PAINTING: Khorne Berzerker numero uno

I had a nightmare yesterday, otherwise I would have posted this then.

I was volunteered to 'sort out' my girlfriend's parents TV/VCR/DVD/Satellite system, so I trundled over there at ten past two. I wasn't finished by three o'clock so I had to stop for the Carling Cup Final. I sat twiddling my thumbs until it finished. Only it was a draw after ninety minutes and they had to play 30 minutes extra time. Eventually, after a good two and a half hour interruption, I got to finish the job. The problem was that I lost my whole Sunday afternoon and got to do no gaming stuff. Rats.

On Saturday, I had managed to get some paint on a model. I decided to change my tactics in order to get the Berzerkers completed. I think part of my reluctance to start was because I baulked at the thought of production line painting all eight models. Eight lots of Chaos Black on the power armour followed by eight layers of Mechrite Red followed by eight layers of Blood Red, etc.

My new plan was to paint one model at a time until it was done, then move on to the next. I hoped that this would give me some motivation as I would feel like I was getting somewhere.

I chose the worst model of the bunch as a kind of test model to work out the paint scheme. The picture shows him after I had added some Chaos Black after the whole model had been drybrushed with a Brass colour.


Next I painted the other metallics Boltgun Metal.


The next colour changed the look of the model instantly. I painted the power armour Mechrite Red. For some reason in these pics (possibly because of the flash) it looks very pink.


A mix of Mechrite Red and Blood Red deepened the armour colour nicely. I washed it with a mix of Brown Ink and Chestnut Ink. I was going for a far deeper shade of Red than my loyalist Blood Angels, thinking it would contrast well with the Brass.



Lastly I painted some Codex Grey on the weapons. As you can see it's very shaky on the chainsword; I'll go back and paint in some Chaos Black to tidy it up.

There we have it - a virtually finished model in about an hour. The wash has pooled a bit on the armour so I need to work on the consistency but otherwise I'm pretty happy.

One down, seven to go.

Before I go, I'm bringing you a pretty big battle report this time around. It's another game involving my Tau who were pitted against their gaming nemesis the Necrons. Read all about it here.

GENERAL: Too busy to blog

I have another day off work today so I intend to concentrate on lots of gaming relating stuff. I'll hopefully be posting up some of my efforts over the weekend.

In the meantime I'll leave you with a link to my latest battle report featuring my Tau. This was a tough game against a Dark Eldar Wych Cult.

If you like battle reports (and all the ones I've been posting aren't enough for you!) you may want to check out Arcadia Prime, a mainly 40k blog with a plethora of after action reports. I particularly recommend this Apocalypse game which is superbly reported.

GENERAL: Friend or foe?

Just a flying visit from me today to flag up another battle report over on my dedicated battle reports blog. This particular game was a four player affair with my Tau allying with Space Wolves to take on Chaos Space Marines and Dark Eldar. Read all about it here.

PAINTING: Old School Bloodletters

Unsurprisingly I have posted a new (old) battle report up on my dedicated blog. I remember this game against Colin well; he modelled his Commander's Crisis suit up with Dark Vader's helmet! Find out if I succumbed to the Dark Side here.

Perhaps surprisingly I have finally taken a photo of my latest painting exploits. Here are my Bloodletters (work in progress).


Over a black undercoat I drybrushed Mechrite Red then mixed in some Blood Red for a lighter drybrush then some Fiery Orange for the lightest drybrush. I then washed the 'letters twice with Magenta Ink. In retrospect I think just the one wash would have done as it left enough of the base coats showing to really define the models. Still, they look pretty cool.

There's not really a lot to do to finish them; just some blacklining around the weapons, paint the horns/claws and some detail work on the faces. I reckon that's about two hours work plus the basing. Then it's on to the Berzerkers.

GENERAL: Shoot the pointy ears

Just another brief update to point you in the direction of my latest battle report. This game was played against Ken's beautifully painted Biel-Tan Eldar force.

Ciao for now.

GENERAL: The white flag

Another day, another Tau battle report. This game was Take and Hold against a Chaos Space Marine army. Great.

