A detailed account of my various commission/hobby projects.
Warhammer 40,000 - I'm working on another simple tabletop commission that involves several hundred models. Obviously with the large model count my client wanted to keep things as cheap as possible, so these are going to be a basic paint and wash. Warhammer models tend to lend themselves to looking pretty good with this technique which means it's easy to crank through a ton of models and make them look consistent.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – Over the weekend I was able to schedule a 3,000 point game with one of the guys in my game club. We decided to play 3000 points using the mission cards with standard 12" deployment zones. Rather than play a standard mission we just opted to use the cards and score (1) VP for each unit you destroy.
Read MoreTerrain Making – This project got pushed back after the plague tore threw my house last month. But I'm feeling better and back with a vengeance to get some of these projects done.
Read MoreWarhammer 40, 000 – Yes sir that's right I have another 40K commission. No guard this time around, and no imperial eagles either. I'll be painting up Chaos Marines. I'm looking forward to this job as Chaos was always my first love for 40K. The models were always so cool and fun to paint. I do have a bit of seller's remorse after parting with most of my Chaos Marines so projects like this make me happy and a little nostalgic.
Read MoreTerrain Making – I finally had a chance to get back to the series I started a few weeks ago. As I mentioned then I have a mold I made for craters back when they were a thing needed for Warhammer 40K. As such i don't want it to go to waste so I'm working on various terrain sets that use some or all of the crater to create unique items from a common mold.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – I suck. Plain and simple I've been sitting on this job for far to long. Part of the problem is the client has provided no deadline and has most of his other stuff that is playable so this is really just a bunch of stuff he got a good deal on and wants to match his other models. This is great for me as it means I just paint when I have a chance between other jobs but it also sucks because I feel guilty for having this for so long.
Read MoreRandom – Hello with the recent Ork Codex release the green menance seems to be a pretty popular subject. I don't actually have any Ork commissions to share with, nor do I plan on starting my own Ork force.
Instead I'm shamelessly plugging some ebay auctions I have going on at the moment. A friend of mine has had a heck of an odd time last year he and his wife lost their first child while in the womb. A terrible thing to happen to anyone for certain. However shortly after they gave it a second try and have a healthy happy little boy.
Of course as you know, a new child means less time for yourself and unexpected expenses. My friend has decided to slim down his various Warhammer armies and has asked me to help him out.
If you check out this link you'll find all the current auctions I have up all the Ork models are being sold for my friend. You'll find some great deals on Deffkoptas, Warbikes, Storm Boyz, Dreadnoughts, Killa Kans and more.
Game Night – This week the stars aligned and four guys from my gaming group were all free on Sunday to play some games. With everyone busy with their families and various summer obligations its been hard to get together to play some mulitplayer games.
We started off the evening with a quick teaching game of Relic Knights. Everyone caught on to the core concepts really quickly and seemed to enjoy the game. for this game we used the starter boxes of Black Diamond, Noh Empire, Doctrine and for the Speed Circuit: (2) Belles, Marie Claude and Ryn.
The game scales really well to multiple players since the objectives are unique to each player. I also think that the card mechanic is done better than it is in Malifaux, particularly in mulitplayer. Anytime you're attacked or burn through cards you draw up to five during the clean-up step. This means you don't get those situations where a player runs out of cards in hand and gets ganged up on by everyone else because they don't have a had to defend with.
We opted to just play to 5 VP to speed up the game and just get everyone to understand the core mechanics. Because of how fast this game plays and how well it scales, I think it may see plenty of rotation on Thursday nights.
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We then set-up to play a 2vs2 game of Warhammer 40K seventh edition. For this game each player brought 1500 points and was randomly assigned a partner. We set up a fairly sparse desert board with a few LOS blocking pieces in the center of the table and some smaller areas of cover scattered around the perimeter. My space marines were partnered up with a Chaos Space Marine force and we fought against two tank heavy guard forces.
The game was fun and honestly the changes to the rules didn't seem to impact the speed of play. Of course no one had a psyker so we ignored that phase completely which may have been the reason we didn't see that drug out into the mess I've read about online. The changes to the vehicle tables and D weapon tables were really nice, one of out players has a landraider that hasn't made it past the first turn in the last 15 or so games we've played actually got to use it and make an impact on the game. It did die around turn 3 or 4 but that was due to losing hull points and not a random Lascannon shot.
Having everything be able to score objectives was nice because most everything on the field was moving to try and capture them. Unlike the previous edition where your goal was to kill troops as fast as possible so your opponent couldn't score. No one opted to build an Unbound list so we all had the benefit of Objective Secured on our troops which also made for a more tactical game.
My first impression from my first game of seventh edition is pretty positive, they did a nice job tweaking the rules slightly to eliminate some of the more annoying aspects of sixth. The changes however are minor enough in practice to draw out the game or over complicate it. I may however need to build a different list to see if the psyker phase is worth caring about or not.
