GENERAL: Game on

Just a quickie to point you in the direction of the first battle report from the Gauntlet 2003 tournament which can be found here. It was also my first ever competitive game of 40k and I used my Daemonhunters to take on Dark Eldar.

GENERAL: Introduction part deux

I'm putting off painting the Terminators until the weekend when I have a little more time. With what little hobby time I have at the moment I'm publishing more of my exploits at the Gauntlet Tournament 2003.

I posted the introduction yesterday but then found some more of it today that I forgot to include. So the introduction part two is here and I'll post the first game report up tomorrow. I can't seem to find any photographs for the games I'm afraid, so they'll all be text only. Still it's been fun for me to revisit what was my first ever competitive event.

Seeya tomorrow.

GENERAL: A draw a win and a start

I missed my news and rumours update yesterday.

This was partly due to there not being anything particularly exciting to report on but mostly because of the football. I'm a rabid Newcastle United fan (I bleed black and white blood) and we played a crucial game last night. Unfortunately we only got a draw and relegation is a very real possibility. We have four more games to save ourselves and I'll be watching them all.

It's also getting to the business end of the Champions League games and I'll be off to watch Barcelona v Chelsea once I post this. Man Utd play Arsenal tomorrow night.

In summary - I might be blogging a bit less between now and the end of the footie season.

I do have some kind of news, though.

I'm an avid reader of Graeme's Fantasy book review blog (via google reader on my iPhone) and he regularly runs competitions to win copies of the books he reviews. Graeme recently reviewed The Killing Ground by Graham McNeill and ran a competition to win that and the follow-up Courage and Honour. I eagerly entered as I have read the first three books of the series but couldn't buy the latter books because of my New Year resolution not to buy GW novels in 2009.

Yesterday I was very pleased to find out I was one of the winners and I look forward to getting them through the post soon (hopefully in time for me to take one of them away on holiday).

Thanks Graeme!

And finally...

As you're all no doubt aware I am almost done transcribing my battle reports over to my battle reports blog. I just have two Tournaments and one Campaign left to port over. I decided to start with the Tournaments so you can read the introduction to the Gauntlet 2003 here. I hope to post the three games and after action report in the coming week or two.

PAINTING: Red all over

Just a quick blog update to say I've completed the Mechrite Red base layer on the Terminator armour.

This was no small task as each model took around thirty minutes to paint. I did the first on Tuesday night and then the rest on Thursday. I really didn't feel like painting as I was shattered from work but I knuckled down thinking I'd paint one or two but I kept on going and finished the lot. Unfortunately I'm working over the weekend so I probably won't get anything else done then, but I might have some time after work during the week.

Fingers crossed.

NEW MODEL FUND: On Guard

This will be a worthwhile update for the New Model Fund.

I recently sold all of my Praetorian Imperial Guard via eBay and they pulled in a whopping £207.72. Remember I also sold some models previously in a private sale for £45 so the whole force netted me over £250. Result!

That means my New Model Fund now stands at a mighty £464.60, less than £50 short of my target of £500 for the entire year. It also means that I have raked in an impressive £1001.72 from eBay sales since January 2007 when I started the fund.

The fact that I sold these models also addressed one of the New Year resolutions that I was failing at; selling stuff on eBay. I hope to keep up the selling over the coming months.

Sold in 2009
My entire Praetorian Imperial Guard army (70+ models).


My model wishlist:

40k
Valkyrie
Plastic Cadian Command Squad
Plastic Catachan Command Squad
Hellhound
Baal Predator
Bloodcrushers of Khorne

Apocalypse
Stompa
Shadowsword

Warhammer Fantasy
Hell cannon
Khorne Lord on Juggernaught

Other game systems
Epic IG army
Epic Ork army

PAINTING: 'Eavy Metal

I did a little painting over the weekend on my Terminators.


