GENERAL: Pointy eared gits!

I had hoped to do some painting tonight but I'm shattered so I haven't picked up my paintbrush.

Instead I have transcribed my second Gauntlet 2005 tournament report over on my battle reports blog. It was a good scrap against a Dark Eldar army and it brings me another step closer to finishing off all of my battle reports.

Ciao for now.

NEWS AND RUMOURS: Going renegade

I received the latest Forge World newsletter over the weekend.

The models that had me salivating were the Renegade Heavy Stubber Team.

I still have faint hopes of reviving my Renegade Imperial Guard project; indeed I still have many models squirreled away. The heavy stubber team would make a great addition to my forces and are very characterful.

My only concern is that the models are so distinctive. I don't think I could include more than one of them in an army. It is good to see new models for the army at all, though. I hope there are more to come.

Forge World has also revealed that the third Siege of Vraks book has been sent to the printers. The release date has not been set but I'd certainly hope it will be on sale at UK Gamesday in September at the latest.

In the same newsletter the Mars Warhound titan weapons are announced. There is a turbo laser and inferno cannon which can be used in either hand. I'm sure this news will be exciting to some but I don't own a titan and it's unlikely I ever will!

OPINION: Dividing my hobby time

In the latest issue of White Dwarf (UK 355) Jervis Johnson talks about pies. Hobby pies.

His theory is that gamers are into their hobby for five main reasons; playing games, painting and modelling, collecting models, the background material and camaraderie. Of course not all gamers are as enthused by each part of the hobby equally so each slice of their hobby pie will be a different size.

I thought it might be fun to show you my hobby pie as it stands at the moment.

As you can see the biggest slices of my pie are background and painting and modelling. I've been enjoying my painting a lot recently so it is not a big surprise that this is a major part of the hobby for me. Immersing myself in the background is probably the thing I find most enjoyable, though. I love reading gaming novels, campaign and source books, codexes and rulebooks. I also create my own background material and link this into my armies and games. I've even gone to the trouble of creating my own sector to set my games in!

Gaming comes in third for me. I do like the tactical challenges that games throw up but I much prefer to play the game in the context of a scenario or campaign which in turn links back to background. I also won't play games against unpainted armies. The aesthetics of a well painted and modelled army are very important to me. I think this is why it has been relatively easy for me to stop playing games at all in the last few months because the games I was playing were simply not been satisfying my deeper gaming needs. If these things weren't important to me I think I would play computer games more often.

Camaraderie and collecting come low down on my list. My small collecting slice might sound strange given that I own so many models and armies but they are only there to facilitate my painting, to develop my background material and to play interesting games with. I've never been one to get obsessed about completing a collection - I've never collected stamps, collectible card games or anything similar and I don't view my models as a collection which needs to be completed.

That leaves camaraderie. This is quite small at the moment given that I'm not playing games, I rarely visit my local Games Workshop store and I don't go to many tournaments. Most of my camaraderie at the moment comes from online forums and this blog. This is one slice of pie that I'd really love to increase in size.

I'd love to be around a group of players who are into the same aspects of the hobby that I am. I want to play long, involved campaigns, develop story driven scenarios and play great games with beautifully painted models on characterful terrain. I want to swap painting tips, tactics and discuss background material with people who are as into it as I am.

Maybe it's my age; perhaps as I get older I want deeper and richer experiences from my gaming. Or maybe I've just been outraging my true nature for ages and I'm now finally realising it.

So how do I go about satisfying my gaming needs? Well, for starters I could get more out of this blog and the forums I browse. I could join some other blogger groups and take part in more forum threads discussing background material and painting and modelling.

I could also (re)start going down to my local Games Workshop store to try to build up some relationships and play some campaign games. The problem here is that many of the players are quite immature, play with unpainted models and don't have the commitment to see a campaign through. That's one of the reasons I stopped going in the first place!

There is a club called the North East Wargaming Association but they seem very tournament orientated and predominantly play Warhammer Fantasy battle rather than the 40k I love. Transport is an issue - they are about 40 minutes away by car and I don't have a car! By bus it would probably take closer to an hour and I reckon the times between buses could be an issue. I wouldn't want to miss the last bus late on a Tuesday night! Not ideal.

