Blood Luster of Slaanesh?

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Warhammer 40,000 – The Chaos Daemons codex released and out of curiosity I picked it up. I still can't believe the asking price for these books, sure it's nice they're in full color with a hardback and embossed cover but $50 for a army book is a bit much. Luckily I support my local gaming store and they had it for 25% off the MSRP. $37.50 is a bit more palatable. (Barely, but it's easier to rationalize than $50)

I already own a sizable Slaanesh Daemon force that has been sitting on the shelf since shortly after the last book was released. I hated the random deployment in the last codex and as such I played a grand total of three games with them before putting them back on the shelf. Initially I picked most of these models up to accompany my 3rd edition Emperor's Children marines. Who along with all my other chaos marine stuff has long since moved on to another owner, as it seems GW has no plans on bringing the army anywhere near what it was when I enjoyed playing them. However I held onto the Daemons as I enjoy the look of the Slaanesh models and figure they'll look nice on my shelf if I ever finish painting them.

At first blush it seems the new Daemon Codex is a huge improvement over the last book, contrary to what the rest of the internet tells you. It seems that a full Slaanesh force is a viable option, and I plan on building out a few list options using the models I already own. I still am trying not to sink any more money into 40K models until I finish eveything I have in the que, so I'm not looking into any of the new models yet. 

A while back I picked up an Ultraforge Pleasure Demon, I just liked the model and didn't really have any plans for it (plus it was on a clearance sale at the time), so it sat on my shelf partially assembled. Reading through the new book I really think I should use a Blood Thirster in my list, problem is I hate how the Khorne models look and in general the asthetic of the daemon book bothers me. When you run a mixed force the models don't match up and look like a rainbow vomited on the table. (Chaotic sure, but ugly as hell) So my solution is to use the Ultraforge Demon as a Blood Luster of Slaanesh, it solves my problem of fitting the look and feel of the rest of the force while allowing me to use the rules for a model that I think is fairly strong. 

I'm going to try out a all Slaanesh list a few times to see how that works out and if I like playing them I'll finish up the army. (adding yet another 40K army to my que) And if I really want to add some of the other units I'll probably just scratch build some stuff (maybe I'll be able to use those Soul Drinker bitz after all ... Sarpedon might make a decent Herald on a Chariot, an a unit of mutated marines might pass as flamers or horrors).

My initial thoughts are: 1x Bloodthirster, 1x Keeper of Secrets, 4x Units of 12 Daemonettes (2 with banners), 1x unit of 6 Steeds, 1x Slaanesh Daemon Prince with Wings, 2x SoulGrinder w/ Phlegm. This comes in just under 1500 points and puts 59 models on the table. I have a feeling splurging on the random gifts might be useful however for my first run through I don't want to spend points on upgrades.

On the painting table ... Gremlins

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Malifaux – I realized I have several boxes of Gremlins sitting around that I wanted to paint. Every now and then I need a distraction from my main project to keep my eyes fresh and avoid getting bored painting the same thing over and over again. I really have no interest in playing gremlins but the models are cool looking. 

I'm going to try and assembly line these since they share quite a few colors and the process worked well for the Guild models I've done recently. I'm using the skull bases I made up for Hell Dorado, I used one on a undead crab I painted a while back and they made a passable swamp, so we'll see if we can get the same effect with the Gremlin Hillbillies. 

Most of the sculpts are easy to assemble being a single piece sculpt or just needing to add the arms. The warpig is a pain to get together, there's not an obvious spot to mount the gremlin on its back so finding the right attachment point was a bit annoying. Also the head doesn't seem to fit perfectly in place and I'm going to have to do some greenstuff sculpting to fill the gaps. The amount of flash is pretty reasonable only existing around the fingers and slim elements so it was easy to clean them up.

After pinning the models to the bases I used a grey primer. I was contemplating using a rusty red to save some time on painting the earthy elements, but since I've decided to paint the coats dark grey and black. I figure for Sommerteeth he probably looted his cloths from a Guardsman. With Ophelia's clan I'm going to mimic the color scheme of a recent Ortega commission. 

I haven't decided if I want to hold onto these models once I'm done with them or sell them off to a collector. I personally never felt much of an attachment to the Gremlin models other than finding them fun and having a desire to paint them up as the models are really cool.

