On the painting table ... Kingdom Death White Lion Armor

On the painting table ... Kingdom Death White Lion Armor

Kingdom Death – If you want to play a challenging game that has character development and civilization building Kingdom Death can scratch that itch. If your party manages to survive the various encounters with the nightmarish monsters that inhabit the world, they can scavenge the parts left over from the encounter to create gear, weapons and more to help them survive the next encounter. The cool thing about this boutique game is the core set includes miniatures for all the things you can make so you can actually build your characters as they are armed.

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On the painting table ... Talons of the Emperor

On the painting table ... Talons of the Emperor

Warhammer 40,000 – There's gold in them thar .... Well something like that. I'm working on a large force of Sisters of Silence paired with Adeptus Custodes for a client. This is an army that is almost completely gold with some red highlights. It took me two solid nights to get all the models assembled (minus the magnets for the Dreadnoughts which are to come.) It's been a little while since I had a full army build from the ground up for a completely new army. The sprues for these two armies are identical to the ones that comes in the Burning of Properso box game, so the force really consists of 5 sculpts of each model with variations on weapons. With the Custodes you can swap around the arms to get some variation but the sisters are really just mono-pose with different weapons.

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On the painting table ... Lucius Pattern Drop Pod

On the painting table ... Lucius Pattern Drop Pod

Warhammer 40,000 – Dreadnoughts in drop pods were the bane of my existence during 6th and 7th edition. Anytime I'd want to play a vehicle heavy force they'd drop in front of my line block LOS and miraculously explode a key unit almost without fail. I think this was mostly because it was so easy to use the plastic kit and move those machines across the field quickly. Paying almost double for a Lucius Pattern Pod made them rarely seen or purchased in my area. Now that Dreadnoughts can't go in a regular drop pod I feel like you might see more of these massive resin models hitting the table.

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On the Painting Table ... Hivefleet Leviathan Tyranids

On the Painting Table ... Hivefleet Leviathan Tyranids

Warhammer 40,000 – The never-ending horde of bugs continues to infest my painting station. What started out as a small force Shadow War: Armageddon force has grown into a full fledged army. now that the rules are out and Tyranids are pretty good on the table my client brought by several additions to his force.

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On the painting table ... A Knight's Tale

On the painting table ... A Knight's Tale

Warhammer 40,000 – I love Imperial Knights. The giant stompy robots are a great addition to Warhammer 40K. Not as powerful as their bigger brothers and far less cost prohibitive the Knights bring a sense of epic battles to the tabletop. The difference in scale between your average trooper and one of these makes such an amazing scene on the table.

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On the painting table ... The Others: Seven Sins

On the painting table ... The Others: Seven Sins

Board Games – Having painted the Heroes and some of the monsters, it was only a matter of time before the rest of The Others: Seven Sins would hit my painting table. I'm bummed i haven't had time to work on my own set or actually play this game but I think I might try and push it for after my current 40K campaign wraps up. The game is very well designed and the models are great so I need to play it.

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On the painting table ... Scythe Expansion

On the painting table ... Scythe Expansion

Board Games – While I haven't had a chance to play it yet Scythe has been racking up acclaim all around the internet. From what I've heard it's an elegant system that is very simple but tactically deep. The models are very nice and my latest project brought the scottish and asian factions to my painting table.

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Battle for Konor Week One – Three vs Three Team Battle

Battle for Konor Week One – Three vs Three Team Battle

Warhammer 40,000 – Our week one event went off with only a minor hitch. Two of our players couldn't make it which left us with 6 guys. It would have been easy to play a team of two and a one vs. one game, but because three of the players hadn't played since 6th edition and hadn't had any play experience we opted to do a team battle of 3 vs. 3 (total of 1500 points per side).

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Assembly Line ... Chaos Daemons

Assembly Line ... Chaos Daemons

Warhammer 40,000 – One of the most daunting things about starting this hobby is having to put together your models. (Painting is a close second, since before you can do that you need to put them together.) This is especially true for newer players that are interested in the social and tactical aspects of tabletop gaming but come from a background of video or board games where everything is ready to go right out of the box. A large percentage of these newer gamers don't have an interest in the hobby aspect of the game (yet, it will come with time) so paying to have these parts taken care of makes sense for them.