Like the rest of my Blood Angel infantry models I started with the metallics first. The weapons and details on the armour are Boltgun Metal with a Mithril Silver drybrush then a Badab Black wash. The fancier bits, like the pommel on the Sergeant's powersword and his Iron Halo are layered with Tin Bitz, Brazen Brass, Burnished Gold and Mithril Silver followed by a Gryphonne Sepia wash. Nice and easy and they provide good results.

I also did most of the work on the bases. My main colour is Khemri Brown, drybrushed with Bleached Bone and then washed with Devlan Mud. I picked out the bits of ruined buildings in Scorched Brown then drybrushed this up to pure Catachan Green and then again drybrushed up to pure Skull White.

Unfortunately this didn't give me the pale green colour I was looking and just made the ruins blend into the base so I washed them all with Thraka Green. I'm still not convinced by the effect so I stopped there without picking out the rest of the features. I'll paint the rest of the models and then come back to the bases later.

I've also undercoated my Dreadnought with Chaos Black so it's likely I'll move onto that after the Terminators.

NEWS AND RUMOURS: Games Day France

Games Day France was held over the weekend and with it came confirmation of a lot of Planetstrike rumours. This is a 40k expansion book, much like Cities of Death, which changes the fundamental way of playing the game by monkeying about with missions, terrain and force organisation charts.

The book itself was available to leaf through and GeekyLouis on Warseer posted photos of some of the pages here. The Ironclad Dreadnought is in there, as well as lots of pics of the new terrain kits.

These include the landing pad (which has moveable pieces), the Imperial bastion and the Dark Angels fortress.

Brusilov provided a very comprehensive write up of his experience at Games Day much of which I've reproduced below.

I had a long chat with Mr Phil Kelly (thanks for your kindness and patience Phil), here are things I can remember on top of my head:

- Planetstrike is coming to a store near you next July ;

- all the bunkers including the tower are coming in plastic and will be modular. Phil explained to me that you could easily build a tall fortress wall out of the tower ;

- there is a massive fortress somewhere in the book (don't know if there is a pic somewhere) with a Dark Angels theme. From what I understood, it's coming in plastic too! It's basically a three-part citadel...

- the FOC are indeed different : the only compulsory choice for the attacke is one HQ. He can have up to SIX (yes, six!) Elite Choices. Defender has standard compulsory choices (HQ + 2 Troops) but gets to pick SIX HS choices (Imperial Guard here I come!)

- Phil gave me a rough outline of how the game plays : equal points for each side, opponents agree on a number of stratagem points (like in Cities of Death or Apocalypse). Defender buys fortifications with these points (as well as a few tricks : like a back exit to your bunker to charge the enemy in the rear). Attacker picks nasty tricks. Weapons mounted on fortifications can obviously fire upon the enemy (cannot remember if it's only in the first turn, may be so). Defenders appear to get a free round of shooting before the game starts. Two stratagems I could remember are 1) basically throwing an asteroid at the enemy 2) Dark Eldar trick : some form of sonic attack that reduces the Ld of the enemy by -1 every turn (don't remember if it applies to the whole board)

- Speaking of Dark Eldar (nice transition is it not?), I quizzed the man about everyone's favourite pirates. Apparently Phil himself is writing the book. They're redesigning the whole thing from the bottom up : minis, background (he specifically mentioned fleshing it out, which is pretty nice). He would not give me a date (said things get shifted around as development progesses) but we might hope to see it in 2010 (don't quote me on this, it's just personal opinion and in no way endorsed by Phill Kelly) ;

- in other news, I asked him about the Guard tank variants. He said that they'll get around to making them all (couldn't get a confirmation as far as the Deathstrike goes), but the Russes seem to take priority. When I mentioned the artillery (Manticore and such like), he said FW makes very nice models for those. So kits for artillery are a thing of the far future ;

- I questioned him about plastic longcoat guards (with the cover of planetstrike and all that). He basically said they'd love to do it and might get around to do it. When I mentionned the greatcoat Cadian officer, he did admit he looked rather nice. What I get out from this, it's no longer technically infeasible (as was argued a few years back), it's more a question of opportunity ;

- There is a very nice Space Wolves versus Tau picture in Planetstrike. When I asked whether our favourite Space Puppies were coming back, Phill answered with a definitive yes, but without a date

- They're also working on the Necrons. But Phil would not give me details, as it seems he's not directly involved in the projet (and it seems less advanced than the Dark Eldar from what I could infer) and not a date, but they're working on them.