 

Questing for the Law

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Book Review – Hmm ... I seem to be running out of clever law references, anyway I recently finished reading Judge Dredd the Complete Case File Volume 4. This volume continues the chronological adventures of "Britain's Favorite Comic Hero" (I wonder if that's true, is Judge Dredd as popular over there as Spider-man is here?) and is presented in black and white like the other volumes. This time around the paperstock seems to improved in quality and there's a soft touch UV coating on the cover. I hope this is the direction the rest of the collections go in as it just feels nicer.

Some big stories in this collection most of which is taken up by the Judge Child story which takes Judge Dredd into space searching for a child who is supposed to save the city in the future. It's a interesting story that introduces the Angel Gang, a band of Desperadoes from the outskirts of Texas City. During the interstellar chase Dredd visits numerous planets doing battle with various alien species as well as law breakers on colony worlds. Eventually Dredd catches up with the child and deems him evil abandoning the quest to return to Mega City One. 

For a story that took up most of the book this was a good read some of the chapters were better than others and some were just plan weird, which seems to be a thing for this book. The material from this story feels dated although the new Green Lantern cartoon is using a similar premise to tie it's stories together so I guess the idea still is relevant. 

Where the book shines is when Dredd is back in his element fighting crime in Mega City One. I really liked Chopper story and the Rat Fink stories. They carried on for a few issues but kept on point without getting to weird. 

Ghost Samurai and Honeypots - Unboxing

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Malifaux – Recently I picked up some new Ten Thunders models to expand my existing Resuresctionist force as well as the small Neverborn force I've been working on. These are part of Wyrd's new plastic line and the quality continues to impress me. 

Initially I thought the plastics lacked the character and humor that the original models in the line had, however as I pick up more of them the quality and proportions are growing on me. Combine that with the ease of gluing plastic models and the end result is pretty great. 

I still feel like it would be beneficial to have more options on the sprues. As they are now you really only get the same static pose as you would with a metal model. Granted the poses are pretty great and dynamic, it would still be nice to have some head or arm options to be able to customize the models so yours look different than others on the table. 

I'll post up more pictures after I get these assembled. I just wanted to get some shots of the actual sprues posted as you don't really see much on the box art and for some reason Wyrd isn't showing painted models in their online store like they used to.

On the painting table ... C. Hoffman, Iron Man?

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Malifaux – I've begun work on a C. Hoffman crew. This is the first time I've painted up this particular box and was surprised at the amount of flash that I had to remove. Typically Wyrd miniatures come fairly clean with light mold lines and minimal flash to trim. With all the tiny mechanical bits on these there are a ton of vent lines and other types of flash that need to be trimmed up. 

To go along with the crew box I'm also working on a Steamborg, Guard Captain and Scales of Justice totem. These will all eventually find a home with the other Guild masters I've painted for the same client. 

Most of the construct heavy crews I've painted in the past have been mostly silver and chrome. While that is a good look for most metallic bitz, this time around I wanted to do something different. According to the fluff the Guild has all the money due to controlling traffic in and out of the Breach, since Hoffman is a Guild officer I figure he would have a bit more flash in his retinue of machines. I started with a brass/gold feel and thought it was a bit much, after adding some red to tie in with the Guild colors I realized I had essentially created a Malifaux Iron man. I'm digging the look a feel so far and am hoping I'll be able to translate the look into any other constructs my client might want to add in the future.

The Law in Miniature ... First Impressions

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Judge Dredd Block War – While I didn't participate in the Kickstarter for the Judge Dredd Mini game (Essentially it seemed to be almost retail for the rewards) I did recently find a good deal for some of the box sets on ebay. After looking over the free rule set, I realized that for the most part you'd be able to use Necromunda figures to represent the street gangs and some of the other options. I haven't played through the intro scenario yet but on the surface it seems to be similar to Necromunda but using a D10 with modifiers which should allow for a more varied experience. Once I have time to play a few games I'll post up a more detailed review of the system.

In the mean time here are some shots of what comes in the Justice Department box set and the Holocaust Judges box set. Both of these sets contain Judges which are very specific to the Judge Dredd universe (most of the other models in the range are easily replaceable with similar scale models) and are really a must have to play a game to feel like the comic. 