Another way to get some games in and to meet like minded gamers would be to attend more events such as the GW grand tournaments, campaign weekends and even Games Days and independent events. The good aspect of this would be that they would be held once every month or two so even though they may be in remote parts of the country, they would still be viable. Many events last a whole weekend so I could immerse myself in the hobby completely for two or three days, play half a dozen games and have a good laugh with my fellow gamers. The downsides would be the cost of accommodation, travelling and ticket prices, getting time off work and getting time away from my girlfriend. I'd have to have some serious brownie points in the bank!

Well, there is a lot to think about there but it feels good to have laid out my thoughts. I'll let them percolate through my brain in the coming weeks and might return to the subject with a real plan.

GENERAL: New Year resolutions update second quarter

It's now been six months since I blogged my New Year resolutions and one half of the year has gone so I thought I'd revisit them to see how I've done.

Finish 2000 points of Blood Angels Space Marines
I've painted about 1700 points and just have half a Land Raider Crusader and one character model to go. They should be finished by the end of July at the latest.

Paint 1000 points of my Ork army
That will begin once the Blood Angels are done in the second half of the year.

Paint a total of 100 points of models over the year (the formula is in this blog entry)
I'm sitting on 50 points exactly halfway through the year. Bang on target!

Completely finish publishing my old battle reports
I'm so close to this I can almost taste it. I have one tournament to finish off and then one campaign and that's it. Easily do-able by the end of the year.

Finish my Blood Bowl league
This is on hold at the moment as I have completely stopped playing games. I'm not sure if or when I'll start again.

Finish my trench board and accompanying terrain
I plan on taking this resolution by the scruff of the neck over the next few months. I'll drop the army painting for a few weeks and blitz the board and terrain with Planetstrike goodies. I can't wait.

Restart my News and Rumour posts
I've kept going with these despite them just being a round up of anything new or interesting I've seen elsewhere on the 'Net. Getting picked up by Bell of Lost Souls was quite amusing even if I wasn't the primary source of the rumours!

Switch domains
I still haven't gotten around to this yet. I usually get billed in the summer so I'm sure that will give me the momentum to sort myself out when it lands on my doormat.

Buy no more Games Workshop novels
I'm going strong on this resolution, much to my surprise. If there was one resolution I thought I would break it was this one. It has forced me to read some of my backlog of books. (Un)fortunately I won two books in a competition so I still added to my 'to read' pile!

Review every Games Workshop book I read and review a broader range of Games Workshop products
I haven't got round to this as I've been busy with other projects. I expect to start properly in a month or two, especially with the full book reviews.

Spend nothing at all on models
Kept so far. I started out strong and then wobbled a bit about six weeks ago when I bid on a load of eBay auctions. Luckily I won none of them. Afterwards I wondered what the hell I was thinking? I have also managed to resist the new Imperial Guard models which was quite a test.

Have £500 in the New Model Fund by the end of year
I'm stuck just short of my target. My time and energy for eBaying my stuff has disappeared. This is a shame because I really am broke at the moment so I could do with the cash - even if it is earmarked for my New Model Fund at a later date. Maybe I need to set some time aside to just blitz my stuff; forget the painting for a fortnight and just sell a pile of gear. Hmmm...

So overall I'm broadly happy with my progress and I hope to tackle a few of the outstanding ones before my next resolutions update.

PS - I have posted my first Gauntlet tournament game from 2005 on my battle reports blog. It was a fluffy clash between my Chaos Space Marines and Dark Angels loyalist Space Marines. Check it out here.

GENERAL: Busy, busy, busy

This is just a quickie to let you in on what I'm doing at the moment.

I've done a lot more work on my Land Raider Crusader. I've hinged one of the doors, assembled and painted the hurricane bolters and put together all of the hatches on the tank. This morning I undercoated it in Chaos Black as I have run out of Blood Angels Red spray. I hope I can get the Crusader to look like my other vehicles. Photographs will follow soon.