-Thinking about FW, here is some stuff I can remember from a discussion with a FW representative

-The new IA on the Siege of Vraks will include rules for the FW Brass Scorpion (dubbed Greater Brass Scorpion, it has 3 SP) and the Slaughterers (those are nasty : FA 13, fleet of foot, rage ...).

-I asked whether there were another Chaos machine in the works and there is supposed to be one (couldn't get details though) and it's not in the new IA (which makes me dubious as to its existence)

-The Lord of Change is supposed to be released for Christmas (you can thank Santa Tzeentch).

-The next IA after Vraks pt 3 will be about Orks versus Elysians (but I don't think that was news).

-There is no further plan for Krieg release in the pipeline (there may be an odd release or two in the distant future).

That's basically all I can remember ATM.

I'm really looking forward to this game expansion. It should come inbetween finishing my Blood Angels and starting my Orks so I might just be able to finish my trench board as the kits are released. This would be unheard of for me as I usually have so many projects lined up that I'm two years behind the times.

Fingers crossed.

Which is better, Daemonhunters or Chaos Space Marines? There's only one way to find out...FIGHT!
As I mentioned in yesterday's blog I was working on another pictorial battle report. I finished it off today so I thought I'd share it immediately. This was a game played a long time ago, in 3rd edition or maybe the very early days of 40k 4th edition, so long ago in fact that I can't remember who I played against. Most probably it was against Gary, but the models on both sides are from my collection so perhaps it was my sister, a friend or maybe it was one of the rare solo games I played.

Anyway, it looks pretty with all those photographs (even if some of them are quite small) and there is a lot of background fluff written into it too. It's a game including Daemonhunters and Chaos Space Marines using a mission from the Daemonhunters codex; Stop the Ritual.

Check it out here.

GENERAL: Clash of the Titans

Earlier in the week I posted a massive game write up on my battle reports blog, replete with dozens of photographs (not great ones I admit).

Nowadays it would be classed as an Apocalypse game but back in the day, before Apocalypse was a twinkle in Jervis' eye, it was just a 'bring as many models you have for your army, slap them on the table and go at it' game. The total points cost of all the models on the table was somewhere in the region of 10,000 points - all of them fully painted.

I chose my Blood Angels and Gary went for his Chaos Space Marines. We used six special characters: Dante, Mephiston, Corbulo and Tycho took on Ahriman and Khârn.

You can read the whole fething thing here.

I'm currently halfway through porting over another pictorial report which I'll be able to post in the next few days.

GENERAL: What I did during the Easter holidays

I've been off the grid for a bit.

I was working, I had friends up to stay for the weekend, I saw the family and there was a Newcastle match but hopefully things should get back to normal on the blogging front over the coming week.

Despite my packed schedule I still found some time to dedicate to gaming.

This afternoon I packed up loads of my Praetorian models ready to be posted to their new homes. The eBay auctions finished today and they will make a sizable contribution to my New Model Fund. When the final few payments arrive and the models are packed off safely I'll update the NMF in a full blog post.

Yesterday afternoon I spent twenty minutes scrubbing the paint from my plastic Catachans with a toothbrush. They had spent several days in a bath of Dettol and I'm pleased to report that it works a treat! I now have the next batch soaking and over the coming weeks I'll strip all the rest of my Imperial Guard models, just in time for the new codex.

What I'm most proud of is my conversion of another battle report. This is a real monster - by far my biggest yet. It's a clash between my Tau (sadly sold) and Gary's Dark Eldar, and features over twenty photographs. I hope you like it.