The Justice Department box comes with three Street Judges, one Psi-Judge, two Riot Judges, a Tech Judge and a Medic. The models feel very similar to the old Necromunda sculpts, chunky oddly proportioned and slightly cartoony. Some people might have a problem with this as it does look slightly dated, I however like the look and feel of the models. Something about them feels nostalgic and I like that they match up well with other models I own. 

The quality of the sculpts is pretty good. There is a ton of flash and mold lines that will need to be removed. You're probably going to want to have a file on hand as the vent spots have a pretty sizable attachment point. The models also seem to have a good solid coat of mold release on them which means a dish soap bath and scrub is a must before attempting to assemble or paint. Not that there's much in the way of assembly as these are all one piece sculpts.

The Holocaust Judges come with three heavily armored Judges. I think I'm going to mount these to 40mm bases rather than the 30mm that they came with. The models are very bulky and hang over the base pretty significantly if left on 30mm. The flash isn't as severe on these sculpts but you do have quite a few pieces to clean and assemble.

My name isss .... Death

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Book Review – Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 03 is the third book in the series that captures Judge Dredd's chronological adventures from the pages of 2000AD. This book seemed to be significantly thinner than the other volumes I picked up. The paper seemed to be of a lower grade stock as well as having a few less pages (unsuprisingly the MSRP is the same as the other volumes).

This volume introduces Judge Death and being from another dimension in which life is against the law. Creepy premise but the initial story wasn't as great as I though it was going to be and only took up three or four chapters of the total book. It's a little unimpressive since he's featured on the cover but still not a bad read, especially since the shorts are self-contained or carry over for and issue or two.

My favorite story in the collection is "Sob Story," in which a gang of killers is killing residents that live in mobile homes and setting the home on auto pilot so it can be years before the body is found. 

This collection features more one shot stories than the previous collections and I really enjoyed the volume as a whole.

And now for something cute ... Impact Miniatures

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Chibi Dungeon – Not to long ago Impact Miniatures ran a successful Kickstarter to produce chibi style characters based off the old D&D cartoon. The campaign was a success and they wound up reaching many stretch goals. I believe the bulk of the rewards are supposed to ship in May. However they were able to produce a five headed dragon early which is now available in their web store.

Overall the sculpt matches the concept sketches and looks very cool. The size is comparable to the Boss monsters from Super Dungeon Explore and as such could be used as a replacement (or if you're ambitious and want to make your own stats like me as a new boss monster) for the existing monsters. 

I was a bit bummed at the amount of flash and sprue chunks on the mini when it arrived, however the "troll-cast" plastic they're using is pretty easy to work with. The model looks to have a bit of texture from the type of 3D printing that was used but I'm hoping it goes away one it's fully primed and painted. For the cost this is a really cool model that can add a new level of monster to your Super Dungeon games or supplement a chibi style RPG campaign.

As you can see by the photo the overall size of this model is impressive, weighing in at slightly larger than a Contemptor Dreadnought. For the cost you're getting a great deal for the amount of raw material. Assembly was a pain it the ass as this isn't normal plastic so plastic cement won't work in it instead you have to use super glue. Because this is "spin-cast" plastic rather than injection molded you will notice a large amount of bubbles in the cast which is disappointing. Luckily Games Workshop has the same issue with their Finecast product and has come out with Liquid Greenstuff to fills the inevitable bubbles and gaps. I'll be picking some up as I assume when the Kickstarter shipment arrives the models will have the same problems.

On the painting table ... Death Wing Contemptor

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Warhammer 40,000 – Continuing along I have some more models I'm painting for that Dark Angels commission. Again in order to save costs the client provided the models "clean and assembled" so all I'm doing is putting a tabletop quality finish on the models. Apparently he had some issue with putting the Contemptor together and had to put a rod in so it would stand up properly. After seeing what he had done I gave him a quick walk through of cleaning and prepping resin for assembly. He didn't want to take apart what he had done so ... I'm just painting it as is. I'll paint the rod black in an attempt to hide it.