Terrain Building – So back in sixth edition 40K I made a crater and created a mold of it so I'd have something to represent all the exploded rhinos and other vehicles on the table top. Now seventh edition doesn't leave a crater when vehicles explode so I have to figure out something to do with all the plaster casts I made of my crater. Perhaps I can do a "101 Things to Do with Craters" series of articles.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – With Seventh Edition I decided to focus on getting a simple force completed so I would have something quick to grab when a game came up without having to mess around with my plethora of unfinished models. (Don't get me wrong, most of my models have three colors of base coat on them before I allow them to hit the tabletop ... however it's embarrassing to be playing against other armies I've finished an having them look better than my own).
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – Fortifications and other terrain have been sitting in my cabinet for far to long without paint on them. I picked up the box with two bastions and a bunch of defense lines ages ago to use as terrain. I really can't see using points from my list to bring terrain but it works great as standard terrain.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – Tanks are big and take a lot of paint for good coverage. This is what my latest commission has taught me. Super Heavy Tanks take about 3X as much paint as a regular one. Sentinels while they appear much smaller have a ton of little nooks a crannies that require paint.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – Just to be clear my stance on the purpose of $eventh Edition 40K has not changed, this is by far the most blatent money grab by GW in years.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – So this past Saturday the new Warhammer 40K rulebook was released. I swung by my local hobby store to pick it up for a decent price ($67). It comes shrink wrapped in a slip-cover so there's not an option to flip through the book at the store unless they choose to write one off for a display copy.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – In honor of the holiday I spent some time while the kids were taking a nap to build some Sternguard Veterans. I used the finecast bits from the old Iron Hands Chapter Approved box that I've had sitting on the shelf since Christmas to make them. I figure when they aren't acting as their own squad I can use them as sergants in my Tactical Squads to represent the Iron Hands chapter trait.
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Warhammer 40,000 – My client the previously had me paint up a Tyrant's Legion Army in his own custom color scheme has recently come across a great deal on a Catchatan Jungle Fighter army. This included not only a boatload of troops but several tanks, sentinels and a Baneblade. The amount he paid for them is pretty ridiculously low (let's just say only double digits).
So he has asked me to paint these up to match his existing force so he can mix and match the models creating a very ramshackle look and feel to his army when he needs to. It also will give his two unique forces that can be paired together for Apocalypse games.
The first batch he's given me is a unit of Ogrun and command elements. These are pretty fun models to paint. I'm happy with how I've worked his existing color scheme into the jungle fighter uniform. I think if he mixes these models in with the great coat models he'll have a force that looks uniform enough to be a cohesive force but varied enough to play up the chaotic bent that the Tyrants Legion has.
Once these are finished I have several tanks that need to get a fresh coat of paint.
Warhammer 40,000 - If you haven't read the news that's buzzing about on the internet – GW is releasing a $eventh edition of Warhammer 40,000 this month. With the sixth edition of the game barely two years old this seems to be a bit premature in my opinion.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – It just doesn't end, the Dark Angels just keep coming. In this batch we have the remainder of the Ravenwing contingent of his force. This consists of a bunch of bikes and a Landspeeder Typhoon. Painting the Ravenwing is one of my least favorite jobs, don't get me wrong they look amazing on the table top but painting black is difficult to make look right. It's not like you can just wash it to get a nice shade so most of the detail comes from what you do with the highlighting.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – In the ever growing horde of Dark Angel marines I've been asked to paint I have another addition of Deathwing Knights and the various HQ options in terminator armor. These are a slightly better than tabletop paint job so the goal is to paint them quickly and efficiently.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – Thump, Thump, Thump stomping onto my painting table is a "standard" Dark Angel Dreadnought. This piece should be about the end of this commission as I believe my client has just about every option he may need built and painted for this force.
It looks like he built this using a few parts from various kits. Painting Dreadnoughts is always interesting because so much of the model is gunmetal. I like painting these parts as it's really easy and looks great when it's done. I've just started blocking in the colors on this and will follow the same process as I've done in the past with these Dark Angels models.
In other stompy robot news I did have a chance to pick up and assemble one of the Knight Titans. This is a very impressive kit, however I won't go on and one about it as every other blog on the internet has already beat this one to death. It's a shame there weren't more options in the kit but for what you get it is a pretty substantial model. (Although my Reaper Cthulu is the same size and signifcantly bulkier than this and it only cost me $15 ... so your mileage may vary)
I'm working on a base to match my space marines as this particular unit will join up with them more often than not when I need access to a Rapid Fire Battle Cannon and Strength-D Close Combat option. It fills a unique hole in my forces and I'm looking forward to trying it out first hand on the tabletop soon.
I'm not sure if I'm going to opt for one of the Studio Paint Schemes on this to match up with the decals included with the kit or if I'm going to develop my own Freeblade Knight with his own backstory. With all the other stuff I need to wrap up it might be a while before I can make a decision on the paint.
