What's Rusty and Green?

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What's Rusty and Green?

Warhammer 40,000 – Orks have always held a spot in my heart, the second blister I ever bought had the Blood Axe Ork Character in it and to this day I wish I had held onto it. It was such a cool model. Anyway the point of the bit of nostalgia is that I like orks, even though I’ve never played them as a full army. Horde armies don’t really appeal to me from a mechanical not visual standpoint. Unless you’re willing to put in to extra time converting each miniature with a horde you’re going to have a bunch of the same model. So while it’s not for me I do like orks from a narrative standpoint, they bring a bit of comedy to a grimdark universe even though the very idea of a horde of green monsters looking for nothing more than to destroy everything in their path is terrifying.

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Old Hammer - Legion of the Damned

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Old Hammer - Legion of the Damned

Warhammer 40,000 – Today I have a rare treat, my regular Old Hammer client brought me a sealed Legion of the Damned box from the early 90’s, these classic metal models came in the styrofoam tray inserted into the cardboard box. While not exactly carbon-footprint friendly this classic packaging did make it feel a little more special with each model in their own spot.

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Imperial Knights Defend Mining Colony

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Imperial Knights Defend Mining Colony

Warhammer 40,000 - Each week I host a 40k night for my gaming group depending on the week I’ll usually have between 2-8 guys that make it out. Over the course of the year we’ll try and run a few campaigns in addition to just some standard pick-up games. This week we had an odd number of players so we played a 2v1 game. I had 1,000 points of Genestealer Cult which teamed up with two Imperial Knights to face off against 2,000 points of Grey Knights. Typically we’d try to forge a better narrative with the Imperials teaming up but the Grey Knight player just picked up the force and wanted to try playing his full list.

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Imperial Knights Brave the Snow

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Imperial Knights Brave the Snow

Warhammer 40,000 – To go along with the Tempestus Scions for I just wrapped up my client has a Knight Household detachment he wanted to match his existing Iron Hands Successor Chapter. Since the Knights could be fielded alongside either Imperial force they would share elements with both forces.

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Battle Honors - Update (Week 5)

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Battle Honors - Update (Week 5)

Warhammer 40,000 - Our first season of Battle Honors moved into week 5 and I faced off against a Goff Mob led by Ghazkill Thraka. Moving through the eternal war mission from Chapter Approved 2018, we played “In the Wind” this week, which makes units with the “fly” keyword faux-obsec, being as my force consists of multiple Land Speeders and jump pack infantry I had a slight advantage. This week we played 2,000 points per side and neither force had units sidelined because of injuries last week.

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Polar Vortex - Tempestus Scions Test Model

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Polar Vortex - Tempestus Scions Test Model

Warhammer 40,000 – My painting queue is incredibly full at the moment. One of the projects I’ll be working on is a Tempestus Scion force with a Knight detachment. This client had another painter start work on the force and wasn’t happy with how they turned out. White models are typically really hard to make look good especially for something that’s meant to be viewed at arms length. Arctic Camo tends to be completely white which is also incredibly hard to paint well. Typically you’d start with a blue or a gray and work you way up to pure white. For a single model this is pretty reasonable, but for a larger force that much blending would take more time than most people would be willing to pay for.

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Battle Honors - Update (Week 4)

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Battle Honors - Update (Week 4)

Warhammer 40,000 – Our Battle Honors campaign has moved into the fourth week. This week we played the fourth Eternal War mission from Chapter Approved 2018. With the weather improved there were four of us so we played two 1000 point 1v1 games. Xenos vs Imperial and Chaos vs. Imperial. We had the non-imperial players roll off to choose their table and opponent before setting up the game.

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Battle Honors - Update

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Battle Honors - Update

Warhammer 40,000 – For the first part of 2019, I’m running a Battle Honors campaign. This is a super flexible system that allows players to participate whenever they can. Since each non-character unit gains honors the more you play with it, most of the players are keeping the same 2000 points to maximize the growth potential. If players miss a week or fall behind the power level increases help to balance out the games by giving the lower power level a ruse card or sudden death card from the open war deck.

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Taking the Black - More Deathwatch

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Taking the Black - More Deathwatch

Warhammer 40,000 – I think I’m near the end of the infantry for my current Deathwatch client. This batch has a few more Vanguard Vets and some armed to the teeth Primaris Marines. As with the previous models I started with a dark grey base, painted the gun metal bits and then washed with Nuln Oil. This is my standard for painting black at the basic level. The wash accomplishes the shading and highlights well enough with minimal effort. For a budget job many of my clients will chose this option.

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Flying Lawnmower - Death Guard

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Flying Lawnmower - Death Guard

Warhammer 40,000 – Another one done. I feel like I must be nearly done with everything my Death Guard client might want to use in his force. Every few months he brings me another piece but at this point I’ve painted pretty much one of everything in the line with the exception of basic troops.

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The Tale of the Bloody Baron - A bit of lore behind my list

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The Tale of the Bloody Baron - A bit of lore behind my list

Warhammer 40,000 – While building competitive lists and winning is fun; I find the most rewarding part of this hobby is coming up with a backstory for your army and seeing it grow and mature over time. While I’ve dedicated the first part of the year to painting and learning my Blood Angels list, I still have several other armies that I continue to think about which inevitably leads to me going off on a tangent and another year of unfinished armies but that’s neither here nor there.

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Is a Leadership Based List Viable? - Chaos in 8th

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Is a Leadership Based List Viable? - Chaos in 8th

Warhammer 40,000 - Early in 8th edition I decided to do a Night Lords list, my idea was to do a ton of Raptors that messed with leadership to force my opponents to run away. Sadly with the rule of three spamming a ton of minimal Raptor units isn’t really viable. Another issue is that “assault troops” with a single base attack don’t really do well in assault, nor do small specialized units. While they’re vicious and great in combat in the lore and other background; in reality Raptors are a mobile firebase that can max out on special weapons.

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Totally Tau - More White Wariors

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Totally Tau - More White Wariors

Warhammer 40,000 – With changes to the points costs for several Tau units one of my clients has opted to add some additional firepower to his existing force. I painted the bulk of said force last year which you can read about here. It sounds like he wants to do a mechanized force backed up by various suits. As there is only one vehicle in this batch I expect that there will be many more as the year progresses.

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3D Printed Terrain - Check this Out

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3D Printed Terrain - Check this Out

Terrain – 3D printing is all the rage these days. There are some amazing designers selling stuff on Shapeways, super creative generous people that upload designs to thingiverse and a plethora of etsy shops that specialize in table top accessories. In fact there’s so much cool stuff out there it’s sometimes hard to cut through the clutter and find the best stuff.

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Three's Company - Dealing with an Odd Number of Players

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Three's Company - Dealing with an Odd Number of Players

Warhammer 40,000 – With a new year I’m working on running a new campaign. Rather than get complicated I’m opting to try the “Battle Honors” system presented in Chapter Approved 2018. Most of my group has committed to playing and painting a single 2000 point list before the end of the year. Which makes it really easy to have fixed unit cards that will allow us to keep track of the units experience during the campaign. I picked up a fancy hole punch to keep it official, so after the game honors can be doled out.

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