My cold/flu took a really bad turn over the last couple of days so I had to wave the white flag and go to the Quack for some anti-biotics. They are now racing around my system and will probably kick in on Sunday night - just in time to go back to work on Monday. Hurrah.

GENERAL: Sing when you're winning

I bought my girlfriend Singstar for the Playstation and we put it on late last night after we'd returned from dinner. This has made my sore throat much worse and has probably pissed off the neighbours. She loved it.

I'm off to the cinema tonight to watch Sweeney Todd so at least I can sit silently in the dark while it heals.

Still no further progress on the painting front but I have been getting more and more of my old battle reports transferred over to my blog. I've been posted one every day over the past week or so and will continue until I have all of them up. This may take quite some time - I still have over one hundred to complete.

So if you mosey on down to my battle reports blog you can read my latest game using Tau against Tyranids.

GENERAL: Fighting Nurgle

Nurgle has me in it's hideous grip. My throat feels like I have swallowed broken glass and the infection is moving into my sinuses. So no more painting.

I have posted another battle report, though. This game was against Maurice's Space Wolves.

GENERAL: Party till you drop

My cold is raging and I'm totally knackered. It's not just because I'm ill though, I was out partying last night till 2.00am. Since it was touch and go whether I went out at all, this was some achievement. I'm paying for it now.

So I haven't painted anything else but I have posted another old Tau battle report. The odd thing about the report is that it is the 37th 40k battle report on my battle reports blog but only the first against regular, vanilla, Space Marines. This is surprising, given how prevalent Space Marines seem to be.

The good thing about posting all my battle reports is that I'll be able to keep an eye on the real statistics rather than just my perceptions of them.

I record who won first turn in the battle reports for just this reason. Gary and I always have a bit of banter about our 'luck' in previous games and one or other of us usually whines that we haven't gotten our fair share of first turn. Of course the facts sometimes get lost amidst the moaning.

Once I have all our games posted I'll know exactly how we stand.

GENERAL: It started badly, it tailed off a little in the middle and the less said about the end the better, but apart from that it was excellent.

The weekend hasn't started well for me; I woke up with a sore throat and head cold and Newcastle have been thrashed 4-1 at Villa. Still, I'm looking forward to having the rest of the week off work and hopefully getting some painting done.

Indeed, I've spent a little time on my Bloodletters this morning (photo's to come) and read some more of Dark Heresy (the 40k RPG) and the Ork codex (I'd forgotten that I hadn't finished reading it).

I've also posted up my second Tau battle report. This was a five player, 4000 point game against Chaos Space Marines. You can read the full account here.

That's all for now.

GENERAL: Ancient battles of pre-history

I've been able to spend some time on my gaming today and, yes, I have done some painting. I'll show you my progress in a later post.

My other goal today was to get some more of my old battle reports onto my battle reports blog. I have over one hundred to post, so the first decision I had to make was where to start. After a bit of deliberation I decided to start at the beginning.

I started writing down my battle reports back in 2002 when I ventured out of the basement for the first time and into my local Games Workshop store. The army I was using at the time was Tau. You can read the very first game I played here.

I have continued to write out all of my battle reports ever since

GENERAL: Where did it all go wrong?

Has it really been a full week since I posted on this blog? It seems so.

Last time around I made a new plan to finish painting my final few Chaos Space Marines by dedicating 30 minutes per day to them. I didn't finish the models and in fact spent no time on them whatsoever. The only gaming stuff I did all week was to play the sixth 40k campaign game and then write up the battle report. If you're following the campaign you can check it out here.

I have a few excuses for not finding the time to paint; I'm halfway through a fairly heavy exercise regime, I've worked a six day week, I've been out visiting friends, I've been writing up the battle report above. Incidentally, the campaign itself is taking up a serious amount of my time, much more than I had thought it would before I started it. It takes an evening to play each game and there are ten in the whole campaign. Then each battle report takes two to three hours to produce including editing the photographs, writing an account of the action and totting up all the experience points.

Excuses aside, I need to get painting. For starters, I need to try and get them into at least one campaign game before it finishes!

So here I go again; I'll try and get 30 minutes of painting time every day this week.