on the biomorphs to bring up the points total, it is nonetheless an exciting discovery. Hooray!

Hive Fleet Hydra - 2000 points

HQ

Hive Tyrant - extra Scything Talons, Old Adversary, Adrenal Glands, Implant Attack, Wings

Hive Tyrant - Twin-Linked Devourers with Brainleech Worms x 2, Hive Commander, Adrenal Glands, Implant Attack, Armoured Shell

ELITES

Lictor

2 x Zoanthropes

TROOPS

3 x Tyranid Warriors - Rending Claws

12 x Genestealers

16 x Hormagaunts

16 x Hormagaunts

10 x Termagants

10 x Termagants

FAST ATTACK

3 x Tyranid Shrikes - Rending Claws

4 x Raveners - Rending Claws*

HEAVY SUPPORT

Carnifex - Twin-linked Devourers with Brainleech Worms x 2, Regenerate

Carnifex - Heavy Venom Cannon, Adrenal Glands

2000 Total Points

* This brood of Raveners is the only unit in the army that does not comply with the WYSIWYG standard as it contains two models armed with Rending Claws and two with Scything Talons. I doubt this would ever present a problem as I cannot imagine playing this army outside of a very friendly and relaxed environment. I still think that it's something worth pointing out.

So with this list as a jumping off point it should be really easy for me to expand the army using the remaining models I own but have not yet assembled or painted. I mentioned yesterday that I already have a set of three Hive Guard and a Trygon waiting to join the swarm, and I also remembered today there is a pair of Tyrant Guard hiding somewhere amongst my boxes of minis. Once they're ready for the tabletop, just those six models alone will add close to another 500 points to the maximum size of my Tyranids swarm. I very rarely play games above 2000 points but it certainly would be nice to have the option, not to mention having a wider range of choices in lower point-level games.

Therefore even though this day started out with the grim discovery of my Termagant's demise, overall it feels like it has been a very positive day for my Tyranids. In fact the last two days have really renewed my excitement and interest in this army. I do not anticipate ever trying to fully update my Tyranids so as to include some of the more popular new units like the Swarmlord, Tervigons, or Tyrannofexes. However I am now at least willing to put some more time into working on the models that I have in order to get as much out of my collection of 'Nids as I can.

Well that seems like a decent enough plan I suppose to get me going again with these bugs. I look forward to the next chance I get to play a game using my Tyranids... should be fun times. I've never had much success with this army before but I have always enjoyed the experience leading the swarm. I like fast, aggressive armies and this one suites me quite well in that regard.

Okay, that's it for tonight. I hope everyone has a great weekend ahead... happy painting and gaming!

Missing 'Nids Found, Light Casualties Only

While cleaning out the garage today I came across an army transportation bag that had been missing since we moved into the new house almost three months ago. Along with an assortment of blisters, sprues, and other random miniatures, perhaps most importantly this bag is where I had stuffed most of my collection of Tyranids for the move to North Carolina. Even better is that the 'nids managed to survive the trip sustaining only minor damage to a few models. Woo-hoo! This is surprising to me because of the lack of care with which I packed them. After lifting out the upper layers of hobby detritus, this is what I saw today in my army bag:

Wow... I'd forgotten just how haphazardly I had crammed these minis into the bag. There in the picture you can see the uppermost portion of my Tyranid swarm in a tangled mass of chitin and claws. I knew for quite a while leading up to our departure for the mountains that I would not have enough foam or other safe means of storage for all my miniatures and armies. In particular I had never bothered to work out a good way of transporting my Tyranid army as I rarely ever had a reason to take them anywhere. Rather than come up with a plan to handle this I instead ignored the problem for as long as I could until that last night in our previous home.

Finally with a healthy sense of desperation and growing panic I then set about packing my bugs. There was room left in the foam that I used for my Dark Elf War Hydra in which I was able to fit the Tyranids' winged Hive Tyrant, as well as the winged Warriors and my Zoanthropes, too. The rest of the army however would have to tough it out jammed together in my last army bag, which also served as the receptacle for whatever other remaining loose hobby junk that I came across in my haste. I was worried about the 'Nids but hoped that the minis would be packed tightly together so as to prevent them from shifting around much and crashing into each other. As unlikely as that seemed, at the time it was the best option I could think of in the few hours left to pack.

It was therefore to my great surprise today when discovered that the irrepressible Tyranids did in fact survive and in relatively good condition no less. After unpacking everything and sorting out all the minis, I could find only three damaged models. Of the medium bugs a single diminutive claw arm had popped off of a metal Ravener, and one Warrior's Rending Claw arms broke away, too. The only small bug in need of repair is one of the Hormagaunts who snapped off of his base, something which I expected many more Gaunts to have suffered due to their fragile ankles and minimal contact with their bases. Fortunately none of the large bugs however sustained any damage. Incredibly it looks like it should all be fairly easy to fix... nice!

So here is the entire swarm of Tyranids unpacked and deployed onto my desktop:

Under the previous Codex I could play games comfortably in the 1850-2000 points range with this army, although by maxing out on biomorphs this could be pushed up to around 2200 points. It has been a long time since I looked at the most recent Codex: Tyranids, but I believe the army now comes in right around 1500 points with the current set of rules. Thus it seemed like it would cost more money than I was willing to spend in order to update and expand the army to take advantage of the new strategic options and units now available to the Tyranids.

I've since revisited this and decided earlier this year that I would go ahead and make a few more additions to the army. I now have a unit of Hive Guard and a single Trygon/Mawloc kit waiting to join Hive Fleet Hydra. I would also like to pick up a couple boxes of Gargoyles if for no other reason than to celebrate their transition from plastic to metal. Lastly I think I need to sort out my Raveners as they currently cannot be fielded legally as a WYSIWYG unit, so I'll likely also pick up a box of them eventually. While I was not terribly thrilled with the current Codex: Tyranids upon its release, I'm at least interested in them enough to again put my 'Nids back onto the hobby to-do list. Maybe I'll even provide for them foam or a case of their own, though I doubt that will be happening anytime soon.

Happy painting and gaming!