My immediate plans are now to paint up my Terminators and I hope to have them finished by the end of April.

OPINION: On poor units

Over on Warseer Natura posted this question:

Something's been bugging me for a while now, because it just doesn't seem to make any sense. In every Codex or Fantasy Army, there are units that the vast majority of people won't take. This is almost always due to the unit being perceived as overpriced or underpowered. In rare cases the model itself may detract players from using it, but the reverse is also true: the model itself may be so awesome that regardless of it's usefulness, you buy one. You're unlikely to buy a whole swag of them however, and any sales of these models will be vastly outweighed by people buying units perceived as powerful or useful.

Now here's the part that confuses me. Games Workshop write the rules and produce the models. It's in their interest to sell as many models as possible, obviously. So why, when writing the rules, would you create intentionally bad units that people will almost never take? Surely it makes far more sense to make units as equally attractive as possible. I say intentionally here because I simply cannot believe that the rulebook writers honestly thought all their entries were good.

I'm not suggesting that GW make every unit an uber-death-dealing monster. I just can't understand why they'd shoot themselves in the foot like this.


This was my view on the matter.

In order think about why GW might create poor units you first need to ask why GW produces army lists and the units that populate, then you can put them into some sort of context.

GW releases army lists to allow people to play games of different types including tournament play, pick up games at a GW shop or club, casual basement games at home against regular opponents and campaign games.

Then each army book/codex includes units for their in game effectiveness, to highlight a theme or background to the army, for legacy reasons (because a unit was included in the last three lists) or for aesthetics because a cool model exists.

As has been pointed out, tournament and pick-up game players are the most likely to complain about poor units because they have to pick units without knowing which army they are facing in a competitive environment. They have to look at the army list and make a judgement about which units will be most useful. All other considerations are secondary.

But that is not the only way of playing the game.

Players in a casual setting are unlikely to spam a forum with complaints that a unit is poor because they know who they are facing every week. This shifts the balance of army books quite significantly. For instance I have recently been playing a lot of casual games against a Chaos Daemon player using my Daemonhunters. Because I know what I will come up against every week I know I can load up on some units that are great against Daemons but would be classed as poor against everything else.

Another good example is my WFB games, which I have not been playing for very long. My only opponent is a Dark Elf player and I play Warriors of Chaos. He picks a Hydra every game and thinks it is a poor choice because my Knights and characters beat it up in many of my games, but I hear that it is a bargain in competitive play. His view is entirely coloured by the types of games he plays.

And what about background driven/scenario driven/campaign play? At least if GW includes an entry for a Techmarine it gives players an option to use one for such games.

Plus you have armies, sub lists and units such as the Eldar Craftworlds, Ork clans, IG regiments which GW cannot drop. If GW were redesigning 40k as a game with a totally clean slate some of these ideas would be dropped or changed considerably and the game would be easier to balance but GW has 20+ years of history to adhere to. They have tried to incorporate these armies into the main lists recently but it is obviously very tricky to balance everything together.

How can GW write a codex which allows an Eldar player to choose freely between all units and balance that against a player just picking from Iyanden units? A separate book for each is one option but at one point there were something like 60 different army lists available for 40k, not including Forge World. Balance is then even harder to obtain especially as editions of the core rules change.

So, just to sum up, I think that it depends entirely upon how you play the game.

PAINTING AND MODELLING: Decals

To do list:

• DONE - Convert and post up another battle report
• DONE - Complete my Dreadnought conversion
• DONE - Undercoat the interior of my Land Raider Crusader
• DONE - Start stripping my plastic Catachans
• DONE - Sort out my podcasts on iTunes
• DONE - Check my IG listings on eBay and link to the auction from this blog
• Paint the metallics on my Terminators
• DONE - Apply transfers to my Techmarine and Death Company
• Sort out my Blood Angels photographs on Picasa

I've finished adding transfers to my Techmarine and Death Company.