I began the same as I did with the Terminators a stone base coat with a earthshade wash followed by a bone highlight. The metal was washed with black and highlighted with silver. Overall the Contemptor is a joy to paint and looks like a very cool model. (Once I finish all the stuff I already own I might pick one up for my own marines)

Also in this batch are some Raven Wing bikers, these are the three that came in the Dark Vengeance set. The sculpts on these are a bit weird as I'm not sure why a marine would have a scroll on the outside of his calf like a bad tatoo other than the digital sculptor just thought they need something there. (I imagine an art director screaming more flair, 15 is not enough). My client wasn't a fan of the wings on the back and clipped them off to add some gas cans (long range patrols need extra fuel, right?)

Painting on Raven Wing is pretty down and dirty. Paint the metallics, black basecoat, black wash go back and edge highlight/ pick out details. 

Smells like ... Vinegar (Decal Tips)

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Warhammer 40,000 – As promised the next step is actually applying the decals. One of the tricks I've learned over the years is to use Micro Set and Micro Sol. This nifty products help to melt the decals into the model so you don't get that weird halo line that needs to be painted over.

Step One: Paint the area you plan on applying the decal to with a gloss varnish. This serves two purposes, first it gives you a pretty smooth surface to apply the decal to. Second something about the Micro products reacts with the varnish to help the decals melt in. This might be completely a rationalization on my part as I'm no scientist but it's the way I do it and it seems to work great.

Step Two: Put down the Micro set on the area you want to place the decal. Paint it on with a soft brush. 

Step Three: Slide the decal in place. At this point I gently dap with a paper towel to remove excess liquid.

Step Four: Gently apply Micro Sol over top over the decal and leave it alone. The Micro Sol will soften the decal and cause it to "melt" into the paint.

Step Five: Once it's dry apply a second coat of gloss varnish. This will protect the decal from damage. If you desire a matte finish apply that after the gloss has dried.

Pretty simple really. A small bottle of either product will last you forever, I picked mine up years ago and still have an almost full bottle of each.

So how did the laser decal paper hold up? The answer is pretty good. I only had minor problems with the toner coming off and was simple enough to paint over the decal with some thinned down paint. I highly recommend this style decal paper over the more readily available inkjet papers.

The devil's in the decals ...

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Warhammer 40,000 – Continuing my quest to complete this company of marines prior to my various Kickstarters arriving (Relic Knights, Kingdom Death, Chibi Minis to customize Super Dungeon), I've realized that I misplaced my decal sheet. Way back when I ordered some Iron Raven sheets from Griffon Games, at some point the ever benevolent GW sent them a cease and desist letter forcing them to remove the decals from their store. The bummer about this was I needed another sheet to finish my project. I never found a great solution since the army got put on the back burner. 

Fast forward to the second time I tried to finish this army and I began looking into inkjet decals. These worked ok for the marine names on my bases but if you look close you can see a faint red halo around the decal. Even though they were sealed per the manufacturer's specs the ink bleed a little. Something about black inkjet ink having red in it that separates when exposed to water. This just wouldn't do for bright white shoulder pads.

Forge World eventually released a Raven Guard Transfer sheet however for the the cost I'd only get a handful of black ravens. At about $20 a pop this just won't work.

After doing more research it seems that my best option (aside from buying an ALPS printer) is to use Laser Transfer paper. Since this is toner based I shouldn't get the same bleed-through issue and as a bonus I shouldn't have to seal the decal prior to using it which should help the decals to adhere to the curved shoulder pads better.

Next I had to create the art. After a few attempts I created a logo that was close enough to the original decals I used. While I was at it I also drew the tactical and devastator symbols so I have enough of them to complete my company. 

Next up, applying decals.

Vindication ... The end is nigh

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Warhammer 40,000 – It sounds like I'm near the end of this Dark Angels commission. It's been a fun ride and I've impressed myself by painting two full Space Marine armies in a few months time. As this project winds down I'm going to have a little time to continue work on my own company. One of my favorite things about doing commission work is finding quicker and easier ways of painting that will get you the same or similar results.

This time around I'm working on a Vindicator. This heavy choice is ideal for situations where you face lots of deep striking units or 3+ saves. I never have much luck with it but I've seen others use it on the table for devastating results. Imagine your rhino gets blown up but a lucky shot then the squad stuck in the crater proceeds to take a direct hit by this massive template cannon. Most of the time that means you've lost that squad. (Of course when I use one in my own lists it always scatters to far to make up it's points).

