Results from the 2016/17 Hobby Season

As I align my own hobby work with 40KAddict's hobby season, it's time to reflect on what I got done since September of 2016. My hobby ToDo list was intentionally long and filled more with opportunity than direct goals and I had no intent of knocking off the whole list.  For the 2017/18 season, I am thinking of modifying that approach...but that's a tale for another post.

What got accomplished in 2016/17?

My Deathwatch force started to take shape:

I participated in Dreadtober 2016 as the Deathwatch work continued:

Then it was on to Squaduary 2017 and the Deathwatch caught more paint:

I completed some scatter terrain:

And some Munitorum containers:

And dabbled with a unit of the Emperor's praetorians:

And dabbled with Shadow Wars: Armageddon:

 

And made some beats lab improvements:

And finally, the Grey Knights landed...

That's quite a season of hobby for me! Some solid progress here and there; some flights of fancy as well along the way.  I am very happy where I got my terrain to and I have already enjoyed a few Shadow Wars and 8th ed. 40K games on it.  Some Deathwatch progress, but lots more to do.  And a good deal of Grey Knight enthusiasm as I head into the new hobby season. And these are just the highlights I culled from past blog posts. There were other bits here and there as well that got done for which I have no pictures (lots more deathwatch were built and primed. the new 8th ed. 40K objective markers set got built, etc...).

For the next season I'd like to continue exploring and honing my painting skills.  It is all to easy for me to fall back on building models, which I love, instead of buckling down and getting on with the painting of it all.I will look for new events like Squaduary and Dreadtober for incentive to complete quality projects and will kick myself to fit in a few more on my own initiative. I expect to make more progress on the Deathwatch and to turn up the heat on my Grey Knights.  I'm even setting a goal to paint at least one of my currently unpainted squads of Dark Angels, possibly including a transport.

It's going to be a fun and busy season. Best of luck for your own projects and ambitions.

Cheers and Happy Gaming! 

WIP: More 29th Zetic Tigers

After another session, the kill team is coming along pretty well. First some edge highlights for the black armor...

Man do I still need A LOT of practice with this kind of brush work. I mean the principle seems easy enough...draw the edge of the brush along the raised edges...but then there is the reality of managing flex and splay in the bristles and that crazy tip that seems to lash about like some chaos spawned tentacle. I had to abandon my Broken Toad brushes and return to the faithful Winston-Newton for this work. Better control and better results but even still...<sigh>

Highlights done, I treated myself to some detail work using the plasma marine as my test model before attacking the squad.

Getting there.  The company insignia on the left knee is crap...it was actually almost there, then I ruined it in a fit of perfectionist passion with the black as I tried to clean up the triangle on the yellow field. I'll practice more on something else, then go back and redo it before attacking the rest of the kill team.

I liked how the lenses and screens came out though, so I applied this detail to the rest of the team and cleaned up some of the highlights on the black.  Oh, and I realized when taking the close up above that I forgot to drill out the plasmagun.  So that had to get done as well...

So still some slow going, but progress is definitely happening.  I'll get one more session this week, then I'm done for a bit while I head out with my family for vacation.  I'm still loving the scion models, but my ambition is out-stripping my skills still at this point.  I'll keep at it and see where they end up.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

WIP: 29th Zetic Tigers

A quick upate post today to share progress on the Shadow Wars: Armageddon Astra Militarum Kill team I introduced earlier in the month.  I have enjoyed the opportunity to work on the excellent Militarum Tempestus models.  There is a great deal of detail to paint, and I admit to hitting a bit of a "painter's block" if such a thing truly exists.   I have taken a little time off to look at my Deathwatch force in the context of the WH40K 8th edition rules. This will prepare me for some new Deathwatch painting projects once I finish the 29th Zetic Tigers.

But then I read today that a Grey Knights 8th edition codex may be coming in August...so we'll see.  I hesitate to get too committed to specific Deathwatch miniatures before I see the real codex. As it is, I converted a Deathwatch Flesh Tearers veteran with shotgun to a Deathwatch Salamander veteran with combi-melta to bulk out a combi-melta kill team for anti-armour/large model control.  But this was to be a post about the Zetic Tigers, so I digress.