The Techmarine was tricky because I needed a Blood Angel chapter badge but due to the detailing on the shoulder pad it had to be smaller than the ones I usually use. I dug around my bag of decals and finally found the yellow one you can see on the pic. I had also decided I need a transfer on his kneepad but this was a smaller space again. I've put a transfer on there from my first edition Space Marines - a tiny Blood Angels blood drop and wings surrounded by a black circle. It was still a bit big and I had trouble curling it round the pad so I just hope it sticks!

Rather predictably I added lots of skulls to the Death Company as well as a campaign badge to the Chaplain. I figured the Death Company wouldn't have campaign badges because their armour has been overpainted just before the battle and they wouldn't be expected to survive long enough to need one.

And that's it from me today. I didn't get round to painting my Terminators or sorting out my photos on Picasa but I have finished off a lot of those niggly little things on the list so I'm happy enough.

The Chinese food is ordered, I'm going to open a bottle of wine and watch some telly.

Seeya

SELLING: First rank SELL! Second rank SELL!

To do list:

• DONE - Convert and post up another battle report
• DONE - Complete my Dreadnought conversion
• DONE - Undercoat the interior of my Land Raider Crusader
• DONE - Start stripping my plastic Catachans
• DONE - Sort out my podcasts on iTunes
• DONE - Check my IG listings on eBay and link to the auction from this blog
• Paint the metallics on my Terminators
• Apply transfers to my Techmarine and Death Company
• Sort out my Blood Angels photographs on Picasa
  

Battle report
The battle report I have posted here is a bit of a cheat as far as my to-do list goes. I was supposed to have written up one of my photo heavy games but instead I found an old text only report that I'd forgotten to blog about earlier. It's a 2000 point game where my Chaos Space Marines took on Gary's Dark Eldar in a 4th edition game.

eBay
And now for the ad break.

After dithering for many a blog entry over the entire lifetime of this blog I've only gone and put all my Praetorians up for sale on eBay.

Amongst the auctions are seven heavy weapon teams, eight special weapons, three sergeants, two captains, two standard bearers, two buglers and dozens of Infantrymen.

The sale comes to an end on Sunday and I'm hoping that they'll go to a good home in time for the new Imperial Guard codex. I also hope they'll bring in some decent funds for my New Model Fund.

Replies
Much to my surprise people have been following my ramblings and have actually taken the time to post comments, so it's only right that I salute them and reply.
@Tristan - I'm getting in a curry and will be watching the game with a can of Stella tonight! It'll take my mind off the Toon's fight against relegation.
@bG - Thanks for the tips. I really hope it works OK because I've got a lot of models that will be stripped and repainted if it does.
@suneokun - An absolutely great read and you put my thoughts into words better than I did. I still like the Cadians but the Catachans just ooze character. For anyone who has checked the link you can do so here.

What to do, what to do...

MODELLING: Dreadnought weapon refit

To do list:

• Convert and post up another battle report
• DONE - Complete my Dreadnought conversion
• DONE - Undercoat the interior of my Land Raider Crusader
• DONE - Start stripping my plastic Catachans
• DONE - Sort out my podcasts on iTunes
• Check my IG listings on eBay and link to the auction from this blog
• Paint the metallics on my Terminators
• Apply transfers to my Techmarine and Death Company
• Sort out my Blood Angels photographs on Picasa

The Dreadnought conversion is a strange one. The model comes from the Assault on Black Reach boxed set and GW gave it a multi-melta arm because their regular plastic Dread doesn't have that option. However I don't own a plastic Dreadnought. I have two metals ones; a Furioso and a very old Blood Angels specific one which is armed with a multi-melta.

Back in the day this was a great weapon as it could be shot as a character or vehicle killer, much as now OR it could be shot with a flame template. This made it very flexible. Now it is just a short ranged single shot weapon and virtually all of the other weapon fits are better, either because of their range, rate of fire or accuracy. Despite this I've kept my metal Dread's multi-melta but when it came to this plastic model I wanted something else.

I settled on the assault cannon because I had one spare from an old Baal predator.