Painting on this one is just like the rest of the "regular" Dark Angels troops. A Orkhide base coat followed with a green wash and edge highlighting completes the green sections. The metallic bits are painted gunmetal, washed black and edge highlighted with silver. To keep the red weapon casing theme in tact I painted the gun cowl the same as the line troopers bolters.

My client said he's going to have a Razorback to round off the force and then will be done with it for a while. He's looking into doing a Blood Angel biker force next which sounds pretty cool and should have a pretty low model count, once he gets it wrapped up I anticipate it making its way to my painting table in the future.

Clawing Out ... Terminators as Troops?

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Warhammer 40,000 – Part of the goal for my personal Space Marine army is to have the flexibility to play whatever I want while still maintaining the look and feel of my own chapter. Typically I do this by modifying the special characters I want to use and making them fit my general aesthetic or convert/scratch build something that mimics the character I want to represent.

When the Badab War books came out along with the model for Tyberous, chapter master of the Carcharodons (aka space sharks) I knew this was something I'd want to play. However I refuse to start another army so he is being implemented into my existing force as my Master of the Fleet. To accompany him I had to make a squad or two of "assault marine" minus jumppacks to take advantage of his special rules as well as the "Red Brethren" a squad of Lightening Claw armed Assault Terminators that count as troops.

As part of my "FINISH THEM!" initiative I'm been working on putting the final touches on this squad as well as a standard issue Black Reach Dreadnaught. (Yes that right I still have unpainted stuff from the last starter box)

Painting purple is interesting and it took me a while to get my mix right. I used to based the whole model in a grape color and wash it with purple ink. From there I'd go in and add a mid tone purple and them an extreme edge highlight. I've found that using the Leviathan Purple wash saves me the step of going back in to repaint the mid tone. The wash has the benefit of not being shiny like the inks where. At this point I have some models with the ink and some I did with the wash and it's pretty hard to tell them apart once they're sealed. 

 

Reading is FUN-demental

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I'm clearing out some shelves in my library to make room and get organized. As such I've come to the realization that I own a ton of books. As such it's unlikely that I'm going to re-read most of these and rather than store them I figured I'd trying selling them on ebay.

Check out this link for some great deals on 40K novels, Graphic Design Books and some history books. Some of these have been out of print for some time now so this is a good chance to complete your collection or get your hands on a hard to find novel.

Ravens for the Win!

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Warhammer 40,000 – I'm really excited to see the Ravens in the Superbowl this year, hopefully they'll pull out a win. Many moons ago they were the inspiration for the color scheme of my home-brew chapter. When I started these Space Marines I was primarily a Chaos player with so many options in the 3rd edition Chaos book most everyone I knew had a Chaos army so the local meta was skewed. I picked up a Sisters of Battle army and decided to pair them up with a Raven Guard force based on the Chapter Approved rules for them. At the time I thought this was brilliant as they were a good foil for the bulk of Chaos players. At that time I wanted to do a home-brew as I was tired of painting black. Of course those rules disappeared with the advent of 4th Edition and they weren't as viable so they sat on the shelf while I began looking into Warmachine and began selling off my plethora of 40K models.

Fast forward to the release of 5th edition. My local group got excited about 40K again and I decided to focus on Codex Marines as my primary army. Up until this point I rarely played the good guys in any system but was disenfranchised with the sudden up and down swings in the quality of other codexes. Figuring marines always get the best toys and updates it seemed like the best choice for an evergreen army. I got some really great deals on Mega Force boxes and picked up a ton of sprues at a local bitz swap. After assembling a solid force I realized I still had a ton of models and began work on putting together a full company. Not long after my local group bored of 40K again and the models went back on the shelf.

After the release of the Badab War books from Forge World my local group ran a few mini campaigns and I began work on the Twilight Ravens yet again. Shortly after interest petered out again and they went back to the shelf.

If you haven't notice a pattern yet, you will. Warhammer 6th Edition released this year, my group is once again excited so the Ravens are flying again. I've dubbed this project, "FINISH THEM!" as I feel an aggressive urge to complete the project. 

This week I've just about completed a special tactical squad armed with dual close combat weapons. These can serve double duty as troops for Blood Angels or when Tyberous leads my force, as well as Assault Marines without jump packs for standard codex marines. I initially built these in 2011, and left them after basecoating the models.

I'm still the Law ...