Here's the state of the kill team after gold details were applied:

Not shown above, I also got the edge highlighting done on the black armor.  I experimented with the screens on the armor, eye lenses, and armor camera lenses using the plasma scion.  I don't have a picture yet, so I'll show that off in a follow-up post as the progress continue. In keeping with the codex art, I chose yellow for the screens and lenses.  I used layers of GW Casandora Yellow shade over a base coat of Vallejo white.  I then followed up with white highlights and an additional coat of yellow shade in an attempt to build up transitions that hopefully add interest to these areas.

I hope to drop one more post on the Zetic Tigers before I take a break to head out on a family vacation. This should likely go unnoticed here since I only post a few times-per-month anyway.

I hope the summer is passing well for you.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

On the Workbench [July] - 29th Zetic Tigers

With summer upon us here in the US Northeast, I find my hobby time limited but not gone.

Having run across a blog article about using nail polish display racks for organizing hobby paint, I set about Amazon to find myself some racks!  I have a lot of paint and other hobby product put away in various cases, bins and what not.  It never gets used, and I keep picking up new stuff like Nuln Oil pots when I don't really need them.  So after a brief wait and a tiny bit of labor I now have this...

I picked up two racks from Amazon after looking through various options.  There are many suitable choices.  These were inexpensive and hold a good amount.  They are deep enough for GW pots and still hold Vallejo and other bottles just fine.  The shelves have a low lip that keeps things from sliding/toppling off easily which is also good, especially since this wall is part of the stair case going back up to the first floor and so sees a fair deal of jostling as we go up and down to the basement.

The mounting holes in the racks were 16", perfect for standard wall construction here in the US (studs are supposed to be placed in the wall 16" on center) , so I could have screwed them directly to the exposed studs.  However, I couldn't have mounted them side by side using a single stud that way and would have had to leave a big gap between the racks, wasting wall space.

Instead,  I cut some left over 1"x8" shelving boards to make two horizontal straps to mount the racks to.  The boards were mounted to the wall studs, and the racks were then just screwed to the top board using their mounting holes. The bottom board running horizontally behind the racks is not attached, but gives support.  Since they are a brittle hard plastic, the racks may otherwise have cracked at the top if I inadvertently push too hard on the bottom while organizing/grabbing supplies.

I originally intended to spray the transparent blue racks black.  But after getting them I decided they looked innocuous enough in my basement hobby den and so left them as is.  If I ever hang dry wall and clean up the space so it looks more finished, then I'll likely revisit this decision.  My only complaint with how everything turned is that I could use two more racks just like it to hold stuff I still have put away! :)  This will have to do for now though.  I have limited wall space.

So that's whats over the work bench...now let's move on to whats actually on the work bench.

I got another game of Shadow Wars: Armageddon under my belt.  It was another tragic loss for the Death Korps of Krieg at the hands of the Necrons.  The game taught us a bunch. I realized we were ignoring the pinning rules (very important!) and that I was ignoring the abilities of the Astra Militarum kill leader to direct the shooting of the team (when within 6"). One thing about shadow wars, there are a LOT of dice modifiers...and a team like the Astra Militarum can suffer it seems ot me from all the minuses to hit.  I knew I had to rework my team to better accommodate the realities of the rules.

The Death Korps, being all resin, don't have a tone of options and I'm about out of spare parts currently after building the latest team.  Then it struck me...I have a decent force of Tempestus Scions that just scream "Make us a Kill team!!".  And so I plucked a few models from my existing collection and built a coupe more for the ones I couldn't represent accurately.  Then I set about reading their 7th edition codex to choose a regiment.  After some time, a kill team form the 29th Zetic Tigers was born!

Photo Credit: Games Workshop, ltd.

Here is the team after priming.  Eight models for now.  If I enjoy playing them then I'll model new members as they are recruited. I'm choosing a strategy of using the leader, at least initially, to buff one or more specialists. So to start, he has only his base equipment and nothing else.  This freed up points to spend in the team...things like red dot sights to improve my chance of effecting other models in the game!  I also gave up on trying to be good at both hand-to-hand fighting and shooting. This team is armed for shooting.

The team is mostly armed with lasguns, hots hot packs and red-dot sights (represented mostly by all the scopes).  Not sure how to represent the red-dot sight for a plasma gun, I just left it alone. That gun is funky enough...

Then I took the new recruit and tried out a color scheme for the cloth uniform. As with other projects, I'll post up a paint recipe once I'm finished.  I like where it is heading, so on to the rest of the team.