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The Fate of Konor - Mini-league

Warhammer 40,000 – My local group has decided to play along with the Games Workshop Worldwide campaign. Looking at the requirements for the weekly challenges we opted to do a 500 point list to start with, the core of which has to be from a Start Collecting Box. Each week you get another 100 points to add to your force. You're required to add the new focus unit and can drop one unit from your previous list, everything else has to stay the same (Excluding upgrades). The goal being a completed 1000 point force by the end of the six weeks. We opted to build to 1000 points since out weekly games tend to be team affairs and we weren't completing games in a reasonable time with the larger totals.

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On the painting table ... For the Greater Good

On the painting table ... For the Greater Good

Warhammer 40,000 – To be honest I've never liked Tau. I don't really know why they suits are cool, the backstory is fine and the Damocles Gulf Crusade supplement and book was really great. Something about them just never sat right with me. (Probably the anti-commi sentiment drilled into me as a youth in the 80's) 

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Warhammer 40K Open War Battle Report ... What about cover?

Warhammer 40K Open War Battle Report ... What about cover?

Warhammer 40,000 – Cover is one of the things that doesn't seem to really matter much in 8th edition. You're either in it or not and if you are you get +1 to you armor save. When you're blasted by something that's ap -4 it won't matter to most models. The advanced rules add a little bit to the terrain rules but the core is still really simple.

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Make it Smaller ... Raptors at 1,000

Warhammer 40,000 – So I really liked what my initial Raptors list did on the table. It felt like the special forces style of play I was going for and the individual elements seem to have played their parts really well. As a 1v1 force that allows Forgeworld I look forward to playing that list.

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On the painting table ... Black Legion

On the painting table ... Black Legion

Warhammer 40,000 – I have another Black Legion Client, apparently he saw the work I did for another client with the same army and really liked what I did. Back in third edition Black Legion was my first army when I got back into the game and have always been one of my favorite bad guys.

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Whatever happened to ... Relic Knights

Whatever happened to ... Relic Knights

Random – Several years ago there was a huge boom in new Skirmish games, it seemed like every few months something new and exciting was catching on or being Kickstarted. I'm not sure if it was because Warhammer of both varieties was feeling stale or if it was just the market was ripe for something fresh and new. Today let's take a look back at some of the stars that seem to have burned out too soon (at least in my area, if these are booming where you are let me know why).

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Versatility in List Design - Raptors

Versatility in List Design - Raptors

Warhammer 40,000 – I'm been grinding through list building using a core force based around Liass Issodon. The idea is if I can get good at playing the core of the force I can swap around elements to expand on their potential. Ideally the parts I swap around with help to make them a more balanced all take-all-comers still list. I feel like the core of the force is geared toward taking out high value targets quickly, but it might have a hard time in a war of attrition.

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On the Paiting Table ... Hobbits or Halflings

On the Paiting Table ... Hobbits or Halflings

Dungeons & Dragons – Hobbits, Halflings or small folk. Call them what you will but don't forget to call them for diner. This band of merry midgets is my latest Dungeons and Dragons project. One of my clients regularly sends me models for his next campaign. Previously I've painted terrain for a Wizards Lair, Demons of different spheres, a whole group of fire monsters as well as a band of barbarians. I really enjoy painting these small bands that tie into a theme. It's a nice break from my typical grim dark grind.

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8th Editon Space Marines - Getting sneaky with it?

8th Editon Space Marines - Getting sneaky with it?

Warhammer 40,000 – Back in 2003 when I started the Twilight Ravens chapter they were based on the Chapter Approved Ravenguard rules. I did this because I loved the logo and the local meta was skewed toward Chaos Marines, so the idea of Marines that hit chaos on threes seemed like a good idea. Over time my chapter has evolved with the editions and now fits in the generic marine realm. I have models from the entire range and with a few tweaks of building a new model here or there I can build most anything I want to play. This means that since I devoted myself to marines as my primary army the Twilight Ravens haven't be shelved even if tactics and army builds changed with each edition. With eighth edition I want to do something different with my marines and until the codex comes out with chapter tactics (I really hope Forge World comes out with a pdf chapter tactics update to go along with the indexes) making do with the generic Index entries will have to do.

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