The gun barrels were easy to swap out but I had a devil of a job getting the ammo feed on there. After experimenting with greenstuff I settled on using feeds left over from my Defiler/Brass Scorpion/Mantis Stalk Tank conversion.

I had also planned to convert the storm bolter to a heavy flamer but it is built right into the arm and it would take a massive effort to swap. What I'll do is leave the arms unglued so that I can remove them. I'm sure at some point in the future I'll acquire a plastic dreadnought kit and I'll be able to swap the arms out as I wish.

At least the storm bolter and assault cannon complement each somewhat.

Righto - onwards and upwards.

PAINTING AND MODELLING: Naked Catachans

To do list:

• Convert and post up another battle report
• Complete my Dreadnought conversion
• DONE - Undercoat the interior of my Land Raider Crusader
• DONE - Start stripping my plastic Catachans
• DONE - Sort out my podcasts on iTunes
• Check my IG listings on eBay and link to the auction from this blog
• Paint the metallics on my Terminators
• Apply transfers to my Techmarine and Death Company
• Sort out my Blood Angels photographs on Picasa

I did a little homework on the Internet yesterday and discovered that Dettol can be used to strip plastic models. I had already used Nitro Mors to strip metal models many times before but I have never stripped plastic models successfully. The usual advice is to use Simple Green but I think this must be an American product because I've never seen it up for sale anywhere in the UK. Therefore I was pleased when I heard about using Dettol instead because it is readily available.

The first models I want to strip are my Catachan Imperial Guardsmen.


I know, I know, the models aren't great, but I want to make use of them. This is for three main reasons.

The first reason is that I actually quite like the look of them, contrary to public opinion. I remember well when they first appeared along with the Perry twins other metal IG regiments and I fell in love with the Guard immediately. I especially liked the meltagun model, replete with bandanna. Maybe it's because I watched too many Vietnam war movies at a suggestible age - movies like Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Rambo and Hamburger Hill. I just love the aesthetic.

The second is that I already have an absolute tonne of them! I bought a bunch of Catachans second hand for a pittance many, many years ago and I could probably put together a 1500 point army without buying a single new model. Having said that I would need to buy more models to make the army more effective on the tabletop. Games Workshop have continued to support the Catachan plastics with new releases and with the new IG codex out within the month it's an ideal time to finish the army.

The third reason is that lots of people dislike the models so they sell poorly on eBay. It wouldn't be worth my while to try and sell them, so I might as well keep them.

So I've dumped a handful in the Dettol and I'll keep you all posted to see if it works.

Fingers crossed!

GENERAL: Casting pods

To do list:

• Convert and post up another battle report
• Complete my Dreadnought conversion
• DONE - Undercoat the interior of my Land Raider Crusader
• Start stripping my plastic Catachans
• DONE - Sort out my podcasts on iTunes
• Check my IG listings on eBay and link to the auction from this blog
• Paint the metallics on my Terminators
• Apply transfers to my Techmarine and Death Company
• Sort out my Blood Angels photographs on Picasa

If you haven't already guessed I've been off work for the past few days. While I've been pottering away on my chores and doing a bit of hobby stuff I've been listening to lots and lots of podcasts. In future blog posts I plan to review some of the podcasts I listen to, but today I just needed to tidy up my podcasts in iTunes. My iPhone is bulging with content and I'm struggling to fit everything on there.

I went through all of my Meeples and Miniatures podcasts and deleted them, just keeping episode 23 which contains some Space Hulk content. I also went through the Penny Arcade Dungeons and Dragons podcasts and downloaded the latest episode which includes Wil Wheaton playing 4th edition D&D, deleting the rest. I only stumbled across these podcasts recently and downloaded all the old episodes but they were just taking up space. If I want to I'll go back and re-download them at a later date.

I also deleted all the other podcasts I've already listened to such as Bad Dice, Podhammer, 40k Radio, World's End Radio, D6 Generation, Dice Like Thunder and This Week in Wargaming.