The recruit above, the sniper and the Tempestor Prime (leader) were built from scratch for this project.  The Prime is built stock, so he doesn't count really.  The only notable thing was to furnish him with no weapons other than a knife for WYSIWYG.  I have spare parts for a new leader if I choose to re-arm him later on. The new recruit stands out with a beret (hasn't earned his full kit yet) and a standard lasgun, no hot shot pack, no red dot sight.  I clipped off the scope and the wires running from gun to back pack to represent this.  The beret will make it very easy to spot new recruits in the team.  If this one gets promoted I'll swap the model out with a proper Scion and re-purpose it for another new recruit. 

The real fun was the sniper.  Why is it that there are no plastic Astra Militarum snipers?!  Anyway...I clipped the barrel off the lasgun and drilled out the hand grip as you would a gun barrel.  I then clipped the barrel from a Space Marine Scout sniper rifle and glued it into the front hand grip of the lasgun that I drilled out. I did not think to take WIP pictures, but you can see the sniper above on the right side of the back rank of Scions.  I added the support legs from a Space Marine Scout heavy bolter, and replaced the lasgun battery "clip" with a true clip snipped from a Space Marine bolter. This last modification was to help the weapon look a little more sniper-like and a little less lasgun like.

The shot above shows some detail of the work on the inside of the leader's coat. I'm figuring some element of the Zetic Tigers were dispatched to the sprawl on one mission or another and got pretty messed up.  This remaining band is held together by a surviving Tempestor Prime and continues to do the Emperor's work. I'm currently floating the kill team name "Tempestor Rock's Fuggin' Few".  

Overall, if this team comes out well I'll adopt the scheme of the 29th Zetic Tigers for my full force of Tempestus Scions in the future.  For now, this has been a great way to enjoy these brilliant models in my games of Shadow Wars: Armageddon.

So that's what I'm working on this July.  I hope your own hobby projects and games are going well.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

Progress, progress, progress!

A short post to share recent progress as June comes to a close.  I'm pretty excited to play the new edition of 40K and after fielding my Deathwatch in my first game the bug to continue the progress I started last fall is back! What I realized I was lacking was BIKES! In the first codex, I didn't get how they really fit into Kill Teams, and they couldn't be used standalone in the Deathwatch formations/detachments. Now in the new edition, they are back as a sanctioned stand alone unit for Deathwtach, plus add a new ability to kill teams they join - shooting in the same turn the unit withdraws from combat, which normally is not allowed. I had the White Scar model from kill team Cassius, so five more would allow me the option to field two minimum units of three, or break one unit up to mix with other kill teams, etc..

So of course I had to buy a box and get them assembled.  I went heavy with the hand weapons as it seems a waste to run them with just the bolters on the bike. I may regret that when playing with points instead of power levels, but we'll see. The group above is led by a Dark Angels Ravenwing biker as a nod to my long time favorite Space Marine chapter. In all, I included members from the Dark Angels, Iron Hands, White Scars, Ultra Marines and Black Templars chapters in this squad.

So far I have only gotten as far as priming (Vallejo Black Primer) and base coating the armor (Abaddon Black) with the air brush. The I took a break to put some flesh on the Ork boyz! Basecoat and the first shade/wash layer in the picture below. I'm using the paint recipe form the GW painting guide for Ork boys. Not being a dedicated Ork player, I saw to reason to break with cannon and innovate here. I just want some simple, but good lookin' boyz to field.

And not content there, I decided I needed a little more Shadow Wars terrain for my Mechanicum Sector; shown below in all it's emergent glory...

Plenty of terrain for games of Shadow Wars now, and plenty of interest to spice up the occasion 40K game board too.

The tile on the bottom right of the photos is the new work in progress.  Based on the Ferratonic Incinerator kit, I need to pick up another walkway sprue on eBay to give it a little more dimension on the second story (including more railings).  In order to have the third bridge to connect tiles, I had to sacrifice two of the walkway/gantry pieces that come with that kit. I also laid down a few more sections of promethium pipes on a couple of the tiles to give more cover at the ground level as well. 

I'll stop here with six Sector Mechanicus tiles to compliment my existing set of six Imperial Sector tiles. Plenty of great terrain now...and really where will I have the time to paint twelve tiles anyway?!  Well...'ll get it properly based, and primed black anyway...then we'll see where I end up.

That's a lot of hobby for me.  I expect another painting session tonight to round out June.  I'm still torn between painting kill teams and Deathwatch...and terrain...plenty of variety anyway.  Hopefully some more games will come too!

What projects are you looking forward too this summer?