I'm also working on finishing off my battle reports. The first thing I've done is update my introduction to the Gauntlet 2005 tournament to include my army list which I forgot to add initially. I'm now putting together the battle reports themselves and I hope to blog them over the course of the coming week.

I'm tinkering with a few other blog posts too. With six months of the year gone I will be looking back at my New Year resolutions and checking on my progress. I've been reading voraciously over the past few weeks so my bi-monthly book update will be bursting with reviews when it is ready for late July. Of course I add each book as I have read it and I have already written about three titles - I'm sure there will be many more to mention too.

That's all for now, I'll be back shortly.

NEWS AND RUMOURS: Def Rolla, painting tanks, Straken and more. Oh my!

On Saturday night I got an e-mail newsletter from Games Workshop informing me that an Ork Battlewagon upgrade pack would be available from the 1 August. Apparently this was unveiled at Toronto Gamesday.


The bitz pack contains a few of the more popular upgrades missing from the original battlewagon boxed set such as the Def Rolla, lobba, killkannon and a Grot rigger.

As it's a bitz pack I assume it will be mail order only but it is very cheap at less then £8 for the sprue.

I think this will be virtually essential for every Ork commander and I'm sure to pick it up myself when I revisit my Orks in the near future.

New on the horizon, to me at least, is that Games Workshop will be releasing a 'How to paint tanks' book at the same time. Some people have complained that the Imperial Armour Model Masterclass did the same thing but I disagree - I think that book was for very advanced modellers while this one will be aimed squarely at the less experienced. I'd guess it will also use standard GW products rather than the airbrushes, oils and floor cleaners found in the Forge World book. It'll be cheaper too coming in at £15.

I also saw that anselminus posted photos of the Catachan special character 'Iron Hand' Straken on Warseer. He is a country mile ahead of the original and looks great. Again I'd be very tempted to add him to my future Catachan army.

More news is leaking out about the Planetstrike terrain, which I've already started to mentally plan my purchasing for. GW are going to re-release the crashed Aquila lander from the Battle from Macragge boxed set as a standalone terrain piece. There are also more blastscape terrain pieces which include wrecked rhinos and even Land Raiders.

I won't need the crashed lander as I have the Macragge version just waiting to be painted but I will need to have a look at the wrecked vehicles closely before deciding whether to buy them or not. I would think the July issue of White Dwarf which is due out shortly will give us quite a bit of confirmation on these rumours and maybe some more besides.

Phew! That's all I can think of for now...

GENERAL: Tournament aftermath

I've worked a six day week this week so I haven't had much time to blog recently.

I thought I'd swing by now to point you toward the Gauntlet 2004 wrap up I've posted over on my battle reports blog.

I thoroughly enjoyed the tournament and it whetted my appetite for more in the future. I'm sure it won't be too long before I'm venturing down south to Nottingham for a clash at Warhammer World again.

GENERAL: Tournament battle report

I've been writing up the third and final battle report from the Gauntlet tournament 2004 in between constructing and undercoating the Hurricane bolters on my Land Raider Crusader.

The game was a clash against an Iron Warriors army - a common sight in 3rd and 4th edition 40k tournaments. See how my Imperial Guard fared here.

I'll write up the aftermath in the next couple of days and that will wrap up my coverage of the Gauntlet tournament 2004. That means I'll have just one more tournament to cover, the Gauntlet 2005, and then I can move on to my Destroy the Gargant campaign battle report.

Once that is done all of my battle reports will be up to date and I'll just have to record them as I play them.

NEWS AND RUMOURS: Brush up your painting

Games Workshop have announced that they are in the process of rebranding their paint brushes. They will be released on 18th July and the set will cost £33.10.
According to the GW website there will be 10 brushes in the set:

The Citadel Brush Set contains one Citadel Fine Detail Brush, one Citadel Detail Brush, one Citadel Standard Brush, one Citadel Basecoat Brush, one Citadel Large Brush, one Citadel Wash Brush, one Citadel Stippling Brush, one Citadel Small Drybrush, one Citadel Medium Drybrush and one Citadel Large Drybrush.

The stippling brush is new, I think, as is the wash brush and it seems like the tank brush has disappeared altogether.