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Book Review – Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files Vol 2 continues the adventures of everybodies favorite lawman. The second collection is more interesting than the first as it begins to tell more epic tales that introduce you to the insane world that is Mega City 1. 

The first of these tales is the Cursed Earth Saga. This tale has Judge Dredd leading a convoy to Mega City 2 (Essentially L.A.) to deliver a cure for the disease that is running rampant in the city. Unable to fly Judge Dredd has to trek across the radioactive wasteland that is the Cursed Earth. The stories are fun to read however due to some copy right issues several installments were not included in the collection. Apparently two of the story arcs had Dredd fighting against the descendants of McDonald's, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Honestly I'm really bummed about that and am trying to track down someplace to read these stories as they sound like a blast. The stories that are included in the collection have Dredd fighting dinosaurs, mutants, robots mecenaries, rat worshipers and the corupted judges of Las Vegas.

The next big epic in this collection is The Day the Law Died. In this story Judge Caligula becomes the Chief Judge and has a rein of terror. Fun story and I can see how they'd be fun to play in the tabletop game.

The rest of the collection has random one shots about Dredd patrols of Mega City 1.

Overall I enjoyed this collection a bit more than the first one. It's still crazy and off the wall (much like most comics from the late 1970's) but you can slowly see Dredd developing into the facist lawman that I've always known his character to be. I have a feeling the next volume will be even better, as the writers seem to be developing along with the characters.

Scouting Ahead ... Dark Angels New Units

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Warhammer 40,000 – Sick of green yet? Just kidding with the new book out for a little while my client has decided to add more models to his Dark Angels force. I'm honestly a little jealous of his forward thinking. He essentially has a completed force with most of the bells and whistles to match up with the new book done and thanks to me, completely painted.

Next up is a nifty troop choice. Space Marine scouts are cheap objective takers. If you can get them into cover they can harass units with their sniper rifles and divert attention from your key units to take care of the annoyance they provide. 

I also painted up a custom Belial, Deathwing Champion, Plasma Cannon Terminator and two drop pods. I'm not looking forward playing against these models as a unit of 11 terminator equipped to handle anything that doesn't scatter when they come in (on whatever turn you want) is pretty nasty. 

You like the boom? Thunderfire completed.

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Warhammer 40K – I like blast weapons, there's something satisfying about laying a template on the table rolling for scatter and then subtracting your BS. Especially when your BS is really good. Odds are you're going to hit a few models at minimum with each template. That said placing 4 of them is even cooler. Sure most of the time you're not killing anything because they make their armor save, but there's something about making your opponent roll a ton of saves that brings a smile to my face. (During a recent game I scored 15 wounds on a unit of 10 marines, a bad set of armour saves left two of the standing).

I've completed work on my Landraider Achilles and and just about done with my Thunderfire cannon. With these two models completed I'll have some nice heavy support options to add to my completely painted based and sealed list. 

The Thunderfire cannon is a weird model. So much of it wants to be metallic silver that it doesn't really feel like you've done much to paint it. I went in and added a bunch of bronze components just to add some interest areas to the model. Of course once the washes and highlights are applied the general look is mostly silver metallic. The Techmarine gunner has the same issue, just tons of metallic parts that don't make sense to do in any other color. Coupled with the "Mechanicus wear red" the model looks a little odd to me. But I'm trying to keep my home-brew chapter as codex adherent as possible so I make sacrifices to my design sensibilities to fit with the existing cannon.

I'm still on the fence as to whether I should base this or not. I have something it will fit on and I think the base would add stability and durability if I need to transport it much. I'm probably going to to use one of the attack bike bases to complete this gun.

You Owe Me ... Dark Debts

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Malifaux – After reading the Ten Thunders book for Malifaux, Jacob Lynch's crew was the one that stood out to my as very unique and fun to play. Yes I know they're technically Neverborn and i should just stick win Shang Tsung, sorry Yan Lo, but something about this crew has me hooked. 

Jacob Lynch essentially runs an Opium Den, however in Malifaux it's not opium, the drug of choice is called Brilliance and it eats away at the users soul leaving them as a mutated shell. Pretty cool huh? In game the model has a bunch of cool abilities that tie his mechanics and story together really well. As I've come to expect from any model in Malifaux, just by reading their card and the names of their abilities you get a sense of exactly what their story is.