Now I have 1.68 GB of free space on my iPhone. Result!

What to do next?

GENERAL: Spray away

To do list:

• Convert and post up another battle report
• Complete my Dreadnought conversion
• DONE - Undercoat the interior of my Land Raider Crusader
• Start stripping my plastic Catachans
• Sort out my podcasts on iTunes
• Check my IG listings on eBay and link to the auction from this blog
• Paint the metallics on my Terminators
• Apply transfers to my Techmarine and Death Company
• Sort out my Blood Angels photographs on Picasa

Here's the proof.

I used Halford's white primer for the interior rather than Game's Workshop's own brand Skull White. It was £6.99 for 500ml instead of £8 for 400ml. I had to spray indoors because it is so windy outside and then had to open a window to get rid of the fumes. I think this has roughed up the undercoat a little. It's not bad though, and will certainly be good enough for a quick paintjob on the inside of the vehicle.

I wasn't brave enough to buy the black car primer at the same time so I plumped for my regular GW Chaos Black. I used this on the engine block and again it didn't dry smoothly. Again, I can live with it.

I've put the Land Raider sprues back in the box for now and update you on the painting of it soon. But now, on to my podcasts.

GENERAL: Where do I start?

I spent this morning in town picking up some hobby essentials like spray undercoats, washes, double sided tape and super glue. That means that this afternoon I'm going to get cracking on all those little projects I've started over the past week and never got round to finishing.

Here's my to do list:

• Convert and post up another battle report
• Complete my Dreadnought conversion
• Undercoat the interior of my Land Raider Crusader
• Start stripping my plastic Catachans
• Sort out my podcasts on iTunes
• Check my IG listings on eBay and link to the auction from this blog
• Paint the metallics on my Terminators
• Apply transfers to my Techmarine and Death Company
• Sort out my Blood Angels photographs on Picasa
  

I've got about five hours to achieve that lot and I'll be blogging throughout the afternoon to keep me motivated.

PAINTING: 'Blood Angels to me!'

I've just posted up my contribution to month eight of the Warseer Tale of 40k Painters challenge. As part of the Tale you have to post up a shot of the newly painted unit along with the rest of your growing army. You've already seen the Techmarine I painted up so here are the group shots.

1235 points of bad ass Blood Angels

Of course I have more models than this painted for the whole army as I started it before the challenge; units such as my Death Company Furioso Dreadnought, my Razorback and some character models. All or some of these may get revisited at some point in the future so that they match my current paint scheme.

Chaaaaarrrge!

You can just see my Terminators at the back of the pic above. I've already started on the bases of these guys and they will be my next unit in the challenge. They weigh in at somewhere close to 250 points and will get me back on target for that 2000 point total if I finish them by the end of the month.

I've fallen a bit behind schedule, you see, largely because I had to play a joker and not submit anything for one month. I also lost some painting time by painting up five Death Company marines that contribute zero points to my army total. So I need to paint up over 200 points worth of models every month to stay the pace.

Failure is not an option!

Hitting the wall
I've really been enjoying my painting recently but I've been finding it a real struggle to get the time to do it. Work is tough at the moment meaning late finishes and weekend working and when I do have the time to paint I'm too physically and mentally drained to do it. I'm also trying to get fit so I'm getting up at six each morning and hitting the gym before work even starts. Crazy I know but hopefully I'll see some decent results for the summer.

All this means that something has to give and unfortunately it is going to be my Tuesday gaming nights with Gary. I've put things on hold for a couple of months to see how things go. I'll certainly be done with my gym blitz by then and if I paint instead of play on a Tuesday night this should hopefully give me enough time to get on top of my painting for the challenge. Perhaps it will get the painting bug out of my system too and I'll be raring to play some games.

Battle report
Speaking of games I have recently posted a 5th edition battle report on my other blog. This is what will turn out to be the last game against Gary for quite a while. Again it saw my Daemonhunter army with Imperial Guard allies take on Gary's growing Chaos Daemon horde. Read it here.