The major change as far as I can see is an aesthetic one as GW have added colour coded handles on the brushes. I'm not sure how useful this actually is as no-one would store them upside down, surely?

I'm a fan of GW brushes and at about £3 per brush they are good value. Many people I know insist that cheapo brushes bought at their local art supplies store are just as good but funnily enough I find that they don't usually have very well painted models. At the other end of the spectrum I have heard that some painters think GW brushes are sub-par and use very expensive brands instead.

I have used GW brushes extensively and been largely happy with them but over the past two or three years I have experimented with other types of brushes, mostly the Winsor and Newton range. I tried Cotman's, Series 7's and the Galeria brushes and I'm yet to be blown away. Even the W&N brushes I am using now have curled tips and I know I look after them correctly, but some of my GW brushes I've had for years are perfectly straight. I just fail to see why I should pay more for a product which I find harder to source for negligible improvements.

So I'd recommend this GW set and if you look after them I guarantee that you'll still be using some of the brushes in many years time. In fact I might just splurge on a set myself.

PAINTING: Blood Angels army 1600 points

First things first - I've painted the tracks on my Land Raider Crusader and here is the proof:

I'm still struggling with my photography, especially with the light. At one point I had the blind pulled up on my window, two lights pointing at my models and the room light on and the camera was still telling me I needed the flash!

It's clear I need to get some seriously powerful lights but for now I'll have to struggle on.

Terminators
I'm really pleased with the finished Terminator squad.

I painted some black around the building ruins on the bases to help them to stand out. I still might go back to them in the future.

I haven't varnished the models yet as I plan to paint some heraldry on the shields.

I've also left space on the fists to add detail later if I want to.

Pretty good for starter models out of the Black Reach boxed set.

Dreadnought Eluvies
Again this model comes from the Black Reach boxed set, but I modified it to carry an assault cannon.

This model painted up very quickly and I'm happy with the finish.

The fluff I'm developing for the Dreadnought is that he was a former Terminator, hence the black powerfist.

You can clearly see my assault cannon conversion in the photo above. What do you think?

I was very happy with the base too. As it's my third Dreadnought it had to be different from the other two which have the standard plastic base.

Army shot
These are all of the Blood Angels I've painted since August last year.

Of course I have a few more models I already had painted since before the challenge, such as my Predator, Furioso Dreadnought, melt Dreadnought, etc. If I get the chance I might take a photograph with everything together.

NEW MODEL FUND: Devious plans

I have bad news and good news.

The bad news is that I have added nothing to the New Model Fund through eBay sales since my last update a month or so ago. I've just been so busy with painting and modelling that I haven't had the time. At least I haven't bought any models so the fund hasn't depleted.

The good news is that I won second place in my works fantasy football league and pocketed £150 for my efforts. Nice.

As I mentioned in my previous NMF blog post I plan to spend a lot of this cash on Planetstrike goodies. This will make a refreshing change for me in comparison to my previous gaming habits.

For many years I just bought stuff willy nilly, with no structure to my purchases. As a result I've ended up with a truly staggering number of models across a number of factions and game systems. I've been trying to reduce my spending on gaming over the past few years (for as long as this blog has been running) as well as trying to discipline my purchases, and therefore I've been behind the curve on most Games Workshop expansions.

I just couldn't afford the Cities of Death terrain nor did I have the time to dedicate to it so it passed me by, despite my passion for it. This happened again with Apocalypse which I love the concept of but I just haven't been able to sink any time or money into it. I did put a couple of superheavies together but it's now two years after the initial release and I still haven't played a single game.

The problem is that to get the most out of these expansions I'd need to be in a position to spend some money on terrain and/or models when they are released and I'd need to dedicate some time to preparing and playing them.

I'm really skint at the moment so finding money to spend on new models and terrain is a real problem. It's even harder to justify when I have a lead pile that would probably reach from the Earth to the Moon if the models were laid end to end! My solution has therefore been to stop spending money on new models and concentrate all my efforts into completing what I have. A very sensible aim, but...

I'm probably unusual amongst gamers in that once I've set myself a task I find it very difficult to break from it. I don't hop from one project to the next, starting one army then dropping it in favour of another on a whim. I'm very focused and don't like to go back on promises I've made to myself or to others.