In addition to the Dark Debts box, I had Mr. Tannen, Mr. Graves and Santanna to assemble. I still can't get over how huge the boxes are for the new plastics, it seems to be such a waste of space. Looking at the size of the sprues there's not really anything that can be done unless the sprues are cut down to fit into something smaller, but at that point you're adding more potential headaches that should be avoided.

The models themselves are really sharp (both looking and literally, the clawed hand drew blood). Just like the other Wyrd plastics these are very thin and proportional looking. A word of caution, only remove a part from the sprue when you're ready to glue it in place. These parts are so tiny and small that it's easy to lose them or mistake them as flash. (Mr. Tannen has a coin in his fingers) On the sprue each model has a designation as A, B etc. all the parts associated with that model are number A-1, A-2 etc. There aren't any paper instructions so good luck figuring out how those tentacles go together. Minor gripe really but given the number of GW kits I recently assembled there's something to be said for printed instructions.

Nice thing about these is the mold lines are very slight, which means very little scraping at tiny parts. After a bit of cursing and searching on the floor for parts that escaped the confines of my tray; I was able to get all five boxes assembled. Jacob's crew looks really cool and I can't wait to pick up some Beckoners as I think they're essential to his crew functioning and are gorgeous models that I must own.

Santana is a cool model. It was pretty hard work earning her and I like the idea of a Henchman exclusive model. But of course they models was also offered as an incentive for the RPG which takes away some of the exclusivity. Of course it wouldn't make sense to tool a plastic die for a one run miniature so I would guess well see several ways to get these in the future. And since I really like the model I don't have an issue with the secondary value dropping because of increased supply. Had I worked so hard to get this as an investment I might be a little peeved about the so called "limited" nature of the sculpt.

I am the Law ... Case Files 01 Review

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Book Review – Dredd 3D peaked my interest in learning more about the long running British comic. I had some exposure to Judge Dredd through crossovers and the DC attempt at publishing new adventures during my youth but never really felt like the character was something I wanted to read more about. After that dreadful Stalone movie I passed the Judge off as a joke and never looked into reading more about him. 

The Mongoose Kickstarter (which lets be honest was really just a presale to garner attention, but good for them because the game looks like fun and I like the look of the sculpts) combined with the amazing new movie gave me reason to revisit the character and give him a second chance. A book that's been running since 1977 and still going strong has to be worth checking out. The special features from the blueray convinced me that I needed to read the original British work and not the attempts to "americanize/superheroize" the Judge.

Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 01 covers his adventures from the 2000AD, Programs 2-60. While these were written in 1977 they still hold up fairly well, some of the costuming is a little dated but overall the stories are well written and clever. Most of the stories are self contained one shots but a few carry over for a few issues such as the Great Robot War in which a robot named Call me Kenneth instigates a rebellion of all the robot slaves and Dredd's six month visit to the moon to serve as marshal of the Luna 1 colony. 

The printing is clean and crisp black and white with a decent quality uncoated paperstock. My only minor issue with the production quality of this collection is in the panels that span a full spread. Most of the text gets lost in the gutter due to the massive size of the spine on a collection this big.

I'm convinced that reading the original material is the only way to truly appreciate Judge Dredd. However this first collection is pretty disjointed and most of the stories are plays of pop culture at the time, so not all readers are going to love it. I have the next three case files to read and am looking forward to the books of the 1980's. 

 

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BONUS REVIEW – Over the weekend I took my daughter and her friend to go see Mama. This is the new Guillermo del Toro movie about two girls who are found after being lost in the woods for five years. After years of searching their artist uncle and rock star wife adopt the girls and try to give them a normal life. Unfortunately the thing that kept them alive for all those years won't let them go and craziness ensues.

The visuals for this movie are super creepy and set the atmosphere for the story. Rather than being the traditional gore fest modern horror movies have opted to become this relives more on disturbing images and sounds to set the tone. While there are plenty of sudden scares the movie isn't all that scary and instead languishes in the skin-crawling, grimey-feeling creepiness that del Toro is famous for.

While I enjoyed the film and thought it was well executed, the ending fell flat for me. I'm not going to spoil it for those who have yet to see the film, but it was pretty meh for an otherwise well executed film. If you're a fan of Pans Labyrinth or Hellboy then you should definitely check this out as the visuals almost make up for the lame ending.