NEWS AND RUMOURS: Forge World open day

Yesterday Forge World held a free open day at Warhammer World. Although I couldn't get there in person I did follow the coverage over on Warseer with some interest.

Orks, Chaos and the Imperial Guard seemed to be favoured armies.

The Orks are getting a load of Trukk kit upgrades, while the Battlewagons will be getting Big Lobbas, Kill Kannons and Supa-zappas.

The Chaos forces will have to wait for a year or so until they receive their Reaver Titan. They also got a Khorne Daemon Prince with Herald, a Khorne Daemon Engine, a Nurgle Daemon engine and a Renegade Militia heavy weapon team for the Siege of Vraks III.

Speaking of Vraks it was confirmed that the third and final instalment of the campaign will be released at Games day 2009 in September. Apparently the Krieg IG army list will be very tank heavy to allow Krieg players to field something other than a siege company. Chaos Space Marine warbands, loyalist Space Marines and Grey Knights will also feature.

More Imperial Guard kits come in the form of upgrades for the Valkyrie. There is a Vendetta conversion kit and a Vulture with two punisher cannons. Yikes!

One thing I wondered about with the release of the new IG codex is the Renegade lists in the first two Vraks books. Supposedly FW will be releasing PDF's to update those lists in line wih the new IG rules. I hope they do as I still plan to finish my Renegade list at some point.

The next IA book after Vraks is rumoured to involve Orks (Goffs, Evil Sunz, and Death Skulls) and Elysian IG.

Ginormous battle report
I've just blogged my latest battle report over on my dedicated blog. It's big in all respects; it was a 2000 point game with my Imperial Guard taking on Gary's Chaos Space Marines and it's a big report, with five photographs coving deployment alone. Check it out here.

PAINTING: completed Techmarine and servitors

I've finished my Techmarine and servitors.

I really enjoyed painting this unit. I got the Techmarine done very quickly over the course of six hours or so and it was very encouraging to see the results come together so quickly on a single model after a few months of painting entire squads.

The servitors were also a breeze in that there were only three main parts to the models; the metallics, flesh and suits and boots.

The metallics I did in the same way as the Techmarine and washed them with Devlan Brown and Gryphonne Sepia in addition to Badab Black. This made the metals look worn and used and very realistic. I painted chips of Mithril Silver on some parts to simulate battle damage and accidental knocks.

The clothing was also quickly done with just a base coat, highlight and wash.

I'm particularly proud of the flesh. I started with Tallarn Flesh and then mixed in Rotting Flesh for that pallid, unhealthy tinge. I added Elf Flesh to highlight the skin and then washed the lot with Ogryn Flesh. I then worked Red Ink around the places where the flesh met the metal parts to make it look sore and raw.

Just looking at the models now I can see I'm actually not 100% finished because I need to dot in the eyes. I'll do that later - it won't take long. I also need to add some transfers to the Techmarine.

I'll need to take some more photos for the Warseer Tale of 40k Painters, along with the whole army done so far but I thought I'd show them to all my readers first.

I know the unit will be rubbish on the table top but hey, they look cool!

The next unit on my painting tray will be my Terminators.

Stripping for profit
I'm very pleased to confirm I won't be taking my clothes off for cash.

I have in fact been stripping the paint from loads of my metal models. The Praetorians were my first priority, but there were also Catachans, Vostroyans, Commissar Yarrick and Tau as well.

Here's my current stripping set up. I'm using Nitro Mors in a glass jar with about 20 models at a time. Fifteen minutes is more than enough time to loosen the paint and then I use a toothbrush to get the rest off in the tub of cold water. I let the models dry on some kitchen roll.

Once I'm done I should have stripped over one hundred models in about and hour.

Pictorial battle reports
I put up one of my first battle reports with pics a couple of days ago so I thought I point you to it now in case you haven't seen it. It is a combat patrol with my Imperial Guard versus Chaos Space Marines which leads up to a 2000 point game which I'll post in the coming week.