At the moment I'm locked into a cycle of finishing a full army of each 40k faction every year. While this is a good way of reducing my backlog of models and saving me some cash at the same time, it always causes me a dilemma when an expansion comes out. Do I abandon my project partway through to concentrate on the expansion or do I stick with my plan? Do I spend some cash I don't have in order to jump on board? It doesn't help that I'm a slow painter so I find it difficult to keep up with the pace anyway.

All of which is a rather long winded way to get to the point where I can explain how the stars have aligned for me in relation to the Planetstrike expansion.

The first is cash. I suddenly have £150 I didn't have before and it isn't allocated to anything else. I can spend it on whatever I like. Guilt free money comes along so infrequently for me that it is always a major event!

The second is that my current project, painting 2000 points of Blood Angels, is almost complete. I just have two units left to finish and that is very achievable in the few weeks before the release of Planetstrike. My next project will be Orks, which I will start on soon after my marines are done but I anticipate that they will be a far easier army to paint. I'll be painting Goff Orks and I won't be lavishing the detail on them that I have done on my Blood Angels. Even if I lose a month or two at the start of the project while I get Planetstrike done I should easily be able to complete them on time. So I'm going to have some time.

The third thing in my favour is my gaming table. I built it using foam inside a wooden frame so that I could carve out terrain like rivers, a beach and a trench system. I finished three out of the four boards and they have served me well for years. I flocked them green so I could use them for WFB or 40k. I never did get round to finishing the trench board but I had promised myself I would when I completed my Blood Angels. You can see the table in this battle report.

Lo and behold, years later, Games Workshop release Planetstrike with a plethora of terrain such as bunkers, barricades, craters and minefields which will go perfectly with my trench system. I could even add the trenches to my existing boards to make an eight foot by four foot table and play an Apocalypse game on there. The new expansion will give me the kick I need to finish my board and terrain. It might even get me playing some actual games again.

I've had a trawl through the Games Workshop website and here's what I plan to purchase:

• Planetstrike book £15
• Imperial strongpoint £53.85
• Skyshield landing pad £23.50
• Blastscape craters £11.75
• Mines, bombs and booby traps £11.75

That little lot will come to £115.85 in total and should pretty much set me up for anything Planetstrike can throw at me. Of course I will have a little cash in the kitty in case I want anything else later on; I might want to buy another bastion or set of craters, or I might even want to buy some regular terrain like trees or hills.

I'm really looking forward to the coming months and I'll be blogging it all on lone pilgrim.

GENERAL: I'm orf

This is me signing off for the day. Where has it gone?

I've tidied up the central island of my games room ready to photograph my growing Blood Angels army tomorrow. I've stashed my Orks from the Black Reach boxed set which have been lying around for weeks and I've also hidden my undercoat and varnish sprays away. The rest will have to wait until tomorrow.

• DONE - Wash my stripped models to get the Dettol off
• Write up more battle reports
• DONE - Paint Land Raider
• DONE - Put transfers on Terminators and Dreadnought
• Photograph my Blood Angels for Warseer
• DONE - Tidy my games room
• Read some more Imperial Armour 3 and/or Dark Apostle

While I was putting my Orks away I had another look at the marines on the sprue and decided it would be too much hassle to get rid of the tactical arrows on the shoulder pads to turn them into Blood Angels. Given that I'll be collecting Orks as my next army it might be more sensible to simply swap them for Orks. Hmmm, I might check out the trading threads on some gaming forums.

Anyhoo, I'll be back tomorrow.

GENERAL: Track wash

Time is getting away from me so I won't have time to photograph my Blood Angels army for Warseer. This also means I can't give you photographic evidence that I have painted some more of my Land Raider.

As the weather was dry I decided to spray undercoat the tracks outside. I have left them on the sprue and I'll attach them to the Land Raider once I've painted the hull.

I drybrushed the tracks with Boltgun Metal. When that had dried I drybrushed a lighter coat of Mithril Silver over the top. I washed the lot with Badab Black. This took a long time to dry so I've only just washed the tracks again with Devlan Mud. Although they're not yet dry I'm going to call them done.