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

On the Workbench [June] - Shadow Wars: Armageddon

So what has been going on this month?  Not as much hobby as I'd hoped, but I did get some games in for the first time in...over a year?  Too long. The new 40K is here!

The new set of Objectives Ready for Primer

I was able to play two Shadow Wars games and one game with the new Warhammer 40K rules.  These games used time I would have otherwise put into my projects so progress (and posts for that matter) is understandably thin this month on that front.

Shadow Wars was as much fun as I expected and I very much enjoyed using my new terrain.  The rules, ironically for a small skirmish game, seem more numerous and complicated than 40K now!  What a switch.  The Death Korps saw action first as they stumbled onto a small force of Necrons.  This being the first game of Shadow Wars and my first game of any sort in quite a while, I played poorly so I won't look at this game as a fair test of the Astra Militarum in Shadow Wars.

I was out positioned and out shot from the beginning and so this game never really developed. I bottled after losing four fighters down or out. I was interested to see that even after losing, I got one promethium and to standard 100 pts for improving the team. My existing list was a mix of shooting and hand-to-hand capabilities. After seeing the Orks beat up (see below) I'm having second thoughts on how the Death Korps should equip themselves.  I believe I need more ranged weapons and strategy, but we'll see.

Next up were the Orks which got tabled after a brutal head-to-head clash with a group of Harlequins. My Ork list was more shooty, but Harlequins move fast and you don't get much shooting time, or so was my experience!  When I did shoot (and I did shoot a lot where it was possible), it made no difference due to poor Orky ballistics, cover (and its effect on to-hit rolls) and the Harlequins naturally good saving throws.  Not a single wound was scored after many, many dice rolls.

They fared a little better in hand-to-hand.  They still never scored a wound on the Harlequins, but they at least stayed on combat for several turns.  I felt there were chances where the dice could have rolled different and change the course of the game. Doubling up on harlequins fighters wasn't enough.  Probably needed four fighters on one Harlequin to brig them down. They have SOOOO many dice to throw during combat...even when I felt I got good rolls, the Harlequin fighters would be two or three points better.  They had trouble wounding the Orks which help the team fight it out, but the Orks simply couldn't hit the tricksy Eldar players either. In the end, the team passed a couple bottle rolls and in the end went down to an Ork. This was a test game, not part of a campaign, so I wasn't concerned about losing fighters.

The new edition 40K game was also very fun.  My opponent and I threw together power level lists using a 50 power level max. As a sample game, we didn't use detachments and just picked what seemed to be a reasonable mix of fun units.  This part of the new rules was very cool as I got a list together in ten minutes from my existing Deathwatch collection and we got right to gaming.  We only got two (maybe it was three) game turns in before we had to call it on account of time, but it wasn't because of the 40K rules.  We simply didn't leave enough time for a game following our previous Shadow Wars game.  We of course went slow having not played the new rules before and being rusty in general - though in this case, not having played 7th in quite a while was probably a benefit as the new game is just very different.

I was pleased to see my Deathwatch dreadnought deal death and absorb far more punishment than would have been possible in earlier editions.  Looking back, I forgot to degrade his performance in later turns as he suffered more wounds. Teleporting in terminators is coo again.  Much more fun to place models in a position of choice and to relatively act normally. A unit of death watch terminators was very effective against Eldar foot sloggers...the game was tied when we closed.  I'm not sure I would have managed a win had it gone on to a normal conclusion.

So...what's on the work bench?  Well, I put some base color on the Orks, and hit up the Death Korps long coats with the air brush...

I should have some more progress to show on the Shadow War teams soon.  I am really looking forward to returning to the Death Korps, I even spent time last night reviewing the paint recipe again. Orks are a fun change too.  I'd like to get these two teams painted before getting too wrapped up with continuing 40K projects inspired by the new rules...oh and all the terrain! :) Much to do...

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

Ork Boys WIP Part 2 - Testing the Paint

Waaaaaaagh!

So my first ever Warhammer 40K army was Orks from the Second Edition.  I played them into the Third Edition, then gave them up for Dark Angels, and later Tyranids, Tau, and, well, everything else, really! :)

With the new Shadow Wars: Armageddon game, I have an opportunity to play with the green skins again without investing in a whole army, and I knew I must given that the models came with the game and were just sitting there waiting to be built!  It has been fun to go back to the drawing board and look at painting Orks in the context of everything we do now versus my own pale skills of the past and what was done in the mid-90's with miniature painting in general.