• DONE - Wash my stripped models to get the Dettol off
• Write up more battle reports
• DONE - Paint Land Raider
• DONE - Put transfers on Terminators and Dreadnought
• Photograph my Blood Angels for Warseer
• Tidy my games room
• Read some more Imperial Armour 3 and/or Dark Apostle

Okay, time for a little tidying.

GENERAL: Wet and soapy

Another job done. I've washed all of my Catachans and old school Stormtroopers in warm soapy water to ensure all the Dettol was gone. This will hopefully help me out when I get round to painting those models, so the paint adheres properly. Of course it may well be many years before I get round to painting the models but still...

• DONE - Wash my stripped models to get the Dettol off
• Write up more battle reports
• Paint Land Raider
• DONE - Put transfers on Terminators and Dreadnought
• Photograph my Blood Angels for Warseer
• Tidy my games room
• Read some more Imperial Armour 3 and/or Dark Apostle

Righto, what next?

GENERAL: Decals

Okay, the first tick off my list.

• Wash my stripped models to get the Dettol off
• Write up more battle reports
• Paint Land Raider
• DONE - Put transfers on Terminators and Dreadnought
• Photograph my Blood Angels for Warseer
• Tidy my games room
• Read some more Imperial Armour 3 and/or Dark Apostle

I thought I'd stick the transfers on my models first so that they would have some time to dry before I photograph them this afternoon. So rather than show you quick photos now I'll post some proper army shots later on.

I've kept the transfers as low key as possible with the Terminators in particular only getting two each (their Blood Angels symbol and the Armageddon lightning flash). I plan to paint individual heraldry on each Terminator in the future so less is more for now.

GENERAL: Listing badly

I have a day off work today and a few hours to dedicate to gaming. There are myriad of things I could do so I made a list to keep me focused.

Here's what's on it:

• Wash my stripped models to get the Dettol off
• Write up more battle reports
• Paint Land Raider
• Put transfers on Terminators and Dreadnought
• Photograph my Blood Angels for Warseer
• Tidy my games room
• Read some more Imperial Armour 3 and/or Dark Apostle

The first thing I've done is publish the first full battle report from the Gauntlet 2004 tournament. You can read it here. It was hard to put together as I've mentioned earlier - it's hard to remember the details of a game you played 5 years ago! I hope it reads okay.

I plan to keep checking back in throughout the day to chart my progress with the other tasks.

GENERAL: Gauntlet tournament report

As well as my painting update I blogged yesterday I also blogged the introduction to the Gauntlet Tournament 2004 over on my battle reports blog.

This has been a while in the making as I lost all the text files detailing my games. I managed to find the army lists and opponents I played in an old notebook and much trawling through my photo back-up on my computer uncovered some photographs of the games.

So I'm slowly piecing together each game and I'll be posting them in the coming days as and when I finish them. Of course I have to fit that in around the building and painting of my Land Raider Crusader...

PAINTING AND MODELLING: Land Raider Crusader interior

I got an unexpected opportunity to have an afternoon off work on Monday so I came home and started painting. I wasn't really in the mood but I thought I'd try thirty minutes and get at least something done but once I started I didn't want to stop until the whole of the interior of the Crusader was finished.

As you can see, I did just that! I painted the interior in the same scheme as my other Blood Angels vehicles - white with brown shading. This provides a good contrast with the vibrant red of the exterior.

The only difference with this kit was that I used Devlan Mud rather than Brown Ink to shade the recesses. I painted all of the details too such as the seating, keypads and shrine.

My favourite part was the datascreens. I enjoyed painting all the green logic engine screens - very Aliens.

After I'd taken the photos I decided to glue what I had together and leave it overnight. Just for fun I thought I'd line it up alongside my finished Land Raider to see how it compared.

I now need to decide whether to put the Hurricane bolters on the front or back openings of the Crusader. Although I put the Godhammer lascannons on the rearmost mounts on my regular Land Raider, largely for aesthetic reasons, I'm currently thinking I might put the bolters on the front mounts. This will help to make each Raider visually distinct and might also help on the battlefield as it will give the guns an extra inch or two of range.