I wanted to make the Ork team something special in my collection, so I set about painting two test models that are going to be add-ons to the kill team where necessary and not part of the core nine the team begins with. This really grew from the fact that the boxed set allowed me to build 11 models, and not through any grander strategy on my part.

Here are close ups of the boys, one with Choppa and Stikk Bombs, and the other a simple shoota.

I need to spend more time managing white balance with my photography.  I think the blue background and grey plastic are a challenge for the auto settings on my iPhone photo app.  But anyway, there they are...simple enough, no frills on these base test models!

I wanted to get comfortable painting Ork flesh since pretty much all of my other armies for 40K have little or no flesh apart from the odd helmet-less head. I just don't paint skin all that often!  So after reviewing a few online tutorials and checking a digital copy of the Citadel Painting guide for Orks, I chose my test recipe and purchased what I needed. Then I finally got stuck in and laid some paint down...

I like the results on these models quite a bit.  I really got into the faces, and had fun with the Deathskulls war paint motif. This choice pays homage to my original 40K Ork army which was also drawn from the Deathskulls clan.  These looters are a perfect fit for scrounging about in the ruined hives of Armageddon.

Wot are ye lookin' at, umie?!

Light is bouncing all around in this close up - I'm very certain there isn't blue paint on the teeth of the model, for instance.  I really enjoy the features of these sculpts and how they come alive under a little paint.  At the end of this session, I was satisfied with the results and feel ready to move forward.  I'll finish these two boys up, but I'm pretty confident painting the rest of the surfaces here since they are treated pretty much the same as I've done on various pieces in my collection.  

Until next time,

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

Shadow War Ork Boyz WIP and more...

Progress continues on Shadow War: Armageddon terrain and kill teams.The new edition of 40K looks very cool and I know I have to make as much progress as possible before I am compelled to put this aside and launch myself into the new rule set. I'm certain to feel the tug of my existing armies and projects as models find new life in the changes to how everything is fielded.

This week I assembled my Ork Boyz from the Shadow War: Armageddon boxed set.  While I blinged them out with some kommando gear from Forge World that I casually picked up while completing my collection of soon to be OOP books.  I honestly can't get enough of the Forge World books!

I've not yet played a game, but I hope these Boyz do well in the rules.  I'm thinking I'll play a few mock games on my own to get a feel for the rules and shake some things out.  I can test out how these brutes do against my Space Marine and Astra Militarum kill teams for now.  I haven't played or modelled orks since Second edition when they were my first ever 40K army!

The boyz will get a primer coat asap, then it's off to the hobby store for some Ork colors I don't generally use - primarily greens for the skin. I think Harlequins may be next up on the kill team to-do list...then maybe Genestealer Cultists or Skitarii?

The Shadow War terrain tiles got some love too.  The plastic is mostly glued up and all the bling has been added.  I originally left off most of the extra bits until I was sure I had settled on the final arrangement of the major parts. After priming, they will get glued down to the plywood tiles and the final ground cover and whatever else laid down and primed as well.  Though looking at things, I may need to hold off and paint the under sides before gluing things down to their final places. I can see it will be hard to reach a lot of the cool fine details in this stuff.

This terrain looks sooo good next to the Sector Imperialis pieces.  With a fun battle mat underneath, this is really the dream terrain I've been envisioning for years.  I'm afraid the foam core set from years past will be permanently retired now.  I will keep the fond memories of building, painting and playing many games on it, though!  I'll have to retire them with a post here to commemorate all the hard work that went into producing them.  They were my very first major scratch-build terrain project. 

Below is another scenic tile I'm playing with using the remaining containers and Promethium Generator.  It adds some variety and cover...not sure if it stays or gets reconfigured yet.  I like how it looks along with the crane and container tile visible in the pictures above.

The full table is coming together and I look forward to settling on the final configurations for the tiles so it can all be primed and based for play.   As much as I'd like to have it all painted up, the reality is that these pieces will see many games before I get everything painted.  I have some ambitious thoughts about getting a bunch of relevant paint together and going full gangsta with the air brush for a couple sessions to lay down some colors to an easy table top standard.

If successful, this approach might make the table look better until I make time to get all the details down for each tile...something that may very well never happen in my life time given the many other projects I have now and possibilities yet to come.  I have added six tiles to the five or so building tiles I already head.  Getting all the base colors and some simple washes down would go a long way towards insuring the pieces are consistent and remain so over time, too.  So much to paint!

So until next time...

Cheers and happy gaming!