Anyone got any opinions?

NEWS AND RUMOURS: Planetstrike advance orders

Games Workshop have put up pretty much all of the Planetstrike buildings and terrain on advance order on their website.

You can check out decent photographs of the blastscape craters, shrine of the Aquila (which is now confirmed as a previously unseen building NOT the Dark Angel fortress), the resin mines, bombs and booby traps and the strongpoint, defence network and outpost combined sets. The hoped for trench board to add to the realm of battle gameboard never materialised and the it turns out that the outpost and defence network just come with the basic gameboard.

There are also some second wave Space Marine models in the shape of the Landspeeder Storm (which the Blood Angels can't get - boo!), Ironclad Dreadnought and two special characters - Vulkan He'stan and Kor'sarro Khan.

I'm eyeing up the Imperial strongpoint (with two bastions and three Aegis defence lines), the landing pad, the blastscape craters and the mines, bombs and booby traps which will pretty much fill up my planned trench table.

Bring on the 4th of July!

PAINTING: Start your engines!

I've begun the painting of my Land Raider Crusader. I know this will me a massive task, particularly as I've decided to fully paint the interior. I have undercoated it on the sprue which is a very unusual technique for me. The first part I chose to paint, to ease myself in more than anything, is the engine block.


It's a fairly straightforward scheme with silver pipework and brass fittings. I played around with some different washes on the metallics to give each set of pipes some variation; a bit of Gryphonne Sepia here, some Leviathan Purple there, a dash of Ogryn Flesh. It's subtle but took virtually no time to do so what's the harm? In fact the whole part only took about an hour and a half to completely finish.

So with the engine finished I can now move on to the rest of the interior.

NEWS AND RUMOURS: Gamesday Spain

Games Workshop have done it again!

Three weeks ago following Gamesday Baltimore I bemoaned the lack of news and rumours regarding the forthcoming Planetstrike expansion, as well as Planetary Empires and even the next codex. I was sure that something exciting would emerge from Gamesday Spain but apparently not...

Wolf's Bane on Warseer reported this:

Hi all folks!! I've been in GD Spain this morning. I've been in a presentation made by Robin Cruddace, the new Imperial Guard codex writer. In that presentation, he told about the new things in 40K / fantasy (even a Bloodbowl miniature new launch) until Agoust.

After the presentation, a man from the public ask him about Wolfs. He didn't wanted to say a word about the date launching but what he did tell, was they are working not only in Wolfs but in Blood Angels and Black Templars together other codexes. After the presentation, I asked him personally about the progress level of the Dark Eldar. It was in that moment when I begun to cry. He told me Jess didn't finish his work, so IF the push them into production right now, AT LEAST, they are a year far.

Before leveling up hopes, he didn't told me anything about the progress level or even a possible date on Blood Angels, Dark Templars, etc. I didn't asked him directlly, but he didn't mention anything about Grey Knights.

So, in a summary way ... he told about
1. Dark Eldar. At least one year from now. Probably more.
2. Bood Angels / Black Templar. In works right now.
3. Wolfs. Codex finished, send to some translators. (this one didn't told me him)
4. Necron and Tyranids in works.
5. Legion Codexes. They have talk about them, but with no result. Not on the planning.
6. Legend & Heraldry of Imperial Guard. Maybe if the new book for Imperium Legend & Heraldry has good acceptance.

I think I'm not forgotting anything. PD: I cry very much about my Dark Eldar / Grey Knights bad rumours.

The nugget of good news in there from my perspective is the unexpected possiblity of a new Blood Angels codex. I'd love to see my Marines get an update over their woeful PDF.

No photos of new models came out of Spain which has to be a first, I think. It's all the more surprising then that I got an e-mail from Games Workshop announcing the new Hellhound kit which is coming in August.

The kit includes three variants; the Hellhound, Bane Wolf and Devil Dog.

Although there have been some grumbles about the aesthetics I have to say that I'm a fan and will almost certainly be picking up a kit or three for my Guard armies at some point.

Hot on the heels of the Hellhound announcement pics of the Demolisher kit surfaced.

Both kits are fully plastic and will sell at £30.